Torn

by Gilli Allan

  ‘Cool. Thanks, Pete.’ Danny turned the box over several times but didn’t open it. Rory looked disappointed. Piers joined his brother on the sofa.

  ‘Here, let me show you.’ He tipped it out and quickly went through the functions. Sasha watched intently as Piers explained. And when Danny questioned him she interrupted. ‘I know! I know! I’ve got one the same. I’ll show you what to do!’ Between them they got the thing working and Piers plugged it into Danny’s ears. He sat rapt for several moments before pulling out the ear pieces.

  ‘That’s really cool! I’m well pleased, Pete.’

  ‘Now get Sash to show you how to use the fucking phone!’ Piers added.

  ‘I’ll show you!’ Rory offered. ‘I can use the –’

  James interrupted. ‘I think Jessica is right about bedtime.’ Perhaps there was a little too much swearing. Perhaps he’d just had enough of the children, and craved some unconstrained adult time with his friends. ‘It’s time to say goodnight, sleep tight to you two little ones. The sleep-over … starts … now!’

  The children gazed at one another in delicious fright then ran squealing from the room with James after them. As quick as she’d gone Sasha returned, whisked the book from Danny’s lap, and flew out with it, one hand clutched to her tiara.

  ‘Daddy’s going to read it!’ she shouted back from the door.

  ‘A fucking lucky escape!’ Imogen said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fifteen minutes later, James was back. ‘They’re a tad too hyper to concentrate. Great book though, Jessica. Like all the best stories it questions assumptions and stereotypes. Are ogres always all bad, for instance?’

  ‘As far as I recall there are no ogres in the story!’ Jessica replied with a smile. ‘It’s the illustrations I love.’

  ‘That dancing pig is especially memorable!’

  Soon they were called in to eat. The dining room still looked festive with its pink and silver bunting. Ribbons spiralled down from the cloud-cover of balloons which swayed and bumped up at the ceiling. The place settings had been laid on opposite sides of the long refectory table; each had a name card inscribed in exquisite calligraphy. On one side, Imogen, Danny, and Gilda; on the other, James, Jessica, and Piers. Danny hung back until everyone else had claimed their place.

  ‘First a toast,’ James said, pouring chilled champagne into flutes then passing them around. ‘To the birthday boy.’

  Danny’s smile was constrained as his glass was clinked. When Jessica leant across the table to join in, the smile faded altogether.

  ‘Hope you’re not ‘specting me to make a speech?’ he said.

  The wine was excellent, the food equally so, and every course had a vegetarian alternative. Throughout the meal many more toasts were drunk. The first to Gilda for producing a scrumptious meal; she’d had Edie’s help, she demurred. A toast was drunk to James for providing the excellent wine, to Jessica, for her sterling work as children’s party organiser, to Imogen for being beautiful and making money, and to Piers for being a generous godfather.

  ‘What do you do, Jessica?’ Various answers suggested themselves, as her glance shifted from Imogen, who had put the question, to Danny next to her.

  ‘What? Apart from mother, housewife, superstar you mean?’

  ‘Best place for whore-pussy-bitches,’ Piers said. ‘Fucking kitchen sink! Keep ‘em in their place. Good enough for my mother –’

  James interrupted. ‘Whoa! Careful, Piers. Feminist alert!’

  ‘And anyway, she was a teacher,’ Danny qualified. ‘Our mother was a teacher.’

  ‘Was?’ enquired Jessica, who suddenly wondered if the reason for Danny’s habitual reticence was because their mother was dead.

  ‘Retired,’ Piers said quickly. ‘And who’s feminist round here? Not Gilda, provider of toothsome comestibles?’

  ‘Piers, my dear, I have known you far too long to be offended by anything you say. As for feminism … all that anger! It always seemed like far too much hard work. I’ve never had any trouble getting my own way. No need to fight for it.’

  ‘Not Imo? Light of life … provider of bedroom comforts? So it must be …? You Jessica! Jay, you’ll have to mind Ps and Qs! Just thought. Ughh!’ he added with a groan, halfway between orgasm and revulsion. ‘She hasn’t any other piercings? Tattoos? To go with the –?’ He clutched his nose in a histrionic gesture.

  ‘Why are you asking me?’ James objected.

  ‘Strange! Nose but not ears. You have to wonder,’ Piers continued to probe. Jessica obligingly stuck out her un-pierced tongue for all to see.

  ‘I was put off having my ears pierced by my mother. Her lobes are like lace doilies. As for anywhere else … you’ll just have to wonder.’ Piers could make no inroads under her skin. She was immune to his kind of baiting. All her working life she’d known men like him, men who liked to provoke and stir up dissent, but if you rose to their bait would say they were ‘only joking’.

  He groaned again. ‘Imagination runs riot! Explain your feminism.’

  ‘I don’t know why James has awarded me the label particularly, unless it’s because I argue with him.’

  ‘I argue with everybody. Could be those suffragette colours you’re wearing?’

  ‘Or is it because I’m a friend of Sheila Jordan, who’s more fired up on the subject than I’ve ever been?’

  ‘Sheila Jordan?’ Imogen interjected. ‘I know that name. Wasn’t she a friend of Serena’s, Jay?’

  At the mention of his deceased wife, Jessica thought she saw a tightening in the skin around his eyes and mouth. He didn’t answer. Jessica picked up the subject again.

  ‘I don’t think it’s possible to generalise about men or women. Gender isn’t destiny. There are clever women, stupid men, and vice versa … women who are excellent car mechanics and men who are wonderful nurturers. All I ask is equality of respect … whatever I choose to do with my life … and equality of pay if I’m doing the same job as a bloke. Of course the principle had to be fought for and won, but some women have dug themselves into entrenched, permanently hostile positions … war or nothing. But I actually rather like men … some men.’ Her eyes momentarily fell on Danny again. ‘I’ve never understood feminists like my mother, who insist a uniform goes with acceptance of the principle. If you care about your appearance, or even worse want to enhance it with makeup or stilt heels or whatever, you’re somehow a traitor. I was thinking earlier how I’d have loved a pink party dress like Sasha’s when I was her age. Not to mention the sequin tiara! Dressing up like a fairy princess wasn’t allowed in our house.’

  ‘That’s almost tantamount to fucking child abuse!’ Imogen said. ‘But you don’t care now?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Fashion? Glamour?’

  James seemed to feel the need to explain. ‘Imogen runs a modelling agency.’

  Jess could have explained that there was a designer dress and shoes upstairs but that after her bath she’d felt chilled and tired and, with no particular expectation of the evening ahead, had opted for comfort rather than one-upmanship. To cross swords with Imogen would sound petty and defensive to the rest of the company, and she didn’t care enough.

  ‘If that’s the milieu you work in, it has to be important,’ she said, coolly. ‘But since having Rory, and now living here, my life has changed a lot. Obviously I still care about my appearance, but all that seems far less important than it used to. And in the future, if I go into teaching, there’s going to be little opportunity for dressing up in the latest high fashion.’

  ‘Teaching!’ Imogen pulled a face. ‘Why? No fucking money, no fucking respect!’

  ‘I used to be an investment banker.’ Perversely, Jess had expected to pile fuel on Imogen’s contempt. But the other woman’s eyes sparked with sudden interest. ‘Wow! The crash must have been such an intense experience! The whole world slagging you off, but you with your pockets stuffed full and laughing all the way to the … Why give it up? And why do you want to te
ach, of all things? Couldn’t you sit back, put your feet up?’ She laughed, apparently not expecting an answer, and turned to her immediate neighbour. ‘So, Daniel, what are you planning to do with the rest of your life?’

  Over the evening Danny’s voice had grown increasingly hoarse; from time to time he coughed. Now, as he looked at Imogen, his smile was shaded by bemusement.

  ‘Carry on doing what I’m doing. Farming, rearing animals.’

  ‘Animals! Ah … bless!’ she cooed. ‘Aren’t you interested in money?’

  He cleared his throat for the umpteenth time. ‘Wouldn’t mind a bit more, if that’s what you mean?’

  ‘I think you could make a fucking packet. What do you think, Piers?’ She pinched Danny’s chin and turned his face towards his brother. ‘Bit of a babe, yeah? Face of the moment? Can you sing, Daniel?’

  ‘Sing!’ Danny jerked his face away, but Imogen was too enthused to notice.

  ‘Yeah. Look at the bone structure. The colouring. The skin. It can be so gorgeous at this age.’ She stroked the back of his narrow hand and exposed wrist. ‘I’m thinking boy band here. X Factor. But if you can’t sing …’

  Danny withdrew his hands from the table and the pucker between his brows deepened.

  ‘Come on, Imo!’ Piers objected. ‘Who needs Pavarotti in boy band?’

  ‘The ability to keep in tune must help. But eye candy is what’s needed most. And you could always mime, Danny. But OK, if you’re not impressed by that idea, you’d still make a model … even catwalk. You’ve the height, the build … a bit skinny at the moment, but you’ve not been well. You’d need to work out, get some bulk and definition in your muscles … and you’re not cocky enough. You need a bit of swagger, a bit more attitude.’

  Was she the only one present, Jess wondered, to have noticed the tilt up of his head, the hardening of his mouth, and the droop of his eyelids as he gave Imogen a cool, appraising sideways glance, which seemed to question ‘lack of attitude’?

  ‘But that kind of confidence will probably come with the attention,’ Imogen continued, blithely. ‘So? What d’ya think?’

  ‘I think you’re mad,’ he said with a half laugh, which turned into another cough.

  ‘Imo is always on the lookout for a new face,’ Piers said, with the long-suffering air of one who had been through this many times. ‘Can’t judge. My bro’. Obviously fucking ugly little squirt!’

  ‘What about everybody else? Gilda? James? Jessica, surely you can see it?’

  Jessica felt slightly sick and a blush suffused her cheeks. She was rescued from having to answer by James.

  ‘Don’t sign anything, Sideshow, not till I’ve had it looked over! That woman is a shark. Started off as a model … what was it, Imo? Ten … no, more like fifteen years ago? Within minutes, it seemed, she was running the show. She must be ripping someone off to be making the kind of money she’s making!’

  Danny was obviously finding all the attention disconcerting; he looked towards Jessica in mute appeal. The cough started again.

  ‘Anyone with an interest in Danny will have to negotiate through me.’ Having recovered her poise, Jess spoke in the same mock serious tone in which the rest of the conversation had been conducted. ‘I’ve appointed myself his manager. OK?’

  Recovered from his coughing fit Danny nodded and smiled at her for the first time.

  Piers clapped delightedly. ‘Ho! Got some competition now, my treasure. Another hard-nosed businesswoman here!’ He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Imogen pursed her lips and turned her attention to James. ‘So, Jay, how’s the book going?’

  He sighed deeply. ‘Oh, you know. More of the same. Can’t even get a literary agent, though that’s the way I’ve been advised to approach it.’

  ‘The buggers won’t even read the whole manuscript,’ Gilda said with passion. ‘They judge it on the synopsis and first three chapters. It’s entirely unfair.’

  ‘But you can write. Some of the rubbish that gets published … Beyond me. Incomprehensible. Who’s for one of these cancerous vessels?’ said Piers, offering the cigarettes.

  ‘Quality of writing has little to do with it. Seems you’ve either got to catch the mood of the moment, which is pure luck, or you’ve got to be easy to pigeon-hole.’

  ‘Or already be fucking famous for something else,’ Imogen said. ‘If only you were an actor.’

  ‘Or performed some newsworthy feat of derring do?’ Piers contributed. Having had no takers, he lit his own cigarette.

  ‘Or a member of a boy band?’ Jessica threw in.

  James laughed at her contribution. Imogen ignored it.

  ‘Hey, tell you what, Jay, next time you send your stuff to an agent, include a photo. Come up to London one day soon, I’ll get a photographer organised.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a happy snap from the family album be sufficient?’

  ‘How quaint! You keep your pics in albums?’

  ‘Only the wedding … and honeymoon.’

  ‘Not good enough. You’re a fucking good-looking bastard, but a pic by a professional will give you that sultry edge. Writing is just another business. Agents and publishers are looking for someone promotable.’

  ‘I may have to practise sultry.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Imogen shrilled suddenly. ‘I’ve got it. Grainy outside shot, black and white. Silhouette of a few leafless trees in distance. Right? You looking moody … collar up … something tweedy. Gun, rifle, shotgun … whatever you use to blast birds … over your shoulder. A real Mellors image.’

  ‘Sounds more like catalogue man from Austin Reed. And don’t talk about shooting in front of Dan, you’ll cause a riot!’

  The man referred to looked a million miles from rioting. He attempted to clear his throat but sounded hoarser than ever.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you. I’m going to excuse myself. You’ll enjoy the rest of the evening better without a chorus of coughing.’

  They could hear him begin to cough again as he ascended the stairs. James sighed and shook his head.

  ‘Just lately he’s been f … bloody useless to me. Been like living with La Dame aux bloody Camelias. First he gets himself duffed-up –’

  ‘Be fair, James!’ Jessica objected. ‘It wasn’t his fault he was singled out by a psychotic in the middle of his own meltdown crisis!’

  ‘Not saying it’s his fault, but he’s cost me money! Was back to work for no more than a few days after the punch up, then smitten with bloody consumption! Had to hire in extra help.’

  ‘It’s not surprising he was vulnerable to infection directly after lambing. He was up all hours of the day and night.’

  ‘Of course you’d know!’

  Suddenly aware their spat was the centre of attention, Jessica made no reply.

  ‘You shoot, Jessica?’ Piers asked. ‘Can raise dread subject now Planks out the way! Jay’s promised me a blast.’ He mimicked a gun over his shoulder pot-shotting towards the balloons.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m with your brother on the subject of decimating the wildlife.’

  ‘Decimating? Is that what you really mean?’ James queried, with raised brows. ‘One in ten?’

  A testy note returned to Jessica’s voice. ‘You’d prefer to argue semantics?’

  Piers added, ‘Jay always was a pedant.’

  ‘But you can’t agree with the hunting ban,’ Imogen interrupted, an argument on the correct use of English passing her by. ‘It’s a personal liberties thing, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t hunt, but I know plenty of people who do, and who get such a lot of fun out of it. And foxes are fucking vermin, aren’t they?’

  ‘Personal liberty was the argument used to defend slavery. Look,’ Jessica glanced back towards James. ‘I understand the farmer’s need to control pests. I know foxes take lambs and chickens. And magpies, jackdaws … whatever else … take crops. I can also understand bagging a couple of pheasants for the pot. But hunting for sport …!’ She shook her head.

  ‘So you admit that it’s the fun yo
u object to. Hunt if you must but don’t get any fun out of it.’

  ‘Precisely. I find it morally repugnant that people should get pleasure out of torturing and killing defenceless animals.’ The two women stared at one another.

  ‘Well … that’s telling me, isn’t it?’ Imogen remarked.

  ‘Jessica doesn’t believe in mincing her words,’ James said. ‘If she gives it to you, she gives it to you straight … between the eyes.’

  ‘Even if I mince the English language?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘I apologise unreservedly. I knew perfectly well what you meant. I was being bloody-minded.’

  ‘Yes, you were.’

  Gilda stood up purposefully. ‘Enough bickering! This is a happy occasion. Subjects which cannot be agreed upon, like religion, politics, and hunting, are banned. I am now going to organise the coffee in the small sitting room, but then I shall retire.’ She left the table and Jessica followed her into the kitchen. ‘You young things are better off without me cramping your style,’ she said, as she switched on the coffee maker.

  ‘It’s been a lovely evening, Gilda. The food was wonderful, everything was splendid. I’m sorry I’ve not been a more agreeable guest. What can I do to help?’

  ‘Don’t be concerned. James needs people around who will stand up to him. He likes a challenge. Would you just ask them what they want? Espresso, cappuccino, whatever? I’ll take the cheese and petit-fours through.’

  Jessica was kneeling by the fire, lifting and turning the logs with the poker, when Imogen walked in. She watched for a few moments in silence. Jess hoped she wasn’t about to resurrect the previous debate.

  ‘Are you and James an item?’

  Surprised, Jessica sat back on her heels. The idea was laughable. ‘No! I can’t think of a subject we agree on! I’m more a friend of Gilda’s. We met through the kids’ nursery school. I honestly think I was invited tonight just to make up the numbers.’

  ‘She’s not matchmaking, is she?’

  Jessica shrugged. ‘That’s a question only she can answer.’