Crimson (18 page)

“That’s what Billy always told me.” Hastily Joe said, “About the girls. Finishing school in. Switzerland or Paris, where they’ll acquire all the social graces. They must all be able to”

Spark leT Elinor suggested, tongue in cheek. When Joe nodded, she said, “They already sparkle. What else do they need to know?” “Only seven things.” Joe ticked them off on brown leather-gloved fingers.

“One, never criticize the royal family, blood sports, or newspaper owners, because they gang up to protect each other. Two, don’t get any publicity in the cheaper papers during the season. Three, pick a newsworthy charity to support, preferably connected with dogs or

children. Four, support your local community and make sure you’re seen doing it. Open the vicarage fete, and when you do it, publicly present a cheque for the church roof that sort of thing.” As they drew near the front door, he shivered.

“Dear Elinor, I think I’ve had enough nature for one day. Can we please, please, get back to that log fire in your study?” Elinor laughed.

“Not till you’ve finished.” Joe wrapped his arms across his chest to keep warm.

“Five, show an interest in one of the arts, but nothing too avant-garde ballet or the opera is fine.” He quickened his step as they arrived at the front door.

“Six, buy some place that people long to be invited to somewhere like Somerset Maugham’s villa on Cap Ferrat. There’s a place called St Tropez that’s getting popular.”

“And the seventh commandment?” Elinor asked.

“Always write thank-you letters immediately and post them within three days.” Joe grinned.

Elinor looked guilty. She hated writing letters, especially letters of thanks; instead of dashing them off while she still felt grateful, she delayed until the last minute before she risked offending people. At that point, she would contritely write several pages, invent some reason to explain why she hadn’t written before, feel guilty about her lie, and send flowers.

Elinor pushed open the ancient oak front door.

“But all that you’ve just suggested will cost a fortune!”

“Then make one, Elinor.” Buzz looked dubious when she heard about Elinor’s plans for the girls” future, starting with boarding school.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit oldfashioned, Nell?” she said.

“I know you want them girls to have what you didn’t, but you ain’t realized that by protecting a woman you leave her unprotected if she’s ever left on her own.” Fleetingly Buzz remembered what it had felt like, after her home had been bombed in the Second World War, suddenly to be without a family, without anyone.

When Miranda heard that her two sisters were going to be sent away to school in the autumn but that she wasn’t old enough, she raged, proclaiming she was sick of being the littlest, because she was always left out. Eventually Elinor yielded; Miranda could accompany her sisters.

SATURDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 1951

Hazlehurst Park Manor School was only thirty miles away from Warminster - a minor reason for Elinor’s choice. It was a nineteenth-century reconstruction of an eighteenthcentury reconstruction of a Gothic priory. All the teachers were clearly ladies who had known better times in better years; they seemed amiable and well-meaning, but were by no means intellectuals.

On their first Saturday afternoon away from home, the three sisterS7 who were not allowed in each other’s dormitories felt lonely and homesick. Together, they walked down the school’s drive, heading for the nearest sweetshop.

“I can’t think why Gran sent us to this prison!” Annabel grumbled.

“Because she wants us to be ladies,” Clare said gloomily.

Miranda added, “Because she was put through hell by all the ladies when she was a young bride.”

“They don’t like us here.” Annabel kicked at the bracken by the side of the road.

“They don’t know us yet,” Clare pointed out.

“How will we know when they like us?” Miranda asked, darting forward to pick up a spiked greenish ball that enclosed a shining conker.

“When they share their secrets with us,” Clare said.

SOO11, Of course, secrets were exchanged. All three girls quickly learned that the period after lights-out was a time when the girls of Hazlehurst Park, amid steady giggles, shared their common fascination with boys and sex.

These inaccurate accounts of the strange things that adults did to each other in bed in order to achieve ecstasy, combined with the behaviour of the demurely romantic but firmly virginal heroines of Elinor’s novels, gave the sisters an odd picture of adult coupling: this involved a wildly romantic waltz into the future, wearing a low-necked dress as if you didn’t realize that your top was showing. After your wedding, you had to allow your husband to see you naked without being embarrassed, and let him kiss you hard, an action which fused true twin souls together, to think as one, after which no verbal communication was needed. Your true love, now your husband, would read your thoughts, enjoy everything you liked to do, and give you everything You wanted, including spotless babies; that was his function in life.

A few weeks into the girls” second term, in February Joe said it was the best time to buy and the worst time to sell property in Europe Elinor and Buzz flew to France for a week, during which Elinor purchased a small but pretty villa on the outskirts of St-Tropez; the sea could be seen beyond the pink oleander bushes at the end of the small garden. Sufficient funds for the purchase were obtained by Joe Grant, who had Elinor’s French publisher make the financial arrangements.

MONDAY, 6 JULY 1953 By early July of the following year, Elinor’s villa had been redecorated, furnished with simple Provengal furniture, and curtained with intricately patterned, bright traditional country fabrics. She invited Joe Grant and his family to be her first guests. It was arranged that his son Adam should fly to Nice in advance of the rest of the family, who were to drive through France.

Before the visit, the two Grant sons were much discussed by the O’Dare sisters, who had not seen the boys for several years. On the day of Adam’s arrival, the girls took three hours to dress in cinch-wasted, flowery dresses that were both too tight for the temperature and too elaborate for the occasion; they then sat on the patio for nearly two hours, none admitting that she was waiting for Adam.

At last, as late-afternoon shadows crept across the patio, Adam, in naval blazer and open-necked white shirt, sauntered through the living room. As he did so, he again wondered whether his father was having or had ever had an affair with Elinor O’Dare. They seemed unusually close for friends of the opposite sex, and Adam had noticed his mother’s almost imperceptible withdrawal when in the same room as Elinor: it was something that Adam had noticed in rival cats.

Adam, now twenty-three years old, had spent his two years of national service in the navy, where lae obtained a commission; he had decided to be a lawyer, and in due course became articled to the family firm of Swithin, Timmins and Grant, this being the simplest way to obtain his legal qualifications.

When he wasn’t studying, Adam acted as his father’s assistant and was also loaned to any of the firm’s other lawyers who needed a spare pair of hands to prepare a case: while the senior lawyer conducted the main interviews, Adam ran around acquiring the evidence and bringing it into the office, where he checked it and then sorted it into appropriate files. He now looked forward to a luxurious holiday in the sun, during which he would not be treated like the messenger boy.

I On, the wide steps that led from Elinor’s living room down to the patio, Adam paused, grinned, and said, “Why, it’s the three Graces!”

This was the first time that the sisters heard the tag-line destined to be pinned on them; they were flattered and dazzled by a compliment from this tall, tanned young man with dark hair and big brown eyes. All three immediately fell in love with him.

That evening, before going down to dinner, fourteen year-old Clare stuffed socks in the sides of her bra, which pushed her small breasts together. She had heard about this trick at Hazlehurst, though it didn’t quite accomplish the look she was striving for.

Annabel sneaked Gran’s new camera and flash so that she could take photographs of everyone, and made sure that she took more of Adam than anyone else.

That night, Miranda hugged her pillow and daydreamed about being with Adam in his private plane: “Oh my God, Miranda, I feel a touch of my old malaria coming on … Do you think you can manage to land her?” Wearing a glamorous white flying suit and leather helmet, Miranda said, “Of course, Adam, simply tell me what to do.” Adam gasped out the instructions before losing consciousness … When the girls came down for breakfast the following morning they found that Adam had already left to charter speedboat. He did not return for lunch. That afternoon, Clare was lying on the beach, sleepy as cat in the sun, when she felt a shadow fall across her face. She opened her eyes and knew instantly that the young man standing before her in scarlet swim trunks was Adam’s brother; they had the same flyaway dark eyebrows that almost met in the middle. But Adam’s face was leaner, his mouth tauter, his eyebrows drawn closer to each other. Adam’s finely cut features looked Clare now had to admit just a little bit twitchy, like Gregory Peck when worried about what the villain was going to do next.

The young man stared at her navy-blue school swimsuit.

“Are you Clare? I’m Mike.” Mike’s clear grey eyes, set wide apart, gave him an air of transparent honesty that he found very useful in getting out of trouble at school. He added, “I’ve been sent to find you. Adam hired a motorboat and we’re taking it to the islands. Like to come alone.” Mike looked less cynically amused and more approachable than Adam, although there was something violent about his stillness, as if his body wanted to leap forward. Mike had even longer legs and wider shoulders than Adam; dark hair curled crisply on his chest and descended in a faint line to below his navel.

Clare almost fell out of love with Adam. Later, as the motorboat cleaved the water, trailing churning foam in its wake, each sister felt similar turmoil beneath her breastbone. They all returned to the villa dazed by a love far more exhausting than that which Clare had felt for the tow-haired games mistress, Annabel for Robin, her pony, and Miranda for the milkman.

The next day, the five of them drove to the long sandy crescent of Tahiti Beach; here each sister, for the first time, felt the painful and humiliating sorrow of rejection.

Adam and Michael took one look at the lithe, suntanned young Frenchmen flirting with feline French girls in sexy bikinis and made no attempt to hide the fact that this was their idea of paradise. The two Englishmen immediately lost interest in the three young sisters.

That evening, none of the sisters came down to supper. Buzz found them, still wearing swimsuits, in Clare’s bedroom. Clare was crying, face down on the bed. Also sobbing’, Annabel was spread-eagled, face down, on the floor. A scowling Miranda leaned against the wall with legs crossed and arms folded.

“What are you all moaning about?” “Go away, Buzz it’s none of your business,” Clare hiccuped.

“I’ll never, never love anyone again,” Annabel sobbed.

“They’re both beasts,” growled Miranda.

“And we must all buy bikinis as fast as possible.”

“Don’t be silly little geese,” Buzz chided.

“Adam’s twenty three years old and Mike’s twenty-one! Of course they like the look of them curvy, pretty French ladies!”

“But Mike was charming to Clare before he saw those girls on the beach, “Annabel gulped.

“Adam showed Miranda how to water-ski before he saw those old bags, but after that, he ignored her!” cried Clare.

“Frog is just as pretty as those beastly tarts on the sand,” Miranda said, scowling again.

“Don’t use that nasty word, or I’ll give you what for,” Buzz corrected automatically.

“Of course the lads were polite to you because they’re nice lads.” She hesitated and then said firmly, “To them lads, you’re still only kiddies. Now have a wash and come downstairs there’s chocolate meringues for supper. And no more of this nonsense about bikinis. What would Annabel and Miranda put in the top bit tennis balls?”

TUESDAY, 21 JULY 1953

At the crossroads, Adam pulled the wheel of the family Humber to the left: in the moonlight, the silver road ahead disappeared between dark conifers.

“Hey, Adam, you’ve gone the wrong way,” Michael said, waking from his reverie.

“You’ve taken the road to Nice.”

Adam turned left again on to the coast road; below them lay the dark glitter of the sea.

“We’re not going to Nice, we’re going to Cannes to the casino.” Mike laughed.

“I suppose that’s why you offered to drive old Maclean back to his villa.” Mike knew that his brother was an opportunist.

“And why I asked you to come along. It was pretty early for old Maclean to leave Elinor’s dinner party, pleading a -headache. I reckon he’s jumping into bed with something juicy at this very moment.”

“Dad’ll kill us.if he finds out we’ve been gambling,” Mike said. Adam laughed and pressed the accelerator.

“Dad’s determined that we’re not going to take after his dad.” Joe Grant’s father had been a racecourse bookie, a fact that his wife tried to hide. Granddad Grant never gambled he took the money from gamblers. He always said that gambling was a mug’s game.”

“Look, Mike, do you want a night out or not? If so, stop being so bloody pious.” Adam’s persuasive nature and elder brother’s self-assurance overshadowed his brother, who quickly gave up arguing.

“Sp-rry. it’s a great idea,” Mike said hastily.

“After all, we cdn “It gamble at home.” Gambling was illegal in Britain, supposedly because of its bad effect on public morality.

“But what’ll we do for money?” “I’ve got four weeks” wages,” Adam said. Through the open car windows, he could now feel salt air on his face and smell the beguiling aroma of pine.

“Surely forty quid won’t get us far in the Cannes casino?” “It’ll get us in. We have a drink at the bar, we look at the glitterati, we have a mild Rutter. That’s all. Easy.” But Mike knew that behind Adam’s supercilious sophistication and condescending faa de his brother was unsure of himself. Talking down to Mike always subdued Adam’s own anxiety. Mike made Adam feel equal to anything or anyone, because Mike always assumed that his elder brother would be successful in everything he did, and Adam assumed that Mike would always fetch and carry, jump to obey him, and protect his secrets.