The Constant Gardener

"Oh, right, splendid," said Woodrow and, giving himself time to recover the thread of their conversation, helped himself to the pills she made him swallow every morning: three oat bran tablets, one cod liver oil and half an aspirin.

"I know you hate dancing but that's not your fault, it's your mother's," Gloria went on sweetly. "I shan't be letting Elena interfere, not after the rather tacky little do she gave recently. I shall just keep her informed."

"Oh. Right. You two have kissed and made up, have you? Don't think I knew that. Congratulations."

Gloria bit her lip. Memories of Elena's dance had momentarily cast her down. "I do have friends, Sandy, you know," she said, a little pitifully. "I rather need them, to be frank. It gets quite lonely waiting all day for you to come back. Friends laugh, they chat, they do each other favors. And sometimes they fall out. But then they get together again. That's what friends do. I just wish you had someone like that. Well, don't I?"

"But I've got you, darling," Woodrow said gallantly as he embraced her good-bye.

* * *

Gloria went to work with all the drive and efficiency she had put into Tessa's funeral. She formed a working committee of fellow wives and members of the staff too junior to refuse her. First among them was Ghita, a choice that mattered greatly to her since Ghita had been the unwitting cause of the rift between Elena and herself and the ghastly scene that had followed it. The memory would haunt her all her days.

Elena had given her dance, and it had been, to a point, one had to say, well, a success. And Sandy, it was well known, was a great believer in couples splitting up at parties and working the room, as he called it. Parties, he liked to say, were where he did his best diplomacy. And so they should be. He was charming. So for most of the evening Gloria and Sandy hadn't seen much of one another, except for the odd woo-hoo across the room and the odd wave on the dance floor. Which was perfectly normal, though Gloria could have wished for just one dance, even if it had to be a foxtrot so that Sandy could get the rhythm. And beyond that Gloria had had very little to say about the evening, except that she really thought Elena could cover up a bit more at her age, instead of having her bust springing out all over, as we used to say, and she wished the Brazilian Ambassador had not insisted on putting his hand on her bottom for the samba, but Sandy says that's what Latins do.

So it came as a total bolt from the blue when, on the morning after the dance — at which Gloria had noticed nothing untoward, be it repeated, and she did consider herself rather observant — over a post-mortem coffee at the Muthaiga, Elena had let slip — completely casually, as if it were just another bit of perfectly ordinary gossip rather than a total bombshell, wrecking her complete life — that Sandy had come on so heavily with Ghita Pearson — Elena's very words — that Ghita had pleaded a headache and gone home early, which Elena considered tedious of her, because if everyone did that, one might just as well not bother to give a party at all.

Gloria was at first speechless. Then she refused point-blank to believe a word of it. What did Elena mean, come on, exactly? Come on how, El? Be specific, please. I think I'm rather upset. No, it's perfectly all right, just go on, please. Now you've said it, let's have it all.

Feeling her up, for openers, Elena retorted with deliberate coarseness, incensed by what she perceived as Gloria's prudishness. Groping her tits. Pressing his nasty up against her crotch. What do you expect a man to do when he's got the hots for somebody, woman? You must be the only girl in town not to know that Sandy is the biggest pussy hound in the business. Look at the way he padded round Tessa all those months with his tongue hanging out, even when she was eight months pregnant!

The mention of Tessa did it. Gloria had long accepted that Sandy had had a harmless thing about Tessa, though of course he was far too upright to let his feelings get out of hand. Rather to her shame, she had quizzed Ghita on the subject and drawn a satisfying blank. Now Elena had not only reopened the wound: she had poured vinegar into it. Incredulous, mystified, humiliated and plain bloody angry, Gloria stormed home, dismissed the staff, settled the boys at their homework, locked the drinks cupboard and waited darkly for Sandy to return. Which he finally did around eight o'clock, pleading pressure of work as usual but, so far as she could tell in her fraught state, sober. Not wishing to be earwigged by the boys, she grabbed him by the arm and frog-marched him down the servants' staircase to the lower ground.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he complained. "I need a Scotch."