pleasant to record that one friend who had not dropped Edith and automatically taken Charles's side in order to keep in with the Broughtons was this same Annette Watson. For Edith had paid a severe penalty for her chosen path. Actually I didn't much blame most of their crowd. They had been Charles's friends to begin with and Edith certainly had behaved badly. But this was not the real reason that they flocked to the Broughton banner. To a man they would have remained on Charles's team if he'd beaten Edith while keeping a string of chorus girls in the attic. However, I suppose one must concede that in this particular instance it was hard to argue with them. At any rate, Annette, partly because she knew she held few charms for Charles or his mother and partly because she really did like Edith, had stuck by her pal and one of the invitations she'd proffered was to accompany her to the Hardy Amies afternoon show and have some lunch beforehand.
===OO=OOO=OO===
Edith had never been to the first-floor restaurant of the Meridien in Piccadilly, which had recently been subjected to an exhaustive 'renovation'. The dining room was formed out of the old terrace, which had been glazed and palmed and marble-floored and generally made into a home from home for all those natives of Los Angeles who were now, hopefully, going to flock through the newly re-opened doors. Edith picked her way among the tables, following Annette's waving hand. She was smartly dressed in a snappy winter suit, complete with pearls and a brooch. She had surprised herself by being tempted to wear a hat. She didn't, but the costume, as it stood, was perhaps an expression of a part of her life that had been suppressed for a time beneath the T-shirts and sequins, apparently the only two options of Simon's crowd. Even he had commented on her outfit as he lay on a sofa happily reading the next day's scenes: 'Heavens, very smart! You look like your mother-in-law!'
But she hadn't risen. Maybe, subconsciously, she'd felt complimented.
Annette kissed her and ordered glasses of champagne for them both. It was not long before they had moved from the customary greetings to the real business. 'So, when do you make your next move?'
'Move?' said Edith.
'Well. The divorce. Are you getting on with it?'
Edith shifted slightly uncomfortably. 'Not really. Not yet.'
'Why not?'
She shrugged. 'I suppose I — we — rather feel that we might as well wait out the two years and do it with a minimum of fuss. Otherwise it means such a palaver…'
'Two years!' Annette laughed. 'Oh, I don't think Charles is going to be happy waiting two years.'
'Why not?'
Annette stared at her. 'Darling, you must know the race is on.'
Edith was surprised to find that her stomach lurched. 'What do you mean?'
'My dear, as soon as the news was out he was absolutely pounced on. How could he not be? You haven't even had a child so there's nothing to hold them back.'
Edith felt herself growing irritated. How dare this woman know more about her husband than she did? 'I don't think he's seeing anyone particularly.'
'Then you think wrong.' Annette took a sip to punctuate her pause. 'You remember Clarissa Marlowe?'
Edith laughed and breathed easily again. The Honourable Clarissa Marlowe, great-granddaughter of a courtier who had been raised to a lowly barony in the 1920s, was a second cousin of Charles's through their mothers. She was a hearty, healthy brunette, good in the saddle and helpful at sticky dinner parties. She worked as an up-market receptionist in a dubious property company, thereby lending it some respectability, and she lived in a flat with her sister just off the Old Brompton Road. A classic member of the Alice Band Brigade and, Edith thought comfortably, not at all Charles's type.
'Don't be silly. She's his cousin. She's just chumming him.'
Annette raised her eyebrows. 'Well, she chummed him to the West Indies for a week just before Christmas and she spent the New Year at Broughton.'
There was no denying that this was a blow. In fact Edith was astonished at its severity. What had she thought? That Charles would stay single for ever? She had been gone for eight months now and he was only human. As she conjured up the image of Clarissa, Edith felt herself washed with a tide of rage towards this blameless, county girl. In truth she had always rather liked Clarissa, who put herself out to be useful and laughed at Edith's funny stories and had never been one of those relations who persisted in treating her as a tiresome foreigner. When she thought about it she supposed that his cousin had always had rather a soft spot for Charles. With a sinking heart she recognised Clarissa for what she was, the sort of girl men like Charles marry.
'Oh,' she said.
The waiter had arrived to hand them enormous, leather-bound menus in ungrammatical French. He retreated with a murmur of guttural Rs.
'Cheer up, darling,' said Annette with a piercing look. 'Tell me about Simon. Is he well?'
'Oh yes,' said Edith, bracing herself again. 'Very. He's got a series that goes on until June and then, with any luck, starts again in December.'
'How marvellous! What is it?'
'Oh, you know,' said Edith, trying to decide between liver and seared tuna. 'Some detective police thing. He's the nice side-kick who keeps missing the point.' She finally fixed on kidneys with a salad.
'Well done him,' said Annette. 'Who else is in it? Do you go on the set and everything?'
Edith appreciated Annette's efforts at enthusiasm. It was kind of her. 'Not really, no. Sometimes. So I can put a face to the stories. It puts him off a bit.'
The truth was that, try as she might, she had found that she just could not get really involved in Simon's work. There were parts of it she quite liked, first nights and a few (very few) of the parties and meeting people one knew from television. She was quite interested in reading scripts and then comparing them to the finished product but most of it, well… At the beginning she had gone down to the location a few times but, honestly, it was
