About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Well, two we know about. And as Nico says, it’s the local ones who are the worry. After all, he’s got to go to school. Face his mates. He says you were very flirtatious with the man buying Nutty.’

  ‘Flirtatious with … oh don’t be absurd!’ I stormed. ‘I was selling a horse! Turning on the charm!’

  ‘Taking your clothes off in the kitchen?’

  ‘No! I mean – I changed, quickly, but not for him, because I was late, so I—’

  ‘Nico says you were running round in your pants.’

  ‘What rot, no, I—’

  ‘Mum.’ Lucy held up her hand, palm in my face like a traffic cop. ‘Enough. We understand. Or at least,’ she put her head on one side and gave me a sort of caring, counsellor look, ‘I think I do.’

  ‘Well, I bloody don’t!’ snorted Minna. ‘She gets all eggy with me for getting with Ted, and all the time she’s taking her clothes off for some guy buying Nutty!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Mr Pritchard – and I am not in a courtroom – surprised me when I thought Mrs Pritchard was coming, Paddy Campbell is an odious man who forced a kiss on me to teach me a lesson or something fatuous, and Felix and I are grown adults enjoying each other’s company and an evening on our own, which frankly is none of your business!’ I directed this last comment at Lucy but she was up, suddenly, on her feet, glancing around, eyes darting. She strode into her bedroom, crossed the room and yanked open the wardrobe.

  ‘No, he is not here,’ I stormed. ‘What on earth do you think I am?’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later, Mum,’ she said, shooting me a grim look. She kicked off her heels, threw her evening bag on the bed and seized a T-shirt and jeans. ‘Right now, I have to go to work. But please, no more dramas, OK?’ She shimmied out of her dress. ‘Rein in. This is my patch and I’d ask you to respect it. If you need help, we’ll get it for you.’

  ‘Ooh, I could—’ but she’d already kicked the bedroom door shut in my face.

  A moment later, Minna, holding two mugs of slopping tea, threw me a last dirty look before opening the door with a crooked little finger and going in to join her. I heard a muttered, outraged exchange through the door, but I was pretty livid myself. I decided the only thing for it was to slam out and leave them to it, before either of them could slam out on me. And let them calm down a bit too, of course. No one likes to arrive back at their flat wearing what they had on the night before, I could see that. And Minna would be hugely enjoying the moment of camaraderie this engendered with her sister, who didn’t always let her in. My younger daughter could usually be relied on to be sweet and biddable, but if the wind was blowing Lucy’s way … Resisting the temptation to barge in and have a flaming row with both of them, I got my nightclothes together, stashed them in my bag in a corner of Sophia’s room, then found my handbag and left. I’d have breakfast in the café round the corner, I decided, in peace. As I clattered up the iron steps from the basement to the street, a sash window flew up from below. Minna’s face appeared at the window, behind the bars.

  ‘The key, Mother.’ She held out her hand.

  ‘Oh! Yes.’ I fished it from my bag, scurried back a few steps and proffered it through the bars. ‘Or shall I leave it under the—’

  ‘I will.’ Minna snatched it. ‘Since I presume that means we have the pleasure of your company for another night?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  But she’d gone, before I could finish my sentence, slamming the window shut, which frankly left me incandescent with fury. I stomped noisily up the steps again and turned down the street. The number of times I’d forgiven them their little foibles and peccadilloes, their countless acts of thoughtlessness, their falls from grace! The times I’d overlooked their glaring indiscretions and downright bollock-dropping, and in one night, I’d made a few minor, cosmopolitan errors – and I was demonized! Ganged up on. Called names. A sex addict, for crying out loud! Minna, glaring at me, her mouth disappearing like a cat’s bottom. Lucy, speaking to me in that ghastly tone of voice, like some sort of pious therapist – she’d even rested her elbows on her knees and regarded me over interlaced fingers. Oh, I’d show them. Really give them something to talk about. I strode on. Well, no, obviously I wouldn’t do that. That would be silly. I’d reached the café now and I pulled out a chair at a table on the pavement in the sunshine and sat down. A waitress appeared and I ordered a cappuccino and a croissant. But I certainly wouldn’t be ‘reining in’ as Lucy patronizingly put it. I would certainly be keeping my date with Felix tonight, oh yes.

  I fumed into the drone of traffic for a bit, then fell on my coffee when it arrived. It was boiling hot and I burned my lips. Irritated, I put it down, the cup rattling in the saucer, coffee sloshing all over the place, which I hated. The morning was not going well.

  Felix texted me a few times throughout the day, though, which was lovely, and my spirits, ever mercurial, rose like a hot air balloon. The first time I was in Tate Modern, which I’d never been to, skirting the perimeter of a room containing a sea of blown-up, blue plastic bags.

  ‘Are you still on for tonight?’ I read.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘In light of your daughter’s disapproval, would completely understand if you changed your mind?’

  ‘Certainly won’t be doing that!’

  He said he’d meet me at six. He suggested a drink in a bar first, and then he wondered if he could cook me dinner.

  I caught my breath. Golly. His place. Before my thumbs could stop themselves I’d texted back:

  ‘Why not?’

  Oh yes, I was playing very hard to get. I pocketed my phone guiltily. But at least I’d deleted ‘SUPER!!’ which had been my initial response. I made my way back around the room full of blue bags and into the next one, full of yellow ones. I blinked when I saw a pink room, further on. That might be a bag too far.

  In the event, Felix couldn’t get away as early as six because he became immersed in a series of meetings with gallery owners, but he kept up the contact throughout the afternoon, and let me know it would be more like seven. Perhaps we could rendezvous closer to his gallery meeting? he asked. Might that not be easier for both of us, particularly since I was shopping in the West End? I’d told him I was doing that, even though I was now on more familiar territory, pottering in and out of the boutiques in the Fulham Road in the hope I might find something affordable to wear tonight. Stupidly I’d felt Bond Street sounded smarter, although it probably wasn’t. What was wrong with me? I felt myself flush, embarrassed for my usual self. I was behaving like a ridiculous teenager.

  Nevertheless, I hotfooted it over to Bond Street for the rest of the afternoon and, resisting the gravitational pull of the Topshop of my youth at Oxford Circus whose Hieronymus Bosch-like depths I still felt I could plumb with my eyes shut, I acted age-appropriate and embarked on Fenwick’s. In actual fact it yielded a host of pretty outfits to choose from. They were all reasonably priced, too, and I settled on a pale blue linen dress and a pair of wedged sandals. As I paid, my jeans and shirt now in the stiff carrier, linen dress and heels on, I eyed the bag guiltily. I couldn’t turn up with an overnight bag, obviously. And I wasn’t even sure I was going to need one. But my day clothes were now stored in a very understandable way, without my needing one. And since I was walking through the lingerie department on my way out, I bought some knickers. Because I was short of them at home. But I put them at the bottom of the bag. A pack of three. I added a toothbrush from Boots, then hurriedly threw it in a bin in the street. That really was going too far. And anyway, I could always … no. Don’t be ridiculous, Molly. Do calm down.

  At seven, I set off for Mayfair. I walked there, not too fast – I didn’t want to work up a disastrous sweat and it was warm – but nevertheless enjoyed the saunter through the very solvent streets, window-shopping as I went. Berkeley Square was bathed in dappled, dancing light: its tall, ancient plane trees filtered the sun’s rays but it was quite dark and terrestrial too in places.
A thick canopy of green spread over the centre and I enjoyed its cool and shade, taking a moment to sit on a bench. This was what I missed, I decided, following with my eyes a couple of smart businesswomen in dark suits. They strode past in heels, deep in conversation, both with terrific legs – one a barrister, I realized, noticing the white bands at her throat. Yes, the sense of purpose, the buzz. The hum of ideas. I’d been asleep too long. Five years now, nearly six. Six years selling lavender soap, sparkly pants and horses, and not very many of those, either. It was time to move on. Time to put my penitential days behind me. On a branch high above me, a bird trilled an accord; not a nightingale, but I’d swear I’d heard a cuckoo earlier, through the honking of horns, the hum of traffic round the square. First one of the season. Would the good burghers of Mayfair notice that? I smiled. I fancied not.

  I smoothed down my new dress and crossed my freshly waxed legs. Weirdly, I’d missed that a bit, too. The maintenance: something the sisterhood railed against. But so many people in the countryside let themselves go – me included. Who was going to see my legs under jeans and wellies? But here there was none of that. And appearances were important, I decided, sitting up a bit: they defined one. I thought of Felix with his trim figure, his light tan. He’d mentioned he went running in Hyde Park. Could I still run, I wondered? Jog, perhaps. Happily I’d always been reasonably slim, but I’d go to the gym, I determined. Lose those extra pounds, get more toned, although horses and sheep did that for you: kept you in shape. And of course, a dress like this helped too, I thought, getting up and smoothing it down. Amazing what a spot of tailoring could do, that and an expensive blow-dry – I’d nearly passed out when the receptionist in Fenwick’s had asked for fifty pounds; Wendy, at home, charged fifteen. Yes, I’d been asleep too long. I needed to rejoin the real world. I walked on through the square with its flickering, changing light, and out through the gate on the other side.

  As I turned into Mount Street, with its wide pavements and classy street lamps, I wondered if I was starting at the higher or the lower end of the street. I glanced at Felix’s text. Marscho’s, number eight, was all I’d been given. Ah, here was number two, so it was this end, rather than towards Grosvenor Square. I was surprised to see quite a few people gathered ahead of me on the pavement, sipping drinks, and realized there was something of an opening-night exhibition going on, perhaps even in Marscho’s, the gallery to which I was bidden. No, it was next door, at number six. As I threaded my way through the expensively dressed, chattering throng, a huge dark Bentley purred sedately past. I happened to glance up at the name on the front of the gallery, in discreet and exquisite gold lettering, because of course somewhere around here – yes, how stupid. It was precisely here. Lafitte and Defois, which meant … my eyes came down and around. The very first person they came into contact with, standing ahead of me, with a glass of champagne in his hand, his eyes like lasers over the shoulder of the elderly, foreign-looking woman he was talking to, was Henri.

  17

  I stopped still in the street. We didn’t speak, just stood staring at one another. He was exactly the same. Never tall, but compact and wiry; a presence, despite his lack of stature. His hair was still very dark with just a few flecks of grey, his eyes brown and penetrating, his face unchanged. But then it had only been five years. Not a hundred. I gazed at his familiar, craggy features, that Roman nose and creased face, his slightly shabby yet expensive clothes. I felt as if a spear had dropped vertically from the sky and skewered me to the pavement. It was the elderly woman who moved first. She turned around at her companion’s evident distraction and, with her maturity, put a couple of things together. She gave me a small smile and with a discreet murmur to Henri, moved back into the hub of the party.

  Henri walked towards me, never taking his eyes from mine. He stopped a few feet away.

  ‘Molly.’

  ‘Henri.’

  There was a silence. After a moment, he spoke again, gentle and low. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  ‘David …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I know.’

  I felt a huge well of emotion threaten to surge up inside and overwhelm me. Something I’d kept a very firm lid on for a good many years was churning away deep down like molten lava, but I kept it low.

  ‘I wanted to come to the funeral, but I thought …’ He made a hopeless gesture with his hands.

  ‘No, definitely not,’ I said quickly. ‘We were … on the phone.’

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘We were.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When … you know.’

  I watched it dawn. Watched that terrible penny drop. He looked as if he’d been shot.

  ‘Oh mon dieu. I had no idea.’

  ‘I know, and I shouldn’t have told you that. I don’t know why I did.’

  ‘No, you must tell me. I was the other party. You can’t shoulder all that burden, all that guilt, on your own.’

  I gulped, nodding. Knowing he’d understand. But at the time I’d felt any sort of contact with Henri, even to tell him what had happened, was diabolical: it made me feel sick. I loved him for understanding now – no, not loved, but … you know. I gave myself a moment: needed a thousand more. Instead I took some good, deep breaths. He waited for me.

  ‘And Caroline?’ I glanced around, blinking, expecting her to bear down on us at any minute, glass in hand, smiling broadly, blonde and glamorous as ever in something silky and wafting. Henri looked confused.

  ‘Caroline?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Molly, don’t you know? She left me soon after.’

  It was my turn to rock as if I’d taken a bullet.

  ‘Left you?’

  ‘Yes. For Giles.’

  ‘Giles.’ Now I really did gawp. ‘You’re kidding. Giles and Susie Giles?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t believe you didn’t know. They’d been having an affair. For nearly a year, according to Susie, who found all sorts of emails, texts, the usual. Then she dug and found even more.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘Right under our noses. Caroline, it seems, was not working quite as much as she made out and certainly not late into the evening. And Giles was not pumping iron and getting in shape for Susie. All the time she was helping him, timing his laps on the common, being his doubles partner, going to the gym, it was for someone else. She was unwittingly facilitating his love affair with my wife.’

  ‘Oh, poor Susie. And poor you, Henri. I’m so sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe in my head, I knew. Perhaps. I don’t know. Things hadn’t been good for a while.’

  ‘You never said.’

  He shrugged again. ‘I thought it would be disloyal. And such a cliché. My wife doesn’t understand me. You never complained about David either, except …’

  ‘Yes – I know I told you about that.’ I glanced down at my feet. Then up again. ‘But you never said a single word, Henri.’

  ‘A bit of me thought perhaps it was my fault. That I was the one losing interest. Well I was, obviously, we both know that – I certainly thought I was the only guilty party. I never imagined it was her, too.’

  ‘But with Giles. Such a …’

  ‘Handsome man?’ he ventured with a wry smile.

  ‘No!’ I said vehemently. ‘I mean, yes, OK. Smarmy good looks if you like that sort of thing, but such a twat!’

  He laughed. ‘Thank you for that, Molly. I have to say I never thought I’d lose my free-spirited wife to such a crashingly conservative stockbroker.’

  ‘A very good one, though,’ I reminded him. ‘And a very rich one.’

  ‘Very. A man obsessed with money. I think that was the thing he resented most. Paying Susie off. Giving her the house.’

  ‘You mean they’re still together?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Giles and Caroline?’

  ‘Oh yes. Still together. In Battersea.’ He gave me a curious look. ‘Lucy knows.
She never said?’

  I caught my breath. ‘Lucy? H-how does she …?’

  ‘She and Alice keep in touch.’

  I was flabbergasted. Rocked, almost more than seeing Henri. ‘I – I didn’t know that.’ Henri’s eldest. The same age as Lucy. I tried to assimilate it.

  ‘Just Facebook, probably,’ he said quickly. ‘That sort of thing.’

  I knew he was protecting me. ‘Right,’ I nodded, hustling the information to the back of my brain, to chew on later. ‘And – and you, Henri? Did you ever …’

  His eyebrows shot up like a flying buttress. ‘Ever?’

  ‘You know. Re-marry?’

  He broke into a broad smile at hearing me say it, not helping me out. ‘No, I never did. Never even found a significant other, as I believe it’s called. Except, of course, that’s not true. I did.’

  His eyes held mine and I felt the breath leave my body.

  ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Did you ever find anyone?’

  I glanced down, shook my head: was about to try to explain about the terrible crushing guilt that had folded me in its rocky crease, squeezed the very life out of me, when, from behind a few heads, Felix appeared. He looked very tall and bronzed next to Henri, whose olive skin hadn’t seen the sun for a while. His face broke into a smile of relief as he came around the throng to put a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘There you are!’ He kissed my cheek. ‘I was beginning to worry, thought you couldn’t find it.’

  ‘Oh – n-no. I’m sorry. I just – I’m sorry, Felix, I bumped into an old friend.’ I licked my lips, which were exceedingly dry. ‘Felix, this is Henri Defois. Felix Carrington.’

  The two men shook hands with seeming bonhomie but I sensed a slight frisson: a vague wariness on both parts.

  ‘We know each other, don’t we?’ asked Felix.

  ‘I think so. Art fairs, perhaps …?’

  ‘And I see a bit of Pascal, next door.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Henri agreed. ‘You exhibit there? I know the name.’

  ‘My son does.’

  ‘Of course.’