‘They’re going away together, you know that, don’t you?’ she said quietly.
I swallowed hard. ‘I … suspected,’ I muttered. Johnny had indeed telephoned to say he was going away for a while and couldn’t see Claudia for a bit. He hadn’t elaborated and I’d foolishly hoped it might be a business trip, but since it fitted in quite seamlessly with the start of the school holidays, it seemed unlikely.
‘Where are they going?’ I said in a small voice. Molly was friendly with a few of the nursery mothers, so I knew she’d know.
‘St-Jean-de-Luz.’
I sat bolt upright. ‘St-Jean-de-Luz! That’s where we went for our honeymoon!’
‘I know.’
I breathed deeply, bit the inside of my cheek hard. ‘Tell me the worst, Molly. I know you know, and I deliberately never ask.’
She shrugged miserably. ‘I don’t really know much, actually, because apparently she’s very private, but Tessa Jarvis says – well, she says they’re very close at the moment. Nina’s told her how incredibly happy she is, how she never thought anything like this would ever happen to her, never thought she’d get someone like Johnny –’
‘OF COURSE NOT, BECAUSE SHE’S SUCH AN AVERAGE LITTLE TART!’ I bellowed. ‘My bloody husband! Never thought she’d – “get” – my gorgeous bloody husband! How bloody dare she?’
‘Breathe,’ Molly commanded, reaching out and clutching my wrist. ‘Come on, you’ve gone all purple now, breathe – in … out … in … out …’
I sank back and obeyed. God, he had such a weird effect on me, it was like releasing demons. And my language became so exotic too, like that girl in The Exorcist. Next thing I knew my head would be rotating.
‘Anyway,’ I snarled, simultaneously breathing deep, ‘Tessa Jarvis doesn’t know her arse from her elbow, she’s got a huge mouth on her, and her bloody husband is the pits! Pinches bottoms at school fêtes, and I should know!’
‘Well, quite,’ she agreed hastily, ‘she’s a terrible old gossip, but I’m just telling you what I’ve heard, that’s all. Because I think you should be prepared.’
‘For what?’ my heart stopped.
‘For … any serious developments.’
I stared at her. There seemed to be two of her. Two pairs of sunglasses. Two curly heads. I couldn’t speak for a while.
Then, at length: ‘She came to see me, you know.’
‘What, here?’ Molly whipped off her glasses, aghast.
I nodded. ‘But I wasn’t in. She hasn’t been back since and I’ve avoided her at school. Obviously, though, she had something to tell me. Something … burning.’
Molly nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’d say you might be right,’ she said quietly. ‘And maybe Johnny didn’t want to be the one to say it. Or couldn’t say it.’
A long silence prevailed. Eventually, I took a deep breath.
‘Molly, we’d love to come.’
She frowned, miles away now. ‘Hmm?’
‘To dinner, Sebastian and I.’
‘Oh good!’ She brightened. ‘Friday then?’
‘Perfect.’
‘Spag bol in the kitchen, I’m afraid. It’s about all I can manage these days. Oh God, is that all right?’ She looked suddenly alarmed. ‘He’s probably not used to that sort of thing, is he?’
‘No, Molly, he only dines at the Connaught. Don’t be ridiculous, he’s perfectly normal, he even picks his nose like the rest of us, he just happens to be good at music, that’s all.’ I got to my feet. ‘Gin and tonic?’
She consulted her watch and blinked. ‘Lord, Livvy, it’s only ten thirty for God’s sake!’
‘I’ll take that as a no, then,’ I said evenly, as I marched inside, crossed to the sideboard, and with a shaking hand, poured an extremely large one for myself.
Chapter Twenty
Supper on Friday began somewhat inauspiciously. Having assured Molly that Sebastian couldn’t be more relaxed, I did actually sneak him a sidelong, nervous glance as we stood for what seemed like an eternity on the doorstep of the Pipers’ little flint cottage, getting absolutely no answer at all from their cranky old bell. Finally we tried the door, pushed tentatively through, and happened upon a sitting room that looked for all the world as if it had been burgled. We glanced at each other, startled. There was an astonishing lack of sofas, chairs, tables – or indeed any sort of furniture at all – and all that remained on the rather grubby carpet were piles of books and magazines, a few mouldy coffee mugs, one of Molly’s maternity bras, and a brace of apple cores festering quietly on the fender. Neither Molly nor Hugh was anywhere to be seen.
‘Looks like they’ve moved out,’ muttered Sebastian, gazing around. ‘The thought of me coming for supper was clearly too much for them, they’ve done a runner, put their possessions on their backs like Kurdish refugees and fled. We’ll probably find them halfway down the road, wild-eyed and desperate, dragging an astonished donkey and making a break for the border.’
‘Either that or the bailiffs have been,’ I said nervously. 'Which, believe me, is entirely possible with Molly and Hugh. They’ve clearly forgotten we’re coming, anyway. Come on, let’s go.’ We turned hastily back to the door.
‘Well, bugger off, then, oh ye of little faith!’ cried a voice behind us and we swung round to see Molly, sweeping through the French windows in a billowing maternity smock, like a ship in full sail, a plate of garlic bread poised in her hand.
‘We’re out here in the garden, and we’ve got no garden furniture to speak of so we dragged all our stuff outside.’ She threw her arms around her barren sitting room. ‘Welcome to Lifestyles of the Poor and Disgruntled! Makes a refreshing change, don’t you think? You don’t mind being outside, do you? We thought we’d have a barbecue so Hugh can wear stupid clothes and do macho things with tongs and baked potatoes.’ She grinned and kissed me on both cheeks, then beamed up at her guest.
‘Ah, Sebastian, what must you think of me? Did I behave quite appallingly the other night?’ She twinkled merrily at him.
He grinned. ‘Quite appallingly, but with remarkable aplomb and presence of mind too. You’re obviously a dab hand at rescuing damsels in distress from sticky situations. I only wish I could stash the big-with-child card up my sleeve to deploy in similar circumstances.’
She chuckled. ‘Ah yes, privilege of my gender, I’m afraid, and I do like to make the most of my fecundity. It has very little else going for it, believe me. Now,’ she linked both our arms with a squeeze and turned us gardenwards, ‘come and meet the man responsible for my condition. You can’t miss him, he’s the one in the vest and the shorts who thinks he looks like Bruce Willis in Die Hard.’
We strolled outside with her where, sure enough, scattered about the long, unmown grass and the daisies, was the sitting-room furniture – a sofa, two armchairs and a coffee table – all looking a bit tipsy and off balance, and slightly embarrassed to be outside. And in the middle of this al fresco furniture showroom, was Hugh, in what looked like his underwear, behind a wall of smoke, fighting desperately with a furious, flaming, spitting cauldron that was more reminiscent of Sputnik than a barbecue.
‘Remember these, Moll?’ he cried, waving a huge pair of barbecue tongs. ‘I borrowed them from the maternity ward. They’ll be needing them back when you go in!’ He clamped them to an imaginary head and pulled hard, rolling his eyes maniacally like Doctor Death. ‘Oooh, aahhh!’
‘Au contraire, my darling,’ she sang, ‘they’ll be needing them back for your vasectomy, for when I have your balls off. Sebastian, this is my husband, Hugh, who you met very briefly last week. He’s an out-of-work actor, and as the evening wears on, you’ll appreciate why.’
‘Not at all,’ smiled Sebastian, shaking Hugh’s hand, ‘I thought your performance in the supporting role of “tense father” the other night was masterful. It was method acting, I take it?’
‘But of course,’ grinned Hugh, taking a deep bow. ‘There’s always method in my madness. No offence taken, I hope?’
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‘None at all,’ smiled Sebastian.
‘Excellent! Now – a drink! Good God, Molly, call yourself a hostess? These good people haven’t even got a bevy!’
A jug of Pimm’s was discovered lurking under a table, the flies were ceremoniously picked out of it, then Hugh poured four huge, lethal tumblers, and the evening slipped happily along. And as we sat, laughing and chatting, slumped in their comfortable old chairs with the springs bursting out of their arms, in their tiny, magical cottage garden, surrounded – more by accident than Molly’s design – by hollyhocks, phlox and lupins, our toes in a daisy-strewn lawn, we gazed on to a veritable Constable scene of traditional English haystacks in the fields beyond. As Hugh waved his tongs in a final triumphant flourish we then ate our traditional English barbecue: charred spare ribs, sausages that were black on the outside and raw in the middle, vast baked potatoes that were as hard as bullets but no one seemed to mind, and a salad, that much to everyone’s mirth, I insisted on rushing to the flowerbed to decorate with borage and nasturtiums, as meanwhile, the drink and the conversation flowed on.
Molly and I discussed the chaotic state of her garden, as was our wont, with her promising to put into practice all my handy hints, and me knowing full well she wouldn’t, whilst Sebastian and Hugh chewed the arts long and hard, alternately eulogising or rubbishing every single play, film, festival or concert they’d ever been to, disagreeing as much as they agreed, and enjoying themselves hugely.
‘So what sort of thing do you do yourself then, Hugh?’ asked Sebastian finally, picking the charcoal from his teeth.
‘When you’re not poisoning your guests,’ I added, flicking raw sausage off my plate.
‘Oh, quite a lot of telly, you know, that type of thing,’ Hugh said airily, waving his arm about vaguely.
‘He does sanitary towel ads,’ said Molly grimly. ‘If we’re lucky.’
‘Sanitary – but surely …?’ Sebastian looked perplexed.
‘Wrong gender?’ Hugh offered brightly. ‘No problem. I change sex; after all, I am an actor! No, seriously, dear boy, I am, as my wife so kindly reminded me, in the current ST ads, but I don’t wear them myself. No no, I’m the fresh-faced lad playing volleyball with our padded heroine on the beach. Voila!’ He jumped up to demonstrate, punching an imaginary ball, a frozen smile on his lips. He held the pose. ‘Recognise me?’
‘Er, well …’ Sebastian smiled.
‘I’m the gorgeous young buck she bounds confidently up to in her skimpy white shorts – for thanks to Panty Pads, our lass can wear skimpy white shorts – and whose shoulders she playfully straddles – for our lass can straddle shoulders with no embarrassing repercussions – and whose hair she playfully ruffles. I’m the git who lollops across the sands with the silly cow’s arse wrapped round my neck, like so.’ He turned to show us his hunched back. ‘Recognise me now?’
‘It’s all coming back to me,’ grinned Sebastian as Hugh staggered about under a colossal imaginary weight, like the hunchback of Notre-Dame.
‘And, um, when you’re not doing important feminine hygiene ads? Dare I ask?’
‘He lolls about at home, scratching his bum and getting in my way,’ said Molly, preparing to throw the rib bones to her two Border terriers, who were sitting bolt upright, quivering with excitement.
‘What my dear wife means,’ said Hugh, leaning conspiratorially towards Sebastian, ‘is that when I’m not making passionate love to her on a sultry afternoon amongst the buttercups, I am in fact, rehearsing for my play.’
‘Ah, and that is?’ Sebastian brightened.
‘Oh, dear boy, sweet of you to ask, to take an interest and all that, but it’s very much a fringe thing. On a considerably lesser stage to the one you inhabit, playing to seriously dwindling audiences, and at a little-known auditorium, a modest venue just off the Hammersmith Broadway.’
‘The Lyric? D’you mean the new Simon Gallway play? The Roman one, um – Death of a Conqueror’s Son?’
Hugh nearly fell off his chair he was so excited. ‘Yes!’ he rasped, nearly choking on a rib bone. ‘Fuck me, yes! Have you seen it?’
‘Certainly I have. It was excellent.’
Hugh’s chest expanded until it was fit to explode, his face went purple.
‘Well then, surely you recognise me!’ he squeaked. ‘I’m on stage the whole time!’
Sebastian’s eyes widened. ‘You are? Blimey, I only saw it a few weeks ago, but …’ he frowned. ‘Oh, hang on. You’re the centurion, right?’
Hugh shook his head excitedly. ‘No!’
‘Er, well. The lead?’ he said, somewhat doubtfully. ‘Peter the Great?’
‘Warmer, getting warmer!’ Hugh leapt up and down and hopped about excitedly.
‘Er, Peter the Great’s son? Michaelias?’
‘Hot! Really hot – so close!’
Sebastian frowned. ‘Peter the Great’s … other son? Alexander?’
‘That’s it!’
‘But – isn’t he … dead?’
‘Precisely! From the word go! I’m the corpse!’
‘Oh!’
‘Front of stage the whole time,’ he said proudly, ‘lying doggo and deceased. Remember?’ Hugh collapsed flat on his back in the daisies to demonstrate, eyes shut.
‘Oh, er, well, yes. I do now. You were … unforgettable.’
‘Wasn’t I just?’ beamed Hugh, sitting up. ‘If I say so myself I was bloody unforgettable. Yep, I really got into that part.’ He reached for his glass of Pimm’s and took a satisfied swig. ‘It’s all in the breathing, you know,’ he informed us importantly, waving his glass about. ‘All in the oesophagus control.’
‘He made me see it four times,’ muttered Molly, leaning back wearily and shutting her eyes in despair. ‘I was eight months pregnant, feeling ghastly, and it was like a sauna in there. And he keeps berating me because I won’t go again. And he does nothing! He just lies there, for God’s sake!’
‘Ah, but I feel dead, Molly,’ he urged. ‘I actually feel it, and I convey my deceased state to the audience. Seb here will back me up, won’t you, Seb? Oh – and I’ll tell you someone else who will, someone else who was sitting at my feet in the front row, looking starry-eyed at my performance, drinking from the muse. Old Imo and Hugo whatsis-name, the conductor!’
‘Imo came?’ said Molly. ‘You didn’t tell me that. Gosh, that was sweet of her.’
‘Sweet!’ He gasped. ‘Sweet! Why so? I’m not a charity, my darling. They came to marvel, to be enlightened! One doesn’t rattle one’s tin and give generously to poor old Hugh!’
‘So they’re still together,’ I mused. ‘That’s nice, and it must be a record for Imo. Have you spoken to her recently, Moll? I haven’t seen her since the concert.’
‘I asked her to come tonight,’ said Molly, sucking the orange from her Pimm’s, ‘but she was frantic in the gallery and couldn’t really speak, except to say she had a work thing to go to, so she couldn’t come. I did ask how things were going, though, and she said she was besotted.’
‘Really! With him?’
‘Well, presumably. She didn’t say, but I imagine so. I should think Ursula’s wetting her pants at the prospect.’
‘I saw the pair of them the other night, actually,’ said Sebastian. ‘The Mitchells asked me to dinner and, having refused two invitations, I thought it only politic to go.’
‘Ah,’ I grinned. ‘So Ursula is becoming your benefactress. I knew she would.’
‘I must confess I had that same, slightly uncomfortable feeling,’ he grimaced.
‘And was Hugo there too?’ demanded Molly. ‘Playing footsie next to Imo and shooting her hot looks over the vichyssoise?’
‘He was, although not next to her. I suspect even Ursula’s not that obvious. I sat next to Imogen, actually. I thought she was charming. Very easy on the eye and much less intense than her mother.’
‘Oh God, yes,’ I agreed.
‘Wouldn’t be difficult,’ added Molly.
‘Bu
t scary,’ warned Hugh, wagging his finger.
‘Imo? No, why?’ I said, but I knew what he meant.
‘Oh, come on, Livvy, Ursula’s overeducated her. Any fool can see that. All those violin lessons at four and cuboid maths at five – you feel you can’t open your mouth without her thinking – Christ, what a berk!’
‘Entirely valid in your case,’ said Molly, getting up. ‘More booze, anyone?’
We drank on and on, and I had far more than I should have done, first because I wasn’t driving, but also because I felt I might need it. I’d shaved my legs, you see. And my armpits. And as Molly doled out the strawberries and cream, I gazed at Sebastian as he chatted animatedly with her and wondered just how reckless I was being here. Not very, I decided, taking another swig of Pimm’s, and eyeing him carefully, and anyway, he’d won the bet. The one I’d made with myself in the bath, earlier on. It went – why string him along if you’re not really interested, Olivia? Then – well, I’m not stringing him along, I really like him. Then – OK, so if you really like him, how about it? You said you wanted to get back to the land of the living. Well, live a little, for Christ’s sake! At this point, in the bath, I’d seized the Gillette G2 from the soap dish and depilated furiously. But only, I’d told myself, shaving away like a demon, if I’m totally bowled over by him tonight. Only if he makes me laugh; only if I can look at him without thinking of Johnny; and only if he goes down well with Molly and Hugh – although why this should come into the equation I’ve no idea since Johnny had never got on particularly well with Hugh, thinking him camp and theatrical – ‘dodgy’ was how he’d once described him – whilst Hugh, who was as straight as a Roman road, had, in turn, found Johnny just a little too hearty and macho for his artistic taste.
I studied Sebastian now, roaring with laughter at something Hugh had said, head thrown back, wiping tears from his eyes, that narrow, intelligent face creased with mirth. He caught my eye as he shook his head in bemused wonder at Hugh, and I grinned back happily, holding his gaze for just a little longer than was strictly necessary. As I finally looked away it struck me, rather gloriously, that some time later this evening, I was indeed going to live again. Some time tonight, after all these arid months of mere existence, I was going to uncurl my dry, dusty old roots and drink again, feel the sap of life. I wondered, with a jolt, if I could remember how to do it. Nah, course I could. Just like falling off a bicycle. I frowned, blearily, into my drink. Hang on, wasn’t I mixing my metaphors a bit here? And if I was going to do it, where the devil was my cap? Gathering dust in my bedside drawer probably, beside an unmade bed and – Hell, when did I last change the sheets? Suddenly I felt my courage begin to slip through my fingers like fine sand. I hastily took another gulp of Pimm’s.
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