The Four of Us (14 page)

‘Wow!' His eyes widened and, for the first time, she noticed that there were extraordinary flecks of gold in them. ‘Really? What a blast!'

He turned to James. ‘Kiki's doing a session for Kit later this evening. What say we hang around?' And then, to Kit, ‘Is that OK with you?'

‘Sure, no problem. It's going to be an all-night number and Kiki and the session musicians will be working their butts off. It isn't going to be party time. Understand?'

‘Clear as a bell.' He turned his attention back to Kiki, shooting her his disarming, down-slanting grin.

‘You don't mind me muscling in on this, Kiki, do you?'

Nervous tension fizzed in her throat. ‘No,' she said truthfully. ‘I'll be glad to have you around, Francis.'

It was true. Over the last half an hour or so she had become acutely aware of just how important her performance for Kit Armstrong was going to be. He had major connections – the casual mention of the Stones dropping in at his studios was evidence enough of that – and suddenly she was cripplingly nervous. Though not a major friend, she had known Francis indirectly for almost as long as she'd known Geraldine, and suddenly he seemed wonderfully familiar and she wanted him with her in the studio as fiercely as if he were a good luck charm.

A thought suddenly hit her and she downed the last of her Black Russian in a hurried swallow. ‘If we're going to be there all night, what about Geraldine? Are you supposed to be meeting up with her later?'

The sudden smile came again and, with a slam of shock, she realized just why Geraldine found him so attractive.

‘She's sitting in on a meeting between her mother and the party caterers,' he said, taking her empty glass from her hand, ‘and as I'm thinking of going into the music business as a manager, tonight is just up my street. It could be the start of the big time, Kiki.' His smile deepened and he gave her a conspiratorial wink. ‘For both of us.'

‘I hope so.' The blood tingled along her veins in the way it always did when she was about to do something very, very reckless. ‘I really do hope so, Francis.'

Geraldine whistled her Uncle Piers's two Labradors to heel and, with her hands in the pockets of her Indian-embroidered cotton skirt, strolled out of the grand drawing room, that had been added in Queen Anne's reign, and on to the terrace.

Far away, beyond the vast manicured lawn and formal gardens, workmen were erecting the stage on which, in ten hours time, Kiki and The Atoms would be strutting their stuff. As she paused at the top of the stone steps leading down to the lawn she could see that there were other workmen, sound engineers and electricians, beavering away with them. Further to the right a series of elaborate tents had already been erected and dozens of catering staff were busy ferrying equipment into it from a massive van parked on rough grass near to the ha-ha.

Though she couldn't see her mother, Geraldine knew that she would be somewhere at the centre of the fevered activity, directing operations with all the efficiency of an army commander. There was no sign of her widowed uncle, which wasn't surprising. Pleased as he was by her and Francis's engagement, his only involvement where the party was concerned had been his insistence that the music and dancing take place as far away from the house and gardens as possible.

‘If we site the stage too near the ha-ha there'll be casualties,' Francis had pointed out, reasonably. ‘There's going to be a lot of champagne drunk and by midnight most of my friends will be high on dope. If they take a tumble into the ha-ha, they won't be able to clamber out.'

‘If they're high on dope, the ha-ha will be the best place for 'em,' her uncle had retorted, unfazed at the thought of marijuana, worried only that his ancient lawn should remain unsullied.

With the dogs at her heels Geraldine walked down the shallow steps and turned to the left on the pathway that skirted the lawns' perfect edges. There were going to be three hundred guests that evening and, no doubt, several gate-crashers. There was a mass of things to do and for the next half an hour or so she was going to do none of them. She was simply going to enjoy her delicious sense of anticipation. The coming evening was, after all, one she had looked forward to ever since she was a little girl.

Though other childish daydreams had come and gone – becoming a nun, a trapeze artiste, a vet – the dream of becoming engaged to Francis and of celebrating their engagement at Cedar Court in the blissful knowledge that she would one day become mistress of it was one that had never wavered.

It was, she had once told Artemis, her destiny. Artemis hadn't hooted with laughter as Kiki would probably have done if she'd said the same thing to her, nor had she looked faintly troubled as Primmie tended to do whenever she told her she couldn‘t possibly contemplate falling in love with anyone other than her cousin. Unexpectedly, Artemis had suddenly become her closest confidante – and she had every intention, at the party, of making her idyllically happy by introducing her to as many eligible young men as possible.

Mature yew-hedging framed the south-facing borders, and the path, now flanked by carnations, led her beneath an archway draped with a waterfall of white roses. The fevered activity down by the ha-ha was now lost to view, the sound of the hammering so muffled by the high hedging that it could scarcely be heard.

She continued thinking about Artemis, and how nice it was that Artemis was finally beginning to lose the puppy fat that had plagued her for so long. With her barley-gold hair and cornflower-blue eyes, she was fast becoming a classic English beauty.

Primmie, too, seemed, in the space of just a couple of weeks, to have a lustre about her. Ever since the four of them had made friends, Primmie, months older than both Kiki and Artemis, had always looked the youngest by at least a couple of years. Now, for some reason she couldn't fathom, Primmie no longer looked as if she was someone's younger sister. There was a glow about her that was almost palpable.

As she walked past a Greek-inspired fountain into the grey and white garden that opened on to the parkland, she wondered if the change in Primmie was due to her having started work as a junior account handler at BBDO, an advertising agency in Hanover Square. From her first pay packet she'd bought herself a plum velvet waistcoat and matching skirt from Biba, the waistcoat edged with the same flower-patterned braid that trimmed the hem of the skirt. Though she wore her new outfit with a puritanically high-collared white blouse, the overall effect was still exotic-looking enough to be almost hip.

The thought of Primmie being hip brought a smile to her lips. Primmie simply didn't have it in her to be unconventional. When she'd told her that she and Francis intended hitting the hippie trail she'd been more appalled than envious. ‘But I thought we were all going to be living together in London for a year?' she'd said, looking stricken. ‘Wasn't that the plan, Geraldine? Please say you're not going off to India until I go to university.'

Because of Francis's sudden enthusiasm for entering the music business, which, if it lasted as long as previous enthusiasms, would take approximately eight or nine months to get out of his system, she'd been able to reassure Primmie that their year together in the Kensington flat was still on.

She was out of the garden now and walking across the parkland towards a giant oak. How old it actually was was impossible to tell, but she liked to think it had been planted by the Francis Sheringham who, having found favour and riches under Elizabeth I, had, in 1603, built Cedar Court.

As the two Labradors raced ahead of her, she reflected wryly that at least she would be kept busy during Francis's latest enthusiasm. ‘Kit Armstrong is keen on recording Kiki singing the songs the two of you have written,' he'd said when telling her that Kiki was on the verge of going solo and that he was going to manage her. ‘So we need more songs, Geraldine sweetheart. It won't be a problem, will it?'

As, hampered by her skirt, she climbed up into the tree towards the gigantic branch that was her favourite perch, she fought down a stab of impatience. Without his latest enthusiasm they could have set off any time they wanted for India – enjoying lots of other places en route.

The light breeze blowing across the parkland was lifting her hair and it was getting caught on the twigs and leaves of the branch above her. Deftly she swirled it round her hand and wound it into a sleek knot in the nape of her neck, seeing, as she did so, that a car was turning off the little-used road that flanked the far edge of the parkland.

It was a red E-type Jaguar and her heart gave a lurch of joy. It was Francis and he would know exactly where to find her. As the dogs finally gave up hope of a walk and settled down on the grass, she thought how odd it was that Cedar Court seemed to be hers already and that it was as if Francis was the one who was visiting.

Ever since coming down from Oxford he'd had a bachelor pad in town, not far from the flat she, Kiki, Primmie and Artemis had just moved into. In three years' time, when they married, they would have to find somewhere much bigger, but whatever they found it wouldn't be their main home. Her uncle had already told them that from the day of their marriage they would be able to regard Cedar Court as their marital home.

‘That's because he wants to offload all the hassle of looking after it,' Francis had said dryly.

‘
I'll
be doing the looking after,' she had said, knowing full well that was the situation her uncle intended and that he was looking forward to it, just as she was.

For the moment, though, she was without any kind of routine, unlike her three friends. Primmie left their Kensington flat at eight thirty in order to reach Hanover Square by bus for nine o'clock. Some nights she would then return by six thirty, other nights it would be ten thirty or eleven o'clock before they saw her again – presumably because she was busy socializing with her new work colleagues at the agency. Artemis left at nine fifteen for the Lucie Clayton Modelling School, which was just a short walk away, and invariably came straight home for a long, lingering bath, before going out somewhere with her and, if Kiki was around, Kiki. Kiki rarely surfaced until eleven o'clock and then always had somewhere important to her career to go, or someone it was important she see, seldom returning until whatever gig she and The Atoms were playing was over. Of the four of them, only she, Geraldine, had no kind of structure to her day.

She turned on the branch she was straddling in order to be able to catch the first glimpse of Francis as he emerged on to the parkland from the high-hedged grey and white garden. The last couple of weeks, of course, ever since they'd moved into the flat, she'd been kept busy arranging the party taking place that evening. Once the party was over, though, and with Francis haring around Tin Pan Alley making contacts, time was going to hang heavy on her hands unless she got herself a job of some kind.

The problem was, it was hard to be enthused about a job when she didn't need one financially and when she wasn't remotely ambitious – and she certainly didn't want a job that would interfere with Francis's and her social life. Idly she wondered about becoming a photographer's rep or assistant – Bailey was coming to the party that evening and he'd be bound to know someone who would be happy to employ her. Or maybe she could do as lots of debutantes did and get herself an undemanding job as a receptionist in an advertising agency.

Francis strolled unhurriedly out of the grey and white garden and, as the dogs sprang to their feet and bounded to meet him, she shelved all thoughts of how she was going to occupy her time until they went to India.

‘Hi! I'm here!' she called out unnecessarily as he walked over the grass towards the tree. His hands were in the pockets of crushed velvet, ruby-red trousers. His shirt was equally magnificent – purple, with pink paisley motifs – and his fair hair hung in rippling waves to his shoulders, as glossy as a girl's.

The tree had been a regular meeting place since their childhood and he usually swung himself up into its branches, making himself as comfortable as he could beside her. Today he remained at its foot as the dogs circled him, barking furiously in fresh hope of a walk. ‘The trousers are new,' he said explanatively. ‘Ossie Clark made them for me. I'm not risking them clambering up to you. You'll have to clamber down.'

‘Is Ossie coming tonight?' she asked, adjusting her position so that, instead of climbing down, she could jump and let him catch her.

‘He is, and so is Celia and so is Alice.'

Ossie was haute couturier to the swinging elite. Celia was his wife, and Alice Pollock his business partner. If they were definitely coming, it meant their close friend David Hockney would also show – and if he did she was going to ask him if he would do a portrait of her and Francis.

‘That's good,' she said and, without a word of warning, slid off the branch.

It was an action he hadn't been expecting, and though he successfully broke her fall he didn't do so without reeling and toppling backwards, taking her with him.

He lay, winded, his arms still around her, making no move to get to his feet. Geraldine, in exactly the position she wanted to be, made no move to get to her feet either.

‘I love you, Francis,' she said as the Labradors nuzzled at them, anxious to know they weren't hurt.

‘I know,' he said, pushing one of the dogs away, a smile spreading to his eyes. ‘I love you too.'

As the dogs mooched off a few yards and settled down to sleep, he rolled her on to her back, kissing her long and deeply.

When he finally raised his head she smiled up at him. ‘How long have we been meeting beneath this tree?' she asked, her mouth still only millimetres from his.

He frowned, pretending to think. ‘Twelve years? Thirteen years?'