Tell the Girl

by Sandra Howard

  Warren had returned in time to say goodbye – he hadn’t ducked that – and he’d gently encouraged Daisy to come away from the steps, ushering her indoors. He’d remarked on how stressful and awkward it had been, although Susannah had been very good about it all, hadn’t she – on the whole.

  What the hell had he meant by ‘on the whole’? She’d been phenomenal. Daisy thought of him consulting his watch, saying he’d booked for eight o’clock at the Meadow Club since it was lobster night, and how she’d said lovely, she’d be glad of the hour or so till then as well, as she needed to get sorted. She’d hurried off to her room and cried her eyes out.

  Daisy smiled over the table at Warren now, feeling a little better. She knew the form at the Club as they’d been here once before on a Thursday night, the three of them. The lobsters were jumbo-sized and everyone wore ridiculous but necessary white paper bibs. Daisy also knew she was acting a little distantly, casting round the dining room, which was large and routinely appointed, brightly lit, far from romantically atmospheric. A tennis club, however exclusive, wasn’t a natural for evenings à deux. Her smile felt a little fixed and she hoped Warren would think she was obsessing about his proposal, the decision she was about to take, not still brooding miserably about Susannah.

  It was awful, missing her with such pangs, feeling so defenceless and alone. What made it worse was how dignified Susannah had been. No shrill bitching, no slammed doors – but who knew what had been going on inside? Susannah had come out to Long Island, interested, expectant; she’d only taken the commission because the seeds of an attraction had been sown.

  ‘You okay, darling?’ Warren reached for Daisy’s hand. ‘This is a precious evening, a special occasion, our first night alone together.’

  ‘Not quite alone. It’s packed tonight, tous Southampton is here – well, the key players, at least,’ she added, feeling a bit mean and trying to be more diplomatic. ‘And from the sound of things, they made an early start at the bar.’ She was glad of the people and noise, in fact, grateful to be able to postpone facing Warren emotionally head on.

  People were looking their way. It was hard to believe the word was out about Susannah leaving, but Daisy remembered how Warren had once said that the car only had to turn out of the drive for gossip to spread. She wondered at him, bringing her to the Meadow Club. He must have expected, even wanted to cause curiosity; he was giving her adoring glances in full view, loving being seen together, very happy to share her. Daisy found it embarrassing. She went back to absent smiles and distant gazes round the room.

  Lobster night seemed to attract a pretty geriatric crowd. Apart from a few juniors – pampered conventionals who looked too laundered and picked-up-after – and a table of young-middle-aged, the mums with great legs she saw at the Beach Club – the majority of diners were oldsters. They were the Club’s mainstays, Warren’s mates, and openly staring. They were sure to come by any minute to say hi, and sniff the scent of the gossip.

  ‘Can I ask a favour?’ Daisy said, dreading Warren making any painful nudge-nudge, watch-this-space remarks. ‘If people come over, you won’t, um, say anything?’

  He looked surprised, as if the idea that anyone would come over hadn’t entered his mind or, which seemed more likely, he’d been planning to say, grinning and just as she feared, that he had Daisy all to himself now.

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to, darling, but people will draw their own conclusions, you must see that?’ Warren looked chuffed at the thought, though quite sweetly so.

  ‘Perhaps you could simply say that Susannah’s had to go home for whatever reason, and I’ve stayed on to see to a few loose ends? That leaves an aura of mystery,’ she suggested guilefully, ‘about where we’re at.’

  Warren gave her a sexy eye. ‘I like where we’re at,’ he said, ‘very much.’

  Daisy couldn’t easily suggest that it was far more face-saving and pride-saving, should she turn him down, if nobody had known much in the first place. She also realised, dismally, that in any event he could give whatever reason he liked – gold-digger flirt, frigid cockteaser, anything. Men could always manage to persuade themselves that black was white . . . and who’d think she wasn’t after his money anyway?

  Was she? It was undeniably a factor. Yet she liked Warren; he even quite excited her at times. She wasn’t shutting her mind to all the longer-term ramifications of marrying him, his advancing old age: the need for thinking time was vital. She hoped Warren would understand and give her space.

  She looked past him and her heart sank. Shit, shit, his neighbours, Elmer and Jan Harvey, were coming over. Didn’t they see enough of him already? Elmer was tottering, red and blotchy in the face, leaning into his wife, and he was a monotonous droning old creep on a good day. Daisy assumed another rigid smile that she hoped wouldn’t fade too fast.

  ‘What you doin’, out on the town with this lovely lady then, old shport? Where the booful Susannah got to? She given you a free pass?’ Elmer leered at Daisy and leaned, teetering, to speak to her. ‘You watch out, m’dear, couldn’t trust this one as far as you could throw ’im.’ He held onto his wife, sodden with drink, wobbling like a pillar in an earthquake. Jan was steadying him, looking both prim and wearily indulgent. She was a drab, grey woman, not face-lifted, her natural self, but without the personality to turn that to advantage.

  ‘We’ve shipped Susannah home,’ Warren said cheerfully. ‘Her side of things was over. The house is being pulled apart next month, but after Labor Day, so it shouldn’t inconvenience you guys any too much.’ The Harveys would probably be back in Manhattan by then anyway. ‘So I am indeed “out with this lovely lady”!’ Warren gave Elmer an infuriating, yuk-making wink. Daisy felt angry; it was cheap, that wink, unnecessary. And he’d omitted to say that she was just staying on to tie up a few ends. Warren would be pushed to be as jerkish as Elmer, but he’d just had a jolly good stab at it.

  Elmer still had his lobster bib on, which was some compensation; he looked like the village idiot in a panto and Daisy had an urge to boo him off stage. He’d shaken free of Jan’s wifely hold, but then over-balanced and reached to cling onto Daisy’s chair-back, breathing heavily. He was very drunk.

  The Harveys were friends of Warren’s, as well as neighbours; they met up at the Beach Club and were always in each other’s houses. Daisy had made plenty of polite chitchat over the weeks; smiled, suffered the tedium, endured Elmer’s pomposity, kept schtum through his preposterous reactionary views, and now she felt on the butt-end of his banality. He must have inherited his money. He was acumen-lite, a bonehead buffoon.

  ‘My good lady wife here . . .’ Elmer shifted his weight, losing the thread as Jan took a firm hold of his elbow.

  ‘Is trying to get you back to your table, old boy,’ Warren finished, grinning. ‘If you can make it. And I can see our food coming now.’

  Elmer craned round, stiff-necked. ‘You got the prettiest waitress of this Caribbean lot too, typical that. Cocksure bugger, aren’t yah?’ Jan got him away.

  ‘The waitresses were all Russian last year,’ Warren said, once the girl who had a sunny smile had delivered their fearsome lobsters and departed. ‘It’s summer work, they live here in dorms.’

  ‘Do I have to wear a bib?’ Daisy said, as Warren put his on with a sorry-about-this wry smile.

  ‘Best to, the butter spatters everywhere. And that’s the auction dress, isn’t it? Pretty. We’ll go shopping tomorrow, buy up Carolina Herrera’s entire stock!’

  He tackled the cardinal-red beast on his plate, cracking claws, looking up now and then with as sunny a smile as the waitress. He’d enjoyed humouring Elmer, enjoyed being at the Meadow Club where he came back to every year. Daisy felt he could have asked her where she’d like to go, even if she wanted to eat out at all, since he’d seen how upset she’d been, saying goodbye to Susannah. It was Martha’s night off, yet Daisy loved to cook. It would have relaxed her, and allowed her to surprise him with a culinary star turn. But it was a bit muc
h to expect Warren to have thought of that, she could see.

  ‘Elmer’s certainly had a skinful. He won’t be up for much tonight!’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think so.’ Daisy gave a little giggle, finding it hard to imagine Elmer up for anything much, even on the most sober of nights.

  She retreated again, recalling the restaurant Nick and Toni’s where she’d gone with Gerald, the auctioneer. It had class food and the place had rocked – no shortage of atmosphere there. Surely Warren could venture beyond Southampton now and then? Dear Gerald with his nose, she would always have a soft spot for him.

  He’d found love. As had her own twins’ father who’d turned up so unexpectedly from New Zealand with his male lover. That visit had been two surprises in one. Gerald’s was a more risk-all relationship, but both had been a case of falling in love with dramatic force. Even Peter, Daisy’s second husband, had a new squeeze, according to Simon – a girl with a rich daddy. Daisy felt bitter; it would be quite something if Peter ever made a love-match. He was incapable of genuine, deep feelings, a man with not a jot of love in his soul.

  And Warren? He had feelings, he wasn’t just a dry old stick, stuck in his golden rut. It was slowly dawning on her that as well as wanting to be seen with her – he a seventy year old, proudly out with a moderately good-looker half his age who wasn’t a tart – his choice of the Meadow Club had been as much from a sense of emotional insecurity.

  He was treading cautiously, not entirely sure of her, nor probably of his own true feelings. His libido was doing okay now, but what about further down the line? What about when he was as droopy as old Elmer? Did he wonder how much he’d be able to trust her at the Zimmer stage of life – if not before? How much could she trust herself? Suppose she was home to see the boys, would she ever be able to resist seeing Simon as well? Warren was possessive; she could even imagine him resorting to employing a private detective. He’d want to keep tabs on her.

  She felt his hand close over hers across the table. ‘There’s a lot of thinking going on behind those lovely green eyes of yours,’ he said. ‘Want to share anything? You haven’t eaten much, either.’

  Daisy looked down at her lobster. ‘He’s a very big chap, this one. Do you want my claws?’ Warren smiled and patted his still lean stomach, shaking his head. ‘There is one thing,’ Daisy held his eyes. ‘I’m worrying a bit about bedrooms,’ she confessed, whimsically aware it was half-true. ‘I mean, no problem tonight with Martha away seeing her poor son, but I’d be a little sensitive, moving into your room otherwise. Susannah’s only just gone, and I need time alone, a bit of private space with such a lot to think through. Giving up my life in England . . . and the boys have another year at university, they’ll need me around a while yet. You need to be truly sure as well, Warren love, to think through all the facets of your life and whether I’d really fit in. Shall we, just for the moment, keep separate rooms, ostensibly at least?’

  ‘I couldn’t understand more.’ Warren squeezed her hand. Did he look ever so slightly relieved? Though any upheaval like sharing a room would be the last thing on his mind if it were a real coup de foudre. But it wasn’t that. Weren’t they past love at first sight anyway, both of them too old? Weren’t they more of an age and time of life to rationalize and think about practicalities? Daisy stifled a heavy sigh. She wanted love in her life.

  Warren smiled up at the waitress, arriving to clear the plates. ‘What desserts have we?’

  ‘Gooey choccy gateau, ices, all the usual,’ she said cheerily. ‘Any takers?’

  ‘I’m done, couldn’t manage another thing,’ Daisy said, longing to go.

  Warren wanted fruit salad; he worked hard at staying slim.

  ‘Did Elmer inherit his money?’ she asked curiously, out of private amusement, yet immediately feeling cross with herself as she realized it made her sound money-obsessed. ‘I just can’t imagine him as a demon tiger in business, one of the giants.’

  ‘Oh, you’re quite wrong there. He didn’t inherit, he grew a vastly successful pharmaceutical company after some genius thinking that turned up a new drug.’

  Daisy looked, and felt, suitably impressed. It was salutary. Bad for her confidence, though. She needed to believe in the soundness of her judgement – never more so than now.

  Daisy slept in Warren’s room with Martha not back till noon the next day. She knew the room’s staid, masculine décor, its exact dimensions, Willa’s effeminate bedroom leading off, every centimetre of the house. She and Susannah had been measuring up for weeks.

  She hadn’t slept with Warren before, only fucked. He’d asked her to marry him without having seen her early-morning face. Fifty years ago when living together was a rare event it wouldn’t have been so surprising. Nowadays he could have asked her to move in with him, seen how they got on. She decided Warren was just very old-fashioned.

  The sex wasn’t the best, certainly not for her. Warren was excessively passionate, panting out declarations of his love and the wonder of her, but she wasn’t responsive, unable to relax, not in an orgasmic frame of mind. The exertion took it out of him as well. He had to recover and was breathless for ages. ‘Whew,’ he said, turning to her finally, putting his arm round her and pulling her close. ‘What are you doing to me! Come and snuggle up.’

  Daisy rested her head on his hairless chest with just the hint of a sense of giving him his money’s worth. ‘Did you mind Willa sleeping in the other room?’ she asked, mildly curious, massaging his thigh. ‘Did she visit you or was it the other way round?’

  ‘It was only early on that I got anywhere near her. Willa was soon pretty disinterested, sour, bitchy, slagging me off in public so there was no question of any visiting! She complained I snored too,’ Warren said with plaintive hurt, ‘which I don’t think I do.’

  ‘Tell you in the morning! You know double doors are going in when the work starts, to make it effectively one room again – you okay with that?’

  ‘I guess.’ But he sounded a little dubious.

  ‘Better get some sleep now,’ Daisy said, easing out of his hold and settling on her side. She turned back. ‘But just one thing, shopping tomorrow: I don’t want you buying me loads of amazing presents, certainly not Carolina dresses – not now, not when I’m still thinking things through. Suppose I decided that I couldn’t transplant, couldn’t make you truly happy . . . I’d feel simply dreadful about it if you’d been wildly extravagant. It would put me in an agonizing spot. You do see?’

  Daisy looked at him anxiously, slightly wishing she didn’t have to be so virtuous. She’d never been shopping with a man who could buy a jet plane and throw in a designer’s entire stock. What would be the joy, though, in wearing an eye-poppingly expensive summer frock, only to sit listening to Elmer Harvey sounding off about dog shit or calling Obama a Communist who wasn’t born in the USA.

  Warren leaned up to kiss her. ‘We’re having none of that, we’re going shopping. Think of the pleasure it’ll give me. And I’ve never been called extravagant before! When you’re rich, people expect you to pick up the tab as a matter of course; no one ever considers repaying hospitality. They think there’s no need. They never bother, and they forget all about manners and generosity.’

  Daisy wondered about that. People with little money had their pride. And in her extremely brief experience, on the strength of a summer on Long Island, she reckoned the very rich competed over who could be seen to spend the most. Their wealth was a badge of belonging and superiority, a form of gilt-edged snobbery.

  Warren was up and dressed when she woke. He sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her forehead. ‘You looked so lovely, sleeping. Did I snore?’ It really seemed to bug him.

  ‘Only when you were on your back – and not much then,’ she said, though she hadn’t a clue, hadn’t heard a thing. But she wasn’t having him think he was faultless.

  They shopped in Southampton. Warren didn’t go as overboard as promised, so Daisy was almost disappointed, but she still returned with
two new designer dresses and some stylish jewellery. Strolling up Main Street in her Manolos, her Chloé handbag slung over her arm, wearing one of the arresting necklaces they’d just bought, Daisy was aware of people giving her interested looks. It felt good, she could get used to this . . .

  Warren made no secret of how much he enjoyed being seen out with her; he had his arm round her, a broad smile on his face. She absorbed the way he naturally expected and accepted the fawning fuss that shop managers and owners made of him. It didn’t bother him; it was routine.

  He took her to Sag Harbor in the afternoon. Great for early sundowners, he said – but she had a cup of tea. When they were home, he pottered next door, smirking and saying Elmer must be ready for a reviver or three. Daisy said, if he didn’t mind, she’d stay put; she was excited to try on her new clothes and needed to call the boys, see how they were doing. Warren was prompted to ask after them and he showed a new, keener and more solicitous interest. Daisy was happy to talk about them. They’d been playing a lot of tennis, staying with friends whose parents lived in the country; her father had given his grandsons some holiday work too, which had been timely, as they’d been on the scrounge, fresh out of the readies. And now, she said, since the boys had jointly managed to wheedle a bursary out of the university, they were off to Siena for a few days, on a culture kick. They were hardly feeling neglected – there was no question of her being missed.

  With Warren out of the house she went to her bedroom and called her sons, who were partying at home to judge from the noises off. God help the state the house would be in. She nagged them about watering her tiny back jungle. She knew the dramatic difference very regular watering made to London gardens: shrubs and climbers shot up with rainforest speed. She was longing to be able to afford a computerised hose system. It would be needed all the more if she were going to branch out and try to build up a new career.

  She felt homesick.

  The doorbell rang. Martha had returned and went to see to it. Daisy heard Jan Harvey’s voice and cursed quietly as she dutifully went to say hi. God, the thought of living with regular, if not daily, visits from Jan . . . She could imagine how soon she’d be making excuses and ruthlessly turning her away.