My Life On a Plate

by India Knight

  I wiggle into my bedroom – the dress is on the tight side – to try on the lovely strappy ribbon shoes. They’re an extremely snug fit. They’re not the comfiest thing ever and it hurts to walk, but they look great, and one must suffer – or so Kate always told me – to be beautiful (‘Il faut souffrir pour être belle’ were her exact words). I hadn’t borne in mind that the heels would make me roughly six feet tall, but there you go. Better than being four feet, I always think, although boring and slightly giraffey to have to bend one’s high-up head to kiss one’s little husband.

  More to the point, the shoes arch my feet in such a way that we’re talking va-va-voom on the bosoms and bottom front. I stand in front of the mirror, admiring myself, much as you’d admire somebody else. I mean, I know it’s me, but, basically, wow. And I do hate it when people pretend they look crap if they know perfectly well that they don’t. So I admire myself some more. Sod modesty, frankly, at times like these.

  ‘Fuck!’ shouts Tamsin, who has wandered in in search of a hair-dryer. ‘You look fabulous.’

  ‘Why, thank you,’ I simper. ‘Do you really think so? It’s not, you know, a bit much, as a look? I have to be careful, with make-up – as you know – because make-up-wise, my primary role model is the drag queen.’

  ‘It’s fabulous,’ Tamsin repeats, frowning. ‘Not draggy, no – more showgirl, as if you should have feathers on your head. I haven’t seen you look like that for years.’

  She walks around me, rather as one might pace around a horse before buying it – I’m ready to bare my gums and kick back my hooves for inspection. ‘What are those shoes?’ she asks suspiciously.

  ‘They’re new. Do you like them?’

  ‘They’re sexy,’ she says, in the same tone of voice.

  ‘That’s because I am a gorgeous minx of utter go-on-my-son foxiness,’ I say, feeling really marvellously buoyant and light-headed and taking another sip of gin.

  ‘And your dress is sexy,’ Tamsin continues.

  ‘It is allowed, you know, Tam, once in a blue moon.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says Tamsin. ‘It takes getting used to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because I’m not used to it. Because I’m used to you slobbing about in tracky pants.’

  ‘Please don’t say “pants”,’ I say. ‘We’re not in America. You make it sound like I roam the streets of London in padded underwear. And I don’t slob. I relax.’ Tamsin raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s true! Besides, I do dress up sometimes, Tam.’

  ‘Not like this. And you’ve never done your make-up like that before.’

  ‘Yes, I have. I always used to do my make-up like this. Tamsin, why are you being such a complete poop?’ I ask. ‘Is this a subtle way of telling me I don’t look nice? Do I look like mutton?’

  ‘No,’ says Tamsin. ‘You look very nice. Very nice indeed. Lamby. It’s just a shock, that’s all. You’re a mummy. You’re married. You’re – sorry, darling – a bit boring.’

  ‘Tamsin!’

  ‘It’s true, though. Sartorially, I mean. You’re not supposed to dress like that and look good. You’re not supposed to dress like you’re on the pull.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. And grow up. It’s the Noughts, darling. Married women don’t have to wear pinnies or carry feather dusters. And I’m not on the bloody pull.’

  ‘Of course not,’ says Tamsin. ‘But still.’

  ‘Still what? Are you trying to tell me you’re jealous? Like when I had Aquatic Sindy and you didn’t? Like when I snogged George “Tongue” Hartley?’

  Tamsin snaps out of her fit of grumpiness. ‘Slightly,’ she smiles, coming over to give me a hug. ‘A bit. But I’ll get over it. Come and help me get dressed when you’re ready. And I’ll have you know I snogged George “Tongue” Hartley as well.’

  ‘No! Where?’

  ‘Ritzy Cinema, Brixton, 1983,’ she says triumphantly. ‘By the way,’ she adds as she heads for the door. ‘You would.’

  ‘Would what?’

  ‘Pull. You’d pull, and I’d have to take the bus home and listen sadly to Barry Manilow songs and practise French-kissing my pillow, imagining it was the Tonguester.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Tamsin,’ I say, feeling very delighted indeed at this generous compliment. ‘I’ve just got to find some earrings, and I’m coming.’ After all, I’ve been jealous of her often enough, and not had the honesty to tell her. I suppose this evens things out.

  I hum ‘Copacabana’ to myself as I fumble around for my new crystal earrings, affix them to my lobes (which shimmer with, er, shimmery powder, as would my collarbones, if I actually had any) and go off to present myself to Flo. Her verdict, I am pleased to say, is rather more enthusiastic than Tamsin’s.

  ‘You look really lovely,’ Flo says kindly. ‘A bit like a sweetie in a shiny wrapper, though with hair, obviously. Yum. Well, not yum to the hair, but otherwise, yum. People might try and eat you.’

  ‘You look beautiful, Mummy,’ says Charlie in a small voice.

  ‘You look like Maid Marian,’ says Jack, scrabbling for superlatives. ‘All cool and fighty.’ He strikes a Robin Hood pose, imaginary arrow waiting to be fired, and beams at me. It is, frankly, the ultimate accolade. I totter out of their bedroom feeling a million dollars.

  We skipped Contortions, the actual performance, partly because Tamsin was having an epi about her ‘frumpy’ dress (actually it’s anything but, being a red and pink velvet affair that looks amazing against her orange hair – the generous amount of pregnancy-boosted bosom on display doesn’t do any harm either); partly because I wanted to read the boys their bedtime story, to alleviate some of my guilt at leaving them to go to a sexy-sounding, non-boring and thus unmotherly party looking like I was on the pull; and partly… partly because when it was actually time to go, I started getting cold feet.

  Flo had to physically restrain me from peeling off the eyelashes and from running upstairs to change into something less tralala-ish. (Tamsin: ‘Change, by all means, if it makes you feel more comfortable.’ Flo: ‘Shut up, Tamsin.’ Me, miserably: ‘Maybe we should just watch EastEnders and order a pizza. Maybe we’re too old.’)

  Flo had to practically push us out of the door and into the waiting taxi. Now we’ve arrived outside the fiendishly trendy bar in Hoxton where the party is being held, though, I feel butterflies of trepidation.

  ‘Do I…’ I ask Tamsin.

  ‘You look great,’ she replies gruffly.

  ‘So do you,’ I tell her truthfully, at which she snorts unattractively. ‘Do that more, Tamsin, it’s very sexy,’ I tell her, my nerves getting the better of me, as if I were some gimpy teenager about to hit the school disco.

  Tamsin gives me another furious look.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I cry – I’d actually be hopping up and down if I weren’t trying to look vaguely cool – ‘let’s go.’

  We’re about half an hour late and the bar – East End boho, I’d describe it as: dim lighting, second-hand leather armchairs, a curved, beaten-up wooden bar, pebbles in the fireplaces, Casablanca lilies in giant clear vases – is already heaving. We stand at the top of its stairs and look down.

  The dancers, Dunphy’s troupe, are instantly recognizable. The place is dotted with people with long, sinewy twig-like limbs wearing very small clothes, thus prompting a repeat of that sinking, I am the Elephant Girl and may as well pack my trunk now feeling. There are girls whose entire bodies are highlighted with glitter, sparkling in the relative darkness; and men – ooh, hello – wearing white cotton vests and artfully cut, buttock-enhancing cargo ‘pants’. One tanned, razor-cheekboned man, standing slightly back from the general mêlée, is wearing a dazzlingly crisp, white outfit, based loosely on a shalwar kameez. Swathed in an extravagant fuchsia-coloured shawl, he looks a picture of bored, faintly jaded beauty, like he should have been sketched by Harold Acton.

  There are also a lot of people in black, of the kind with unisex facial hair – goatees for the men, the merest soupçon of a ’tac
he for the women. These are presumably critics, or a general gaggle of eager balletomanes. And a handful of your artier celebs are scattered about too – a pair of the more outré fashion designers; ironically bespectacled gallery owners; a couple of already-pissed, staggering artists, one of whom has the thinnest legs I’ve ever seen; a brace of the pop stars who like hanging out at private members’ clubs because it makes them feel cerebral; a comic who fancies himself as a bit of a latter-day Marcel Duchamp.

  ‘God,’ says Tamsin, as we make our way down the stairs. ‘He’s certainly packed them in tonight. It’s quite scary. You don’t get this in Belsize Park. Or when we go for drinks after the PTA.’

  ‘Life on the edge, eh, Tam? They’re just rent-a-crowd,’ I say, though I am, in truth, slightly impressed that Laughing Boy should command this calibre of celebrity fan.

  We go down the stairs, extremely slowly and precariously in my case – I can barely walk in heels that fit, let alone heels made for people with irritatingly narrow feet (mine are almost perfect squares – if I were less delusional, I’d throw the shoes away and wear the boxes). I navigate each step with the utmost care, raising each foot like a pony. It’s not the most graceful entrance ever made – my shoes make a terrible clunking racket on the metal staircase – but needs must.

  Robert is standing at the bottom, holding two glasses of champagne. ‘You look fabulous, Clara,’ he says, smiling broadly, though with a slight frown of puzzlement. ‘You look the best you’ve looked in years. Better.’ He hands me the flute with a dazzling smile and offers the second one to Tamsin. ‘Hi, Tam,’ he says, kissing her on the cheek. ‘You look amazing too. Beautiful dress. How’re you feeling?’

  ‘Not sick, if that’s what you mean,’ Tamsin says. ‘I’m feeling fine. God, look at all these people. Have you been here long?’

  ‘About ten minutes,’ Robert says. ‘It’s full of people I vaguely know through work.’

  ‘Hello, Clara,’ says a voice down by my right breast – thank God I’m not too drunk, or I’d think I had magic chatty bosoms. I look down and say hello to Niamh Malone, the Dublin writer who interviewed Dunphy somewhat more successfully than me.

  ‘Hi, Niamh. How was Sadler’s Wells? We didn’t make it in time.’

  ‘Oh, it was amazing,’ she says. ‘He was so brilliant. He got a standing ovation, you know. Oh, look,’ she adds, pinching my arm with unnecessary force, ‘He’s just over there. Will we go and say hello?’

  I look in the direction towards which Niamh is pointing. Dunphy is standing, surrounded by a large crowd, at the other end of the room. He’s changed – I imagine, unless modern dance happens in what I recognize from Robert’s expert tuition as a Helmut Lang suit – into a very narrow-trousered, fitted-jacketed black number, which he is wearing with a white shirt, open at the neck, and no tie. His hair is slicked back, but falling forward in an absurdly rakish, slightly sleazy way. His teeth look very white, and he is laughing. Coiled around him like a serpent is a long-limbed, blonde-haired creature, who brays loudly at everything Dunphy says.

  I don’t really have the stomach for it. ‘Later, Niamh – but you go over now if you’d like,’ I tell her.

  ‘I think I will,’ she says, practically panting with anticipation. ‘I’ll catch up with you in a mo.’ And she winds her way through the crowds, though not, I notice with delight, before giving Robert a long, approving look from beneath her considerable (real) eyelashes.

  Tamsin has wandered off to chat to someone she knows, and Robert takes my arm as we stroll through the assembled mass. He is looking very handsome, and I like the feeling – pretty much forgotten in recent months, not to say years – of us looking photogenic together. We look like a sexy couple. It turns out there are a number of people we know at the party, and I am soon on my fourth, and then fifth, champagne flute, feeling very jolly indeed.

  Wildly irritatingly, I’ve been putting off going to the loo ever since we arrived. This always happens to me at parties. I don’t want to miss anything and I can’t face the hassle of walking down some endless corridor to find one unlovely lavatory with, inevitably, no loo paper. So I hold on and on until I suddenly think I’m going to pee right there.

  It’s happening now. I detach myself from Robert, whose hand I was holding, and head off towards the large, fluorescent TOILETS sign, designed, it seems, for maximum humiliation, so that when you’re having a drink in the bar and conversation stalls, you can give knowing looks to every poor soul who comes back from the loo. Years ago, Amber once got very drunk and shouted, ‘Number twos, was it?’ at a hated rival, who’d been taking her time, before collapsing into a hysterical heap.

  The loos are, unusually, clean and well lit, and there is loo paper. I pee, and come out to find the lissom blonde who was hanging on Dunphy’s arm, as well as on his every word, staring at herself in the mirror. She is very pretty – ‘If you like that sort of thing,’ as my mother would say, the sort of thing in question being a Pamela-Anderson-but-classier kind of look. The girl is wearing a butter-coloured tiny leather skirt which shows offher long, golden legs, and a halter-neck top that looks like it’s cashmere: the kind of sexy-but-casual look which is impossible to carry off unless you’re a size 8 and live in a gym.

  She leans over the sink, reapplying copious amounts of putty-coloured lipstick to her rather pinched mouth, lining it first with a pencil – one I recognize as Spice from MAC, as it happens. She overlines her mouth, adding a precious millimetre to plump up its circumference, and stands back to watch herself again. She smiles. She turns her head, shakes her hair. And then I think it’s fair to assume she hasn’t seen me – she lifts one beautifully toned arm and then the other and sniffs her own armpits.

  At which point, despite myself, I chuckle like a loon. The girl focuses her laser gaze on me and glares, fouffing up her mane of hair, then turns on her pretty little heel – tippety-tap, all the way down the corridor’s flagged tiles.

  Back in the bar, Robert is howling with laughter at something one of the artists has said, and I go for a little spin round the room on my own, fortifying myself with another glass of champagne. Clothes are strange things, I reflect philosophically to myself. A lot of people who wouldn’t normally look twice at me are coming to say hello, introducing themselves and offering drinks. Here comes one now, in a too-sharp suit and a ton of hair wax: Mr Smoothie, Mr Git, Mr I’m Too Old to Wear My Hair Like That, Mr I Drive a Very Big Car Which is in Inverse Proportion to the Size of My Penis. You know the type.

  ‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he drawls. There’s something loose and slack about his mouth. ‘I’m Gus.’

  ‘Hello,’ I say reluctantly, without smiling.

  ‘Top-up?’ he asks, sniffing loudly and wiping his nose with his hand (cocaine, I think, rather than a chesty cold).

  ‘S’pose.’

  My new friend whistles loudly to catch the attention of a passing waiter. I hate people who are rude to waiters.

  ‘So, gorgeous…’

  ‘Would you mind not calling me that, please,’ I say, made bold by my drinks. ‘I don’t know you and it’s very familiar. In quite a vulgar way. Unless you’re going to sell me half a pound of Maris Pipers. In which case it’s okay. Is that what you do – vegetables?’

  ‘Wooh,’ says Gus, which rhymes with pus. He leans forward. ‘I was only being friendly. You’ve got beauddiful eyes.’

  ‘Yours are on the small side,’ I say, exhilarated by my own rudeness. ‘Can you actually see out?’ I screw up my face and mime desperate attempts at peering out of my newly narrowed eyes, and this, unattractively, makes me laugh and laugh. I always have this problem with my own jokes, especially – though not exclusively – when drunk. It is grotesquely unappealing and it makes me ashamed, but I can’t help it.

  Gus walks away. I am still snorting, honking with laugher, when a voice behind me says, ‘Clara.’

  ‘Oh, Robert,’ I cry, fishing in my handbag for a tissue to wipe my eyes before my elaborate eyeliner starts streaking
, ‘there was a man here and he was such a creep, such a slimeball, and he said I had nice eyes and I asked if he could see out of his, because they were so small.’ The memory of my bon mot brings on a new laughter fit. I turn around. It isn’t Robert, of course, but then you probably guessed.

  ‘Hello,’ says Dunphy. ‘It is quite a good joke, but do you always have to be so bloody rude?’

  ‘I was being sort of experimentally rude,’ I say. ‘You know, rude in the way you can be when you’re dressed up.’ I look Dunphy up and down and register his puzzled face. ‘You probably wouldn’t understand. Anyway, he really was the most ghastly man. Look, over there. Sort of lizardy. Kind of man that buys you fruit-flavoured edible knickers. Kiwi, probably. A pointless fruit, though rich in vitamin C.’ Oh dear. I seem to have had much too much to drink. ‘Called Gus,’ I add, seemingly incapable of stopping talking. ‘Short for gusset, I expect.’

  Dunphy surprises me by roaring with laughter. ‘Oh, God, him,’ he says. ‘You can be as rude to him as you like. My, er, friend’s brother – not actually invited. Are you having a good time?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I say soberly. ‘Are you? How are your, er, nits?’

  ‘Gone,’ he says. ‘Tea tree shampoo. Refill?’

  ‘Why not?’ I yelp. The waiter refills the glasses. ‘To, er, your dance thing,’ I say, clinking my glass against his. Which, if you must know, feels curiously intimate.

  ‘My show?’

  ‘Yes. I hear it was marvellous.’

  Dunphy shrugs. ‘They all seemed to like it,’ he says, with a rather dazzling smile.

  We stand in silence for a few seconds.

  ‘I like your dress,’ Dunphy says.

  ‘Goodo,’ I trill. I’m feeling a bit woozy, actually. A bit squiffy, if the truth be told. ‘Goodo,’ I repeat, like one of my stepbrother’s stripy-shirt and red-braces City friends. ‘Woof,’ I say, and start giggling again.