In November, Karen hosted a shooting party and invited me to come and stay for a few days. Between Boy and Jock and a string of new, bewildering thoughts about Denys, part of me wondered if it was wise to accept—but I did.
When I arrived, Denys and Karen were playing host and hostess to a houseful of guests including Ginger Mayer, whom I’d never met before but had heard about from Cockie. Apparently she had been Ben’s lover for ages, and somehow the two women remained friends. They were both on the lawn when I turned up, playing a game that looked something like golf and something like cricket, using squash racquets, croquet mallets, and even a riding crop. Ginger wore a flowing silk dress that she’d knotted between her legs to form culottes. She was beautiful, with crimped auburn hair and freckles. She and Cockie could have been sisters as they raced around each other to swat at the ratty-looking leather-seamed ball.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” I said to Cockie when she came up to say hello. “I thought Karen wasn’t speaking to you.”
“She still isn’t, not technically, but some sort of truce is in the works. Maybe it’s because she’s finally got what she wants.” We both gazed over to where Karen and Denys stood on the veranda looking over dozens of bottles of wine, very much the master and mistress of the house. “How are things with Jock?”
“We’re at a stalemate, I think. I’ve been trying to press for the divorce, but he won’t respond. Not reasonably anyway.”
“I’m sorry, darling. But it all has to get sorted soon, doesn’t it? Even the worst things end…that’s how we go on.”
When she danced back to the game with her racquet, I went inside and saw that Karen had outdone herself. Candles and flowers were everywhere, and the table was set with her most beautiful china. Each surface and view had been choreographed, perfectly arranged to bring comfort, and also admiration. Karen might write and paint, but this was another kind of art, and she did it well.
“Is there some special occasion?” I asked her.
“Not really. I’m just so happy I don’t want to keep it to myself.” Then she went off to instruct Juma about some detail of the menu while I stood in place, reminded of something she’d told me months before—that she’d meant to be happy. I’d heard pure determination in her words, and here lay her quarry, as if she had chased and hunted it down. She’d gone full tilt in the derby of her life and won the grand prize.
—
When the dinner hour arrived, the houseboys donned white jackets and gloves and served seven courses for us, while Karen directed everything smoothly from the end of the table with a small silver bell. When I’d been here alone she’d worn simple white skirts and shirtwaists, but now she was in rich plum-coloured silk. A rhinestone band swept back her dark curls. Her face was heavily powdered and her eyes deeply shadowed. She made a stunning picture, but of course it wasn’t me she meant to impress.
I’d brought one of the two dresses I owned for town, but it probably wasn’t fine enough and I worried that it set me apart. That wasn’t the only gap to bridge, either. Everyone seemed to know the same jokes and songs. Denys and Berkeley were Eton men, and there was a tune they sang over and over as the night went on, some sort of boating tribute that called for rowing together, steady from stroke to bow, with Denys singing loudest in a beautiful ringing tenor. Laughter and wine flowed freely, and I couldn’t help feeling slightly outside of it all. I was the youngest guest by far and the most provincial. Karen had taken to referring to me as “the child,” as in, to Ginger: “Isn’t Beryl the loveliest child you ever saw?”
Ginger was seated to my left at dinner. All I really knew about her was what Cockie had told me, that she was Ben’s paramour. She nudged ash from her cigarette into a cut-glass tray and said to me, “You walk like a cat. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“No. Is that a compliment?”
“But of course it is.” She shook her head at me so that her red curls trembled. “You’re not a bit like the other women round here, are you?” Her blue eyes were enormous and acute. Though I felt myself wriggling a little under her scrutiny, I also didn’t want to back down.
“Is there really only one sort of woman?”
“It’s catty of me to say, but sometimes there seems to be. I’ve just returned from Paris where absolutely everyone was wearing the same Lanvin gown and pearls. That stopped being fresh in about two minutes flat.”
“I’ve never travelled,” I told her.