by Ruth Hogan
‘Are you okay?’ she asks.
It has to stop.
Back at the table, Stanley is serving pea and mint risotto. After a few mouthfuls Hugo blows his nose on his napkin. Lady T is fearfully hot on ‘ugly tricks at meals’, and I’m pretty sure this would qualify. But Epiphany is clearly determined to be a gracious hostess to the bitter end and turns to Hugo.
‘So, Hugo, what’s been the most difficult house you’ve had to sell?’
She does a reasonable job of sounding genuinely interested, considering the fact that Hugo has talked incessantly, enthusiastically and exclusively about himself since he arrived. The only relief from this relentless, self-congratulatory monologue has been the occasional insult or derisory remark fired at one of her other guests.
‘I never have a problem selling any property.’
Why are we not surprised?
‘It’s a gift,’ he continues, ‘that I happen to have. You just have to know what to tell the buyers and what to leave out.’
‘But isn’t there some sort of code of practice now, designed to protect us mere mortals from the wily ways of estate agents with their beguiling descriptions, and craftily cropped and airbrushed photographs?’ asks Helen, who has recently been thinking of moving.
‘It’s rumoured that such a document exists, but I certainly don’t lose any sleep over it.’
Hugo’s ability to mind his manners is deteriorating in direct proportion to the amount of wine that he is pouring down his throat. Never mind that politeness didn’t appear to be his forte in the first place. He continues with his mission to enthral us with the glamour and excitement of his job.
‘I’ve had a few dodgy moments in my time, I can tell you.’
‘And I’m sure he’s going to,’ I whisper to Edward.
Hugo pauses dramatically for a moment to adjust the huge cuffs on his horrid pink shirt, and I notice that his cufflinks bear the words ‘shaken’ and ‘stirred’; 007 would be so proud.
‘One time, I arrived at this house a bit early for the viewing. While I was waiting for the prospective buyers to turn up, I thought I’d check out the lingerie department in the master bedroom. I’d met the vendors, and the wife was really fit. My guess was La Perla, Agent Provocateur, and a little bit of Ann Summers for those saucy weekends away. I’m a bit of an expert on ladies’ underwear; especially getting them out of it.’
Hugo winks at me. Again. But this time it is accompanied by a sweaty hand squeezing my thigh. At this juncture I want to punch Hugo very hard indeed. My reserves of graciousness are completely drained and I am now running on vapour. Edward is choking with laughter and Epiphany swiftly draining her wine glass. Albert is staring intently into his risotto, and Roni is gazing adoringly at Hugo, oblivious to the fact that everyone else thinks he’s an arrogant, lecherous oaf. Hugo clearly believes that we are all in awe of his daring and continues, ‘Anyway, I was just getting started and the wife came home unexpectedly and nearly caught me.’
‘That’s appalling!’ Stanley leans back in his chair and shakes his head in disbelief.
‘I couldn’t agree more, mate!’ Hugo isn’t quite following Stanley’s line of thought here. ‘I’d only managed a quick rummage in one drawer before she barged in.’
Stanley leans forward and fixes Hugo with a hard stare. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that it’s acceptable for someone in your position to rifle through the personal possessions of one of your clients?’
‘I like to call it perks of the job, mate. Perks of the job.’
For the briefest of moments there is an embarrassed silence where each of us, excluding Roni, tries to fathom whether we are still obliged to be gracious, or whether the line in the sand has been crossed and, regardless of Lady T’s advice, the gloves are now off. Stanley is the first to decide.
‘Well, I’d call it sleazy knicker-fiddling,’ he says quietly, shaking his head in disgust.
Hugo is now slightly confused. It has never occurred to him that someone could seriously question his complete fabulousness, especially as the more wine he drinks the more convinced of it he becomes.
‘You need to lighten up a bit, mate. Live dangerously for once.’
Hugo is speaking just a tiny bit more slowly now in a valiant attempt to stop his words slurring together, but his sentences are sliding off a tongue made dangerously slippery by excess alcohol, and his efforts are in vain.
‘I’ll fetch dessert,’ says Stanley through grimly gritted teeth.
Moments later, Hugo looks uncannily like the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Having drunk himself into a state of semi-consciousness, he has fallen forward into his dessert of blackcurrant fool – how apposite – and, having been propped back up by the solicitous Roni, is now sporting a rather jaunty purple birthmark across the front of his head. He snores loudly through cigars and coffee, listing and swaying precariously in his chair. He is saved from falling only by Roni, who checks and steadies him like a ventriloquist with her dummy.
Lady T advises that should any accident occur at the table it should be ‘ignored as far as may be by host, hostess and guests’. We are all, with the possible exception of Roni, delighted to ignore Hugo. Roni tells us all about her new hobby, Raq Sharqi, which is apparently a form of Egyptian belly dancing, and offers to perform for us next time we are all together.
‘Heaven forbid,’ whispers Helen. ‘I’d rather have cystitis.’
Eventually Roni orders a taxi and attempts to rouse Hugo and get him on his feet. Albert gallantly comes to her assistance and holds him up while Roni drapes his coat over his shoulders. As Albert leads Hugo to the door, Roni clutches my arm.
‘I’m so sorry. He didn’t mean anything by it – the dogs instead of children thing. He’s just drunk.’ She looks genuinely upset and I feel terrible. Edward steps into the breach.
‘Don’t be daft, darling!’ he says, throwing his arm around her shoulders and giving her a comforting squeeze. ‘It was the wine talking. We could barely make out what he was saying anyway.’
I give her a hug before she follows Hugo and Albert down the drive.
‘That’s the most animated Albert’s been all night. And it’s all down to Hugo’s departure!’ Edward remarks to Epiphany and me, as we are trying and spectacularly failing not to giggle at Hugo desperately clinging to Albert, who is looking increasingly uncomfortable and irritated. Lord Byron, who is surveying the situation with obvious disdain, calmly walks up to Hugo and cocks his leg. Nobody else appears to notice, so I feel Lady T would advocate that on this occasion, discretion is the better part of valour. I say nothing.
Following Hugo’s and Roni’s unsteady departure, we all congratulate Epiphany on her extraordinary graciousness in the face of extreme provocation, and thank both Epiphany and Stanley for their hospitality. Another taxi arrives for Helen and Albert, and amid the affectionate farewell hugs and kisses, Albert, who as usual has hardly uttered a word all evening, winks at me and mutters, ‘That Hugo! Bloody man’s a complete arse.’
Edward and Lord Byron are walking me home. It is clear, cold and still, and our footsteps echo along the street as we stroll, arm in arm, under the vast starry sky.
‘Are you okay?’ Edward asks me as we reach my front gate.
‘Of course I am.’
I kiss him on both cheeks and the top of Lord Byron’s head. Edward hugs me hard and then looks straight into my eyes, as though he is searching for something. For a fleeting moment I feel that there is something else he wants to say. The words, unspoken, hang between us like a breath in the night air, and then they are gone. Perhaps I have frightened them away. Edward waits until my key is in the door, and then sets off to complete their short walk home.
‘By the way,’ I call after him, ‘your dog weed up Hugo’s leg.’
I can hear him laughing all the way down the street.
Chapter 12
ART
Today’s pool temperature is 8.5, the sky is the colour of cement and it is
raining hard. And today I need pain to punish me. Because tomorrow is Christmas Eve and it is therefore the law that everyone must be happy. We must all wear scratchy jumpers emblazoned with snowmen or penguins or reindeer. We must eat our own body weight in seasonal poultry, pies and puddings. We must pull crackers, watch Doctor Who and pretend that we love the padded, scented coat hangers that our stingy colleague has re-gifted to us in the secret Santa. And we must drink snowballs. It’s the law. And I will, I promise. I will try to be happy and not notice when guilt comes tapping on my shoulder as it always does. But to pay for tomorrow, today I must drown. Almost.
There are only two other people in the pool and no sign of the Australian, but if she does appear, this time I’m ready for her. My lungs squeeze and burn while the cold, deep water soothes my mind, but I’m careful not to stay too long. I learned that lesson the hardest way several years ago. After one minute and fifty-five seconds timed on my diver’s watch I burst back onto the surface and swim to the shallow end. The rain stings my goosebumped skin as I hurry back to the changing rooms. Dried and dressed I emerge clutching the book. The book I carry in case I meet the Australian. You see, I’m an addict. And like most addicts, I’m devious. I cover my tracks. The book is called Techniques to Improve Your Singing.
In the empty car park, Edith Piaf starts first time and I praise her fulsomely. On the radio a children’s school choir is singing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. I switch to another channel. My little boy never made it to school. He only had two Christmases. His first was as a tiny baby and his second when he was still barely old enough to know what was going on. That was when we gave him the rocking horse; Edward and I. He was too small to ride it alone, but when we held him in the saddle he kicked and squealed with delight. He had no idea it was Christmas, but he loved his present. I coax Edith into first gear and then into second and head out of the car park. It has finally stopped raining and the pale winter sun is a faint smudge of brightness behind the glowering clouds. I need to get a move on. Haizum is due at the vet in half an hour to get his nails clipped. I had the back seat removed from Edith Piaf when I bought her, to accommodate Haizum. He is delighted with his customised mode of transport. I’m pretty certain he thinks that the car is his and I’m merely the chauffeur.
Patience behind the wheel is not one of my virtues and the woman in the car ahead is already annoying me. She is a ditherer, barely nudging twenty-five miles an hour. Edith is spluttering in third gear. The woman needs to stop chatting to her passenger and concentrate on her driving. The traffic lights ahead are green but we’ll never reach them before they change. My knuckles are turning white on the steering wheel and I’m itching to blast the horn, but I manage to restrain myself. I do shout, however. She can’t hear me, so where’s the harm? And it makes me feel better. Sure enough, the lights change to red as we pull up in front of them, and I finish my remonstrative tirade with a delicious triple expletive. The man in the lane alongside me is agog. I hope he can’t lip read. Perhaps I should pretend that I’m singing again. I bet the woman has put her vehicle into neutral and applied the handbrake, and I bet she’s never done a handbrake turn in her life. It was one of the first things I attempted having passed my test and been trusted to drive Dad’s Mini by myself. He didn’t notice the scratch from the collision with a bollard for two days. The car in front has a small dent in the rear wing. Someone probably drove into it while the woman was having a dither.
We make it to the veterinary surgery with a couple of minutes to spare and then spend half an hour in the waiting room while the two vets on duty battle through their lists, overfilled with the pre-Christmas rush of pet owners reluctant to risk an exorbitant bank holiday call-out fee. Haizum would rather not be here. He is making his feelings known by howling and trying to climb into my lap. Behaviours that, when performed by a quivering wreck of a wolfhound weighing 180lbs, can be a little disturbing. The woman who was sitting next to me holding a perky-looking miniature dachshund has moved to the opposite side of the room and is tutting disapprovingly. There is a brief hiatus and then someone’s dog passes wind. At first it is hardly noticeable; a transitory pungent puff barely troubling the nostrils. But it soon develops into something much worse. It has a definite twang of Brussels sprout. Very festive. Of course, nobody says a word but I blame the dachshund, whose owner appears to find the smell exceedingly sternutative (word of the day – causing sneezing). But I think that’s a diversionary tactic that simply confirms the dachshund’s guilt. Haizum’s appointment lasts little longer than five minutes and is a painless procedure, rewarded, as usual, by a handful of biscuits. On the way out he swaggers jauntily past the nervous patients still waiting to go in, before lunging through the revolving door out into the car park.
Back home he settles down in front of the fire to recover from his ordeal while I decorate the small Christmas tree that I bought on impulse yesterday; a living one because I love the smell, and because it is proof that I want to change my life. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it just yet. I don’t have a plan, just a feeling. A feeling that this, the way I’m living now, is not enough. Not any more. And only I can change it.
This is the first tree I have bought since my little boy died. That first Christmas without him, Mum and Dad wanted me to spend the day with them, but I refused. I told them I’d be fine. That I just needed to be by myself. High days and holidays were like a dentist’s drill on a tooth with an abscess. And Christmas was the worst. Because Christmas is all about children – advent calendars, carol concerts, visits to and from Santa, nativity plays. Jesus Christ – you can’t get away from it. So, that first 25 December, soused in self-pity and furious with the relentless festive cheer, I killed Christmas. I lit a fire in the sitting-room grate and, one by one, I burnt every single Christmas decoration in the house. I threw every Christmas card into the flames, followed by every unopened gift I had received. I stared into the inferno I had created and watched paper curl and crumble, plastic melt, foil dissolve and glass pop and shatter. And I drank vodka. A lot of vodka. Edward came and found me halfway through the bottle and about to set fire to a large poinsettia – a gift from a well-meaning neighbour. He never told a soul. But he also said that if I ever did anything like it again, he would tell everyone that not only had he found me drunk and setting fire to things, but that I had wet my knickers and been sick on the carpet. I don’t think I had, but I’ve never been completely sure, and so I took Edward at his word and stick to outside bonfires now.
When I was a little girl the Christmas tree was always my domain. Dad would wind the fairy lights through the branches first and put the angel on the top and then the tree was mine. I am the only child of two only children. My parents were delighted and, I suspect, a little over-awed when I was born. I wasn’t spoilt exactly, but I was raised on a very long leash. A spirited child full of strange ideas and vivid dreams, I would single-handedly put on plays and pantomimes for my parents and an audience of assorted dolls and teddy bears, and my imaginary friends far outnumbered my real ones. I expect my lovely, sensible, conventional parents were rather startled by the wild and whimsical daughter their combined genes had conspired to create. By the time I had finished with the Christmas tree it usually looked like an explosion in a tinsel factory, and one year I covered it in clothes pegs. To their credit they never changed it. They never waited until I was safely tucked up in bed before tweaking it a little to resemble more closely a customary Christmas conifer.
This year I’m going to decorate this tree for Gabriel, to fill a little of the void left by the memories we never made of the Christmases we never had. But also in the hope that, just maybe, some Christmas in the future might be truly happy.
Chapter 13
ART
Alice
Alice was a very careful driver. Especially when Mattie was in the car. And today she wasn’t sure where they were going, which made her more cautious than usual.
‘Come on, Mum! I’m going to be late.’
Mattie was leaning forward in the passenger seat as though his posture might quicken their progress. They were on their way to a football match at a school on the other side of town, and Mattie was on the team. Kick-off was in forty-five minutes but Mattie had to be there at least half an hour before that. Alice peered at the street signs through the grubby glass of the windscreen, trying to get her bearings. At least it had stopped raining. As they pulled up at a set of traffic lights, Alice asked Mattie to read out the directions again. Finally! Just ahead she could see the name of one of the streets they were looking for. Mattie was drumming his feet impatiently in the footwell. He longed to be old enough to drive, but he certainly didn’t want his mum to teach him. She was too slow; far too careful. She would probably make him drive round and round a car park for the first six months.
They arrived at the school with just minutes to spare and Alice had barely parked before Mattie leapt out of the car and sprinted off, lugging his sports bag over his shoulder. Alice stayed in the car. There was no point getting out now and standing in the cold. Besides, she might bump into some of the other parents and be forced to make small talk. Alice preferred her own company. She switched on the radio. A children’s choir was singing carols. Mattie had had a lovely singing voice but he’d dropped out of the school choir last year when his schoolboy soprano began to misbehave with the onset of puberty. In any case he was growing up fast, and hanging around with his friends kicking a ball or riding bikes was far more appealing these days than practising a three-part harmony for the local music festival. Alice switched the engine back on and turned up the heater. It was getting really chilly. She searched in her bag for her gloves and caught sight of the brown envelope that she had shoved in there without opening when it had arrived with that morning’s post. Her stomach tipped like a seesaw when one child dismounts. She was afraid that her old life had finally caught up with her. That it was time to pay for what she’d done. But it was Christmas and she didn’t want it ruined. She would open it after Boxing Day. Besides, it would probably be nothing. Everything would be fine.