The front hall was the size of a ballroom (Max’s family had in fact used it for this purpose throughout the previous century, hosting extravagant dances which were attended, apparently, by members of the royal family) and it was flanked by a staircase the width of a rugby goalpost. A crowd of people in bizarre costumes were chattering and dancing in this ex-ballroom now, under a heavy cumulus of cigarette smoke and incense.
‘Oh, I didn’t know it was fancy dress,’ said Bettina.
Jennings let out a smirk. ‘It isn’t. Please, come in from the cold.’ Bettina looked again: men in Russian Cossack costume, gypsy tweeds, floral waistcoats; women in Arabian harem-style fabrics, some in gothic funeral attire. He was having her on. ‘I feel quite under-dressed,’ she told him.
‘You are dressed tastefully,’ he said. ‘May I take your coat?’
She shrugged off her coat for him and saw Tuna, in a scarlet dress with a humongous bustle and a ridiculous pair of painted-on eyebrows, crying and running barefoot across the hall. A skinny, sickly-looking man wearing dark-green eyeshadow followed her. He was bald and nude from the waist up and he wore only a green Highlander’s kilt. He had the frame of a young boy and his ribcage stuck out. Tuna bundled up the train of her skirt and bounded up the stairs, still weeping. She stopped halfway up, turned back and shrieked, ‘Don’t you dare follow me, Bone!’ before continuing up the steps. The partygoers stopped what they were doing to look. And then quickly resumed their dancing and chatting.
‘What on earth sort of party is this?’ she said to Jennings.
He shrugged. ‘Mrs Garside has acquired some new friends. And some new ideas.’ He ran his hands along the fur coat draping his arm. ‘If she’s not careful, she’ll soon have to acquire some new staff.’
‘Should I go up to her?’
‘If you like.’ He glanced down at her stomach. ‘Congratulations by the way. I am of course thrilled for you and your husband.’
Thrilled? He looked like he’d just been diagnosed with cancer of the prostate.
She headed for the staircase, protecting her bump from errant elbows and hearing snippets of droll conversation: ‘He never would have said that if he knew who you were—’, ‘—spiritual frisson, you know, though I shouldn’t think—’, ‘—quite suicidal, honestly, so I said to her—’, ‘—and I fucking hate hydrangeas—’
Max Garside was home roughly fifty days of the year. Tuna was by now used to doing without her husband and no longer pined for him, deciding instead to take a pro-active approach to her loneliness by sleeping with other men – usually artists and poets. She seemed to have a new favourite every month. So prolific was she in her philandering that it was entirely possible her miscarried babies had not been Max’s at all.
Then again, Max probably had a woman in every port. Bettina imagined him arriving at some crumbling, lice-infested Ukrainian cottage with a stack of presents under his arm, breezing through the doorway and saying, ‘Daddy’s home!’ to a clutch of dusky, barefoot brats (were Ukrainians dusky?), before sweeping up a big-hipped, scraggle-haired peasant in his arms and kissing a mouth marinated in garlic.
Bettina knocked on Tuna’s bedroom door.
‘Fuck off!’
‘It’s Bettina.’
A moment’s silence then a sudden stampede, a flung-open door and Tuna’s tear-blotched face. ‘Oh, Betts, I’m so glad to see you!’ Tuna yanked her into the room and crushed her in a strong hug. ‘Have a little drinky-poos with me, will you?’
Bettina nodded, looking around the room. It had been entirely transformed, the wallpaper stripped and the walls painted an obscene bright orange. The tasteful paintings of pastoral scenes had been replaced by cubist doodles, zodiac charts and God knows what. Where the ottoman had once stood there was now an antique Punch and Judy theatre, the puppets drooping over the tiny stage like boneless trolls. The Welsh dresser had been painted red, its shelves filled with odd curios: eyeless dolls, rabbits’ feet, a collection of crystals, vases filled with dead flowers and – wasn’t that a monkey paw? The room stank like a church; on the dressing table a quartz ashtray held a tablet of smoking charcoal on which was placed a pinch of Frankincense.
Tuna went to her bar, her train dragging over the junk on the floor, and poured drinks. She had indeed put on weight. But she looked fantastic.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ she said, handing Bettina a drink. ‘Congratulations! You did receive the flowers, I hope? And the rocking horse?’ She got down on her knees and pressed her ear to Bettina’s belly. She smiled, looking up at her. ‘A girl. Mark my words. I’ve a gift for this.’
‘Are you all right now?’
‘Oh, I’m fine. Just a lovers’ tiff.’
‘That bald chap?’
‘His name is Bone.’
‘You’re joking.’
Tuna took out a silver cigarette case – it was a Russian design inlaid with three small rubies – and lit a cigarette. ‘Don’t judge me, Bettina. The man is a genius. And I’ll tell you something else: he’s got a nine-incher. And I never exaggerate in these matters.’
‘Him? Surely not.’
Tuna nodded matter-of-factly, squeezing out smoke through a gap in her teeth.
‘Well,’ said Bettina. ‘I suppose I’m happy for you.’
‘Don’t be. He’s also a sadist. I’m giving him the old heave-ho tonight. Here, sit down with me.’ She swiped a pile of clothes off her sofa.
‘I’m very sorry about the baby,’ said Bettina, sitting down.
‘It’s fine, I’m fine. It was only a few weeks along – practically a blood clot. Don’t look at me like that; I don’t want any sympathy. I just want to have fun.’
‘All the same…’
‘It mightn’t even be me with the problem. What about Max? Did you ever think of that? Might be something wrong with his little tadpoles.’
‘Max?’
She must have sensed the incredulity in Bettina’s tone because both sets of eyebrows went up. ‘Yes, Max. Who else?’
‘Oh, come on. You go through beaus almost as fast as you go through maids.’
Tuna laughed with delight, her chin doubling. ‘Silly girl! I don’t let them put it in there! Only Max has that dubious honour.’
Bettina sipped her drink. ‘Oh.’
‘We’re having some poetry in the garden later. I tried to get Siegfried Sassoon down for a reading but it’s impossible to nail the bugger down.’
‘Is it a fancy-dress party? Jennings told me it wasn’t but I think he was being snarky.’
Tuna swatted the air. ‘Jennings can kiss my tits. You know what? We never really stop being young. We are forever those dreamy-eyed children, wanting to play, to pretend, to imagine other realities. But it gets knocked out of us, doesn’t it? By old miseries like Jennings.’
Bettina wasn’t paying full attention; she was looking down at her dress. ‘I am the most boring person here.’
‘Only aesthetically speaking, darling. Here, do you want to borrow something of mine?’
Down the stairs they went, arm in arm, stepping in unison (it had been agreed that they would step in unison). Tuna had changed her outfit and was now wearing a yellow smock made entirely out of bright canary feathers. She had dried turkey feet hanging from her ears, the claws painted with yellow nail polish. She was very proud of this touch. Bettina had transformed herself into Theda Bara’s Salome, a rough approximation thereof at any rate, with a huge, heavy headdress, white flowing gown and severe vampy eyeliner. Her own finishing touch: a false moustache.