‘S’cuse me, sorry.’ I pretended I was looking for someone. It was heaving. Would anyone know I wasn’t really dancing with anyone? Perhaps I should dance with Bob? At least then I’d have a partner. I turned back to see him leading Yvonne, from the shop, onto the floor. Right. Great. Yvonne had a moustache.
Disastrously pissed, I gyrated to the music anyway, but my handbag on my shoulder kept swinging into people who looked amused the first time, but not the second, so I put it on the floor. Ah yes, I could see why this worked, I thought, as I peered myopically at it. Why girls did it. You could look at your bag, dance around your bag, pretend you were in love with your bag … like so … I swayed, arms aloft – ‘Yooooo mye-eye, brown-eyed – oops!’
I was steadied by an irritated man who said, ‘For God’s sake!’ But I hadn’t fallen over, only stumbled. Abruptly he caught my shoulders and I turned, annoyed.
‘Look, I’m just dancing, OK?’ I snapped. Only it wasn’t the same man. It was Sam. And I was in his arms. He was dancing with me. Sam Hetherington was dancing with me, and not just jiggy-jiggy: proper hold-you-close dancing. Right against his chest. I was in heaven.
‘Sam!’ I cried ecstatically into his left ear
‘Are you all right?’
‘Perfect!’ I breathed gustily. ‘Just, perfect.’ I nestled into his shoulder. We swayed in time to the music, or at least he did; I followed. And I felt so much better, supported. And suddenly, so full of wisdom. I gazed up. He was a bit of a blur.
‘Sam, I know you’re probably only dancing with me to make Hope jealous, but I want you to know it’s fine by me. Really. I’m loving it.’
His expression changed in a flash from amused to irritated. ‘Don’t be silly, Poppy.’
‘She is very beautiful,’ I said dreamily, catching her in a swirl of white chiffon being twirled around the floor. By Chad? I couldn’t see. I hoped so. ‘And when they came, Hope and Chad, we thought, well, we thought they were so perfect. The perfect couple. The blueprint for the rest of us. But nothing’s perfect, is it, Sam?’ My, those shots had been strong. Even I wasn’t sure what was coming next. ‘Chip away at the surface and all sorts of cracks appear.’
‘Would you mind if we didn’t talk about Hope?’ Quite tersely, in my ear. I nodded sagely. Ah yes. Couldn’t bear it. But the thing is, once my finger’s hovered over the self-destruct button, I find it awfully hard to tear it away.
‘I’ve got a terrible feeling I’ve fallen for you, Sam,’ I said throatily into his shoulder. I gave a cracked laugh. ‘How inconvenient is that? When you’re still in love with Hope? Hope. Hope springs eternal. Hope springs –’ I dissolved into helpless giggles, for some reason finding this dreadfully funny.
He was steering me off the dance floor now. But I’d made a bit of a confession, would not be distracted. ‘Sam?’ I had to shout loudly above the noise. ‘Did you hear what I said? I said, I think I’ve –’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Poppy,’ he said firmly, depositing me on a chair. My old chair. Hello, chair. ‘Now wait here while I get your father.’
‘While I get your father,’ I repeated sternly, wagging a strict Victorian finger. Then I snorted unattractively and had to wipe my nose. But I sat demurely enough, sniggering only occasionally, as people drifted by. They smiled down, amused.
‘Thanks for the tickets!’ I called to Mark as he passed by with a pretty blonde girl.
‘Nothing to do with me, Poppy,’ he grinned. ‘But I’m glad you’re here. Having a good time?’
‘Fantastic!’ I gave him a broad wink. Well, of course. He wouldn’t want to admit to sending another woman tickets in front of his girlfriend, would he? More people passed by on their way to the dance floor.
‘Good evening,’ I greeted one or two. No, I would not sit. It was rude. I got to my feet. Just. ‘And thank you so much for coming.’ An elderly matron blinked at me, astonished. ‘Yes, it is a lovely party, isn’t it? Not at all, my pleasure. Do come again.’ This, to Luke. ‘You too, Sue.’
‘Christ, love, what are you on!’ Dad was suddenly beside me, alarmed. My father doesn’t do alarmed. He’s not a big man, but he was managing to hasten me, bodily, to the door. We passed a waitress. ‘Hey, hang on, Dad,’ I swung about. ‘There’s this little blue glass, right, with this delicious –’ But she’d gone.
‘Schnapps? You drank that?’ he said aghast.
‘Three,’ I told him solemnly. ‘Wouldn’t mind another.’ I made a break for it, but Dad’s an ex-national hunt jockey, and his arms are strong. He was propelling me forcibly outside.
‘Now what I’m going to do,’ he was saying in the patient tones one normally reserves for the educationally subnormal, ‘is pop you in the lorry, OK? Then I’ll go back for the children, and then we’ll potter off home, all right?’
‘Righto,’ I said cheerfully, as he hustled me down the floodlit gravel drive. The night air hit me like a cosh, though, and suddenly I felt terribly, terribly light-headed. And a bit unwell. Was I going to be sick? I counted to twenty and somehow, having taken my shoes off to cross the paddock, found myself seated in the cab of a dark lorry in the middle of a field, shoes in my lap. Dad beetled off.
To stop myself being ill and the world going round, I sang. I sang, with deepest concentration, a verse from ‘Raindrops on Roses’. So many favourite things to remember, though. Whiskers. Kittens. Kettles … Bugger. ‘Edelweiss’, then. On I warbled. Beside me, a young couple who’d left the party early jumped into a Land Rover. They climbed into the back seat and started kissing. Ah well. I sang on. Everyone, it seemed, had found love tonight, except me. I sang on to the stars, just like Maria singing to the children, and somewhere during the third verse, my own children appeared. Just like the Von Trapps, but fewer, thank God.
‘Darlings!’ I greeted them exultantly, arms wide. Archie was fast asleep, wrapped in a blanket as Dad handed him to me through the driver’s door. Then my own door opened and Clemmie was in Sam’s arms, wide-eyed.
‘Why were you singing, Mummy? We heard you miles away.’
‘Because I’m happy, darling! Well, hello,’ I drawled to Sam. ‘Can’t keep away, can you?’
‘Shut up and move across,’ said my dad, unreasonably officious for him. ‘Here, put this across the children.’
‘A seat belt,’ I boggled. ‘Didn’t spot that on the way over. Coming, handsome?’ I winked extravagantly at Sam.
‘That’ll do, love,’ said my father more gently. ‘And let go of his bow tie, there’s a good girl.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he doesn’t like it.’
I dropped it, disappointed. Sam’s head retracted and within a twinkling the cab door had shut on me. ‘Spoilsport,’ I pouted. Then I wound down the window and leaned out. Dad was already behind the wheel, though, and had the engine started. ‘Lovely party!’ I sang, hanging out of the window as we reversed.
As we turned back towards the gate, the headlights from our lorry lit up the back of the Land Rover beside us. Bare limbs shivered in the yellow beam: two people were kissing horizontally and half naked on the back seat. From the waist down, in fact. A pair of pearly white buttocks gleamed, a broad back still in its dinner jacket, the back of a man’s blond head, poised above a dark one. Suddenly Hope’s beautiful but startled face was caught in the spotlight. As we rumbled off across the field, leaving Sam standing in the midst of his acres, it occurred to me that, whilst I hadn’t recognized the buttocks, I had recognized the Land Rover. It rumbled through our village on a regular basis. It was Passion-fuelled Pete’s.
31
The following morning found me a radically altered woman. No longer on top form. No longer singing in close harmony with an aristocratic Austrian family fleeing the Nazis. No longer in heaven. This woman was in hell, not with the sound of music, but the sound of throbbing temples. Unable to move from her bed, or unleash her tongue from the roof of her mouth, or crowbar open her eyes – I managed, briefly, then shut them again – never had a
person felt so unwell. Staggered by the weight of my limbs, which I could just about coax into a foetal position, I lay doggo. Deado. Dead. And went back to sleep.
Sometime later I was awoken by the sounds of momentum gathering next door. A grumbling volcano. My children were bubbling under like so much molten lava, surely about to erupt. Ah. There it was. Archie gave a shriek of outrage and Clemmie came running in.
‘Mummy, I think Grandpa put Archie’s nappy on back to front, but when I tried to do it he screamed. He won’t let me.’
‘I’ll come,’ I managed gnomically, as, with a heroic effort, I heaved myself out of bed. I tested my feet for support, rocked momentarily, then lurched next door.
Archie was indeed wearing a back-to-front nappy as he stood gripping the bars of his cot, together with what seemed to be a T-shirt of Clemmie’s. But at least they were alive; at least my father had had a go, I thought gratefully, as I heard him downstairs making tea. I lifted my baby son from his cot and nearly fell over. Had to hold the wall. Somehow I organized a clean nappy, and together we went downstairs, one hand in my son’s, as he insisted on doing every stair himself, one on my throbbing forehead.
‘Morning, Dad,’ I muttered, as my father caught Archie, who ran to him. He set him in his high chair. ‘Turn that down, would you?’ I waved at the blaring radio.
Dad grinned, looking horribly chipper, clearly freshly showered. He made a long arm to the radio as I sank down at the table, head in hands.
‘Morning, love!’ he chortled. ‘All right?’
It’s not often my father has the upper hand in the morning-after department; he was bound to milk it. I kept my head low and grunted non-committally.
‘How’re you feeling, then?’
‘Marvellous.’
Terrible. It was all coming back to me in glorious technicolor. Some little blue glasses. Bob leering at me throughout dinner. Chad’s desperate eyes. Hope careering round the dance floor as the horn blew to ‘John Peel’. Sam. Who I’d danced with, but – oh God, what had I said? I sat up slowly. Covered my mouth as my father put a cup of tea and two Nurofen in front of me.
‘Oh God, Dad, I think I flirted outrageously with Sam Hetherington last night.’
‘No, no, love. Not so anyone would notice.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. Anyway, nothing wrong with a bit of flirting. Makes the world go round.’ He sat down opposite and sipped his tea.
‘No, but the thing is, I think I might have overdone it …’ My mind was a blur. I tried to clear it. ‘Declared undying love, or something. God, d’you think I did?’
‘No one takes that type of thing seriously at a party. Here, put some sugar in, get it into your bloodstream. Good night out, though, wasn’t it?’ He ruffled Clemmie’s hair as she ran past to watch television in the other room.
‘So, you don’t think he noticed?’ I asked anxiously, remembering … oh Lord, had I nibbled his ear? While we danced? I seemed to remember him brushing me off with a ‘No, Poppy.’ Surely not.
‘Not for one moment,’ Dad said firmly. ‘Anyway, people like that get attention the whole time. It’s like Brad Pitt, or whoever; they think nothing of it.’
Brad Pitt. An A-list celebrity. That’s how far out of my league my father thought Sam was. Interesting. Interesting too how, weeks ago, not so very long ago really, I’d felt he was not only in my league, but really quite proximate. At his great house, however, in his bottle-green tailcoat, very much mine host, very much handsome bachelor of the parish, he was light years away. Bachelor. No, not quite. Divorced. From Hope. And thinking of Hope, some strange hallucinogenic memory struck me, to do with buttocks. I wrinkled my forehead in an effort to remember. Across the breakfast table, my father was optimistically setting a rack of toast before me.
‘Dad, in the field, as we drove off, d’you remember a couple in a Land Rover beside us?’
‘Too busy trying to stop you falling out of the window to remember a Land Rover. Now, are you going to be all right if I get off?’ He shot his watch anxiously out of his cuff. ‘I’ve got to get back for the horses.’
‘Yes, yes, fine.’ I waved my hand dismissively, drained by the strenuous effort of recall. ‘Go. Be gone.’
‘The kids had breakfast a couple of hours ago and then I put Archie back down so he’s had his kip.’
I blinked. ‘Really? God, what time is it?’
‘Eleven o’clock.’
‘Blimey. Right.’
This surely was kind of my father. The horses would be crossing their legs in their stables by now. ‘Thanks, Dad.’ I looked up as he went to gather his keys from the side, his wallet. Then looked a little closer. There was quite a spring in his step. Quite a jaunty angle to the flat cap he was setting on his head. ‘Did you enjoy yourself last night?’ I asked suddenly.
‘I did, as a matter of fact.’ He turned as he went to the door, reaching for his coat on the back of it. ‘That Peggy’s a nice lady, isn’t she?’
‘She is,’ I said cautiously. ‘But she’s not on the open market, Dad.’
‘Oh, I know. We talked about that. Had a good old chinwag. And were getting on famously until I was told my daughter was – anyway. As I say, she’s a lovely lady.’
‘What did you talk about?’ I asked, curious.
‘Hm? Oh, your mum. How I never got over her. Never found – or rather looked – for anyone else. And her and Roger. Funny. I always had her down as a scatty, frivolous bird, but there’s a very thoughtful side to her. And the funny thing is,’ he looked pensive a moment, gazed contemplatively at the back door, ‘I got the feeling she thought the same about me. That I always play it for laughs.’ I kept very still at the table. ‘It’s our armour, I suppose. Our protective layer. To prevent anyone getting at the soft underbelly. Anyway,’ he shook his head, like a horse ridding itself of flies: a regrouping gesture. Shrugged his coat on. ‘We thought we might go to the evening meet at Warwick on Friday. Just for a laugh, you know,’ he said quickly.
I nodded. ‘Good plan. She’d enjoy that.’
‘Only, sometimes,’ he paused as he got to the door, ‘it’s dull doing everything on your own, you know?’ He turned to look at me. ‘When the world is geared for couples. Restaurants, parties, cinemas – life. It gets tiring. Sometimes it’s just easier to be two. To fit in.’
He said goodbye. When he’d gone, I realized how I’d found that out last night. How, if you didn’t want to look conspicuous, it was easier to be two. My dad had been alone for years, Peggy too, and I’d never appreciated the work behind that. They both did a brilliant job, presenting a breezy exterior to the world, but it was a job: an effort. A very conscious public face. For years they’d both climbed the stairs at night alone, got into bed, alone, and I’m sure that got easier, more of a habit. But I couldn’t see the public bit getting easier. And if you didn’t want to disappear, didn’t want to get a bit blurry round the edges, as some single people did, you had to put your back into it, didn’t you? Into being fun. And interesting. And good to be around. Like Dad, and Peggy. Me too, now, of course. Lessons to be learned. Respect.
I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud, but my son, watching me from his high chair, echoed it gravely: ‘Rethpect.’
I smiled and leaned across to take the squashed piece of toast he was offering me. Just then my back door opened and Angie stuck her head around.
‘Coo-ee,’ she whispered, head on one side, anxious.
My smile became slightly wan. I dropped Archie’s soggy bread. ‘Coo-ee, Angie. Come in.’
‘Are you all right?’ She shut the door softly and tiptoed theatrically across the room. Sat down terribly carefully at the table making sure the chain of her handbag didn’t make a noise. Annoying. Very dressed up too, I noticed, in a little pink suit.
‘Fine, thanks, just a bit tired.’
‘Blimey, I’m not surprised. You shifted enough to float a small flotilla last night. I’ve never seen anyone so plastered. Mind if I
help myself?’ She reached for a piece of toast.
‘Do,’ I said drily, determined not to tell her the smell of the marmalade was guaranteed to make me heave.
‘And there’s nothing worse,’ she said firmly, buttering away, ‘than everyone avoiding you the next day and giving you sly looks in the village, so I wanted to pop round and say it didn’t matter a bit. In fact we all enjoyed seeing you let your hair down for a change. Especially when you went on stage and grabbed the microphone.’
I gazed at her horrified. ‘No.’
‘Mm,’ she nodded through a mouthful of toast. ‘Thanked everyone for coming. And then asked if we’d like to hear “Climb Every Mountain”, but Sam wrestled you from the stage.’
‘Oh, God,’ I whispered, appalled, sinking my forehead into my hands. I had no recollection of that. Odd. Huge memory losses in some areas and wild hallucinations about buttocks in others. What was in those glasses? What was schnapps? It shouldn’t be allowed.
‘And whatever you do, you mustn’t think the whole village is laughing at you over that man.’
‘Are they?’ I yelped, jerking my head up.
‘No, of course not. That’s what I came to tell you. I knew you’d be feeling wretched – and of course I’ve been there myself, made a bit of a fool of myself in that department – so I came to say you absolutely mustn’t worry.’
‘Yes, but you cornered him in his kitchen and stuck a rose between your teeth,’ I said testily. ‘I didn’t do that.’
‘Well, you cornered him in the downstairs loo.’
A Rural Affair Page 39