She looked at the glowing tip of her cigarette thoughtfully. ‘This Keith fellow. Were you and he intimate?’
He nodded, his jaw clenching.
‘And did you – I mean, have you—’
‘Of course I have.’
‘You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you.’
‘You’re going to ask if me and Keith ever—’
‘No, I wasn’t. I was going to ask if you’ve ever done what he’s done. Hyde Park at midnight and all that.’
‘Oh. Well. Why do you ask?’
She gave him a withering look. ‘Really, you have to ask? You want me to be your wife and you have to ask? Clearly you haven’t thought this whole thing through.’
‘I never judged you over the Margo business.’ He sucked too hard on his cigarette and coughed out smoke, his eyes watering. ‘Now, see, this is why I didn’t want to tell you in the first place!’
‘This isn’t about judgement, you big nit. Just put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Yes – now it’s your turn to imagine hypothetical situations. I’m your wife, everything’s all tickety-boo, and then one night I get arrested for, I don’t know’ – she rolled her eyes – ‘canoodling with some strange woman in a shrubbery at Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath – don’t laugh, Bart, I know it’s absurd. But listen – the next morning it’s splashed all over the papers and not only is my reputation ruined forever, so is yours.’
Bart was still laughing, a hand over his mouth. ‘A shrubbery?’
‘If you want me to take this seriously, then so must you.’ It was funny. Though why it should be funny that women do this, and not men, she had no idea.
‘You might not believe me,’ he said, ‘but I haven’t ever done anything like that. Nor will I.’ He didn’t quite look at her as he said this – a flickering glance. ‘I’m in the theatre, I’ve no shortage of opportunities. Fairies practically falling from the rafters!’
The fast song finished and was followed by a slow waltzy number.
‘You’d have to be extremely careful,’ she said.
‘It sounds as though you’re considering this.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s a very pragmatic idea. I’m just not convinced yet that it’s necessary. I haven’t given up on myself. I’d like you to give me another year.’
‘Really? You’ll marry me in a year?’
‘Maybe. If.’
‘If?’
‘Yes, if. Surely you can wait another year for your inheritance.’
‘Oh, piss off,’ he said, smiling. ‘If I was that keen to come into my inheritance I would’ve married the first inbred society whore my mother nudged my way.’ He held out his arms and ushered her over. ‘Why do that when I already have the prettiest inbred society whore right here?’
She fell into his arms, laughing. ‘I knew you were going to make that joke.’
They held each other and swayed to the music. ‘Did you love Keith?’ she said.
‘No. No. Infatuated, I think.’
‘His Romeo was wonderful.’
‘It was all right.’
She felt his arm move about and heard the ‘puh’ sound of him sucking on his cigarette and then smelled the smoke drifting around her head, and still they moved together, slowly, and she imagined how it would be to be joined to this man forever. What would their life look like? Him in a smoking jacket entertaining other men after dinner, she playing cards with her friends, the tinkling of ice cubes in glasses and creaking leather seats and the monotonous droll chatter, their bedrooms separate but close – is that how it would work?
Anyway, it wouldn’t come to that.
Chapter 10
September 1925, Longworth House, Brighton
‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’
‘Stop fidgeting, will you?’ said Lucille, her long nails grazing his Adam’s apple as she scrabbled with the tie. ‘I can’t do it if you don’t keep still.’
He grimaced. Her perfume was a warcry of rosehip and citrus. ‘I’m dying of nerves, Mother.’ They were in the drawing room. Lucille’s domestic staff were at the church, along with everyone else, dismissed early not for their sake, but hers; in the next hour, he would belong to another woman and she clearly wanted to savour the dwindling moments of possession. She’d been fussing with the tie for the last five minutes, determined to get it ‘ship-shape’.
‘Nerves are a good sign.’ She tugged at the fabric. ‘You know, your father always insisted I do this for him. He’d let the valet do it first – now what was his name? For the love of God, will you keep still? Anyway, your father’d let him do it first, then he’d come to me and say it wasn’t done properly, which was never true, and I’d undo it and start over. I think it had something to do with intimacy. You know he was very guarded and cool with people.’
Cold, Bart thought. Freezing cold.
‘So, me fiddling around near his throat – well, it’s the most vulnerable spot on a person, the throat. Next to the guts.’
‘He wanted you to mother him,’ said Bart.
Lucille rolled her eyes. ‘There, done.’ She pulled away from him, smiling. ‘A very fine figure you cut, I must say.’ Her mouth started to crumple and she jerked her head, sniffing. ‘I’ll hold it in. Save it for the vows.’ She took her cigarettes from her purse and lit one. ‘You know, I might be a little jealous of you. You’re getting to spend the rest of your life with someone you actually like. You can laugh with each other. Your father didn’t have much of a sense of humour.’
‘He didn’t have one at all,’ said Bart. He couldn’t remember his father ever laughing, which was shocking, if you stopped to think about it. How could someone never laugh and still call themselves a human being? Even lawyers laughed. His father had been missing something very vital – a soul, perhaps. But the funny thing was, the man had felt a great kindness towards animals and even refused to eat meat. Hunting he looked down upon with an indignant, hot-eared fury. He had over ten dogs and he fussed over them incessantly. When they died he wrapped them in blankets and carried them through to the garden and personally buried them, rain, shine, day, night, his face blanched and grim, his eyes belonging to a medieval martyr. Haunted – that’s how he looked. Bart had a very vivid memory of watching his father through his bedroom window dig a grave late at night, plunging the shovel in the earth and digging it out in a perfect metronomic rhythm, pausing sometimes to wipe the sweat from his forehead with a black – yes, black – handkerchief while his mother stood by holding a lantern, clearly bored witless; shuffling from one leg to the other to keep warm and glancing up at Bart in the window every so often. Father gently dropped the blanketed lump into the hole, stood stiffly for a minute, silently mouthing a prayer, and then shovelled the earth back in. He didn’t cry but he exhibited the characteristics of great suffering. Bart and his mother hated those fucking dogs.
Lucille stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. ‘I’m going to tell you something now that will make you horribly uncomfortable.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Shush. Your father isn’t around to impart any advice, so it falls to me. Son, if you want to have a successful marriage you must remember something that very few men do: pleasure is a two-way street.’ She held her hands up. ‘That is all I will say.’
‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve thought to provide any diagrams depicting particular techniques?’
‘Cut the sass.’