Flappy Entertains

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Hedda!’ exclaimed Flappy, taking her hands and kissing her cheeks.

  ‘Flappy!’ exclaimed Hedda, running her eyes over Flappy’s dress with admiration. ‘You look gorgeous,’ she said.

  ‘So do you,’ Flappy replied, although, if she were being honest, ‘gorgeous’ was not the appropriate word for Hedda. She was nicely dressed in a long purple gown, which, Flappy conceded, was a good colour against her pale English skin and brown hair, but she was much too stocky to ever be considered gorgeous. However, what she lacked in gorgeousness was made up for in a vivacious and confident personality – and in the diamonds and amethysts sparkling at her ears and throat. Family heirlooms passed down from the marchioness, no doubt.

  When Flappy saw Charles, she sank into those sea-green eyes and felt herself swelling with joy. Tonight was going to be special, she knew. Tonight they would dance and stroll around the garden in moonlight and no one would know the deliciously wicked things they had done in the cottage. ‘Flappy,’ said Charles, taking her in in one greedy sweep of his eyes. ‘You look magnificent.’

  Charles, who was in black tie like Kenneth, wore it well. Flappy knew there was no elastic beneath his jacket on account of drinking too many bottles of claret. His hair was brushed off his face, revealing a Hollywood style widow’s peak, and his white teeth gleamed against his tanned skin. She caught her breath and smiled, because she knew if she opened her mouth she’d say something that would give her away. If Flappy knew one thing, it was when to keep her mouth shut.

  Flappy moved on to greet the children. They were nice-looking, smiley people with their father’s good teeth and their mother’s good skin. George was the most handsome, Flappy thought with satisfaction, and she wondered whether Persephone had arrived and already dazzled him in her dress.

  Kenneth and Flappy walked on into the marquee, accepting glasses of champagne and greeting friends as they made their way through. Flappy was astonished by the decorations. The elaborate displays of flowers on the tables, the tiny ceiling lights that looked like stars, the pillars that appeared to be made out of roses. Flappy couldn’t help but calculate the amount of money that must have been spent on this lavish event and realized, with growing admiration, that Hedda and Charles were a lot richer than she had previously suspected.

  ‘Flappy!’ called Mabel, waving as she made her way to her through the throng. ‘Isn’t this divine!’ she gushed when she reached her. The two women kissed. ‘It must have cost a fortune!’

  Flappy looked disapproving. ‘Oh, Mabel, it’s frightfully common to talk about money at the best of times, but on a night like this. Really, I would never ever start estimating the cost of a party while I was at it.’

  Mabel’s smile faltered. ‘You’re absolutely right, Flappy. I don’t know what’s got into me. But isn’t it spectacular!’

  ‘It really is,’ said Flappy. ‘And you look lovely, Mabel.’

  Mabel’s smile returned. She’d bought the dress at Chic Boutique. Cheryl had told her what Flappy had bought so Mabel could buy something similar but not too similar. ‘Isn’t it fun to dress up? I haven’t dressed up like this in so long. In fact, I don’t think Badley Compton has ever seen such an extravaganza!’

  Her comment hit a nerve, and Flappy had been determined that tonight of all nights nerves were not going to be hit. However, after all the parties Flappy had hosted over the years, the cocktail parties and dinner parties and charity fund-raising parties, it was galling to be told that Hedda’s party outshone them all. Flappy had to dig deep to find her patience, but find it she did. ‘You’re quite right, Mabel. I don’t think Badley Compton has ever witnessed something on this scale. How lucky we all are that Hedda and Charles decided to move here, to our little provincial corner of the world.’

  Mabel was suddenly aware of her faux pas. But how like Flappy to be so generous-spirited, she thought. ‘I might add, Flappy, that although this marquee is bigger than anything I’ve seen at Darnley, there’s a classiness to your parties that is unique to you. Not even Hedda with all her millions and squillions can outshine you in that department.’

  Flappy lifted her chin. She knew that what Mabel said was not strictly true. After all, Hedda was the niece of a marquess: if anyone knew about class it was her. However, in Mabel’s eyes at least, Flappy’s amour propre was restored, for it was true, Flappy’s parties did have a certain magic.

  It wasn’t long before Sally tottered over in a lather of excitement. ‘Flappy, Mabel, guess who’s arrived?’ she asked.

  Flappy didn’t like guessing games. Flappy liked to know. ‘Just about everyone in Badley Compton,’ she answered with a dry smile.

  ‘Monty Don,’ said Mabel, her face opening into a beaming smile.

  ‘Yes! Monty Don!’ Sally squealed. ‘He’s even more handsome in real life than he is on the telly.’

  Flappy felt a little frisson of interest. However she did not want Sally to know that she was impressed. Flappy was not a crowd follower under any circumstances. Her natural habitat was in front of the crowd, leading it, setting it an example, always ahead of it. ‘I’m not very interested in his looks,’ she said with a sniff. ‘But I cannot deny he is a wonderful horticulturalist. I would very much like the opportunity to discuss The Irvington Diaries with him.’

  ‘I just want to meet him!’ said Sally, roaring with laughter. ‘I don’t care what he talks about.’

  A moment later Esther and Madge came over to add their enthusiasm to Sally’s, but Flappy’s attention was elsewhere. As she drifted off in search of Charles, her friends watched her go in puzzlement. ‘Too much meditation is a bad thing,’ said Esther darkly. ‘I’ve always thought it highly overrated.’

  ‘She’s just on another plane,’ said Madge. ‘Any woman of our age who doesn’t get excited about Monty Don is on another plane.’

  Sally nodded. ‘To be frank, we have more chance of talking to Monty Don if Flappy is not with us. Flappy will only dominate. You know what she’s like,’ she added, aware that it was not acceptable to be rude about Flappy. ‘She’s much too beautiful.’

  ‘Well, come on then, girls. Let’s go and find him,’ said Mabel, setting off into the crowd followed by Esther, Madge and Sally.

  Flappy got caught by the vicar and his wife before she had a chance to find Charles. Being the polite and gracious woman she was, and Flappy was, indeed, enormously polite and gracious, she did not extricate herself, which would have been rude, but engaged in conversation with them as if the words they said were the most interesting she had heard all week. When she finally did manage to move on, she heard the Reverend turn to his wife and say, ‘She’s delightful, isn’t she, Joan. Always has time for everyone.’ Flappy felt better about her infidelity at that point, because the vicar had God’s ear and she knew she was a teeny bit in arrears there.

  Before she could get to Charles, she was detained by countless people, which was very annoying. But that was the trouble with going to a party where one knew everyone, it meant that everyone wanted to talk to one. By the time Flappy managed to get close to him, the room fell silent in response to a gong and they were summoned to dinner. This was not what she had planned for herself this evening. But she swallowed her disappointment, smiled as if she was having the most marvellous time and went to look at the seating plan. There would be opportunities later, she knew, to talk to Charles. She’d dance with him, for sure, and walk with him in the garden with the twinkling fairy lights on the trees and the full moon above, and it would be romantic and tender and sensual. Perhaps they’d steal a kiss in a secret corner of the garden. She knew there would be many secret gardens, as there were at Darnley. Indeed, Darnley had the most beautiful secret gardens in the whole of Badley Compton.

  As Flappy stood by the big board that displayed the seating plan, Kenneth sidled up beside her. ‘Hello, darling,’ he said, slipping a hand beneath her arm. ‘Found where you’re sitting yet?’

  ‘No, you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m at Hedda’s tab
le,’ he told her.

  ‘And I’m not?’ Flappy’s heart sank. Surely, being such a close friend of Hedda’s she should be sitting at her table. Flappy did not know how she would live it down if her friends saw that she was not on Top Table.

  ‘You’re next to Charles,’ said Kenneth, squeezing her arm. He more than anyone knew how much it meant to Flappy to be seated next to the host.

  Flappy’s spirits sprang back to life with a jolt. ‘Ah, next to the host. What an honour,’ she said, barely able to contain her excitement.

  ‘Where are you sitting, Flappy?’ It was Mabel and the others who had yet to find Monty Don.

  ‘I’m sitting next to the host,’ Flappy replied with a sniff. ‘I’m so so lucky to have such a good placement.’ The four women looked at her with envy, because second to Monty Don, they’d like to be seated next to Charles Harvey-Smith.

  Flappy could not get to the table quick enough. Anyone who tried to detain her was told, in a very polite and gracious way, of course, that she must hurry to her seat because she was next to the host, and everyone understood that it was impolite to keep the host waiting. At last, she and Charles stood side by side. He looked down at her with his impossibly beautiful eyes and Flappy sank into them as if she were the Little Mermaid being swallowed by the sea. ‘Hedda did the placement,’ he said with a smile that made Flappy’s stomach fizz.

  ‘How nice of her,’ Flappy replied. And naïve, she thought a little smugly.

  Charles pulled out her chair and she sat down. She greeted the man on her right, who she’d never met before. He looked like an old professor with small round glasses and thinning hair. He introduced himself but Flappy was too distracted to catch his name. She noticed that, on the other side of Charles, was the insipid, though fearfully-good-at-bridge, Amanda Worthington. There was no competition there, she thought as she flicked out her napkin and laid it across her knees. Charles filled her wine glass and Flappy took a sip. As she was on his right, she had him to herself for the first half of dinner. He’d have to turn and talk to Amanda for the second half. However, Flappy knew there was a very strong chance he wouldn’t turn at all. When not at the bridge table, Amanda had little to say.

  Charles pressed his knee against hers. She pressed it back. As they talked, he managed to steal his hand onto her thigh. ‘You’re wearing a beautiful dress, Flappy,’ he whispered. ‘But all I can think of is peeling it off.’

  ‘Oh, Beastie, how naughty of you to say that here!’

  ‘But it’s all I can think of, Beauty. Aren’t I lucky not only to be seated next to the most beautiful woman in the room, but to be sleeping with her as well.’

  Flappy’s eyes slid to her left and right. No one was listening. Each person at the table was engrossed in their own conversation. ‘You’re getting reckless, Beastie. I’m going to have to tell you to calm down.’

  ‘And I’m going to have to tell you that I can’t and that I won’t. You do things to me, Flappy, that no other woman does. I think we can escape after dinner so that I can do things to you that no other man does.’

  Flappy was beginning to get a little hot. She could feel her face burning. He squeezed her thigh. ‘I’m going to dance with you tonight, Flappy, and then I’m going to make love to you.’

  With that to look forward to, Flappy took a gulp of wine. Then another. She needed fortification to get through dinner when really she wanted to run into the house and lie down on one of Hedda’s four-poster beds, and have Charles slip off her dress and the silk panties she was wearing especially and do all manner of delicious things to her. It was almost too much to bear. But bear it she did, because if there was one thing Flappy was good at, it was restraining the beast when the beast needed to be restrained.

  As it happened, Charles did turn. Much to Flappy’s annoyance, because it meant that she had to talk to the professor. Her gaze strayed through the tables to Persephone. Flappy was pleased to see that her PA was in her lovely new dress, sitting next to none other than George. She felt very pleased with herself. Wasn’t it thrilling when a plan came together?

  All the while she listened to the professor, Charles kept refilling her glass of wine. Flappy’s smile was set upon her face as if in aspic, and the professor kept talking, unaware that he was boring his beautiful companion. Goodness, he was dull. In fact, Flappy couldn’t remember the last time she had sat next to someone whose tone of voice sent her to sleep. She couldn’t wait for dinner to be over so that she and Charles could escape.

  Flappy’s ordeal came to an end when Charles tapped his knife against his wine glass and the conversations in the room slowly died away. He stood up. How tall and handsome he looks, thought Flappy, gazing up at him in wonder. ‘My dear friends,’ he began, and she could tell that he’d once walked the boards because his deep and booming voice reminded her of those great actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He’d make a wonderful Hamlet, she thought as her mind drifted once again to the four-poster bed and the fun they were going to have in it. ‘Hedda and I are delighted that you are all here tonight because we really wanted to meet you and to thank you for welcoming us to Badley Compton so warmly. When Hedda suggested we move here I wasn’t very enthusiastic, but we drove down and she showed me the house, which was lovely, of course, but it was the town that swung it for me. Everyone greeted me, everyone smiled, everyone had time. How different it was from London where no one has time for anyone. The Scott-Booth Golf Club might have been a key factor in my decision-making, of course…’ He laughed and the room laughed with him. Flappy was thrilled that her name had been mentioned. ‘What I want to say is, thank you for being such a charming community of which Hedda and I are honoured to be a part. I raise my glass to my lovely wife, for arranging this evening so beautifully. I have to admit, I had nothing to do with it. And I raise my glass to you, the people of Badley Compton, our new friends.’ The room got to their feet and toasted Hedda and the people of Badley Compton. Flappy clinked her glass against Charles’s and he gave her a smile that held within it all the naughty things they had ever done. Flappy’s cheeks flushed with pleasure for that smile was for her and her alone. Never before in Flappy’s life had she felt so singled out and special.

  Suddenly, the music started. It was a tango. If Flappy knew one thing, it was how to dance the tango.

  Chapter 15

  Flappy was a little unsteady on her feet. The wine and the excitement had gone to her head and she felt dizzy and giggly and a teeny bit reckless. Years ago, when Flappy was a young woman, she had worked in Buenos Aires as an au pair. This was not something she ever spoke of, because being an au pair was not the kind of thing she would have liked any of her friends to know she had been. However, been it she had, and during that time she had fallen in love with the tango. She’d sit on the cobbled streets of San Telmo, the oldest part of the city, and watch the Porteños (the correct word for ‘people of Buenos Aires’) dance. The tango was so full of passion that it had, perhaps, resonated with the deep, concealed passion inside of her, which yearned for release. After a while, one of the dancers, an elderly man with a comic moustache and eyebrows that danced a tango of their own, asked her if she’d like to learn, and she had jumped at the opportunity. Now, as she walked unsteadily onto the dance floor with Charles, Flappy was keen to show off her moves, if she could remember them. Naturally, one needs a partner who knows those moves too, and Charles didn’t. This, however, did not deter Flappy. Fortified by wine, she was in no mind to be deterred.

  There were few people on the dance floor but Flappy was aware that she held every eye in the room. That in itself was intoxicating: she did like to be the centre of attention. Charles pulled her into his arms and they did what every ignorant, wannabe tango dancer does: they marched in a line, cheek to cheek. But Flappy was not an ignorant, wannabe tango dancer. She was the real thing and she was going to show it. With a theatrical gesture, as if she were on stage at Señor Tango in Buenos Aires, she pushed herself away from Charles and deftly, and q
uite unexpectedly, broke into a sequence of complicated steps that came back to her as if they were innately part of her. Carrying her on a wave of nostalgia, the music took her back to San Telmo. She pointed her toes and dragged them, she made the figure of eight and then reversed it. She kicked her legs and strutted and stamped, and she was unaware of the mesmerized guests getting up from their chairs one by one so they could see her better. Flappy moved across the dance floor with the elegance and poise of a professional dancer and reunited with Charles, who was as astonished as everyone else in the room, not least Kenneth, who had no idea his wife could dance the tango. Charles did not have to do much, for Flappy danced around him, running her feet up his legs and through them, and arching her back and tossing her head. When the music ended, she lay back in Charles’s arms and kicked her leg in the air. The skirt of her dress floated away, revealing slim thighs and graceful calves. They held this position for a long moment, because Flappy was aware of how good it looked. Charles was grateful at this point to have something important to do. The room erupted into applause. Flappy felt as if she were going to burst with pleasure, and probably exhaustion too, because now it was over she realized she was a teeny bit out of breath and had possibly overdone it.

  Flappy stood up. Charles kissed her hand. Then he turned to the guests and gesticulated at Flappy, which was her cue to curtsey. She wasn’t sure her legs would manage a curtsey, so she bowed instead and everyone cheered. Flappy felt like a star, which was a very good feeling indeed. She blew kisses as if she were on stage and beamed a triumphant smile. Charles turned to her and shook his head in wonder. ‘Where did you learn to dance the tango?’ he asked.

  ‘Buenos Aires,’ she replied.

  ‘What were you doing in Buenos Aires?’

  This was one of those moments when Flappy had the choice between the truth, which was discomforting, and a lie, which was beneath her. Without hesitation, she chose the latter. ‘My father worked at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires. Tango was one of the many things I learned there.’