Moonshine

‘Burgo got Frederick Newmarch to call again and he said that there was nothing wrong with her as far as he could see but he thought she was seriously depressed. He advised a complete change, perhaps a holiday abroad. My father wouldn’t take her. He only likes visiting war graves or battlefields: not the thing for lifting depression. So I went to the local travel agent for brochures about cheap places to go in France, my heart absolutely in my boots because I didn’t want to be away from Burgo. Then my mother put paid to all that by deciding to get out of bed and go upstairs.

‘It was the first time for nearly five months that she’d been outside her own room. It was a crazy thing to do. I was on my way to the Fisherman’s Reel – the little pub where Burgo and I used to meet – my father was in London and Mrs Treadgold, who was supposed to be looking after her, was in the kitchen, listening to The Archers. Oliver was still in bed. Was it a coincidence that my mother chose one of the few moments when there was no one around to see or hear her? Anyway she managed, despite being as weak as water after lying so long in bed, to drag herself up to the top of the stairs and then fell down the entire flight, breaking an arm and a leg.’

‘You think she did it deliberately?’

‘I don’t know. There was no reason for her to go upstairs. I was afraid that she’d meant to kill herself. I felt I hadn’t been nearly nice enough. Of course the entire process began all over again. Two weeks in hospital, National Health this time, and heavens, did she complain! Then home, encased in plaster, to be looked after. She seemed to cheer up a bit then. If it hadn’t been for Burgo it would have been me who was suicidal.

‘I embarked on a new policy of calm endurance and tried even harder to please. I was so sorry for her. My father was cold to her, unsympathetic, whereas I was loved by this marvellous man … Anyway, the fractures mended, though it took ages. Another four months. By January she was more or less better. Just when I was thinking it might be possible to go back to London, she upset a pot of tea all over herself. She was burned from her neck to her waist. Back to hospital. Luckily, though the scalded area was large, it wasn’t deep. She was home after a week. But the burn didn’t heal. I think she picked off the new skin during the night.’

‘Oh dear, you poor girl. Was it because she didn’t want you to go away?’

‘If I’d believed that it might have been easier in many ways. I’d have felt needed. No, she’s always preferred Oliver. Though when he stopped being a gentle confiding little boy she withdrew from him too. I was always too independent and bossy. I know I am. I love making something good out of something hopeless. Once I grew old enough to be effective what affection she had for me waned almost completely. And now I was trying to make her well when she didn’t want to be. What’s more she saw all my attempts to make the house and garden more attractive as criticism. We were both to be pitied in the circumstances. I think she just enjoys lying in bed, being waited on, reading escapist novels and eating sweets, not having to go out into a world that holds no pleasure for her. I was simply a means to an end. All she needs is a more or less willing slave.’

‘So you stayed.’

‘I was afraid if I left she’d do something worse to herself. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen in the future. That she might become bored with being an invalid. Or that Burgo might force the issue by deciding to divorce his wife so he could marry me. Yes, I suppose that’s what I hoped. That he would take matters out of my hands and into his own. I was becoming increasingly dependent on him. He had become my happiness, my salvation. But, of course, that didn’t happen. The Conservative Party stormed into power under the leadership of Margot Holland; she selected him to be her youngest minister and his face was splashed all over the newspapers. Someone saw the opportunity to make some cash. It sounds awfully squalid, doesn’t it?’

‘As far as I’m concerned, nothing that was associated with you could be squalid.’

‘That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’

‘I mean it. Don’t cry, Bobbie. You don’t want to mess up your face when you’re about to meet these new people. Tell me about the journalist who found you this Irish job.’

‘What a knight errant you are!’ I sniffed. ‘Fancy a man understanding the importance of mascara. All right, where was I? I remember, mixing Bengers for my mother with tears running down my face. Eating coffee fondants.’

‘Go on.’

I wondered as I stirred and chewed and wept if I could outdo my mother in misery now. I might as well join the library myself and put in a regular order on my own behalf at the sweet shop.

Since the arrival of droves of reporters we had locked all the external doors and closed the shutters of the downstairs rooms. Brough had removed the pull from the bell and we had unplugged the telephone. My father complained bitterly about being compelled to live under a pall of darkness and was absent from breakfast until after dinner. Fortunately the morning room was always so gloomy and my mother’s concentration on the written word so complete that she hardly noticed. Oliver was asleep during most of the day anyway so it made no difference to him. The only person who was actually having a good time as a result of my persecution by the Fourth Estate was Brough. He had never ceased to regret the end of the Second World War and was now in his element. He patrolled the grounds night and day with his shotgun, an expression of manic ferocity animating his usually sullen features.

Entombed in a dismal silence that was broken only by foolhardy reporters hammering on the windows and doors and rattling the letterbox until routed by Brough, I thought I might well be going mad. My sole outlook on the world was through one of the kitchen windows which opened on to the woodshed, coal bunker and dustbin area. It seemed safe to leave this window unshuttered.

The coffee fondant was actually rather disgusting but I found my hand reaching automatically towards the bag for another when someone sprang up in front of me on the other side of the window. I yelled with shock and was about to turn and run when something familiar about her made me pause.

‘Bobbie! It’s me! Harriet Byng!’ said the girl, putting her face close to the glass.

I undid the bolts of the back door. ‘Quick! Come in!’

Harriet squealed as she saw Brough advancing, squinting down the barrel of his gun, his eyes inflamed with killer fury. After I had persuaded him to go and have a cup of tea and a biscuit to calm himself, I closed and rebolted the door and then examined my unexpected visitor.

I had met Harriet Byng at the wedding of her elder sister. Ophelia and I had been friends for some years. We had never been particularly close but we moved in the same circles in London and we liked the same kind of things. Ophelia was beautiful with huge blue eyes and silvery-blonde hair and had exquisite taste. I found her particular brand of hedonism and extreme single-mindedness intriguing. She could be entertaining or appallingly difficult but she was never dull. Other people complained that Ophelia was selfish and heartless but they had been proved wrong when she had succumbed to the charms of a good-looking but comparatively poor police inspector. I had been asked to the wedding a month ago and there met Harriet, one of Ophelia’s three younger sisters. Harriet and I had had a long and interesting conversation about – among other things – the ideal lunatic asylum, the novels of Louise de Vilmorin and our favourite things to eat.

Harriet was quite unlike Ophelia, in looks as well as character. Her hair was long and straight and a rich dark brown. Her eyes were dark too and bright with intelligence. Her skin was pale and it was fascinating to watch the colour in her face come and go for Harriet was shy and blushed like a child. I thought her beauty bewitching, of a different order from anyone else’s. Her ingenuous sweetness was not the least of her attractions and I was amused to observe that a tall, distinguished-looking older man had her under his eye most of the time. This turned out to be Rupert Wolvespurges, the artistic director of the English Opera House, and Harriet confided that they were in love.

‘Oh, Bobbie!’ Harriet hugged me tightly. ‘How are you, you poor dear thing?’

These were the first words of sympathy that had been addressed to me since the scandalized world had been apprised of my affair with Burgo and they reduced me to a storm of sobbing. Harriet steered me to a chair and put on the kettle, then sat down next to me, holding my hand in hers until I had got over the worst.

‘Gosh, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a hanky? Mine are all upstairs.’

Harriet hadn’t so I used the drying-up cloth which was anyway a more suitable size for the deluge that had been provoked by the sound of a friendly voice.

‘It’s all too silly,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why I’m being such a baby.’

‘I do,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s really terrifying having those people harrying you, like hounds after a poor darling fox. You get the feeling they’re going to rip you to pieces if they catch you. And they make up the most ridiculous stories about you and suddenly you find yourself wondering if they might be true. You get frightened that any minute you’re going to go raving mad. After a while, though, you get used to it.’ I remembered then that Harriet’s father had only the year before been arrested for murder – wrongly, as it turned out. But for weeks stories and photographs of Harriet’s remarkably handsome and interesting family had filled the gossip columns and one could scarcely pick up a magazine or newspaper without seeing one or all of their faces as they went into the fishmonger’s or came out of a cinema. ‘Honestly, though it’s hard to believe, the reporters doorstepped us for so long that we actually got quite friendly with them. Some of them are perfectly nice people. It just takes a bit of getting used to.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. I’ve got to pull myself together. I haven’t been sleeping and … It must have been so much worse for you with your father in prison.’

‘That was truly awful.’ Harriet shook her head as she thought about it, as though to rid herself of the memory. ‘But, darling Bobbie, never mind the press for a minute. You can keep them outside and in the end they’ll get fed up and it’ll be yesterday’s news. But what about you? Have you been able to see him?’

‘No. If you mean Burgo.’

She squeezed my hand. ‘You love him terribly?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘And will he … is he going to leave his wife?’

‘If he leaves her he’s finished as a politician. Margot Holland can’t have a disgraced minister in tow. As the first woman Prime Minister she’s got to have higher standards, work harder and do everything much better than any man. She supports Burgo all the way, naturally: she wouldn’t have appointed him Minister for Culture if she didn’t think he’d do a brilliant job. He’s only thirty-five and she’s promoted him over the heads of several older and more likely candidates. Of course it’s made him enemies.’

‘People are envious of him, you mean?’

‘Well, on the face of it he seems to have everything: brains, career, rich wife, willing mistress. The anti-Burgo faction is also largely anti-Holland, though that’s more or less kept under wraps, of course. The scandal’s given ammunition to those Conservatives who feel their manhood’s threatened by having a female boss. As well as to the Labour Party, of course. The only chance Burgo’s got of holding out against those who are baying for his blood is to be repentant and to persuade his wife to put on a public show of reconciliation with him. After that it depends on the tide of popular opinion. But plenty of politicians have had affairs and survived, provided they showed proper contrition and behaved themselves ever after.’

Harriet got up to make the tea. Keeping her back to me, she asked, ‘Is that what he’s going to do?’

‘He’s telephoned every day since the news broke. Each time he says he loves me and that he’s going to give everything up for me.’

Harriet turned round. ‘Oh, thank goodness! That’s all right, then.’

I shook my head. ‘He hasn’t said it doesn’t matter to him. That he doesn’t mind giving it all up for me. I can hear in his voice what a wrench it is. He’s always wanted this. He’s terrifically ambitious; he wants to be able to change things. One of the things I love about him is his energy and the fact that it’s channelled into real achievement. He doesn’t care about status symbols, possessions, houses, cars, cellars filled with rare vintages. He doesn’t care about winning. What thrills him is informing people, changing their opinions about things he thinks are important. Managing to get a bill read about reforming the laws on assisted suicide or doing something to help ex-prisoners buoys him up for days at a time.’

‘I must admit it’s not how I imagined politicians to be.’ Harriet found some cups in the cupboard. ‘I mean, they aren’t usually very attractive people morally – or even physically. I saw Burgo on television yesterday. He looked pretty cracking.’

I had seen the piece of newsreel myself, of Burgo coming out of 10 Downing Street, looking stern, acknowledging the cameras with a nod and the coldest of smiles, walking quickly away. I had turned the set off after a few seconds because the pain of longing had been so intense.

I offered the coffee fondants to Harriet. ‘Do have one. Or several. They’re horribly sickly but I can’t seem to manage proper food. It all tastes like ashes. Burgo’s having to choose between two things he terribly wants and he thinks he’ll choose me because I’m just about more important to him.’

‘There you are then. You couldn’t reasonably expect him not to care at all.’

‘No, not that. But don’t you see, if he left that world of power and influence and excitement, and we bought a semi in suburbia – neither of us has a bean, his wife has all the money – and he got a job in the Civil Service or presenting programmes on television, do you think I’d go on mattering that infinitesimal but crucial fraction more? We’d be bound to quarrel sometimes and perhaps the love-making would come to seem less exciting and I’d have to ask myself whether I was still more important than the job he’d always wanted, which was his for a few weeks and which he gave up for my sake. If I made a stupid remark or failed to sympathize properly, if I got tired and snappy, jealous, perhaps – after all, he’s had one clandestine affair so what’s to stop him having another? – every sigh, every depressed look, every word that suggested he was becoming disillusioned would throw me into a blind panic. I lack the confidence to be sure I can be all in all to someone else.’

‘You have to admire Wallis Simpson.’

‘Ah, but he never wanted to be king. That’s the difference.’

Harriet sipped her tea thoughtfully. ‘I probably ought to urge you not to be a coward and to take on the challenge. But I’m so short of confidence myself I’m sure I’d feel just the same. People can’t be everything to each other and they ought not to expect it. Actually, to be truthful, there isn’t anything that matters to me even a thousandth part as much as Rupert, but then I’m not ambitious. And I’ve been crazy about him since I was old enough to spit.’

‘You mean, you’re childhood sweethearts? How romantic.’

‘Not exactly. He says I was fat, grubby and toothless. But I’ve worshipped him all my life. Anyway, to revert to the jobs thing, although I enjoy my job it isn’t what I really want to do for ever.’ She grew pink. ‘My secret desire is to be a poet. But if I had to choose between losing Rupert and never writing another poem, there’d be no contest. I suppose that means I’m not sufficiently serious about poetry. It’s disillusioning.’ Her eye fell on the fondants. I pushed the bag across. ‘Rather more-ish, aren’t they?’

‘When are you getting married?’

Harriet blushed again. ‘After he’s finished directing Lucia di Lammermoor. But that’s enough about me. It’s you that matters now.’

‘It’s kind of you to come.’ I was struck by a sudden thought. ‘But why did you? Not that I’m not delighted to see a friendly face. But it’s a long way to travel to console someone you’ve met only once before.’

Harriet turned a darker shade. ‘Ah well, the truth is that I’m one of those inebriate vultures at your gate. I’m a reporter on the Brixton Mercury. I used to be the dogsbody but I’ve risen to deputy sub-editor – only because Rupert pulled strings. Oh, don’t look like that.’ I must have inadvertently assumed a look of distaste. ‘Of course I’m not going to write a story about you. Or nothing that you don’t dictate to me word for word. But my boss Mr Podmore asked me if I knew you. He thinks I’m an ex-deb, which is quite untrue and that I know everyone with a double-barrelled surname. When I said that actually I did, he sent me out to get an exclusive interview. And I thought you might like a chance to put your own view to the world, via the BM. Of course our circulation’s tiny but sometimes the national newspapers take things from the local ones. But if not, then I’ll just say you were out. I promise you can trust me. I thought I might be able to help. I hope you’re not cross?’

She looked so anxious that I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Of course I’m not cross. And I do trust you. You’ve already helped tremendously just by listening. But I don’t know what I can tell the world that won’t injure Burgo.’

‘I could write a little piece about what a nice, sensitive, decent person you are. It seems to me that Lady Anna’s getting all the favourable coverage at the moment.’

I had seen a wedding photograph of Burgo and Anna in one of the newspapers. She had looked quite different from my idea of her. When I had thought about her, which I did as little as I could possibly help, I had imagined someone tall, tanned and made-up; hard, perhaps even brassy. As a bride she had looked small, pale, elegant, her dress longsleeved and high-necked, her only ornament a wreath of flowers that held the veil in place over her dark hair, which was swept back from her face. She was smiling into the camera and she looked so happy that I had immediately felt an acute sense of shame. I had reminded myself that the photograph was ten years old and that Anna and Burgo hadn’t been lovers for some time. Or so he had said. For the first time I had wondered whether Burgo had intentionally misled me.

‘Well, she is the innocent party. But if you make me out to be a vulnerable ingénue who spends her free time knitting blankets for earthquake victims and leading the hymn-singing at Sunday school it reflects badly on him, doesn’t it? It’s in his interest to have everyone believing I’m a wicked jade who cozens other women’s gullible husbands into behaving badly.’

Harriet looked at me with solemn eyes. ‘And you’re prepared to let people think that of you? You really have got it bad.’

‘I have. Also my pride revolts at the idea of attempting to justify myself. Why should I care what they say if it isn’t true? I do care, of course. It stings like anything. But I’m going to fight against minding because it’s pathetic to be upset by the disapproval of strangers who don’t know anything about me.’

‘OK, so you don’t want me to do an article from your point of view. But if you don’t mean to let Burgo give up his career for you, what are you going to do?’

‘I’d like to get away, right away. Not only from the press. Every night at ten o’clock I plug in the telephone and Burgo rings me from a call-box and we have these dreadful conversations. At first hearing his voice is a huge relief. Then the misery starts. It’s like seeing his shirt-tails and the soles of his shoes forever whisking round a corner. Never his face. Ever since we became lovers I’ve had this feeling that I was hanging on to tiny scraps of him. But I had a foolish hope that one day the crusts would become a feast. Now it’s much worse, of course. We have to be extremely circumspect. Apparently newspapers tap telephone lines routinely. I suppose you knew that.’

‘Not tuppenny-ha’penny papers like the Brixton Mercury. Only dailies with large circulations and big bank accounts.’

‘He says how sorry he is. I say how sorry I am. He asks if I’m OK. I ask him how he is. We try to reassure each other that everything will be all right. He says how much he loves me, how important I am to him. He says he can’t be happy without me. I tell him that he matters more to me than anyone has ever done. And that I never want to hurt him. He tells me to stay calm and be patient, that it will blow over and we’ll be able to be together. I say I want to do what will be best for him. He gets agitated at that. I’m too weak to tell him that it’s over, to refuse to have anything more to do with him. I know that would be the best thing. But I can’t do it. I need to be able to detach myself a bit so I can be strong. I thought of going to stay with a girlfriend who lives in Rome. But I’m really too miserable to make a good guest. And there’s a limit to how long you can park yourself on someone when you haven’t any money. I need to work. Somewhere like Benghazi or Ecuador where they won’t have heard of me.’

‘I wonder …’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it’s crazy, but I may know just the place. It’s not as far away as South America, but does that matter? I was reading The Times on the train coming down, hoping to pick up tips on journalistic style, and I happened to see an ad in the personal columns that rather took my fancy: a request for a housekeeper. It had such a strange list of requirements – something about poetry and sausages – it sounded romantic and interesting. What a pity I left the paper on the train.’

‘I’ve got a copy of The Times here.’ I drew it out from behind the bread-bin. ‘I was going to cut out the bits about Burgo and me before my father saw them. He gets furious about the holes in the pages but at least I don’t have to face him knowing he’s read all that stuff about me being an insatiable scrofulous whore.’

Harriet scanned the personal columns. ‘Here we are. Listen to this. Housekeeper wanted, County Galway, Ireland. No previous experience necessary. Applicants must be clean, beardless, love poetry and animals, be able to cook sausages and possess a philosophical temperament. Isn’t it a peculiar list?’

‘It seems rather haughty these days to question other people’s washing habits,’ I said. ‘Still, it’s no good standing on one’s dignity when one’s in a hole. And what about the beard? I believe there are women who have phobias about men with beards. Would many men apply for a job as housekeeper, do you think?’

‘I wondered if it might be a pig farm. The sausages, I mean. I like sausages but I wouldn’t want to eat them all the time. But the poetry sounded promising, I thought.’

I found myself indulging in a brief fantasy. I imagined a neat little house with an elderly couple or more likely a widow. An invalid, possibly, who wanted someone to read poetry to her. Rather particular and old-fashioned, viz. the prejudice against bearded men, but liking plain food. She had a poodle, perhaps, or a Pekinese which had to be taken for walks.

‘I’ve never been to Ireland,’ I said. ‘But it might just be the answer to a prayer.’

‘Now I see,’ said Kit. ‘Harriet sounds like a trouper.’

‘I rang the number straight away. A woman answered.’

‘What did she sound like?’

‘Faint voice, slight Irish accent, younger than I expected. She asked me a few questions: could I drive? Did I mind living in an isolated place? Could I milk a cow?’

‘Can you? Milk a cow, I mean?’

‘No, but it can’t be that difficult.’

‘Mm. I wonder.’

‘Anyway, she said I was the first person to answer the advertisement though she had put it into all the papers she could think of. Their last housekeeper had left suddenly, after a terrible row. They were absolutely desperate. Could I come at once?’