The Saturday Supper Club

by Amy Bratley

  ‘Fuck, yes,’ she said. ‘Once you start looking, the world is full of married men who want a mistress. They’re literally everywhere.’

  ‘That’s just miserable,’ I said sullenly.

  Maggie shrugged.

  ‘Obviously some want more than what I like to give,’ she said. ‘They want love and commitment and tattoos on necks, but that’s not my style. I lay down the rules and if they take that on board, no one gets hurt.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, narrowing my eyes at Maggie.

  I couldn’t quite believe how harsh she was being. No one really felt that coldly about relationships, did they? I didn’t buy it. Everything about her flat portrayed her as an arty, creative person with soul, not the ice queen she was making out to be.

  ‘And what about their unsuspecting wives or girlfriends?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel bad to be helping him cheat and hurt someone’s feelings? Fair enough if their relationship is on the rocks and he breaks up with her, but to keep two relationships going? That’s a bit ropey, isn’t it? And don’t you, really, want someone for yourself? Underneath that cool exterior?’

  Maggie shook her head dismissively.

  ‘No,’ she said decisively. ‘It’s none of my business to worry about the wife or girlfriend. I’m only interested in good food, good sex and good conversation. All’s fair in love and war.’

  ‘But,’ I said, my cheeks beginning to burn, ‘that’s wrong! If you don’t respect boundaries, then what hope is there for any relationship? You can’t just wade into a marriage and take the best bits and leave the worst for the wife. If it was the other way round, you’d be heartbroken, wouldn’t you?’

  Maggie put her hand up to stop me speaking. She smiled indulgently. I got the feeling she was well used to this kind of conversation.

  ‘Calm down, Eve,’ she said. ‘You sound like a Jane Austen character.’

  ‘I am calm,’ I snapped. ‘And no, I don’t sound like anyone else but me . . .’

  I stopped myself speaking and shut my mouth. I was a guest in Maggie’s house, after all.

  ‘Look,’ she said, more gently, brushing something off her dress. ‘I should have known not to bring this up. I never get a good reaction. Anyway, Ethan doesn’t have a wife or kids, does he? So he’s an exception to the rule. I won’t be treading on anyone’s toes there, will I?’

  I shrugged, and for a few moments we sat there in awkward silence, me fuming at Maggie’s words, necking back my wine and repeatedly biting the inside of my cheek. Maggie was exactly the sort of woman I feared. Stunning, cool, in control and happy to trample all over other people’s hearts. Plus she had an annoyingly coy expression on her face, like everything she’d just said was perfectly innocent.

  ‘So,’ I said, sucking in my breath. ‘Did anything happen with Ethan the other night after you went out?’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It was an interesting challenge for me because—’

  Then the doorbell rang. I breathed out. Maggie stopped speaking, stood up and moved over to her iPod dock to turn the music up a little.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ she said.

  I nodded, but frowned behind her back. I was thinking about something else now. I shivered. My stomach lurched at the thought of seeing Ethan again. I clutched the stem of my glass tighter and knocked back the dregs of my wine in one gulp. Daisy’s voice rang out in my head: Promise you won’t go? I’m saying what Mum would have said if she were here . . .

  ‘Oh God,’ I muttered to myself, when I heard Ethan’s voice and the sound of Maggie and Ethan’s footsteps coming up the stairs to her flat. Grabbing a copy of Dazed & Confused from the coffee table in front of me, I immersed myself in an article about a Russian photographer’s childhood encounters with bears, though the words were swarming in front of my eyes, like crawling ants.

  ‘Tube trauma,’ I heard Ethan say. He was suddenly only inches away from me, pushing his black hair away from his eyes. My cheeks blazed. I peered out from over the magazine.

  ‘Fucking hour it’s taken me to get here,’ he continued. ‘Apparently, there’s a good service, except for all the engineering works on all the major lines. It’s really fucking great that there’s a good service on just one line. Thanks, London Underground! Hello, Eve, you look gorgeous.’

  I dropped the magazine and stood awkwardly. I felt Ethan’s eyes roll over me as he pulled off his bag. I put my hands self-consciously on my thighs – I was regretting the shorts, wishing I’d opted for a sack.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, waving small circles in the air with my palm, like a lunatic.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ Ethan said, waving back at me the same way. I caught his eye for a second and we both suppressed a smile. Then I sat back down again and covered my legs with a cushion.

  ‘So,’ said Maggie, placing herself between Ethan and me, holding up a bottle of red. ‘Would you like a drink? Eve’s boyfriend has proposed to her, so we should all drink to that.’

  I blushed madly, irritated with Maggie for putting me on the spot.

  ‘No,’ I said quickly, glancing up at Ethan. ‘No, he hasn’t proposed. I just think he might be about to propose. That’s all.’

  ‘That’s all?’ said Ethan, sitting down on the sofa opposite me, making a meal of extracting a bottle of champagne from his bag and not giving me eye contact. ‘That’s a big deal, isn’t it? I think we should definitely drink to that . . .’

  ‘Arsenic, perhaps,’ he whispered, so only I could hear. My eyes bumped into his.

  ‘Listen, it’s not definite . . .’ I said, shrugging, feeling guilty for being so horrible to Joe, immediately correcting myself. ‘But I hope he does.’

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic, Eve,’ Maggie said. ‘Most girls would have got a subscription to Bride magazine by now. Maybe you should take my advice and be a mistress, have meaningless sex-fuelled flings with handsome men.’

  I eyed Maggie. I saw what she was doing. Outlining what she could offer to Ethan, in contrast to me, who was ‘marriage material’. She didn’t know the half of it. She had no idea that Ethan and I used to be so in love we were virtually inseparable. Ethan was acting oblivious, but couldn’t have failed to pick up on the vibes flinging round the room. Ethan put his arm along the length of the back of the sofa – and when Maggie handed him a glass of wine, then sat down next to him, it looked like he had his arm around her. Maggie turned to smile at Ethan, twirling a corkscrew curl with her finger. I felt a pang of jealousy shoot through me. Destiny? What a load of crap. What was I doing here? I missed Joe and wished I’d told him the truth. I stared out of the window and wondered whether I should just make an excuse and go.

  ‘Well,’ Ethan said, looking at me, ‘you’re not most girls, are you, Eve? Anyway, let’s drink to Joe’s maybe proposal. Really, if you’re happy, then we should all celebrate.’

  We all held our glasses in the air, somewhat half-heartedly, and I drank quickly. I told myself to slow down. Already I felt light-headed.

  ‘I’ve got a good feeling about tonight,’ Ethan said distractedly. ‘Mmm, I can smell something tantalizingly delicious.’

  It was true. The subtle smells wafting in from the kitchen were making me really hungry. Ethan sniffed the air, then stopped when the doorbell sounded again. Maggie stood from the sofa and half jogged to get it. This was my chance. If I was here, I should get some answers. I leaned forward towards Ethan, folding my arms around my waist.

  ‘Ethan,’ I said quietly. He looked at me expectantly. ‘We need to talk. I don’t believe in destiny, but I do believe in resolution. I need to know what happened.’

  I noticed my hands were trembling. I sat on them.

  ‘Ethan,’ I carried on, ‘why won’t you just tell me why you left? It’s not going to make any difference to anything, but I want to know.’

  Ethan’s face darkened and he frowned.

  ‘Of course,’ he said seriously. ‘Of course you do. I’m sorry, I must seem so flippant, but I’m genuinely please
d to see you, I can’t help but be happy.’

  Walking towards us from the other side of the living room was Andrew, wiping his brow from the heat. He was considerably more sober than the last time I saw him, dressed in another pale suit, clutching yet more bottles of champagne, a linen bag on his shoulder bearing the slogan ‘The Lido Cafe’. Behind him was Paul, his enormous camera bag on his shoulder. Paul lifted his hand in greeting and explained that he needed to photograph the food again and that we should speak to Dominique in the morning about how the evening went with our reviews and scores.

  ‘I gave you a ten out of ten,’ Ethan whispered into my ear. ‘I tried to give you eleven, but Dominique wouldn’t let me.’

  I smiled but, feeling embarrassed, I kept my eyes on Andrew, as if he were the most fascinating person in the world. He put down his bag, took off his suit jacket, accepted a glass of wine from Maggie, scooped up a handful of pistachio nuts and sat down heavily next to me with a big sigh.

  ‘I must apologize,’ he said, leaning back into the cushions and crossing his ankles, ‘for last time. I was absolutely wasted. I’m so sorry I slept in your bath. I haven’t done that for at least ten years. Not since I was at university.’

  Maggie led Paul into the kitchen, where I heard their muffled voices talking about the menu.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said warmly. ‘How’s it going with your girlfriend?’

  Andrew shook his head and pulled a face.

  ‘Not great,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t too pleased when I didn’t come home last Saturday night and she was having Braxton Hicks contractions. As you can imagine I wasn’t in the least bit popular.’

  ‘Oops,’ said Ethan. ‘You did say you wanted to be wild while you had the chance.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Andrew said. ‘But the woman’s having twins. I’ve got to be there for her all the time, even if she can’t stand the sight of me.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Ethan. ‘Did you say twins?’

  I looked at Ethan, who had paled ever so slightly. My heart swelled. I knew he’d be thinking of his twin. I remembered a beautiful photograph Ethan had of him and his twin asleep on a sheepskin as newborn babies. They were cuddling one another closely, their noses together, arms and legs entwined, as they must have done in the womb. I caught his eye and smiled warmly. He smiled in return. He sighed, looked at his feet then quickly recovered himself.

  ‘Twins, yes,’ Andrew said, smiling worriedly. ‘They will be born at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in two weeks’ time. We have an amazing obstetrician. Apparently he’s a world expert in multiple births. Didn’t I tell you this last time? Must have been too drunk. What an idiot I am.’

  I sat back in my chair.

  ‘Poor Alicia,’ I said. ‘No wonder she’s a bit tense.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said. ‘Apparently they’re big babies, too.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ethan, with a laugh.

  ‘Hopefully not,’ said Andrew. ‘I can’t be doing with the Second Coming, especially not two of them.’

  ‘Ta-dah!’ Maggie said a little later, presenting her lamb and date tagine to the low table we were all sitting round on cushions. ‘A Moroccan feast for you. Ah, wait, I have couscous coming.’

  I breathed in the perfumed scent of ginger, cinnamon, cumin and pepper and looked eagerly at the tender lamb, so succulent and perfectly cooked, it was ready to fall off the bone. On another plate lay a delicious-looking artichoke salad.

  ‘Couscous cumin,’ Ethan said, leaning over to breathe in the smell of the dish. ‘Geddit? How did you cook the couscous? Above the meat?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Maggie said, walloping him over the head with her oven gloves, making the flames of the candles flicker and jump in the breeze. ‘Yes, in the steam from the meat. Should make it full of flavour. And this is the wine we should drink with it.’

  She held up a bottle of red, which Andrew took from her and scrutinized.

  ‘Hang on there for a minute, will you?’ said Paul. ‘I need to get a photograph. Freeze, will you?’

  We all froze, then, when Paul had finished, Maggie picked up a serving spoon from the low table and started to serve.

  ‘Smells fantastic,’ I said, pulling a napkin down onto my lap.

  ‘Feed me!’ Andrew exclaimed. ‘I think you’re the winner so far, Maggie. Sorry, Eve.’

  Maggie laughed uproariously. I smiled wanly.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind. I think you’re right. This is fantastic.’

  Just before Maggie served up huge plates of tender lamb and deliciously fluffy couscous, Paul took more photographs of each dish and then he, too, sat down to eat, claiming this job was making him ‘fat as a pig’. While she served, Maggie explained that she’d spent six months in Morocco teaching English and had learned how to cook proper Moroccan food while staying with a host family, the father of whom seemed more interested in her legs than anything else. Not that she would have minded, of course, I thought, but did not say – he was married! Ethan made us laugh with anecdotes about his parents’ constant arguments at the deli (they were stereo-typically Italian and were hilariously rude to each other but passionately in love) and a recent audition for a new flavour of crisps he’d failed to get because he couldn’t crunch the right way. ‘Years of training to be an actor,’ he said, ‘and still I don’t know how to crunch.’

  For the remainder of the meal, I forgot why I was there. Maybe it was the perfumed and delicate flavours of Maggie’s delicious lamb and couscous that melted on the tongue and made Andrew’s eyes literally roll back in his head; maybe the wine had something to do with it, but I forgot that Ethan had turned up out of the blue just a few days ago. I forgot that I should be with Joe, that he might, this very minute, be preparing his proposal to me. I relaxed. I existed just for the moment, enjoying the times when Ethan’s eyes nudged mine and we looked at one another like we knew just what the other one was thinking. It was like old times.

  ‘I’m really enjoying myself,’ Andrew said, voicing all of our thoughts. ‘First time in ages I’ve relaxed.’

  ‘Oh, Andrew,’ Maggie said. ‘You do paint a sad picture of your life. I feel sorry for you.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I just seem to annoy Alicia so much, so there’s quite a cloud over my existence at the moment. Everything I do sets her off. We’ve been trying to get pregnant for quite a few years, and just before it happened we were on the verge of breaking up. We probably should have, but anyway, I never realized quite how irritating I was until recently.’

  Andrew laughed at himself, but I liked him already and didn’t like the thought of him feeling so miserable.

  ‘That’s a difficult situation,’ I said. ‘But all relationships have ups and downs, don’t they?’

  Ethan deliberately turned away from me and poured himself more wine.

  ‘Alicia must have some annoying traits, hasn’t she?’ he asked. ‘She can’t be completely perfect, can she?’

  Andrew nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘I think she is pretty much perfect,’ he said slowly. ‘I can’t think of anything bad to say about her.’

  Maggie banged her hand down on the table.

  ‘Oh, come on, Andrew!’ she said. ‘Release your inner bitch. There must be one thing, just one thing about her that’s annoying.’

  Andrew leaned back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling, then crossed his legs.

  ‘Actually,’ he said quietly, ‘there is one thing.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Maggie. ‘I knew it. Out with it.’

  We all leaned in to listen to Andrew’s admission. He looked around nervously, as if he wasn’t sure he should say anything at all. I watched Maggie wink at him encouragingly.

  ‘We won’t say a thing,’ she said conspiratorially.

  ‘OK,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know if it’s something to do with her circulation, but when she gets into bed at night and expects a spoons cuddle, her bottom is always freezing cold. It’s got quite big since the pr
egnancy and she reverses towards me like some kind of lorry. I have to brace myself for it every night, because it’s like ice. Of course, I can’t say a word in complaint. But, bloody hell, it’s so cold.’

  Wine shot through my nose as I burst out laughing. Ethan, Maggie and Paul creased up. Ethan rested his hand on my forearm briefly, something he used to do when we were both enjoying or appreciating something.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ Andrew said, laughing a little, looking slightly bemused. ‘It’s the truth. She’s like a bloody freezing-cold lorry reversing under the duvet.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Maggie said, wiping her eyes. ‘I knew you couldn’t be completely soft, oops, if you pardon the pun.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Maggie says you have chemistry,’ I blurted out to Ethan over the table, when Andrew – probably feeling guilty – popped out to phone Alicia, and Maggie disappeared into her bedroom, to change, she said, for pudding.

  ‘Does she?’ Ethan said, folding his arms over his chest, eyebrows raised, a smile on his lips.

  ‘When you went out together the other night,’ I garbled. ‘She said there was chemistry between you, so I was just repeating her words. Is it true? I mean, do you have chemistry, or is she—’

  I stopped speaking, closed my eyes and rocked back in my chair. What was I saying? I put my hand on my forehead and shook my head.

  ‘Maggie said you’re getting married to Joe,’ Ethan replied in a low voice. ‘Is that true?’

  I snapped open my eyes and stared at Ethan. He gave me a comical look.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, feeling defensive and protective of Joe, hating that Ethan was talking about him. ‘Hopefully. Anyway, what do you care? You made your mind up about me three years ago and I still want to know why you left.’

  My head was spinning. I’d drunk too much and was feeling way too emotional. I knew the best thing I could do was be quiet. I gulped down a glass of water.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Ethan said, pulling a packet of Drum from his pocket. ‘But I need a cigarette first.’