Prior Engagements

by Sarah Goodwin

  In the foamy-yellow-speckled horror of the next minute, I grasped two very important things. The first was that my mother was (and in all likelyhood had always been) a lesbian. The second was that the dog (Tilly, as Alice kept shouting while the poor creature continued to retch over the designer wool carpet) had, by the smell of things, been dosed with whiskey by Dorian’s utter cad of a brother.

  I shoved my chair backwards and snatched my feet away from my shoes, which were in their turn snatched away by Janine, who had barrelled back into the room. She made me a solemn promise to do all she could, before disappearing again. I heard her shout to someone to ‘bring me the Cif, all of the Cif’’. Tilly was dragged out by Jerry, and Dorian demurely covered the worst of the vomit with his napkin.

  I wiped my feet on my own napkin, using some rapidly cooling tea to help clean them (the atmosphere of genteel manners having been dissolved in copious amounts of dog vomit).

  “I think I should have a word with Fifi,” I said to no one in particular, as Alice was in a state of mute horror, glaring at the speckles of half chewed kidney that gleamed on her carpet, and Jerry had departed with the disgraced Tilly. Dorian put an arm around his mother and started to lead her from the room.

  “I’ll take her to the day room,” he said, as if this would mean something to common little me.

  I got lost on my way to Fifi’s room, but eventually (after opening doors into a broom cupboard, then a tiny bathroom and a long, lily-scented corridor that rang with the sounds of a dog in digestive distress) I found the door to the servant’s stairs.

  I climbed them powerfully and decisively, determined to get to the bottom of this weirdness. Then I climbed them resignedly, and finally, exhausted by their sheer number, I dragged myself to the top, and pawed breathlessly at Fifi’s bedroom door.

  Fifi opened the door immediately, as if she had been waiting just behind it. She was wearing a dusty-rose coloured chiffon jumpsuit, black patent geometric earrings and an expression of utter wretchedness.

  “Oh Annie, I’m so, so, terribly sorry,” she gasped.

  I said nothing (and fought the urge to pass out in exhaustion).

  Fifi pulled me into the room, noticed my bare feet (now rather grubby from my hike up the stairs) and disregarded them as easily as she might a hangnail.

  “Sit down, oh please don’t hate me, have some tea,” she said all at once, thrusting a teapot (stamped Hotel Glennfort) at me and depositing a teacup and saucer into my lap. She poured tea, added sugar, stirred it and added milk from a small china jug (marked The Lily Guesthouse) and by then I’d regained my breath enough to hiss,

  “My mum Fifi? My bloody mum?”

  Fifi blushed and lowered her carefully outlined eyes, “I didn’t intend for this to happen, but...yes, I have fallen for your darling mother, and I think she is most infatuated with me. Oh Annie, if only you knew how long I’ve spent thinking that there could be no one else like me out there – when all the time there was! And it was all down to you that we found each other.”

  I wasn’t sure I was willing to except the blame for this catastrophe. I thought of my Mum, with her costume drama DVD library, her Delia cookbooks from the 1980s and her ‘secret’ shelf of Mills and Boon novels. I couldn’t honestly see the similarity between my batty old mum and the perfectly groomed and rather eccentric kleptomaniac that stood before me.

  “What...I mean, why do you think she’s ‘the one’?” I asked, “Surely there are other girls – someone your own age...”

  “Silly girls with silly brains,” Fifi said, shaking her head, “your mother is perfect, and the first time I met her, she was crying and wearing an old peach dressing gown – so sad because you were gone, and I felt so terrible because it was me that made it happen, don’t you see? She cried in my arms Annie, while Neighbours was on the television, and a cup of tea was going cold at my feet. And I thought she was the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on.”

  Mum had cried? I felt guilt stab me in the spine. Why hadn’t she told me? We’d exchanged emails every day for weeks and she’d never mentioned missing me, or feeling anything more than mild grumblings of discontent over Yvonne’s visits and the mess she tracked in on her New Look hooker heels.

  “She has the most romantic soul of anyone I’ve ever met,” Fifi told me.

  I blinked at her. OK, so my mum was a diehard Darcy nut but that did not mean she had the soul of a poet. More like the soul of a Hush Puppy.

  “You’re seriously in love with my mum?”

  “So much so that I’m going to ask her to marry me,” Fifi said, looking to me for approval, or happiness, anything other than the shock that I was sure was all over my face. “I never thought I’d marry anyone, but...I’ve got a chance to set up a business somewhere else, and I want her to come with me.”

  I waited for my brain to stop whirling around like a toddler on crack cocaine and Skittles.

  “So, you’re going to ask her to marry you? When?”

  “I’d like to ask her after your party...with your permission, of course.”

  I thought for a moment. What could I really say? No, I’d rather you both be miserable? It wasn’t for me to decide who could and could not be together, and I resented everyone’s input into my own love life so much so that I couldn’t bear to put the kibosh on Fifi’s plans.

  “Ask away,” I told her, “just...never tell me, OK?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Anything,” I stressed, “not when you first sleep together, or how much you like my mum’s legs, or what your song is. Just, keep all that stuff firmly to yourself.”

  Fifi patted me on the arm, “I’ll respect your prudish nature.”

  “Prudish like arse dimples - she’s my mother, let’s keep nakedness and lovey stuff under wraps, OK? Redacted into nothingness, Men in Black, Frost Vs Nixon levels of la-la-la I’m not listening.”

  Fifi saluted me. “Can do sir.”

  “Good,” I coiled myself up on the day bed and accepted a raisin teacake from her. “more tea please, Stepmother.”

  Dorian (and a fresh from the garden Tilly, looking thoroughly unrepentant) came to find me a while later. He tapped on the door tactfully.

  “Enter,” Fifi said grandly.

  Dorian poked his head around the door, “Everything all right?”

  “Fine thank you,” I said, “Just trying to pin down the particulars of my new family shrub.”

  “Tish and pish you are,” Fifi grinned, “we were planning my wedding – how do you feel about mariachi bands?”

  “You’ve been talking to Christophe,” I groaned.

  “Who?”

  “Pray you never find out,” I told her, “he’s Opal’s husband.”

  “Urgh,” Fifi said derisively.

  Dorian was watching us with amusement. “When you’re finished gossiping, Mother and Father are arranging lunch for us, as breakfast was...”

  “Called on account of dog vomit?” I said.

  “Oh, did you vom precious?” Fifi asked, tugging Tilly’s ears.

  Dorian smiled, “I’m actually going to see if I can track Freddy down, but if you want to freshen up, our room is back down the servant’s stairs, and then up the main staircase on the right.”

  “Oh, the Dutch foyer,” Fifi said knowingly.

  “The what?” I asked.

  “Haven’t the faintest clue – that’s just what it’s called,” Fifi shrugged, “actually Annie, I’d like to have a word with you about something else.”

  I looked at Dorian. “See you at lunch I suppose.”

  “I’ll try and sober Freddy up by then,” said Dorian, looking doubtful. He disappeared from the doorway and Fifi waited a few seconds, listening intently to his retreating footsteps, before she turned to me.

  “Have you spoken to Will recently?” she asked.

  “No, and I’m not going to,” I sighed, knowing that the fun was now over, and I was in for it, “he’s moved somewhere else, and his par
ents aren’t talking to me.”

  Fifi looked disappointed. “I thought you might have reconsidered by now and tracked him down.”

  “Reconsidered what? Everything’s great,” I said, looking down at my hands and feigning ignorance, “I’ve got a great job, great husband, great flat...it’s all...great,” I finished lamely, wishing I could come up with a more convincing adjective. “I’m fine,” I said, trying to call the conversation to an end.

  “Finetty-fine-fine-fine,” Fifi mocked, “that’s how you want to live your life? I can see you’re bored solid Annie, and I’ve only been sitting with you for an hour. Dorian’s got to know you’re sick of it over there.

  “No, he doesn’t, because I’m not.”

  Fifi looked at me pityingly. “Your mum’s been telling me all about Will, and the two of you. The more I hear the more I think you’re perfect for each other. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re a blinding filly (where in God’s name had Fifi learnt English? A finishing school in Essex?) and Dorian’s a lovely chap, but you’re not exactly sparking together – you’re like tissues and water...”

  “Basic flu necessities?”

  “Soggy,” Fifi grimaced, “together you’re just a formless grey mulch – stuck on the ceiling of a public lav, waiting to be scraped off by an elderly Turkish toilet attendant.”

  I looked at her, too confused to be angry.

  “So what’s Will in this colourful little tale of yours?”

  Fifi chose not to take my sarcasm to heart. “He’s...sugar, or...lemons or something,” she said, waving a hand airily, “and with you there could be lemonade or...I don’t know – anything. Something a damn sight better than mulch. She thought for a moment. “Paint! He’s those water colour tablets and, with you, the water, you could make anything.” She looked at me, proud of her completely batty theory.

  “....well that’s certainly...a thing that you said.”

  Fifi sighed deeply at my lack of enthusiasm. “The thing I’m getting at here is, you’re not happy, Annie. Any idiot can see that, even if you’ve decided not to. And you deserve to be happy. You really do.”

  “I’m happy,” I told her, standing up and making my way to the door, “but I’d be a lot happier if everyone would stay out of my business.”

  Fifi didn’t say anything, so I closed the door behind me and started down the stairs, determined not to doubt myself in the wake of her speech and damning, disbelieving silence. Fifi was a love-drunk idiot, and clearly couldn’t be trusted to see the world in all its shitty, unfair lack of glory. Paint indeed, please – Will and I would make bong water if we ever got together. Utterly immature and useless.

  I was perfectly content, and that was the end of that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Only, like a woman in a restaurant who’s declared herself to be ‘stuffed’ but who still can’t resist eying up the desert menu, I couldn’t quite manage to steer clear of temptation. So it was that I found myself in the guest bedroom known as the Dutch foyer (mostly bronze and cream in colour with wallpaper hand painted with an autumnal forest scene) with Dorian’s laptop across my knees, logging onto facebook and checking Will’s wall.

  I don’t know what I was looking for, maybe a status update that said, ‘have moved to outer Mongolia and found love with a mute serving wench’ but there was nothing, absolute radio silence. He hadn’t even watered his facebook garden.

  I looked through his photo albums, but after a few moments I found myself tearing up at the sight of the two of us together, clearly rat-arsed and mugging for the camera, our arms around each other in ten, fifteen, a hundred photos. I closed the internet down and started at the reflection of my snivelling face in the desktop.

  Thinking of Will made me miserable, what more proof did everyone need that we weren’t ‘meant to be’? Dorian, no matter his faults, his hoarding, his salad fetish, had never made me cry. I blinked, and two massive teardrops fell down onto the keyboard.

  I felt terrible because I had no idea how Will was, or what had happened to him. If only I could know he was OK, then I’d be free to stop thinking about him. To stop obsessing over what might or might not be happening to him.

  An idea struck me right between the eyes. So Will’s parents weren’t giving me any information, there was another person who could tell me where Will was. Water. Water would have to have Will’s contact details so that he could provide a reference. Water could tell me where Will had gone. All I needed to do was call Water and...

  Ah. Problem one – I didn’t know Water’s number.

  Problem two – I didn’t know Water’s address.

  Problem three followed with a clunk – I didn’t know Water’s real name.

  I wracked my brain, had I ever known Water’s address? Or phone number? There was nothing but a blank in my head (all those LOLCats had finally taken their toll).

  But...it didn’t matter, did it? I could forget about Will, eventually and, I was married. Will was probably OK, I was making a huge deal out of nothing.

  I let it rest for about a hundredth of a second before my brain leapt back onto the problem I was unable to let go of.

  How could I track down Water?

  Inspiration struck and I leapt off of the bed, shunted the laptop to one side and slipped my shoes back on.

  Time for some reconnaissance.

  I had a good couple of hours before lunch with the Foffaney clan, so I let myself out of the house and walked towards the town centre, intent on my mission.

  It felt strange to be back in Bath, in the relative quiet of a town after the relentless chatter of the city. There were more trees and small buildings, more smiling faces and fewer shouts and sirens. Everything looked almost the same as it had when I’d left; some new hanging baskets were up on James Street West, there were new posters outside of the Odeon, which now had a Costa Coffee built in, and the wonky traffic light at the end of the street now had a knitted tea cosy on top. Nothing had really changed, at least, not drastically. Somehow, it made it all the more shocking when I finally got to Raspberry Bs, and found only a glum, empty little unit, with a cardboard placard propped in its window that read – ‘Your Local Starbucks, coming soon...’

  I looked through the window, peering into the darkness inside. The café looked tiny, Polly Pocket sized, and the pink walls had dents and scuffs and chips missing. The floor had mostly been ripped up, exposing the water damaged cement underneath the laminate, and a gaping wound in the floor was all that remained of the counter. In the middle of the room was a pile of plastic sacks, one of which was torn open and leaking take-away coffee cups and copies of the Sun, as well as the slashed and splintered remains of Will’s prized skip painting. One chair remained, lying on the floor with one of its legs broken off. I had a sudden hysterical urge to save it.

  It was then that I noticed a cardboard box by the kitchen door. Sticking out of the top of it was a familiar Hello Kitty folder – the one Will used for all his staff records.

  Yahtzee.

  Well, more like Frustration, because the folder was still locked up behind alarmed glass and a heavily bolted door.

  I walked casually around the block of shops and into the alley behind the café where all our deliveries were usually left by Olaf, the incredibly surly delivery dude, who always seemed to be eating red liquorice, and only knew the word ‘bastards’. The back door of the café had always been a weak point, one standard Yale lock (so basically, one good kick) from springing open.

  Not anymore.

  A security screen was padlocked over it, and the kitchen window beside it was similarly blocked. Even the cat flap at the top of the door, which Will had installed just so he could shout at me when I went out into the alley to cool down and have a cup of tea, had been boarded over.

  Damn.

  Emboldened by the lack of witnesses, I hitched up my skirt and climbed on top of a bin to assess the grubby little skylight. This was locked too, with a small army of padlocks, deadbolts and latches
.

  Clearly a wannabe café raider like me didn’t stand a chance against such fierce measures. I was going to need the help of a hardened criminal.

  Yvonne answered her phone on the second ring.

  “Von?”

  “Annie?”

  We both squeed at the same time, and Yvonne threw in an ‘oh my Gods babe’ for good measure, before she unloaded the goings on of the past two months directly into my ear, without a moment’s pause for breath.

  “...and then he said that he’d been to the clinic two weeks ago, and he was fine, so it must have been me, which got right up my nose. Anyway, it turned out that it was just a reaction to my new fabric softener, so we’re going out again next Friday,” she concluded.

  By this time I was sitting on the ground by the bin, reading a copy of Hello! that I’d found underneath it.

  “Mmmhmmm,” I said, feigning interest (in all fairness, my interest had been genuine for the first twenty minutes, after that, tales of rashes, raunchy nights with the entire Bath Uni rugby team, and gossip about one of the Saturdays from work getting pregnant, had worn a little thin).

  “So, what’s up with you and Draco?” she asked.

  “Dorian, and actually that’s...sort of why I’m ringing.”

  “Married sex getting boring already? Alright, I can teach you that thing I learnt from Matt the gymnast, but you’re going to need some chocolate spread, roller-skates, and better hand-eye coordination.”

  “No, I do not need to know your sex tips, thank you,” I said, blushing as I tried not to think about the dwindling amount of sex I was currently getting. “I’m trying to get the washing up kid at Raspberry Bs number, so I can find out where Will is. Only the stupid café is locked up tighter than you should be.”

  Yvonne was silent for a moment, then she said, “why do you need to find Will?”

  “To make sure he’s OK Yvonne, I never thought he’d close the café. I never thought he’d...”

  “Leave?”

  And there it was. No, no I hadn’t thought Will would leave me, that I’d lose my best friend and my favourite place in the world, all at once.