Behaving Like Adults

by Anna Maxted

  Rachel rang the bell as I was trying on shoes. When she saw me she screamed.

  I jumped. ‘What!’

  Rachel made horrified eyes at my outfit. ‘You look like the Brownie Guide section of the SS.’

  I sighed. ‘I’ll change.’

  Rachel smiled. ‘Good. Here. Many happy returns.’ She had a bottle of Tattinger in one hand and a smelly plastic bag in the other, both of which she thrust into my arms. On inspection, the bag contained about a ton of oysters and two greasy tubs, one of foie gras, the other of caviar. Three foods you couldn’t pay me to eat. I’m a bit of a wimp compared to Rachel. At the height of the Mad Cow crisis, we went to dinner at her favourite place, the Dorchester. I ordered fish. Rachel boomed at the waiter, ‘I’ll have the steak tartare!’

  ‘Rach, this is gorgeous—’

  ‘I know, don’t say a word, foie gras, boo hoo for the goose, but worth it, the taste is bliss on toast!’

  I held my tongue. Rachel has a jacket in her wardrobe made from the pelt of, God help me, a snow leopard. Her great-uncle was a furrier. Rach says she no longer wears the jacket, but I don’t entirely trust her. Once or twice I’ve noticed her shoot Emily a look, and I’m relieved she’s a splotched moggy, not a white Persian. It would only take the party-organising business to dip, and we’d have a Cruella De Vil situation on our hands. We cannot discuss animal welfare; we end up not talking. For this reason I’ve avoided the subject of fox-hunting in Rachel’s presence for twelve years. I fear that knowledge of her opinion on the issue would mean the necessary termination of our friendship.

  I stuck the cruelty/bacteria bag in a remote corner of the fridge, washed my hands, then ran to my bedroom and picked the pink halterneck off the floor. Slowly, I removed the SS outfit and tugged on the dress. I walked out of the room, blanking my reflection.

  ‘Gorgeous, babes. Shall we go?’

  I surrendered my fate to Rachel’s motoring skills. She drives a car like it’s a tractor. Fortunately, in London the traffic jams are such that her refusal to go over 30mph is less of a hazard. She once drove me on the motorway to Surrey – a house-party weekend, this intrigues me about posh people, they never tire of spending time together, an evening is never enough, the socialising has to suck up your whole life – and I’ve never been so petrified. I concluded that Rachel simply couldn’t see other road users. She was wearing a blazer and her mobile phone was in the left pocket. Every time it rang, she’d take her right hand off the steering wheel to answer it and swerve the car. If she became animated in conversation, she’d forget to press down with her foot, and slow to 20mph. She didn’t use signals or wing mirrors – perhaps she thought they were common.

  On my birthday she seemed hyper and, good friend though she is, I doubted this was in my honour. She was wearing a red wrap-around lycra top and a flared black skirt, her trademark Clarins Eau Dynamisante, and seemed to bubble with excitement. She looked foxy (and no, she wasn’t wearing a fur stole) and she didn’t stop talking. ‘So Nigel is going to be on television. What a scream. Lady Sophia was asked to do an ad, you know, for furniture polish. She refused, said they simply didn’t pay enough to justify the tackiness of it. I’d have done it like a shot. What are they paying Nigel? I presume the ex-wife will want a cut.’

  I was about to say that as they weren’t yet divorced, Nige’s wife didn’t have the legal right to demand anything, but Rachel abruptly stopped dead in the middle of the road and the cacophony of horns and screeching brakes took my breath away. ‘What are you doing?’ I croaked.

  ‘Parking.’

  After seventy reverse, drive, twist wheel, reverse, drive, twist wheel manouevres, Rachel squeezed the Audi into a space outside the restaurant large enough to park a Boeing. I checked my lipstick in the rear-view mirror (someone might as well make use of it).

  ‘I feel nervous,’ I said.

  ‘How sweet you are,’ smiled Rach. ‘Good evening, Mr and Mrs A, how are you both, you look so well. What a beautiful necklace, Mrs A, I adore turquoise.’

  My parents, who had obviously spied us loitering on the pavement and been unable to contain themselves a moment longer, stopped short on the porch of the restaurant and beamed shyly at Rachel. That girl, she could charm a cobra out of a basket. My parents were pussycats.

  ‘Thank you, Rachel,’ stuttered my mother. ‘You look lovely. So elegant, as usual.’

  ‘Hello, Rachel,’ added my father. He coughed and jerked his head towards the Audi. ‘Nice set of wheels.’

  The burden of etiquette over, my parents turned to me. ‘Happy birthday dear! Are you feeling better? Oh Stanley, she looks pale.’ I allowed my mother to feel my forehead. My father, standing behind her, winked at me. I smiled at him. Out of nowhere, tears threatened. I glanced down and blinked them away.

  ‘I’m fine, Mum, honestly. I’m feeling much better. I think I had a bit of a cold.’

  I was speaking her language. She nodded, relieved. ‘Have you got fresh orange juice at home, dear? I can get you some, it’s no trouble. It’s better than taking tablets.’

  I was about to refuse, then realised I was about to deny my mother a great pleasure. ‘That would be brilliant.’

  My mother beamed. ‘Now. We bought you a little something from John Lewis.’ It’s hard to exaggerate the awe with which my parents regard John Lewis plc, that fuddy daddy of department stores. Every time they visit, it’s like children seeing the ocean for the first time. ‘It’s being delivered on Monday – we can wait in at your house for it – but I’ve kept the receipt and it can be returned if you don’t like it. So if you don’t like it, do say. But we thought it would go nicely in your living room. I, I know Nick took his rug – oh Stanley, what a fool, now I’ve ruined the surprise!—’

  My mother stopped, embarrassed. My father patted her shoulder. ‘It’s alright, Linda.’ He grinned at me. ‘The manager let me take a polaroid, love.’ He fished in his jacket pocket and handed me a photo. ‘What do you reckon, Holly, will it do?’

  I gaped. Despite the poor quality of the picture, I could see that this was an exceptionally beautiful Persian rug, patterned in rich warm oranges and browns, enormous, of superb quality and horribly expensive. ‘Mum, Dad, it’s fantastic, but’ – I stopped, not wanting to humiliate them, and searched for the right word – ‘so extravagant. It’s like a magic carpet. I love it. But, are you sure—’

  My mother nudged my father who stammered into speech. ‘Holly, it’s your thirtieth birthday. We’re proud of you and we wanted to mark it.’ He stopped, fished a grey hankerchief out of his trouser pocket, blew his nose. ‘With an appropriate gift.’

  A line of a poem came into my head. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  Dad coughed, and added, ‘Don’t concern yourself with the, er, anything else. As you know, your nan was kind’ – his expression didn’t falter – ‘enough to remember us in her will.’

  He stopped. I nodded briskly so he didn’t feel obliged to elaborate. Claw knows a guy who got off with his mother. In my parents’ eyes, discussing money with your offspring is an equally grave offence.

  ‘What wonderful parents you have, Holly,’ cried Rachel, patently bored of hanging about in the street. ‘What a glorious gift! Shall we toddle on inside? Everyone’s dying to kiss the birthday girl, and I know Claudia can’t wait for you to see your surprise!’

  I hugged Mum and Dad and we allowed Rachel to herd us in to the restaurant. Claudia had booked a private basement room. The place was lit with candles, and grandly dim, so it was hard to see exactly who was sitting around the table. But the second I walked in there, I knew. The scent of him, I could smell it, like a wolf. The blood drained to my feet. My heart shrivelled, a dry leaf crumbling to dust.

  Stuart.

  He was talking to a woman next to him. She was thin, like a boy, with a short mousey bob. I didn’t recognise her. The sight of his golden hair, his slick, scrubbed appearance, I had to fight to breathe. His arm on my neck again, no air, like
being dragged by my feet to the bottom of a swamp. Claudia skipped over and I gripped her hand so hard she yelped in pain. She saw my face and erased the smile on hers.

  ‘Chair,’ I gasped. She grabbed me a chair. I fell into it. I couldn’t let go of her hand. I was Dorothy tapping her red slippers, except the one place I didn’t want to be was home. As long as I held Claudia’s hand, I couldn’t be in the kitchen, Stuart’s heavy body crushing me. People looked over, murmuring. I was pleased that my parents had darted to the far end of the room to greet Issy and hadn’t noticed. I dared a glance at Stuart. He was laughing, confident, smug – a fucking party guest at my birthday!

  Don’t show him you’re scared don’t show him you’re scared. I crossed my legs and squeezed my knees together to stop them shaking quite so hard. I tried to lift the corners of my mouth. ‘What,’ I said to Claudia, ‘is he doing here?’

  Suddenly, my fearless sister looked terrified. ‘Holly. I invited him. I spoke to his PA, Camille, that’s her over there. He was your surprise. Isn’t that what this has all been about, you pining for Stuart . . .’ Her voice tailed off. By the time she reached the end of her sentence, it was no longer a question.

  I spat, ‘I hate Stuart.’

  Claudia went white. Oh no. And she’d meant so well. The word ‘why’ was about to form on her lips.

  ‘We had a . . . disagreement,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m, I suppose I’m a bit shocked because I expected . . . Nick.’

  She received this explanation with a frown and spent the rest of the night glancing suspiciously at me, then Stuart. Still, I noticed her chatting to his PA quite a bit, so she couldn’t have been too troubled.

  As for me, I sat as still and cold as an ice sculpture. Stuart smiled at me, once, and I looked through him. That he had the audacity to come here! But of course. What perfect proof of his innocence.

  He was a larger-than-life guest – or maybe it just seemed so to me. Everywhere I looked, there he was. When he laughed, the noise sucked me in, his mouth getting bigger and bigger and redder and whiter until it swallowed the entire room. He behaved as if it were his birthday rather than mine. I didn’t behave as if it were my birthday. Whenever someone addressed me, I nodded and laughed without hearing a word and hoped it would do.

  I was glad that Nige bounced over and chatted happily for two hours, asking for no more than the odd withering glance from Rachel and the occasional ‘oh?’ from me. He only paused twice – once, to observe that my father ate dessert as if his life depended on it, and again, to note that I had the body language of a pretzel. But when I tried to uncross my arms and legs I found that every muscle in my body was frozen. I felt that if I raised my head, it would snap like an icicle. I finally managed it, sometime round 11.30 and the goose pimples ran all the way up my neck. My Mum and Dad, on either side of Stuart, deep in conversation about . . . what?

  Chapter 17

  THERE WAS A rhyme my mother used to sing to me, ‘Soldier, Soldier, Won’t You Marry Me?’ She sang it when she wanted me to finish my boiled egg. I thought it was shocking. This soldier kept saying he couldn’t marry the sweet maid because he had no coat to put on. And no hat. And no gloves, no second home in Monaco, etc. Honestly, this guy had no end of excuses. So the maid bought him whatever he said he needed. Then in the last verse she proposes for the tenth time, and he says, ‘Oh no sweet maid I cannot marry you as I have a wife of my own!’

  I couldn’t believe my mother could sing so jauntily about a tragedy. That poor maid, she must have been so upset! Why was that soldier so mean, saying things that weren’t true? He let her buy him all that stuff when he already had a wife! I was appalled to the depths of my five-year-old soul.

  Two and a half decades on, my perspective was different. At five, I felt sorry for the maid because she’d wasted all that time and still didn’t have a husband. At thirty, I could appreciate her narrow escape. And yet in one sense the years hadn’t changed me. I had a child’s faith. My core belief was that people would do right by you.

  In survivalist terms, that’s not wise. You don’t get antelope in Africa lolling around plains, frolicking by the river’s edge for the hell of it. They’re not programmed to think, maybe that alligator lurking in the shallows just wants a chat. Their day is pure business – eat, drink, move on, safety in numbers (cousin Wilberforce is fatter than me, maybe the lion will pick on him). I ought to thank Stuart for stripping me of my naivety once and for all. At thirty, I finally evolved. I trusted no one.

  Over the weekend, despite my most devious efforts, I failed to discover what my parents had discussed with Stuart. They were infuriatingly discreet. Maybe Stuart had let them into some dark secret. Some other dark secret. Whatever it was, they weren’t repeating a word of it. This is typical of my parents. They hold traditional ideas about what one should talk about with one’s children. One time, Claw rang my father from university, babbling about a one-night stand. My father – who never reproaches us – replied, ‘I was a virgin when I married your mother and I was quite happy!’ and put the phone down.

  Even so, it was a blessing to have their company. I invited them to stay on Saturday and Sunday night, partly to release Claw, but mainly for myself. I’m not sure how I’d have coped, alone, after Friday. There was an endless crackle in my head, white noise, keeping less welcome thoughts at bay. And my teeth were clenched hard together. Every so often I’d notice an ache, and would have to release the tension by opening my mouth slightly, like a hinge.

  Claw and Issy came for tea on Saturday, Issy trailing Eden. Eden is a clever child with something of the Damien about her. On this visit, she drew me a picture to go with a story she’d invented. (Briefly: Once upon a time there was a land in which all the flowers disappeared. Then the people found out that they were all growing upside down. The flowers were growing upside down in the earth, to smell nice for all the dead people.) I stuck the drawing on my fridge but between you and me, I wasn’t too happy about it.

  Issy’s husband Frank came too. He was wearing a thin-knit polo-neck jumper, the kind that clings to the contours of your chest. He is honed and toned – and he jolly well should be – he is the sort of man who won’t eat chicken skin and spends whole afternoons at the gym. He treats that place like a community centre – no joke, he has a group of little fitness friends there, and they train together. I can’t help but think it’s a bit girly. Last November they had a fireworks party and he made Issy attend it. She said it was the most boring night ever and she was the fattest person there.

  Frank also has a narcissistic habit of smoothing the flat of his palm over his chest when he speaks to you. Secretly, Claw and I don’t find him – as Nige would say – sympathique. Sympathetic, I believe, in English. But he so dotes on Issy, we forgive him his oddities. On Saturday, he showed up with a puffy-out chest, because he’d just surprised her with tickets to the opera. In Verona. I suspect that Issy doesn’t give a fig for opera, but likes to say she’s been. (I’ve only been once, and I found it spectacular and moving, though if I’m honest, I enjoyed it more in retrospect.) I do think how fortunate it is that Issy fell in love with a rich man. And then, meanly, I wonder to what extent her falling in love was conditional. She isn’t what you’d call a passionate person. When Frank sank to one knee and said ‘Will you marry me?’, her reply was, ‘In theory, yes.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t make it to your bash, Hol,’ said Frank, kissing me on both cheeks. ‘But nobody missed me, so I hear.’

  ‘And why exactly couldn’t you make it, Frank?’ asked Claudia. She poked the tip of a vampire tooth with her tongue. She was wearing rose-pink sunglasses and spikey heels, and toted a sausagey handbag too dinky to contain anything larger than a handgun.

  Frank blushed. ‘Work,’ he replied, clearing his throat. ‘I had a video conference call with New York and Japan, translators, the whole shebang. It started at nine – ludicrous, I know on a Friday night, but I think they’re nine hours ahead in Tokyo – and I was
n’t sure how long it was going to drag on for.’

  I watched his body language as he rambled on about his dull evening in the office and something didn’t feel right. I looked at Issy. She was sharing an almond macaroon with Eden, glancing at her husband as he chattered, and smiling in a way that seemed truly peaceful. Hang on, Issy wisdom: liars are easy to spot because they suffocate you with detail. I was practically choking. But it wasn’t only that. Was Saturday a working day in Japan? I felt a surge of triumph and dismay at once. Rach. Having an affair with a married man, she’d said, who I knew and she was the one who’d told me that Frank couldn’t make it because of work. She’d said Claudia had told her. And she’d left my party early.

  After I realised this, I felt jumpy – well, jumpier – it was like the creeping dread you get when you’ve postponed paperwork for four months and you stop being able to sleep. I couldn’t believe it. Had Frank and Rachel even met? Now I thought about it, of course they had. At Issy’s wedding. At a Christmas party organised by Rachel. They were two pretty selfish people, but at heart we’re all selfish so I couldn’t hold that against them. Being selfish does not make you a cheat. Anyway, I couldn’t believe it of Frank. He liked his life. And, he knew that if he ever tried anything funny, Issy’s legal team would ensure he ended up a pauper. I didn’t want to believe it of Rachel.

  Claudia hadn’t noticed. She was too busy watching me. I took care to act breezy, I didn’t want her to come up with any theories. I wanted to protect her, the truth would hurt too much. I felt the same way about my parents. I can stand a certain amount of pain, I know how much I can stand, but it’s different when I inflict my pain on those I love. That’s harder to bear. Thankfully, I was able to distract Claw with talk of the next Date Night, being filmed by London Local News. She and Issy were remarkably excited about it. Me, I couldn’t have cared one way or the other.