The Marrying Game (39 page)

‘Sorry,’ Rufa said. ‘This is silly of me. It’s nothing. Don’t take any notice.’

He was distressed to see her crying. He looked down
at
the shards and slivers of porcelain strewn across the floor. Bitter-smelling coffee grounds splattered the wooden cupboard doors. ‘Was it really valuable, or something?’

Rufa did her best to smile. ‘God, no – it was just the last straw.’

Tristan stood in the kitchen doorway, absurdly Rupert Brookeish and Bridesheadish, gazing at the dirty floor like a juvenile lead who has bounced in through the wrong set of French windows.

‘I know what this is about,’ he said gravely. ‘My mother’s been having a go at you.’

‘Oh, no –’ This was exactly the matter, and she could not make the denial sound anything but feeble.

‘And you’re exhausted, because you’ve been letting her treat you like a slave.’ He was indignant, which was comforting. They were not pretending any more.

Rufa leaned wearily against the counter. ‘I can’t not do things when she asks.’

‘Yes, you can,’ Tristan said energetically. ‘She should wear a sign round her neck: “Don’t obey me”. Like the diabetic dog at the pub you mustn’t feed.’

Rufa laughed properly for the first time since the arrival of Prudence. ‘I do find it difficult not to run round after her.’

‘My mother has her moments,’ Tristan said, ‘but I’m not blind to the blemishes in her character. I’ve begged her to stop being a bitch to you, but she pretends not to know what I mean. I think I’m supposed to be too young to understand what you’ve done.’

‘Done? Me?’

Tristan was matter-of-fact. ‘Well, you married Edward, didn’t you?’

‘Was that wrong?’

‘Terribly. He wasn’t meant to marry anyone. Let alone someone like you, with a sister on the cover of
Vogue
.’

‘Why did she come here, then?’

‘To get a good look at you,’ Tristan said. ‘To get a handle on you, so she can make snide remarks about you to Edward.’

The relief of calling things by their right names was immense. Rufa, almost without realizing, had started to relax. ‘Do you think that’s what she’s doing now?’

‘Probably.’

‘She’s wasting her time. Edward doesn’t understand hints.’ She blew her nose. ‘This is awful of me, to be talking like this. Criticizing your mother.’

Tristan grinned. ‘Feel free to criticize. You have to learn to ignore her. Think of this small strop as a kind of backhanded compliment.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Sit down. I’ll clear away the remains of the Golden Bowl.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t –’

‘Please, Rufa. I haven’t done a thing to help you. Let me show you I’m not totally useless.’ He came into the room, put a warm hand on her elbow and steered her to a chair. ‘I presume the cleaning stuff’s under the sink.’

He knelt, in his grass-stained white jeans, in front of the cupboard. Rufa mopped at her face, watching as he swept the pieces of the coffee pot into the dustpan, and moved the grounds about with a J-cloth. He left fragments and smears everywhere. The kitchen looked worse when he thought he had finished.

‘There you are.’ His face was flushed with the effort of banging ineffectually round her cupboards.

Rufa stood up. ‘Thanks, that’s terrific. Did you come in search of lunch just now?’

‘Well, yes. I’m sorry, but I’m ravenous.’

‘I’ll make something.’

‘No, please – how can I let you cook for me now?’

They both laughed and stared at each other curiously, as if they had only just been introduced.

He asked, ‘The pub does lunches, doesn’t it?’

Rufa said, ‘You seem to know quite a lot about the pub. I thought you were out taking long walks.’

‘It’s too hot. I have to get away from Mother, so I sit in the pub with a book.’

Now that the Chinese wall was down, Rufa could imagine herself in Tristan’s place. ‘You’ve been having a dreary time. I’m so sorry.’

‘Not at all.’ He was serious, eager. ‘Honestly, it’s wonderful here. I’ve done half my reading for next term.’ The colour deepened in his face. He looked away from her. ‘Would you let me take you out for lunch?’

Rufa smiled. ‘You’re very kind, but my sister used to work at that pub, and she told me what they put in the steak and kidney pies. The food’s much better here.’

‘OK, let’s stay here. Only I’ll make the lunch, and you can sit and watch.’ He looked into her eyes again. ‘On the understanding that comments are forbidden.’

His attempt to be masterful was unexpectedly endearing. Rufa said, ‘Well, if you really insist, there’s some very good ham in the fridge, and I picked—’

‘Shut up, I’m in charge now.’ Tristan turned away from her to open the large and vulgar new refrigerator Edward had installed for his bride. ‘All you have to do is
sit
down and make polite conversation. Or better still, very rude conversation. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of politeness.’

Rufa, beginning to enjoy herself, sat down and surrendered herself to the lazy pleasure of watching him. She did not care what she ate. It was lovely to feel delicate and cherished, after all Prudence’s admiring remarks about her capacity for drudgery.

‘It’s not politeness,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of hiding what I really feel.’

He looked over his shoulder. ‘What’s that? Don’t be afraid of telling me.’

It was easy to talk to him. Somehow, he made Rufa aware that he was on her side. But he was the son of Prudence, and it was wise to be tactful. ‘I suppose I’m tired of pretending to be part of an old married couple, when I haven’t even been married two months. I still feel rather like a visitor here. I get rather tense.’

Tristan grabbed a bottle of champagne. ‘This should help.’

‘Oh, not for me, thanks.’

‘Why not? It’s high summer, it’s boiling hot and neither of us have a thing to do.’ He opened the bottle and poured two glasses.

Rufa, taking hers, felt she ought to say, ‘I have to think about dinner.’

‘Let them eat salad.’

‘It wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’ She sipped her champagne. Its delicious coldness spiked her bloodstream. ‘Edward only ever seems interested in baked potatoes, and your mother barely eats at all.’

‘Now I feel guilty, because I eat you out of house and home.’

‘Nonsense. You’re very rewarding to cook for.’ As she said it, Rufa recognized that this was true. She would have been far more demoralized if Tristan had not hoovered up the exquisite terrines and timbales his mother barely touched.

He was making sandwiches with huge slabs of crusty white bread, hard chips of cold butter, thick slices of farm-cured ham and lumps of fresh tomato. His sandwiches were like Nancy’s – vast and unwieldy, oozing good things. Rufa had never been able to match their hearty prodigality. She often thought it took an amateur to make a truly satisfying doorstep sandwich.

‘Let’s eat outside,’ Tristan said. He put the sandwiches on a large pottery plate Rufa had found in Siena, and took a colander of washed white grapes from the draining board. Rufa had bought these for Prudence, who liked to have the better class of food around, even if she did not eat it. Suddenly enchanted by the idea of a picnic, Rufa took the champagne, their glasses and the remains of a very successful
tarte tatin
.

There was a large oak tree on the sloping ground behind the house. Tristan had been reading out here this morning. A rug was spread on the baked earth. A copy of John Clare’s ‘Midsummer Cushion’ lay face down where he had flung it. Rufa picked up the book. ‘Is this your work?’

‘Sort of.’ Tristan was shy. She sensed he would have liked to talk about it, but was cautious. ‘It suits the weather, and being out in the country. And –’ He was unwilling to go on.

Rufa handed him his glass, and settled against the trunk of the tree. She could tilt her face upwards and see the boughs arching and interlacing against the hot blue
sky
. They were in a tent of leaves. Daubs of sunlight shifted around them. One lay upon Tristan’s forehead, heating his hair to gold. They ate his huge sandwiches in a haze of contentment, laughing softly when pieces of tomato dropped out into their laps.

Tristan refilled their glasses. The champagne was turning warm, its bubbles lazily deflating. Rufa, stuffed and sleepy, could not manage any of the
tarte tatin
. Tristan ate it, then tore off a handful of grapes. He lay sprawled on his side, propped on one elbow, gazing at Rufa. They were very still. The only sound, in the great stillness around them, was of distant hammering across the valley. A bee droned clumsily between them.

Rufa sighed luxuriously. ‘This is bliss.’

‘You should do this more often,’ Tristan said.

‘I’m bad at doing nothing.’

‘This isn’t nothing. You’re having lunch with me.’ His voice dropped to a confessional murmur. ‘Talking to me. Letting me talk to you, without treating you as if you were as old as my mother.’

‘It makes me feel guilty,’ Rufa said. ‘I get twitchy if I’m not doing something practical, that has a tangible result. I have to see that I’ve made a difference.’

‘That’s only the outside. It’s just as important to pay attention to the inside of yourself.’ He reddened, forcing the words out. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t like poetry, because I won’t believe you. You couldn’t look like that and – and not have a soul to match.’

Rufa opened her drowsy eyes properly. Tristan stared, impressed by his own boldness, wary of her response. He was so lovely, she thought her heart would break. Tentatively, he reached across to touch her hand, which was lying in her lap. As his warm flesh met hers,

Rufa felt a tautening at the pit of her stomach and languid heat between her legs.

She twitched her hand away smartly, wondering why she was not angry, or afraid.

Chapter Three

TWO DAYS AFTER
the departure of Prudence, Edward abruptly told Rufa he was leaving. For a splinter of a second, her undisciplined mind – which was veering off down all kinds of crazy paths these days – was gripped by terror, and various phantoms threatened to burst out of the door marked Denial.

Then she realized he was not talking about running off with his Camilla Parker-Bowles. He was only explaining that he had to go away for a few weeks, perhaps a month. He had been summoned to The Hague, to give evidence to the judges of the War Crimes Tribunal. This was the business that had been grating at him for most of the year, and Rufa felt vaguely guilty for not treating it more seriously.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s a nuisance, but I’m sure you see I can’t even try to get out of it.’

‘No, of course not.’

They were driving over to Melismate. Edward liked to discuss difficult subjects in the car, where they could not be complicated by eye contact.

He was frowning at the road. ‘Ask me about it, then.’

‘You don’t have to go into detail,’ Rufa said mildly. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything.’ Before he sprang this on her she had been gazing out of the window at the
cow
parsley and late poppies, thinking about something quite different.

‘It’s ridiculous of me to be secretive,’ he said. ‘But the full story is very long and very complicated – and connected with all sorts of other stuff I don’t like to dwell on.’

‘Other stuff?’ Rufa echoed dutifully. She resigned herself to listening, when her whole being was in rebellion against the lurking unpleasantness beneath the surface of everything.

‘My reasons for leaving the army. The questions I had to ask myself about the morality of what I was doing.’

‘Oh.’

It was a limp response, but Edward was too intent on the effort of opening out to notice. ‘Basically, I’m to be a witness at the trial of a Serbian gangster with an unpronounceable name, who has finally been fingered for God knows how many murders. As many as they can pin on him, I suppose. It would certainly give me deep satisfaction to see the little shit behind bars.’

Rufa asked, ‘How well did you know him?’

‘I’ve never laid eyes on the man,’ Edward said, with a harsh laugh. ‘I’ve only seen his handiwork. Do you remember when I told you about serving with the UN force?’ He did not expect an answer here. ‘Someone took me and five Dutch officers to a mass grave. We met two women who claimed to have witnessed the massacre.’ His voice was dry and dismissive: a sign of deep feeling.

She said, ‘Oh God,’ hoping he would not tell her too much, and uncover the things she could not bear to face. Lately, she was finding it hard to ignore them. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had started galloping across her dreams. Edward knew she had been having
nightmares
– though she had fiercely resisted all his attempts to talk about them.

‘They’d excavated the grave by the time we got there,’ he said, ‘like an archaeological find. The bodies lay at the bottom in a pathetic tangle.’

Faintly, Rufa asked, ‘How many?’

‘Forty-nine. We counted, of course. Forty-nine Croatian Muslims – so we were told – rounded up and shot in the name of ethnic cleansing. They looked just like the pictures you see in the papers. Bones, with enough rags of cloth and flesh to look personal.’ He slowed the car briefly, to let a tractor turn into a gate. ‘Unfortunately, the grave was destroyed during the NATO bombing, and nobody seems to know the whereabouts of the women who spoke to us – the chaos there is beyond belief. So that leaves the report we filed at the time.’