by Unknown
Adam is fighting a slight reddening of the cheeks – I don’t think it’s the sun.
Instantly I forget the sniping and griping and I’m just thoroughly, intensely, unequivocally pleased for him.
‘Really? Wow, that’s amazing!’ I fold Adam into a big hug too, just as Jess did. It’s freaky because my body seems to sort of remember his and smudges a fraction closer into him – a fraction closer than I was planning. I leap away quickly. My body shouldn’t be feeling like that. I shouldn’t be feeling like that.
But I am.
Oh God. I feel weak as my legs turn to liquid. This isn’t right. This isn’t good.
I rally. ‘Hey, but don’t you know the rules, though? All exes ought to have the good grace to be abject failures or at least not stunning successes.’ I make myself grin and then I add, ‘Seriously, this is brilliant news. Listening to all those demo tapes, knocking on all those closed doors of record companies has finally paid off. How fantastic,’ I gush. I mean it, this is amazing. I can’t actually believe that Adam is managing a band; organizing gigs and record contracts. This is Adam we’re talking about.
Adam shrugs; he’s trying to hide his jubilation. ‘Yeah, well, I said it was only a matter of time. What did you think? That I was going to be a rigger for ever?’
Yes. The thought punches me in the gut. I can’t respond and I’m grateful when I discover he’s not expecting me to.
‘They are good guys. With a great sound. This first single of theirs is pretty much a statement of intent. It’s full of beautiful chiming guitars, pop sensibilities and a hint of their widescreen ambition. We’ve nearly finished the album, it’s going to need just a few more weeks, I think.’
‘My God, that’s brilliant, Adam. So will your boys be fighting Scott for the number one slot?’ I joke excitedly.
‘They won’t ever get to number one, you know. I’m saying that as their manager. I’m not being modest, I’m just being realistic. They’re not commercial in the right way, the way that sells at the moment. We’d be delighted to get to the top thirty and to see a few more gigs. They’ll have a year in the sunshine. They’ll have fun and it will be long enough for them to get some money together, you know, make a start in life.’
‘I can hardly believe you’re saying this, Adam. You, who used to make veiled references to a non-existent drug habit, in a desperate effort to appear more rock and roll.’
‘Yeah, well, I was stupid,’ he says, with a big easy grin which makes me think maybe it was not just him who was stupid. ‘I’ve decided I’m going to be the sort of manager who tells his bands to put their earnings into property, not to let them go up in smoke.’
‘Is that what you are going to do? Buy a house?’
‘Oh, Fern.’ Adam sighs. It seems as though I’ve irritated him by bringing up purchasing a property. Is he still so allergic to a commitment of any sort – even to a mortgage? That doesn’t make sense in light of what he’s advising his band members. I stare at him puzzled. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something more but then he snaps it shut again and shakes his head. After a pause he adds, ‘You know what? I’m going to care about my band. Radical, hey?’
Very.
‘Besides, looking around here today at all this, I’m not sure if this is what I’d want for them. They are all really young, I’m not sure they could handle it. I’m not sure anyone can and this is it in the end, isn’t it? This is rock and roll. This is success.’
I follow his gaze. It’s weird, everyone has been having a fabulous time for – I don’t know how long – hours? But suddenly the stylish and exciting party is morphing into something vaguely unpleasant and unwieldy under our gaze. Probably everyone should pack up and go home. I’ve only had a couple of cocktails but I’m dizzy and confused. Nothing seems clear-cut; nothing is as I thought it was.
I look around for my mum. Last time I saw her she was wandering around collecting over-full ashtrays and used glasses. I asked her to come and sit down and relax with me and told her we have people who do that stuff but she just replied that I’ll get a big bum if I sit on it all day. Now, I’m relieved to note that my mum and Scott’s mum have retreated into the kitchen; I think my mum is washing up, Scott’s mum is drying. I don’t waste time considering whether this is appropriate or not, I just count my lucky stars Mum won’t witness the joints currently being rolled on the expensive side-tables. Not that she’d suspect there’s anything more than tobacco in the rollies, nor would she understand why all the bathroom doors are suddenly locked. I’m grateful to note that Saadi and her assistants have rounded up all the kids and packed them safely away somewhere but I’m irritated there are drugs in our home at all. How will Scott manage? Where the hell is Mark? I know he’d soon have this lot out on their ears.
It also comes to my attention that the fit semi-clad waiters are now wearing more clothes than pretty much anyone else. The roaring temperatures have encouraged models, groupies and desperate starlets to throw off sarongs, T-shirts and bikini tops. Near-naked bodies rub up against one another in a way that seems to me unnecessary and unseemly. I’m no prude but I want to ask people to get a room. There’s nothing remaining of the ice sculptures or the delicious chocolate fountains – except sticky, dark pools. The light is fading but the pink and purple all-weather light bulbs are casting vaguely menacing hues, not the lovely girly ones I expected. Someone is in the pool trying to have sex with one of the scarlet inflatable, giant ducks.
This is success.
Jess beams at me. ‘We’re going to go back to the hotel now. We might hit the bar and celebrate. We’d ask you along but no doubt you need an early night. Big day tomorrow, hey?’
‘Yes, big day.’ I plaster on my broadest smile. The Mondrian Sky Bar, in the hotel where they are staying, is stunning but I know my friends well. ‘You ought to go to the Standard if you’re peckish. They do the best fat chips ever,’ I advise.
‘Perfect, just what I fancy.’ Jess gently tugs on Adam’s arm and there’s a glint in her eye that makes me understand that chips aren’t just what she fancies.
We hug each other briefly and as Adam leans in to me he says, ‘For what it’s worth, I hope Scott stays sober and I hope you’re happy.’
I watch Adam and Jess weave through the drunken crowds. They make a really attractive couple. I take a deep breath but it’s like breathing in glass shards. I gasp and try to understand why Adam’s good wishes hurt more than any of his barbed comments or sullen monosyllabic answers. I guess he’s found closure if he can be so generous. Well, that’s good. Isn’t it? Surely. I don’t want him to fly into a jealous and angry rage. Surely.
Oh I do, I do, I do.
No I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.
I know what I need. Or rather who I need. I need Ben. If I ask him to, Ben will confirm that I was right in thinking Adam and I were treading water. Ben’ll remind me that I was fed up with Adam. That I left him because right now – and I’m sure that it’s the cocktails and wedding nerves – but suddenly I’m baffled as to how I could ever have thought Adam unchallenging and lacklustre. I’ve even started to look back at his magpie clutter with affection.
As I pick my way through writhing bodies I hope to hell Ben doesn’t have one of his honesty bursts and insist on reminding me that, up until about a week before my thirtieth birthday, Adam and I were perfectly happy. It’s bad enough that I’ve remembered this myself.
65. Fern
The house is no longer cool and calming, the party has spilt into here too; it’s noisy and chaotic. In the hallway I bump into a woman throwing up in our umbrella stand. I console myself with the fact that I never liked it much anyway. I call for one of the maids and ask her to get the girl a cab and hurl the hurl bucket. I also track down one of Saadi’s assistants and instruct her to get my mum and dad back to their hotel as quickly as possible. I suggest she uses blindfolds to get them into the car. She laughs but I’m not joking. Then, I wade through the grunts and moans of copulatin
g couples and snorting singles as I start my hunt for Ben.
I haven’t seen him all day. He told me that he was going for a wax this morning; he said it was essential prep for the wedding. I thought he meant he was going to wax his car but in fact it transpired he meant he was planning on waxing his back, sacks and crack. Not an image I care to dwell on, no matter how much I love him. I’m at a loss as to why that is essential prep for the wedding; I suppose he’s hoping to get lucky.
I check his room but he’s not in there. A couple I’ve never met are making out on the pile of shirts he’s left sprawled across his bed; he’s going to be furious. I check the den but he’s not there either. Another couple are shagging on the footie table, Scott is going to be furious, I hope it holds their weight. I move on. I open door after door and soon discover that while there were plenty of semi-naked writhing bodies around the pool, many more have actually got a room, as there are endless naked bodies indoors too. At first I’m flustered and embarrassed but after a while I become anaesthetized to hairy bums moving up and down or bare breasts jiggling from one side to the next. It’s actually quite boring.
After a fruitless thirty-minute search I decide to find Scott, or Mark, or Saadi, anyone who can bring this party-stroke-orgy to an end. I want to go to bed. It’s been a long day and the skin around my eyes feels as though it’s been stretched on a rack. I’m getting married tomorrow morning and I desperately need my beauty sleep. I check the kitchens, the drawing-room and reception rooms, then I check Scott’s bedroom. I can’t find any of them. Where the hell are they? Have they gone out partying without me? It’s possible and irritating. Weary, I decide I’ll have to forgo Ben’s pep talk and take myself off to bed.
I left him. It’s none of my business what Adam does or who he does it with. The fact that the first surge of unfettered affection I’ve felt, or given, all day was when I folded him into a congratulatory hug is neither here nor there. The fact that I was actually excited to hear that his band was number forty-eight in the singles chart and in contrast relieved to hear Scott’s album was number eight in the album chart, isn’t significant either. I just know the wedding would be maudlin if Scott hadn’t made it to the top ten. I’m excited for Scott, of course. It’s just a different sort of excitement. I shake my head but Adam won’t slip from it.
I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m very tired. And a bit drunk. And very emotional. I’m getting married tomorrow. Every woman thinks about her ex the night before her wedding; it’s tradition, like wearing something old, new, borrowed and blue. It’s simply what happens. It doesn’t mean anything.
Exhausted, I open my bedroom door. Immediately I sense there’s someone else already in here. Great, just what I need, a fornicating couple on my bed. I’ll have to change the sheets. There is no way I’m going to sleep on sheets used by strangers on the eve of my wedding. It’s probably bad luck or something. At the very least it’s unhygienic.
Sure enough, through the flickering candlelight (randies with a romantic streak, they’ve taken the time to light every one of my thirty-odd Molton Brown candles) I see another naked white bum.
‘Ben?’ As Ben makes a grab for a sheet to protect his modesty (and mine for that matter), I see who is in the bed with him. ‘Scott!’
66. Fern
I’m actually sick. I make the woman I just caught puking into my umbrella stand look restrained – I haven’t even got the self-control to find a receptacle for my vomit. It splashes on the marble floor. And when I run, my designer-clad foot slips on my own up-chuck.
‘Fern! Wait!’ It’s Ben’s voice I hear call after me down the corridor and I hear Scott say, ‘I’ll get Mark.’
Bastard.
Bastards.
Both of them!
I hate them!
I run through the house and out of the front door. The gravel of the drive scrunches beneath my feet. It’s a sound I’ve always associated with wealth and luxury but I will for ever more associate it with betrayal and pain. I look around me. Drivers are helping drunken guests into their cars; the party is well and truly over. I don’t know what to do. I’m surrounded by dozens of faces but I don’t know anyone well enough to ask if I can go home with them or even ask if they’ll give me a lift, and besides, where can I go? I just found my fiancé in my bed with my best boy mate, on the eve of our wedding. The thought causes my insides to turn to liquid again. I need to sit down or I’ll fall down. I start to stagger towards the lawn when I hear Barry, the driver who has ferried me on countless shopping trips in the last few weeks, call out to me.
‘You all right, Miss?’ His respectful question is part and parcel of service in the USA. Even checkout servers are polite here but even though I know that, I’m overwhelmed by the generosity of his enquiry and the quiet sympathy that seems to lie behind it.
‘Not really,’ I mutter.
‘Little too much celebrating perhaps?’ he asks kindly, as he offers an arm to steady my progress while I lower myself on to a step. My legs are shaking. My whole body is shaking. My whole world is. I crave something sweet but then maybe not, I think I’m going to be sick again.
‘No, not celebrating,’ I assure him.
Barry must catch something in my voice that explains more than I’m capable of understanding.
‘I’ve just driven some of your English friends to the Standard. I understand they are getting some chips. That’s what you guys call French fries, right? I’d suggest, Miss, that chips are just what you need.’
I don’t chat to Barry as he efficiently speeds off to Sunset Boulevard. I’m incapable of making small talk – usually my default setting. How could Scott have done that to me? How could Ben? I don’t know who I’m most angry or shocked with. I don’t know if I’m more furious or hurt. Let’s face it – I don’t know anything at all. A whole bundle of hideously painful thoughts are assaulting my mind and heart. I honestly thought Scott was going to try to make it work between us. I thought he wanted to be faithful. Is he gay? Am I just a beard? And Ben? How could he do this to me? Helplessly I run through the scene I’ve just witnessed and wonder, is it possible I’ve misinterpreted events? Were they actually having sex? Maybe they were just hanging out together. Maybe they were waiting for me. They were, after all, in my bedroom.
Aaghhh. They were in my bedroom. With candles. There’s no mistake; I haven’t misinterpreted anything. Ben got a wax today. His best Paul Smith boxers were discarded on the floor – his lucky pants. Oh God, this is all too vile to think about.
Barry drops me off outside the Standard and says he’ll wait for me until I instruct him otherwise. At this time of night I expect the restaurant to be quiet. Usually by now most of the action has moved downstairs to the Purple Lounge, the hotel’s chic but mellow cocktail bar; it has space for dancing and space for hanging around being hip. The restaurant is more of a coffee shop by design, the service is quick and efficient and the cuisine is renowned as comfort food. It’s the perfect hide-out. I imagine wandering into the restaurant and scanning the booths for Jess and Adam. I need a friendly face more than I’ve ever needed one in my life. The place will be deserted and I’ll spot Adam instantly, even though his back will be to me. I’ll fall into the booth and plonk myself down opposite him; without ceremony I’ll say, ‘Ben is sleeping with Scott.’
As I push open the door I am hit not by intense and meaningful silence but by exuberance and cheer. Far from the semi-deserted scene I imagined, I’m faced with a party, which in terms of energy and liveliness could rival the one at Scott’s place earlier on today. The difference being I can’t see any semi-clad waiters or wanabees, nor can I see any lines of powder on the tables – although there are lines of dominoes snaked across them – they belong to my dad, he’s playing with Uncle Ted. My mum, Aunt Liz and my sister, Fi, are gossiping with Lisa. They are huddled into one of the booths, ferociously guarding a large bowl of steaming, fat chips. I watch as one or two of my cousins swing by and try to pinch a chip; they are sw
atted away like flies. Adam and Charlie are sat in a second booth; they are deep in conversation too. I think they are talking about the beer because they keep holding up their bottles and examining them as though they contain all the answers to the mysteries of the universe. I can’t see my brother Bill and his family, I think they palled up with Scott’s brother; Bill isn’t one to miss a networking opportunity. Rick and a handful of cousins fill a couple more booths. They are drinking Coke, which seems deliciously innocent after this afternoon’s antics, when the only coke being consumed was quite another sort and I’m not talking caffeine-free. I needed a friendly face and here they all are. All my friends and family, and yet suddenly I feel peeved and lost.
‘No one said there was a party going on,’ I say petulantly as I squeeze into the ladies’ booth. Lisa budges along to make room for me. I try to shake the nagging feeling I’ve been left out, that I’m missing out.
‘Oh Fern, lovely to see you, do you want a chip?’ asks Aunt Liz, proffering the previously greedily guarded bowl of temptation.
‘She’s not allowed,’ says Mum, whipping away the bowl with unusual dexterity. ‘I was talking to her personal trainer this morning. I don’t want to be blamed if she can’t get into her dress tomorrow.’
‘Unlikely,’ says my aunt, dropping her gaze to my now flat stomach. ‘There’s not a picking on her. If she eats a chip, we’ll probably see it.’
‘I think she’s too thin,’ calls my dad from the next booth; I hadn’t realized he was listening.
‘Well, I’m having chips,’ says Lisa, ‘I’m starving. As lovely as canapés undoubtedly are, they don’t do much of a job at lining your stomach or quelling alcohol-infused munchies.’