by Adele Parks
"OK, Sam, this question goes to you," says Lucy. We all pity Sam, Lucy's questions always cut to the chase. Having said
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that, we are all quite relieved that she hasn't chosen us as her victim.
"Have you ever done trios?"
"Boy or girl majority? Do be specific," Sam says, grinning. Cool.
"Girl?"
"Yes." Sam calmly inhales.
Whoa, Whoa, wild screams of excitement. Drink.
"What would you have said if I'd asked boy?"
"Yes." Sam calmly exhales.
Whoa, Whoa, wild screams of envy. Drink. We all enjoy a good compare and contrast so Sam instructs, "Down a drink if you've ever slept with a man born in the '50s."
Lucy and I drink.
"I obviously haven't pitched this hard enough—how about the '40s?"
Lucy drinks again.
"Noooooo," we scream aghast.
"It was in the '80s," defends Lucy.
"Oh, that's fine then, he was a child molester," tuts Rose.
"No, he was forty-five, I was nineteen. Perfectly legal and actually very instructive."
Daisy puts us back on track.
"Down a drink if you've ever slept with a man born in the '60s." We all have.
'"70s." Three of us.
'"80s." Predictably enough, Lucy has. Riotously we circle her like a band of Red Indians hooting and screeching, "Toy boy, toy boy."
"That's indecent."
"He's eighteen!"
Rose quips, "Don't even ask about the '90s because we'll have to report her."
"So where are we?" asks Sam. I pick up the cocktail book
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but the words are jumping off the page. We've sipped our way through a Campari, champagne cocktail, creme de menthe (which made Daisy retch, "It's bloody toothpaste!"), a daiquiri, a Drambuie (and believe me at this stage it is challenging just saying them, never mind drinking them), and finally Sam has just finished off the eggnog. We are sharing these drinks, encouraging one spirit to fraternize with another in a reckless way.
"Weruppppptoooeffff," I articulate carefully.
"Wotzeff?"
"FaaallllleeeeennnnAnnngel," I squeal.
A Fallen Angel sounds brilliant, really profound. It moves us away from the strict rules of the game, which by now have become complicated beyond comprehension.
"It's yoooour turn to drink."
"No itzs snot. I ask the quesdon."
Instead we change the game to, "If I was a cocktail I'd be . . ."
Sam starts, "If I was a cocktail I'd be a Ritz Fizz."
"Fair enough," I agree, reading from the book. "Another sparkling champagne cocktail sure to enliven the evening. Use chilled champagne. Any liqueur." Actually, I read that, I say, "Anoooother sparking champin cocktail sure to en-liv-en the evnin. Use chill champin. Any lick your." Lucy mixes the drink and exasperated, takes the book from me. Despite my recent intensive course to build up my threshold I am still pitifully poor at holding my drink. Sam sips at the Ritz Fizz, and yells, "You'd be a Shirley Temple, Daisy."
"Oh definitely," we chorus our agreement.
"Can't I be something a bit sexier?" she pleads. Lucy stops pouring the ginger ale and considers the request.
"No," she replies, definitively. Daisy's crest falls. Then Sam checks the ingredients. "Daisy's right, she can't be a Shirley Temple." Daisy's crest soars, "It has no alcohol in it. You can be a Fluffy Duck instead." Crest plummets.
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"It sounds delicious," assures Rose, "rum, Cointreau, cream." I have to say Rose is being a surprisingly good sport about all this excessive alcohol. I thought she'd disapprove and that this would tinge the atmosphere. I was wrong. Rose is frantically leafing through the book to try to find a cocktail that suits her personality. She sighs as she gets to Z.
"There isn't one called 'dowdy housewife.'" Her already very flushed face becomes more puce and tears are threatening.
"You OK?" I ask. Rose has been drinking at an unprecedented speed tonight. Nearly keeping up with the rest of us. Rose looks at me, straight in the eye. Her ferocious glare is particularly disconcerting as she generally has a limited range of emotions: extremely pleasant to mildly flustered. She uses words like "cross" and "happy" and consequently we use them about her. Rose is not a woman that you associate with words like "ferocious" or even "hilarious." She is tempered, even, serene. She drinks back the fluffy pink cocktail that she is nursing and then immediately starts to mix another one. A woman with a mission. She's hardly concentrating on the ingredients and the resulting concoction must be rough, as she winces as it spills down her throat. Still, I get the feeling that she doesn't care. She's actively striding toward oblivion.
"Rose?" Sam sounds concerned too. The party atmosphere is leaking away.
"I'm fine." But before the words are completely clear of her mouth, her angry face collapses into a booing wreck. It sort of melts like wax as she dissolves into shaky sobs. Daisy rushes to catch her face in a Kleenex, and orders her to blow. Rose is too obedient to do anything other than blow. Sam rushes to put a protective arm around Rose. But it's a fragile and impotent shield.
"I think Peter is having an affair." Her words fall out into the confessional room. Scolding the earlier frivolous revelations for not being big and real enough.
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"Nooooo," Daisy, Sam and I rush to reassure. I say, "Not Peter, don't be silly, Peter wouldn't have an affair. You're too happy." My subconscious is a nanosecond behind my mouth and the independent, cocky bastard notes that this is what people would say about me and Luke. I hate Freud for inventing the subconscious, it is so sanctimonious.
"Really, do you think so?" asks Rose, who looks hopeful again. But then she remembers something and adds, "But maybe he's not happy."
"Nonsense," Sam snaps (nonsense is a Rose-associated word, Sam wouldn't think of using it otherwise), "of course he's happy."
"What makes you say that?" asks Lucy. I stare at her, uncomprehending. That's low. That's brutal. Even by Lucy's standards. "What?" she mouths to me, she looks offended. "I'm just saying ..." We don't let her. Instead we drown her out by insisting to Rose that Peter is the very picture of happiness.
"He looked perfectly happy when I saw him last night," I assure.
"You saw him last night? Where?"
"At our house. He came to see Luke."
"Really, truly?"
"Really, truly, I mean, yes, definitely. Why?"
"He told me that he was seeing Luke last night but then he stayed out really late. I was worried so I sat up for him. I thought he'd only be out for an hour or so. When I heard a cab pull up I looked out the window. I am sure that I saw a woman in the cab as it pulled away."
"Did you ask him about it?"
"He said that he was with Luke. He was dismissive of my question about there being someone else in the cab and told me to get to the optician." Magnificently drunk, Rose didn't have to face the acute embarrassment that she should feel. Her hus-
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band was exactly where he said he would be, with exactly who he said he would be with. How paranoid! Really, she doesn't have enough to think about.
"He was with Luke," I reassure.
"Until what time?"
I knew that Peter had popped by to see Luke because they were sitting in the study, enjoying a beer when I came home from Lucy's. I'd waved through and then gone straight upstairs for a long soak in the bath. I went straight from the bath to bed. I assume they'd gone out for a pint. I wasn't exactly certain of my husband's movements, I don't need to be, I trust him. My blasted subconscious reminds me that I'm too busy hiding my own whereabouts to pay much attention to Luke's. I answer Rose truthfully, "Gosh, I don't know exactly. Luke came to bed late, he woke me up. He smelt of alcohol. I bet they had a session."
"Really?" She's delighted. "I feel so silly. Peter kept saying check with Luke." Daisy and Sam start to pour more cocktail
s. Acknowledging that Rose is totally overreacting.
"Luke doesn't lie," Sam reasons.
"No. He doesn't." Rose smiles, happily convinced. She takes another slug of her cocktail; obviously this time it doesn't taste so bad. I make a mental note to be a lot more careful with alibis. God, if someone as simple and trusting as Rose is suspicious, because Peter innocently gets hammered with the boys, then it will only be a matter of time before Luke starts to ask questions. I shift uneasily and catch Lucy's eye.
"Where were we?" asks Daisy; struggling to revive the party atmosphere, she pours yet more alcohol and changes the CD to something noisy and pointless.
"We were trying to find a cocktail that suits Rose."
"How about a Tequila Sunrise," offers Sam. "That will suit you." We nod our encouragement.
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"There's one called Zombie," offers Lucy helpfully. The rest of us glare at her. "Or an Old-Fashioned Whiskey," adds Lucy, as she jabs the fire. I nudge her with my foot. Christ, can't she behave? What is wrong with her? Drink.
"Well, we won't have this problem with you, will we?" Rose retorts. "There is a whole array of appropriate cocktails. Harvey Wallbanger, Screw Driver." Rose smiles as she makes her suggestions, but I definitely get the feeling that she isn't trying to be friendly.
"You can be a White Lady," Daisy says to Rose, desperate to break the tension. Lucy lights her cigarette and I think she mutters, "Rusty Nail."
We spend the rest of the night listening to Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and Diana Ross warble their sad way through countless love affairs—which is fantastic, every one of them relates to my current situation. At about midnight Rose goes to bed, happy with the thought that as neither of the boys can interrupt her sleep, there is just an outside chance that she'll get nine hours.
"Well, Daisy, have you settled on a color for your bridesmaids?" asks Sam. This isn't an uninterested inquiry. We are all down for bridesmaid duty.
"Not yet, I haven't given my dress much thought either. We've been so busy telling everyone the news."
"People pleased are they?" asks Lucy flatly.
"Delighted," gushes Daisy. "I couldn't be happier."
"Oh," says Lucy. Weddings aren't her thing, she can't understand why people are pleased about the announcement of another poor sucker being pulled into the matrimony vortex. "Going well is it?"
"Wonderfully."
"We can tell, you look so content."
"Content, you mean fat?"
"No, she means happy," says Sam.
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"Well, everyone puts on a few pounds when they are, you know, content," adds Lucy.
"You're saying I'm fat. Where? My face? My thighs?" Daisy starts grabbing bits of her anatomy as though she is speaking to a child who is unsure where her thighs are.
"Not fat," I assure.
"No one said anything about fat," Sam adds.
"No?"
"Not exactly," says Lucy.
"Not exactly!"
"It suits you."
"Shoots you, Sir," we all chorus, giggling riotously. Lucy opens a box of Ferrero Rocher that Rose bought Sam for her birthday. We all know the rules—if you haven't paid for the food then they aren't real calories; food consumed while standing doesn't count either.
"Don't worry about it, Daisy, soon you'll start arguing about the wedding, everything from guest lists to first dance. You'll lose a stack of weight then," I assure.
"Thanks, Connie," says Daisy, delighted.
Lucy falls asleep in a chair and Sam, Daisy and I begin to drink copious amounts of water to try to abate the inevitable, raging hangover that we have booked for the next day.
Alcohol makes Daisy brave, or pensive, or insane, because she suddenly turns to me and says, "How long have we known each other?" Before I can answer she responds for herself, "Twelve years, that's how long. And in that time we have had zillions of evenings like this. Over the years we have told each other everything about ourselves. Everything of interest and actually also the boring bits, too. If you were to combine the hours that we've spent talking and whispering and giggling I think you'd have the time equivalent to a sentence for a minor fraud case. Well, actually maybe not so minor. But you know what, Connie?"
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"What?" I ask robotically, but actually I sense from her tone that whatever what is, I really don't want to know.
"I don't think I know you at all, at the moment. Not really, Connie." I am horrified.
"What do you want to know about?"
"Well, for all you tell us about"—she waved her arm vaguely—"sex and stuff, you never talk about anything that matters."
"Sex matters," shouts Lucy. We all jump, as we'd incorrectly assumed that she'd passed out.
"I mean you never talk about love."
I stand up to throw some more wood on the fire. I am suddenly angry, disorientated. The alcohol that buoyed me up for the last few hours is suddenly drowning me.
"You never talk about Luke anymore."
"Yes, I do. I'm always telling you about the proposal, and when I met him, and you see us all the time. It would be very indulgent talking about us all the time."
"We don't see you all the time. Not together. You're never together anymore."
"It's true to say that we are going through a bit of a rough patch," I confess. Daisy looks confused. I feel confused extra strength. We all stare at the fire. I am hoping that Sam will help me out. She doesn't.
Daisy lies down, resting her head on my lap. She persists, "You told us about meeting, dating and the engagement, but now you've closed the doors. You shut us out." It surprises me that Daisy sees it like this. I didn't shut them out, I just moved out of the commune. After I got married I sometimes felt as though I was the one shut out; they were all being single, young things. Doing the things single, young things do. Shopping, shagging, clubbing. The things I'm doing now but can't tell them about.
"What's it like? What's it really like being married?" asks
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sleepy Daisy. I guess she has a very active interest at the moment. I sigh. I've spent plenty of time thinking about this one recently.
"Good question, Daisy." I don't know how to answer. I struggle to find the words. Being unhappy is pretty easy to describe. We are all able to talk about being dumped or disappointed. That's why we are so practiced at doling out sympathy, being there for one another. But when you are happy, you don't sit around trying to articulate it, you are too busy being it. You are just. . . happy.
"I don't know what your marriage will be like, Daisy," I say, patting the top of her head. "I have every reason to believe that you'll be very happy."
She yawns. "I know I will," she affirms and shuts her eyes, desperate, no doubt, to fall into the land of nod where she can dream about tulle Alaska-bake dresses and bridesmaids dressed as fairies.
I check that Daisy is asleep. She is. I ease her head up and put a cushion in place of my legs. Sam helps me to cover her with a duvet.
"It seems pointless to wake her just to put her to bed upstairs," I comment.
"Yeah, much better that she gets a bad back from sleeping on the floorboards. She'll feel it's a more thorough sleepover experience," Sam comments.
Because I am very drunk I decide that it is essential that we clear away the glasses. This faulty logic has often forced me to complete countless games of Trivial Pursuit and 1000-piece jigsaws. This drunken determination always ends in disaster, the glasses often ending in as many pieces as the jigsaw, but at the time there is no dissuading me. Sam knows this, so with a resigned air she picks up a tea towel. However, the combination of the amount I've had to drink and the fact that I wash up by candlelight leads to very poor hygiene standards.
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"These frosted ones are pretty," Sam offers.
"They are not frosted," I say, taking it off her and sulkily dunking it in the water again.
With uncharacteristic tenacity she co
ntinues, "Well, are you happy?"
"Hey, haven't we stopped playing truth or dare?" She stares at me. I know Sam disapproves of John but before I go into automatic pilot, telling her that she doesn't understand or see the good bits, and therefore can't comprehend how important he is to me, I hear myself say truthfully, "I'm heartbroken." As heartbroken is a concept that we each think we have the most familiarity with, there is no thunder, no dramatic bars of piano music, no one faints. I pass her another smeared glass.
"Has he left you?"
"Not yet. I think he wants to. But that's not why I'm heartbroken. I always expected him to leave. I'm heartbroken because I wanted to believe in it all." I wave toward Daisy's pile of bridal magazines. "It's so complex." I rub my forehead, leaving soapsuds on my temples. "My marriage was wonderful. Too individual and private to describe properly. I never thought I was capable of having an affair. I never thought I wanted one."
"What happened then, Con? What went wrong?"
"I did. I guess I blame movies, books, fairy tales, magazines and pop songs."
She looks confused. "I think it's simpler than that. I blame John Harding."
"Who's John Harding?" I drop the glass I'm washing as I twirl round and face Daisy. She is standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. We are, all three, lost for words and I can hear Toni Braxton's "Unbreak My Heart" drift through from the stereo in the sitting room. Surely Daisy can handle the truth. I look at her sleepy, girlish face, still full of hope and wonder. Then again probably not.
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"My lover." I don't quite manage the bravado I was hoping for. Daisy gawks at me, her mouth hanging open; she staggers slightly and I think she is going to faint like a Victorian lady in a Broadway show.
"You fucking hypocritical bitch."
That's one way of looking at it.