‘Hi, babe. How about running me up a whisky and soda.’
Returning back from Etta’s half an hour later, Valent discovered Bonny’s little bleak dress, her bra, her high heels, her diamond necklace and her bracelet draped up the stairs and Bonny lying naked on the heart-shaped bed with her legs apart. His huge fingers slid in easily, finding her even more slippery than Etta’s path through the woods. Was she acting when she sobbed:
‘Where have you been? I was so scared. There was no party once you left. I love you so much, Valent.’
Ripping off his flowered shirt, tugging at his cords and his boxers, she pulled him down on top of her.
Afterwards he couldn’t sleep and picked up Etta’s anthology. On many of the pages, she’d jotted down other quotes.
‘And beauty, though injurious,’ he read, ‘Hath strange power … to regain/Love once possessed.’
*
The following day, Valent ordered Joey to hammer in wooden posts at four-foot intervals down the footpath, for Etta to cling on to when she was walking back and forth. To his amusement, around dusk Martin came banging at the cockpit door.
‘Don’t know who’s been putting up those posts, Valent, probably one of my mother’s dubious friends, Woody or Joey, but they must come down, they’re an eyesore, I am so sorry.’
‘I saw Esau sitting on an eyesore, how many esses in that,’ murmured Valent, not looking up from Etta’s anthology, then, in a tone that froze Martin’s blood: ‘I had them put up because your mother could easily slip in wet or icy weather. And I’d like to point out, she’s been looking very tired recently. If your children wear you out, think how exhausting it must be for someone thirty years older. Etta should have some life of her own. Now get out, I don’t want to hear any presentations,’ and he returned to his book.
Before going to bed, Valent glanced out of the window and caught sight of Etta and Priceless going home in the moonlight. As if in a bending race, they were weaving in and out of the poles.
‘He likes me, he likes me not, he likes me, he likes me not, oh he likes me.’ As Etta wheeled round the bottom pole, she kissed it.
‘Valent Edwards thinks Mother ought to have more of a life of her own,’ Romy grumbled to Debbie.
‘What about an evening class? You can take courses in everything from welding to wine appreciation.’
‘Mother’s got a degree in that already,’ said Romy heavily, ‘and we need her to babysit.’
87
Christmas was approaching, the cold spell not letting up. Marius was desperate to gallop his horses, particularly Mrs Wilkinson, who had made progress but needed to be race-fit for a handicap chase in which she’d been entered on New Year’s Day.
Marius was very much aware how the increasingly impatient Willowwood syndicate would act up if she didn’t run soon – so he tore his hair as he gazed across his white frozen fields, and thought of his loathed and eternally gloating rival H-H, whose horses thundered along the all-weather gallop, and notched up one win after another.
One couple with no desire to see Mrs Wilkinson back on the racecourse was Romy and Martin. What with Gwenny and Priceless and her trips to see Wilkie and Chisolm, Etta had been failing in her duties as their children’s nanny. Romy had actually had to cut short a meeting to pick them up from school the other day. Poppy cried all night because no one came to the carol concert at Greycoats.
Martin and Romy had so many charitable functions at Christmas.
‘We must capitalize on the moment when people are feeling festive and generous.’
Jude the Obese had very kindly sent them £1,000 after the presentation at the dinner party. Martin had been tempted to launch WOO just after Christmas when people were feeling fat from bingeing, but they’d probably be too broke to give generously. He planned lunches with both Bonny, the proposed spirit of WOO, and Jude, the roly-poly model.
Martin, however, was capable of gross foxiness. Rolling up at the bungalow in early December crinkling his eyes engagingly, he handed Etta an envelope.
‘Romy and I think you’ve been looking very tired recently. We’re very conscious you missed out on holidays when Father was failing. Your turn has come, you’re going to join us when we go skiing over Christmas, before the kids go back to school.’
In the envelope was a plane ticket to Switzerland.