The Marrying Game (13 page)

‘Think of it as a setback,’ Roshan was saying. ‘Your main asset in this game was always your beauty, and that’s something nobody can take away.’

Max, following Nancy through the crush as if glued to her, put down three pints of lager (Nancy, to Rufa’s dismay, had a fondness for the stuff). ‘Will you have anything left to live on, when you’ve paid the council?’

‘Not really,’ Rufa said, frowning. ‘I’m going to have to find some work sooner than I thought. The trouble is, most of my contacts are in the country.’

Nancy had already decided that she had no intention of returning to the country. She loved London. ‘Don’t worry, old thing. I’ll get myself a job – you don’t need posh contacts to pull pints.’

‘I didn’t come all this way so you could slave in a pub,’ Rufa said crossly. ‘I mean, suppose one of the targets saw you?’

‘With that cleavage,’ Max said, ‘he’d be enslaved.’

‘It depends on the pub,’ Nancy said. ‘They’re looking for a part-timer here.’

‘Here? You couldn’t!’ Rufa was dismayed.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Wendy says there’s a fight here every Friday night –’

‘So? All decent pubs feature a Friday night fight. It’s no big deal. You simply bang a few heads together and call the police.’

‘You never had to do anything like that at the Hasty Arms!’ Rufa protested.

Nancy started laughing. ‘Of course I did. Pubs and human nature are the same the world over. Why do you think I number two policemen among my great loves? When we had the Bangham rugger team in, I regularly swept up enough broken glass to rebuild the Crystal Palace.’

‘You never said anything –’

‘The Man told me not to. He said you’d be worried.’

‘My God, he was right,’ Rufa said, shaken and not entirely believing. ‘You’re not doing anything like that here.’

‘You need the money,’ Max reminded her. ‘It’s only incompatible with the Marrying Game if someone spots you – and I can’t exactly see that earl turning up for karaoke night at the Duke of Clarence.’

Roshan placed a beer mat underneath Max’s glass. ‘Rufa’s absolutely right, it would be far too risky.’ He was looking thoughtful. ‘Let’s be creative here. You can’t make your raid on Sheringham House because you
lack
evening dresses. What if I could get you a couple of frocks for nothing?’

‘Where from?’ Nancy demanded. ‘Oxfam? Why should anyone give us evening dresses out of charity?’

‘I don’t think he’s talking about charity,’ Max said. ‘Watch him, girls. He’s playing an angle.’

‘I am not! I was only thinking of using one of my professional contacts.’ Roshan was excited. He addressed himself to Rufa. ‘My editor is obsessed with class, but he’s as common as muck. And so is his paper, whatever he thinks. We can never get ourselves invited to any decent society event. If we do manage to blag our way into something, we can never find anyone posh enough – or pretty enough – to photograph. Frankly, he’d commit murder to have pictures of a couple of high-bred doxies like you two spread all over his Style pages. Especially if we could snap you whooping it up at Sheringham House.’

‘Told you,’ Max said. ‘The little brown man wants to put your Marrying Game in his newspaper. Why don’t you go the whole hog, and advertise?’

‘Shut up!’ snapped Roshan. ‘Who said anything about the Game? If I were writing the piece, it would be in my interest to play up the Norman blood like mad and make you look as if you’d been properly invited – nobody’s going to check.’

‘Maybe not,’ Max said, ‘but how are you going to get your photographer in?’

‘There’s a reception before the concert. Hermione mentioned that they’re letting in a few snappers then. They’ll be the smarter ones, of course – from the likes of
Vogue
and Jennifer’s Diary. I’m sure I can sneak one past
her
, as long as the picture desk doesn’t send one of their usual baboons.’

Nancy and Rufa looked at each other. Rufa was cautious. ‘You’re saying someone would give us free dresses, just to get them in the paper?’

‘Certainly – once they see how gorgeous you make them look,’ Roshan said, utterly confident. ‘One tiny mention in the copy, and they’ll be inundated with rich old bags begging to look the same.’

Rufa said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re thinking of Edward,’ Nancy said. She leaned closer to her sister. ‘Relax. He’s too mean to buy a newspaper – he gets all his news from Radio Four.’

‘Suppose he buys some chips, or – or reads what’s round the potatoes?’

Nancy hooted with laughter. ‘When has Edward ever bought chips? And he grows his own potatoes. We could be spread all over Page Three jumping naked out of a pie, and he’d never know.’

This was perfectly true. Rufa joined in the laughter. ‘Well, if you really think we could carry it off – but won’t your editor mind that we’re not genuine society girls?’

Roshan smiled wickedly. ‘Not unless he knows about it. All he cares about is the end result. If in doubt, remember the first rule of journalism –’

Together, he and Max chanted: ‘Make it up!’

Chapter Eight

SHERINGHAM HOUSE TOOK
up one side of a three-sided square facing Kensington Gardens. It was a flat Georgian building of yellowed stucco, with immense oblong windows that were lighted theatres of opulence. A long line of cars and taxis inched slowly towards the handsome, pillared front door. Two policemen stood beside the pillars like caryatids, watching men in dinner jackets and women in furs climb out on to the chilly pavement.

Rufa stared out of the taxi window at the line snaking round the square. She was magnificently calm, but her eyes were feverish with excitement. ‘How amazing,’ she murmured, ‘to think of all this just – just going on. I mean, in the same city as Tufnell Park. It’s another world, isn’t it?’

‘Another dimension,’ Roshan said, fingering his bow tie nervously. He was on the tip-up seat behind the driver, the silk skirts of the girls lapping round his ankles.

‘Rather scandalous really,’ Nancy commented amiably. ‘I’ve counted three Rollers and four Bentleys, and any amount of endangered species. We ought to string them all up from the nearest lamp post.’

Rufa laughed. ‘What a time to turn socialist.’

‘Well, I’m beginning to think there’s a lot to be said for socialism,’ Nancy said. ‘At least it’s cheap and easy to join.’

‘Yes, but think of the
clothes
,’ Roshan said, shuddering. ‘They look worse than Christians.’

‘I don’t care. I’m sure it’s a lot more fun out on the barricades, in comfy shoes. I wish I’d done the outside surveillance with Max now. Aren’t you scared, Ru?’

‘Certainly not,’ Rufa said briskly. ‘This is everything we’ve been working for since Christmas, and we both look terrific. If we get scared now, we might as well go straight home to Melismate.’ The richness of this world intoxicated her. It was so ultimately safe; all danger and ugliness filtered out by a great mesh of old money. As the taxi crawled forward, she looked into rooms filled with gilt and damask and oil paintings, and felt like the Peri at the Gates of Paradise.

Roshan checked his watch, for the hundredth time. ‘Why is this taking so long? It’s only an earl, even if he is stuck-up. What the hell are those policemen for? I don’t like the look of them at all.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Nancy said, with a luscious smile, ‘the black one’s not bad.’

‘I’m serious,’ he snapped. ‘Hermione didn’t tell me it would be like breaking into the Kremlin. Let’s go through it one more time –’ Both sisters sighed and rolled their eyes, but he persisted. ‘Please, we can’t afford to be careless, when we’re poised above an absolute vortex of humiliation. I’ll have my invitation ready, and I’ll just flash it at them quickly as I’m rushing in. I’ll stick as close as possible to the people in front of me, and you two must stick to me – acting as if you owned the place.’ The anxiety melted from his face as he
surveyed
them. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard, when you both look like angels. Clare should be paying you to wear those dresses.’

From his packed Rolodex of contacts, Roshan had unearthed a pearl: an ambitious young designer named Clare Seal. Clare earned her bread designing the ‘Larger Than Life’ range of a well-known chain store, but she saw herself as the Madame Grès of the twenty-first century. To Roshan, this vision was as sacred as a vocation to the ministry. He had written an article about her graduation show at St Martin’s. That had been helpful, but her dresses needed to be seen on the backs of the beautiful and privileged. In Roshan’s opinion, fashion editors ignored real quality at the expense of the gimmicky and crass.

‘Clare suffers,’ he had told Rufa, ‘because she chooses to work with silks and velvets, instead of barbed wire and traffic cones.’

He had taken Rufa and Nancy to Clare’s dusty loft, at the Hoxton end of the City Road. She was a short, stout woman, wearing Doc Marten boots and a black jersey tent, but she had wheeled out a rack full of exquisite gowns fashioned for swans. When she saw Nancy and Rufa, and realized Roshan had not been exaggerating about their looks, she offered to lend them as many gowns as they needed, in return for photographs on Roshan’s Style pages and a credit in the copy. It had been that easy.

Rufa had worried that they were taking advantage of Clare, and was not sure that she would have chosen a dress like this for herself. Clare and Roshan had insisted on a long, plain sheath of heavy bronze silk velvet. It had a peculiar cut, a little like a medieval robe. She had to
admit
, however, that the colour was wonderful with her hair, which Roshan had made her wear loose and unadorned.

He had brushed Nancy’s long, wild red curls into a smooth knot at the nape of her white neck. Her dress was deep yellow silk crêpe, with a low neck and 1930s fishtail skirt. Rufa thought she looked sensational – she was constantly surprised by Nancy’s potential as a serious beauty. Perhaps, she thought, the stuck-up earl would prefer to make a countess of her sister. She hoped this did not mean she would be lumbered with Tiger Durward.

Clare had thrown in two taffeta evening coats, lined with velvet – dark brown for Rufa, black for Nancy – and Roshan had contributed two pairs of satin pumps, dyed to match at Anello and Davide.

Rufa smiled at him affectionately. ‘You’ve been so nice to us, Roshan. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.’

‘God, no,’ Nancy said. ‘We’re just two provincial maidens without a clue. It was a lucky day for us when Wendy took up yoga.’

Roshan beamed. ‘You don’t have to thank me – you two fulfil all the doll-dressing fantasies I had to suppress when I was a child.’

Nancy took a tube of Polo mints from her otherwise empty evening purse. ‘Wouldn’t it be perfect, if we could find a little romance for you along the way?’

His smile became mournful. ‘I’ve given up on romance. Rufa’s approach is the right one – a sensible alliance, or nothing.’ He looked meaningfully at Rufa. They had both had their hearts broken by married men. Roshan had heard the sorry tale of Jonathan, and told his
own
tale of the solicitor from Epsom who had decided to stay in his comfortable suburban closet. They had agreed that the broken-hearted had an excuse to avoid passion.

The taxi swung round the corner of the square. They were moving closer to the front door. Rufa watched the people from the cars ahead emerging on to the pavement, standing about in convivial knots beside the railings, then drifting into the house. ‘Let’s get out and mill about – we ought to practise belonging.’

Roshan paid the driver, and gallantly helped out the two girls. It was cold, and their evening coats were thin. Rufa, seeing an elderly, fur-clad woman eyeing her curiously, made an effort to look warm. Roshan trotted ahead, towards the press of people in the porch, to spy out the land. He ran back in a state of agitation.

‘This is ghastly – oh, God – let’s not panic –’

Nancy patted his shoulder. ‘Calm down, darling. What’s the problem?’

‘They’re checking invitations, just past the two rozzers with flaming swords.’ Roshan pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, and began punching numbers. ‘Why didn’t that imbecile Hermione mention it? I’ll be all right, but you two— hello, Max?’ Max, in plain clothes, had been posted to spy out the area. ‘Where are you? We’ve hit a snag –’

A large group of people, all middle-aged or elderly, were drifting towards the gates of paradise with enviable ease. Rufa and Nancy, doing their best to imitate the ease, strolled as near to the front door as they dared.

Nancy was trying not to giggle. ‘Why are they all staring?’

‘Because you look wonderful,’ Rufa said. She stated this as a plain fact.

‘Thanks, but aren’t we supposed to be blending?’

‘If we blend too much, who’ll notice us?’

‘Hmmm. It’s a pity we can’t wear price tags. Let’s hope someone decides to marry us before we get chucked out.’

Rufa assessed the situation. Beyond the two policemen, the heavy front door stood open. Beyond that was a pair of glass doors. Behind the glass doors was a large entrance hall, with a black and white marble floor. A young woman in a black dress, flanked by two men in dinner jackets, sat at a small table, scrutinizing each invitation and checking names on a typed list. She guessed this was Hermione.