Well, perhaps a quartet would be a better way to describe it. Either way, there were four women in black dresses, two with violins one with a flute, and one with an oboe. They started to play, and Dorian took my hand, leading me to where Alice and Jerry were already dancing.
I couldn’t look at Yvonne, I knew I’d crack up. It was just so weird.
The women in black played song after song, and I danced several times with Dorian (inexpertly and tipsily) and then with Jerry, Fifi, my Dad and Siegfried in quick succession. In between turns around the dance floor I caught snatches of conversation – Mum and Alice were exchanging opinions on Pride and Prejudice’s Wickham, Yvonne and Cuthbert were talking about nipple tassels, and Sandra was waxing lyrical about the smell of a horses tack with one of the pony set (I had no idea what ‘tack’ was, but I hoped to Lucifer it wasn’t posho speak for a horse wang).
While Yvonne danced with Dorian, I took Mum to one side and asked her if she was having a nice time.
“Oh yes,” she sighed, “it’s just like I always hoped it would be.”
“What?” I asked, realising that like me she had also had rather a lot of champagne.
“Being at a ball with someone I love,” she said, and drifted off to where Fifi was smiling at her, wanting her to come and dance again.
They were so sweet that I almost didn’t mind how weird it was that my sister-in-law and my mother were most probably doing the horizontal mambo. (Almost.)
It was a bizarre party. On the one hand there was the delicate violin music and Alice and Jerry waltzing along to it, on the other, there was Fifi opening a portrait of a soused looking old gentleman and revealing a cocktail bar. Part elegant dinner dance, part speakeasy, the night rocked and rolled along, and when the band finally tired, Fifi put on a Johnny Cash record and we all sipped daiquiris and chatted.
“...and they never did find the body,” said Fifi cheerily, “it was a clean getaway for me you see, because I knew they’d never think to look under the floorboards in the housemistress’ dressing room.”
“But didn’t it...smell?” asked one of the violinists, who was by now quite drunk herself and had lost control of her topknot some hours previously.
“No!” Fifi giggled, “that was the clever thing, I got a bag of road salt from the end of the school drive and put the cat in that before I hid it. Quite mummified the thing. Poor Constance never did find out that it was me who killed the little mite with my liquorice.”
Weirder and weirder stories emerged as the cocktails and champagne flowed. I learnt that Siegfried had once been a concert pianist, before taking up the family trade of stock-watching, Alice and Jerry had been in a three-way with a minor Duchess, and my mother had kissed a girl at age fourteen, and then forgotten all about it.
At two o’clock in the morning Fifi threw open the French doors and called everyone out into the garden. From a locked chest on the patio she pulled out a record player, wacked on some Bucks Fizz, and passed around a fresh pitcher of margaritas.
The garden was magical. A long, rectangular pond was set into the stone, and waterlilies had bloomed on its surface. The water was inky black under the night sky, and the moon’s reflection was unbroken. Around the edge of the garden ran a red brick path, overhung with small white dog roses that dripped from iron arches in foamy clouds (I was very very drunk by this point, ordinarily I would have said, ‘oooh, what a lovely garden, are those roses?’ And then asked what was for tea). I could smell rosemary, lemon balm and roses, lots and lots of sweet roses.
Two hours later, Siegfried was asleep on a sun lounger and I was beyond tired. My feet hurt in their high heels, and I couldn’t have been happier. Dizzy with alcohol and light with the scent of the summer evening, I sat at the side of the pond and stretched my legs out on the cool stone. Dorian came and sat down next to me. He’d discarded his tie at some point, and the collar of his white shirt was open against his throat. We sat in silence for a moment, then he took my hand in his and fingered my wedding ring.
“I can’t believe this happened,” he said.
“What? The party? Your parents know how to throw a shindig I’ll give ‘em that.”
“What I meant was-”
“I’d just like to apologise for using the word ‘shindig’, it’ll never happen again, I swear.”
“I should hope not,” Dorian chided, “no, what I meant was, I can’t believe we got here. Married, living together, at a party my parents are throwing for us...a few months ago I was almost resigned to being on my own forever.”
“Mmm,” I said noncommittally, watching the waterlillies jiggle as an unseen fish swam through them.
“You are alright, aren’t you? In New York?” Dorian asked quietly.
“Of course I am,” I said, rather too quickly.
“I know it’s a bit strange. Me working all the time can’t be helping... and I’m trying to cut down on the, um...hoarding.”
He had in actual fact not been cutting down on the hoarding. I’d checked his suitcase earlier in the day (when I was looking for my standby pair of ‘oh shit I got my period’ expenda-pants) and found that it contained three old tennis balls, nine glass jars and a whole ton of clothes pegs, old birthday cards and shoelaces. God knows where he’d found it all, probably in junk drawers and cupboards the house over. I was going to have to say something before he dragged it all back to New York.
“Everything’s great,” I told him, “I’ve got my job, your work’s going really well, and I love your apartment.”
I realised I should have said ‘our’ apartment.
I realised I should have said, ‘I love you.’
Dorian sighed ruefully. “We’re still missing something, aren’t we? I’ve noticed something off since we moved into my place. Something we, I don’t know, something we’re missing.”
I looked into Dorian’s worried face, and tried not to think about the way Will had kissed me, or about the hundreds of times we’d slept in a drunk heap like puppies and he’d made me tea in the morning while I retched over his toilet and huddled in one of his hoodies.
“We’ll get there,” I told him, with more conviction than I felt, “I know we will.”
Dorian sighed. “I just can’t help feeling that, getting together was easy, I’d hoped that everything else would be just as simple – that it would feel just as right.”
I had nothing to say to that, and thankfully, Yvonne chose that moment to stagger over to us, wailing the lyrics to Making Your Mind Up, and tripped over my leg, falling straight into the pond. She dragged herself upright using the statue of Minerva in the centre of the water feature, and laughed hysterically.
Dorian and I exchange glances, and he gallantly rolled up his trousers.
The morning after the party, I awoke with a stunner of a hangover.
My mouth was dry as a wafer buried in a salt mine, and my head was several miles away in a bin beset by rabid dogs. I was, in short, laid out like a beached manatee (only one that had been swimming in margaritas rather than water). I would have been quite happy to sleep the day away, surfacing only to scavenge for painkillers and Pringles. Alas the infernal Gods of alcohol were having none of it.
Yvonne and Fifi appeared at my bedside, both wreathed in dressing gowns and cigarette smoke (Yvonne had apparently spent the night, and was wearing a robe that presumably belonged to Fifi, a Chinese silk concoction that was so bright it hurt my brain). They deposited a jangling tray near my feet, and climbed into bed with me.
It was then that I realised Dorian was nowhere in sight. Fifi (wearing a white silk dressing gown trimmed in so much ostrich feather that she looked like a 1940s starlet) caught my confused look and then glanced at Yvonne.
“Dorian’s sleeping in one of the spare rooms,” Fifi said.
“Why?”
“What do you remember about last night?”
“Up ‘till Yvonne landed her dopy bum in the pond.”
More exchanged looks.
“What
?” I demanded.
“You got a bit...” started Fifi.
“Very,” chipped in Yvonne.
“Drunk,” said Fifi, “and started talking about Will,”
“Crying about Will.”
I felt the earth land in my stomach.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Fifi patted my leg soothingly. “He knows you miss Will, he was your best friend after all...but...well, he thought it would be best to put you to bed and leave you to...”
“Stop blubbering like a teenage girl at Rob Pattinson’s funeral,” Yvonne finished.
I felt sick, and not just in a ‘holy shit why did I drink ten gallons of liver-poison’ way. What had I said? Why had I said it, now, when everything was perfect?
“Anyway,” Fifi breezed, “we made breakfast.”
“Baileys and Wheetabix,” Yvonne clarified, “best pick-me-up.”
I struggled upright and glared at the breakfast on the tray. I instantly regretted it. If there’s one thing you don’t want to see when you’re hung-over it’s Baileys and Wheetabix. Trust me.
“What are those brown bits,” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Baco-bitz.”
I dry heaved and pushed the bowl away, settling back onto my pillows as if they were a life raft.
“Baby,” Yvonne scolded.
“M’not.”
“Yes you are.”
I kicked at her sluggishly, sending the tray and it’s gruesome cargo all over the bedspread. All three of us exited the bed hastily, and regarded the thick, brown mush that was sliding in clods over the duvet.
I sighed, and then realised that someone had removed my dress, leaving me in my underwear. I snatched up a dressing gown and threw it on.
“How about I make three batches of the cure,” I said, “and we watch some daytime telly?”
The Foffaney kitchen was much like the rest of the house, beautifully decorated, and very very fancy. Original oak floors, Victorian tiling, sideboards full of willow patterned china and copper pots, all of which lent it a National Trust feel, as if there should be a stuffed pheasant dangling next to an info board about Henry the Eighth. There were gadgets and gizmos that I’d only seen on cooking programmes, a water bath and flame grill and even a walk-in larder. The kitchen was stocked with everything that I needed, and I got some black pudding and smoked salmon out of the fridge to start on the cure.
It didn’t take much preparation, just the four key ingredients – the salmon, black pudding, Tabasco and honey, cooked off and toasted into a bap or other bready receptacle. Alas, the secret ingredients (yesterdays coffee grounds mixed with ground Panadol and tequila) were available only at the café, but the sandwich would still contain most of the crucial hangover food groups (sweet, salty, fatty and spicy) and we could get the caffeine and painkillers in a more traditional way (forgoing the hair of the dog).
I turned the sandwiches onto plates and handed them around the table. Yvonne and Fifi were both the types of people who could digest the foul recipe that Will had created- they were both desperate and lucky. Charmed.
I could barely stomach the sight of it, so I drank tea and popped Paracetamol in gloomy silence.
Once breakfast was over and done with, Fifi led us to the only room in the house that had a television in it. It was a top of the range flat screen in a room no bigger than the pantry. Inside was some old furniture that Fifi explained as having belonged to the former owners. The sagging leather sofa and dented coffee table looked more like things I’d have bought for my flat from Oxfam. I felt instantly comfortable.
Yvonne flipped the TV on, which, for all it’s expensive sleekness, was only equipped with a simple aerial. She plumped for Channel 4, and for a while we all watched a smiley woman in a tea dress open doors and point at original light fixtures excitedly. Then, as the woman appeared in a kitchen and started to bake a cake, Fifi said, “Is this a new channel? I swear I’ve never heard of it.”
I giggled, and finally, the dark cloud of my meeting with Stephen was swept away. I felt normal again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Somehow, in only a few days, I’d managed to forget that I did not still live in Bristol. I wished more than anything that I was only an hour from my own little bed, but, only two days after the party, it was time to return to New York.
I’d seen very little of Dorian since the party. After waking up alone and spending most of the day with Fifi and Yvonne, I’d seen him only at dinner, and then he’d slept in the guest room again. So I was feeling a little anxious when it came time to depart, just in case he’d decided against taking me back with him.
I needn’t have worried. On the morning of our last day, he came back to our room and helped me to pack all our things up. He was at my side while I tearfully hugged my Mum (and my new step-mum-to-be) and it was with him that I climbed into a taxi and headed towards the airport.
But we didn’t talk, and that made me feel worse and worse as the minutes became hours, and as we flew over the ocean, back to America.
It was raining as we left the airport, and by the time we’d taken a taxi, become stuck in traffic and then walked half a block, we were both soaking. We burst into the apartment building, and ran to the lift, then along the corridor to the front door, intent on finding dry clothes and putting the kettle on.
As soon as the door closed it sealed us into silence.
Awkwardly I towelled off my hair and changed into a thick jumper and soft cord skirt. When I came back to the living room I found Dorian sitting on the sofa in a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. I sat down opposite him.
“Is everything alright?” I asked. I hadn’t wanted to delve into the tense silence that surrounded us, but now that we were alone it was unbearable.
Dorian looked pained, but nodded and said, “Everything’s fine.”
I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t say anything.
I tried to sleep off my jet lag for most of the afternoon, only getting up to fetch a cup of tea and a book. That was when I discovered that we were out of milk. Out of everything in fact. Dorian had retreated into his study and I put my head around the door to tell him that I was going out to get some shopping in. He was staring at a blank sheet of paper on his drawing board.
“Mmm,” was all he said, and I left without asking if there was anything in particular that he wanted.
I put on my pea coat and a pair of dark pink wellies that I’d bought just because the New York rain seemed to dissolve all my shoes. I got back onto the street and slouched along, running through a jumble of necessities in my head – milk, bread, wine etc. It would be nice to pile neat, homey packets into a basket. I always felt more secure after a big, practical food shop. As if I’d acquired much needed ballast. Particularly if I’d brought home lentils, rolled oats or huge boxes of teabags.
I walked for a while, listening to the hiss of cars in the smutty rain, the whine of sirens in the distance, the slap-slap-squeak of my wellies on the pavement. To my surprise, I found I’d walked past the little shop just a few streets from the apartment. I was standing in front of work, looking in at the people sipping lattes and reading Jodie Picoult bestsellers. I pushed open the door and went inside.
Mags was serving at the counter. She’d acquired a wig since I’d seen her last, a scarlet mass of tumbling curls, which she was wearing with a jumper with an appliquéd pineapple on it and a black leather skirt.
“Annie!” she crowed when she saw me, “how’s jolly old England?”
To my utter humiliation, I immediately started to cry.
Mags shot out from behind the glass counter, heedless of her customer’s need for a hot beverage. She steered me away into the kitchen, which was small, steamy, and smelt of burnt coffee and old tea. She perched me on the edge of the small fridge that held the spare cartons of milk, and promised she’d be back in a minute.
When Mags came back she was carrying a huge hot chocolate, and she set it down beside me.
<
br /> “I put the closed sign up, anyone wants to leave, they’ll have to unlock the door or call for help.”
I laughed, snottily.
“Honey, I love you, but, do that again and I will stick your whole head in the dishwasher,” Mags told me, “what’s up in Annie-Land?”
“Everything,” I sniffed, “everything is shit in Annie-land, and the mayor is a stupid, stupid cow.”
Mags sat next to me and patted my head absently as I filled her in on all the things that had happened in the past few months, me and Will, the café closing down, meeting Stephen, Dorian’s distance for the past few days and finally, the idea that this was my life now, that this was it – I was never going back to England, and the sudden feeling that I was stuck, like a stringy bit of burnt cheese on a hot plate.
I drank my hot chocolate while Mags ruminated on this, and just as I was licking marshmallow goo from the rim of the cup, she sighed and rubbed a hennaed hand over my knee.
“That’s really a pickle you’re in, God I’d hate to be you right now.”
I waited for more, but it seemed that this was all Mags was about to offer.
“That’s all? Ta for the schadenfreude, drink on the house?”
Mags looked sheepish. “You are actually gonna have to pay for that.”
I flicked her leg and she waved her hands in mock surrender.
“OK, OK, look, there’s really only one thing you can do, and that’s get your head straight. Take a walk, kick a few cans and then go back and start unravelling the mess you made.”
It was hardly a weighty self-help tome, but I could see she had a point.
“Then,” Mags continued, “get your ass back to England where it belongs. I mean it, you are adorable as cotton candy on a cat, but you’re not meant for the big bad city.”
That, I firmly agreed with (cats were ADORABLE when they got their paws on candyfloss).
“I’ll get my shit together,” I promised, when I finally braced myself to take leave of the warm little kitchen, “thanks Mags.”
She shushed me, pressed a biscotti finger into my hand, and told me she’d pick up the tab for the hot chocolate.
Prior Engagements Page 25