Playing with the Grown-ups

by Sophie Dahl

  'Paris was amazing. I fell in love with a pop star who sang terrible songs, and he asked me whether I respected his talent, and I said no, frankly it was hard, because I like reggae and ska and French pop music is just awful. Then he cried, and I told him it wasn't going to work. Ingrid and I lived above a bakery and every morning the smell of brioches would waft up through our bedroom window, and we would run down in our nighties and get a big bag and dip them in coffee. We got so fat! You would adore it there. Can I smoke in here?'

  Her mother decided to have a dinner party in honour of Ingrid and Elsie's arrival. She invited Mr Frazi, and George, and a frightening writer who didn't like children, so Sam and Violet were hidden in the nursery.

  'Now, I've invited lots of groovy people for you,' she said. 'There's Nell who has a nightclub, a famous one downtown, and Nick, who is an incredibly handsome actor, and a dancer, who's straight, and one who isn't . . . and lots of people. You'll like them.'

  Kitty was excited because she was allowed to go to the dinner party. Elsie made Kitty's eyes smoky like her own, and Ingrid lent her a cashmere sweater from Chanel, with big pearl buttons.

  'Lamb dressed as mutton,' her mother said laughing when Kitty walked into her bathroom. 'You look glorious. But not for every day, OK?' A whip of concern passed over her brow.

  'I know, I know,' Kitty said, rolling her eyes. 'Do you want me to scrub your back?'

  'Yes please.'

  'What do you want to be when you grow up?' the frightening writer boomed at Kitty.

  'I'd like to be a writer, or a lady of leisure like Mummy,' Kitty said.

  The table laughed. She was embarrassed.

  'Your mother is not a lady of leisure,' the writer said. 'She is a very important artist.'

  'I know,' Kitty said slowly. 'I should have said that because that's what I was thinking. It's just that she does lovely leisurely things, and she makes people laugh, and she's beautiful. That's what I meant by a lady of leisure.'

  'You should think before you speak,' the writer said. She had dirty fingernails.

  'Oh relax, Josephina . . . She's being sweet. I know what you meant, Kit, it was a darling thing to say.'

  Kitty smiled in relief. Her mother came over and touched the top of her head with a soft palm.

  Ingrid and Kitty were happily eating Nora's French toast at the dining-room table when Elsie came down in her linen pyjamas.

  'Tell me,' Elsie said immediately, giving Ingrid a beady stare.

  'Tell you what? There's nothing to tell.'

  'I know there is. I know you snogged him. I tell you everything, and I normally have much more to tell. You're being unfair.'

  'Who? Who did she snog? Nick the actor?' Kitty clamoured.

  'I'm trying to read the paper. Be quiet.' Ingrid winked at her.

  Her mother walked in, clutching her silk dressing gown around her. She had chopsticks in her hair to hold it back.

  'Ingrid kissed that man, and she won't tell me,' Elsie said to her mother.

  'Oh leave her alone, darling. Now I need my coffee, and then I'm going to meditate.' Marina seemed distracted.

  Elsie looked around the dining room, which was painted a Georgian blue, with high white corniced ceilings, and she said, 'You're no fun any more, Marina, do you know that? I can't believe you won't get it out of her, you can get secrets from a stone, and stop pretending you're not interested in sex; it's very clear you and that boy George are doing it, which is really prevy of you.'

  'He sees me as a mother figure. Kitty, have you seen my prayer mat?' her mother said, as though she were having a different conversation entirely. Kitty thought it was clever.

  'You've become all boring and SPIRITUAL,' Elsie said sadly.

  'You really have, Marina.' Ingrid looked up from her paper. 'Sort of . . . rich and spiritual,' she added.

  'I haven't! I'm not rich! I'm fun! I'm very fun, ask anyone!' Her mother sounded like a little girl protesting. Ingrid and Elsie looked at her dubiously. She lit up one of Ingrid's Gauloises, and took a long voluptuous puff.

  'Fine. I'll take a meditation sabbatical for the length of your visit. You spiritual saboteurs! I am not boring. I am having an affair with George, if you must know, not that it's any of your business. I have been for some time, he's sweet. Now, Ingrid, did you kiss Nick the actor?' She was breathless and giddy.

  'Yes. I did,' Ingrid said.

  'Kitty, do you want the day off school so you can spend time with your wicked wanton aunts?' her mother said, ruffling her hair.

  'Definitely,' Kitty said. She lived in a house of carnal intrigue, this much was clear.

  * * *

  'Don't leave,' she said to Elsie, who was packing. 'If you stay then it will be like it was before. All of us together.'

  'We have to go. We've got jobs now. I had such a lovely time with you though, and we'll come again. Everyone will make up, and we can bring Mama and Dad.'

  'What would they DO here? It's too noisy, they wouldn't like it.' Kitty stared out of the window morosely.

  'Dad would build some shelves, and Mama would hide the paper. They'd see you and the littlies.'

  'Well maybe it would be all right. I could take them to the park and the museum. But I'd have to know in advance, so that I could prepare.'

  The car was waiting on the kerb, and Ingrid and Elsie's voices echoed down the marble stairs. In five minutes they would be just a memory trapped in the bones of the house. It made Kitty feel sick.

  'Ingrid! Come here!' she hissed in the hall.

  'What is it Kit-kat?'

  'I have an ache in my womb. A warm, dull ache. It's my period, I know it.'

  Ingrid gave her a huge hug.

  'When it does come, truly, I want you to send me a postcard and let me know. We'll have to throw it a coming out party.'

  Kitty had always dreamed of slumber parties; they existed in her Judy Blume fantasies of teenage American life, along with diners and malted milkshakes.

  'You have to keep Sam and Violet away,' she told Nora bossily.

  'It's their house too.'

  'Nora!'

  'Fine. Now what will you have for supper? Shall I make a shepherd's pie?'

  'No. You can't have shepherd's pie at a slumber party. We'll have pizza. And Doritos and popcorn, and Coca-Cola. And we don't have a bedtime. That's the rule. We stay up and we watch films and we talk and we fall asleep when we want.'

  'You can sleep in my room if you want; I'm not going to be here.' Her mother walked in wearing exercise clothes.

  Kitty felt a rush of disappointment. She wanted to show her mother off.

  'Where are you going?' she said.

  'Away. You're allowed your sleepovers and I'm allowed mine.'

  'That's not fair.'

  'Life's not fair.' This was Nora's favourite saying.

  'Oh my God! Your mother is so pretty.' Natalie looked at the black-and-white photograph of Marina by Irving Penn hanging on the stairs.

  'Was she a model?'

  'No. Lots of people asked her to be, but she had me when she was really young, so she started painting instead.'

  Now she had all of the girls from school in her house, Kitty was not sure what to do with them.

  They went into raptures over her mother's bed, the dressing table crowded with paint and make-up, the paint-stained floors.

  'I feel so bohemian,' Stephanie said dreamily. 'Charlotte, don't you wish your house was like this?'

  'My house isn't unlike this,' Charlotte said.

  'I love your house,' Kitty said to her. 'And I love your dad, he's so nice.'

  'Charlotte's dad is so cute. I want to marry him. Charlotte, I wish my dad was like yours.' Natalie held her tanned little hands against her tan sweater. She was a symphony of beige.

  'Why can't all of you just be happy with what you have? Really, it's so pathetic.' Charlotte lay on the floor, with one leg up like a Varga girl. 'Can we DO something? Kitty, do you English people even have televisions?'

  K
itty laughed nervously, and felt as though she were wearing glasses again.

  'Yes. We do. You know we do, we watched Twin Peaks last weekend.'

  She looked at Charlotte questioningly. In her head a voice said, And I told you all my secrets and that I have a crush on Noah Redner, and you told me that when you can't sleep you touch yourself, and I've never heard anyone admit that out loud, and we decided that maybe we were separated at birth, because we think lots of the same things, but I'm not like you really which I know you know. I'm pretending to be pretty, but you're a proper beauty like my mother is a proper beauty, and I'm not really cool, everyone just thinks I'm cool because I'm new and I'm from England.

  Charlotte gave her a lopsided smile.

  'I'm only kidding. God, you're so neurotic. Let's watch a movie.'

  Charlotte rested her blonde head against Kitty's while they watched a film called The Serpent and the Rainbow.

  'You're my best friend,' she whispered. 'Everyone else here is a dork.'

  Her mother came home at midday the next day, just before everyone left, and she did her proud. She was wearing a dress that could have belonged to Daisy Buchanan, and her lips slid with gloss. She looked tired but it suited her; there were violet shadows under her eyes.

  'I'm so glad I got here before you all left!' she said. 'I'm Marina.' She snuggled up next to Kitty on the floor.

  'I would have had much more fun with you guys,' she said winningly. She began telling a funny story about the nightclub called Nell's and a stolen fur coat.

  Charlotte nudged Kitty.

  'Somebody's had quite a hold on your mom,' she whispered. 'I don't think she's telling the truth.' She gave a knowing smile, and indicated with her eyes Kitty's mother's wrist, which had a faint bracelet of bruises around it.

  'Yes, she is.' Kitty put her hand over her mother's wrist and held it there as she talked, tracing her fingers over her mother's arm as if she could read her like Braille.

  'Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!' Sam and Violet wobbled in with the cake, and Kitty carried a tray with flowers and coffee.

  'My babies,' her mother said. 'Is it a lovely day for my birthday?'

  Kitty pulled back the curtains, and the sky was a clear uninterrupted stripe of blue.

  'OK, because it's my birthday, you get the day off school and I get to do whatever I want, and I want to spend it with you three.

  'First we get to go and buy me a present from Barneys and Kitty too; then we go to FA0 Schwarz and Violet and Sam get whatever they want. Then we have appointments to keep and things to do. George is throwing a lunch for me at La Grenouille, which you're invited to, and an Indian feast is happening at Ranjit's house in the evening. There are two more days of parties but I don't think Nora will have it if I keep you off school for that long, after all, we all know she's just not that big on birthdays. But my real true birthday present is you lot, do you know that?'

  At lunch the table was piled high with presents, and her mother sat at the head like a queen. She wore her birthday present to herself, earrings of opals and aquamarines that swung down until they grazed her collarbone, which was bare in a strapless pale-cream dress. George, who sat next to her, wore a dazzled face, in slow motion, and each time she smiled at him, or brushed his hair from his eyes, he looked around the table as if to say, She chose me?

  'Were you sick yesterday? Why didn't you come to school?' Charlotte's arms were crossed, and she looked angry.

  'It was my mother's birthday; she let us do things with her.' Kitty shrugged.

  'What? Your mom's birthday is a national holiday or something?' Charlotte made a face.

  'Sort of. It's silly . . .' Kitty said quickly, 'Did I miss anything important?'

  Her mother left for London in a rush of secrecy. She packed her globetrotter suitcasewith tweed suits and court shoes. No jeans or sailor's T-shirts. She gave Kitty a distracted kiss goodbye. When she left, the house felt empty. Violet and Sam were sleeping; Nora was in her armchair by the television puffing away.

  Kitty went into her mother's bathroom and ran a long bath filled with her Penhaligon's bath oil. She didn't turn the light on, just the heat light so the room was red and dreamlike. Naked, she stared at herself in the mirror. In the red light she didn't look like herself. Her face was still and blown out like a Victorian photograph. She pretended she was a courtesan preparing for an evening's soliciting, smoothing lotion along her collarbone down over her ribs. She sprayed scent behind her knees, stuck her bottom out coquettishly and turned her head to the side, smiling.

  'What on earth are you doing?' asked Nora.

  'Nothing.' She scrambled for a towel, mortified.

  'You're not meant to be in your mother's bathroom and it's bedtime.'

  'Fine. What's your problem?'

  She stomped off to her bedroom and stayed up all night reading Nancy Spungen's mother's biography of her daughter, her new favourite book.

  It was Wednesday when everything changed. She got an A in her English homework and chipped her tooth on a hard bagel at lunchtime. The boys watched her attempts to play volleyball, laughing as she dropped the ball every time. She walked home from school smiling at the doormen on Park Avenue. When she got home she talked to Noah Redner for an hour and he played his guitar down the phone to her. He asked her to the eighth-grade dance and when Kitty rang Charlotte to tell her, she said in a throaty way, 'You sexy bitch.'

  Thanksgiving was coming, her first real American Thanksgiving, and she was going to make a pumpkin pie for her mother. Rosaria was coming to stay at Christmas and Kitty had bought a dress for the parties they might go to that was tight as seal skin, midnight blue and highly inappropriate.

  She was sitting on the sofa in Nora's sitting room watching 21 Jump Street when her mother called. Violet wouldn't go to bed and clung on to Kitty's ankle like a koala bear.

  Nora picked up the phone.

  'Och,' she said. 'Oh Jaysus, Marina.' She looked sorry for Kitty. 'It's your mummy.' She passed her the phone.

  'Kitty, I have some bad news.' Her mother sounded high and oceans away. 'Your daddy Fitzgerald died this afternoon.'

  'Oh,' Kitty said, picking at her pink nail polish.

  'I think you should fly over for the funeral.'

  Her mother talked a little bit more, told her she loved her, and that she must be strong, and then she asked to speak to Sam. Sam, who was still confused by telephone etiquette, repeated everything she said to Violet, his captive audience.

  'Mummy has good news and bad news, Violet.' He let the phone dangle as he told her.

  'Pick up the phone, Sam,' Nora said. 'Mummy's still talking.'

  'Oh,' he said. 'What? Mr Fitzgerald has died. Mummy, what's the good news? Violet, Mr Fitzgerald has died but we're going to get a tortoise!' He hung up.

  Violet began to cry, fierce, fat tears running down her cheeks.

  'Can I sleep in your bed?' she wobbled to Nora. 'And can I have hot chocolate?'

  Nora went upstairs, clucking.

  'I'm going to call the tortoise Torty,' Sam said.

  'Why are you crying, Violet? He was my father and you didn't even know him,' Kitty asked her, curious.

  'Neither did you know him. And besides, I didn't want to sleep in my bed. And I got hot chocolate. I'd rather have a lizard than a tortoise, though.'

  Violet was so triumphant it made Kitty laugh, hard, out loud.

  'You are a very funny girl,' she said.

  Kitty climbed the stairs to her room and shut the door. The wind continued like wolves' song and the tree outside her bedroom slapped the window furiously. She told her picture of Swami-ji, 'My father died today,' because saying it out loud made it true. She heard the comforting slip of Nora's shoes outside.

  Nora sat next to her as she howled like a small animal, patting her back rhythmically like an old nursery rhyme.

  'My poor Kitty. I'm so sorry.'

  'It's all right; I didn't know him any better than Violet,' she cried.


  'You'll need a hat,' Nora said softly. 'We can go to Bloomingdale's tomorrow and buy you a hat.'

  * * *

  Outside the terminal her head throbbed. Everything was magnified and raw. Kitty felt unprepared. The fields looked too green, and everyone that walked by seemed to be shouting not talking.

  A driver picked her up from the airport. He was listening to Capital FM and she didn't know any of the songs. He drove her to a hotel on Sloane Street. Her mother was on the phone in her nightie, smoking a cigarette when Kitty walked in.

  'Hello, darling,' she mouthed.

  Kitty sat in the corner and flipped through Vogue. After dusty hours her mother hung up the phone.

  'We're going to have lunch with Peter,' she said.

  Kitty liked Peter. He was her mother's boyfriend before she moved to New York, before Kitty went away to school. Even Bestepapa liked him. He had discovered her mother's G-spot. She knew this because her mother told her best friend Katie on the car phone driving her back to school. Kitty tried to look for hers with a mirror and a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves but she couldn't find it.

  Peter had taken her to Battersea Park on Sunday afternoons and when the cottage had an infestation of wasps, he killed them. Her mother was allergic to wasps. Peter also wrote her the sort of letters she thought a father should write when she was at school, even after he split up with her mother. He came to see her on sports day and she came third in the high jump competition. Even though Kitty knew this wasn't really very good, he kept saying, 'That was brilliant. Legs like your mummy.' Afterwards they went for lunch in Wheaton and he took her to W.H. Smith to buy her mother a Mother's Day card. The tiniest things made him cheerful.

  'Look at this glorious day,' he'd said. And it was, she remembered. Except that she had to go back to school and he could drive back to London in his Mercedes listening to the Beatles singing their happy songs.