Snobs: A Novel

something slightly less pathetic to tell your friends when they ask you what you're doing. This is my world, remember.'

She nodded slightly, 'I imagine that's why Charles has chosen you to talk to me. You're to take the gilt off the gingerbread and show me the dingy lowlife that lies beneath. He's given up trying to remind me of the glories of Broughton although I dare say I've got all that to look forward to when Googie gets in on the act.' She shivered in mock dread.

I felt rather slighted. 'I don't see why I shouldn't remind you of the glories of Broughton,' I said. She shrugged. Suddenly I was irritated by her air of insouciance. I knew, better than most, the effort that had gone into netting Charles and I was damned if I was going to witness Edith playing the part of a jaded aristocrat coming to the end of an arranged marriage.

'Come off it,' I said, driving back the waitress who was approaching with our first courses. 'You loved it. You loved every minute of it. All those cringing shop assistants and sucking-up hairdressers. All that 'yes, milady, no, milady'. You'll miss it, you know.'

She shook her head. 'No, I won't. You know better than anyone that I didn't grow up with it.'

'It's precisely because you didn't grow up with it that you'll miss it so severely.' I sighed. 'You're in for a terrific setting down, I'm afraid.'

'You don't sound afraid,' she said. 'You sound thrilled.' She took a sip of her Perrier as the plates were laid before us.

'And if Simon becomes a star? What then? Aren't more people interested in meeting a star than some boring old lord?'

It was then that I perceived that Edith, in the full flush of something akin to love, had made two tremendous miscalculations. Firstly, in weighing up the relative merits of aristocracy and stardom she had assumed that the benefits that would accrue to her, as partner, would be roughly equivalent. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The wife of an earl is, after all, a genuine countess. When people meet her it is not solely because they see her as a route to her husband.

Better still, if the family she has married into still possesses its estates, as the Broughtons did, then the landed peer offers his wife a mini-kingdom where she may reign as queen. On the other hand, the wife of a star is… his wife. Nothing more. If she is cultivated by people it is usually only so that they may ingratiate themselves with her husband. He has no land where she may reign. His kingdom is the studio or the stage where she has no place and where in fact, on her rare visits, she is in the way, an unprofessional among working people. She is excluded from the shared jokes between her husband and his workmates, she holds no interest even for his agent except as a method of controlling him. At dinner her opinions only irritate the other professionals present. Finally and worst of all, while a divorced peeress faces the world and the search for a new husband with a dented but legal title, the divorced wife of a star has returned absolutely to square one. As many Hollywood wives have had to learn before now.

Edith's second miscalculation was simpler. The comparison was false. Charles was a lord. Simon was not a star. Nor was he, in my opinion, very likely to become one. I felt myself becoming caustic. 'What makes you think so well of Simon's prospects?'

'You're very acid this morning. Anyway,' she looked at me with a real expression of appeal and I felt myself softening a little, 'the simple fact is I love him. I don't know whether he's worth it, perhaps he isn't, but I do. And there we are. You wouldn't want me to deny the first genuine feeling I've ever had, would you?'

Part of me wanted to scream yes into her stupid ear but I could see that was not what the moment called for. Poor Edith.

She was probably right when she said this passion for Simon was the first real emotion she had ever felt. That was precisely why she knew so little of what she was going through. She never guessed that after a year, however lovely the sex might be, it would no longer obscure from her the life they were leading together. Besides, I knew the strength of the ambition that lurked below Edith's placid surface. Modern psychology constantly harps on the dangers of suppressing one's true sexual nature. It seems to me that it is quite as dangerous to give one's sexual nature free rein and suppress one's worldly aims. Edith was, au fond, the ambitious child of an ambitious mother. Quite unconsciously, she had begun to defend her defection by assuming Simon's eventual stardom and wealth. In her mind's eye she already saw herself at a premiere in white fox (or whatever the glamour equivalent is in these ecological days), blowing a kiss to the waiting crowds and sweeping into a stretch limo with a motorcycle escort.

'Darling Edith,' I tried a softer tone, 'I'm not here to lecture you on your morals. I just want to be sure you understand that the likelihood of Simon being able to give you anything approximate to the life you have tasted since your marriage is more or less nil.'

'Well, hurrah for that,' said Edith.

We were done. For the rest of lunch we gossiped about various topics. Moving into the stage world she had of course crossed paths with a few people I knew so we had a new field for our malice. As we were leaving she asked after Adela. I said she was well. 'And madly disapproving, I suppose?'

'Well, she'd hardly be madly approving. Who is?'

'She should have married Charles. She'd have stuck to him through thick and thin.'

'Am I supposed to think badly of her for that?'

She smiled and ruffled my hair. 'You've earned your living in chaos and married into the system. I've been imprisoned in the system. Can you blame me if I yearn for a bit of chaos?'

We parted amicably enough. I telephoned Charles who was grateful and sounded more resigned, I thought. At any rate about a week later it hit the papers so the chance of sorting everything quietly was gone. Adela laid Nigel Dempster's column before my breakfast eyes and I studied the laughing, bosomy picture of Edith that had been selected. There was a more sombre one of Charles and a perfectly terrible 'cad' shot of Simon, which was presumably a still from some television show.

It was clear from the illustrations and the headline — 'the Countess and the Showboy' that Dempster had already chosen his side. In fairness to him, both pragmatism and decency seemed (for once) to favour the same team and I couldn't see Edith picking up many supporters.

The story itself was a moderately accurate account of the meeting at Broughton with a dignified quote from Simon's wife that did her credit.