‘We don’t. It’s perfectly straightforward. All tied up by my parents when she was small. Anyway - we’re asked for dinner.’
‘Is it a lot? The inheritance.’
‘Five hundred.’
Danton mentally added the missing noughts and shivered with envy. Felicity stopped pacing and sank on to an over-stuffed footstool, wrapping icy satin tight around her knees. She said: ‘I shall go,’ and felt the enormity of it. As if she had leapt into an abyss.
‘Naturally,’ said Danton. ‘The point is, what will you go as?’
Felicity looked mystified, then startled. The truth was she had summoned Danton automatically, simply out of need for his assiduously attentive ear, thinking no further than that.
‘You can’t just stroll along Mrs G.’
‘Can’t I?’ The fact of having made the decision seemed to Felicity more than enough to be going on with. What she would wear, how she would look had simply not entered her mind. And yet now that the matter had been raised she could see how important it was. Already her mind, nervous and vulnerable, had cast whoever else might be present at the dinner in antagonistic rôles. And if her expectations were correct she would need to be not just simply covered, but armoured against a formidable collection of adversaries. On the other hand ...
‘Nothing extreme, Danton.’
‘Surely you can trust me on that score.’
She had offended him. Hastily Felicity apologised. Danton got up.
‘Well - better get on. Clothed and in your right mind don’t they say?’
A cruel slip, if deliberate, which of course it couldn’t have been. You didn’t charge your clients a hundred pounds an hour for your services and then insult them. Felicity followed him on to the landing and into her evening room. She would have liked another drink but was fearful of appearing sluttish. Danton never drank alcohol and nothing containing caffeine. Sometimes a little spring water might pass the lips. His teeth and the whites of his soft brown eyes dazzled by their purity.
Felicity’s wardrobe was contained within three rooms. One for night, one for day and one for other things which were not so easily categorised: cruise wear; bikinis and cover-ups; barely used sports equipment. Tennis racquets, skis, golf clubs. (She had taken up golf and got bored with it in a single morning.) The wall facing the door in each case was mirrored and metal rods had been suspended about four feet from the ceiling to hold the clothes.
Danton and Felicity wandered along these rails pushing and pulling at the padded hangers, instigating rustles of taffeta and silk, and soft, soundless collisions of velvet. Under a dozen recessed ‘daylight’ bulbs they took out and scrutinised Muir and Miyake, Lagerfeld and Bellville Sassoon, Chanel and St Laurent. Creations were unhooked, discussed, dismissed. A tangerine flamenco dress: full frilled dancing skirt, no back, hardly any front. ‘I shouldn’t. It can get nippy after eight o’clock.’ Narrow black velvet with a little train and white band around the neck. ‘You’re her mother not her father confessor.’ Beige wild-silk chemise stiff with seed pearls and golden thread. ‘Constively dull.’ Raspberry georgette and feathers. ‘Too Fred and Ginger.’
And so it went on until having covered the territory and started to double back, Felicity remembered the Karelia. She went away, returning with a bulky swathe of white cotton inside a see-through cover. ‘It was for a first night at the Garden.’ She tugged at the poppers and Danton held the bottom of the bag preparing to pull. ‘The people I go with,’ continued Felicity, ‘always have a box, but this time for some reason we were in the dress circle. There’s no way I could have got along a row of seats so it’s never been worn.’ Felicity kicked the wrapper aside. ‘It was Pavarotti.’
‘You must wear this.’
‘Oh. You don’t think it’s a bit -’
‘We’re talking celebration-dinner in a country manor. Everyone’s bound to dress up. What else is there for them to do poor beasts, down there in the sticks?’
Actually Danton thought the dress was ‘a bit’ if not quite a lot, but it was also sensationally inspirational. Just looking at it made his fingers twitch. A dream number made to float down a Busby Berkeley staircase between ranks of adoring, top-hatted males.
Layers and layers of transparent chiffon in every possible shade of grey, from the merest wisp of smoke to deepest anthracite foaming over petticoats the colour of tarnished silver. The satin bodice and tight pointed sleeves were smothered with loops of ribbon, each anchored into place by a single dark pearl.
‘Put it on.’
Without embarrassment Felicity took off her robe.
‘Do me up ... Well - what do you think?’
‘Oh my ...’ He stepped back, bursting with anticipation. ‘What time will you have to leave?’
I suppose ... end-of-day traffic, half six.’
‘Will you be having lunch?’
‘I couldn’t swallow a thing.’
‘Right. Then we’d better get started.’
Chapter 3
Shortly after lunch, Suhami and Christopher went out to move Calypso. This had to be done at fairly frequent intervals for she nibbled at speed and with ferocious heartiness.
How Calypso loved the grass! Weed killers were forbidden so it was rich in cinquefoil and burnet and succulent dandelion. She did not feel she had quite exhausted her present territory when Christopher prised up her steel peg, and he had to wind extra links of chain around his forearm to tug her elsewhere.
Calypso’s assessment of her handler’s muscularity was spot on and she was inclined to bolt if she thought it a bit on the skimpy side. Only the other day she had shot off at a fair old lick down the drive, out of the gates and into the High Street where she’d been found ten minutes later standing patiently in a queue at the fish shop.
‘You’re a very foolish girl,’ May had scolded, walking her back. ‘You don’t even like fish.’
‘Do you want to hang on or drive in?’
‘Hang on,’ said Suhami, seizing the studded collar.
‘Watch out for yew berries, then.’
Christopher hammered while Calypso butted the air and kicked up her back legs in a fit of rage. But, once tethered, she quickly simmered down and began to munch, just occasionally lifting her head to give the world one of her enigmatic stares.
Christopher said: ‘We have to do some talking Suze. Isn’t that right?’
She turned from him. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I love you.’ He stepped in front of her again, caught the shadow on her face. ‘Well ... nice to be wanted.’
‘I do want you - I do. It’s just ...’
When she didn’t continue, Christopher put his arm through hers and moved towards the giant cedar. ‘Let’s sit down and I’ll -’
‘Not there.’ Suhami held back.
‘OK.’ Looking puzzled, he turned and they began to walk towards the pond.
‘I know it’s silly ... and they’ll long ago have disappeared but Jim’s ashes were scattered there. I can’t help seeing it as some sort of grave.’
‘Arno told me about that. Must have been very upsetting.’
‘It was at the time. And yet - it’s a bit sad really - how quickly one forgets.’
‘I suppose that’s usually the case. Unless the person was very close.’
‘He was such a nice man. Quiet and devout. When he’d finished his chores he’d just go to his room and read or meditate. He didn’t really fit into our sort of commune at all. Sometimes I used to think he’d be happier in a monastery.’
‘Wasn’t he a secret drinker though? I thought someone said -’
‘Oh no. He didn’t drink at all. That’s what made it so peculiar. As a matter of fact -’