Moonshine. Victoria Clayton

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СКАЧАТЬ this is Fleur,’ said Burgo. ‘My sister.’

      ‘Hello.’ Fleur gave me her hand. It was slightly sticky. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. I’ve been drenching a colt. He’s got worms.’

      Fleur was small and slender. Her hair was brown, her face soft and round like a child’s. Her eyes slanted up at the outer corners, like his, and had the same dark brilliance, but hers were vague and dreamy.

      ‘Where is everybody? I thought we’d be the last to arrive.’ Burgo poured a glass of champagne for his sister. She held the stem of the glass in a childish fist.

      ‘They’ve all come. Dickie took them out to see the Temple to Hygeia.’

      ‘Dickie’s in the process of repairing an old folly,’ Burgo said to me. ‘Dedicated to the goddess of health and cleanliness. I’m going to change.’

      Before I could ask: Why cleanliness? he had gone. There were noises in the hall and then people in evening dress came into the drawing room. I felt a little shy, not only because they were all unknown to me but also because I was certain they must wonder what I was doing there. But my diffidence was as nothing to my hostess’s. She frowned, licked a finger and began to scrub at a mark on the skirt of her beaded dress.

      ‘You must be Roberta.’ A man with grizzled, receding hair shook my hand. He leaned upon a stick. ‘I’m Dickie. Charmed to see you. Any friend of Burgo’s … Can I give you a top-up?’ I accepted his offer of more champagne. ‘So nice of you to make up the numbers at the last minute,’ he continued. ‘It isn’t everyone one can ask; Homo sapiens is a sensitive, thin-skinned creature.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said. Then, feeling my reply to be inadequate, I added, ‘It certainly is!’

      ‘Glad you agree with me!’ The expression in his eyes above his half-moon spectacles was cordial. ‘I must quickly do the rounds with the booze. Fleur darling, look after Roberta. Catch up with you later.’

      He limped away. I watched him talking to his friends. He was affable, gave a pat on the arm here, a peck on the cheek there, his pinkish face suffused with pleasure. Fleur abandoned the scrubbing of her dress but kept her eyes on the carpet, her mouth unsmiling.

      ‘Do tell me about your colt.’ I had once been the proud possessor of a piebald with a large head and short legs and had been to enough gymkhanas and pony-club dances to be able to maintain a horsy conversation without making an idiot of myself.

      Fleur’s beautiful eyes met mine with sudden enthusiasm. ‘He’s nearly three and absolute heaven. Bright chestnut with white socks and a blaze. I’ve called him Kumara. It’s the name of a Hindu god. He’s got the most perfect action …’

      While Fleur talked, the words coming quickly in a way that was already familiar to me, I speculated about what seemed a striking mismatch. What attractions, apart from a genial manner, had a man like Dickie for a lovely girl at least twenty years younger? He had a wonderful house and appeared to be well heeled, but Fleur did not seem the mercenary type.

      ‘And I’ve already lunged him twice …’

      There was something endearing about the grubby fingernails and a definite tidemark round the neck, half-hidden by the expensive dress.

      ‘I’ve had a good offer for Kumara but nothing would persuade me to part with him. I love him best in all the world – after Burgo, naturally. But you can’t equate people and animals, can you? I mean, Kumara looks to me for everything. I know that sounds rather sad and selfish, having to be important to something. But Burgo doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need anyone. That doesn’t stop me loving him but it makes it rather one-sided.’

      I looked across the room at Dickie, who was roaring with laughter at something he had just been told. He threw back his head and leaned more heavily on his stick to balance himself.

      ‘Children need you, I suppose for the first few years, anyway,’ I said.

      Fleur’s expression changed. Her fine brows drew together and she flushed. ‘Probably they do.’ She grew silent.

      Obviously I had put my foot in it. I wondered what the trouble was? Perhaps Dickie was too much of an invalid to … I cast about for a change of subject. ‘What sort of dogs do you have?’

      ‘I’ve got three. Looby, a black Labrador, Lancelot who’s a red setter and King Henry. He’s a stray, a mixture of Alsatian and poodle, I think.’

      Fleur told me the provenance of each dog, their likes and dislikes and particular charms. It ought to have been excruciatingly dull but actually I enjoyed Fleur’s artless confiding style. It was like being with an old friend with whom no pretence is necessary.

      ‘Darling, you haven’t said a word to Benedict and you know how hurt he gets if you neglect him.’ Dickie had his free hand on his wife’s bare arm, caressing it discreetly with his thumb. ‘Besides, I’m looking forward to talking to Roberta.’

      ‘I don’t think Benedict likes me at all. And I certainly don’t like him.’

      ‘Sweetie, he’s crazy about you. Do your duty, there’s a good girl.’

      As she slouched off like a rebellious teenager Dickie gazed after her, love transforming his plain features into something pleasant to see. Then he turned back to me, smiling. ‘I was watching you two. Fleur really likes you. She’s no good at hiding her feelings, you know.’

      ‘She’s charming,’ I said, meaning to please but meaning it, too.

      Dickie lifted his upper lip and grinned like a dog. ‘Isn’t she wonderful? The first time I set eyes on her was at a garden party. Burgo was the guest of honour. It was in aid of somebody starving somewhere. It was hot and stuffy and the people were awfully stuffy too. Fleur was standing alone in the shade of a weeping willow. She took off her hat and shook out her hair. There was a band playing. One of those musicals. Te-tum, te-tum, te-tum.’ Dickie hummed something unrecognizable. ‘She started to dance, with her eyes closed, as though she was imagining herself far away. I said to myself, that’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ Dickie’s face as he told me this story had become patchy with emotion. ‘But I had to wait four years before she’d have me. She was only eighteen then and naturally she had other things on her mind besides marriage. And I was already a silly old buffer. I’m fifty this year – nearly thirty years older.’

      I tried to look surprised.

      ‘Yes, it’s not so much May and September, more like February and November.’

      I put a note of polite contradiction into my laugh.

      ‘Actually …’ He pulled a face. ‘I bribed her into marrying me. I said she could have Stargazer as a wedding present. A horse, you know.’ Dickie smiled, then looked solemn. ‘People might think that was an ignoble thing to do: an older man taking advantage of youth and all that; but I knew I could look after her, d’you see? Her parents were dead and she only had Burgo to take care of her. He did his best – there’s no better fellow – but he’s a busy chap. I was in the fortunate position of inheriting money. My family were in soap. “You’ll always love bath-night when you use Dreamlite,”’ he sang, revealing a glimpse of pink plastic dental plate.

      I remembered the commercial, one of the first television advertisement campaigns, featuring СКАЧАТЬ