by Gill Hornby
‘Anyway, how was Araminta?’
‘Had to go out. So annoying. Her gran’s like dead or something super-boring and Sue’s dragged her off there. She’s really pissed off.’
Annie stopped still and stood with her head on one side. ‘Sue’s mother’s dying and she didn’t call me?’ It didn’t make any sense. Sue rang her if the tumble drier broke down or she was off to have a smear. So why wouldn’t she ring her if her mother was gravely ill?
‘Is that what it’s come to? People round here can’t even snuff it any more without your permission?’ The only time Jess used her ‘interested’ voice to her mother was when she was taking the piss. ‘How does that work, then, in practice–they come round and you issue them with a little chit, or what?’
The truth hit Annie with such a sudden force that she dropped the plate she was holding. It smashed on the floor.
‘Mu-um. What’s got into you?’ Jess wailed. ‘What the actual f—?’
‘Bennett’s party.’
‘Eh?’
‘It’s Bennett’s party. In just under an hour. I’d completely forgotten. I was never going to go because you’re all home. She’s out to ruin it. That’s why she’s taken the kids away.’ Her voice rose. ‘And I bet NOBODY ELSE IS GOING.’
‘Man. I’d forgotten quite how exciting it gets round here.’ Jess yawned and padded over to the fridge. ‘What’s for dinner?’
‘I don’t know, love,’ replied Annie, distracted, reaching for her phone, flicking through her mental Rolodex, wondering how many people she could rouse. ‘Whatever it is that you decide to make.’
‘So.’ Bennett forced out one last chuckle, shook his head. ‘I think that’s probably the last of my funny stories from the world of work.’ He twisted his hands in his lap. ‘It was lots of fun.’
‘Sounds it,’ said Lynn, who had not yet cracked a smile as they sat either side of her old kitchen table and looked at each other over a field of unused wine glasses.
‘Anyway,’ he carried on, ‘does anything funny happen in your line of business?’
‘No.’ Lynn didn’t even try to think one up. ‘Never.’ She helped herself to more crisps.
Rather surprisingly, given his background in mathematical probability, Bennett had not considered this situation among all the possible outcomes of the open-house invitation. He had worried, in times of low spirits, that nobody would show; he had worried that too many might come; he had hoped for more nice people than not. But at no point had it occurred to him that just one person would turn up. Or that that one person would be Lynn. Perhaps his conscious mind had reared back from it, as the probability was that this was the worst-case scenario.
‘What about sad things? Perhaps it’s more sad things that happen to you?’
‘Not really.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s only Outpatients. Malingerers, half of them.’
Lynn had arrived at 7.31, and it was now gone 8.30. She had very politely not remarked on the sixty-five glasses, or the remarkable absence of anybody else, and he was grateful for that. They were conspiring in the pretence that it was a perfectly normal social situation being played out here–just two lucky people with plenty to drink and a nice, wide range of vessels with which to drink it–but then how did they ever stop that? At what point would she feel free to get up and go, or he able to declare the party at its close? They might sit here for the rest of their lives, existing on crisps and dry white, pretending to each other that everything was fine.
‘What about just interesting stories? Not so funny, not so sad, but a bit, well, interesting?’
Lynn sighed heavily and had a think. She had clearly made a great effort with her appearance tonight, which made Bennett feel a bit worse. The price tag was hanging out of the back of her black sleeveless dress and her make-up seemed to be on the thick side. He had always rather assumed there was a Mr Lynn in the background somewhere, but surely if he existed he would be here. Bennett felt nervous again as his mathematical brain threw up another statistical possibility. He hadn’t been alone with a woman other than Sue since the 1980s. The kitchen was suddenly fraught with danger and unwelcome difficulties.
‘Well, there was a man who—’
The doorbell rang. Bennett could have wept. He jumped out of his chair and ran through the hall. As he opened the door, Jazzy, wearing not very much at all, almost fell through with Annie and–oh! Something somewhere deep within him danced a little jig–Tracey behind her.
‘I’ve been KIDNAPPED,’ Jazzy shrieked. ‘We’re not all SAD ACTS, you know. Some of us have something to DO on Saturday nights. ACTUALLY.’
‘Yes, that’s why you were already in your pyjamas. Your nan said you were stuck at home doing nothing, so stop fibbing.’
‘SHE STOLE ME FROM MY HOME.’ Jazzy turned round and slapped the air around Annie. ‘SHE’S NUTS.’
‘That’s ENOUGH,’ Annie shouted back and kicked her up the bottom towards the kitchen. ‘Look. Free drink. Count yourself lucky. And pull your knickers up. Hi, Bennett.’ She kissed him. ‘Sorry we’re a bit late. Happy birthday.’
‘Thanks, Annie. I’m very glad to see you. Is James coming?’
‘Well, I haven’t bloody asked him. Jazzy,’ she called as she marched through to the kitchen, ’pour me a big one.’
‘And happy birthday from me.’ Tracey kissed him too. ‘Not a relaxing journey. Jazzy kept screaming for help, saying she’d been abducted and climbing out of the car. I had to sit on her.’ She flung her jacket on the hall table, headed for the sofa in the lounge and slumped down on it. ‘Could do with a lie-down after all that. Any chance of a drink?’
The doorbell rang again. ‘Oh.’ Tracey jumped up. ‘That’ll be Lewis and Katie. I’ll go and help.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Maria, coming through behind the wheelchair. ‘I arrived at the same time. Can’t stay long, mind.’ She was in her tight green carer’s uniform. ‘I’ve got an enema round the corner at nine thirty.’
‘Thank God you’re here, Katie,’ said Tracey. Katie beamed. ‘Jazzy’s in a right strop. Talk her down for us, will you? You’re the only person who can get any sense into her. She’s in the kitchen.’
Bennett left the door open after that, and took up position at the drinks table in the kitchen, from where he could see all the arrivals flooding in. The basses were all here now, in a gang–they were the sort of men, Bennett had noticed, who had to be in a gang. The phrase ‘life and soul of the party’ came to mind and brought a temporary heaviness of heart. But then Judith and Kerry walked in with their arms around each other, followed by the nice chap from the bank, and behind them was another gang–female and young enough to lower the average age. Which was good, as next in was Pat with… good Lord, wasn’t that the woman from the butcher’s? He couldn’t quite tell without the white coat. Bennett worried that it was a rather random selection of people, now that he could see them all together like this. Was that how you threw a party–did you almost literally fling anybody you could find at one particular venue–or was there a bit more to it than that? He was just starting to tense up again when the most beautiful girl in the world just strolled into his kitchen and flung her arms around his neck.
‘Dad.’ She kissed him, ‘I made it.’ Then, turning to the room, she announced: ‘Hi, everyone. I’m Min.’
‘What are you doing here?’ said Bennett. And as an afterthought, ‘Who did you say you were?’
‘I’m just your daughter.’ Araminta stepped back to shake his hand. ‘No reason you should remember me. But for future reference–in the notebook, under D.’
Everyone laughed and the whole house relaxed.
‘I just didn’t know you called yourself Min.’ She looked slightly different to him here tonight, among these different people, under a different name. He felt a bit baffled. ‘And I thought Grandma was sick.’
‘Not sick enough, sadly. I have grave news.’ ‘Min’ turned her mouth down. ‘The old trout’s got years left in her. So,’ she
brightened, returning to the guests, ‘as we have established, I’m the daughter he’d forgotten he had. But who are all you lot? Hey, Dad,’ she elbowed him, ‘is this your gang?’
Tracey noticed how much better-looking Bennett was all of a sudden. He was clearly much happier when Min was about, and the set of his face had lifted and altered accordingly, but that wasn’t all. Now that one could see the exact replica of his features playing about in the prettiness of his clever, funny, lively daughter, he was a completely different proposition. It was a realisation that Bennett didn’t actually have to be Bennett. That with this face he could have a different destiny, that there was an alternative in there somewhere. All he needed was a new, open confidence, a casual, relaxed air and a different attitude. Tracey smiled as she watched him. What was she thinking? If Bennett had all those things, then he really wouldn’t be Bennett, would he? But still, he had already moved along to a place that was somewhere just that little bit closer to handsome.
‘We could do with some music, couldn’t we?’ Tracey called over. ‘Where is it? Let’s see what you’ve got.’
‘Ah. Oh dear. I did think I’d thought of everything. Um. I’ve only got a record player, over there I’m afraid. Terribly old-fashioned.’
‘Not old-fashioned,’ she told him firmly. ‘And stop apologising. Just say it’s retro.’
‘Would retro be a good thing?’ He looked a little disbelieving.
‘Cool.’ Tracey marched over to the records stacked tightly along the bottom bookshelf and started to pull a few out. ‘Take my word for it.’ She was enjoying herself doing this. Not looking at the actual sleeves–that made her heart sink; they were hardly going to get a party started with Bachs CPE through to JS–but fingering through them. She had grown up into a world of cassettes, and then CDs; vinyl had started to bow out gracefully just as she was bowing in. So the joy of arriving at a bloke’s house and evaluating him through his record collection was one that only really belonged properly to the generation just above her. Tracey had watched them all doing it–elder siblings in the houses of friends; sophisticated young girls-about-town in sitcoms and dramas–but she had been denied a long and happy adulthood of getting to act it out herself. It was like all those other things that she had watched and read about and heard of and considered to be such obvious entitlements of grownup life–the very basics of her birthright–yet which had never fulfilled their promise, like going to the moon or dating Warren Beatty.
Her fingers moved past Weber and on to a different-looking section altogether. Aha, she thought. This is more promising. We seem to have left Classical Gloomsville and moved on to—
‘Oh.’ Bennett was beside her. ‘You’ve found my Eurovision collection?’
‘Your—?’ She span round and looked at him. ‘Your what?’
She suddenly felt cold.
‘Yes.’ He was smiling and friendly–in deep pretence that the conversation was nothing out of the ordinary. She wondered vaguely if he had been trained for this sort of thing by MI5. ‘Eurovision. One of my specialist subjects.’ He filled her glass. ‘Araminta always says I should go on Mastermind, but I don’t think she would really like it if I did.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Tracey replied, glugging it back. ‘There’s bound to be some obscure little act that passed you by.’
‘Oh, there isn’t. I know there isn’t.’ He tapped his head. ‘It’s all in there. I started,’ he was getting chatty now, ‘when I left choir school. I had nothing in common with all the non-choristers out there in the world. They were all interested in pop song instead of Evensong—’
‘Funny, that…’ She looked around her for a getaway. He had her trapped against the shelves.
‘I thought so.’ He shook his head, rueful. ‘Anyway, in a vain attempt to fit in, I set about becoming the school’s top expert and statistician of all things Eurovision.’ He gave a sad little chuckle. ‘It was my bid to be cool.’
All right, she thought. He wants an ordinary conversation, I’ll give him an ordinary conversation. Two of us can play at that game. ‘Well, come on. The suspense is killing me. Did it turn you into the Fonz?’
‘Oh. Well, I don’t know what a fonz is but it didn’t make me cool, if that’s what you’re asking. In fact,’ he looked into her eyes, ‘for a bit there, back in Fourth Year, I thought it might ruin my life.’
‘That’s a bit extreme.’ She wasn’t biting, she didn’t think it was fair to. If they were going to have a Eurovision Ruined My Life-off, she was going to win it, hands down. ‘Did you give it all up then, in Fourth Year?’
‘Oh no. I couldn’t, for some reason. It’s been an obsession of mine ever since.’
She took a deep breath, pinched together her trembling hands. So here we go: the great unmasking. Of all the people Tracey had felt nervous around over her twenty years living the lie, she had never suspected that it would come down to Bennett. Never once. Still, let’s get it over with.
‘Everyone from Matt Monro through to, well, to be honest,’ he gave a shy smile, ‘my absolute favourite–actually, I had a real crush on this one… Teresa V…’
He smiled and, feeling rather pathetically chuffed, she waited patiently for the penny to drop. He went back to his records, took one out, held it and stared. He looked down at the cover, then back up at Tracey. He cocked his head, furrowed his brow, looked down again, back again, shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, frowning.
I don’t believe it, thought Tracey: I just don’t bloody believe it. The penny does not seem to be dropping. The penny is defying gravity. All these years. All this time. All that subterfuge, and name-changing and hair dye and never getting close to anybody because she could never bear to say the truth. She had lived her whole adult life as an enormous great lie and for what? There was only one person alive who even remembered her, and he was too blind or too dim to know her when she was right in front of him.
Then: ‘Dad,’ said Min. ‘Music. Get your act together. Come on, not all that old stup—’ She looked over his shoulder and saw it at once. ‘Hello. That’s you, isn’t it? I mean, long blond hair and all that but still, it is you, isn’t it? Are you Teresa V? How exciting.’ Although she did not, Tracey thought, sound very excited at all. Indeed, she sounded thoroughly unimpressed.
‘But–but–how…’ Bennett was still struggling at the back of the class there. Clearly nobody had ever told him that hair colour was optional or that sometimes, some people–people other than Bennett, for example–were capable of change.
She put a hand on his arm. ‘I promise, I’ll tell you everything. But later. Let’s get this party on the go first.’
Annie had been dancing for hours and was now collapsed on the sofa, content to sit and watch the others like a Jane Austen chaperon. It was nearly one in the morning, and most people were still in Bennett’s front room and bopping away. Including, of all things, Bennett–and, strangely, that was not quite the unpleasant sight she had been expecting. Of course it was natural that his great musicianship gave him a sense of rhythm but oddly, in all the years that she had known him and Sue, she had never once known them to dance. Had Annie just never been there, or had he simply never done it in decades? It was rather a sad thought. Because she had danced with him a lot tonight, and much to her surprise it had been an extremely enjoyable experience indeed. James, of course, never danced. It was, Annie was fond of saying, his one fault. She might update that little wifely statement now, though: he was developing, or she was starting to notice, faults galore.
She was just getting her breath back. The neighbours, who were very much anti-Bennett in the very amicable war of the St John Parkers, had come round to complain at midnight but even they were still there, dancing and drinking with the rest of them. It was actually a rather brilliant party. The young ones had got them all up dancing with that lovely ‘Happy’ song that seemed to please all ages, and then Lewis of all people had taken over the iPad; his playlist was older but still suited
everyone.
Oliver’s Army are on their way
There was plenty of life to this party–the basses were inevitably the loudest, but Judith, Kerry and their lot were coming close. The young ones were still going around Katie in her chair. Bennett went from one group to the next, pouring yet more wine.
… here to sta-ay
But the soul of it was definitely Tracey. She had been up on the coffee table on and off since about ten past ten, singing at the top of her fabulous voice–as if she was the artiste and the tracks were just backing. She was clearly loving it but then so was everyone else. Her knowledge of all the lyrics from every genre from 1965 to 1990 seemed to be absolute and her performance honed. The party roared its approval as Elvis Costello finished and ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’ came on.
Ooh-ooh LA
We don’t really need Gladys Knight, thought Annie. We’ve got Tracey. No wonder she left the Choir. This girl wasn’t a chorus member; she was a soloist and performer through every fibre of her being. Her voice was knocking a hole through to the house next door. How peculiar life was, that a woman with all that charisma and talent was a paralegal in a tech company. She must have wanted for a mentor. Every time one of her girls had taken up a musical instrument Annie had anticipated a glorious career for them and researched it all just in case. If only she had known Tracey earlier, she could have used all that expertise on her. What a shame. It really was a shame.
Oh he’s leaving (leav-ing)
On that midnight train…
Annie sank into the sofa and her mood sank with her. It was the worst thing about drifting over the age of forty: you suddenly got a view of yourself as a finished product. Her own next stop was sixty, and she had long ago got used to living with a long list of Things Annie Miller Would Never Be or Do. Her focus now was more on what the girls might be or do, and that kept her going. But someone like Tracey she could really feel for. To have so much possibility and to hit the age when you have to face up to the fact that you are never going to get the chance to realise it–it was a shame.