Prior Engagements

by Sarah Goodwin

  The sex (when we had it, usually after our salad and an episode of The Killing) was just as good as it had been in England, and Dorian was still as caring and considerate as he was then. Still, something was different, and it wore on me, day by day. That was until, a month into my new life, one of my daily emails to my Mum (Hi Mum, today I volunteered at the Housing Works Bookstore Café. So, still drudging, but now for free) bounced back to me with only one line in reply, as opposed to Mum’s incredibly detailed accounts on what life in Twerton was coming to, and what the government had fucked up most recently.

  Raspberry Bereft is closed.

  Those four words filled me with cold dread. Will could keep the café open in sickness and in health (indeed, he had, health regulations be damned). He teetered on the brink of bankruptcy every year, despite generous cash offers from his parents, which he always turned down. Sometimes there was only a latte’s different between profit and penury. Every minute of every business day counted, in a way that it never did at BHS. Raspberry Bs had opened under record snowfall, in the midst of an economic crisis and even on days when Will and I were hung-over and had brains and mouths as dry as driftwood.

  What do you mean ‘closed’? I typed back, how long has it been since it was last open?

  I waited for a reply for what seemed like the length of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy played end to end. Damn my mother and her two fingered typing. Eventually the reply came through, and by that point I’d run through a hundred worst case scenarios and failed to imagine the simplest.

  Closed as in gone. The shop’s vacant.

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. Gone. The word was tattooed on my eyes in prickling pixels. How could it be gone?

  Will had said once, in a moment of wildness following the arrival of a foreclosure notice (the first of many that we’d bested between us) that “no one is going to take this café away from us. They can take the door, the walls, the tables and the floor, and I’ll still be here. Even if I have to brew tea on a fire made of my own hair.”

  I’d wrinkled my nose and responded, “what about the toaster?” (It had been new then, in those halcyon pre-custard days).

  “Well, obviously I’d kill for that toaster,” Will said, “but if it is spirited away by ninjas of repossession in the night, I will survive.”

  “And if they take me?” I asked, expecting us to trade our customary insults in preparation for writing a nasty letter to Lloyds TSB (Tight-fisted Shit Bags).

  “Oh, I’m not worried, who’d have you but me, eh?”

  I looked at the word ‘gone’ until it blurred into a smear in front of my eyes. I typed, where’s Will?

  Yvonne said she called his flat, but that’s up for lease too. Perhaps he moved back home? came the reply, a good while later.

  I pictured Will setting up shop back in Brighton, buoyed up by the presence of his parents. It seemed just like him – the bright student town, lively clubs and seaside tackiness. He’d be sure to find another waitress there, one of the many students, young and cheerful and brimming with cool cynicism and a love of multicoloured mascara.

  Good for him, I typed back.

  I didn’t really mean it, and, judging by the lack of reply from my Mum, she didn’t think I did either.

  The knowledge that things had moved on at home so fast, without me, made me feel distinctly off for the rest of the day. I left the apartment and walked for a long time, finally stopping at my customary seat on the bench across from the abandoned building. Today it looked even sadder than usual, the golden stone greyed and stained and a few more of its windows having been punctured by stones. I looked up at it and its blank windows looked down on me.

  It had taken only three weeks for Will to cast off the place we’d shared for so long, and move away altogether. To be fair, I’d left him first, but, the café had always been his dream, and I had never imagined that he’d leave it for anything. I wasn’t so morose because he’d run away from our memories, I was sad because I felt responsible. It was my fault that Will hadn’t been able to stand being in the café anymore, I was sure of it. I was the reason he had given up his business, the only thing he’d ever really been proud of.

  If I’d have known where he was, I would have sent him an apology. As it was, I knew that I might very well never see Will again.

  I felt really in need of a good cry, but, typically, I couldn’t quite hop the fence from sorrow into hysteria. A few embarrassing wounded puppy noises were my limit. At the back of my mind I could sense that a door had closed – the route back into my old life was gone. There was nothing for it but to continue onwards, as I’d wanted to when I’d decided to move in with Dorian.

  And life with Dorian was good (if not as good as I’d been expecting) despite my boredom, the skimpy evening meals and the growing collections of strange and pointless objects in the corners and drawers of our home – it was a complete success.

  Still, I was in lower spirits than a kicked dog (turd) when I arrived back at the apartment. Dorian was waiting for me in the living room, wearing a black suit and white shirt. In my canvas dolly shoes and droopy hemmed gypsy skirt, I felt downright shabby in comparison.

  “What’s the special occasion, Spiffy?”I asked.

  Dorian almost jumped, then looked incredibly sheepish. I knew I wasn’t going to like what was coming.

  “I called Opal’s aunt to inform her that I’d finally secured a good marriage,” he half-smiled ruefully, “naturally the news reached Opal one nanosecond after I set down the receiver. We’ve been invited to dinner by Opal and her new husband.”

  “What I hear is – Opal is going to have me for dinner.”

  Dorian laughed. “She’s a vegan.”

  “So she’s just going to kill me, and not eat me? Thank God for that.”

  “She’ll be very nice to you – she always is to people she has reason to detest. As for me...well, I should think being in the company of the man I was deemed inferior to will make the evening about as enjoyable as a Pimms enema.”

  “Yeagh,” I said, sticking out my tongue in disgust, “I’d better try and make myself presentable then.”

  Like it would help. I remembered Opal’s wedding like it was yesterday, and the impression I’d gotten of her jaw-dislocation-worthy beauty was still fresh in my mind.

  “You’ll look amazing,” Dorian said, like it couldn’t fail to be so, “and you don’t have to worry, about Opal I mean. These last few weeks have made me...so glad that I lost her and met you.” He smiled at me, and I felt my heart ooze cold baked beans of guilt, “you make me very happy Annie, I hope you’re happy too.”

  I smiled at him, and tried to ignore my slithering, deceiving insides, “Of course I am.”

  Dinner was horrible, as I’d suspected it would be.

  It was also horrible in ways that I hadn’t even considered.

  Opal had picked the restaurant, which meant that is was poncey, expensive and completely outclassed me in every conceivable way (which I thought was probably her intention, if I looked at it with my paranoid-goggles on).

  The place was called simply Au, which, Dorian told me, was the periodic table reference for gold. I’d already noticed the theme, gold paint on the walls, gold plush carpet, black dado rail, gold silk shirt and gold earrings on the waitresses, goldfish swimming in the glass walls of the entrance hall, and gold leaf in practically everything on the menu, including the mineral water.

  Subtle it was not.

  Dorian smiled at me, “you look lovely.”

  I probably did, but only because of the outfit I’d put on. I was a blank (if clean and groomed) wall, on which a masterpiece hung, having as little to do with me as my wibbly wobbly bits allowed. I didn’t feel lovely though, because the masterpiece I was wearing was the dress Will had given me. It was the nicest thing I owned, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave it behind when I’d packed. So now, here I was, in a restaurant named after an element, completely out of my own, and wearing a dres
s that smelt faintly (in a metaphorical sense) of disappointment and grief (In a very real sense, it also smelt like suitcase, but that couldn’t be helped, and had nothing to do with my emotional state).

  Opal, seated at the glossy black glass bar in front of a gold cocktail glass, was as effortlessly giraffe-like as she had been at the wedding. Her off-the-shoulder black evening dress stopped about halfway down the eternal length of her thighs, and at the end of her golden legs were sky-high patent stilettos. She looked like a film star, right down to her manicured nails and single gold filigree earring. I half expected a fan to stir her elegant blonde up-do and a huge bottle of perfume to appear beside her, voiced over by some gasping waif, Better Than You – Blondé Amazon. Pour Femme (mais not pour tu).

  Dorian and I crossed the sumptuous carpet, walking through air filled with the sounds of soft jazz and polite dining that escaped from the dining room. I could actually feel myself shedding confidence all over the floor, the way a sick cat loses its hair in clumps.

  “Dorian,” Opal trilled, “so lovely to see you again, and darling Claire, it’s been so long since the wedding.” She stepped forwards to peck Dorian’s cheeks.

  I realised that, despite informing people of our marriage, Dorian hadn’t remembered to clear up the great lie that had started this – that I was his second fiancée, as opposed to his third.

  “Actually, this is Annie,” Dorian put in, deftly putting his arm around my back and stepping away from Opal and her oh-so-European kisses.

  Opal looked fashionably confused. “I thought...”

  “Claire and I parted ways, and I met Annie only about an hour before your wedding,” Dorian admitted, looking at me softly, “she enchanted me over a truly unbearable cup of coffee and...I’m afraid I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her company.”

  Opal looked for a split second like she was trying to swallow a small pinecone, then her weathergirl smile returned at full wattage. “How...incredible. Christophe, come meet Dorian and his wife.”

  This last summoned forth her husband, and while the word ‘Christophe’ was still circling my brain and gathering mockery with each passing second, the man himself appeared next to Opal. His hair was as sleek and dark as I remembered it, his skin newly darkened with a tan which made his teeth look alarmingly white. He shook hands with Dorian, and I noticed Dorian wince as three gold sovereign rings bit into his hand.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Christophe said, his voice a deep purr.

  “Likewise,” Dorian smiled, “and this is my wife, Annie.”

  Christophe took my hand, and kissed it.

  It was at this point that I decided I really didn’t like him. Hand kissing was for evil counts in films and pretentious idiots.

  “Cocktails?” Opal offered, gesturing for the bartender.

  “Yes, a whiskey and ginger please,” Dorian said (I noticed he was forgoing his usual V&T) “and for you Annie?”

  “I’ll take a strawberry daiquiri please.”

  Opal raised an eyebrow (as perfectly shaped as the heel of a designer shoe) “how fearless, God I wish I could just ignore calories like that.”

  “It’s a gift,” I said.

  We sat down at the bar, with me sandwiched between Dorian and Christophe, who had Opal’s arm draped around him.

  And then she really let rip.

  “I love your dress Annie, Phase Eight, right?”

  “That’s right,” I smiled, feeling a bite of guilt in my stomach.

  Opal pointed a finger at Dorian. “Shame on you, married for a month and you haven’t started spoiling her yet,” she smirked at me, “don’t worry honey, you won’t be wearing off the rack for much longer.”

  “I’d say that dress is very much on the rack,” Christophe murmured, eying my chest in a way that I very much did not appreciate, and which Opal completely failed to notice, her eyes being glued to Dorian.

  “So, you’ve moved her into your apartment, still the one in Manhattan I trust?” Opal said.

  “Soho.”

  “Ahhh,” Opal said, as if she’d just happened upon a great secret, “still...collecting I see.”

  The tips of Dorian’s ears turned pink. Yes, he was still collecting, as the growing number of occasions when I stumbled upon random caches of junk would testify. Only the day before I’d opened a drawer looking for some scissors and discovered hundreds of crisp packets, all shrunk in the oven into miniatures in the way I remembered doing when I was in school. It was really started to worry me, and tick me off in equal parts. But like hell was I going to let Opal know that.

  I laughed instead. “Yes he is, you should see the fantastic things he finds. Just last week he brought home a broken rocking horse. It’s just so cute, I want to have it incorporated into something, maybe a dressing table?”

  Dorian laid his hand gently on my side in gratitude. He knew I didn’t like the collections of rubbish he hid all over the place, and that the rocking horse had spooked me a little (who hides a rocking horse under the sofa?) but I would have claimed to be weaving a dress out of crisp packets and old tights before I’d have let Opal score a point against Dorian because of his weird compulsion.

  In the space of time between the arrival of our drinks, and the appearance of a waitress who told us our table was ready (maybe ten minutes, but who, in the midst of social horrors can really estimate time?) Opal managed (in her own special, backhanded way) to call Dorian fat (‘Annie must be ever such a clever cook, I can tell she’s been treating you’) and label me a class-hopping interloper, (‘Annie, forgive me, but I’m having trouble tracing that adorable regional burr of yours...surely, you can’t be from Twerton? You don’t look it’).

  By the time we were seated, looking at our menus and tactfully avoiding any comment on Christophe’s interest in my chest, I was about ready to drown Opal in a bucket of Chanel Number 5 (‘I do wish I could get away with body spray like you dear, but my skin just won’t tolerate it’).

  Opal was simultaneously the best and worst person to dine with. She was icily rude to our waiter, complained bitterly about every aspect of the restaurant, while at the same time talking the place up as the ‘most elegant venue in all New York’ and telling us about the various celebs, debutantes and royals who’d been there before us. Yet despite being unbearably pretentious and smug, she still managed to hold my attention and even raised a smile or two, and even an occasional laugh with her particularly preposterous lies (if the Queen herself had eaten gold plated mousse de truffle here then I was a licensed carrier of a didgeridoo).

  “About time,” she trilled as our appetisers arrived, not five minutes after we’d ordered them.

  I picked at my coconut (and gold) crusted shrimp for about ten seconds before wolfing down the lot. I was too hungry to try and impress with finicky eating. Opal raised an eyebrow as she rolled a salad leaf (lightly speckled with gold leaf) from one side of her plate to the other, before sitting back and taking a small sip of iced water. She ate three shards of cucumber, and that was it (No doubt she had enjoyed Dorian’s salad dinners much more than me, in fact I’d started sneaking out at night for boxes of fried chicken that I ate secretly on the bench opposite the abandoned building that had quickly become my favourite haunt).

  Christophe inhaled his portion of tahini and wheatgrass reduction in snail shells (with gold sugar filigree and seared molluscs) and then eyed my breasts freely. Opal, apparently realising exactly where he husband’s oily eyeballs were lodged for the first time, coughed demurely, and then speared his foot with her heel under the table.

  Christophe withdrew his goggling eyes with a wince.

  Our appetisers were whisked away as Dorian said, “So, Christophe, what business are you in?”

  Opal’s mouth tightened ever so slightly into a smirk, “Christophe is ever so clever with stocks, aren’t you darling? Quite the demon, he made a fortune last year, in fact, I dare say several fortunes.”

  I rolled my eyes and caught sight of the golden ce
iling, on which cupids and tigers cavorted beneath a layer of gold paint. The sheer number of exposed genitals (both cupidian and feline) was mind boggling.

  “How nice that must be,” Dorian said, bringing me back to the conversation.

  “It’s dull as horse shit,” said Christophe (thereby increasing my opinion of him by approximately five-thousand percent).

  “Really?” Dorian seemed surprised, and Opal’s smirk slipped off her face like butter slipping off of a hot dish to land with a plop on the floor.

  “Really. I have always dreamed of other things, but now...” he shrugged. (I’d started to notice that Christophe spoke with the air of someone for whom English was a second language, but I couldn’t work out where he might be from. The name made me think Russia, or somewhere close to it, but it was only a hazy guess. I’d been wrong before, when a woman I’d met with the name Chloe de Pompertu turned out to be from Anchorage, Alaska).

  Christophe continued to gesticulate as he said, “I have made so much money, become accustomed to a certain lifestyle...”

  (I chose to interpret this as, “I have married a demanding, highly strung harpy, and if my net worth dips she will leave me and take half of my dwindling assets with her. Why oh why did I not suggest a pre-nuptial agreement?”)

  “What did you dream of?” I asked, before I could stop myself.

  Christophe looked surprised that someone had asked him this. “I dreamed of owning a café, but a café with the best of everything. One that would have the best décor, the best food, the best service, music (French, he had to be, with that little ‘q’ appearing unmistakably in the word ‘music’) and so on. A place that would be a second home to all who knew it.” His eyes gleamed with enthusiasm and there was a second of stunned, reverent silence.

  “That sounds...utterly fantastic,” Dorian said, genuinely impressed.