The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary

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      Underneath her she saw Tim looking at her expressionlessly. His face was close to hers, only part of it visible: his one eye was like a dark marble, telling her nothing. She lifted herself from him, put her hand over the phone.

      ‘Mother wants us to throw a house-warming party.’

      He shrugged, his shoulder rubbing against her stomach. ‘Why not? We haven’t played host to anyone since we got here.’

      She sat up, turned her back on him. ‘All right, Mother. We’ll have a party. Just one thing, though – I want to plan it all on my own.’

      There was silence at the other end of the line. At last, with a sigh that was a plain reproof: ‘Of course, darling. But if you need any help – ’

      7

      ‘I hate to admit it,’ said the railroad president, ‘but there have been worse Presidents than Harry Truman.’

      ‘In some banana republic,’ said the banker. ‘Not in this country.’

      ‘I believe in the work ethic,’ said the banker’s wife. ‘I don’t know what the workers would do without it.’

      ‘Women’s rights?’ said the retired general. ‘If they’d been important they’d have been discussed at Potsdam. Right, Ethel?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said his wife. ‘Permission to stand easy now?’

      Nina moved through the froth of party talk, feeling a pride that was new to her: hostess in her own home. The party was already a success, an instant house-warming; Nina took smug secret pride in the knowledge that it had been due solely to her own efforts. She had chosen the caterers, showing her independence by ignoring her mother’s usual choice; she had made out the guest list, splitting it between her parents’ friends and her own. It had disturbed her that she had created an awkward moment by asking Tim if there was anyone he would like to invite.

      ‘Only Bumper Cassidy. But I don’t think he’d fit in. He’s my sidekick down at the yards.’

      ‘Darling, invite him!’

      He had shaken his head. ‘He would only feel out of place and so would his wife. She’s a waitress in a joint on 12th Street.’

      ‘My, how you get around when I’m not with you. Sidekick. Joint on 12th Street. You’re becoming more American every day.’

      ‘Tell your father. It’ll make his year.’

      She approached her father now, sliding into his arm as he crooked it out for her. ‘Nina, it’s the best party I’ve been to in years. Where’d you get that band?’

      ‘George was my talent scout. I got them specially for you.’

      ‘Great. I haven’t heard music like that since I was a young man and used to go to the Old Kentucky Barbecue down on the Paseo. How much are you paying them?’

      ‘That’s my business.’

      ‘Don’t spoil them. I can remember when you could get Hot Lips Page for three dollars a night. Where’s Tim?’

      ‘Out on the veranda dancing with Sally.’

      Tim had already danced with Miss Stafford, Edith’s secretary, a plump plain woman who was a snob but likeable and who thought Tim was a real-life version of Ronald Coleman. She lived in the past and Tim played up to her with a courtliness that made her laugh but didn’t offend her by mocking her. She was only one of his conquests among all the women, family and staff, on the Beaufort estate.

      Now he was charming Sally who, at her first adult party, was in seventh heaven and Tim’s arms, floating inches above the floor. ‘You dance like Ginger Rogers. Or a ballerina. Why don’t you become a dancer?’

      ‘I hate indoors. You know what my ambition is? To win the Indy 500.’

      ‘Sally my love, don’t be a racing driver. Stay feminine.’

      ‘I’m not a lesbian, if that’s what you’re thinking – ’

      My God, what happened to the innocent girls of my youth? ‘Nothing was further from my mind. I don’t think they allow lesbians into the pits at Indianapolis.’

      Sally shrieked, clutching him. ‘Oh Tim, I adore you! Divorce Nina and marry me!’

      ‘A child bride – just what I’ve always wanted. But don’t they hang a man for that here in Missouri?’

      ‘Daddy would fix that.’

      ‘Just the man I’d ask. Can I tear myself away now and dance with Meg?’

      ‘Oh God, her. Look at her – all those boys hanging around – ’

      ‘You’ll be like that yourself some day.’

      ‘Oh God.’

      Tim left her, moved across to Margaret and took her away from the six boys hanging around. ‘Thanks for rescuing me. Boys that age are so gauche. I think I like older men.’

      ‘We have our uses. Would you mind backing off a little? Your sister, my wife, is watching us.’

      She blushed and was embarrassed, proving she was still only seventeen going on eighteen. ‘Oh God. That’s the way boys expect you to dance.’

      ‘The gauche ones. Some older men, too. But not this one, not in front of his wife.’ They danced sedately for a while, Jane Austen set to A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Then he said, ‘Let’s head down towards your mother.’

      ‘Are you working your way through the Beaufort women tonight?’

      ‘All of them. I have a date with Prue at midnight in her room.’

      ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s man-mad. At six.’

      Smoothly as a gigolo he left Margaret and took Edith in his arms. They moved back down the veranda to There Goes That Song Again, which someone had requested and which the band was playing as if they had been insulted.

      ‘Tim, we don’t seem to talk to each other very much these days.’

      ‘I’m so busy being a bread-winner, husband and father, I don’t have time for other women. But let me know when Lucas is out of town and I’ll pop over.’

      Edith didn’t respond to flirting. ‘Were you a philanderer before you met Nina? You have a way with women.’

      ‘Would you expect me to admit it if I had been?’

      ‘Unhappy men sometimes do stray, just as a diversion.’

      ‘What makes you think I’m unhappy?’

      ‘Oh, I don’t mean you and Nina. That part is happy СКАЧАТЬ