Don't You Want Me?

by India Knight

  My father, who is seventy, is enormously tall and occupies a space like no one else. Already, he seems to have taken over the whole room. He doesn’t just sit down, he inhabits the sofa, and his crossed ankles commandeer the carpet. He is somewhat corpulent – he has the stomach of a bon viveur or professional ball-swallower – but leggy with it, like a tree with a knot in its middle. His once-black hair is now salt and pepper; his small, crinkly blue eyes – they’re almost turquoise – bore into one like lasers and fizz like sparklers.

  Today my father is wearing a pink shirt – he has about a hundred, though he also favours violet and primrose yellow – and a loose, but beautifully cut, toffee-coloured corduroy suit. He smells of Mouchoir de Monsieur and his socks are pea green. There’s something camp about his hands: long thin fingers, too expressive, and frequently bejewelled. I love him very dearly.

  ‘Where is Honey?’ he demands, devouring each sandwich in one bite.

  ‘Asleep. She’ll wake up in a minute, I should think. So, Papa, how long are you here for, and what will you do?’

  ‘The weekend only, I think. I shall roam,’ he says. ‘I shall revisit some haunts. Scenes of the crimes. Above all, I shall revisit my tailor. Only the English still know how to dress. In Paris, men dress like Arab pimps.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘Let me know if you want company.’

  ‘You could maybe meet me in the Ritz bar at six tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  ‘Where is this Frank?’

  ‘On his way back, I expect.’

  ‘Do you sleep with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hmm,’ my father says, throwing me a beady look. ‘It is very unhealthy to deprive oneself of sexual intercourse. On top of that, it is very ageing.’

  ‘Mm. Frank’s lovely, but I don’t think sleeping with him would be a good idea.’

  ‘Very bad for the nerves, that deprivation,’ my father persists. ‘Are you seeing anybody?’

  ‘My nerves are fine, Papa. No, not really, but there are … offers. There was one only this morning, in fact.’

  ‘Excellent. As it should be. May I have another wine?’

  ‘Of course.’ I go into the kitchen and come back with the rest of the bottle, pouring myself a glass too.

  We gossip companionably for a while and then I go and get Honey, worried that her extended nap means she won’t sleep a wink tonight. Papa makes squeaking noises at her, pronounces her ‘a beauty’ and immediately starts playing peek-a-boo with a cushion, much to Honey’s delight, even though he gets bored after a couple of minutes. Honey, nevertheless, gazes lovingly up at him and amuses herself by his feet with her toy puppy.

  ‘I’ve left you a tomato tart and salad,’ I tell Papa. ‘And a pavlova for pudding. By the way – ’ I glance at my watch – ‘Rupert will be arriving later. With a girl called Cressida.’

  ‘The husband?’

  ‘Yes, the husband.’

  ‘Very good,’ says my father, smiling. He loves frightening Rupert: that sort of blethery, chinless (as Papa sees it) Englishness amuses him no end.

  ‘And I’m going out, remember? With Frank.’

  ‘Whom you do not sleep with.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Frank’s key jiggles in the lock on cue; two seconds later, he strides into the living room.

  ‘Enchanted,’ my father says, jumping up and giving Frank an appreciative up-and-down look. ‘Thrilled.’

  ‘Likewise,’ smiles Frank easily. ‘Hello, love,’ he tells Honey, ruffling her hair. ‘Hi, Stell.’

  ‘That Titian hair!’ my father says, to no one in particular. ‘Comme un renard. Like a wolverine.’

  ‘Fox,’ I correct.

  ‘Fox. Ravishing. You look a most capable young man.’

  ‘I try my best,’ Frank shrugs. He is clearly more my father’s type than Rupert or Dominic. Despite what Rupert chooses to think, his former pa-in-law regards him as a risibly poor physical specimen. Of Dominic as husband material, all Papa had to say was, ‘Charming, I agree, but he looks like a feminine lesbian.’ Frank, though, is obviously much more to his taste.

  I suppose the thing about Frank is that he is very butch. He couldn’t be anything other than male. Rupert’s on the pretty side (if you squint), and Dominic’s effete, but no one could ever accuse Frank of effeminacy. He is bien fait, nicely put together – tall and sinewy, with long limbs. And he has that square-jawed, manly facial thing going. It’s true, he does look capable. But the colours! He is so ginger. If he weren’t, I suppose – if his hair were brown or black or blond – he would be a catch. Which he already is, given his improbable number of sexual partners, so it’s hardly as though he needed my pity. Very, very fleetingly, I ask myself whether I’d sleep with Frank if he dyed his hair. And recognized his family, of course.

  ‘Stell?’ Frank says. ‘Oo-ee, Stella, wake up.’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘I was saying, do you want to go and get ready now? I’ll be the host.’ He smiles at my father. And keep an eye on Honey. Has she had tea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Omelette all right?’

  ‘Oh, Frank – you’re not the nanny. I’ll do it.’

  ‘You’ve been with her most of the day. Go and have a bath,’ he says, scooping Honey up with one manly, ginger-haired arm. ‘Papa and I will do it.’

  ‘Papa?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah. That’s what your father asked me to call him. I’m very flattered.’

  ‘This man is a phenomenon,’ Papa says happily. ‘No, Stella? A phenomenon.’

  I’m lying in the bath, wallowing in Shalimar (the scent of which actually reminds me of my mother in a way that is not entirely welcome; I’m convinced the reason my father is so, shall we say, ambisexual is that he’s had to be both a father and a mother to me). I am thinking about Frank. He is extraordinarily good with Honey, is what I’m thinking: he really seems to love her. He volunteers to give her her tea, or tuck her in, or take her for the odd stroll. I know he actively enjoys playing with her, because a genuine enthusiasm for playing with small children can’t be faked for more than fifteen minutes. I also know she loves him: he inspires love in her.

  And sometimes I get very uncomfortable with all of this. Not on my behalf, or Honey’s, but because he has his own child. The silent, invisible, never mentioned child that Dom alerted me to. Is that why Frank’s so kind to Honey? Is she a substitute for the child he so horribly never, ever sees? Let’s be blunt: for the child he abandoned. A little girl too, Dom said. I know life is complicated, and that there are usually compelling enough reasons to explain random acts of emotional brutality, but I just can’t get to grips with this one. Frank is a slag, but he is a nice man. Why does he pretend his own daughter doesn’t exist?

  It feels odd to me never to bring her up in conversation. Frank and I talk about everything, bluntly, crudely sometimes. But whenever I’ve alluded to Newcastle, or home, or Frank’s life before he came down south, he tells me about pubs, bars, his mum, his brothers and sisters, the footy, the shipyards – anything, really, and everything, except what I really want to know about. It makes it almost impossible to bring the subject up, really. I suppose I could just ask him outright – just drag it out into the open – if I didn’t feel so strongly about the issue of men abandoning their children. But since I find the very idea of it so utterly offensive, I know that I would lecture, and hector, and argue, and end up not liking him. And I don’t want not to like him. So we don’t go there. He doesn’t let me, and I don’t trust myself to ask dispassionately. Doesn’t stop me wondering, though. God, how I wonder. I suppose I could always ask Mary – she’s known his mother for years. She must have heard something about it.

  My somewhat depressing train of thought is interrupted by the doorbell. I hear Papa answering, and a female voice: Cressida, presumably (an amusingly English name, Cressida, like being called Tomata. The one that always stumps me,
though, is Candida, as in albicans, as in thrush, as in vaginal infection. This is little Candida, and this is her brother Non-Specific Urethritis, and this – proud flourish – is Genital Warts, our eldest).

  Where the hell’s Rupert, who’d promised to be here in time? I hop out of the bath and into the bedroom, wondering – again – what on earth one wears when one is a woman of thirty-eight out on the pull. Because that, I remind myself, is the purpose of the evening after all: Frank kindly offered to share his pulling tips with me. I’m not wildly in the mood for a repeat of the other night, I must say, but then, I sternly remind myself, the best policy when one has suffered a trauma, e.g. falling off a horse or shagging a man with a penis that is somehow larval, is to immediately get back in the saddle again.

  Ten minutes later, I emerge into the living room wearing a little black dress (with red and pink flower embroidery – very pretty, though I say so myself), low slingbacks and a string of pearls, which is perhaps a little formal. But I have a horror of being underdressed, and since I know nothing about any of the parties we’re going to, I’d rather be overdressed than skulk about in a corner trying to look ‘street’ in a pair of torn jeans when everybody else is in black tie. (I hate people who do this: it’s supposed to say ‘I don’t care’, but in fact screams ‘Look at me’, and rather adolescently at that.) I’m grateful to Cressida for turning up: if I hadn’t felt I needed to come downstairs, I’d still be in front of the mirror trying to figure out what to wear. You sometimes read about rich women who put on a sort of uniform every day, and while in the past this has struck me as a poor, denying-the-joys-of-fashion approach, I am beginning to see its charms. Open the closet and pick one of ten black jumpers, to team with one of fifteen pairs of black trousers and one of twenty pairs of black shoes: I have to admit, it has appeal.

  Cressida is a nice pink-and-blonde Sloane in, I would say, her late twenties: on the chunky side, good legs, nice breasts, wearing an LBD of her own for her date, with flat shoes and a matching handbag. Her hair is shiny and hangs in a neat bob; she is wearing clear lip gloss and a smidgeon of brown mascara. She sits chatting to Honey, who is on the floor constructing squat little Duplo towers.

  ‘Hello,’ I say, hand outstretched. ‘I’m Stella. Rupert shouldn’t be long. Would you like a drink? Frank, why haven’t you offered Cressida a drink?’

  ‘Air, hell-air,’ says Cressida. ‘I’d love a glass of white wine, if you have one. Vair dry. Sweet little girl,’ she adds, pointing at Honey. ‘She almost knows her colours, clever thing’

  ‘Yes, we’ve been learning them.’

  ‘I was just about to,’ Frank says, sounding hurt that I should so denigrate his hostly skills. ‘Offer drinks, I mean. But Papa was in the kitchen with me, wanting me to explain about my pictures …’

  ‘And wouldn’t let you get away,’ I finish. ‘I quite understand. He does it all the time. Where is he now?’

  ‘Gone to “refresh himself” and get something from upstairs. I’ll do the drinks now,’ he says, smiling at Cressida. ‘White wine, wasn’t it? What about you, Stell?’

  ‘Papa will probably stick to red, but yes, I’ll have white too.’

  ‘Gosh,’ Cressida murmurs at Frank’s retreating back. ‘He’s rather a dish, isn’t he?’

  ‘If you like that kind of thing,’ I smile back at her. ‘Which I must admit, I don’t. He’s lovely though,’ I add helpfully. ‘He’s the nicest man I know. But …’ I wave my hands around my head. ‘You know … very red. And, er … well, let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘Goodness,’ says Cressida. ‘That’s an awfully modern way of speaking about your husband.’

  ‘Oh, no! No, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Frank isn’t my husband.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘No, not at all. He’s my friend. He’s my house-mate.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Cressida, looking perplexed.

  ‘Easy mistake to make,’ I say reassuringly.

  ‘So the baby?’

  ‘Honey? She’s Dominic’s. We split up a couple of years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  Cressida looks expectantly at me, her steady blue gaze demanding more of an explanation.

  ‘It was a very friendly split,’ I shrug. ‘He lives in Tokyo now, most of the time. He’s an art dealer – he’s Frank’s art dealer, in fact.’

  ‘Oh, is he an artist? How romantic. Still, being divorced can’t be easy.’

  ‘We weren’t actually married. That was Rupert.’

  ‘Was it? Where?’ Cressida springs to her feet and smoothes down her dress. ‘He’s awfully nice, isn’t he? I do like him, I must say. Met him at Harry Redstone’s wedding, do you know him? Gosh, your hearing’s good. But some people’s car engines are like that, aren’t they? My flat-mate had a Fiat Cinquecento that made a particular sound – I could tell she was home from half a street away.’

  ‘No,’ I start to explain. But by some weird coincidence, the door goes half a second later and it is indeed Rupert, looking his usual dishevelled self and proffering a newspaper-wrapped parcel.

  ‘Hello, Rupe.’

  ‘Hello, darling. Brought you a salmon. Wild.’

  ‘How delicious. Come in. How was the drive? Do you want to have a wash or anything? Cressida’s here already.’

  ‘Do you adore her? I do.’

  ‘She seems very nice.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Rupert is hovering about the hall, blinking and doing a passable imitation of a grubbier, less groomed Hugh Grant. ‘Tell you what – if you can hold the fort for a couple more sees, I’ll just go and brush my teeth, wash my hands, that kind of thing, and be with you in five minutes. Think I should – I’ve got car-breath.’

  ‘OK. You also smell slightly of dog.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s a nice smell. Women love it.’ He smiles and makes his way up the stairs as I go back into the living room. Cressida is standing, a pink blush about her cheeks.

  ‘Just gone to freshen up,’ I tell her. ‘Long drive.’

  Sweetly, Cressida looks as though she is about to explode with excitement.

  ‘Here,’ I say, ‘have a refill.’

  ‘One hardly ever meets any nice men,’ she blurts, taking a couple of great gulps. ‘They’re all married, or divorced, or gay, or strange …’

  ‘Well, Rupert is …’ I begin, only to be interrupted by my dear papa, who has changed into a dark red velvet smoking-jacket all the better to tend to his baby-sitting duties.

  ‘Good evening,’ he says to Cressida. ‘Jean-Marie de la Croix.’

  ‘My father,’ I explain. ‘Papa, Cressida is here because she has a date with Rupert. He’s just upstairs.’

  ‘Rupert?’ says Papa, giving Cressida a long, unsettlingly knowing look. ‘Ah, yes. How charming’

  ‘How do you do,’ says Cressida, a touch nervously. ‘Are you French? I love Provence.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Papa, with a courtly bow. ‘What English person doesn’t? Ils ont si peu d’imagination, les pauvres. Where is Frank, Stella? I would like to offer him a cigar. Romeo y Juliettas,’ he says, waving a box at me. ‘And this, ma chérie, is for you.’ He dumps a large, extravagantly beribboned square parcel on to my free arm.

  ‘Thank you, Papa. How kind. He’s in the kitchen, I think – I’ll get him. I’ll just go and put this fish in the fridge.’

  ‘And then you must open my gift.’

  ‘I can’t wait. What is it?’

  ‘A surprise, of course.’

  I totter into the kitchen, where Frank is filling an ice bucket.

  ‘I made some crostini,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When you were out this morning. I had to pop back for something, and while I was here I made some crostini.’

  ‘Are you being serious?’

  ‘Yes, Stella,’ Frank says patiently. ‘They’re on those two green plates, under the tea towels.’

  ‘But how?’

  �
��How what? Your dad’s great, by the way’

  ‘How did you know how?’

  Frank gives me a look and shakes the ice down.

  ‘I went to a Swiss finishing school,’ he says drily. ‘I can also get in and out of cars without showing my crack. You look nice, Stell. I thought we’d leave here at about eightish, and maybe go and get a drink first?’

  ‘You really are a paragon,’ I tell Frank, kissing him on the cheek. ‘That is just so kind. I am incredibly impressed.’

  ‘They’re only bits of bread with stuff on top,’ Frank says northernly, ‘so don’t get too excited. Bring the plates through, will you, and come and introduce me to your ex-husband.’

  We soon have rather a jolly little drinks party on our hands. My father refuses to be detached from Frank, for whom he has clearly conceived something of a passion, although he does occasionally throw Rupert one of those long, knowing looks of his, followed by a wink.

  ‘Look,’ says Rupert, who is standing next to me and speaking through a mouthful of mushroom crostino. ‘He’s doing it again. I’ve told you a million times, Stella; I know he fancies me.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ I reply. ‘He only does it to annoy. If you didn’t react so dramatically, he wouldn’t do it in the first place.’

  ‘No,’ says Rupert. ‘He can’t help doing it. He’s always done it to me. I used to get looks like that off boys at school.’

  ‘Er,’ says Cressida. ‘Surely you aren’t suggesting that Stella’s father wants to …’

  ‘He does,’ Rupert states. ‘I know it. It’s terribly nice to see you again, Cressida.’

  Cressida, who’s been looking both puzzled and not a million miles from appalled, beams. ‘And you.’

  We sip our white wine in silence for a moment. Honey is roaming about the room, gnawing on crostini and climbing on to random laps before returning to her Duplo stacks.

  ‘And your Frank,’ says Rupert, turning to me, ‘is a really top bloke. Nice chap. Like him tremendously. Are you and he …’