Free Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore

chauffeured
Mercedes, the menservants in white gloves? We children having lunch
with Uncle Dan and Aunt Meg in the big dining room, white Dutch
double tulips as the centerpiece: the first secretary, Brogan, so
short that even at twelve I came up to his shoulder, arriving to
play tennis with me. That Irish embassy in Holland, was it the
closest I will ever be to the existence of the people on that
yacht? Will they wake up this morning to a steward in white gloves
bringing a breakfast tray on which sits one red rose? Will they
order the captain to sail for Formentor after lunch? Imagine going
down now to the quay, a private motorboat coming for us, taking Tom
and me out to that yacht, the anchor up, stewards pouring
champagne, us dancing on deck under the stars, sailing down to the
Azores and on to the South Seas. Is there really a life like
that?
        The clock, which she thought she had set for seven,
shrilled loud and late in the room. Hurrying, she pulled off her
nightgown and sat naked at the dressing table, beginning a long,
careful job of doing her face. Before leaving home she had
consulted Madge Stewart at McElvey’s. Madge had been trained at
Elizabeth Arden in London, and now she put on the base in the way
Madge had shown her and took out the new terra-cotta makeup Madge
said would be just right in the sun. First she did her eyes, not
too much eyeliner, trying for the natural look Madge talked about.
She rubbed the blusher in high on her cheekbones, with a touch of
it across her forehead along the hairline to give the beginnings of
a tan. She was pleased with the result. She took out her yellow
sundress, gave it a touch with the traveling iron, unpacked her
blue swimsuit, put it with a towel and the suntan cream in her
little traveling bag, adding the blue sun hat as an afterthought.
Then went into the bathroom, still naked, and began to comb her
hair. The sunglasses she mustn’t forget, brand new with very big
rims, all the rage in
Vogue
this year. At the last minute
she put on lipstick and faced the mirror.
        Awful. Too much. Why did I trust Madge, why didn’t I
have a trial run at home, the one day I want to look my best and
it’s awful, too much eyeliner, take a bit off, oh, God, I should
have got up at six, too much blusher, put on powder, start all
over, but it’s too late, I must go down and order the picnics. She
felt like weeping, but if she wept it would make her eyes even
worse. She was shocked at herself for caring so much. But there it
was. She did.
        So, giving up, she put on her underthings and the
yellow sundress and went down and managed to order the lunches and
be on the terrace before nine. But he was there already: he must
have come early. He jumped up, smiling at her. “Hey, you look
terrific. Good morning.”
        “No, I don’t.”
        “Yes, you do. What a great dress.”
        You would wait a long time before an Irishman would
tell you you had on a great dress. “Thank you,” she said.
      
        •
      
        At ten they caught the boat for Cap Ferrât. The
beach there was sheltered, smart and private with real sand,
brought in by truck and laid over the pebble stones. In the rear
were a restaurant and changing rooms, and when the boat let them
off at the small jetty, they paid their admissions and went
straight up to change. A few minutes later Mrs. Redden emerged,
wearing her blue sun hat and the big new sunglasses, feeling naked,
white, and conspicuous in the swimsuit, which was also blue and
new. As she came down the steps to the beach, instinctively she
hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself’ smaller, peering out
uncertainly at the blue-tinted world revealed through her new
sunglasses.
        Two teen-aged girls, sleek, tanned to an even cocoa
brown, flashed by like a reproach. Then a man and his wife, wearing
the most minimal of
cache-sexe
, both stringily muscled in
a way that reminded her of racehorses, came parading past,