Society Girls

by Sarah Mason

  The main cast are here tonight. Sally gives me an enthusiastic wave over the top of everyone's heads and I grin and wave back. Matt, the vicar (who we all secretly rather fancy), waves to us too. Catherine Fothersby completely ignores us. Catherine permanently wears a very pained sort of wet mackerel look. Her dark, shiny hair is cut into a bob and very neatly pushed back behind her ears. It just makes me want to rush over and give her hair a good ruffle. She occasionally wears an Alice band too. Yes. Exactly.

  Both Catherine and her sister Teresa are actually quite good-looking in an annoyingly perfect kind of way, but they ruin the whole thing by standing in ballet poses and clasping their hands together and looking as though they're about to burst into song. Holly and I look like a pair of baby elephants charging about next to them. And they are always dressed beautifully. They never seem to make any shopping boobs. Their jumpers always sit perfectly on them, none of their clothes are ever creased (maybe because they wouldn't dare to) and their tights never ladder. And they both always wear a little gold crucifix which sits perfectly in the hollow of their throat. I can't see Catherine only remembering to shave one armpit before going to aqua aerobics as I did last week. The instructor kept insisting we clap our hands over our head and in the end I had to make out I had a dodgy arm.

  I have no idea why Catherine is involved in this production because, as I have mentioned, her family are a bit godly and have always regarded my family, and in particular my mother, as part of some sort of un-Christian sect. But Sally thinks Catherine has a crush on the vicar and that's the only reason she auditioned. But if this is the case then she is completely barking up the wrong tree. Matt has, by his own admission, an appalling nicotine and booze habit (always to be found either in the pub or skulking in the graveyard with a fag), laughs raucously and generally has an infectious joie de vivre. And he absolutely adores my agnostic mother (which normally would be the kiss of death where the Fothersby family are concerned) who he cheerfully tries to convert from time to time.

  Bradley charges in at the last minute shouting, “Sorry I'm late darlings! The A39 was backed up all the way to Launceston. Some silly cow had thrown all her husband's clothes out of the car window and a pair of boxers landed on someone's window screen and caused a five-car pile up. Bloody tourists. All before the Wadebridge exit too.” Now this may be true and it may not. He shrugs his cashmere-mix coat off his shoulders and unwinds his scarf. “Did you start without me?” he says, clapping his hands together. Bradley plays Wild Bill Hickok but the only thing they have in common is that their names start with the letter B.

  Barney and I grin at each other. We don't come to watch the rehearsals at all, we come to watch the actors, Bradley in particular. He is now insisting on leaning on the back of one of the chairs and gossiping madly with Sally and the vicar. Catherine has already arranged five plastic chairs on the stage where they'll do their read-through and is sitting primly with her script open. She looks rather martyred. My mother finally manages to get them all sitting around in a circle and the read-through begins.

  This is the boring bit for me and Barney and I'm anxious to find out about this girl my father has mentioned.

  “So,” I begin and raise my eyebrows hopefully. “How's tricks for you?”

  “Fine. How is Holly?”

  “She's good. Needs a story. One of the girls at her office has gone missing though so maybe she should write about that.”

  “Which one?” Besides being part of a family of voracious gossips, Barney has visited Holly's office a couple of times and let's just say the girls started appearing through cracks in the woodwork so he has pretty much met them all.

  “Do you remember Emma? Daughter of the QC?”

  “Stuck up?”

  “That's the one. She seems to have disappeared.”

  “Really? Blimey . . .”

  I frown to myself. How have I managed to be so neatly distracted? I don't want to talk about Emma.

  “So,” I say again. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

  “Er, no. No one at all.”

  “Would you like to be seeing anyone at all?” Subtle, Clemmie. Very subtle. He didn't see that coming.

  He looks across at me and frowns. “Who have you been talking to?”

  “Do I have to be talking to someone to be interested in my brother?” I give a forced little laugh and then cave in dramatically. “All right, it was Dad. I was talking to Dad. He said you liked someone.” God, I'm not sure if I would ever hold out under torture. They would only have to politely ask me if I wanted tea or coffee and I'd spill my guts. “Who is it?”

  “I'm not telling you that!”

  “Why not?”

  He shifts position in his seat and looks uncomfortable. “Well, I'm not terribly sure she likes me.”

  I look at him in shock. I mean, I know that I'd heard this on the grapevine but it is still a surprise to hear it from the lips of my brother.

  “Doesn't like you? Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely sure. She won't even look at me like that.”

  “But why, Barney? Why?”

  “Bloody hell, Clemmie. I don't know. I've never really had to think about it before.” He looks at me in genuine bafflement. Far from being vain about his looks, Barney seems to accept them as though they are like a wonky set of teeth or something—they set him apart from everyone else but are otherwise completely meaningless.

  “Well, can't you just simply move along? Put it down to experience? Your first one, admittedly.”

  “The problem is that I kind of like her. In fact, she's probably the first one I've really liked.”

  Ah. I relax slightly in my chair. I do not have a similar track record to Barney in that I have had my fair share of knocks on the love front, but I am willing to share my hard-earned knowledge with my beloved brother. “That could be the problem, Barney,” I say sagely. “When they know you're keen, it tends to take the edge off slightly.”

  “But she doesn't know.”

  “Oh.”

  “She won't even give me the time of day, let alone let me confess undying love.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don't really know what to do.”

  “Hmm.” I'm not really being a lot of help.

  “Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “Well, I know she likes men who make their own way in the world. You know, like Sam. He has his own law firm, done really well for himself and he's only twenty-seven.” Yes, I can see his point. Barney and I must look like the anti-Sam. “I just wonder if she would look at me differently if I didn't spend my life surfing and working in a café.”

  “But that's you, Barney! You love your surfing and your way of life. No responsibilities, no worries, that's always been you.”

  “I can't stay that way for ever and just lately it feels . . . I don't know, it feels like it hasn't been enough. Like there could be more to life.”

  “What does Sam say?”

  “I haven't told him. I haven't told anyone. Dad saw me with this girl the other day and guessed.”

  “He's pretty astute,” I murmur. “So who is she?”

  “Oh no, Clem. I'm not telling you that. Mum will only have to ask you to pass the sugar and you'll blurt it out. But promise you won't mention any of this?”

  “If I haven't got a name then I have nothing to tell, have I? Anyway, what are you going to do?”

  “Well, I'm not going to get on the nearest plane to Singapore.” He looks across and smiles at me.

  “No, I know just I do that.”

  “I'm going to join the cricket team,” he announces as though he has just found the solution to Third World poverty.

  “That's your plan? Join the cricket team? Oh yes, Barney, that's a punch and a half. That's sure to bring her round.”

  “It's a start. I want to become more . . . respectable. An upstanding member of the community. I'm going to think about a proper job too. Show her that I can make my way in the
world.”

  “Come on, Barney! Are you sure you want to do all that? Is she really worth it?”

  “I think so. Will you help me?”

  “As opposed to Sam? You're not going to tell him?”

  “It's not really a boy thing, Clemmie.”

  “Can I tell Holly?”

  “Only if she's going to be of some help. But no one else.”

  “I have to say I'm not really convinced it will work.”

  He sighs. “Well, there are some complications so I have a joker to play.”

  “Complications? What complications?” I ask curiously.

  “I think you might find out by yourself, Clemmie.”

  I try to question him further but he won't be drawn and then my mother shouts at us to shut up because Catherine says she can't concentrate.

  God, let's just hope it's not her.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, I walk down to breakfast to find my mother ensconced in the kitchen feeding Norman the seagull sardines from a jar. Norman is a recent addition to our family and just another small example of what happens when my mother has more time than strictly necessary on her hands. She found Norman flailing about with a broken wing when she went to visit Barney at his café at Watergate Bay. She took him to the vet and since then he has become a houseguest chez Colshannon and will be until his wing has completely mended. God knows when this will be because Norman certainly seems to have made himself at home and I can't really see him embracing his freedom with any great enthusiasm when it comes around. I'm not so bothered but, you know, seagulls are whacking great things and he can give you some really nasty looks sometimes. My father and Morgan, however, are counting the days.

  “Can't you feed him outside?” I moan. The very smell of sardines makes me feel sick, especially this early in the morning.

  “Darling, it's a bit nippy out there for him.”

  “Well, it's a bit whiffy in here for me.”

  “SORREL!” exclaims my father as he comes into the kitchen carrying the morning paper. “If we must keep that god-forsaken bird at all then please feed him outside. I simply cannot face him watching me while I read the paper.” My father thinks that seagulls are the very scourge of the planet. There's certainly rather a lot of them in Cornwall.

  My mother takes Norman outside but the persistent smell of sardines still lingers. I try not to think about it too much and manage to shovel some Frosties down my throat. I collect my bag and grab my waitress apron from the coat rack. My mother comes back in holding the empty jar just as I grab my keys and make my exit through the back door. I hear my father roar, “Those are my sardines in Mediterranean olive oil from bloody Fortnums!”

  I smile to myself and make my way out to my car. My car is the only thing I have to show from my term of gainful employment. Apart from a fast ticket to nowhere on the career train. I'm not quite sure how something so wonderfully promising could have turned so sour so quickly. In fact, things changed so dramatically that within a week I had bought my plane ticket and was packing my rucksack.

  You see, I had just come out of a one-sided relationship. Heavy on my side and feather-light on his. Well, I didn't know it was feather-light at the time yet it turned out to be practically airborne. While I was planning our future, mentally picking out new duvet covers, he was treading water. I think he simply became more and more addicted to his increasingly glamorous lifestyle, for glamorous was what it had become, and when the crux came and he had to choose between me and his career, it was time for me to go. You see, Seth valued art for an insurance company and his specialty was the Renaissance period, so he flew all over Europe for the company.

  I met him when I was doing some work experience at the aforementioned art valuation and insurance house in Exeter just after leaving university. Seth was a graduate trainee and a couple of years older. It was my first day on the job and I was feeling incredibly gauche and awkward in my hand-me-down suit from Holly. My new shoes were pinching and I had nothing to put in my brand spanking new leather attaché case which had been a present from my parents.

  I was waiting in reception for someone to come and collect me. Seth marched in and it seemed as though the sun came out. I can still remember him now seeming so effortlessly at home, handing out friendly instructions to the receptionist, looking so urbane and comfortable in his smart suit. He immediately whisked me out on a job to value a painting in Plymouth as he thought I wouldn't want to spend my first day learning names in the office. He was absolutely gorgeous and I was smitten. If I had looked for the signs then perhaps he would have seemed a wee bit arrogant and maybe slightly full of himself but I just saw him as incredibly worldly-wise and accomplished. His hair brushed back from his forehead, one arm casually resting on the steering wheel, the other on the gear stick. He was always obsessed with the “right” things. The right watch, the right pen, the right clothes. The right girlfriend. Blonde, of course.

  Art valuation and insurance houses are a bit thin on the ground so when his firm offered me a position, I gladly accepted. Seth was on an eighteen-month placement in the London office but no matter. What was a mere few hundred miles where love was concerned? Besides, after the eighteen months was up, he would be back and we would be together. So with my new art history degree in one hand and my fresh-faced naiveté in the other, I skipped into the offices of Wainwright and Wainwright ready to surprise the new love of my life with the wonderful news that we would actually be working together.

  Surprise him? He damn near had a coronary on the spot. The fact that he never wanted a single person at work to guess that we were seeing each other hadn't really worried me at all. I just thought that not only was he being incredibly professional, he was being downright noble to protect me. He didn't want to jeopardize my career at Wainwright and Wainwright because Mr. Wainwright didn't like any personal relationships between his staff. The fact that another employee and Marjorie from accounts had been seeing each other for four years completely passed me by but our weekends together were always wonderful and he met my family several times so I had no reason to feel insecure.

  Our eighteen months apart passed quickly. By then Seth had moved out of graduate status and was starting to value his paintings solo, and as such had to start traveling further and further afield. I was still training, but I loved my work, it was interesting and challenging by turns. I loved looking at new pieces of art and the occasional puzzle that came with the valuation.

  At the end of his eighteen-month placement, Seth decided to stay in London. He told me that the scope for work was wider and he would be given more exciting projects than in Exeter. He also said that we had managed to make it work thus far so surely we could carry on. Of course with the extra traveling and the networking dinners and parties he had to attend, we did see less of each other. More often than not, I would turn up on my parents' step solo. If his absence was noted then no comments were made.

  And I started to think it a little strange that no one in the company knew about our relationship. I tentatively suggested to Seth that we should start letting people know but he convinced me that both our careers would suffer and I believed that he knew best.

  Then one day Seth called me and asked me to double-check a valuation by looking up the date of a painting in our library. The Exeter office had a far more extensive library than in London because space was at much less of a premium. So off I trotted, returning within half an hour with the information he wanted.

  A few weeks passed and I thought nothing of it until I was summoned to the office of Mr. Wainwright himself. Such was the rarity of these decrees that it was with some trepidation that I went to his office on the top floor of our building. As I knocked and entered, I knew something was seriously up because not only was Mr. Wainwright there but also his private secretary and Seth, refusing to make eye contact and just staring at the carpet.

  Apparently a mistake had been made in that valuation. My mistake. Seth had told them that I had give
n him the wrong information and as such he had misvalued the painting. I knew damn well what I had given him and unfortunately it wasn't a quick biff in the mouth. The quote was for a long-standing client, it was an embarrassment and, as Mr. Wainwright said, made us look as though we don't know our arses from our elbows. Well, he didn't quite put it like that but you get the gist. Of course, Seth was seriously berated for not double-checking my work as he was the senior member of staff and I was told that although I wouldn't be losing my job, this would be marked against me.

  I'm afraid I saw red. Deep, crimson red. About the color of Seth's blood. I started to tell them how Seth had cocked up the valuation and they looked confused. I went on to inform them of his insectlike nature, where he could stuff our relationship and they looked wary. Seth told them I was obsessed with him, practically stalked him, and they looked scared. Eventually I tipped a cup of coffee into Seth's lap and walked out.

  I don't think matters were helped by the fact that Mr. Wainwright had just had a new carpet fitted in his office and later that day I was dismissed and escorted from the office.

  For a while I was furious. I came home to my family and the rage really set in. I ranted on about court cases and suing them. I imagined my revenge on Seth and his well deserved comeuppance. But slowly, as I calmed down, I realized that not one person could verify my story. Nobody could verify that Seth had messed up the valuation and not one person at the office had known that Seth and I had been going out together. Seth had been there much longer than me and was much more senior and so naturally they believed him. And anyway, I really couldn't go back to work there after what Seth had done to me. I simply couldn't. He even had the nerve to call me, not to apologize but to try and gloss over the whole affair by saying that he thought it was better for me to have this marked against me rather than him have a blot on his copybook career. I shouldn't have over-reacted so much but I'd get another job and couldn't we let bygones be bygones?