Before and After

by Lockington, Laura

  Bella smiled uncertainly at me, but I could tell that she had taken the point. I fleetingly considered taking a livener myself if this was the level of stupidity that I was going to have to tolerate. But I decided against it. Class ‘A’ drugs are really very debilitating to a woman’s looks. Take a peek at one of the tabloid papers parading all the B-list so-called ‘celebrities’ that we nurse these days and I rest my case. Frighteningly awful. Lilly Langtry would be laughing hysterically in her cold, cold grave. Now there was a beauty. I made do with a drop or two of the tincture in my eyes and left it at that.

  I finished packing and went to take my leave of Sylvia. She was back in her favourite position – reclining on her bed like a latter day Elizabeth Barrett Browning, except without the faithful spaniel, or the dubious poetry of course.

  “So Sylvia, I’m all packed for the night and will see you in the morning. If I were you I’d take Bella out for a meal, I’m sure she’d enjoy the company my dear, and you look as though a glass or two of wine wouldn’t go amiss.”

  Sylvia nodded wanly, as if the very thought of tottering around the corner to the local bistro involved an overnight flight to Hong Kong and all its attendant horrors.

  “It really is very good of you Flora to go to all this trouble, I hope this evening isn’t too much of a strain for you,” Sylvia said, closing her eyes with the effort of talking.

  “Not at all. Don’t trouble yourself with it. I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, leaning over to brush her cheek with my lips. A smile snaked its way over her face, and she held onto my hands for a moment or two longer than was strictly comfortable. I disengaged myself and went to the door.

  “Flora?”

  I turned to see her propped up on one elbow, her face turned to the door in eagerness.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  I nodded in recognition of her words and walked away from her. I was glad that my little talk with Sylvia had gone to plan. I let myself out of the Ambles front door closing it firmly behind me. The portico was piled either side with builder’s bits and bobs and I stepped carefully over the tangled stack of polythene covered cans and wood. I pulled the collar of my coat closer around my throat and idled for a while at the side of the road, waiting for the welcome orange light of a London taxi. Poor Archie. He was probably pacing up and down his hotel room, trying out parts of his speech and wondering if tonight was going to be the same as all the other nights when Sylvia in some obscure way that he couldn’t quite define, had let him down, had made him feel somewhat saddened that the girl he’d married had turned into the woman he didn’t know.

  As I stepped into the taxi I clutched my coat even tighter to me. The new moon was slyly peeping from behind a cloud in the dense London sky, and the stars were muted. I thought of the dress in my bag and the deceit that I was about to play on Archie Amble and allowed myself a pat on the back. It was practically in the bag.

  Rule Number Sixteen

  “Topicking is a lost art. It is much more than just the ability to make small talk. It is about making small people who talk feel bigger than they actually are. And no one excels at it more than I.”

  Archie Amble was indeed pacing his hotel suite. But he wasn’t practicing his speech, he was wrestling with a black silk bow tie. The damn thing simply wouldn’t sit properly. It was already creased from his earlier efforts, and was in danger of looking like a comedy clip on if he didn’t stop his efforts soon. Archie decided to wait until Sylvia arrived. She had the knack for them. Her long slim fingers would calmly smooth and wind the ridiculous bit of silk into the right sort of shape that passes for civilised dress amongst the tribes of white middle class men. He went to the fridge in the suite and checked that the bottle of champagne was chilled. Good. He eyed the large double bed with distrust. Was it too much to hope that tonight Sylvia would, well, would be his wife again? He began to allow his spirits to rise, after all, a night in a grand hotel with champagne was enough to put any woman in the mood, wasn’t it? He knew that Sylvia dreaded these junkets, but really Sir George wasn’t that bad, and Lady Patricia, although quite fond of the odd tipple, was amusing enough in a disconcertingly direct sort of way. The Brighton incident a few years ago was the exception, rather than the rule with Lady Pat, and anyway, no harm had been done. Not like that bloody Ellie woman. Archie stopped the train of thought abruptly and continued along safer lines. And say what you like about hotels, they do induce a feeling of decadence and abandon. His mind skittered dangerously to the last time they’d stayed in a hotel – well – if you could call The Dolphin a hotel. More like a bordello. He cast aside the image of Sylvia and Ellie as territory too dangerous, and went to open the champagne. Perhaps he should look at his speech? He definitely hadn’t been up to snuff the last couple of days, and had let things slide. But Sylvia was due any minute and he would hand her a full glass as she arrived and offer to run her a bath. Yes, that was it. A glass of champagne in the bath had the right touch of sophisticated debauchery that he had in mind. The speech could look after itself, after all, he’d done the thing so many times now it was a matter of rote. He thought of Sylvia, her mouth for once curved in a welcoming smile. He would gallantly offer to wash her back, letting his hands wander under the hot soapy water and she would smile and raise her body out of the suds allowing …

  The tap on the door coincided with the discreet pop of a cork.

  “Flora?”

  I took the proffered champagne and smiled as sweetly as I dared at Archie.

  “Yes, indeed, it’s me. Poor Sylvia simply didn’t feel up to it and so we decided that we couldn’t leave you alone on your big night. So, you have me, I do so hope that you’re not too disappointed?” I moved into the room, casually throwing my bag on the bed. I sat on the side of it and bounced experimentally. Archie was slow to express anything with his face at all. It was a shame he hadn’t played poker with Mr Carlton. He would have been good at it. Better, anyway, than at backgammon in which there is so little room for bluff or manoeuvre. I saw his bow tie draped around his neck á la Frank Sinatra playing Vegas and guessed that he’d had a trying time with it.

  “The thing you have to remember about bow ties,” I said, getting up and swallowing my champagne, moving slowly towards Archie, “Is this. They are designed to make you anxious. Once you have that firmly embedded in your memory then you’ll find it will tie like a dream and you’ll be the envy of all men. There. Easy, really isn’t it?” I added brushing some imaginary lint from Archie’s shoulder to re-enforce my superiority.

  Archie glanced in the mirror, “Thank you. Yes, I see, but what do you mean about Sylvia, is she ill? Or –“

  “Now don’t worry about a thing, I’ve got a nice surprise for you later on, so if you’ll excuse me I’ll just pop into the bathroom to dress and then we’d better go down and welcome the hordes.”

  Archie locked eyes with me and said, “You’re right, I won’t worry about a thing.”

  I held my empty glass out to him for a re-fill and then swooped into the bathroom. Well, it hadn’t gone too badly. He was still there and not running out of the room screaming in horror at the thought of me talking Sylvia’s place for the night, wasn’t he? I admit, his face had hardly lit up with delight, but I really couldn’t expect that. That would be far too much to hope for.

  I took my time getting onto the Ossie Clarke dress, it was rather delicate material and I didn’t want any damage done to it so early in the evening. I smudged some dark violet shadow around my eyelids and was generous with the crushed damson lip gloss. I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to gauge how far I could move in the dress without exposing all. Hmm, not very far at all it seemed. I touched Sylvia’s pearls around my neck and doused myself with her perfume again. I could hear Archie moving around in the room outside, and heard him talking into the phone. As Sylvia was by now no doubt ensconced in the local Italian with Bella and Maria was probably exorcising the house with the help of Father Absolom, I gu
essed that he was leaving a message. I waited till I heard silence before I emerged.

  I pushed at the bathroom door and preened in front of Archie.

  “So, what do you think?” I asked as I twirled in front of him.

  Archie stared at me, robbed of his ability to speak.

  The muscles of his right cheek twitched a little and the grasp on his champagne glass tightened to just below cracking level.

  “Do you remember this dress, Archie?” I asked softly.

  “Umm, no, I mean well, I haven’t seen you before in it, have I?” Archie stammered helplessly.

  “Oh no, not me. But the dress, do you remember it?”

  I could see Archie wrack his brain, and then like the clearing of a sea mist on a hot summer’s morning, the fog cleared and the synapses of his brain jogged into action.

  “Your honeymoon?” I prompted.

  Satisfied that he remembered I smiled at him.

  “Christ yes! Of course! Sylvia’s dress, but how –“

  “Oh, we women have our ways,” I said, executing a very neat swirl in front of the full length mirror. The flesh coloured thong worked quite well, although I was secretly horrified at the vulgarity of it. My nipples were clearly visible through the sheer fabric of the material, but that was beyond my control, and then really what was shocking about that? Very little.

  Archie’s face was suffused with a jam coloured ruddiness. He staggered slightly on his heels and sank down onto the bed. Realising what he was sitting on, he promptly shot up again and unsteadily crossed the room to sink down on a small sofa upholstered in a rather nice toile de Jouy I noticed, as Archie caught his breath. He obviously thought this was a far more suitable bit of furniture to be flabbergasted on.

  I could see his dilemma, but wasn’t about to assist him in any way. It was hardly my fault that two women could look so different in the same garment.

  “Now then,” I said, stopping my showing off in front of the mirror and attending to Archie, “Now then Archie dear, may I advise you on something?” I glanced at him, and he nodded impatiently, but looked ready enough to listen.

  “Good. Well let’s just have a nice time tonight, shall we? I think you’ve been overworked for too long Archie, a little bit of light recreation is called for, don’t you think? A nice dinner, a few drinks, I’m sure your speech is quite perfect and not overly long, for that would be a mistake, and an evening in the lap of luxury, what could be nicer?”

  Archie struggled manfully with himself. Flora was right, dammit about work, he had been overworked for far too long while Sir George took all the credit for any innovations. But to take this creature on his arm downstairs in front of all his colleagues and underlings, not to mention Sir George? Was she mad? (In his heart Archie sometimes asked that question with monotonous regularity. He never used the word mad, but substituted unbalanced, eccentric, odd, unstable. But the meaning was clear enough.)

  I continued, trying to soothe his obvious nerves. “After all, these people are hardly strangers, are they? I’m sure that old Jones in accounts isn’t secretly running naked marathons, or his wife isn’t secretly making porn films. So no reason to be anxious, all will go swimmingly. Come along.”

  Archie looked sceptically at me. “Well, I don’t see what old Jones has got to do with anything. How do you know him by the way? And what did you say about his wife?”

  Men are so staggeringly literal aren’t they?

  I shrugged his questions away with an airy wave of my hand. “So what do you say Archie? Shall we give it a whirl?”

  I knew and he knew that he didn’t have much of a choice. Short of ordering me home, he couldn’t conjure up Sylvia and there was a sneaking thought twining itself around his mind that it would be no bad thing really to be seen downstairs with such an exotic creature as myself. He squared his shoulders and offered me his arm.

  “Oh, Archie, before we leave, what time are you giving your speech?” I asked, poised at the door.

  “After dinner, you know, about ten, I suppose.” Archie said, anxious for the off, like a greyhound in the traps, now that he had made the decision to play along with my seemingly innocuous whim.

  “Oh good. Well, in that case let’s meet up here at nine fifteen, I have a little something for you, from a friend of mine called Kevin.” I was relieved frankly that I’d been to see Kevin. At least Archie’s undoubtedly tedious and unending speech would be mercifully snappy and to the point after tasting Kevin’s wares.

  Archie was barely listening I could see. He was marshalling his wits about him, ready for the fray. He was also, I could tell, marvelling at the appearance of me in Sylvia’s dress. I too found it almost impossible to believe that Sylvia had ever worn anything as risqué and as revealing as this (even with multi layered underwear on her part). It was a classic of its kind and evoked the carefree, pre-aids era that it had first been made in. The whiff of freedom and joss sticks, the pill and Jimi Hendrix clung to the floating panels that skimmed my hips so very cleverly. It reminded me that it had been an all together jollier decade than the one I now found myself in. The music was better, the drugs were better and even the pop stars had known how to behave. They had mostly died in a mock heroic way with overdoses and car crashes, rather than entering old age by thrashing a guitar for charity at Buckingham Palace. If there was such a thing as a nostalgia flashback I was in danger of getting one. I shook myself and blamed it on the frock.

  We waltzed down the stairs, my dress revealing flashes of upper thighs (toned and bronzed as is now the fashion, unlike the pearly white and dimpled appearance so beloved of past aristocracy) and soon were in the ante room of the dinner, complete with gilt chairs, ankle deep scarlet carpets, a piano player and waiters standing to attention shouldering circular silver trays of champagne. I toasted Archie, who had the air of a man struggling to pull himself together, wished him well for the evening, and readied myself for the onslaught.

  I didn’t have to wait long. A gaggle of suited and booted men, with trophy wives in cocktail dresses descended upon us. There were a few raised eyebrows at me and not a few gasps either. I could tell by Archie’s demeanour that these were small fry and I wasted no time on them other than giving an unfortunate woman the benefit of my advice on the wisdom of wearing a semi-see through black dress with a white bra. As I spoke to her, her husband was staring at my breasts with a revolting leer he barely attempted to conceal, so I casually placed my hand around his back, sliding it downwards till I felt the heavy flesh of his buttocks. I then pinched and twisted as hard as I could and had the pleasure of seeing him wince with pain and surprise. I liked taking a small revenge now and again – who doesn’t? And as I twisted his flesh with as much force as I could muster I thought of all the men that had leered and pawed, gasped and ogled and pinched again, for all of them too.

  I spotted Sir George and Lady Patricia enter the room amongst an obsequious horde of bankers, and, gently leading Archie away from the still-wincing underling, went to greet them.

  “Sylvia?” Sir George said tentatively, looking for substantiation from his wife. She glanced at me, and shook her head at her husband.

  “Good god George, of course it’s not! Sylvia never looked like that! What’s all this then Archie? Got yourself a floozy have you? Must be something they put in the water where you both work,” Lady Patricia brayed, giving Sir George a bitter look.

  “Hardly my dear, I’m Archie’s second wife. I’ve been abroad for some time, but now I’m home and we’re all terribly happy. Unfortunately Sylvia can’t leave her bedroom at the moment,” I lowered my voice and leant in towards Patricia noting the oily cleavage that was exposed by her unimaginative and cruel royal blue velvet dress (such a mistake with badly dyed copper hair, too reminiscent of the hennaed lady for my liking.) “You know how it is, I’m sure.”

  “Know how what is?” Lady Patricia said faintly, looking at me with the expression of a woman who dimly perceives that she may well have met her match. There was
a pause in the conversation whilst Lady P and Sir George exchanged glances.

  She rallied slightly with the aid of a glass of bubbly and then added truculently, “Second wife you say? I didn’t even know you were divorced Archie.”

  “He’s not. We’re all Hammurabists, a bit like polygamists,” I added helpfully, “Anyway, I’m back now and of course due to the celebrations last night Sylvia who’s enjoyed ill health over the last few years perhaps by taking on this beast of a man all by herself,” I awarded Archie a sly coquettish look, and nearly elbowed him in the ribs but thought better of it, “Is quite worn out, so Archie and I insisted that she remain in bed tonight.”

  Sir George was staring at Archie, who I have to say was rising well to the occasion by almost preening his plumage.

  “A, a whatamist?” Sir George asked Archie, inwardly worrying that it was some sort of cult that he should have known about so as not to appear out of touch. He tended to rely on Anthony to keep him up to date about that sort of thing. Even the thought of Anthony Rockminster brought a guilty flush of pleasure to Sir Georges face.

  “Never mind all that,” said Archie genially, “let’s go and sit down, shall we?”

  Archie placed his hand in the small of my back, in a very husband like way and guided me towards the scarlet and gold dining room and our very own circular table-for-eight from hell.

  It’s strange, I mused as I picked my way delicately through the crowds of upper-class baying couples, that I am unused to the familiar touch of a partner. So many men automatically guide you as if you were their wife on these occasions that I felt completely interchangeable. Perhaps the effort of sourcing the dress was a waste of time, perhaps any woman would do? Archie just needed a prop, the identity of which was immaterial. Do all men behave like this? If you were roughly the right age, height, class and weren’t too obviously some sort of damaged goods, they really didn’t seem to notice. Extraordinary, isn’t it?