Moonshine
I opened the paper to see a photograph of Burgo, striding along the pavement towards 10 Downing Street, looking preoccupied. I felt such a sense of loss, such a longing for him that I almost burst into tears.
‘I don’t want to read any more.’
I stood up and thrust the paper on to the fire. It burned brightly, then fell into the grate. Kit went to work with the poker to avert the burning down of the inn.
‘Sorry,’ I said dully. ‘It was your paper. I ought to have asked.’
‘You did the right thing. That’s all it was fit for.’
‘Most of it isn’t true. I’ve never in my life said anything about Burgo’s wife, even to him. What could I possibly say? I’ve never met Anna and Burgo hardly ever talked about her. I’m not remotely aristocratic. My father comes from a long line of undistinguished army officers and clergymen. Nor was I going to a party in Belgravia. I was going to the surgery to get some Valium. Not at all glamorous.’ I tried, unsuccessfully, to laugh. ‘My father wasn’t decorated, nor was he a hero. I went to a Church of England school. Nothing’s true. Except – except that I did have a love affair with Burgo. And I suppose that’s all that matters.’
‘Millions of people have affairs. Why should you be ashamed? My mother’s had more lovers than birthdays and I don’t believe my father minds a bit as long as nothing gets in the way of his own philandering.’
‘Yes. Well, as you say, adultery is commonplace. But when you see your name in every newspaper, from broadsheet to gutter press, and you know that people the length and breadth of Britain are calling you a heartless, scheming whore, you feel profoundly hurt. It seems I’ve done something so terrible that anyone feels justified in saying the vilest things about me. Yesterday a well-known female columnist wrote an article deploring women who let down the sisterhood. She mentioned me by name, saying that in a few years my lifestyle would show on my face. Lying and cheating and fornicating would plough deep fissures from brow to chin, my body would become diseased from sexual excess and my hair would fall out from over-bleaching. While Lady Anna would deepen in beauty like a fading rose … It was rubbish from beginning to end but I can remember it almost word for word. Hatred was in every line. I’m frightened by so much hostility. I couldn’t recognize myself in the woman she condemned. I feel I don’t know who I am any more.’
To my dismay, my eyes filled with tears. Kit took my hand. It is wise to be wary when men offer brotherly comfort. It is generally a prelude to something far from brotherly. But Kit’s grasp was warm and consoling. He neither squeezed nor stroked, he simply held my hand in his while I worked hard at being sensible, grown-up and self-controlled.
‘Surely you don’t plough fissures,’ said Kit, after a while. ‘You plough furrows, or lines perhaps, but fissures occur from hard surfaces splitting from weakness in their composition—’ I may have looked reproachful for he interrupted himself to say, ‘Sorry. It’s the job, you see. You have to weigh every semicolon for sense and fitness. Something those journalists couldn’t begin to do, even if they wanted to.’
‘Probably it’s just my pride that’s been wounded.’ I slid my hand away and tried to speak lightly. ‘As a child I desperately wanted to be good, above all things. I spent hours on my knees begging God to make me heroic and saintly: a cross between Gladys Aylward and Thérèse de Lisieux. I longed to radiate seraphic purity.’
‘I must say you don’t strike me as being especially prim and proper. There’s a light in your eye that I’d say was a warning to the faint-hearted.’
‘Wholly misleading, in that case. I like to be in control of things, not luxuriating in sensuality.’
‘Hm. Pity. Are you sure? When I look at this slender hand’ – he picked up mine again and turned it over – ‘I see the nails painted dark red, the skin smooth and white.’ He tapped my ring. ‘Emerald and diamonds, aren’t they? Now my aunts – my father’s sisters – whom I always think of as the embodiment of virtuous women, corseted by self-discipline, have strong square callused hands with nails cut savagely short, a little dirty from washing the dogs and digging up the herbaceous borders. They are strangers to hand cream. Ditto rings. Your hands are much more like my mother’s, of whom, naturally, they strongly disapprove.’
I retrieved my hand. ‘The ring belonged to my grandmother. I like beautiful things, perhaps more than I ought, but I’m not a hedonist. I don’t believe that the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good.’
‘What is, then?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose … behaving in a way which causes the least harm. One shouldn’t be indifferent to the effect one’s behaviour has on other people. It’s impossible to talk of these things without sounding like a prig. What do you think?’
‘I’m not so high-minded as you. I think if you enjoy yourself then you’re less likely to be a burden and a nuisance and more likely to be amusing. If that’s hedonism, then I approve of it.’
‘I’m not high-minded at all. As I’ve demonstrated rather publicly.’
‘So now you feel you’re forever disqualified from sainthood?’
‘It seems so.’
‘So what’s the real story? I don’t believe you dragged a protesting, happily married man from the arms of his miserable, barren wife.’
‘Apparently she’s determined not to have children. One of the few things Burgo told me about her was that she dislikes them and is afraid of getting fat.’
‘And do you think that’s true?’
‘Why shouldn’t it be? It’s not a particularly attractive attitude but it’s perfectly rational.’
‘Are men generally truthful when discussing their wives with their mistresses, do you think?’
‘I suppose not. But Burgo’s not quite like other men. Oh, I know people always say that when they think they’re in love,’ I added when I saw scepticism in Kit’s blue eyes.
‘Are you in love with him?’
‘Who knows what love is? Mutual need? Desire? Vanity? Illusion? I wish I knew.’
‘What’s he like, then?’
What was Burgo really like? I wondered.
The landlord appeared at that moment with our food. The chicken had been boiled to an unappetizing grey, a match for the overcooked cabbage. I knew if I did not eat I would get a headache and feel faint by the evening but the newspaper article had killed my appetite.
‘It’s bad, but not that bad,’ Kit said when I put my knife and fork together, having managed less than a quarter of what was on my plate. ‘Surely you can get those potatoes down? Come along, I’ll butter them for you and they’ll taste better.’ He unwrapped a square of butter, which had come in a foil packet with the rolls, and spread it over the vegetables as though I were a child. To please him I forced down a few more forkfuls. ‘That’s a good girl. Now eat that bit of chicken breast just to show you forgive me for upsetting you. I’m an ass and I’m really sorry.’
‘You’ve been my absolute salvation.’ I ate the chicken. ‘I’m sorry to be so pathetic.’
‘All right, so we’re both thoroughly remorseful. Now, Scheherazade. If you wish to avoid strangulation, carry on with your tale.’
I began to tell Kit about Burgo.
SIX
‘Why are you dressed like that?’ Oliver had asked on the evening of the Conservative lunch at the Carlton House Hotel.
We were in the kitchen. I was wearing my mac buttoned to the neck while I washed up my mother’s supper tray.
‘I’m going out to dinner and I don’t want to splash my dress. It’s silk and even water marks it like crazy.’
‘What’s for supper?’
‘It’s called a navarin, but you’d better tell Father it’s lamb stew or he won’t eat it. It’s a classic French dish. It’s got peas and beans and turnips in it. It’s delicious, honestly.’
‘It doesn’t sound it.’
‘There’s Brown Betty with gooseberries for pudding.’
‘Oh, good. Custard or cream?’
‘Cream.’
‘Where’re you going?’
I took off the mac and examined my reflection in the mirror by the back door. My hair is naturally wavy and resists all attempts to tame it. I had fastened it back from my face with two combs. My eyelashes are dark, luckily, but I had thickened them with mascara. I had painted my lips with a colour called Black Pansy which I had found in the village shop. The deep red made my mouth look sulky but was effective, I thought, with my skin, which is pale. I fished the pink plastic case from my bag and applied a little more for good measure.
All the time I had been washing my hair and putting varnish on my nails I had been conscious that my blood was circulating a little faster. It was a measure of how miserable being at home was making me, I told myself, if going out to dinner with a man I knew nothing about, except that he had a job I rather despised and was married, could lift my spirits so dramatically. Not that the last was relevant. A Member of Parliament taking a single woman out to dinner in his own constituency could not afford the least breath of scandal. He would not dare to flirt with me. And even if he did, I was immune to his charms. Sarah and I had so often listed the reasons why it was certifiable madness to have anything to do with married men that we could have given public lectures on the subject.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who’s taking you?’
‘A man called Burgo Latimer. Our new MP.’
‘Really? That sounds grim. What’s he like?’
‘He’s a Conservative but he’s not what you’d expect.’
‘What’s different about him?’
‘I don’t know, really. He isn’t dull, anyway. There’s the doorbell. Don’t tell Father anything about it. He won’t approve.’
‘What shall I say? He’s bound to give me the third degree if he thinks there’s a mystery.’
‘You’re the novelist. Make it up.’
Burgo was standing with his back to me when I opened the door. I had forgotten how tall he was.
‘Some good trees,’ he said, turning, ‘but if there’s one plant I can’t stand it’s the spotted laurel. It makes me think of a dread contagion. And you’ve got so much of it.’
After his telephone call I had tried to remember his face but could only be sure about his eyes which I knew were dark brown and his hair which was straight and of that extreme fairness – a sort of white-blond – that generally one sees on small children. It had the same juvenile texture, soft and untidy, and was, I guessed, worn a fraction too long for the conventional tastes of his female acolytes. His nose was finely shaped with arched nostrils, his mouth full. It might have been considered a slightly effeminate face but for the eyes. They were sharp, amused, combative.
‘We’ve practically got the National Collection of dingy shrubbery,’ I said.
I followed him down the steps to where an enormous black car stood on the gravel.
I was relieved he hadn’t expected to be invited in for drinks with my family. It seemed this was an opportunity to soft-soap the voters that he was willing to write off. Or perhaps he knew that even if he had snubbed my father, made a pass at my mother and taken an axe to the furniture, Cutham Hall would always be a staunchly Conservative household.
‘You can starve a laurel,’ I continued, ‘leave it unpruned for years then hack it to the ground, but it’s almost impossible to kill it. It’s difficult to love something that can be thoroughly abused and taken for granted. You need a little uncertainty. The feeling that you have to nurse the guttering flame.’
‘And this is so true of love between humans.’
A man in a real chauffeur’s uniform, grey piped with blue, which would have made Brough horribly jealous, had rushed round the car to hold open the rear door nearest the steps. Burgo went round to the other side and slid in beside me.
‘This is Simon,’ said Burgo, when the driver returned to his seat. ‘He drives me when I’m in Sussex. Miss Pickford-Norton.’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I don’t use the hyphen. I call myself Roberta Norton. Or, more often, Bobbie.’
‘How democratic,’ said Burgo.
‘Pickford is my mother’s maiden name. My father added it on when they married. It’s a bit of a tongue-twister.’
Also I thought, but did not say, that it was an embarrassing piece of social climbing on my father’s part. He liked to talk of the Pickfords of Cutham Hall as though they had lived there for centuries instead of barely a hundred years. And he kept quiet about the pickling.
‘I like Roberta, though. Pretty and old-fashioned. Bobbie doesn’t suit you at all. Step on it, Simon. We don’t want to be late.’
Simon spun the wheels on the gravel and we shot away. The suspension was so good that one hardly noticed the potholes.
‘Where are we going?’
‘A place called Ladyfield. You won’t have heard of it. It’s about fifteen miles from here.’
Burgo leaned forward and closed the glass partition that separated the front from the back.
‘Obviously you don’t worry about appearing democratic.’ I admired the acres of polished walnut and quilted leather. The back seat was the size of a generous sofa and you could have fitted a dining table and chairs into the space for our legs.
‘Simon won’t mind being excluded. He’s thrilled to be asked to drive fast. He doesn’t often get the chance.’
‘I really meant, this is an opulent car.’
‘It isn’t mine. It belongs to Simon. He’s a dedicated Conservative so he lets me have the use of it at a reasonable rate. It doesn’t do me any harm to be conspicuous but the real reason I like it is because I can stretch my legs and sleep off the coronation chicken on my way back to London.’ He extended them as he spoke and they were, indeed, unusually long. ‘When Simon’s not driving me about he makes a living ferrying brides to and from church at a stately crawl.’
This explained the powerfully sweet aroma of scent and hairspray that clung to the upholstery. I opened the window a fraction.
Burgo leaned forward and picked something from the floor. ‘There you are. Confetti.’ He handed me some scraps of silver paper, then swayed towards me as Simon took a tight bend at speed. The draught from the open window blew the tiny bell and the horseshoe from my hand. ‘I find all sorts of things in here.’ He looked in the ashtray and then felt along the edge of the seat. ‘There you are.’ He showed me a lace handkerchief, crumpled into a ball. ‘It’s still damp with tears. At least I hope it’s tears. Once I found a garter. Another time a copy of Tropic of Capricorn with the spicier sections marked. Last week I found a photograph of a young man torn in two. Themes for a whole book of short stories.’
‘Don’t you ever drive yourself?’
‘I don’t have a licence. I gave up after the fifth attempt to pass my test. I offered the last man a bribe but he still refused to pass me. I found it reassuring, in a way, that he was incorruptible. My temperament isn’t suited to driving. I get bored and my mind wanders. In London I take taxis. It’s an opportunity to hear what people really think, talking to people who don’t know I’m an MP. Naturally the cabbies all have strong views on politics and are usually much further to the right than I am.’
‘My father seems to think you’re practically a Marxist.’
‘In theory I approve of some elements of Marxism but I disapprove of despotism, which is the only way you can implement it, humans being so unequal. History’s shown us that Marxism and Fascism have a lot in common. Both systems rely on collective brainwashing to educate the populace and extreme brutality to crush rebellion. And that’s positively my last word this evening about politics. You’ve told me unequivocally that you hate them and I’ve had enough of them today to satisfy the most ardent politicophile.’
‘I like political history, though. Distance lends enchantment.’
‘What do you really like?’ He slid lower in his seat, folded his arms and turned his head to rest his chin on his left shoulder to look at me. ‘What makes you want to get up in the morning?’
Meeting his eyes, observant, curious, humorous, I felt a moment of disquiet, almost alarm. What was I doing speeding through the countryside to an unknown destination with this man who was a stranger? Reality is so different from one’s imagining. Getting dressed alone in my bedroom, I had felt excited and confident. Now Burgo was beside me, I felt oddly uncertain of myself and almost wished myself safely back in the gloomy dining room at Cutham.
‘Well.’ I looked down at the little heap of multicoloured confetti near his shoe and attempted to restore my composure by giving my attention fully to the question. ‘Breakfast, for one thing. I usually wake up hungry. And extremes of weather. Not only sun but snow and wind, too. I even like wet days if it’s a proper deluge. That’s the only thing I don’t like about living in London: you hardly notice the seasons, except as an inconvenience. Nature’s confined to a few dusty plane trees growing out of holes in the pavement. I really love flowers and gardens. But London parks are too tidy. And I hate African marigolds.’ Careful, I thought, you’re starting to gabble. Don’t let him see you’re nervous. If only he’d stop looking at me. I put up my hand to check the combs in my hair, then was annoyed with myself for fidgeting. ‘I’d always be willing to get up to see the first bud open of an oriental poppy called Cedric Morris. It’s the most subtle shade of greyish pink.’ Now you’re sounding like a plant dictionary. Stupid, stupid. ‘And I nearly always want to get up for work. I work for an auction house. I used to be in the antique textile department but last year I moved to porcelain. There’s always the chance that something good’s going to be brought in for valuation or to be sold. I can’t often afford to bid for anything myself but just to see something beautiful – to touch it – gives me pleasure.’
‘What do you call beautiful?’
‘Practically anything that’s eighteenth century. Ignoring the smells and the lack of antibiotics and dentistry, Angelica Kauffmann seems to me to have led the most enviable life. She was prodigiously talented and got to see most of the wonderful houses and gardens and exquisite furniture of the age.’
‘Ah yes, she was a painter.’
‘And absolutely on a par with the men. Sir Joshua Reynolds was a great admirer. Have you seen her work at Frogmore?’
‘No. But I shall, now you’ve put me on to it. Do you paint?’
‘In an amateur way. The need to earn a living is my excuse for not being better at it. But the truth is that I can’t make up my mind what I like best. Textiles, fans and objets de vertu are passions but I’m equally besotted by porcelain, especially Chelsea and Longton Hall. As for early English walnut furniture …’ I made a sound expressive of longing.
‘Describe an average day.’
I told him about my job. Now I was on familiar territory I grew calmer. I felt a brief return of my London self. I was used to working with male colleagues, to being as much at ease with men as with women and confident that I knew what I was talking about most of the time. Burgo was a good listener. He gave me his whole attention and asked the right questions. I relaxed and wondered what had made me lose my nerve in that absurd way. It must be Cutham that disagreed with me.
‘I like the idea of a life spent in pursuit of beauty,’ Burgo said.
‘Is that the impression I’ve given? Well, perhaps. Some people would think that superficial. Cold and selfish. And subjective, of course.’
‘Only if they were thinking of beauty in its narrowest sense: the acquisition of fine objects. And even with material beauty, things must be honest, well conceived and well made to be beautiful. Keats said it succinctly enough in that wonderful sonnet. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Or was it the other way round? When we come to abstractions – goodness, truth, unselfishness, charity, justice, fortitude – in practice they’re indivisible from one another and from beauty. I knew I’d like talking to you. You’re an enthusiast and so am I. About different things but that doesn’t matter. I like that dress. That is a subjective judgement. What do you call that colour?’
‘I don’t know. Pistachio, perhaps.’
‘Your eyes are almost the same colour, a mixture of green and grey with that ring of gold round the iris. I’ve never seen anything like them.’
‘I think you said your wife was in France? Is she on holiday?’
‘She spends a lot of time in Provence. She has a mas there with a few acres of vines. She likes heat.’
‘Does she make the wine herself?’
‘No. She has someone to do it for her. She prefers to read and sunbathe and sleep. Sometimes she goes for walks or entertains. Anna is not an enthusiast.’
‘It sounds a charmed life.’ I wanted to ask more about her but was afraid of sounding inquisitive.
He turned his head away to examine a handsome old house as we flew past. ‘I suppose it is. Are you married?’
‘Not even engaged. I once was for a week, then thought better of it. The awfulness of breaking it off and hurting someone I was fond of taught me a lesson: not to go into these things without being one hundred per cent certain. But as one can’t ever be that I may never get married. It seems such a terrible risk.’
‘That’s not the enthusiast talking. What about your parents?’
‘What about them?’
‘Happy marriage?’
‘No.’
Burgo refrained from drawing the obvious conclusion, for which I was grateful. He continued to look out of the window. Trees overhung the road. Occasionally a flash of fire from the setting sun shot between the leaves and stung my eyes. I closed them to prevent them watering. A minute went by without either of us saying anything. The silence felt comfortable now, as though we had reached some sort of understanding. Perversely, this feeling of intimacy, as though the usual social rules need not apply, made me determined to break it.
‘It’s so kind of you to take me out and give me this treat. But you must let me pay my share.’
He continued to look out of the window. ‘Are you afraid I shall call in the debt by demanding sexual favours?’
I kept my voice detached, though I was disconcerted. ‘Not in the least. A man intent on paying for such things with dinner doesn’t talk about his wife, unless of her imperfections.’
‘So you’re quite confident that what I want is your companionship for what would otherwise have been a lonely evening?’
‘Perfectly confident. Isn’t it possible for men and women to enjoy friendship with nothing else involved?’
Burgo did not reply but turned his head to look at me. It was not a flirtatious look. He did not smile or smoulder. There was no tenderness, no particular friendliness even. It was a look of simple interrogation, as though he wondered whether I meant him to give me a serious answer. I felt compelled to drop my eyes, conscious of a sudden acceleration of the heart.
‘Here we are,’ he said as Simon braked sharply and swung the car between a pair of iron gates.
‘Where?’
‘Ladyfield.’
An immaculately maintained drive was bordered on each side by a double row of limes. Beyond were park-like grounds dotted with stately trees.
‘Is it a private house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will there be other guests?’
‘Eight more, I believe.’
I was almost annoyed to discover that we would be so well chaperoned. I had come near to making a fool of myself, thinking, as he had perhaps intended me to think because it amused him, that we would be having a cosy dinner à deux with the potential for advance and retreat that this implied. I caught his eye. He was smiling.
‘Won’t the people there think it odd? Thrusting a perfectly strange woman on them at the last minute, I mean?’
‘You don’t seem particularly strange to me.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Fleur won’t mind at all. I ought to say she’ll be delighted but that would be stretching it. I don’t know that she’s ever really delighted by people. She much prefers animals. This is where I stay when I’m in Sussex. When one of her guests rang to say she was ill, I told Fleur I’d invite you.’