In her distress Martha grazed an incoming Cadillac as she stormed out of the car-park. Lysander slumped beside her, gazing at the stars, which seemed to be shooting around a lot, tunelessly singing: ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’.
Elmer’s house in the heart of smart Palm Beach was surrounded by a thick, impenetrable ficus hedge. Two scowling security guards, restraining snarling Dobermanns, gave Lysander a malevolent once-over as they opened massive electric gates.
‘Friendly fellows,’ observed Lysander as they glided through a huge shadowy garden filled with darkly dipping trees. ‘What are those dishes on those big black poles?’
‘Microwave units to pick up on any intruder. There are also sensors under the lawn. Not a rabbit or a racoon goes undetected. Inside the ficus hedge is hidden a chain-link fence topped with razor wire and an electronic intrusion detector.’
‘I’d guard someone like you,’ said Lysander.
‘Not me, himself,’ said Martha flatly. ‘Safus screens high-risk computers, Elmer’s sewn up most of the Government contracts. As only he holds the password to all the computer installations, he needs protection twenty-four hours a day. No-one breaks in here.’
Ahead, ghostly in the moonlight, rose Elmer’s pale pink fortress, so like nougat that Lysander felt he ought to take a large bite out of it to sober himself up.
‘Amazing place.’
‘Was,’ said Martha bitterly. ‘One of the oldest houses in Palm Beach stood on this site. Elmer razed it and built another. He’s not into longevity.’
Going into the living room, Lysander found himself gazing into the mouth of a cannon and ducked.
‘That thing was fired in the Civil War,’ said Martha.
‘Nearly as old as Elmer. Why the hell did you marry him?’
‘I was called in to redecorate his office. Underneath a big desk you don’t see a guy’s clay feet.’
Only marred by too many photographs of Elmer fraternizing with the famous, the room was charmingly decorated in pale golds as though Midas had idly trailed his fingers over sofas, carpets, walls and huge bunches of deeply scented yellow roses. On an easel was a half-finished portrait of Elmer looking virile. The two ponies he was riding and leading were only roughly sketched in.
‘God, you’ve flattered him,’ grumbled Lysander.
‘It’s not finished. He can’t decide which pony he wants to ride.’
‘Cut out holes; then he can ride a different one each day. Did you do that?’ Lysander turned to the waving corn field above the fireplace.
‘No, that’s by Van Gogh.’
‘Yours is better. And much better than that one.’
‘That’s Paul Klee,’ said Martha in gentle reproof. ‘It cost several million dollars.’
‘Really.’ Astounded, Lysander peered at it again. ‘Perhaps I should take up painting.’
They were interrupted by another huge Dobermann hurtling into the room, fangs bared, growling horribly.
‘Stay, Tyson,’ screamed Martha. ‘Don’t touch him.’
But Lysander went straight up to the dog, hand outstretched.
‘Hallo boy, aren’t you beautiful?’
Disarmed by such genuine admiration, Tyson, after a few dubious growls, started wagging his stubby tail and writhing his shiny solid black body against Lysander.
‘That dog is a serial killer,’ said Martha in amazement. ‘Elmer and Nancy, his ex, have endless legal tussles over him. Nancy has custody and Elmer visitation rights on weekends, but he’s always playing polo so the dog goes crazy. Now Nancy’s threatening to take it to a dog shrink in New York so that’s another two thousand dollars a month. She should pay you instead,’ she added as Tyson collapsed in an ecstatic heap at Lysander’s feet.
After a very disapproving butler had opened a bottle of Dom Perignon for them, Martha, who was still shivering uncontrollably, went off to change, leaving Lysander with the telephone. Instinctively he started to dial the number at home, then stopped with a moan of pain, remembering that the only person in the world he really wanted to talk to would never pick up a telephone again.
The only changing Martha had done when she returned twenty minutes later was to put on an old olive-green cardigan with the buttons done up all wrong. Lysander was encouraged that she smelled of toothpaste, but her eyes were very red.
‘Did you get through?’ she asked.
‘I did. I rang Ferdie my flatmate in Fulham to see if my dog Jack was OK. He is, and Dolly, my girlfriend, is modelling in Paris.’ Lysander looked cast down. ‘Neither of them was remotely pleased.’
‘Hardly surprising. It’s four o’clock in the morning in Europe.’
‘That must be it,’ said Lysander, cheering up. ‘Anyway Ferdie did read out Mystic Meg — she does the horoscopes in the News of the World and she’s seriously on the crystal ball. She says Pisces will find happiness with someone with freckles.’
Martha didn’t register. Chain-smoking, she jumped every time the telephone rang, then, because the butler answered, bit her lip when it wasn’t Elmer and slumped back on the yellow and crimson striped sofa.
‘All husbands have mistresses these days like they have faxes and mobiles and they can’t think how they ever existed without them.’ The drink was really getting to her now, her soft husky voice was shrill, with the words rattling out like machine-gun fire.
‘D’you know what’s really causing the recession?’ she demanded. ‘Pandemic adultery — Tom Wolfe’s “tidal wave of concupiscence”. A guy is so busy deceiving his wife and his PA, who’s probably another mistress anyway, he can’t concentrate. How can you put your back into work when you’re sticking your dick into some bimbo all the time?’
Although his hands were busy stroking an ecstatic Tyson, Lysander found his knees edging towards Martha’s.
‘I’d never have taken up with Elmer,’ she went on hysterically, ‘if he hadn’t painted such a dire picture of his marriage; how Nancy neglected him and never slept with him. Then after Elmer and I were married Nancy dumped in Vanity Fair and I realized she’d adored him and been absolutely wiped out. She called me one evening when she was drunk, to tell me he was a clinical narcissist and I’d never satisfy him. All her friends were there this evening. They’ll be on to her first thing: “You held him for twenty-five years, Nancy, Martha couldn’t hold him for as many weeks”.’ She gave a sob.
‘What’s pandemic?’ asked Lysander.
But Martha had beaten the butler to the telephone.
‘Oh, hi.’ She was poised between tears and a screaming match. ‘I didn’t want to spoil your fun. No, no.’ She was apologetic now. ‘I wasn’t implying anything.’
Lysander could now hear Elmer yelling. Martha seemed to slump.
‘OK, right, sleep well.’ Slowly she replaced the receiver.
‘Elmer’s over the limit. He’s spending the night at the barn.’
‘Yippee.’ Lysander hugged Tyson. ‘Let’s have another bottle.’
‘And he’s got a dozen guards who could drive him home if he wanted. He’s only drunk with lust. I guess he and that tramp were bouncing around in the Jacuzzi when he called me. That would have given him a charge.’
She burst into tears.
Lysander was a shining example of the continued existence of the age of chivalry. He hadn’t read endless articles in the women’s pages about the caddish chauvinism of his sex, he had never heard of New Man or sexual harassment. His heart entirely ruled his head. Anything in distress moved him and just as he had gathered up poor, miserably disturbed, aggressively insecure Tyson, now he bounded over to Martha.
‘Don’t cry. You’re so beautiful and he’s such a toad.’
Folding her into his warm, tender embrace, he tried to still her trembling body, smoothing away tears and mascara with his thumbs; then, when she still sobbed, comforting her in the only way he understood by kissing her smudged quivering mouth. For a second she fought him off, then, desperate for reassurance, she gradually responded to his wonderful enthusiasm.