Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (55 page)

There was one blot on the gaiety. Evelyn had invited several of her own friends, including the archdeacon and his wife, and Lady Pruefoy. This mistake I attributed to her desire to show off as patron of the avant-garde. They took one look at the effervescent roisterers and retreated indoors to the drawing room to sip disapprovingly at the sparkling wine, which they knew at once was not champagne, and to talk in undertones about what poor dear Kingsley might have said could he have seen his wife flirting
in public
with a Canadian. After a time even the gossip ran out, and when I walked past the drawing room on my way to the kitchen I heard Lady Pruefoy say into a depressed silence, ‘If this is what falling in love in one’s riper
years does to one’s judgement, I thank heaven I am too old for that kind of thing.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ replied the archdeacon, with more truth than gallantry.

I reported the
froideur
within to Evelyn, who was sitting with Rex on the terrace in front of the summerhouse, talking to Sebastian and Cynthia Kay. Evelyn pulled a face and stood up, a little unsteadily. I was delighted to see that she had relaxed her rule of never more than two glasses. ‘Perhaps I’d better go …’

‘No!’ Rex took her hand and drew her down again. ‘The party’s out here. If they want to bubble and stew indoors, let them. I mean to enjoy myself and I can’t do that without you, my love.’

‘But I should at least see if they have everything they want …’

‘I’ll go and ask them, if you like,’ I said.

‘That would be angelic, darling.’ Evelyn turned to the others. ‘Isn’t Marigold an absolute
angel
?’

Clearly Rafe had still not told her that I was a traitor and a renegade.

‘A poppet.’ Rex winked at me.

‘I have always found Marigold far from angelic.’ Sebastian twirled the stem of his glass between his bony fingers. ‘In fact, I would have said she is quite amoral. There is nothing too depraved or degraded that she would not do to further her ambition.’ I expect my rage showed on my face. Sebastian was a brute, a sadist, a monster of cruelty and the worst tortures of hell were too good for him. ‘But she is the best dancer we’ve had in the company and the two things may not be unconnected.’ I modified my poor opinion of Sebastian somewhat. Did he mean he wanted to take me back? I reminded myself that I was now in a much stronger position to negotiate a contract and I was certainly going to exclude any hanky-panky in the director’s office, or anywhere else, for that matter. ‘By the way,’ Sebastian smiled maliciously, ‘Didelot is here. He wants to see you.’

‘Didelot?’ I yelled, and several people turned to look. ‘
Here
?
’

‘Didn’t I just say so?’

‘He wants to see me?’

‘Apparently. He’s gone back to the house.’

‘Who is Didelot?’ asked Evelyn.

I did not stay to hear Sebastian’s reply. In a state of agitation I sped across the lawn. Didelot was strict about not fraternizing with anyone who had anything to do with ballet, particularly not dancers. I saw Orlando and Fritz in the distance, waltzing dreamily. They waved and beckoned but I shook my head and hurried on. All I could think of as I made my way through the frolicking guests was that perhaps Didelot had sent a searingly bad review of my performance to the
Sentinel
and then for some reason had been struck by remorse. Perhaps he wanted to explain to me in person just why he had effectively destroyed my career.

I ran into the hall. Someone was playing the piano. Chopin. Through the open door of the drawing room I saw a row of beatific smiles. The archdeacon, cradling a dish scattered with cocktail sticks and olive stones, was beating time inaccurately with his foot. Lady Pruefoy had rolled up her eyes to gaze at the ceiling in transports. I doubted if she had a tuneful bone in her body, but she knew she ought to like it. I could imagine her reporting the occasion. ‘A consummate musician, my dear. Just a select circle of Evelyn’s intimates. The riff-raff were entertained outside.’

I looked round the door. Across the polished mahogany of the Bechstein, Conrad looked up, saw me and smiled. My stomach did a hop-step-coupé. It had been two months and eighteen days since I had last seen him. I forgot entirely about Didelot and the ruin of my career.

‘Hello, Marigold.’ The sound of his voice did something volcanic to my insides. He continued to play the
Grande Valse
. ‘How are you?’

I skipped to his side. ‘Fine. Well, not fine all the time.
Sometimes I’ve prayed for a rapid and painless death. But
Ilina
and the Scarlet Riband
was a huge success.’

‘Indeed, it was masterly. A few rough edges, but they will be smoothed in time.’

‘You were there? You saw it?’

He frowned. ‘Don’t speak so loudly. My audience is being appreciative.’

I loved the way he pronounced it, soft yet precise and hissing. His voice ought to be recorded for posterity. And he ought to be photographed from every angle and enlargements put in an album. It was unfair to have so much beauty wasted on a man. He was playing from memory. I thought it was very clever of him to do that and carry on a conversation at the same time.

‘Why didn’t you come backstage?’ I whispered.

‘I had an appointment that could not be put off. Then I went to bed. I had flown the night before from New York to London … then another flight to Newcastle in the afternoon … I was exhausted.’

‘It
was
good of you to come. I wish I’d known you were there.’

He shot a glance at me. ‘What difference would it have made?’

‘Well, I would have liked it, that’s all. Though you don’t deserve the compliment. You never mentioned me in your letters or sent me any messages. I don’t believe you gave me a thought.’

‘I did think of you.’

‘Really? Did you, honestly?’

A cough from the archdeacon made me look round. He had commandeered a tray of canapés and gave me a reproving stare as he chewed.

Conrad looked amused. ‘How they all dislike you.’

‘Do they? How mean of them!’

‘Is not the feeling returned?’

‘Mm, yes, I suppose it is. But they started it. And why me particularly?’

‘Oh, they dislike me just as much. Probably more.’ He looked
pleased. ‘I am a foreigner, a Jew
and
I am much richer than they are. It defies the natural order of things – as they would have it.’

I leaned on my elbow on the piano lid so that I could look into his face. ‘
I
don’t dislike you.’

He shot me another glance in which I read satisfaction. I waited for him to say that he liked me too, which any polite person would have done, but instead he said, ‘What was your own judgement of your performance last night?’

‘Six out of ten. I slightly lost concentration in the second act adagio. My feet were good but one of my attitudes was a bit wobbly … oh!’ I remembered with an unpleasant jolt. ‘Have you seen a small balding man with curly grey hair and a black moustache? Quite insignificant looking?”

‘Shhh!’ hissed Miranda Delaware.

‘No such person has been here.’

‘Sebastian
said
he was here. I wonder if he was having me on, to pay me out for agreeing to marry Rafe instead of him?’

‘Are you going to marry Rafe?’

‘Don’t be silly. You know I’m not.’

‘You say not. But when I last saw you, you appeared to be on the most intimate terms.’

‘I’m cast-iron positive I’m not going to marry him. And he knows it. I can’t understand why he pretends to go on with it. He doesn’t love me and I don’t believe he ever did.’

‘You don’t realize why he wishes to marry you? But it is right under your nose.’

‘I suppose you mean he desires my body.’

Conrad lifted his eyebrows but waited until he had got through a specially fast bit. Then, as he twiddled about on the black notes with his right hand, ‘You accuse
me
of conceit.’

‘That’s unfair. Isn’t it nearly always sex? Anyway, it’s all I can offer. He isn’t interested in ballet in the least so it isn’t my entrechat six. That’s a sort of jump when you twizzle your feet—’

‘I know what an entrechat is.’

‘Oh, Conrad! You always know everything. It’s very annoying.’

He did not react to this taunt but continued to move across the keyboard with great sweeps of triplets.

‘Well,’ I said, after he had pulled off a difficult few bars, ‘if it isn’t sex, what is it? I’m not exactly cut out to be mistress of the ancestral acres.’

Conrad seemed not to have heard me. He was engaged with a particularly expressive section. Eventually he asked, ‘Who is it you are looking for?’

‘Didelot. You won’t have heard of him but you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you he just happens to be the most important person in ballet right now, that’s all!’

‘
Shhh!
’ said Miranda and Lady Pruefoy together.

‘Surely not?’

‘Truthfully. He’s a critic and he sees everything and he can make mincemeat of one’s career with a few sentences. His judgement is like the word of God and I’m terrified of him.’

Conrad played a series of emphatic chords which made the audience sit up straight and open their eyes. He looked me full in the face and said with an air of maddening imperturbability, ‘I am Didelot.’

Of course Conrad was joking when he claimed to be Didelot. He had the strangest sense of humour.

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘And I’m Ninette de Valois, but I’m travelling incognito at the moment so I’d rather you didn’t tell anybody.’

He smiled. ‘I have met Ninette de Valois. She is in her eighties. You are an impostor. Move out of the way.’ I leaned back so he could play a twiddly bit with his right hand at the top end of the keyboard. ‘But I
am
Didelot.’

‘Sebastian pointed him out to me once. He doesn’t look anything like you. He’s a little grey man and his name is Karl Peters. Besides, you don’t know anything about ballet.’

‘I wonder if you will say that when you read my review tomorrow? Don’t you know that Karl is German for Charles? My uncle Charles was Didelot for thirty-seven years. He took me to the ballet from the time I was eight years old and taught me what to look for in a
brisé
, how to judge a perfect
assemblé
, the essential qualities of a
pas de quatre
. When he died I was asked to assume his position as ballet critic of the
Sentinel
and to retain Didelot’s anonymity.’

My brain seemed to have seized at the point when I imagined that Conrad had said he was Didelot. It was a
fantastical notion. I must be dreaming, yet the floor on which I stood, the beam of sunlight that shot in through the window, the piano on which I put my hand to steady myself seemed quite real.

‘You
are
joking. Aren’t you?’

‘I am perfectly serious. What was it I wrote about your Giselle? Something about your
épaulement
I liked particularly …’

‘An abandon in the épaulement which satisfactorily prefigured
the descent into madness
.’

‘Ah, yes. I must have been in an unusually mellow mood that evening. But I thought you were good. I said to myself, this girl has possibilities. She is not yet a great ballerina. But one day she may be. Your behaviour on the train undid a favourable first impression but, after all, your potential as a dancer was unrelated to your agreeableness as a fellow passenger.’

‘But Conrad!’ I paused. My thoughts refused to be knocked into any sort of shape. Could he
really
be the great Didelot – he of the penetrating eye, the incisive judgement, the remorseless pen?

He rounded his eyes and mouth, imitating my expression. ‘You look very comical.’

‘You … you
beast!
’ I hissed. ‘You liar! You cheat! You rat! You false … scheming … bamboozler …’ I was unable to think of anything quite bad enough.

A sound like waves breaking on shingle as everyone shushed me.

‘I deny it. I have never said I was not Didelot. You have never asked me.’

‘But how could I … who could possibly have imagined … and all this time! … I thought we were friends! … how
wicked!
’

Conrad played the last few bars of the piece and acknowledged the burst of clapping with the briefest of nods before swivelling on his stool to face me.

‘Uncle Charles took great pride in his impartiality. When, during his last illness, I undertook to replace him at the
Sentinel
,
I promised to be faithful to his precepts. Especially I would not have doings with the performers. During the time you were not dancing, my consorting with you was within the bounds of the agreement. Now, of course, I must either give up the job or I must give up
you
.’

‘Mr Lerner!’ effused Miranda Delaware. ‘We are all in raptures over your marvellous playing. Could we trouble you for one more piece?’

Lady Pruefoy clasped her hands girlishly beneath her vast bosom. ‘Oh,
would
you?’

‘Hear, hear!’ The archdeacon grinned widely, giving us a glimpse of the interior of the sepulchre.

‘Very well.’ Conrad turned back to the keyboard. ‘My last piece shall be one of Schubert’s greatest songs. It is called
Erlkönig
which is a poem by Goethe. It is a sinister tale about an evil spirit who steals away children. I translate roughly. A father and his little son are riding through a dark and dreary night. He asks his son why he hides his face in fear. Father, says the boy, don’t you see the Erlking, with his crown and flowing robe? The father says it is nothing but a wisp of fog. The Erlking pursues them. The boy is afraid but the father insists it is the shaking of leaves. The Erlking promises to take the boy to a beautiful place where his daughters will rock him to sleep. If he will not come willingly, he will use force. Father! cries the boy. The Erlking is holding me fast! He has wounded me grievously! The father rides home in terror. He finds the child is motionless in his arms. Dead.’

Conrad began the introduction. After the silvery tunefulness of Chopin, Schubert’s music was wild, disturbing stuff, full of menace. Lady Pruefoy brought her eyes down from the ceiling to stare fixedly at the floor in front of her, as though seeking comfort from the hearth rug. The archdeacon stopped chewing.

‘
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind
?
’ Conrad sang.

He had said he could not sing, but that was a lie. His voice
was charming. But there would be no point in accusing him. I knew he would wriggle out of it by saying that I knew nothing about singing, which was true.

‘
Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn
?
’
*

Of course he was Didelot. The moment I admitted it was possible, it became probable and then certain. I repeated to myself things that Didelot had written and now I heard them all in Conrad’s voice. He was so knowledgeable, so clever and sharp-witted. He was cosmopolitan and sophisticated and swam with the biggest fish in the arts world. Why should he not be a luminary of ballet as well?

A thousand questions flew around half-formed inside my brain. It was not to be expected that he would give up being Didelot. Our friendship, so valuable to me, so inessential to him, must founder. Outside the sky had become angry-looking. Clouds like great bronze pinions pressed against the tops of the trees. I felt a trickle of perspiration run down the back of my neck. Conrad’s face was gilded by the stormy light.

‘
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn ich seh es genau
,’ he sang. ‘
Es scheinen
die alten Weiden so grau. Ich liebe dich
,’ he glanced up at me, ‘
mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt
.’
**

I caught the look, felt it in the tenderest part of me, was practically annihilated by it. The little boy was killed by the Erlking. Though my wound was not fatal, I was afraid it would be permanent.

‘
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot
.’
†

Conrad played the last soul-searing chords, then closed the lid over the keyboard and stood up.

‘Lovely! Perfectly lovely!’ The archdeacon’s wife rushed
towards Conrad, a handkerchief held to her beady little eyes. ‘You will think me absurdly susceptible, but you have moved me to tears.’

‘I too am deeply moved,’ said Lady Pruefoy, pushing her out of the way.

Miranda Delaware got out her lipstick, skilfully repainted her mouth and joined them at the piano. I found myself outside the circle.

Lizzie walked into the drawing room. ‘I’ve been looking for you for ages. I’ve got to go with Nils to Stockholm tomorrow so I can be placed in the care of the best doctors and eat buckets of iron tablets. But I said I must be allowed to say goodbye to you properly. Nils is playing with the band. A dustbin lid and a gong stick. Not a musical sound, but he’s enjoying himself. Don’t you think he’s gorgeous?’

‘Gorgeous? Oh, Nils. Yes.’

Together Lizzie and I walked through the hall and out into the garden. The sky was overcast, yet the colours in the garden were vivid, particularly the humming blues and purples.

‘It’s most peculiar,’ Lizzie tucked her hand through my arm, ‘but somehow I find I don’t mind being treated like a womb on legs. I always thought I was looking for a man who’d vanquish me with his masterful ways and Byronic good looks. Instead I’m trotting up the aisle with a mother hen. But I suppose that’s love for you.’

She was my very best friend and I was tempted to tell her everything. ‘Lizzie—’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Let’s walk down to the Bear’s Hut.’

‘Is there a bear in it?’

‘Not any more. What does it feel like to be pregnant?’

‘Physically, do you mean? Not particularly pleasant. Swollen, tingling breasts. The worst thing is being sick …’

While she talked my thoughts wheeled like a flock of starlings, expanding and contracting in an ever-changing pattern,
the individual parts evidently in some kind of communication, yet the whole seeming without an intelligible purpose.

‘Not just in the morning either. I always used to be a good traveller, but now I only have to look at a car and whoosh!’

The entire flock of starlings dropped down to roost. Perhaps it wasn’t food-poisoning that was making Isobel sick. Supposing, oh dear God!, supposing she was expecting Conrad’s child? Suddenly my insides felt as though they were being grilled on a slowly turning spit.

‘Oh damn!’ Lizzie held out her hand to catch a large raindrop. ‘It’s going to pelt. Where’s that Bear’s hideaway?’

‘Through that gap in the hedge.’

We ran. Lizzie tripped on a paving stone but luckily I caught her before any harm could befall Nils Nilsson III.

‘Where is it?’ asked Lizzie. ‘Oh, there. How pretty!’

I tugged at the door handle but it did not move. ‘It must be swollen with damp.’

We stood beneath the deep eaves of the roof, as the rain streamed from the thatch, inches from our faces. Soon my dress, the one Rafe had given me, was splashed with dark patches.

‘Damn!’ said Lizzie. ‘Our shoes will be ruined.’ She was wearing pretty silver sandals. ‘They were my first present from Nils.’

‘Perhaps if we gave the door a gentle kick,’ I suggested.

It was unyielding. I put my face close to the cobwebbed window and saw movement among the shadows. I rubbed a circle in the dusty surface of the glass. ‘There’s someone in there, lying on the sofa. I suppose they can’t hear us because of the noise of the rain.’

Lizzie peered in, cupping her hands round her face to cut out the light. ‘There are two of them and they seem to be tearing each other’s clothes off. A romantic place for a tryst, isn’t it! We ought not to look.’

She was right, of course, but I had glimpsed a face I recognized.

‘Isn’t that Isobel Preston?’ Lizzie, despite her better instincts, had remained with her nose pressed to the pane.

I felt guilty, but I could not tear my eyes from Isobel’s rapt expression as she turned her head about in a frenzy of pleasure. Her dress was round her waist, one breast was bare. She put up her hand to caress the neck of the man who lifted her knees and thrust his body forward to get inside her. He began to move with convulsive jerks, as though in a desperate hurry to reach the climax of lovemaking.

‘They’re going at it hammer and tongs!’ Lizzie whispered, trying to pull me away. ‘Let’s go, Marigold!’

I clung onto the sill. I had to see who the man was. I
had
to know. His head and body were in shadow but suddenly he turned his head, as though aware they were being watched. For a split second the world turned uniformly green and there was a strange roaring in my ears.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No,
no!
’ I jumped backwards, slipping on the wet stones in my haste. ‘Quick! We must get away from here!’

‘Wait for me!’ called Lizzie when we were halfway back to the house. ‘Don’t forget I’m running for two.’

I slowed to a walk. We had reached the part of garden where I had received my first gardening lesson. That was when I had belonged to the charmed inner circle. I fervently wished I could return to those days when my naivety had protected me from seeing the dreadful truth.

‘I don’t know why seeing other people screwing is faintly unpleasant,’ said Lizzie when she’d caught up. ‘We all know everybody does it. I’m the living proof.’

‘I’ve been such a fool! An absolute … bloody … idiot!’

‘Why? What’s the matter?’

The rain had slowed to a drip. I put my hands to my throbbing temples. ‘It never occurred to me … how could it … ?’

‘What do you mean? She’s engaged, isn’t she? Surely you didn’t think they were just holding hands?’

‘It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Conrad.’

‘Blimey! So she’s two-timing him before the ring’s even on her finger? Call me old-fashioned but I’d say that’s rather shabby.’

‘Oh, Lizzie! I don’t know! I begin to see … if ever there was love … oh, God! … what a mess!’

‘If you’re going to speak in riddles … Who was it if not the bloke she’s engaged to?’ She put her arm round me as I groaned. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m okay – no, I’m not, actually. I ought to have realized … My father, he tried to tell me—’

‘Your father! Crikey! I can imagine how you must feel … how horribly embarrassing to catch one’s parent in flagrante … and with one’s own girl friend … sick-making, almost incestuous. You’re right, it is a mess …’

A tall figure loomed. It was Nils. ‘Lizzie! You should not be outside in this storm.’ He gave me a reproachful look. ‘You must come in now and rest. I shall fetch you a glass of milk.’

Lizzie submitted to being petted by a large hand. ‘You are an old fusspot. I shall start to moo soon. All right, we’re coming.’

‘I’ll stay out for a bit,’ I said.

‘You look perfectly tragic, darling. You’ve had a nasty surprise. Why not come in and have something to buck you up?’

‘Honestly, I don’t think I could face a crowd just at the moment. I’ll be fine.’

Lizzie looked doubtful, but I reassured her and she allowed herself to be led away. I took off my shoes and, holding one in each hand, did what came instinctively to me when troubled. I ran past the Indian tent, past the rose garden, past the grotto and the fountain. I sprinted up to the house. The front door was open. I put my shoes, the black suede high-heeled ones I had bought with the silver fork money, inside for safe-keeping. No one saw me. The gravel of the turning circle was hell to run on and I was probably damaging my feet, but for once I didn’t care.