of her feelings.’
‘Oh, madly,’ I said, with a sarcasm I instantly regretted. ‘Of course it’s a dreadful situation for everyone.’
‘Dreadful. So he’s left her a note. She’s been away all week with the children visiting her mother. That was what prompted the row about him not doing enough with the family. But his mother-in-law is a complete bitch and is foul to Teddy. Lydia’s getting back tomorrow.’
I imagined her arriving home exhausted after a long journey with squabbling children, planning what she would give them for supper, anticipating a hot bath and a glass of wine for herself after putting a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine. Pausing by the hall table to take Teddy’s letter from the pile that would have accumulated during a week’s absence. She would open it, expecting a reminder that the man was coming to service the boiler, only to discover that she was now a single parent and had become solely responsible for household maintenance.
‘It’s such heaven being alone with him,’ sighed Jasmine. ‘Knowing we don’t have to hurry into bed to make the most of a few measly hours. I feel as though I’ve been given pure oxygen to breathe. I’m in love with the world and with everything in it: the island, the village, the spaghetti bolognese we had for lunch. It isn’t a very good hotel but Teddy says we must economize now he’s got two women to support and naturally I don’t mind a bit. I’m even in love with the rather nasty cow-pat-green pillow-cases on the bed because we’re together at last and can luxuriate in each other.’
‘It’s marvellous to hear you so happy. How long do you expect to stay?’
‘Oh, it’s rather open-ended. Teddy’s taken the whole week off. I never want to see London again. I wish we could hire a gypsy caravan and let the horse take us wherever it wanted to.’
‘Mm, that does sound fun. But one of you’d need to know something about horses. Feeding, tacking up, grooming …’
‘Oh, Bobbie, how typical of you to think of depressing, practical things.’
‘Sorry. So what happens now? When she’s finished snipping their wedding album into confetti and making a bonfire of his golf-clubs, what does she do next?’
‘Teddy’s going to ring her tomorrow to find out how she’s taken it. I’m glad he’s so thoughtful. It’s one of the things I love about him.’
A quip about Teddy’s extraordinary solicitude in abandoning his wife and children to abscond with a girl half his age darted into my mind but I suppressed it. ‘I hope it goes all right,’ I said. ‘And that he deserves you.’
‘I’m certainly going to do my best to deserve him. When I think of everything he’s given up for me, it’s really humbling. I’ve got to try and make it up to him somehow. I mean, sex isn’t everything, is it?’
‘Not for you, perhaps,’ I said cautiously. ‘I do think that for some men—’
‘Oh, darling Bobbie, you’re always so cynical. I wish Teddy had an identical twin so you could know what it was like to be adored by someone truly wonderful.’ I remembered Teddy’s pasty face and crooked teeth in his rat-like mouth and felt nauseated. ‘If I could I’d share him with you,’ Jazzy went on. ‘You’ve been the most marvellous friend to me through all the bad times and I’m so grateful.’ I immediately felt guilty. ‘Are things still awful at home? How’s your mother?’
‘Everything’s the same except I’ve met some people who live nearby who’ve become good friends and I don’t mind being here nearly so much.’
‘Not a nice, handsome, eligible man with a vast bank balance?’
‘No.’
‘Ah well, darling. It’ll happen one day. I’d better go and see what’s happened to Teddy. I want our first night together as a proper couple to be sublime. I left him having a drink in the bar. The poor sweetie’s had so much to worry him recently, he sometimes doesn’t know quite when to stop.’ This was the first time Teddy’s obvious drink problem had been openly referred to by Jazzy. ‘I’ll ring you very soon. Try to be happy, dearest Bobbie.’
‘You too.’
‘Oh, I shall be in paradise, never fear.’
Five minutes after Jazzy had hung up the telephone rang again. It was Sarah, my other ex-housemate.
‘Bobbie! Have you heard about Jazzy? She’s gone off with that swine Bayliss. I tremble for her. A pig of pigs. An emperor of hogs.’ Sarah was a bolder, more forthright person than I. She had been so outspoken about her dislike of Teddy that she and Jazzy had had a serious falling out from which their relationship had never quite recovered.
‘She called me from the Isle of Wight just now.’
‘How is the poor deluded girl?’
‘Still deluded. But deliriously happy.’
‘Silly fool!’
‘I’m afraid so. But I keep hoping against hope that perhaps the benign influence of Jazzy will make Teddy a little less repulsive.’
‘No chance. The man would have to have a complete personality refit to be tolerable. When I think of the tears she’s shed over that worm, the crises, the sleepless nights, the chronic headaches and colds, the times she couldn’t eat … She’s like a walking bundle of sticks. God preserve us from married men.’
‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘But even if he were single I don’t think I’d like him.’
‘He’s an ignorant, talentless, priapic little runt.’ Sarah was clever and found most people irritatingly slow and feeble-minded but I knew she was genuinely fond of Jazzy. ‘But being married gives a man an excuse to behave badly with a convenient let-out clause. He can be as selfish as he likes and blame family commitments. A single man can hardly rush round at midnight, poke you senseless, then bugger off without so much as a snack at the local caff or a decent conversation. I mean, when did Stinker Bayliss last take Jazzy out for a good hot dinner? Of course he says it’s because he’s afraid they’ll be seen but I reckon he’s as mean as hell.’
‘Well, they’re making up for it now.’
‘I bet it’s the cheapest place he could get a booking.’
‘She did say it wasn’t a particularly good hotel,’ I admitted.
‘There you are. I hope at least she’ll tuck in now she’s got the chance and get some ballast to withstand the next let-down.’ Sarah was generously proportioned herself and scornful of delicate appetites.
‘Perhaps it really will be all right. Who could know Jazzy and not love her?’
‘Of course it isn’t going to be all right! Honestly, Bobbie, have you been at the absinthe? There’s nothing wrong with Jazzy. Except perhaps too few brain cells. But a skunk like Bayliss is incapable of loving anyone but himself. You know perfectly well there’s nothing ahead but disaster.’
Lying in bed that night, trying to read by a bulb so dim that even the moths ignored its puny rays and instead crawled over the pages of my book, I thought of Teddy. I remembered his satisfied pig-like eyes and the way he stared at my bust when Jazzy’s back was turned and wondered at the mysterious thing called love. And then, of course, I thought of Burgo who had hovered like a persistent phantom haunting my brain the entire day as I cooked, cleaned, fetched library books and ironed. His face had been on each of those forty-two napkins, swimming in the pea-pod soup, staring up from the cover of Fear not, my Lovely in place of the beetle-browed Lord Lucifer Twynge. I had rubbed Burgo’s reflection from every dusty inch of the dining table.
Each time the doorbell rang I anticipated the florist’s van and an insulting bunch of hybridized hothouse blooms to thank me for my readiness to accommodate his sexual needs. I had already decided to pass them on immediately to Mrs Treadgold. When