by Isla Dewar
‘Ach, that boy always had a mind of his own.’
‘It’s his job,’ said Nell. ‘He has to be a fit and proper person.’
‘Implying that I’m not?’ May’s face darkened.
‘Of course not,’ said Nell.
‘Good girl.’ She took Nell by the shoulders, turned her to face the far corner of the room and the dark red grand piano that was standing there. ‘What do you think of that?’
Nell said it was beautiful. ‘I didn’t know you could play?’
‘I can’t. But I can sing and that’s what I’m going to be doing later. Classy, huh?’
Nell said it was, but only because she didn’t dare say it wasn’t.
The buffet table was mobbed. Undaunted, May shouted, ‘Make way for the cook.’ People moved aside. ‘That’s what I like, respect.’ She opened her arms at the spread on the table and turned to Nell. ‘What about this, then?’
‘Dazzling,’ said Nell. ‘It’s like a feast in a fairy story.’
‘That was the plan,’ said May. ‘Help yourself. But next time you come, you’ll have to pay.’ She looked round. ‘Soon this place will be the place to come. The most fashionable restaurant in the country.’ She smiled, contemplating this, and then patted Nell’s hand. ‘I have to circulate.’ She started to breeze off, but stopped suddenly and whirled round. ‘I hope you didn’t use the fund to get that dress.’
Before Nell could reply, May said, ‘Don’t do it again. That money is for when misery strikes. And strike it will.’ She pointed at Nell. ‘Your trouble is you’re too comfortable in your life right now. You know nothing about misery.’ She looked round at the gathering at the table and addressed them all. ‘But misery is out there waiting to happen. It visits us all. Am I not right, ladies?’
Spooning food onto their plates the assorted women smiled and agreed. May grinned. She knew these women. There was nothing they liked better than eating salmon mousse and salad while reminiscing about miseries they’d endured and exchanging tales of dire things that had happened to other people. And as the stories got more horrific, they’d contemplate the slice of chocolate cake they were about to indulge in.
The evening passed slowly. Nell, clutching her glass, wandered through the crowd, scanning unfamiliar faces, searching for the one she knew best – Alistair’s. She couldn’t find him. At one point, May took her by the elbow and pulled her to one side away from the throng. ‘You’re wandering about looking lost and woebegone. Stop it. You young ones have no idea about how to hide your feelings. Step forward with a purpose. Look as if you know where you are going. Look interesting. That’s the sort of people I want here, interesting ones. Now get back in there, mingle, chat, smile, and pretend to be a fun person, even though you’re not.’
Chastised, Nell went back to searching for Alistair. Jostling through the crowd, she caught snatches of conversation. Mostly people were complaining about the heat. Some were unimpressed by the grandness of the occasion.
‘Wonderful food,’ said a woman.
‘Bit over the top,’ her companion replied. ‘The Rutherfords always overdo everything. Show-offs.’
Heading out into the garden, Nell passed two men discussing the new restaurant. ‘How long do you give it?’
‘A year, if this extravagance is anything to go by,’ said critic number one.
‘I’d say six months,’ said number two.
Nell moved on into the garden, searched the faces there and found Carol. She was leaning against a tree looking bored, but provocative. She was being Brigitte Bardot – sultry. She’d been practising her pout. They trilled their fingers at one another and smiled.
‘Haven’t seen you in ages,’ said Carol. ‘What’ve you been up to?’
‘The usual. Working. Coming home, making the tea, going to bed, getting up and going out to work again. Saturday’s we go out.’
Carol nodded. ‘Sounds a bit boring.’
‘I’m happy enough, though. I don’t have to ask you what you’ve been doing. I saw you.’
Carol stopped pouting and asked what Nell meant.
‘You were coming out of the Caledonian Hotel with a bloke.’
‘When was this?’
‘Months ago,’ said Nell.
‘How do you know it was me?’
‘You did your famous one-leg-bent-behind-you kiss.’
‘That could’ve been anybody.’
Nell leaned on the tree beside her. ‘It was you. I’d know you anywhere.’
Carol swigged her champagne. ‘This is nice. I could drink it all the time. It’s better than rum and Coke.’
‘I think you’ve had enough,’ said Nell. ‘You’re looking a bit glazed.’
‘You can never have enough champagne,’ said Carol. She drained her glass. ‘You haven’t told anybody, have you?’
Nell shook her head. She didn’t tell tales.
‘I just want to have some fun,’ said Carol. ‘I’m due it. I’m making up for all the good times I missed by having a baby when I was too young. I reckon I’ve lost out on two years of going out on the town. Once I’ve had them, I’ll be ready to settle down. Anyway, it was a goodbye kiss you saw. It was nothing. I’d met the bloke in the bar. He wanted me to come to his flat. You know what he’d have wanted if I’d gone. I said no and gave him one of my famous kisses to cheer him up. I don’t cheat on my husband.’
The chatter and small bursts of laughter of other guests sparked around them. Carol looked across at a group of young people, watched them exchange witty remarks, looked with envy at their clothes and their confidence and jerked her head at them. ‘See them? They’re the real people. The in crowd. I’ve never managed to be part of something like that. I’ve never been smart enough. Now I’m just a mum, a nobody, somebody you’d pass in the street and not even notice. Except for when I go out on Thursday nights. Then I’m alive again. I miss my old life. I miss being me.’
‘You don’t go out to bars on your own?’ Nell was shocked at the thought.
‘Nah,’ said Carol. ‘I go with one of the mums from the mother and toddler group. She’s the same as me. Got preggers too young, got some wild oats to sow. And we don’t do anything much, just drinking and dancing and a little flirting. When a girl is married to a sofa snorer who never speaks to her and never tells her she’s lookin’ good, she needs to know she’s still got what it takes.’
‘And have you?’ asked Nell.
‘I do,’ said Carol. She patted her hair, wiggled her hips and grinned.
Nell sighed and told her friend to be careful. ‘You never know who you’ll bump into when you’re out on the town.’
‘I don’t need to be careful,’ said Carol. ‘Being careful spoils the fun. I’m only having a laugh. Nothing wrong with that.’ She waved her empty glass in the air. ‘I’m off for a refill.’ Aglow with confidence, convinced she was the best-looking woman at the party, Carol, holding aloft her glass, disappeared into the crowd.
Alone again, Nell resumed her search for Alistair. She found him in the car park at the front of the hotel. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hiding,’ he said. ‘You know I hate parties, and it’s getting a bit lively in there.’
‘Is it?’ Nell looked longingly at the door. It was open. Noise, laughter and torrents of voices poured out. The party was peaking.
He asked if she wanted to go back in.
Nell nodded.
‘Of course you do,’ he said, ‘but not as an actual reveller. You want to be in your usual place watching from the sidelines.’
‘I’m better at looking on than I am at joining in.’
Alistair took her hand. ‘A swift ten minutes ogling the goings-on, and then we’re going home.’
As evening chill descended, everyone had come inside. May had stoked the fire with a batch of logs and now the heat was insufferable. People gleamed, wiped their foreheads, puffed out their cheeks and complained. The buffet table had been ransacked and ruined – chickens decimated, the huge
ornate salmon mousse had turned flaccid, hams were now but shreds and crumbs on their platters, baguettes torn up, lobsters cracked and shells left empty, dollops had been scooped from the cakes. The Eiffel Tower was slowly, sadly dripping, and keeling over to one side. It was a mess, a soggy mess.
But the champagne still flowed. And now some drinkers had abandoned it and were knocking back whisky or vodka from the bar. The alcoholic mix was taking its toll. Nell doubted there was a sober person here. The jostling, the shrill voices, the sudden bursts of ostentatious laughter – it reminded Nell of days gone by. It was like the Locarno without the music, the dancing and the fighting. This is what the Locarno would have been like if old people had taken over. Instead of being a room full of people behaving badly, it was a room full of people who would have behaved badly if their wives or husbands weren’t around to see them.
May clapped her hands and addressed the mob. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, time for a little entertainment.’ She minced across the room to the piano and smiled to the young man in evening dress who was sitting at it. ‘Maestro,’ she said.
The piano player dragged the back of his hand over his dripping brow, dried it on his trousers and started to play the opening chords of ‘There’s a Small Hotel’. May leaned casually on the piano, glass placed beside her, took a deep breath and huskily sang the first syllable of the first word.
And from across the floor, a shrill scream, ‘Let’s twist.’
Carol had cleared a small area of floor and was giving a demonstration of the dance to a group of fascinated onlookers. Pivoting on the balls of her feet, arms bent in a running motion, she was wildly wiggling her body as she lowered and raised herself up and down. Lacking any musical accompaniment, she was getting into the groove by singing ‘Let’s Twist Again’ at the top of her voice. Her audience, mostly men, were appreciative. When she’d finished, she laughed and clapped her hands. ‘C’mon, let’s twist!’
The whole room turned away from May to watch. ‘The twist, how marvellous,’ someone shouted. ‘What fun.’
‘Just twist your body from side to side and up and down you go,’ shrilled Carol. ‘It’s easy. Move to the music.’
One or two people pointed out that there was no music. So someone shouted to the piano player to play some twisting songs. Not wanting to spoil the party, he obliged and thumped out the Chubby Checker number.
A chance to join the young ones and dance the latest craze was too much to resist. Half the room started to gyrate their bodies from side to side while lowering themselves towards the floor. They laughed at how wild and abandoned they were being and joined in the song.
May stopped leaning seductively on the piano, stood up, folded her arms and glared at Carol. Carol grinned and waved. May glared harder, the full electric stare. It could have melted the Eiffel Tower if it hadn’t already slumped in a mushy heap onto the table.
The look stung Nell. She gasped. When insulted, this woman was terrifying. But Carol didn’t care; she was drunk and doing the twist and having a wonderful time.
Nell saw May turn the vile stare at Johnny. He was leaning on the bar watching his wife’s display looking mildly amused. Sensing his mother’s glare, he looked at her, shrugged, caught the bar tender’s eye and ordered a beer.
Nell turned to Alistair to see what he was thinking. He was smiling, his eyes aglow, watching Carol with admiration, and something else. Lust. Nell gazed at him. Yes, dammit, that was lust on her charming, mild-mannered husband’s face.
Chapter Fifteen
Come In
For some time it had been Carol’s morning routine to lock the doors and hide upstairs to avoid May. When she was first married, May had dropped by every day bringing food and offering advice on the business of looking after a man – one man in particular: her son. She offered daily updates on what Johnny liked to eat, wear and watch on television. As she did this, she would sweep round the kitchen gathering breakfast dishes, packing damp towels in the washing machine and giving instructions on how to serve the meal she’d brought for that night’s supper. Every so often she would stop, sigh and say, ‘He was a beautiful baby. And he’s still beautiful. I could just sit and stare at that face of his for hours and hours.’
Later, after Katy was born, May would bring small tubs of puréed food. ‘Chicken and carrot, homemade this morning. You don’t want to be giving her any of that shop-bought stuff. You don’t know what’s in it. This—’ she waved the tub at Carol ‘—is pure goodness.’
Eventually, unable to bear this early intrusion, Carol had taken her baby to the bedroom, crawled with her under the blankets and listened as May rang the doorbell and shouted, ‘Hello, anybody at home?’ through the letterbox. In time that changed; May would walk round the house peering in through the windows, rattle at the back door, and then return to the front door and shout, ‘I know you’re in there. You’re hiding. You’re being silly, behaving like a spoilt child. Nobody hides from me.’
This went on for a couple of weeks. Then it stopped. Carol would spend her mornings sitting, shoulders tensed, waiting for the dread sound of May’s footsteps on the gravel path outside. Nothing. It was over. Carol relaxed. The witch had got the message. She wasn’t wanted here.
On the morning after the gala opening party at Rutherford’s, Carol was feeling seedy. Her head throbbed, her mouth was dry and newly awakened muscles in her legs ached from too much twisting. She fed Katy, put her in her playpen and sat at the kitchen table contemplating last night’s foolishness. She’d drunk too much champagne. She’d given a demonstration of the twist. She’d upstaged her mother-in-law. There would be repercussions. She didn’t dare think what they would be.
‘You forgot to lock the door,’ said a voice from behind her.
Carol span round, her hand on her chest to soothe her startled heart. May was standing in the doorway. It was eight-thirty in morning and she was wearing her new navy business suit complete with briefcase and six-inch heels. Her face was made up, a thick layer of blue eye-shadow on her lids, her mouth a slash of scarlet lipstick. She reeked of Estée Lauder Youth Dew perfume. It was scary.
‘Who do you think you are, doing the twist at my party?’
Carol opened her mouth to reply. She was about to say she hadn’t realised May was about to sing. Though this wasn’t true. Her loud offer to demonstrate the new dance had been a piece of mischief. She’d wanted to annoy her mother-in-law.
‘You deliberately upstaged me,’ said May. ‘Nobody upstages me. It was my party and if I want to sing, I’ll sing. Rutherford’s is mine. It’s posh. There will be no teenage nonsense there. It will be a twist-free zone where people can relax and enjoy haute cuisine food and good wine.’ She pointed at Carol. ‘You are going to learn to behave yourself. You are going to come and work for me. You’ll muck in, serve tables, wash dishes, chop vegetables, scrub and sweat with me to make the business a success. We’ll be in that kitchen from dawn till dusk. We’ll be bone tired; our hands will be raw red. We’ll hardly see our husbands and there will be no fun and no twisting for us but it will be worth it. You start tomorrow. Meantime, clean up this house. It’s filthy.’
Carol opened her mouth again. This time to say she had no intention of working for May. She hated cooking. She hated cleaning. She hated her life.
May held up a silencing hand. ‘Look at you. We’re half way through the morning and you’re still in your dressing gown. You’re nothing but a lazy slut. When I was your age I’d have the nappies washed and out on the line, the house immaculate and the boys fed, dressed and ready for a trip to the park. What sort of wife are you never cooking, never cleaning? My son, my beautiful son, deserves to come home to a sparkling house, a hot meal and a loving wife. Do you know for weeks now he’s been bringing his dirty shirts to me to wash and iron? He’s a man and men need looking after. That’s a woman’s job. And you’re no good at it. You can’t even fry an egg. You’re useless.’
She turned and strode towards the front door shouting, �
�But don’t worry, I’ll soon cure you of that.’ She slammed the door after her.
Carol slumped in her chair, blew out her cheeks and said, ‘Well, that’s me told.’ She poured herself a cup of tea, looked round and thought that she had to agree with May. The place was a mess. She considered the cups heaped beside the sink. ‘Cups. I can’t be bothered with cups. I don’t want to wash them. Technically, they’re not my cups. I didn’t choose them. I hate them.’ She went over to the playpen where Katy was sucking on a rusk. ‘I didn’t know I’d have to do all this when I got married. I promised to love, honour and cherish. There was no mention of cups in the deal. Or vacuuming, or making beds, or ironing.’
She picked up the child, and carried her to the living room, ‘Look at this place. Isn’t it awful? It’s hideous – all clashing colours, too much pattern.’ She slapped her hand over her eyes. ‘It hurts to look at it. This isn’t what I wanted. This is what the witch wanted. She chose everything. This isn’t where I live. It’s where I stay, a roof over my head. That’s all. It isn’t home.’
The word stilled her. Home, she thought. It’s where her mother was – a place of comfort, hot food on the table and a warm bed at night. She wanted to be back in her pink bedroom, a mug of cocoa on the bedside table and a poster of James Dean looking moody. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said. ‘Let’s just pack up and go where we really belong.’
The notion pleased her. She was suddenly happy. Happiness. She grinned. She’d forgotten how it felt. She swept the baby up and ran upstairs to pack. It took a while. Decisions about what to take and what to leave were hard, but two hours later, she walked out of the house and set off along the street shoving Katy in her pushchair, over-stuffed suitcase banging against her leg, singing ‘There’s No Place Like Home’.
She took the bus to Princes Street and strolled the pavement gazing into shop windows. It was busy, the case was heavy and the child got hot, hungry and fractious, screaming and kicking to get out of her pushchair. Carol crossed the road and went into the gardens where she sat on the grass sharing an ice cream and a bar of chocolate with Katy, and then she held her close and willed her to sleep. She needed peace to daydream.