Scandalous Risks (26 page)

VIII

I was literally shaking with rage. Collapsing on the sofa in my beautiful flat, the first home I had ever had of my very own, I stared in the dim light, which I found so restful, at my glorious posters of Elvis celebrating the joy of life. The posters, offset by the rich, Cornish-cream shade of the walls, looked stunningly vivid, an inspired stroke of off-beat interior decoration. The threadbare brown carpet, so arrestingly different from all the priceless rugs I had had to endure in my parents’ houses, blended perfectly with the Cornish-cream paint and the flowery, yellow-green pattern of the curtains. My record-player sat snugly in a corner. My current selection of books, ranging from
Honest to God
to
Lady Chatterley
’
s Lover,
stood proudly on a shelf. There was not a plant in sight. The room was MINE, and I loved it fiercely.

I spent some time wishing that Dido would fall under a bus in Mitre Street, but eventually my rage was superseded by fright. That drip Maurice Tait! I might have known he’d go bleating to Dido that he’d seen me loitering with Aysgarth on Lady Mary. But on the other hand, why shouldn’t I loiter occasionally with Aysgarth after evensong? Considering my long acquaintance with him, most people would judge my behaviour unremarkable, and surely Dido couldn’t be thinking ... But God alone knew what Dido thought. And when a woman was as neurotic as she was, what did her thoughts matter anyway?

But the more I recalled her words, the more uneasy I became. That reference to Harriet March had been unwelcome. And did Dido really post her husband’s letters to a variety of youthful lady-friends? That sounded like fantasy – or perhaps a memory of the days when Aysgarth had occasionally penned a line to members of Primrose’s ‘Gang’, now defunct. Aysgarth had told me plainly that he loved me too much to look at anyone else. So why was I experiencing these twinges of anxiety? Of course Harriet March was a woman of exceptional charm and glamour, but my Mr Dean only had one day off a week and the vital afternoon away from home was spent with me. That was undeniable. I supposed he was in correspondence with her about the sculpture, but nonetheless I was sure no letter to her ever began ‘My darling’. So much for Harriet March.

I relaxed but I felt worn out. I had had no idea jealousy could be so exhausting. ‘Possessiveness is the mark of an inferior nature,’ Dido had said, but that statement was soaked in irony because she herself was possessiveness personified. I thought of the ghastly scene she had staged before Aysgarth had departed for the Hebrides, and suddenly, before I could stop myself, I was feeling uneasy again. Surely when a woman was as possessive as Dido she would want to possess the object of her adoration? But if she was frightened of conceiving ... if she was neurotic enough to have what Dinkie called ‘hang-ups’ ... No, sexual intercourse was out of the question and I had been mad to allow myself to be tormented by doubt again.

Concluding that her appalling visit had made me thoroughly overwrought, I pulled myself together and headed for the South Canonry to resume my typing.

IX

I decided not to describe Dido’s visit in detail when I wrote to Aysgarth, but I did mention that she had called as the result of Tait’s betrayal. Aysgarth was unperturbed; he wrote back that there was no need to worry about Taies gaffe since Dido had not thought the episode in the least suspicious and was indeed genuinely remorseful that she had not invited me to dinner earlier. I doubted the remorse but was glad to be reminded that Dido often did have good intentions. I even saw that she had probably descended on my flat with no prior intention to reduce me to pulp and might even have thought she was doing me a favour by reminding me that I was nearer thirty than twenty. Dido’s devotion to what she was pleased to describe as her ‘candour’ arose from the belief that one had a moral duty to help others towards self-improvement by pointing out their faults and mistakes. It was quite possible that in making her criticisms she had had only my welfare in mind.

Usually I managed to avoid mentioning Dido when I replied to Aysgarth’s letters which soon began to arrive every day. Our correspondence ranged over a broad number of subjects —literature, art, current events, television, Church gossip — but before long I realised that what he enjoyed most was telling me about his work. It seemed to be a relief to him to complain not only about the bickering in Chapter but about the many minor crises which occurred regularly among the community of over a hundred people who worked at the Cathedral. When it dawned on me that he was very much alone, poised at the top of the Cathedral’s organisational pyramid, I had a fresh insight into Eddie’s role in his life. In the absence of a friendly relationship with the Bishop, Aysgarth relied heavily for support on the one Cathedral executive whom he could trust to be loyal under any circumstances.

‘At least I can always rely on Eddie never to stab me in the back,’ Aysgarth wrote, ‘but nevertheless I feel I can never fully confide in him — and this isn’t just because we’ve always had a relationship in which he pours out his troubles and I do the listening. It’s because I feel that with men I have to "put up a front" — show no weakness, be tough, appear successful at all times. That’s the result of my upbringing, when I was browbeaten into "getting on" in the world, and attitudes acquired in childhood are sometimes not so easy to slough off in later life. Bearing this idiosyncrasy of mine in mind you’ll be able to understand why it’s such a luxury for me to have a female confidante; I can relax at last, stop "putting up a front", be myself — my
new self —
THE NEW NEVILLE! Darling, I can’t tell you what a psychological liberation I experience not only when I see you but when I pick up the pen to write you a letter ...’

I was just wishing yet again that Aysgarth’s liberation would be less psychological and more physical when I received a communication from Eddie, the first I had received since his pathetic note apologising for his behaviour on the Cathedral roof. Having written a one-line reply to suggest that we treated the fiasco as if it had never happened, I had not expected to hear from him again, and I unfolded his new letter with considerable reluctance.

‘Dear Venetia,’ I read, ‘I hope you didn’t tear this up as soon as you saw my writing on the envelope. Let me say straight away that I won’t refer to the episode on the cathedral roof again, but I wonder nevertheless if something of value might yet be salvaged from the débâcle. Stephen is always adamant in insisting that love should never be just chucked in the nearest wastepaper basket and forgotten, so perhaps my love could eventually be recycled in a more acceptable form. Certainly it’s purely in the spirit of Platonic friendship that I write to remind you that Martin Darrow will be appearing soon in Coward’s
Present Laughter at
the Starbridge Playhouse as part of a trial run in the provinces before the show opens in the West End. If you’d still like to see him, then I’d still like to take you. No fuss, no mess, I promise. Think it over. Yours, E D D I E.’

Feeling faintly nauseated I tossed off a note which read: ‘Dear Eddie: Better not. It’s a bit early yet, I think, to talk in terms Of Platonic friendship.’ I gritted my teeth before forcing myself to add: ‘But maybe one day. Yours, V E N E T I A.’

Then I began to prepare for my next expedition to Starbury Plain with the Dean.

X

It was a wet afternoon so once again we failed to reach the Ring. We sat in the car and smoked and gossiped and laughed while he squeezed my hand in a dozen different ways amidst countless sultry looks and frequent observations about how wonderful I was. How I stopped myself plastering him with kisses I shall never know, but I had made up my mind that the affair should proceed at his own pace. My brush with his thigh last week had only upset him, and besides, never having been romantically involved with anyone before, I was in fact reluctant to take the lead in making advances; the thigh-brush had merely resulted from a mindless spontaneity. So although I was longing for a passionate kiss I endured without complaint the agonising frustration generated by the hand-squeezing, and told myself sternly that deep moral convictions in a clergyman could never be rapidly overcome.

I eventually received another peck on the cheek when we parted. Making an enormous effort I convinced myself I admired him more than ever for his devotion to the high ideals implicit in Robinson’s New Morality, and made a new resolution to be patient.

XI

Three days later I went to dinner at the Deanery.

When I arrived I found to my dismay that I had been included in one of Dido’s notorious ‘little dinner-parties for sixteen’, evenings of social carnage during which she threw together some ill-assorted guests, mixed them ruthlessly with her family and interrupted every conversation until everyone was either silenced or outraged. On that evening little Pip escaped the lethal frivolities; he was considered young enough to have an early supper and listen in tranquil bliss to Radio Luxemburg, but Dido’s daughter Elizabeth was present, flexing her intellect and competing not unsuccessfully with her half-sister Primrose as the female brain-box of the family. But Elizabeth, even at fourteen, was far sexier than Primrose and batted her eyelashes precociously at some sixteen-year-old male infant who had been roped in to keep her amused.

The other guests consisted entirely of residents of the Close, the boring ones who enjoyed reading the obituaries in
The
Times
and discussing who had just had a stroke. Evidently Dido was swiping a bunch of unwanted people off her party-list in one fell swoop. None of Aysgarth’s sons by his first marriage was present, and there was no sign of Perry, who had obviously had the brains to elude Dido’s attempt to kidnap him. the nadir of the dinner arrived when I caught the attention of a retired general who kept squeezing my knee under the table until I managed to tread on his toe. His wife said with mild interest: ‘Is your gout troubling you again, dear?’ as he turned purple and yelped with rage.

At the head of the table Aysgarth, looking serene, caressed his glass of claret but drank little. I never once caught him looking in my direction.

In the drawing-room after the meal he did manage to say to me pleasantly: ‘And how’s your new flat, Venetia?’ but before I could tell him what he already knew the witch descended on her broomstick, slipped her arm through his and declared: ‘Venetia’s looking a trifle wan, don’t you think, Stephen? But then working for the Bishop must be so exhausting — which reminds me, do tell Stephen, Venetia, what the Bishop’s putting in his book because it’s certain to be something about sex — we all know dear Charles can’t think of anything else — and Stephen always adores it, don’t you, my love, when the Bishop is simply too puritanical to be true.’

‘Do I?’ said Aysgarth vaguely, but he was smiling at her, his bright eyes crinkling at the corners, and she was leaning hard enough against him to ensure he slipped an arm around her waist to prop her up.

‘Darling Stephen!’ exclaimed Dido as I glanced at the ceiling, the fireplace, the door, the windows — at any object except her adoring dark eyes. ‘Always so wonderfully discreet!’

I managed to say: ‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment ...’ Then I escaped, dived into the cloakroom and collapsed shuddering on the lavatory seat. Some time passed. Eventually I dragged myself back to the fray. Aysgarth had his arm around his daughter Elizabeth by this time and was talking to a couple so old I felt they ought to be dead. Meanwhile Primrose was chatting about the Girl Guides to some battle-axe whose sex was denoted only by a long skirt, and Dido was still swooping around on her invisible broomstick. As I re-entered the room I saw with dread that I had once again caught her attention.

‘Venetia —’ I braced myself for another pulverising assault

‘— I’m so sorry I couldn’t lure Perry here tonight but he was going sailing with a crowd of friends — did you know Perry kept a boat at Bosham? — and although he swore he was devastated to miss you, he couldn’t alter his plans.’

‘That’s all right, Mrs Aysgarth. I can live without Perry.’

‘Then who’s the one you can’t live without? I’m sure we’re all agog to know! Christian said —’

‘Christian got it wrong. There’s no one in my life at present except God.’

‘
God?
’

‘
Uh-huh. You told me to find Him. So I did.’

‘You mean you’ve had a religious conversion?’

‘Thanks to you, yes. I’ve just read Bishop Robinson’s book.’

‘Oh?’ said Dido, and added in a not unfriendly voice: ‘What did you think of it?’

‘I was terribly impressed. It’s wonderful to find a bishop who speaks for our day and age.’

‘I think it’s a load of codswallop,’ said Dido, ‘and I don’t think he speaks for our day and age at all. How can anyone think that’s a relevant book for modern man when the author never mentions what kind of world modem man has to live in? He spends enough time quoting Bonhoeffer and Tillich, but he never mentions that Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis and Tillich was driven into exile. What does he have to tell us about sin and evil? Damn all! It’s all airy-fairy liberal optimism about how God’s really down here on earth, but Robinson, it seems, is firmly wedged up there in the clouds! Darling Stephen — who of course is quite the most romantic idealist who ever lived — may choose to fall in love with
Honest to God,
but that’s only because he’s so high-minded that he’d stagger through a sewer and still manage to keep his eyes on the stars.’ As if allowing me time to digest this Wildean metaphor she turned aside to survey the progress of the party and bawled in a stage-whisper to her step-daughter: ‘Primrose, do pass round the cigarettes!’

‘Mrs Aysgarth,’ I said, unable to help wondering where she had picked up this withering critique of Bishop Robinson, ‘have you actually read
Honest to God?
’

‘
My dear, at a sitting! Doesn’t everyone? I always like to keep up with Stephen’s interests so that I can discuss them intelligently with him, and no matter how busy we are during the day, we always make time to meet at night for a cosy chat
à deux.
He comes to my bedroom and — Primrose dear!
Primrose!
My God, there’s none so deaf as those that refuse to hear — excuse me a moment, Venetia.’

I looked wildly around for any object which might have contained alcohol but saw only coffee-pots.

‘And as I was saying,’ said Dido, swooping back after a mini-slanging match with Primrose who had refused to pass around the cigarettes, ‘Stephen comes to my room every night and we talk about everything — really, I always feel so sorry for couples who say they can’t communicate with each other because I’m convinced that communication is the secret of a really successful marriage — and having been married successfully for eighteen years I should know what I’m talking about. Indeed I honestly feel that where Stephen’s concerned I’m practically psychic, but I suppose that’s what happens when you know someone through and through — and God knows, no one knows Stephen as well as I do — except possibly Jon Darrow, but unfortunately he’s senile now and sees no one, poor old man. Well, my dear, my duty as a hostess calls and I must run off and ask the General about his gout — but do help yourself to something from the decanters over there behind the Admiral. Perhaps a little Rémy Martin might be appropriate? Brandy’s always so useful if one’s feeling as peaky as one looks.’

She swooped away.

I drank two triple brandies. Then having made my escape I drove erratically back to my flat and lay awake in torment until dawn.