Janey, reared in Fleet Street, could drink even Billy under the table. Looking out of the window one evening, Helen saw them coming up the drive hysterical with laughter, as Billy pretended to lift his leg on every chestnut tree.

“Billy’s being Kevin’s china poodle,” explained Janey. “Christ, my feet are killing me. We ran out of petrol and had to walk from Stroud.”

Helen had mixed feelings about Janey. In the end you couldn’t help liking her. She was fun and marvelously iconoclastic about show jumping, but she was a bit too easy to talk to. Any secret confided would be round Penscombe and Fleet Street in a flash. And Janey was so messy, wandering round the house with her cat, Harold Evans, riding like a parrot on her shoulder, eyes screwed up against the cigarette smoke, spilling ash and leaving a trail of dirty cups and, after midday, glasses.

Helen, so fastidious, couldn’t bear the fact that Janey kept pinching her perfume and makeup and borrowing her clothes. There was an embarrassing occasion when Helen and Rupert were away for the weekend and Janey borrowed one of Helen’s dresses to go out to dinner with the Coleys and split it, not even down the seam, so it was beyond repair.

Even worse was the time Helen came downstairs, ashen, because her mink coat, given to her by Rupert on their second anniversary, was missing. She was about to ring the police, when Janey suggested they look round the house first.

“Isn’t this it, bundled up in the downstairs loo?” Janey announced rather casually two minutes later. “Mrs. Bodkin must have brought it down for refurbishing — ha-ha, that’s a joke — or something.”

It was unfortunate that Janey had left three toffee papers, and a program for a Michael Frayn play that had been on in Bath, in the pocket. Helen was very upset, but too nice to shout at Janey. Instead she went to church and asked God to make her more tolerant.

Occasionally, Janey cooked, but made such a mess in the kitchen that it took Helen twice as long to clear up afterwards, and she wished Janey wouldn’t take books out on her library tickets, read them in the bath, and forget to return them, or even worse, lose them abroad. Helen, who’d never kept a library book too long, and always renewed them, was upset and bustled.

In a way, Billy and Janey’s presence helped Rupert and Helen’s marriage. Rupert tended not to be so intolerant if the others were there; but in another way their happiness showed up the flaws.

Rupert was wildly jealous of the love Helen lavished on Marcus. “I’m so enjoying him,” she kept saying. (“As though Marcus was a quadruple vodka and tonic,” said Janey.) He was also envious of the relaxed hedonistic relationship Billy had with Janey. When had Helen ever got tight with him. When had they last been hysterical with laughter? He heard the giggles and gasps of pleasure issuing from their bedroom. Mrs. Bodkin was always finding empty bottles under the bed.

Janey, Helen thought, brought out the worst in Billy. She encouraged him to drink more, bet more, always dine out rather than eat at home. Billy, more emotional and physically less strong than Rupert, couldn’t cope with such excess.

The blatant sexuality of the relationship unnerved Helen, too. Billy and Janey were always sloping off to bed. You only had to look at Janey’s washing on the line. Mrs. Bodkin’s mouth disappeared in disapproval at the black and scarlet crotchless knickers, the cut-out bras, the G-strings, suspender belts, and fishnet stockings. Janey, careless and thoughtless, left her vibrator in their unmade bed, which was found by Mrs. Bodkin.

“Billy’s got a bad back. It’s for massaging his spine,” explained Janey, airily. Mrs. Bodkin was not convinced; Janey was a minx.

Helen and Janey’s attitudes to each other were ambiguous. Janey was jealous of Helen’s beauty. Helen even looked gorgeous in a bath cap, and Billy would never say a word against her. Helen, spurred on by Janey’s fame and journalistic success, started working on her novel again.

“She talks as if she’s writing Hamlet,” grumbled Janey. It irritated the hell out of Janey that Helen was always slightly dismissive of Janey’s journalism. She never commented on Janey’s pieces even if they were spread across two pages of the paper. Even when she produced her much praised interview with Kissinger entitled “You’re only as good as your last peace,” Helen merely said, when pestered, that she didn’t feel Janey had quite captured the full weight of Kissinger. It was part of her puritan upbringing that you must never praise if you didn’t admire. But in this instance, duty became a pleasure.

“She doesn’t mean it bitchily,” Billy kept protesting.

“Oh, she does, Buster, she does,” said Janey grimly.

Helen, in fact, was jealous of Janey for being so sexy. Occasionally she worried that Billy, Rupert, and Janey spent so much time abroad together. Rupert did little to dispel this fear. It diverted any suspicions she might have had about him and Hilary.

Show jumping and Rupert changed during the midseventies. As the sport became more popular and sponsorship increased, so did the prize money. Before, the show-jumping season had lasted from April to October; now, riders could jump all the year round and, because of the number of indoor evening shows, they were kept busy by night as well as by day. When he started in the sport, Rupert would buzz off to Argentina to play polo, or go racing at Longchamps or skiing at Klosters. Now, show jumping had become an all-consuming passion. Always on the circuit, he was jumping his horses so hard, he wore them out in a year or so and, as a result, was endlessly searching for new ones. If he was at home he was training horses or selling them on. Horses took over his life, so determined was he not to turn professional.

Podge traveled with him, adoring, satisfying his physical needs, suffering but not sulking if something better took his fancy. And on the rare occasions he was back in Gloucestershire, there was Hilary, ranting, cantankerous, and insatiable, but exerting a horrible fascination over him.

After the party for Janey and Billy, Helen retreated into herself, becoming more and more house-proud, “spending her time rubbing female fingerprints off Rupert,” said Janey. Helen spent a great deal of money on clothes and at the hairdresser’s, and did a lot for charity. Hilary didn’t help. For her own good reasons, she kept urging Helen to walk out on Rupert.

“You are a talented writer, inhibited by a fascist pig — virtually a one-parent family. What support does he give you, looking after Marcus?” she demanded.

“Unlimited funds,” Helen had to admit truthfully.

“Our parents’ generation sacrificed their careers for marriage,” went on Hilary. “You mustn’t make such sacrifices. It is impossible to be happily married, a good mother, and have a career.”

Helen hoped she was a good mother. She was certainly an adoring one. Marcus was walking now and his first word was “Mummy.” And he had several teeth. He had grown into a beautiful child, shy, with huge solemn eyes, and a riot of Titian curls which Rupert was always urging Helen to cut. Marcus was wary of Rupert, who was not amused by jammy fingers on clean white breeches, or by the fact that Marcus screamed his head off if ever Rupert put him onto a horse. Calm and sunny when his father was away, Marcus picked up the vibes from Helen and became whiny and demanding on his return.

Another bone of contention was the dogs. Having read articles in The Guardian, Helen was terrified Marcus would catch some obscure eye complaint from them. She wanted them kept outside. Rupert flatly refused. The dogs had been there before she had, he pointed out coldly. In fact, since Marcus was born, he reflected, the dogs were really the only things pleased to see him when he came home. Both he and Helen festered inside with a sense of grievance.

Billy was saddened by the increased deterioration in Rupert’s marriage, and discussed it at length with Janey. One hot evening at the end of July, on the eve of their departure for Aachen they lay in bed at Penscombe sharing a bottle of Moët.

“How on earth,” said Janey, “can anyone as beautiful as Helen be so uptight? If I had those kind of looks…”

“You do,” said Billy, snuggling up against the spongy cushion of her bottom, feeling for her breasts.

“D’you think I’d look nice with my hair up, like Helen?” asked Janey.

“I’d rather you shaved your bush.”

“D’you think they’ll split up?”

“No. I think underneath they still love each other. Besides, Helen’s too scared of the outside world, and Rupert doesn’t believe in divorce. Marriage is for children, and having someone to run your house. You get your fun elsewhere.”

“I hope you don’t feel like that!”

“No,” said Billy, sliding his hands down over the smooth folds of her belly.

Janey pressed her stomach in. “I must lose weight. Do you think he’s gone off her physically?”

“Hard to tell. He nearly killed an Italian diplomat who made a pass at her a couple of years ago. She’s one of his possessions; he’s very territorial.”

“Do you think he’s good in bed?”

“Cock like a baseball bat. Used to bat bread rolls across the room with it when we were at school.”

“Lucky Helen.” Janey sat up, excited at the thought.

“Am I big enough for you?” asked Billy anxiously. Janey climbed on top of him, holding on to the brass bedstead, causing frightful creaking. “Quite big enough. Look how good I am at rising at the trot.”


28


Hilary, in fact, was Rupert’s first serious affair since he had met Helen, and it was a complete love-hate relationship. Despite her protestation that all men were beasts, Hilary herself was an animal in bed — insatiable, almost a nymphomaniac. She didn’t bathe enough, she was a slut, she had a bad temper, and Rupert had to keep kissing her to shut her up, and later cut her nails himself to stop her lacerating his back. He detested her hypocrisy in still going on being a friend to Helen.