Another Heartbeat in the House (3 page)

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course.'

Of course it would do tomorrow. Tomorrow was the first day of a brand new year, and if Edie set about mending the wounded friendship between herself and Hilly on the very first day of the first month, it would, she decided, augur very well for 1937.

‘Do you want to enjoy yourself on the last night of the year, Edie?' asked Ian, lighting another cigarette.

‘Of course I do.'

‘Then you're coming with me. Go and change out of those rags and put on one of your loveliest cocktail gowns.'

‘I only have one cocktail gown.'

‘In that case, it had better be lovely.'

‘Ian –'

‘Go on, darling. There'll be oceans of champagne and as much caviar as you could wish for.'

‘I don't like caviar.'

‘Devils on horseback, then. You love those. And profiteroles.'

Edie suddenly realized she was starving. She hadn't eaten properly since Mac died. And the food at the Guinnesses' was bound to be cuisine of the
haute
variety, because Bryan and Elisabeth were loaded. And the prospect of listening to Dylan Thomas droning on drunkenly in his Welsh accent at the Gargoyle seemed suddenly very, very wearisome …

‘And Stilton.'

‘Oh, very well, Ian,' she said.

What a pushover she was!

So off Edie went into the cubbyhole that served as her bedroom to doff her maroon crêpe and shimmy into her lovely little cornflower blue silk while Ian fixed them another drink.

Ten minutes later, she was bowling through Mayfair in the passenger seat of Ian's MG, reapplying her lipstick and humming ‘It Don't Mean a Thing', and all thoughts of Hilly had been sent spinning from her head by the effects of that third very dirty martini.

AT THE GUINNESSES
', guests were milling around being charming to one another. Everyone was nattering about Edward Windsor and the Simpson woman, but the evening was not yet so advanced that vitriol had begun to flow along with the champagne.

As soon as the butler took their coats, Ian was pounced upon by two extremely pretty women, both – Edie could tell by the rings they were sporting – married. They bore him off somewhere, tinkling with merriment, and Edie was left to her own devices.

Her entire flat, complete with its kitchenette and curtained alcove for washing, would have fitted into the grand hallway of the house. Five of them would have fitted. She accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter – it tasted like lemonade after Ian's stiff martinis – and set off on a reconnoitre.

The staircase afforded her a perfect vantage point for the comings and goings of the guests. Waiters were weaving their way across the crowded hallway bearing trays bristling with champagne glasses. Partygoers were strutting and preening, the women showing off slender arms, smooth bare backs and alabaster décolletages, their figures sheathed in bias-cut silk and satin. Hair was kiss-curled and dressed with feathers and artificial flowers, and jewels – rose-cut diamonds, cabochon rubies and pendant sapphires – flashed at every flounce of a wrist or toss of a head.

‘Edie! Happy New Year!' A lanky booby she knew lurched into view, careering against her and spilling most of her drink on the floor. ‘Oops-a-daisy! Sorry about that!'

‘It's not New Year yet,' said Edie, stoically.

The booby brayed with laughter, as if she'd uttered some scintillating wisecrack. ‘You
are
a rip! But it
is
nearly midnight.'

Realizing that if she didn't get away she'd be stuck with him when the clocks struck the hour, Edie turned abruptly and stalked into the dining room in search of a fresh glass.

Ian was there, helping himself to oysters.

‘You look glum. What's up?' he asked.

‘Nothing. Get me a another drink, will you, Ian?'

Ian instantly made eye contact with a flunkey, who appeared genie-like with a tray.

‘How do you do that? Waiters always avoid my eye.'

‘I have charisma.'

‘Oh yes. I'd forgotten.' Edie took an unladylike gulp of champagne.

‘Why so glum, little Edie?'

‘I'm just feeling rattled, for some reason.'

‘You're feeling rattled because it's the New Year.'

‘Am I?'

‘Yes. Lots of people loathe New Year because it signifies fresh hell.'

‘I suppose last year was pretty ghastly. I'd hate to think I was going to have another one of those.'

‘Look on it as an opportunity for change. Set forth and find a new direction.'

‘You sound like some moth-eaten soothsayer.'

‘Sometimes it's good to think in clichés. We're always trying to be so damned original we forget that aphorisms were coined for a very good reason. Why don't you take time off work and go somewhere exciting?'

‘Like where?'

‘Lahore. Singapore. Shanghai.'

There came the clanging of a gong from the hallway, then a stentorian voice started the countdown to midnight. ‘Ten, nine …'

‘Here we go,' said Edie, with a sigh.

‘Six, five …'

‘You only live once,' said Ian.

‘Two, one …'

‘Happy New Year!'

Edie pasted on a big smile as everyone around her started jumping up and down and shrieking and kissing and crying and hooting, and as the band launched into ‘Auld Lang Syne' she found herself thinking: I've got to get out of here.

‘I hate this song,' she told Ian. ‘It makes me want to smash things.'

Making her way towards the French windows, she slipped behind the heavy velvet portières and stepped into the garden.

At moments like this in films, a charismatic stranger would appear out of the shrubbery. Someone with insolent eyes who would make her feel the way Scarlett had in
Gone with the Wind
, when Rhett Butler slid that first dangerous look in her direction. Except Edie had no silk petticoats to swish, no ringlets to toss, no fan to snap open in haughty reproof or pleat sensuously in invitation. What might it have been like to live a century ago, when covert messages were conveyed in the choice of the flower a gentleman sported in his buttonhole, or the way a lady twisted her handkerchief?

‘Happy New Year.' A voice came from the shadows.

‘Happy New Year,' returned Edie. ‘Oh, it's you, Uncle Jack.'

Edie called Jack Frobisher ‘Uncle' even though he was more of a second cousin twice removed or something. He was sitting on a stone bench under a lime tree.

‘Aren't you cold out here?' she asked.

‘I came prepared. Look.' Uncle Jack indicated the heavy woollen rug draped over his knees. ‘I have a hot-water bottle, too. Cosy up with me.'

He lifted a corner of the rug so that Edie could slide underneath, and transferred the hot-water bottle from his lap to hers. Then he produced a hip flask from his coat pocket, unscrewed the stopper and proffered it. ‘Johnnie Walker's finest,' he told her.

‘Thanks,' she said, taking a nip.

‘What brings you out here? Why aren't you in there swing dancing, or whatever you young things do nowadays?'

‘I felt glum.' Glum was a great word, Edie decided. It was the exact word to describe how she was feeling. Sad, disheartened, lugubrious, morose – none of them would do. ‘Glum' was the
mot juste
.

Jack nodded sagely. ‘Bloody awful things, celebrations. Bally New Years, bally anniversaries, bally birthdays. I hate 'em all.'

‘Why did you come?'

‘Habit. Habit is what happens to you when you get old. I'm past retirement age, you know.'

‘That's not old,' Edie lied.

‘It's horrific. I can't do any of the things that used to make life worth living. I can't ride any more. Can't knock a ball about on the tennis court, can't even manage a round of golf.'

Edie cast her mind about for other less physically demanding pursuits.

‘Didn't you use to fish?'

‘Can't do that any more, either.'

‘But I thought fishing was meant to be restful?'

‘Not if you've to land a 17-pound salmon it isn't. Caught one once, in the lake by Prospect House. Best fight of my life. Had it stuffed. It's there, still, in a glass case.'

Edie remembered how years ago she and her parents had visited Jack in the house he owned in Ireland. It had been during the summer holidays back in 1924 or '25 and Hilly had come with them to keep Edie from getting bored. Her mother and father had expected baronial halls and deerstalking and clay pigeon shooting and had been so vexed when there had been none of the above that they had gone off to stay in a hotel, leaving Hilly and Edie with Jack and his wife Letty. Because Jack and Letty's children were sophisticated teens who balked at the idea of spending time with a couple of twelve-year-olds, Hilly and Edie had run a little feral that summer.

‘What's happened to the place?'

‘It's crumbling away like all the other houses in that godforsaken part of the world. We never go there now.'

‘Why don't you sell it?'

‘We shall, as soon as we can get someone to go over there and shut the place up for us. Letty and I won't make it over there on account of our legs, and the children want nothing to do with it.'

‘Why not?'

‘They all want villas in the South of France these days. It would be less hassle altogether if Prospect had been burnt down by Fenian rebels. Hundreds of magnificent houses went up in smoke over there. We live in changing times – I expect insurrection will happen in India too, and the Middle East. The Empire's on its last legs.'

Cripes. Edie knew that if Uncle Jack got going on the subject of Empire she'd be there for the rest of the night. She jumped to her feet. ‘I'm starving,' she said. ‘I'm going to get something to eat. Can I bring you anything? There are profiteroles.'

‘No thanks, duck. I'm fine.' He raised his hip flask. ‘Here's to another bally awful year.'

She stooped to kiss him on the cheek, and he looked startled, then pleased. ‘First time anyone's kissed me in years,' he said. ‘I say, Edie, might you be interested in going to Ireland?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘To close up Prospect. You could have yourself a bit of a bust, you know. Do you fish?'

‘No.'

‘You could spend a week hiking or boating. There are bicycles, and there's rather a pretty village just a couple of miles away. You brought a chum with you one summer, didn't you?'

‘Yes – a school friend. I'd love to go, Uncle Jack, but I couldn't take the time off work.'

‘Oh, I forgot. You work, don't you? Hard luck. But I dare say you'll find yourself a husband soon. You're a pretty gel.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Who did you come here with tonight?'

‘Ian Fleming.'

‘Decent chap, Ian. I always thought you and he would end up getting married.'

‘What?' Edie's champagne nearly spurted out of her nose. ‘We're completely unsuited! We've known each other since we were in rompers.'

‘Well, it's about time he settled down. You, too. You're a very bright and presentable young lady, and you've been out for – how many years now?'

‘Three.'

‘It'll be four before you know it. That's a long time to be on the marriage market.'

‘Uncle Jack, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not
on
the marriage market. I don't want to get married, and certainly not to Ian.'

In the ballroom, the orchestra started to play ‘A Fine Romance'.

‘You should be in there now,' said Uncle Jack, ‘trying to get a husband instead of wasting your time with an old fool like me.'

‘You're not an old fool.' Edie tucked the rug under Jack's legs. ‘But it's too late in the evening for me to get a husband. I'll get one tomorrow. Goodbye, Uncle Jack. Have a lovely 1937.'

‘Oh, God. Is it really going to be 1937? I rather hoped I'd be dead by now.'

Edie moved back through the shrubbery to the French windows. Inside, couples were foxtrotting across the marquetry floor. Sinuating her way past the dancers, she made for the cloakroom.

Ian collared her as she emerged, shrugging into her coat. ‘Are you off, little Edie?'

‘Yes. I've had enough.'

‘I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have put you off going to the Gargoyle.'

‘Oh, Ian, it wouldn't have mattered where I was. I wouldn't have had fun tonight if I'd gone to the Ritz.'

‘Especially if you'd gone to the Ritz. They're having a costume ball tonight, and everyone has to go as their favourite nursery rhyme character.'

Edie shuddered at the idea of bejewelled toffs dressed up as Bo Peep and Georgie Porgie.

‘Phone me tomorrow, darling,' said Ian, dropping a kiss on her cheek. ‘By the way, I met someone this evening whose Maltese has just had a litter. She'll be happy to let you have one of the pups when they're ready.'