I went downstairs and gathered up the balloons, climbing on to the hall table to pin them in a bunch from the ceiling. Suddenly, I was overcome by dizziness, and felt myself swaying.
The next moment two hands grabbed me firmly round the hips and steadied me.
I looked down and blushed scarlet. It was Ace. He was wearing a navy blue overcoat with the velvet collar turned up, obviously just going out. My fingers were suddenly all thumbs. I took ages to tie the string. When I finished he lifted me down, and just for a second held me, frowning down at me.
‘Let me go,’ I muttered, terrified once more that I was going to cry.
‘Stop fighting,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve got enough people bitching at me today without you joining them.’
I tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry.’
He let go of me. ‘Now for Christ’s sake remember how ill you’ve been, and don’t overdo it. Lie down for a couple of hours after lunch. The man’ll be over to do the central heating any minute.’
He went towards the door.
‘I hope it isn’t too agonizing going to see them,’ I stammered. ‘I’m sure it’ll mean a lot to them. You will drive carefully, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’ He opened the door, letting in a blast of icy air.
‘By the way, I like your leg warmers,’ he said.
‘They’re my supportive hose,’ I said.
Just for a second a smile flickered across his face.
Back in the kitchen Berenice was pounding lentils with unnecessary violence, her mouth set in a hard line.
‘I am trying to remain supportive at the moment, but Ivan is being very difficult,’ she said. ‘Instead of being on the same wavelength, he’s giving off a lot of static. He was so different in the States. It’s the effect of his family of course. They’re absolutely hopeless.’
‘But he adores them.’
‘They wear him down. And why does he have this morbid obsession with the past? It’s so hypocritical. Elizabeth’s parents have got to face up to the fact that he’s bound to make another commitment sooner or later.’
‘But they’re old,’ I said, removing Antonia Fraser who was thoughtfully licking crab paste off the bridge rolls, ‘and they all loved Elizabeth.’
Crash came the pestle down on the poor lentils.
‘That marriage’d have come unstuck anyway.’
‘Rubbish,’ I said furiously. ‘He adored her. Everyone says so.’
‘He’d never have achieved his full potential married to her. He’d have got bored.’
‘Because she wasn’t a woman of substance,’ I said sourly. ‘I suppose you would have found her a little ordinaire.’
Berenice’s face suddenly took on the unarresting personality of a stopped clock. ‘God rest you merry gentlemen,’ sang the wireless.
I escaped from the kitchen before I wrung her deeply tanned neck.
Lucasta met me in the hall. ‘Very bad news,’ she said. ‘Coleridge has been sick three times on the stairs, and there’s bits of leather in it.’
‘Oh God!’
From a cursory examination of the stairs it was quite obvious that Coleridge had regurgitated a good deal of chewed-up Hermes belt.
‘Shall I tell Berenice?’ asked Lucasta happily.
‘God no,’ I said. ‘Do you want Coleridge put in an Old Setters’ Home?’
‘Don’t look so sad,’ said Lucasta to me as I mopped away with a Jay cloth and disinfectant. She put her arm round my shoulders.
‘You may not be very clever,’ she said, ‘but you’re very good at wiping up sick.’
At that moment Rose came down the stairs, carrying a suitcase. She looked very crestfallen. In fact her crest was positively round her ankles.
‘Beastly, beastly weather,’ she said.
‘You’re not going away, Granny?’ said Lucasta.
‘No darling, I’m going to have lunch and a nice hot bath at Professor Copeland’s and change into something pretty for your party. Where is she?’ she whispered, looking round nervously.
‘Making health food canapés in the kitchen.’
Rose shuddered. ‘She keeps trying to interest me in yoga.’
‘She thinks her navel is the centre of the universe.’
‘I used to think naval officers were the centre of mine,’ said Rose sadly.
There still seemed to be an awful lot to do. Hiding the going-away presents in a special drawer, putting cream in the meringues, hanging doughnuts on pieces of string, on a clothes line across the drawing-room. The child that finished its doughnut first, eating with its hands behind its back, would be awarded a prize. It was an excellent ice-breaker, said Berenice. I drew a donkey for people to pin a tail on. Berenice did an incredibly neat parcel for Pass-the-Parcel, using string instead of Sellotape. The snow was getting thicker, blanketing everything. I hoped Ace was getting on all right. Finally the man came to mend the central heating.
Maggie came down an hour before the party was due to start, poured herself a large drink, and balefully surveyed the platefuls of food in the kitchen.
‘It looks like the planet of the Canapés,’ she said.
Berenice’s lips tightened at such ‘unsupportive’ behaviour, but she merely extracted the Vim from the cupboard under the sink and went towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ said Lucasta.
‘To have a bath,’ said Berenice grimly.
‘Gosh, you must be dirty!’
‘This is to clean the bath before I get into it.’
Chapter Fifteen
I had hoped to have a bath too and change, but Berenice pinched all the hot water, and at the end there was a terrible rush, what with trying to find some candle holders for Lucasta’s cake and getting her dressed and doing her hair. Sting was pounding away in an empty drawing-room. I had only one eye made up when the doorbell rang. It was a mother, twenty minutes early.
‘Awfully sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know how much time to leave because of the snow.’
And in no time the hall seemed to be full of Sophies, Pollys, Emilies and Katies, milling round in their long party dresses like coloured butterflies, watching Lucasta — the most ravishing of all in her black velvet catsuit — tearing open her presents. I was charging round like a scalded cat telling mothers where to put their coats, trying to open bottles of Entre Deux Mers, answering the door and keeping the dogs off the food. Where the hell was everyone?
Then there was that terrible lull when half the children had arrived and you didn’t know whether to start a game or not. None of the children were Lucasta’s special friends, because the party wasn’t being given at her own home, but just offspring of various local friends of the Mulhollands, so they were all very shy to begin with and stood around gazing at each other.
Very done up mothers and nannies wandered round looking disappointed and saying, ‘We expected Ace, or at least Jack to be here.’
‘They’re coming later,’ I said.
I charged upstairs. I found Maggie on the telephone in Rose’s room. ‘All right my sweetheart,’ she was saying huskily, ‘I’ll call you later.’ She blushed absolutely scarlet when she saw me standing in the doorway, and slammed down the receiver.