by Fiona Neill
• • •
That night, for the first time in weeks, Ali called her parents. She was relieved that her father picked up the phone, because he was less recriminatory than her mother about the increasingly long silences between them. He certainly wouldn’t be measuring them. Nor was he threatened by Ali’s urge to separate herself from her family, perhaps because it was a similar impulse that compelled him out to sea every day.
Ali would have liked to discuss what had happened with Nick. Should she preempt Jake by mentioning something to Bryony first? Get her side of the story out before anyone else? Or perhaps she would end up looking defensive? Should she try to reason with Jake?
Instead she remained silent and listened to her father talk about what he had been doing that day. His steady tone soothed Ali. He’d gone out to the deeper waters by the shipping lanes and landed his best haul of the week. The mechanical shanks meant it was easy to pull in the pots without any help.
Ali lay on the bed and closed her eyes as she listened to him describe how a live bottlenose whale had washed up on the beach that morning. A group of locals had spent the day trying to keep it alive by throwing buckets of water on its flesh and using brooms to try to sweep it back toward the sea. The tide came in, and the whale finally found itself in water that was deep enough to swim. They persuaded it away from shore. Less than an hour later it came back and grounded itself on the beach again. It reminded her of the stories he had told her as a child.
“Why?” asked Ali. “Do you think it wanted to die? Why didn’t it choose life?” He could hear the note of anxiety in her voice but didn’t question it.
“It was probably confused. Animals are bent on survival, not self-destruction,” her father pointed out. “Only human beings have the self-awareness to kill themselves.”
“If I was there I might have been able to save it,” said Ali.
“Perhaps it didn’t want to be saved,” said her father. “Some people don’t. Jo will do what she does whether you are here or not.”
There was a muffled exchange, and then Ali’s mother came on the line. They spoke at cross-purposes, her mother struggling not to mention Jo, and Ali struggling not to mention Jake.
“How’s it all going?” her mother asked.
“Generally fine,” said Ali. “It’s a bit complicated sometimes—”
“But nothing you can’t handle,” her mother interrupted.
9
December 2006
The morning before the Skinners’ much-anticipated annual Christmas drinks party, Bryony revealed to Ali “in total confidence” that the surprise entertainment that evening would be provided by Elton John. A member of his entourage would be coming at eleven o’clock that morning to run through last-minute details, and Bryony would be grateful if Ali was on hand to deal with any final tweaks, because the party planner might arrive at the same time.
“Elton likes a glass of still water, no ice, no lemon, on top of the piano. Lots of flowers in the room,” said Bryony, glancing down at her notes, “and if it’s warm he needs somewhere to put his jacket. He’ll sing for about half an hour and then mingle with guests for twenty minutes. We’re trying to create an air of intimacy and informality, so he won’t be using a microphone. We’re not sure whether David will be coming. It’s always everything at the last minute with them.”
All this was said in a relaxed tone, as if to underline Bryony’s familiarity with the habits of Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, and her nonchalance at having such illustrious visitors to their party.
Nick and Bryony hosted dinners roughly every two weeks, but this was the first time any of their guests held interest for Ali, although sometimes their names sounded familiar. This time, she was so astonished that she dropped Alfie’s bowl of Cheerios onto the oak floor, where it shattered into tiny pieces. Sensing an opportunity, Leicester tripped across the room and began scoffing cereal and licking up pools of milk.
“God, how amazing,” gushed Ali.
“No one knew until today, apart from Nick, otherwise we’d have photographers turning up,” Bryony explained.
For once she said nothing about the importance of Leicester sticking to his fully organic diet, and instead of the tongue twirl in her cheek that usually indicated disapproval, Ali saw that Bryony was gratified by her response. Her guests’ reactions would be more sophisticated. Some would feel awe, others jealousy—Bryony didn’t much mind which—but none could feign indifference. The presence of Elton John at your party was an almost unsurpassable public-relations coup, even if he was being paid to perform.
“Don’t worry about the bowl, Malea will clear it up,” said Bryony.
• • •
Three months earlier, shortly before Ali began working at Holland Park Crescent, Bryony had first mentioned that a party was held every year on the first Saturday in December. She had said that she would be grateful if Ali could save the date in her diary to help look after the children that evening. They would include not just the twins, Izzy, and Jake, but also her sister’s two children, Maud and Ella. She would be “generously compensated.”
Ali had nodded as Bryony outlined the details. There would be food and drink for one hundred fifty people, some music in the middle, and a decorative theme that reflected all these elements. Ali recalled the neurosis of her own mother before Christmas dinner in Norfolk when there were only fifteen guests. Although, of course, her mother’s mood was always infected by uncertainty about whether Jo would make an appearance. But at least she could synchronize a meal, thought Ali. Mira and Katya complained that their employers were lazy about cooking for their children. Bryony, however, was in a different league. It wasn’t that she didn’t cook. She couldn’t cook. On the single day a month that Malea took off, both lunch and dinner were eaten at restaurants, and if Nick was there he cooked breakfast. Even with Malea’s help, how could Bryony possibly do food for more than a hundred people? How could she organize such an event?
“Will you make everything in advance and freeze it?” Ali had asked tentatively. Bryony had burst out laughing as she explained to Ali that a party planner would organize everything from invitations to food and entertainment for the evening.
“Can you imagine the chaos if I was doing it?” she asked. “One of the most important lessons I learned early on in my career is the art of delegation, Ali. My biggest chore will be deciding what to wear and who not to invite.”
Bryony wore her lack of domestic skills as a badge of feminist honor, although it struck Ali as somewhat hypocritical that her solution was to pay an impoverished student and a Filipina to fill the vacuum. She frequently complained about 1950s values creeping back into contemporary parenting culture. Her nickname for Sophia Wilbraham was Cupcake, a reference not simply to Sophia’s penchant for fresh baking but also her large girth, and her fondness for pleated skirts that resembled bun casings and neatly ironed white shirts the color and texture of white icing. “What’s Cupcake up to this week, Ali?” Bryony would nonchalantly ask as they reviewed the daybook on a Sunday evening, looking at the agenda for the following week.
And courtesy of Katya, Ali would generally be able to satisfy her curiosity with a few choice tales from the Wilbraham household. (Katya had been made to remove all the name tapes that she had carefully ironed on to four sets of children’s uniforms and replace them with sew-on tapes; Martha had been caught with a boy in her bedroom; Ned had got drunk and called Sophia’s mother a bitch in front of the two oldest children.) As she told these stories, Ali wondered why, if Bryony loathed Sophia so much, was she so interested in what went on under her roof?
Which was why, when Bryony suggested Ali sit down at the table with her to familiarize herself with the order of events for the evening, she was taken aback to see Sophia Wilbraham and her husband on the list of confirmed guests that the party planner gave her.
> “Any last-minute no-shows?” Bryony asked the woman running the event.
“Four,” said Fi Seldon-Kent, director of Elite Entertainment, as she cast a glance down at her list. “David and Samantha Cameron have sent their apologies. And the Campbells are stuck in Saint Barts,” said Fi, referring to her notes. “A problem with flights.”
“I can’t believe they fly on commercial airlines,” said Bryony incredulously.
Fi shook her head as though she couldn’t believe it, either. She was probably in her early thirties, Ali decided. She was one of those shiny, polished public-school types who seemed to begin all her sentences with the phrase “Would you mind awfully” and typed everything in italics. She was kind to Ali, in the sense that she at least acknowledged her presence.
Ali glanced up and down the guest list. Combes, Crichton-Millers, Cullens, Lord and Lady Rogers, Lady Townshend, Peter Mandelson, Robert Peston, Marjorie Scardino, Caspar Simpson, Skeets, Southerns, and Strachans. Some people had their job titles listed against their name, so Ali could see that the editor of the Financial Times and several journalists from The Economist would be coming, as well as the chief executives of a couple of High Street banks. Bryony’s closest friend, Holly Long, was coming without her husband. The list ran to three pages. Apart from Elton John, the only names Ali recognized were those that belonged to Bryony’s family: Foy and Tita Chesterton; Bryony’s sister, Hester Chesterton, and her husband, Richard (Rick) Yates, and their two children, Maud and Ella Chesterton-Yates, an amalgamation of their surnames that always generated arch comments from the rest of the family. She also recognized Bryony’s “old friend” Felix Naylor. She searched for Nick’s parents, knowing she wouldn’t find them. The children said they had never met their paternal grandparents because they were dead.
“Ali is looking after the children. The younger ones are allowed to stay up until about nine-thirty, then she’ll take them to bed,” Bryony explained.
“Just before Elton starts his set,” Fi confirmed, looking at her timetable.
“Exactly,” said Bryony briskly, overlooking the disappointment on Ali’s face as she realized that she would probably be reading Dr. Seuss as Elton John belted out “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” in the drawing room. Bryony told Ali that the children could come into the drawing room and dining room to mingle with guests for no more than an hour. She had bought a strappy dress with sequins for Izzy, and she would be grateful if Ali could make sure that she wore it rather than one of her “grungy” outfits, and stay with the twins at all times. Hector and Alfie should wear identical blue corduroy trousers with white shirts and sleeveless cashmere pullovers.
“Well, that is great,” said Fi Seldon-Kent enthusiastically as she picked tiny balls of fluff from the wrist of her cashmere sweater. Fi believed fervently in the art of positive affirmation, and Bryony relaxed in the warm glow of approval.
They turned to the question of flowers. The tone of the party was “lazy decadence,” Fi explained, “Chateau Marmont meets Marrakesh,” which meant naturalistic flower schemes everywhere, apart from the room where Elton John was due to sing. The railings leading up to the house were already a riot of purple hydrangea, chocolate cosmos, and silver foliage. In a couple of hours, the florists would have finished replicating this scheme up and down the banisters, spraying the flowers with water every couple of hours until the party started at six-thirty, to avoid any danger of wilt. Bryony joked that she might require similar treatment, and everyone laughed a little too loudly.
Cocktails would be served to guests as they arrived, Fi continued, reminding them about the specially created Winter Solstice cocktail containing Polstar cucumber vodka and champagne with a hint of elderflower in the background. Dom Pérignon would be served all evening, as well as a selection of red and white wine chosen by Nick. A ticketed cloakroom would be run by a team of girls who would collect coats in the hallway and take them upstairs to Bryony’s office.
Fi handed out a canapé menu to everyone round the table. It was written in the same eighteenth-century typeface as the invitation, Ali noted. Edwardian Serif. Uptight with a hint of decadence.
VEGETARIAN
Creamed Stilton served on a Rosemary Scone
Creamy Wild Mushrooms on Brioche Toast
FISH
Potted Brown Shrimps with Crème Fraîche on Sultana Bread
Smoked Haddock & Chive Fishcakes with Lemon Crème Fraîche
MEAT
Thai Beef Rice Paper Roll with a Soy & Honey Dip
Parsnip Falafel with Baba Ghanoush & Smoked Chicken
SWEET
Apple & Cinnamon Turnovers
Spiced White Chocolate & Candied Fruit Biscuit
Fi confirmed that six parking spaces had been reserved outside the house: two for Elton John, one for a former Northern Ireland minister who still had a security detail, and another for the director of the Tate, where Nick was a major donor. The Darkes next door had kindly offered to give up two residents’ spaces “for unforeseen emergencies.”
One had already presented itself, because the chief executive of Nick’s investment bank, Dick Fuld, had suddenly announced late last night that he would be flying over from New York in one of the company’s private jets with his wife, Kathy, just for the party. On one level this represented a social coup, because Dick’s presence was a barometer of Nick’s current status at the bank. Ali had overheard Nick telling Bryony that it was the first time he had bothered to turn up to a party for any of his European employees, a reflection perhaps of the fact that Nick’s department had earned more than any other for the bank that year.
It would give Nick a chance to say thank you in person for the £8 million bonus awarded to him earlier in the week (£6 million in share options, £2 million in cash). On the other hand, it would require a whole barrage of additional planning to draw up a list of people to whom Dick should, and, even more important, shouldn’t, be introduced (the latter included all journalists; Foy; Bryony’s sister, Hester; and a couple of eager beavers from the London office who wouldn’t know how to handle themselves in the face of such power).
Foy had requested the other emergency space, but Bryony had managed to persuade him and Tita to either walk the four hundred meters from their house or get a local taxi company to drop them. “Couldn’t Mr. Artouche oblige?” Foy had whined. He had always coveted the Armenian driver that drove his son-in-law to work every morning.
“He’s busy,” Bryony had said firmly.
• • •
Bryony had suggested Ali wear something that would distinguish her from both the guests and the waitresses, to avoid creating confusion. Bryony was good at dressing up orders as advice, thought Ali, as she reviewed the contents of her wardrobe an hour before the party was due to start. It had seemed a simple enough request at the time. She had one dress, but it was too short and flimsy for such a formal party. There were jeans, T-shirts, leggings, and a denim skirt. So wearing the skirt and leggings, she decided to head down into Izzy’s room to see if she had anything that she could lend her, even if it was only a top that she could wear with her jeans. She knocked on the door a couple of times, and when no one answered she turned the handle to go in.
She found Izzy lying facedown on the bed, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of Jake’s pajama bottoms. She made no noise, but Ali could tell from the way her shoulders were shaking that she was crying.
“What’s wrong, Izzy?” Ali asked, going over to her bed to put a hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t find anything right to wear,” said Izzy, her voice muffled by the duvet. She was marooned in a sea of clothes strewn from the bed onto the floor and back to the huge built-in wardrobe across the side of the room.
“Neither can I,” said Ali, patting Izzy’s shoulder.
“That’s because you don’t have any clothes,” said Izzy, “not because none of the
m suit you. You look good in anything.” Still lying on the bed, she turned her head to face Ali. “Why can’t I be thin like Mum?” Her pale cheeks were red and blotchy, and her eyes were swollen from crying so much.
It was not a question that Ali wanted to address, although the answer was simple: Apart from her dark hair, Izzy was built like Nick’s side of the family. There was a single photo of his parents on a chest of drawers in Nick and Bryony’s bedroom. They stood in a line, legs slightly apart, squat and stout and sure of the ground beneath their feet.
“It’s what’s inside that counts,” said Ali.
“That’s not true, Ali,” said Izzy. She sat up on the bed. “Look at the people here tonight and tell me tomorrow whether you still believe it’s what’s inside that counts. In Mum’s day you could get away with being either beautiful or clever. Now you have to be both, and I’m neither.”
“Everyone loves you the way you are,” said Ali. But what she really meant was that people loved Izzy the way they thought she was. Bryony and Nick described her as the fulcrum between Jake’s moody cynicism and the twins’ excess of temperament. Her friends found her sweet-natured and easygoing. Malea said she was the most softhearted member of the family. Did they not sense her fragility, or did they not want to see it? Ali wondered.
“If Mum loved me the way I am, then she wouldn’t go on about what I eat all the time,” said Izzy, “and she wouldn’t need someone like you to help me with my schoolwork. She’d just let me be me.”
“She just wants the best for you,” said Ali, searching for a pot of moisturizer on Izzy’s dressing table that would simultaneously remove the small rivers of mascara flowing down Izzy’s cheeks and soothe her skin. It was Crème de la Mer. For a moment Ali hesitated as she shook a gloopy lump onto cotton wool and handed it to Izzy. Over the previous four months she had developed some immunity to the scale of the Skinners’ wealth, but somehow this £50 teaspoonful of face cream shocked her more than the man who came once a month to check whether any lights needed new bulbs, or the gardener who threw away annuals from pots in the back garden after they finished flowering like a man discarding his middle-aged wife for a younger model.