Pandora Read online

  David soon made himself as useful to Galena as everyone else, picking up paints from Bristol, helping her cook Sunday lunch before she got too drunk, carrying her easels and canvasses through the countryside, coming back later with a picnic basket, breathing in the smell of wild mint as he cooled the white wine in the stream.

  One morning he was sketching the river with the boys.

  ‘Most buses have “Searston” or “Cheltenham” on the front,’ he told them, ‘but one magic psychedelic bus had “Further” as its destination, and that’s where you want to go. As an artist you must always try to go further, and see things in a new way. That acacia tree, for example, has got yellow in it, which makes it seem warmer and nearer, but if you want to create distance, like those hills, add blue.’

  A shadow fell across his pad.

  ‘You are better teacher than artist,’ mocked Galena, ‘you better join Raymond in the gallery.’

  The following day, when she opened her paintbox, Galena found four lines in David’s handwriting:

  She was a phantom of delight

  When first she gleamed upon my sight;

  A lovely apparition, sent

  To be a moment’s ornament.

  Galena smirked. Like an all-over suntan, one could never have too many men in love with one. David was a silly little lapdog, but a useful one.

  Raymond meanwhile was aware that he had spent too much of the summer hanging round David, neglecting the gallery. As July drew to a close, he set off abroad to sell and replenish stock. David rose at sunrise to see him off. The brilliant hard light anticipated autumn as it gilded the trees.

  ‘I’m going to miss you.’ David emphasized his stammer. ‘I think I’m turning into Sir Galahad: “Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King – Else, wherefore born?” You’re my King Arthur.’

  ‘Look after my Guinevere.’ Raymond tried not to betray how moved he felt.

  ‘I’ll ward off any Lancelot.’ Hugging Raymond, David kissed him briefly on the cheek. ‘Please come home soon.’

  David’s ardour was somewhat cooled by having to watch Jupiter’s hero, Rupert Campbell-Black, triumphing at Wembley all week. ‘The handsomest man in England’, according to the Daily Mail, he was greeted by screaming teenagers each time he entered the show ring. It had become a sudden bond between Jupiter and Galena, who out-screamed any teenagers whenever he won.

  The first night Raymond was away David was resolutely reading Tennyson in the dusk on the terrace:

  ‘To love one maiden only . . .’ (‘maiden’ was pushing it – Galena must be nearly forty) ‘. . . and worship her by years of noble deeds . . . for indeed I knew of no more subtle master under heaven . . . to keep down the base in man.’

  He mustn’t make a pass at Galena, Raymond was his friend.

  The base in David however rocketed sharply a moment later, as Galena came onto the terrace utterly transformed. A flamingo-pink dress, short and sleeveless, caressed her hot, newly bathed body from which Mitsouko rose like incense. Her hair was clean and glossy, her make-up for once applied with all the skills of a great artist. She also smelled of toothpaste rather than fags and booze.

  Well away from herself, she was carrying a still-wet canvas, which she propped up on a chair. A developer had bought the big field on the other side of the river, which was rumoured to contain over a hundred different wild flowers, and was planning to slap houses all over it.

  In Galena’s painting of the same field, pink grasses, merging into olive-green woods and a sky the bright blue of Rupert Campbell-Black’s eyes, were dominated by a full moon, as gold as the plates Mrs Robens refused to put in the dishwasher.

  ‘It’s stunning,’ sighed David, ‘show it to the Council and they’ll never grant the developers permission to ruin such a lovely spot.’

  But all he could think of was that Galena had made herself beautiful for him on Raymond’s first night away.

  ‘Vy did you put that verse in my paintbox?’ she asked.

  Collapsing onto a nearby chair, she spread her legs. There was still enough light to see she was wearing no knickers. David hastily looked away.

  Galena laughed: ‘I’m vaiting.’

  And David was lost.

  ‘I’ve fought it and fought it,’ he mumbled, ‘but from the moment you walked out at Heathrow, I realized I’d met my Waterloo. You’re going to break my heart, I know you will’ – he seized her hand and covered it with kisses – ‘because I’m so vulnerable and you’re so far out of my league.’

  ‘Hearts mend very quickly at your age,’ observed Galena.

  ‘Never! I want to be your cavaliere servente and serve you in every way.’

  ‘You can start off by opening a bottle,’ mocked Galena. ‘And I’m out of sketchbooks, so you can pop into Searston tomorrow, and first thing you can run up to the village shop and get me some Tampax.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t.’ David blushed furiously, not least imagining where the Tampax was destined. He was about to kiss his way up her arm, to hell with the boys or Robens looking out of the window, when everything was spoilt by the telephone ringing. Galena bolted inside.

  ‘Come at once,’ he could hear her saying. ‘I’ll vait in the studio, and hurry, my darling.’

  Smiling cruelly, she drifted out again.

  ‘If you vant to serve me,’ she purred, ‘get me a bottle of Dom Pérignon and tell Raymond, or anyone else who rings, that I’m painting.’

  ‘The town red,’ fumed David.

  Dying of humiliation, he retired upstairs, checking the boys on the way. Tired after another long hot day, they were too fast asleep to witness their mother’s fecklessness.

  A prom of Beethoven’s Ninth on Radio Three couldn’t comfort David as he lay on his bed smoking. In despair, he took Maud out for a last walk. The mocking moon overhead was a voyeur like himself. Next moment, a Rolls-Royce with blacked-out windows blaring ‘In the Summertime’ stormed up the drive.

  Lurking behind a huge chestnut, putting a hand round Maud’s jaws to stop her barking, David saw the car take the bumpy wooded path to Galena’s studio. There he caught a glimpse of sleek fair hair, and a cold statue’s face, as a man jumped out and bolted up the steps, to be greeted by screams of joy from Galena. If Rupert Campbell-Bloody-Black jumped for England, he’d have no difficulty leaping on Galena.

  Ten minutes later, she had the gall to return to the house for a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Don’t look so sulky,’ she taunted David. ‘Keep your pretty mouth shut, and don’t forget those sketchbooks in the morning.’

  Tearing the July page off the calendar to draw on, she was gone. As a final straw, the stream that ran through the garden had dried up, so there was no waterfall to soothe him to sleep.

  In the morning, Rupert had gone but his presence was everywhere. David had only just returned from the village shop where he’d been subjected to hideous embarrassment when the short-sighted owner, unable to find a price on David’s purchase, bellowed, ‘How much is Tampax, Mother?’ in front of a long queue of giggling women.

  David had nearly died, particularly when Galena, walking bow-legged if not wounded after a night’s rogering, sent him straight back for the Daily Telegraph, which had a piece on Rupert, describing him in terms of gross hyperbole as ‘charismatic as the newly launched Concorde’. As well as being a deb’s delight and showjumping’s golden boy, Rupert was evidently a hell-raiser, given to letting off thunder flashes in church and lopping the tails of yew peacocks.

  And he’s the same fucking age as me, brooded David.

  Galena retired to her studio to paint. Tormented by doubts about the direction her painting was going, influenced by the Abstract Expressionists who laid canvasses on the floor and dripped paint on them in manic squiggles, she had decided to drench her pubic hair in cobalt violet. She was just face down writhing on a piece of white paper when her husband’s least favourite artist, Colin Casey Andrews, marched in. Having dropped into the gallery in Cork Str
eet and found Raymond abroad, Casey had decided to enjoy a few days at Foxes Court. Picking Galena up, he threw her dripping paint on the bed. After the ensuing session, the sheets themselves should have been framed.

  David had never met anyone so arrogant, so unpleasant, so grotesque as this spoilt roaring giant. Casey Andrews treated all the staff like navvies, and kept dispatching David to Searston to buy foie gras, caviare and champagne on Raymond’s account. David, having forgotten his own modest pass at Galena, was violently disapproving. He spent his time protecting the boys, taking them out on jaunts, while Galena and Casey painted each other, binged and made drunken love on the roof of the studio. Robens spent a lot of time up a ladder pruning an oak, so he could watch them.

  Mrs Robens’s mouth disappeared totally, as she ceased to find solace even in indignation meetings with David. She was such a ‘treasure’, however, that people were always offering her jobs. Earlier in the week, the newly married and utterly undomesticated Lady Waterlane from Rutminster Park had telephoned. Mrs Robens was consequently going for an interview on Thursday, disguising the fact by asking Galena if she and Robens could have the afternoon off to go and see her mother.

  ‘Take the whole day,’ shouted Galena, who was fed up with being spied on.

  On Thursday afternoon, Casey finally passed out on the studio floor, and Galena, overwhelmed with guilt about not working, told David she was not to be disturbed. Her first interruption was Jean Baines, the curate’s prim wife, who’d rolled up to snoop and bum a buckshee picture for the village fête. Galena was so incensed by the intrusion she picked up the remains of a still life of fruit she’d started ten days ago, and bombarded her visitor with rotten kumquats and pomegranates.

  Storming over to the house, Galena shouted at David for letting Jean in.

  ‘How can I paint in this madhouse?’

  ‘Van Gogh did his most brilliant work in an asylum, so cool it, Mum,’ said Jupiter, not looking up from Swallows and Amazons.

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ howled Galena, then, turning on David, ‘I’m going to paint in the Blue Tower. Take the boys out somevere to play. Then come back and don’t you dare allow anyone up there.’

  David had hardly been back five minutes from farming out the boys when a Rolls-Royce with blacked-out windows roared up and a young man jumped out. He had white-blond hair, a brown face, long blue eyes, a Greek nose and a brutally determined mouth. He wore only a white shirt and breeches. His feet were bare, his beauty, despite its familiarity from the papers all summer, astonishing. In the back of the car, through a lowered window, could be seen a red coat, several silver cups and a genial black Labrador.

  David rushed out feeling hot, sweaty and very unbrave.

  ‘Mrs Belvedon gave orders she wasn’t to be disturbed.’

  ‘Not by me, she didn’t.’

  Rupert was a good five inches taller than David, much broader in the shoulder and fighting fit.

  ‘Get out of my way, you little twerp.’

  Picking David up, disdainfully shoving him to one side like a bollard, he bounded up the stairs.

  Next moment, Galena had thundered down to meet him, crying, ‘Oh Rupert!’ and throwing herself into his arms.

  From below David could see Rupert’s long fingers going straight under her skirt:

  ‘I’ve got some amyl nitrate, it’ll blow your mind.’

  ‘I’m not going to bed, it’s only seven o’clock,’ hissed a returning Jupiter.

  ‘Nor am I,’ said Alizarin, ‘I’m going to see Mummy in her studio.’

  Christ, they’d stumble on a drunken Casey.

  ‘She’s in the Blue Tower,’ said David hastily.

  ‘Fine, we’ll go and see her.’ Jupiter turned towards the stairs.

  David had a brainwave. Robens had painted a shed such a revolting shade of hen’s diarrhoea green that Raymond had asked David to get a Dulux colour chart, which he now brandished before the boys.

  ‘I’ll give you a pound each,’ he said in desperation, ‘if you can match as many colours as possible with flowers from the garden. Now buzz off.’

  David was extremely upset. He might have a monstrous crush on Galena, but he adored Raymond a great deal more, and hated such things occurring in what should have been a happy family. Out of the window, he noticed Rupert’s car, which he’d better move under the trees, before the boys saw it. Thank God, the key was still in the ignition.

  I want to be six foot two, upper class, self-confident, as charismatic as Concorde, he thought longingly, and have a black-windowed Roller that I park across the drives of hostesses I screw.

  Back in the house, his brooding was interrupted by Maud barking at the doorbell. Outside a large, self-important, balding man in a very well-pressed suit was standing beside a rather plain girl.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re a bit early,’ said the man. ‘We heard dire stories of hold-ups and holiday traffic, but it wasn’t too bad.’

  Twigging they must be Sir Mervyn Newton, the dry-cleaning king, and his daughter Rosemary come to buy a picture for Lady Newton’s sixtieth birthday, David’s heart sank.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Belvedon isn’t back from abroad.’

  ‘He will be soon,’ said Sir Mervyn, clearly a man of importance, unused to being forgotten.

  ‘We can just sit in his lovely garden,’ said the plain daughter. ‘We’re so looking forward to meeting Mrs Belvedon.’

  ‘Ah!’ As they entered the dark hall, Sir Mervyn put on his bi-focals to admire a yellow and dark blue oil. ‘That’s one of Casey Andrews’, one of my favourite artists, I’d love to shake him by the hand.’

  Not if you knew where it had been recently, thought David. Like a gorilla in a safari park, Raymond kept Casey away from collectors.

  ‘Go through into the garden,’ he said, ‘I’ll get you both a long cool drink.’

  Meanwhile, in the Blue Tower, post-coital for a second time, Galena found exquisite pleasure in watching a long-limbed, golden, naked Rupert examining the pictures, and reached for her sketchbook.

  She wished she were a sculptor. He was so beautiful, and what a body to sculpt; Borochova’s Rupert would stand alongside the Davids of Donatello and Michelangelo. It was the utter stillness of the face, followed by the amazing smile, that made him so irresistible. He also had the same Greek nose as Pride in the Raphael.

  ‘Nice arse,’ Rupert admired a plump Boucher bottom.

  Galena explained Raymond’s father’s theory about beautiful pictures inspiring beautiful children.

  ‘My parents were probably gazing at a Stubbs foxhound when I was conceived,’ said Rupert. ‘Still, it worked with Raymond. Good-looking bloke, what’s he like in bed?’

  Galena pointed contemptuously to a working drawing of Raphael’s The Battle of Nude Men, hanging by the door, which showed a lot of warriors with minute penises hurling spears and arrows at one another.

  ‘Like that,’ she sneered, ‘like a little shrimp villy, helplessly thrashing around.’

  ‘Some have smallness thrust upon them. Not my problem,’ said Rupert, gazing in satisfaction at his suntanned belly and magnificent already rising cock.

  ‘Nor Colin Casey Andrews’s,’ said Galena, to puncture his self-esteem.

  ‘Column Casey Andrews,’ said Rupert, emptying the last of the champagne into their glasses. ‘Are you going to get another bottle? Is he bigger than me?’

  ‘Much, but not as beautiful.’

  As Rupert slid his hand between her legs, Galena carried on drawing, squinting up at his face.

  Was that why he was so attracted to her, wondered Rupert, because she didn’t give a damn? She was fantastic in bed, licking one everywhere, fingers in every pie, sucking one in like a whirlpool, but even when she gave you a blow job, you felt she was still watching your face to see how your hair fell.

  ‘They should bring back National Service for people like you,’ he grumbled. ‘Shrimp Villy’s a sweet man, gives you everything, sells your pictures, allows
you the run of this ravishing house. All you do is moan.’

  ‘Not viz desire for him. He’s impotent.’

  ‘Probably queer like my brother Adrian, who works in an art gallery. Maybe all dealers are queer.’

  ‘Freud cured Mahler’s impotence,’ observed Galena.

  ‘He’d better cure Raymond then.’

  ‘Freud’s dead, stupid. Ven I marry Raymond I told him I must have freedom to do vot I like.’

  ‘To have and to cuckhold.’ Rupert shook his golden head. ‘I couldn’t cope with an unfaithful wife.’

  He picked up Galena’s sketch.

  ‘That’s good, can I have it?’

  ‘Ven I’ve signed it.’ Galena scrawled G.B. on the bottom.

  ‘Thank you.’ Rupert laughed. ‘We should all have G.B. tattooed on our bumpers to show we’ve been to bed with you. Now that is nice.’ Rupert had just noticed the Raphael Pandora, on the right of the bed. ‘Where did Shrimp Villy find that?’

  ‘In some flea market in France.’

  ‘Did he buy that little flea who tried to stop me coming up here? Who is he?’

  ‘David someone, Raymond hired him for the summer to coach the boys. Are you jealous?’

  ‘Of that?’ asked Rupert incredulously.

  I love his arrogance almost more than his beauty, thought Galena, holding out her arms. ‘Come back to bed.’

  Her breath reeked of drink and fags. Fucking Galena, reflected Rupert, was like going to the pub. They were interrupted by thunderous banging.

  ‘Bugger off!’ Rupert hurled the empty champagne bottle at the door. ‘Mrs Belvedon! Galena!’