‘Yes.’

‘Did you get nice presents?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come on my angel, relax.’ His hands moved over her back, gentling her as though she was one of his young horses. ‘Look! Gertrude’s followed us. She knows I’m a rotter and she won’t let you out of her sight.’

Catching Gertrude’s disapproving eye, Taggie gave a half laugh, half sob.

Rupert reached down and stroked Gertrude. ‘Good Gertrude, beautiful Gertrude. See, I am trying.’

‘Lady in red, Lady in red,’ sang everyone as they swayed round the floor, which were the only words they knew.

Rupert took Taggie’s face in his hands. She was so tall her eyes were only just below his.

‘Don’t be so sad,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll get over him.’

Taggie started. ‘How d’you know?’

‘Caitlin told me. You thought the pendant was from him. I’m sorry.’

‘It was very kind,’ said Taggie stiffly. ‘I just don’t accept presents from men.’

‘I see. Only from boys.’

As Chris de Burgh finished and Wham started, he gripped her waist, knowing she was about to bolt.

‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart,’ sang George Michael, ‘But the very next day you gave it away.’

Across the room Taggie could see Ralphie and Georgina dancing together. He was stroking her cheek with his hand. With a low moan, Taggie tugged herself away from Rupert. Cannoning off startled couples, she fled from the marquee upstairs to the loo to cry her eyes out once again.

Patrick danced on and on with Cameron. They didn’t talk much because they were easily the best dancers in the room. Tony, grinding his teeth down to the gums, didn’t dare move in with Monica looking on.

‘That’s the best thing I’ve seen in years,’ said James Vereker, who was dancing on and on with Sarah.

‘What?’ said Sarah.

‘Cameron getting off with Declan’s son. At best it’ll screw up Tony and Cameron. At worst it’ll put Tony even more off Declan.’

Although Paul was hovering, looking thunderous, Sarah carried on dancing with James until she saw Rupert going past. Breaking away, she screamed out to him.

To keep her quiet Rupert bore her off to dance. Paul could see them rowing all the way round the floor, in that rigid-jawed way as though they’d had too many injections at the dentist.

‘Why have you been deliberately ignoring me?’

‘I haven’t. It’s just that Paul has been watching us like a Wimbledon linesman.’

‘Never put you off in the past.’

‘Did you have a good Christmas?’

‘Of course I didn’t. You obviously did, if the Daily Mail’s anything to go by. I don’t require fidelity from my husband,’ said Sarah hysterically, ‘but I do from my lover.’

‘Then you’ve picked the wrong guy, sweetheart. We’ve had a good time.’

Sarah looked up, aghast. ‘Is it over then?’

‘No, not necessarily. I’m just not prepared to offer you an exclusive.’

‘Bastard,’ hissed Sarah. ‘I thought you were serious.’

‘You were wrong, and frankly, angel, I don’t think you make a very good MP’s wife. Paul looks a shambles.’

In the kitchen, surrounded by undergraduates and dirty plates and glasses, Declan was declaiming Yeats:

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,

Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

Cameron stood listening to him, her hand in Patrick’s.

‘He recites best when he’s drunk,’ whispered Patrick. ‘Loses all self-consciousness.’

‘He should do a programme on Yeats,’ marvelled Cameron.

‘Hardly of local interest.’

‘We could do it for Channel Four.’

Upstairs, Maud was arranging her breasts in the green dress, and putting scent on her hair, and applying coral blusher to her pale cheeks. Her freckles were like a sprinkling of nutmeg tonight.

‘I’m not middle-aged,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I’m still young and beautiful.’

‘I get no kick from champagne,’ sang the disco. ‘Pure alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all.’

The message was all in the music, thought Maud. Go forth and multiply and seek love.

Going downstairs, she could hear Declan declaiming in the kitchen. She was safe for half an hour or so. Screams and shouts were coming from the direction of Caitlin’s room.

The berries of the mistletoe gleamed brighter than her pearls under the hall light. It was three in the morning; soon Taggie would be serving kedgeree. As if in answer to her prayer, Maud heard Rupert’s voice, ‘Darling, I was looking for you.’

Taking her hand, he led her into the study where Caitlin, taking no chances, had hung more mistletoe. Rupert’s hand felt so warm and dry, and the ball of his thumb was so pudgy, noticed Maud. That was the fortune-teller’s clue to a passionate highly-sexed nature. It was certainly the only spare flesh on his body. Maud’s heart was pounding. She must try and be distant, a little mysterious. As he turned towards her, her eyes were on a level with his black tie. She longed to caress the lovely line of his jaw. It’s going to happen, she thought in ecstasy, as Rupert shut the door to blot out the screams and raucous laughter, and coming towards her, gazed deeply into her eyes.

‘Angel, I’ve been wanting to ask you something from the moment we met, certainly from the moment I came over here with Bas after hunting. You won’t be cross with me?’

‘No, no,’ whispered Maud. She was having difficulty breathing.

‘You probably think I’m the biggest shit in the world.’

‘I don’t. I don’t. I just think people misunderstand you.’

She could smell the faint lemon tang of his aftershave as he moved nearer.

‘I’m absolutely mad,’ began Rupert.

‘Go on,’ stammered Maud.

‘About little Taggie, and she can’t stand me. Could you possibly put in a good word for me?’

‘Taggie,’ said Maud in outrage, ‘TAGGIE!’

She might have been Lady Bracknell referring to the famous handbag.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ she screamed, ‘Taggie’s eighteen, you’re thirty-seven. She’s dyslexic, which makes her seem even younger. How dare you, you revolting letch, how dare you, how DARE you?’ And, bursting into tears, she fled upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom.

She couldn’t bear it, she, who’d always got anyone she wanted, being spurned under the mistletoe by the biggest rake in Gloucestershire. And for Taggie, of all people, which made it far, far worse. Almost pathologically jealous of Taggie, there was no one in the world Maud would less like to lose a man to. Was that to be her fate, growing older and less attractive, until no one wanted her?

An hour later in the kitchen Declan was still declaiming to an enraptured group.

‘Christ, I wish I wasn’t too tight to make notes,’ said Ralphie.

‘You see why he can’t go on doing crappy interviews with the Bishop of Cotchester,’ said Patrick to Cameron.

Cameron nodded.


A woman of so shining loveliness, [Declan was saying]

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

A little stolen tress.

He looked up and saw Maud. ‘A little stolen tress,’ he repeated slowly.

For a minute they gazed at each other.


There is grey in your hair, [he began very softly]

Young men no longer catch their breath,

When you are passing.

Maud turned away, her face stricken.

Declan dropped his cigarette into the sink and, stepping over the enraptured seated undergraduates, caught up with Maud on the stairs. Not having had anything to drink for a couple of hours, he was sobering up.

‘What’s the matter? Did he turn you down?’

Maud nodded, tears spilling out between her eyelashes.

‘I’ve seen it coming since September. I wanted to warn you.’

‘Why didn’t you then?’

Declan sighed: ‘Has there ever been any point? He’s no good for you. He’s a traveller. It might have lasted a week, a month, then he’d have dumped you.’

He put his huge hands round her neck above the pearl choker.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘He’s just so attractive.’

‘I know. Hush, hush.’ He raised his thumbs to still her quivering mouth. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

‘We can’t in the middle of a party.’

‘What better time?’

‘I’ve spent so much money.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Declan as they went up the remaining stairs.

‘I love you,’ he said softly, ‘and I’m the only one of the lot of them who understands you.’

‘I know,’ whispered Maud.

Declan shut the bedroom door behind them.

Caitlin, going past, heard the key turn. Removing the sign outside the loo on which she had earlier written Ladies, Caitlin turned it over, wrote Do Not Disturb, Sex in Progress, and hung it on her parents’ door.

Downstairs, the party showed no signs of winding down.

‘I love yew,’ said Lizzie, looking at a dark clump of greenery in the corner, as she danced round with Freddie.

‘I love you,’ said Freddie, giving her a squeeze. ‘Honestly, on my life and at least a bottle-and-a-half of Moët.’

It was obvious that Tony wasn’t going to be able to prise Cameron away from Patrick for even a second.

‘We must go,’ he said bleakly to Monica.

‘All right,’ said Monica reluctantly. ‘I haven’t seen Archie for hours. Where is he?’

‘Upstairs, I think,’ said Caitlin.

Monica swayed up the stairs, hanging onto the banisters. She hadn’t drunk so much since she was a deb; it was really rather fun.

Finding several rooms heavily occupied by couples, she finally tracked down her elder and beloved son on a chaise-longue on the top floor, absolutely superglued to Tracey Makepiece, his hand burrowing like a ferret inside her white tricel shirt.