by Linus Peters
“Hi, Simon!” he said, handing me a bottle of champagne. “Happy birthday! ... Oh, this is Lorna.”
It was one of those occasions when, certainly at first, I was left wondering what on earth all the fuss had been about. She was pretty, but no more, unfriendly to the point of being surly, and followed him into the flat as if she couldn’t think of one place on earth she wouldn’t rather be. It was only later, when she began to relax a little, that it occurred to me what dread I would’ve felt at her age, being invited to meet my date’s friends at a forty year old’s birthday party. And soon it became apparent that smiling and being outgoing weren’t necessarily things she abhorred, and that she did have more than a little of that special quality that, like all great beliefs, no one’s able to define, yet we all still fall before.
Luca was utterly smitten. You could see that in his face. She spent the whole evening taking the piss out of him: his age, his clothes, his good manners, his antiquated attitudes. Ordering him around, telling him what to do, whilst he scampered about apparently loving every second. I mean, it did kind of leave you wondering. All those years of chasing, of conquest after conquest, was this really what he’d been looking for?
Gradually all the guests arrived, and I was pathetic enough to feel quietly pleased that there were no absentees. Even the man from downstairs came; bringing a male partner who he kissed on the cheek at one point, prompting me to the long overdue conclusion that he was, in fact, gay. Actually, it made me feel a little guilty about some of the things he’d witnessed recently, that I was giving heterosexuality such a bad name.
Despite being told not to, several people brought presents. Mostly books or CDs. Token things. And, of course, those highly amusing cards that tell you that your life is over now, and there’s nothing to look forward to other than increasing decay, and finally death.
I guess the thing with parties is – with any kind of gathering - it’s not just the right mood and mix, it’s also the right time. I could have invited the self same people back a week later, and we’d have had a totally different, maybe even disappointing, evening. However, as it was, everything positive about those there seemed to somehow gently collide and produce as vibrant and enjoyable an atmosphere as you could wish for. Or maybe it was just me? Maybe I was on such a high because I knew Frances was going to tell me if she’d marry me? Either way, the world seemed a wonderful place to be. Everyone I spoke to had something interesting to say, a joke worth telling. A perfect evening. Or at least, I thought it was. What it really needed - apart from my answer from Frances - was one final ingredient.
It must’ve been nine thirty or so when the buzzer went again. I didn’t even bother with it. As far as I knew everyone was already there. Yet Frances automatically released the front door, and a few moments later went to let whoever it was in. I turned and glanced across when she reappeared in the doorway. I could see she had someone with her, that she was smiling back down the hallway at them, glancing a little helplessly over at me. I put my drink down and went to join her, somewhat bemused by who it could be.
It was one of the biggest, and certainly the most moving, surprises of my life. Charlie was standing there. A tight nervous smile on his pale thin face, wearing a suit that looked to have been made from far too much material, a shirt with a gaping collar, Isobel standing firmly and proudly next to him.
“Charlie!” I cried, taking his hand and shaking it. “I’m so glad you came!”
For a moment, I honestly think he was too daunted, too intimidated, to even speak. I mean, it was such an unbelievably brave thing to do. To come here and face a room full of noisy people, most of them strangers.
“Couldn’t put up with any more nagging,” he eventually muttered.
“Hi, Isobel,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “Come on through.”
Charlie entered the crowded room like a man being thrown into a pitch battle, about to be assailed from all sides, Isobel one step behind, ready to catch him if he fell. One wrong word, one thoughtless laugh, I don’t know what he would’ve done. And yet, no matter how ugly the human race can be, most times I believe it to be benign. People did look, but they quickly averted their gaze rather than risk being caught staring. Even those that knew him, even those who were no doubt feeling as shocked as I’d been that day at his house. Yet it was Luca who really touched me. Who touched us all.
He didn’t turn away, he didn’t tactfully avert his gaze, instead he came hurrying over, tears filling his eyes.
“Charlie! ... Charlie!” he cried, throwing his arms about him and kissing him on both cheeks. “It’s fantastic to see you!”
For a nation that thinks of the word ‘sentimental’ as about as disdainful as an insult can be, it should’ve been embarrassing, but it wasn’t. In fact, I truly believe that everyone there who knew Charlie would’ve liked to have done the same thing. We just didn’t have the guts. Or perhaps not the culture.
“Would’ve stayed at home if I realised it was going to be this sort of party,” Charlie complained, looking flushed and uncomfortable, yet somehow pleased at the same time.
“I’m so happy!” Luca cried, hugging him once more.
“Yes. Me, too,” commented Charlie, pausing awkwardly for a moment, plainly searching for a change of subject, his eyes falling on Lorna, still hovering where Luca had left her. “My God, they’re getting younger,” he muttered.
“Ah, but this one .. this one, Charlie, is special,” he said, gently taking Charlie’s arm and leading him and Isobel over to be introduced.
I turned to Frances, both of us trying, but not succeeding, to remove insuppressibly sickly smiles from our faces. This was beginning to feel more like Christmas than my birthday. If the buzzer goes again, you can bet your wonderful life it’ll be Jimmy Stewart. I gave her a rather expectant look. If there was ever a time for her to give me my answer, it was now. “Well?” I asked.
“Ohhhh! .. Simon!” she wailed.
“What?”
She laughed sort of helplessly, like she was in a pain that she was quite enjoying.
“No pressure,” I told her.
She stared me in the face, giving a very long tortured sigh, and I dared to think she wanted to say ‘Yes’, that it was in there, she just couldn’t quite get it out.
“Hang on,” I said. “I’ll get some champagne.”
I almost ran into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle, seeing Jill and giving her a knowing smile.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing!” I teased, turning to leave.
“Simon!” she called after me, but I was gone
Unfortunately, in the thirty seconds or so that I’d been away, Andy had joined Frances, asking about New York, telling her about when he was there, how much the yanks appreciated an Englishman like him.
“This myth about how they love us – ‘an Englishman in New York’,” he sneered. “It’s crap. Too many Brits have tried it on. What they really love is someone who’s like them. With the ambition and guts to carry it out. Not some sponging make-believe aristocrat.”
I waited for a few minutes, a fixed smile of interest on my face, then, seeing no immediate hope of getting rid of him, went to change the music, hoping that, by the time I got back, he would be gone. However, when I returned, he was still there, and something about the way he glanced over at me as I approached, then quickly looked away, made me recall the night of the dinner party and the fact that he obviously fancied her. Oh God, he was trying to chat her up!
I was that frustrated I could’ve grabbed hold of him and tossed him out the window. Not because he was stupid enough to think he was getting somewhere, but because, I swear, Frances had been about to give me her answer.
I stood there for several moments, wondering how rude I dared be, yet just then Luca pushed past on his way to get more drinks.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Charlie?” he asked.
“He made me swear I wouldn’t.”
“He looks so fragile.
It’s all I can do not to keep putting my arms around him.”
I nodded. “I just hope he’s all right.”
“Sounds encouraging,” Luca said. He glanced back over, at that moment Charlie shouting across.
“Oy! .. I-ti! Where are those damn drinks?”
I was going to tell Luca what was going on – I mean, I had to tell someone - but he was gone before I could. Instead I continued to idle on the borders of Andy and Frances’s conversation, desperately waiting for the news that might change my life, whilst he obliviously carried on, unaware that any hint of a glare I might be giving him wasn’t down to insecurity, but just frustration. This is our moment, you bastard. Fuck off, will you.
I never heard the buzzer, nor saw anyone release the front door. It was getting late, things were becoming quite boisterous. The first thing I knew was when Ian beckoned me over to the hallway, a puzzled expression on his face. I excused myself, gave Frances an imploring look behind Andy’s back, and she - Oh God! - nodded in a way that either said she understood my problem, or that maybe, just maybe, she was saying ‘Yes!’, she would marry me!
It was a moment of sheer under-rehearsed pantomime. I stopped in my tracks, made a face as if to say what did she mean, Andy turned round to see who she was looking at, and then Ian called me again.
“Simon!” he said, beckoning me with more urgency.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming!” I said, almost imploding with frustration. Yet far worse was to follow.
I walked out into the hallway to be met by the sight of two uniformed policemen standing at the door, both young, thickset, and slightly intimidating.
“Something weird’s going on here,” muttered Ian, walking past me and back to the party.
My first thought was that someone had made a complaint. That I’d wasted my time inviting the man from downstairs, because there was another, much less forgiving, neighbour elsewhere.
“Good evening, sir. Your name is...?” asked the larger of the two, in that way the police have of turning half a statement into a hanging question.
“Simon Clayton.”
“And you live at this address?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know a Frances Lock?”
I hesitated for a moment, already beginning to agree with Ian. “Er .. Yes.”
“I’m afraid she’s been detained at West End Central.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Miss Lock is down at West End Central.”
“I don’t think so,” I told him.
He hesitated for a moment, his shallow reservoir of forced politeness already beginning to run dry. “What makes you say that?”
“She’s here.”
“Frances Lock?”
“Yes.”
“Frances Lock of this address?”
“Yes!”
Just at that moment, almost as if she’d been called, but I suspect because Ian had said something, Frances appeared.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Apparently you’re down at the police station,” I told her.
“Really?” she smirked.
“Are you Frances Lock?” said the first policeman.
“Yes.”
He sighed and exchanged long-suffering looks with his colleague. “Well, we have a ‘Frances Lock’ down at the station, and she has identification that places her at this address. A store credit card, bonus cards, letters.”
It was only when he added that information that I saw what I probably should’ve seen straight away, and my utopia, so recently almost completed, began to crack and crumble. “Oh no!” I groaned.
Frances turned to me, realising immediately what I thought.
“Yes?” asked the first policeman.
I sighed, knowing I had to explain. “Tall? Blonde?”
“That sounds like the lady, yes.”
Again I sighed, feeling so sick I could barely voice my thoughts. “Her name’s Juliana. She used to live here. I think she might’ve taken some of Frances’s mail.”
“I see. How long ago was this?”
“Two or three months.”
“Mm,” he sighed, realising this wasn’t going to be quite as straight-forward as he’d hoped.
“Why’s she at the police station?” I asked.
“We had a call from the night manager of the Inter-Continental. Not for the first time he had to ask the young lady to leave the hotel after suspecting her of trying to procure guests for the purpose of prostitution. She was very drunk and became abusive.”
“Oh, shit!” I groaned.
If you ever want to break a party up in a hurry, may I recommend having the police come round to take you away. Especially when it’s for something you’d rather not talk about, like your ex-girlfriend being picked up for being drunk and disorderly, and soliciting. I did tell the two policemen there was a party in progress, that it was in honour of my birthday, but they wouldn’t listen. I mean, I guess from their point of view it did look worthy of investigation. Two women, the same address, both claiming to be Frances Lock.
I had a quiet word with Luca, told him something of what was going on, asked him if he could try to smooth things over, maybe make up some plausible excuse, then went down to join Frances in the police car.
All the way to the station neither of us said a word. I smiled at her once, in the fluorescent glow of a passing sign, but she looked away without even acknowledging me. I so desperately wanted to get this over with, for us to close ranks and go back to the way it had been only minutes ago, but already feared that might not be possible, that we were being hopelessly undermined. All this time we’d assumed we’d been leaving Juliana further and further behind, when, in fact, she’d been with us all the way.
The more I brooded over it, the more angry and resentful I became. By the time we reached West End Central it was all I could do to keep myself under control. We were taken into an interview room, asked more questions, me becoming progressively more belligerent, demanding they produced Juliana, till in the end, they did. As the door opened, as she and her two escorts entered, I was about ready to leap down her throat. However, one look was enough to know there was little point.
I couldn’t believe how drunk she was. Lurching this way and that, her eyes half-closed, shallowly panting as if she was trying to suppress the urge to vomit, barely aware of anything going on around her. But it was her appearance that was the real shock. Her blonde hair messed and matted, what make-up that remained smeared all over her face, her short black dress crumpled and filthy where at some stage she must’ve been on the ground.
The two officers who accompanied her were noticeably wary, keeping a firm grip on her arms, and I guessed she’d already taken a swing at them
They hauled her over to a chair, plonking her down, Juliana seeming to somehow collapse to half her normal seating height, as if her bones had lost their rigidity.
“Do you know this woman?” the interviewing officer asked me.
“Yes. Juliana.”
“I’m not Juliana!” she mumbled, her words so slurred they ran into each other like mud. “I’m Frances Lock.”
“Juliana,” I repeated irritably.
“Frances!” she shouted. “I’m Frances ... I’ve got proof.”
“So has she,” said the interviewing officer, indicating the real Frances. “And a lot more of it.”
“Ohh! Simon!” Juliana whined, for the first time acknowledging our arrival. She lurched towards me, tried to sit on my lap, but ended up on the floor.
I can’t tell you how much I despised her in that moment. Her dress rucked up around her waist, her pale silk knickers on full display, her bare limbs suddenly seeming such an embarrassment.
They picked her up, returned her to her chair. And yet, do you know something? The longer that interview went on, the more questions they asked, the more it seemed as if we were all being forced to show our underwear, our naked bodies, and finally, our very selves.
&nb
sp; They kept going over things, digging deeper and deeper, finding out more and more, repeatedly stating the obvious, reducing it to something I could hardly bear to admit to.
“So you allowed this woman to move into your home whilst she pretended to be that one?”
“Yes.”
“Calling her Frances? Carrying on as if she was her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must’ve had a reason?”
“Intrigued, I suppose.”
“Intrigued?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that’s normal?”
“Define normal,” I answered, with very little conviction, knowing that it would pose no problems whatsoever for him to define normal, that it was me having the difficulty.
On and on they went. Deconstructing my myth. Humiliating me before myself. They made it sound so utterly pointless. So childish and indulgent. The whim of someone slightly unhinged. I wanted to stand up for myself, to tell them that they didn’t understand, but somehow they’d reduced it to a kind of logic, a police-speak, that I found impossible to argue with.
“Letters?”
“Yes.”
“All over the world?”
“That’s right.”
“Just making up addresses and sticking them in the post?”
I nodded.
“What for?”
“I thought .. maybe she’d get one.”
“Not very likely, was it?”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, that it was none of his business, but the truth was, what he’d reduced it to, what he’d reduced me to, I was almost ready to concede the point.
In the end, in an act of ultimate dismissal, it seemed as if they just lost patience with us, that they simply couldn’t be bothered. Not even to charge Juliana. They did try to give her a lecture, telling her they’d be looking out for her, that she wouldn’t be so lucky next time, but when it became obvious that she wasn’t capable of taking in what they were saying, they just gave up and told us to clear off.
Maybe they saw it as our punishment, but they insisted Frances and I took Juliana with us, that as we lived near her, it was up to us to make sure she got home safely. It was only when we got out into the street that we realised we’d left the flat in such a hurry, neither of us had any cash or cards for a taxi. To make matters worse, Juliana then discovered her purse was missing, that she’d either left it somewhere or had it stolen.