Chapter 26 #2
‘I’ll go up there this afternoon.’ There was a sparkle in Diana’s eye she hadn’t seen for a long time.
‘Good,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Now, there is one other thing.’
‘What?’
‘This kitchen.’ She looked around her. ‘Honestly, darling, there are no words. It’s disgusting. It’s like Cold Comfort Farm.’
‘Cheek!’
‘I didn’t bring you up to live like this. And once you’ve sorted it out, I guarantee you’ll feel better. Anyone would feel down in the dumps coming down to this every morning.’ She might be pushing it, but there was no point in mincing her words.
Diana looked thunderous, and for a moment she thought she might have gone too far. Then Diana started laughing.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s a pigsty.’
‘Come on,’ Elizabeth jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll give you a hand. We’ll have it ship-shape in no time. Then you can get changed and go and see your father.’
It took them all morning. The clutter on the surfaces was restored to its rightful place, the washing-up done, the floor mopped, the windows cleaned and the cooker scrubbed.
When Rory came in for his lunch, he did a double-take to see Elizabeth arranging a vase of late chrysanthemums and placing them in the middle of a fresh tablecloth.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘A new broom.’ His mother-in-law smiled.
Rory beamed his gentle approval, then did another double take as Diana swept into the room with her hair freshly washed, wearing a skirt and cardigan and high heels. He hadn’t seen her in a skirt for years.
‘It’s not Christmas already, is it?’ he asked, and Diana gave him a fond cuff around the head.
He carried on looking around in amazement.
‘Oi. Where’s my Ritchey nipper?’ he demanded, looking at the empty table.
‘On the shelf in the lean-to.’
‘I don’t want to know what that is, do I?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘You do not,’ chorused Rory and Diana. Diana did a snipping motion with her fingers near Rory’s flies, and Rory winced.
Laughter rang around the kitchen walls. Elizabeth smiled. Being a working farm, this kitchen was never going to have the finesse of the one at Foxwood, but it was already lighter and brighter, as was the atmosphere. A good morning’s work, she thought.
Elizabeth got back to Foxwood to find that the invitations to the Snow Ball had arrived from the printer.
They looked stunning, Edwin’s artwork on the front and the details on the back, on thick white card with a gold edge.
She spent the afternoon at her desk, addressing all the envelopes.
They were all done, in a neat, towering pile.
There was just enough time to take them to the post office before it closed.
She was heading into the hall for her coat when the telephone rang. She nearly ignored it for she might miss the post, but you never knew who it might be. Hopefully someone with an offer of more beds. She picked up the receiver.
‘Breverton six four two.’
‘Elizabeth.’ His voice trickled like honey down the line.
Jasper. She curled her fingers round the telephone cord.
‘What are you phoning for? You’re not supposed to phone.’
‘I’ve got something important to tell you.’
‘It had better be life and death.’
‘It is. I’ve made a decision. You can’t resist torturing me, so I’m doomed to a life of on/off, on/off, which is unfair. Unless you leave Michael, which you won’t, will you?’
He paused long enough for her to know he was giving her one last chance. She sighed. She had been very clear it was over for good at their last meeting, but she didn’t blame him for trying. It had been intense.
‘No,’ she said, for there was no point in giving him false hope.
‘I thought not.’ His voice only wavered slightly.
Although Jasper seemed rather hard and a bit superficial, she knew he wasn’t, for she’d seen his emotions unwrapped, in bed, and during his eulogy to Edwin, and his wedding speech.
He felt so deeply he had to cover it up with his playboy persona.
And although he pretended not to mind when she kept her distance, he needed to know he was irresistible. ‘I’m moving to Paris.’
‘What?’ This was an unexpected development.
‘It’s the perfect place for me. Art. Women. Sex in the afternoon. All that food and that delicious froideur. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.’
She could see him there, trailing along the streets of St Germain, a life of bohemian decadence peppered with artists and writers and singers and …
Her? She imagined them in a ritzy hotel, sipping champagne.
Stop it.
‘That’s an excellent idea.’ Her voice was crisp. If he went to Paris, she couldn’t ever be tempted to pick up the phone and arrange a rendezvous. ‘When are you off?’ She realised she sounded rather abrupt.
‘Not until Christmas. I need a chance to say goodbye to everyone.’
Was he hinting at some sort of farewell meet-up? That was a bad idea. And for the first time since they’d embarked upon their affair, Elizabeth’s mind didn’t jump to how she could manufacture a meeting.
‘Well. Bon voyage, I suppose.’ She gave a small laugh, impressed by her own composure. A few months ago, she would have fallen apart at the thought of him going away for a mere fortnight.
‘Thank you. I think.’ He sounded a little bit hurt. Jasper was vain. He would have been expecting histrionics. She relented.
‘Thank you. You were a good thing for me, Jasper. Well, a bad thing but a good thing, if that makes sense.’
‘That’s me. A mass of contradictions.’
‘The French women will love you.’
‘I do hope so.’
She could see him in her mind’s eye, lounging on his sofa with a drink at his elbow, his silk shirt unbuttoned, his hair tousled. Paris would suit him. Late nights, even later mornings, bitter coffee, long lunches –
‘Send me a present, would you? Something terribly chic to remind me of you. Us.’
‘Steady.’ His voice held a warning. ‘You’re not to tease.’
She sighed. ‘Old habits.’ She knew him so well, it was hard not to fall into familiar ways. And she couldn’t help tantalising him, now she knew he was to be out of reach.
‘Goodbye, Elizabeth.’
She could hear the front door opening. She had to get him off the line.
‘Goodbye, Jasper,’ she said, and hung up. For a moment, she gazed at the little face in the grandfather clock. Well, you got away with it, it seemed to be saying. She was still staring at it when Michael came in with a rush of cold air.
‘How are you, darling?’ He came forwards to kiss her on the cheek.
‘Very well. That was the vicar, about the choir.’ He didn’t need to know that. She was over-explaining. ‘You?’
‘Very good. I had a surprise visit to the factory this afternoon. Diana.’
‘Oh,’ she said. She’d almost forgotten, she’d been so distracted by Jasper’s call. ‘And?’
‘She’s coming back to work for us. I’ve tasked her with co-ordinating our stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition.’
‘That’s marvellous.’
‘I never thought she’d be interested. Once the war was over, I thought she’d be wrapped up in married life and horses.’
‘I think Diana needs more. She’s always been bright.’
‘It’s going to be wonderful to have her back. She was my right-hand girl at one point.’ Michael looked genuinely delighted.
Running a family was like a game of chess, thought Elizabeth. You had to be strategic when you moved the pieces around.
‘Where are you off to?’ Michael was asking her now.
‘Oh. I’m taking the invitations to the post office, but there’s someone I’ve forgotten.’
She rushed back into the sitting room to her bureau, took out the last invitation and wrote Jasper’s name and address on the front of the envelope.
Up until now, she’d left him off. But if he was going to be safely in Paris for the foreseeable, she could reinstate him.
He was a family friend, after all. Of course he had to be there.