I trudged gloomily downstairs and down the garden to the summer house. Angrily I kicked open the green door. I sat down and flicked on my computer. Stared at the screen. Damn. She was right. And now it was all arranged. All organized. And I so badly wanted her to come! My eyes burned. I gulped down tears and scanned the screen in a desultory manner. Blinked hard and made myself reread yesterday’s offering. Somehow, in my present mood, the prose didn’t seem quite so elegant, so sparkling.
Henry had finally slunk home smelling like Harrods’ perfumery, and Lucinda, after a sleepless night, had risen to find that the nanny had taken the children to school, Henry had gone to work, and she, with a throbbing head, had one hell of a day ahead of her. A lunch date with her best friend in Harvey Nichols followed by a spot of shopping. Merde. As she stepped out of a taxi in Sloane Street, I suddenly had her twisting her ankle badly. Well, get real, Lucinda, I thought savagely, as she hobbled off on her broken heel to the Miu Miu franchise for some new sling-backs. If you’re not careful I’ll give you food poisoning on the Fifth Floor, too. Christ, you don’t know how lucky you are! And for God’s sake stop fannying around and get your kit off, we haven’t got all day!
Talitha was late as usual. Still ensconced with her personal trainer, no doubt, thought Lucinda as she perched her pert little Versace behind on the banquette seating. Her hand trembled slightly as she picked up the menu. She was tempted to go mad and have a spritzer instead of her usual mineral water, she felt so low.
‘Are you ready to order, madam?’ said a badly disguised northern voice at her elbow. As she turned, she was surprised to find herself looking into the steady hazel gaze of one of her employees. It was Terence, her dog-walker-cum-window-box-gardener.
‘Terence!’ She was startled. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Why aren’t you walking my Patch? Or tending my patch?’
‘Mrs De Villiers! Eh oop! Ay, well I’ve done that already, like. Been oop since dawn, so I’m doin’ a bit of moon-lightin’, like, as a waiter. But now the game’s oop and I expect you’d like me to go. Leave yer employ.’ He cast his eyes down morosely.
Lucinda looked up at his anxious young face. So appealing and open, and those heavenly long lashes brushing his cheek. Her gaze travelled up his muscular legs to his tight little backside, protruding provocatively, like a Masai warrior’s, from the long white apron wrapped around his washboard middle. There was something about a man in an apron. Lucinda’s eyes widened.
‘Now why would I want you to do that, Terence?’ she murmured huskily.
‘Well, I thought, you know, you’d be angry, like. Mr De Villiers would be, I know. ’E’d ’ave me sacked!’
‘Mr De Villiers isn’t here,’ she murmured. A girlish blush spread over her face as, impulsively, she reached out her hand and caught his rough brown one. Her rings sparkled in the overhead lights. ‘Don’t worry, Terence,’ she breathed. ‘Your secret is safe with me. What you do in your own time is your own affair. Your affair … and mine.’
With a deep sigh, I leaned back in my chair whilst my eyes scanned the screen again. At the end, I smiled. Filled my lungs. At last. Perfect. Here we go.
Chapter Thirteen
That evening, to my surprise, I found myself almost looking forward to Clare’s barbecue. It was one of the compulsory rituals of a Rock summer, and whenever I’d rather glibly snatched a few days at my sister’s seaside house in the past, sometimes with Adam, sometimes just me and Flora, I’d always felt that, aside from Clare, who ran about beaming madly and organizing everyone, there was a distinct air of forced jollity about the whole event. This evening, however, as I made my way across the golf course, following the sandy path as it wound its way through the gorse bushes and down the sand dunes to the beach at the foot of Brea Hill, I decided that a bit of jollity would do nicely thank you, forced or otherwise. I was glad of it. Glad to get out of the house.
I’d felt Matt’s presence very keenly that day – perhaps because I’d been alone with him, without Flora – and there was something disconcerting about it. We seemed to be tiptoeing around one another, as if trying to forget our long and fairly intimate conversation in the dusk the night before. I’d wanted to tut loudly in the kitchen at the mess he’d made as he got his lunch, but found myself cleaning up after the wretched man, and when he uncharacteristically murmured an apology for the trails of fried egg, potatoes and beans decorating the work surfaces, I’d assured him it couldn’t matter less. I’d be glad when Flora returned, I decided, and I could get back to the ritual sniping and door-slamming I was more comfortable with.
As I’d left the house he’d been ensconced in his study, but years of habit and living with a husband and child had made it difficult for me to leave without saying goodbye. I dithered. Hovered without, then: ‘See you in the morning!’ I called cheerily through his door. Anticipating the usual grunt, I was surprised when he opened it. In the gloom of the hall, his blue eyes were bright in his dark, Apache-like face.
‘You’re off then?’
‘Yes, to my sister’s barbecue, remember? I think she asked you.’
‘She did.’ He paused, as if perhaps wondering if I was reissuing the invitation. Was I? I wasn’t sure. Then he nodded briefly. ‘Have a good time.’
I scurried away, dismissed.
Now, though, as I stood at the very top of the dunes with the wind in my hair, my rug under one arm, cooler bag full of mixed salad and garlic bread under the other – Clare knew better than to task me with the more exotic components of the menu like Béarnaise sauce or apricot roulade – I was glad to be alone. I stood, feeling the salt on my cheeks as my hair was tossed about like the rough grass at my feet, and gazed down at the scene below. It comforted me to see that on the stretch of pale sand, the evening was running true to form. About a dozen or so adults stood around in little clutches, chatting, laughing, and holding plastic champagne glasses. Most of them I knew: the Fields, the Stewart-Coopers, the Todds, the Elliotts, the Frasers. The men predominantly wore pale summer trousers, bright but tasteful shirts – often pink – and deck shoes, and the women, pretty much the same, but with a floral summer dress adding a spot of colour here and there. Masses of children frolicked around; the younger ones making sandcastles and damming moats, whilst the older ones sloped off to chat in little huddles. The pre-teens were still vehemently single sex, but the teens mixed determinedly, walking much further up the beach than was strictly necessary, and hunkering down in the dunes with illicit cans of beer and cigarettes stolen from their parents. I nearly fell over one little clutch, and recognized Theo Todd’s boys from his first marriage, who must be fourteen or fifteen by now, giggling with two blonde girls in a bunker, eyes swimming, laughing uproariously, presumably half-cut.
I tactfully averted my gaze and walked on. I spotted Clare instantly and was surprised. She usually looked like a lifeguard at this event, uncompromising in navy shorts and a white T-shirt, and once even with a whistle around her neck until her embarrassed offspring had forced her to remove it. This evening, however, she was looking extraordinary in a swirling sarong skirt and a low-cut black bikini top. The sun was going down and it was getting quite chilly, added to which she was a heavily breasted woman.
As she tasked a couple of the men to light a bonfire – always crucial to the ambience – I saw that Theo Todd was one of them: tall and greying in a biscuit linen jacket with a bright blue shirt, very natty and full of himself, but carrying a paunch before him these days, and redder of face – a drinker. His voice boomed out as Clare gave him the matches, waving her arms extravagantly as she explained which way the wind was coming from, and giving him ample opportunity to view her cleavage.
Quite apart from the main group, in a little huddle of dark baggy jumpers, like Albanian refugees, sat Rosie, Dan and Michael, heads down in a pow-wow as they tried to light a cigarette between them. I grinned and raised my arm, and Rosie looked up and waved back. I kicked off my shoes and slowly made my way down the shifting sand of the
dunes, knowing of old that momentum could send one flying, but getting increasingly faster as I broke into a run at the bottom. I made my way towards them, the sand cold between my bare toes, and dumped down my bag, breathless.
‘God, you’ll get shot sitting here, you lot. Don’t you know the rules? House guests must pass around drinks and nibbles, and, Michael, I’m surprised at you. Barbecue duty, surely?’
‘I know, I know,’ he muttered, getting wearily to his feet and brushing sand off his legs. ‘And then later, fire maintenance and guitar-strumming I suppose, but I just thought I’d have a quick drink first. She’s got eyes in the back of her head though, sadly.’
At that moment Clare turned. ‘Michael!’
‘Arrivederci, my friends,’ he murmured. Then: ‘Coming, my darling!’ as Clare frantically beckoned him over.
I sat down beside Dan who was huddled with his back to the wind, arms around his knees. He looked horrified.
‘You do this every year? Whatever the weather?’
‘Well, obviously we try to pick a clement evening, Dan, but that’s not always possible in this country. How’s it going, anyway?’ I grinned sideways at him as I handed him a Pils from my bag. ‘Having a lovely time, wish you were here and all that?’
‘Well, obviously it’s going swimmingly,’ he said, taking the beer gratefully. ‘Simply splendid of your sister to invite us chickens down, and the kids are having a ball, but’ – he looked around despairingly – ‘Jesus Christ!’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s this wretched obsession with sand! We’ve been on this sodding beach all day, battered and wind-swept, shivering and wet, and even bashed on the head by windbreaks at times of force eight gustings, and lo! Eight o’clock at night, and here we are again. More bloody beach, and more bloody beach rounders no doubt, and by the look of that campfire and that poor sod Michael lugging that wretched guitar around, we’ve got fucking Kumbaya to look forward to later. I mean, what’s she playing at? This is England, for Christ’s sake, not some sun-baked hippy trail in Morocco.’
‘The children love it,’ I soothed. ‘The barbecue, the volleyball, being up late with their parents, all of that.’ I looked around for Flora. Not here yet, but Adam had said he’d bring her, and he’d know where.
‘Yes, but I’m not a child!’ he said petulantly. ‘I’m nearly forty shagging years old. Why aren’t I having steak and chips and a bottle of Chablis in a nice warm pub while the children shiver outside with a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop like we used to? It’s this bloody Children’s Charter, it creeps into everything. It’s insidious. These working mothers feel compelled to ensure their little darlings are having a splendid – and stimulating – time, whatever inconvenience it is to the poor adults. It’s all born of guilt, of course. And she should lay off those kids a bit, inciden- tally.’ He wagged his finger over at Clare’s brood. ‘They need some space.’
‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘She knows it too.’
He ran his hand despairingly through his mop of dark, shaggy hair.
‘I mean, I’m not complaining or anything, Lordy no. Lovely holiday – and beautiful countryside too, incidentally, and I mean that. I should know. I was born and brought up round these parts. Well, Dartmoor.’ He took a slug of beer.
‘No! Dan, I didn’t know that. I’m a Devonshire girl myself. So you like all this rugged granite cliff and rolling seascape stuff?’
‘Can’t get enough of it – in small and, as I’ve qualified, clement doses. No, it’s the old Pol Pot regime I object to. Between you and me, that sister of yours needs a good slap. Either that or a good –’
‘Thank you, Dan,’ purred his wife. ‘Your answer to most things.’
‘Works a treat, I find.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, thanks for smuggling in the beer, Annie. We’re only allowed warm pink fizz in Stalag Faraday, you know.’ He pulled gratefully on his Pils. ‘I put a six-pack in Clare’s cooler bag this evening, and she took it straight out again, saying crisply, “It’s not really that sort of a party, Dan,” and giving me a look which said who the devil was I to make catering suggestions anyway? I am, after all, only Dan, Dan, the Redundant Man, not a financial adviser or a theatrical impresario like that tosser over there.’ He nodded across to where Clare was flirting wildly with Theo over the bridge rolls. ‘What do my opinions count? I’m practically invisible.’
‘Only in her eyes,’ said Rosie staunchly. ‘Well, no, in many people’s eyes, actually,’ he corrected her. ‘It’s rather interesting really.’ He cocked his head thoughtfully. ‘In fact, I’m thinking of writing a book about redundancy. You’ll be interested in this, Annie – Dante would have been too – because it’s a sort of limbo state, you see. Neither one thing nor the other. Neither living, nor dead. And rather unnerving for other people, because no one quite knows what to do with me, how to cat egorize me. At the school gates, for example, when I’m dropping off the kids, I’m regarded with wild-eyed suspicion by the mothers as they hurry past, heads down, not letting me muscle in on their car-park gossip or their coffee mornings – I’m not sure if it’s their bodies or their Bourbons they think I’m after – but they certainly find it disconcerting to see a man about, when surely they’ve just packed one off to serve his purpose in the workplace and have finally got the house to themselves?
‘And I’m not one of them now, either.’ He nodded across to a group of men, knocking back the booze and braying loudly. ‘Because I don’t strut off in pin-stripes of a morning and come home at seven, sniffing the air as I open the front door, and crying, “Ah, stir fry. It must be Wednesday!” I’m the one in the pinny cooking the effing stir fry.’
‘You’ve just temporarily lost your balls, that’s all,’ said Rosie consolingly, patting his arm. ‘But it’s all right, you’ll get them back. Actually, I quite like you emasculated,’ she mused. ‘Never had you so humble.’
‘Make the most of it,’ he growled. ‘Because one of these days I shall rise up and be counted. Be master of my own universe.’ He sank balefully into his beer.
‘What is she wearing?’ muttered Rosie in my ear, looking at Clare. ‘And is it all for him?’
I glanced over as Clare bent forward unnecessarily low to hold a cricket stump as Theo obligingly banged it in.
‘’Fraid so,’ I sighed, as Theo boggled into her cleavage. ‘And his wife, of course, couldn’t care less. Turns a blind eye. Seen it all before.’
‘Which one?’
‘Helena. Short blonde hair, pink linen shirt.’ I nodded over at an elegant but pinched-looking girl, struggling to take jellies off a recalcitrant three-year-old.
‘Quite young,’ remarked Rosie. ‘Second marriage. Fifteen years younger than him, and jaded already. Tired. So complacent is she, in fact, that she seems to have brought along the same staggeringly pretty French au pair that Theo was all over last year. And guess what? He’s all over her this year, too.’
Theo drifted away from Clare to help the au pair, who’d been tasked with emptying the car, and was struggling back down the dunes with another full wicker basket.
‘Please don’t tell me he’s doing it with her.’
‘Oh no, Helena’s not that stupid – or Céline for that matter. No, there’s a tacit understanding between those two women, with Helena’s eyes saying: Let him think you might, but never do, and Céline’s saying: Believe me, I’d rather slit my throat. Although Theo would like you to think he is getting it, and since it keeps him happy, they both maintain the fiction. He is jolly rich after all, and keeps a tight hold on the purse strings. Puts on plays, you know, musicals, in the West End.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard of him. Met him once, briefly,’ Rosie said, watching as he took the basket from Céline, making eye contact and letting his hand brush gently over her bare arm. She shivered. ‘Doesn’t he realize everyone just thinks he’s a sad old tart? And that it makes him look older to flirt with a girl young enough to be his daughter? Just accentuates the age difference. I mean, God, he must be fifty if he’s a day.’
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‘You and I would think so, but not necessarily the men.’ I glanced at Dan who was looking at Theo with something approaching blatant envy, until he caught his wife’s eye and sank nervously back into his beer.
‘If he has to bottom pinch, he’d be better off doing it with an elegant, older woman,’ snorted Rosie, glaring at Dan. ‘At least there’s some dignity in that.’
‘Clare’s sentiments exactly,’ I agreed, watching as Clare eyed Theo and Céline with fury, her lips disappearing, they were so compressed. ‘Although I’m not convinced it’s dignity she’s going for tonight.’
‘Come on, everyone!’ Clare called sharply, cupping her hands round her mouth like a loudhailer, clearly keen to break up the happy couple. ‘Let’s get things under way! Michael and I have picked teams, so everyone should know which side they’re on. Now, we’ll bat first, so my team – behind me. Dan, come on, you’re on Michael’s side, so you’re fielding. First base!’
‘First fucking base again!’ Dan fumed, savagely biting his beer can. ‘Bossy cow. I swear she hates me. And I love the way Michael doesn’t even get to place his own fielders!’
‘Come on, darling,’ muttered Rosie nervously. ‘Keep the peace. You’ll enjoy it.’
‘Oh I would, I would, I’d adore it, if only I hadn’t been first base five times today already. How many times do we have to play this sodding game. She’s obsessed! And you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be sodding Monopoly again tomorrow night, and she’ll be the sodding banker.’
The Wedding Day Page 18