The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes

by Catherine Robertson

  ‘He was hurt,’ said Marcus. ‘He was serenading you with cheese, and you spurned him.’

  ‘And then, in surly tones,’ Michelle went on, ‘he asked me how much I wanted, and I forgot the Italian for ten and had to ask Chad, who, of course, gets as far as uno and is flummoxed. So I held up all my fingers and the cheese man pretended he had not a clue what I was on about. Prickio. But then I was saved by Mr Polyglot here.’

  She smiled at Marcus, who said, ‘Good thing, too. The queue behind me was turning ugly.’

  ‘I thought you were Italian,’ said Michelle, ‘until you spoke to me in English and I realised you were a posh freak.’

  Anselo saw Marcus catch Darrell’s eye, and grin. ‘Your friend has made her views on the merits of the English upper class quite clear,’ he said.

  Darrell said, ‘Not without reason. I still remember your mother’s garden party, meeting Major Blunderbuss and the woman who was Horse and Hound magazine’s Debutante of the Year. Your mother wasn’t sure to which species she was meant to most appeal.’

  ‘Major … Blunderbuss?’ said Marcus.

  ‘Something very similar,’ said Darrell. ‘I’ll swear by it.’

  Anselo did not like the smile they exchanged. Too intimate, too collusive. He picked up a lettuce leaf and began to shred it.

  ‘You still haven’t told me how you figured out who he was,’ said Clare to Michelle.

  ‘I grilled him,’ said Michelle. ‘I insisted on knowing exactly what flavour of posh freak he was, and when he broke under my questioning and confessed that his father had been a duke, I said, “Blow me down, a friend of mine once shagged the son of duke”, and things slotted into place from there, so to speak.’

  Clare gave Marcus the kind of look a wife might give her husband after pulling a red G-string out of his car’s glove compartment. Ready to hear his rationale; already disbelieving it.

  ‘A duke?’ she said.

  ‘As in — of Wellington,’ said Patrick, who, by Anselo’s empty-bottle count, was onto his sixth beer.

  Marcus, Anselo noted, was also drinking beer. For some reason, Anselo found this the most annoying quality in a list that was now so long it could possibly be the girdle Puck intended for around the Earth. Shakespeare had some excellent lines. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways. Therefore tremble and depart. If only, thought Anselo. If only.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Simon Schama,’ Clare was saying to Patrick. ‘I’ve grasped the duke concept. It’s the “son of” concept I’m struggling with.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Darrell. ‘Marcus’ father was a duke, but he wanted to stand for Parliament, and back then they wouldn’t let dukes be MPs, so he gave up the title.’

  ‘You remembered that?’ said Marcus.

  Anselo saw Darrell blush. ‘It’s not a story you hear every day,’ she said.

  ‘And you two were dating?’ Clare glanced between Marcus and Darrell.

  Darrell’s annoyed, and for good reason, Anselo thought. Clare was making no attempt to hide her incredulity that a man like Marcus Reynolds would want to go out with a girl from New Zealand, pretty enough but not beautiful, who wrote B-grade romance novels, and had no connections or pedigree at all.

  That kind of shit annoys me, too, he thought. Being looked down on as second-rate, no matter what you do or what you achieve. Being judged by standards that have nothing to do with anything but who gave birth to you. That pisses me off no end.

  He had a brief burst of compassion for his wife. It ended when Clare said, ‘Is he the one you went to The Anderson hotel with? When you borrowed my Matthew Williamson dress?’

  Darrell blushed again, and nodded.

  ‘Very nice dress, too,’ said Marcus, taking a swig of beer. ‘When you stood with the light behind you, it was transparent.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Patrick. ‘I know the one you mean.’

  ‘I’ve worn that dress quite often,’ said his wife. ‘You might have mentioned this earlier.’

  Patrick looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

  Charlotte appeared in the doorway that linked the kitchen to the living room.

  She seemed reluctant to come any closer, Anselo thought. I don’t blame her. If I had my wits about me, I would have come up with an excuse to scarper by now.

  ‘The children are in bed,’ she announced.

  ‘Great.’ Patrick stood up, and pulled out a chair for her. ‘Come and find out if Tom Cruise really is gay.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Charlotte’s tone was coolly formal. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must catch up on some reading.’

  Patrick blinked at the empty doorway, one hand still on the chair back. ‘Maybe I should have had that shower after all?’

  ‘My, she’s being Miss Priss tonight,’ said Michelle. ‘She reminds me of the school librarian in that porn movie, who removes her glasses and pull the hairpins out of her bun, then makes the beast with due backs with the captain of the football team.’

  Marcus made a choking sound.

  ‘Beer go down the wrong way?’ Michelle patted him on the back.

  ‘Mitch?’ said Chad. ‘When have you watched a porn movie about a librarian?’

  ‘Never, now that I think about it,’ said Michelle. ‘Maybe it was a Van Halen video.’

  Smiling, Chad got to his feet, and dropped a kiss on top of his wife’s head. ‘I’m going to read Harry and Rosie a story,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen them all day.’

  ‘Choose wisely!’ Michelle called after him. ‘Rosie adores Where the Wild Things Are,’ she explained to the others, ‘but Harry has to cover his eyes when the monsters turn up, and while Harry loves the ending of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Rosie is of the strong opinion that the caterpillar should explode from eating all that food. With suitably grisly sound effects.’

  ‘Hard to tell what Tom likes.’ Patrick popped the top off another beer bottle. ‘I thought I got a laugh out of him with Dr Seuss once. But it was probably wind.’

  Anselo waited for Clare’s rebuke, but apart from a brief, pointed glance at her husband’s seventh beer, she did nothing. Anselo had no time to wonder why. Marcus was smiling across the table at Darrell again.

  ‘And you have a baby boy, I gather?’ he said to her.

  ‘Yes.’ Darrell’s cheeks were pink again, but whether with pleasure or embarrassment, Anselo could not tell. ‘He’s just over three months old.’

  ‘I’d love to see him,’ said Marcus.

  An involuntary sound of protest escaped Anselo. Everyone at the table turned to look at him.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ he found himself saying. ‘We shouldn’t disturb him.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said Darrell. ‘Cosmo could sleep through a nuclear warning and a full symphony orchestra playing the ‘1812 Overture’. With cannon.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  Marcus’ reassuring tone was all for Darrell, Anselo noted. I may as well not exist.

  ‘There’ll be another time,’ Marcus added.

  Not if I have anything to do with it, thought Anselo immediately. But then he saw Michelle beaming, and knew that his influence, as usual, would be none.

  ‘Marcus is minding his sister’s flat in Como for another three weeks!’ she said. ‘While she’s off on some homo-erotic pilgrimage to Lesbos.’

  ‘She’s at an art convention in New York!’ said Marcus with a laugh.

  ‘How dull.’ Michelle poured another glass of wine. ‘My version’s much more interesting.’

  ‘Your sister’s a lesbian?’ said Patrick. ‘Charlotte’s sister’s a lesbian, too.’

  ‘Yes, I—’ Marcus paused. ‘Yes, that’s right. About my sister.’

  ‘The lipstick kind, though?’ said Michelle. ‘No wo-stache?’

  ‘Wo-stache?’ Marcus frowned. ‘Ah, I get it. No, Gus is very attractive. A minimum of facial hair.’

  ‘I could never be a full lesbian,’ said Michelle. ‘Half a lesbian, no problem — I appreciate a pretty face, a nice pair of boobs. B
ut the whole tongue-and-groove thing? Dining at the Y? No way, Fanny-Mae.’

  Patrick’s expression was struggling to decide if it should be appalled or amused. Finally, he said, ‘I bet you expect it, though!’

  ‘Patrick?’ said Clare in a sing-song of warning. ‘Was that really necessary?’

  ‘Men are different,’ said Michelle. ‘Men are like Labradors. They’ll eat anything that smells like old fish.’

  ‘O-K.’ Clare held up her hand. ‘Let’s move on. Let’s talk about what we plan to do tomorrow. Pretty as it is, I, for one, am a little laked-out. Shall we all catch the train into Milan?’

  ‘Oo, yes! Milan!’ Michelle clapped her hands. ‘I can practise my Italian. Listen. Prada. Dolce. Gabbana. What’s the Italian for “and”?’ she asked Marcus.

  ‘E.’

  ‘Dolce e Gabbana,’ she said. ‘I’m getting better already!’

  ‘It’s a bit of a trek for the kids, isn’t it?’ said Patrick.

  ‘The children can stay here,’ said Clare.

  ‘Again?’ said Patrick. ‘That’ll be two whole days in a row we’ve left them with Charlotte.’

  Clare gave him an even look. ‘That is what we pay her for.’

  ‘Yeah, but …’ Patrick stopped.

  ‘Come on,’ said Michelle. ‘You want to see the duomo, don’t you? And spin on the bull’s testicles? It’s not a real bull,’ she added. ‘Their testicles are almost impossible to spin on.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ said Patrick.

  But he did not, Anselo observed, look happy. He had a moment of empathy for his older cousin. We both need to feel more in charge of our lives, he thought. We both need to find a way to reclaim our man cards.

  ‘Why don’t you come with us?’ said Michelle to Marcus. ‘You can be our guide and translator! You have a Latin name — you’re perfectly qualified!’

  ‘That’s a tremendous offer,’ he said, smiling, ‘but I will have to decline.’

  ‘You have plans?’ said Michelle. ‘Plans, schmans! Ditch them!’

  ‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid,’ said Marcus. He got to his feet. ‘Thank you for dinner. I enjoyed meeting you all.’ He caught Darrell’s eye. ‘And renewing old acquaintances.’

  He bent and kissed Michelle on both cheeks. ‘Good bye.’

  ‘That double-kissy thing!’ she said. ‘So freakishly English!’

  Marcus moved around to do the same with Clare. She did not bat an eyelid, Anselo noted. Marcus shook Patrick’s hand. Next around the table was Darrell.

  If he kisses her, I will kill him, thought Anselo. I will plunge my hand into his chest and rip out his heart. And then I will make him eat it. Raw.

  All Marcus did was smile. ‘Goodbye, angel,’ he said. ‘I’m sure that son of yours is a delight.’

  ‘He’s a bit little to be anything at the moment,’ said Darrell. But she was smiling, too.

  Now it’s my turn, thought Anselo. What have you got for me, you bastard?

  What Marcus had for him was a brief nod. And then he was gone. Anselo breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours.

  ‘I cannot believe it!’ said Michelle to Darrell. ‘You got to shag that! You lucky bitchio!’

  I’ll kill him a thousand and fifty ways, thought Anselo. And even then, it won’t feel like enough.

  14

  ‘You can’t carry both of them!’ Darrell said to Patrick. ‘You’ll die of heat stroke!’

  Patrick looked at Rosie, crooked in his right arm. ‘If I try to put her down, she screams like Ian Gillan on “Child in Time”.’

  Darrell laughed. ‘My Tom loved Deep Purple. He loved pretty much every crap hard-rock band.’

  ‘Oi,’ said Patrick. ‘Show some respect. Ritchie Blackmore is a guitar god.’

  He shifted his hands under the bottoms of the two children in his arms, and hitched them up to a more comfortable position on his hips. Darrell could see the sweat beading on his forehead.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit here for a bit before we go home.’

  ‘Are we allowed?’ Patrick looked around. ‘Seems like everything around this lake is owned by some filthy-rich bastard who doesn’t want you near it. There are probably dungeons in these villas, filled with people who couldn’t read the Italian for “Oi you, you peasant! Fuck off!”.’

  ‘Fug off!’ said Rosie, beaming up at Patrick with her gappy grin.

  ‘Oops,’ said Patrick. ‘Oh well. It’s good for them to develop a wide vocabulary.’

  He offered his son a wry smile. ‘Isn’t it, tiger?’

  Darrell perched on the low stone wall lining the edge of the old wharf that jutted out in an L-shape into the lake. Small wooden dinghies, tied up alongside, clunked gently in time with the waves against its wall. The larger boats, mainly speedboats, with the odd single-masted sailing yacht — Darrell had not yet seen any gin palaces — were moored farther offshore. Their owners must row out to them, thought Darrell. The other day, she’d seen two men row past in a boat that looked like a trug, the kind of basket genteel Edwardian women used to gather flowers. It was low and wooden on the bottom, and on top, instead of masts, it had a light wooden frame, like handles, over which was tied a white cloth. The men were standing up, pulling on two long oars each. It did not look a particularly speedy way to travel, Darrell thought. But then, she decided, the people here seemed to be quite relaxed about the amount of time they had left on Earth. The old men who fish, I get the feeling they’ve been doing the same thing at the same time all their lives.

  And why not? Darrell thought. Why does life have to be push-push, rush-rush? If I lived here, I could survive on next to nothing — pasta and tomatoes and bread — and I could sit and write and look out over the water. All right, yes, she admitted, perhaps not from the window of one of these villas, which must be twenty million euros at a starting price. But there are apartments. Or those little stone medieval houses on the paths that twist up into the hills …

  ‘Working out how you could stay here?’

  Darrell wrenched herself back into the present to see Patrick smiling at her. He’d also seated himself on the wall — to his relief, Darrell saw from his posture. Not full relief; he’d only managed to shed one child. Tom was now sitting on the wharf, picking up stone chips, and placing them in a pile. Rosie was on Patrick’s lap, leaning back against his chest, and did not seem inclined to move an inch.

  Darrell blushed, and dropped her eyes to where Cosmo lay sleeping, as usual, in the baby carrier. It was too hot, really, to carry him that way, but what was the alternative? Rosie refused to sit in a pushchair, so Michelle hadn’t bothered to bring one. Tom, too, disliked his intensely, and Clare had offered it to Darrell. But it wasn’t suitable for Cosmo, who, even if Darrell set the seat all the way back, ended up in a position that made him look like Stephen Hawking. No, sighed Darrell, it was carry him or nothing.

  ‘I miss the water,’ she said to Patrick. ‘When Tom and I bought our house, back in New Zealand, it was close to the sea.’

  ‘Islington has the canals,’ said Patrick. ‘And you can hardly miss the fucking Thames.’

  ‘That’s—’ Darrell tried to think ‘—busy water. Built-up and industrious. Here, even with boats zipping all over, it’s calm, peaceful.’

  Patrick turned his head to take in the panorama. The day was clear and hot, and the water so diamond sparkling, it was hard to look at it for any length of time.

  ‘Is that why you didn’t want to go to Milan?’ he asked. ‘Too big and busy?’

  Darrell wondered if Patrick was being kind, offering her an excuse that would help preserve her dignity. She suspected he hadn’t the subtlety for such a ploy, but was grateful to him, nonetheless.

  ‘I’d love to see Milan,’ she said. ‘But I’m not keen to tote a baby around in this heat.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Patrick. ‘Bad enough carrying these two all of fifty yards. I’m only thankful Michelle took Harry. If I’d had to piggy-back him as well,
my knees would have given out before we made it to the door.’

  ‘Michelle didn’t want to take him,’ said Darrell. ‘Chad insisted.’

  ‘Did he?’ said Patrick. ‘You know, for a quiet bloke, he doesn’t half have some balls.’

  He turned to stare once more out over the water. Darrell wondered if Patrick and Clare’s conversation that morning had been amicable. Anselo’s and mine wasn’t angry, exactly, she thought, but it wasn’t friendly. He said, ‘I’m going to Milan’, and I said, ‘OK’, and that was it. Five words.

  On the plus side, it was a longer conversation than last night’s, which consisted of no words at all. And that wasn’t for lack of things to say — I seriously wanted to know where he’d been all yesterday, and I can guarantee he had opinions on the sudden appearance of Marcus. But we didn’t say anything, did we? We lay on the far edges of the bed and stayed awake for hours. I know Anselo was awake, too, she thought, because asleep, he makes a little popping noise when he exhales. I always found that sound more reassuring than annoying. Perhaps because it made it really bloody obvious that he was still breathing.

  I knew Marcus was alive when he slept, thought Darrell, because he lay pressed right up against me. He told me he found it comforting to know someone else was in the bed with him.

  ‘How come we never got a gander at your ex before now?’ said Patrick. ‘Michelle said you two met each other at Mario and Vincente’s café. Otherwise known as my second home.’

  Patrick might not have subtlety, thought Darrell, but he seems to have an uncanny ability to read my thoughts.

  ‘We were never there at the same time you were,’ she said. ‘You were an early morning regular. I used to go mid-morning, with Marcus’ brother, Claude, and Ruth. Who you did meet, remember?’

  ‘The uptight posh bloke and that crazy blonde American bird?’ Patrick grinned. ‘What happened to those two? Last time I saw them was at Tom’s birth.’

  Tom had been born, suddenly and unexpectedly, in the courtyard of the café. About twenty minutes, thought Darrell, after the first time Anselo told me he loved me.

  ‘Claude and Ruth got married and went to America,’ she said. ‘They’re living in a log cabin in Montana. Or so I hear.’