“But—”
“It’s OK, Katherine, try to calm down, have a glass of water, and if you think going home is what you need to do, do it.”
She pressed her mouth into that lipless line again, but this time, there was a tension to it, an overplay. My disastrous performance had undermined her reputation too.
A knock at the door and I knew it would be you. You couldn’t resist, could you? You couldn’t walk away from the chance of seeing me laid this low, though I was nowhere near the bottom yet.
You poked your head around the door. “Katherine, I’m so sorry, I definitely asked for your version to be loaded on.”
You looked sympathetically at Gemma who watched you carefully as you came in and pulled up a chair opposite me. She remained there for another moment before nodding to the floor. “I’ll see where your partner’s got to.” She looked over her shoulder at us once more before leaving the room. She didn’t want to believe you’d screwed me and fucked her in the process, but somewhere, quite close to the surface, I could tell she knew you had.
“I have no idea what happened.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“I’m just, like, so, so sorry about how it’s all played out tonight.”
I was tiring now, running out of ideas on how I was going to get out of that room with any kind of advantage over you.
“Some people are saying you look a lot like me tonight.”
“Really? That’s so amazing. I guess I must have been inspired, you know, subconsciously?”
I tipped my head back to the ceiling, exhaustion taking over.
“Please, don’t think bad things about me, Katherine. I loved dancing with you the other day. I haven’t had that much fun in, well, I can’t remember when.” I looked back to you to see your black eyes pleading. “I’d really like you to come to the party this weekend. It’d be so nice to see you guys away from all this. I think you’ll find you’ll have the kind of weekend you won’t forget in a hurry.”
Strange energy contracting in the tiny muscles around your eyes. This game was starting to feel like one I couldn’t, under any circumstances, afford to lose. I would go to the party and I wouldn’t be leaving there without some answers. But you didn’t need to know I’d be going yet. I would let you sweat.
“We’ll see.”
Iain flustered through the door. “Kathy. You all right? What happened out there?”
“I don’t really understand myself.” You and I kept looking right at each other.
“Your girl Gemma’s squaring it. You’ll be right.” And I saw he tried to get you to look at him, but you remained fixed on me. How could he not realize this was all about me? “Shall we maybe get going?”
Losing in front of my home crowd. So many people I’d not be able to look in the face again, and yet I had to try. My instinct was to attempt a fight back. “I think I’m going to get back out there. I need to fix this.”
“You should go. Get home. No one’s going to think any less of you,” you said, Iain nodding along with your words like an idiot.
Yes, they will think less of me. They already do, because of you, the princess regent in the madness of Queen Katherine.
My reign coming to an end. And worse. The things that held my life together in their closing chapters, though I couldn’t see it yet. I still thought I could win.
“Please, love. Let me take you home. Let’s get out of here,” Iain said.
You looked away now. You could see he was mine and always would be. The magic of all our years together that you could never match. But as I buried my head in his jacket as we left The Dorchester, I could have sworn he reeked of you.
MARCH 22—AWARDS REHEARSAL DAY
Just when I think I know what she’s about, she surprises me. Her speech at the rehearsal. The guy next to me actually cried. An inspirational performance to restore her reputation, so insanely brilliant it draws a crowd of adoring interns around her and leaves her skipping out of the rehearsal with a smile on her face. Not on my watch.
I follow her out of the building, working out as quickly as I can what I can say next, something like, “That really was amazing. Before you arrived, everyone was saying they were worried about you, how they were all going to be super-nice to you, so they’d keep you on an even keel, but I know for sure that reaction was one hundred percent genuine. Can you believe how moved people were!?”
She’s about to cross over. It’s so noisy out there, I have to call her name to stop her. She hasn’t heard me, so I reach for her arm and just like that, she’s on the floor. I didn’t even do anything and she’s there, fallen to the ground on all fours, about to get flattened by one of her beloved black cabs.
That’s when it happens again.
I go to save her when I could have let her get seriously hurt, even though I know she wouldn’t do the same for me. She’s everything I hate about her generation, exploitation with a side of prejudice. She is the sins made flesh. I just know Ruth would agree with me if she knew KR.
But although I want KR down, I don’t want her out. Not yet, anyway.
MARCH 23—AWARDS NIGHT
Iain arrives at The Dorchester, literally, as his woman’s crutch. She limps around at his side looking like the queen. She holds court, introducing her man-in-waiting some of the time, but mostly ignoring him. He scans the room for me as she schmoozes. I stay hidden. Let him wait until he can’t stand it anymore. He drinks away his frustration, chugging down most of his table’s allocated bottles of garbage wine. He keeps looking for me, discreetly to begin with, but as the hours tick by, I can see he’s getting totally desperate. It’s nearly time for her speech.
I move my hair to one side, slather on the Russian Red, and text:
You look hot in a tux. I’m right behind you. Come behind the stage curtain at the back. Dare you. Xxx
He’s up on his feet, checking behind him, not noticing KR staggering her way to the stage. I can barely watch what happens next. Sonnet Samira pops into my head before I can stop her, but thankfully he arrives before I have to think too hard about either of them.
Now he’s with me, in a gap behind a velveteen curtain at the back of the ballroom. When he sees me, he has no words. He looks me up and down and I know for sure I’ve nailed KR’s look. He’s knocked for six. He can see it: a vision of the future, all the more appealing when it’s repackaged as a vision of the past. He kisses me, breaks away for a second to push me against a wall as I start to undo his zipper.
Just then, her voice cracks over the PA.
It could have been so perfect. I was seconds from managing to orchestrate her losing Iain and what little professional reputation she has left at exactly the same moment, but then he hears her. Her falling apart, his siren call. He lets go of my butt cheek.
“Lil, I’d better get out there. She needs me.”
Of course she does.
“I understand, Iain, but I need you in my life. I need you inside me.”
“I…I can’t,” he stammers, and with this goes out to find her.
This is massively annoying, but I can’t let myself get too angry. I’ve still got work to do. I straighten myself and head toward the green room. They have to come to the party now.
I called in sick on Friday after the awards. I think your aunt was happy I’d be out of her face for the day, so she could soothe the various parties after my speech debacle without me being there. My absence obviously made you very concerned I wasn’t going to make your party the following day. You texted me repeatedly, desperately:
Can’t wait to see you xxx
And another:
There’ll be no one there as interesting as you. Please come! X
I wonder now whether you’d sent exactly the same messages to Iain, because, thinking back, I remember him emerging from another room a coupl
e of times with a fresh energy and a distant look in his eyes.
Iain too saw me disappear into my own world of thought on Saturday morning, as we waited for the party. We both knew something strange was happening, but we didn’t say. I wonder how many long-term couples do this as they stagger toward their obsolescence as a pair.
The odd mood continued when we left London, driving toward Hayward’s Heath. We’d decided to make a weekend of it, booking a suite in a boutique B&B in a village a couple of miles from the party. With the spring light fading, a bit of coke, and half a bottle of prosecco in me, I rehearsed the lines of inquiries I planned to use on your friends. I knew you hadn’t bet on Katherine Ross the hungry reporter stomping on your home turf and that felt good. I’d get the answers I needed to understand your motivations, then I’d engineer getting you on your own, have the deep and meaningful conversation we needed to have so I could circle your endgame until you confessed.
Iain and I got changed twice apiece, laughing at how ridiculous we were being, but both backward glancing at our old arses in the mirror, tugging and pinching bits of our bodies and our faces, seeing which sections bounced back when we didn’t want them to, which folds and creases remained when the fingers left them. The coke and drink had already left me flushed. I looked about as old as I’m capable of looking, so put on another layer of foundation, but this only made me look even more dried out and desperate to mask the truth of my skin. I wanted to wash it off and start again, but our taxi was there. It was time to go.
We sped through country lanes, through picturesque hamlets, then into a shabby little enclave of small 1930s semis.
I looked at the address on my phone again. “Greenings. It’s got to be posher than one of these, surely?”
“If it isn’t fucking Brideshead Revisited territory, I want my money back,” Iain muttered distractedly as he peered at the street outside and its unstylish homes.
The taxi stopped.
I leaned forward to speak with the driver. “Hi there. Is this the right address?”
“According to my satnav it is.”
I looked at Iain for some comradery, some sign he too felt that this was not what we were expecting; any indication we were in this together. But he’d already leaped out of the car and was walking toward the house, neglecting to help me get out of the car with my bad ankle. I was left to pay, then hoist myself and our bags of booze out of the taxi unaided.
I clinked and groaned my way up the front garden path, a sarcastic Thanks for your help, Iain clawing to get out of my mouth. He was standing in front of the door of the most run-down house on the lane. A nasty white and black plastic sign for “Greenings,” propped against the side of the door.
Behind net curtains, the front room window dripped with condensation. There was pink light and the low thrum of music, but no smell of cigs. So, this was how Snowflakes partied. Through a gap in the nets, I caught sight of people who looked just like my interns, individuals who saw me as a relic, someone they don’t want to shag or socialize with, unless they’re using me as a sounding board for tales of how great their lives are. Would any of them even talk to me? Of course not. I didn’t belong there with them, not by a long chalk.
“Fuck. I don’t think I can go in. Shall we just not go in?” I whispered, suddenly embarrassed by my bulging bag of gin, my cakey makeup, my limp, and every one of my forty-one years.
“What’s the matter?”
“Look at it. Look at us! We’re at a teenage party in some kind of squat. I think anyone would say we’re a bit past it for this. This is a mistake.”
“Calm down, love. Let’s get in there, have a drink, couple more lines, see where the land lies. C’mon, we’ve come all this way.”
“I probably shouldn’t really be having any more if we’re serious about, you know, trying—” I said, but I was cut off.
“Let’s not do that now. Please, let’s do like we said: enjoy an old-fashioned house party, forget all the other crap going on in our lives. Let our hair down.” He stepped up to a doorbell that was covered by strips of yellowed, dried-out Sellotape.
Crap in our lives, I was thinking of throwing back in his face, just as you peeked from behind the lacey curtains before rushing to come to the front door. I would have to go in now that you’d seen us.
I shot Iain a filthy look that he refused to acknowledge and in the seconds before you opened the door, I mentally prepared myself. I was about to go into enemy territory and needed to get my fight on.
You pulled the door nearly off its hinges in your enthusiasm, you couldn’t wait to get us inside, stop us from escaping. Your hair was back to normal, and you were wearing your oversized yellow shirt again. You’d paired it with your black leather skater skirt. Bare legs. Your lips had a rich slick of the usual Flaming June lipstick. The darkness of your eyes punctured the dirty tangerine of the street light. Sensational.
“You guys? You came!” You drew us both toward you for a hug in the hallway, somehow managing to kick the door shut behind me in a way that made me startle. “I can’t believe you’re here. Come in, come in, we’re all expecting you.”
You led us into that oddly smoke-free house. Clusters of your kind clung to patchy walls and bust-up chairs. Some appeared to be sipping water and all of them, whatever race or gender, seemed to somehow look exactly the same. You called out their names quickly as we ambled past. I tried to retain at least some of them but my senses were insulted by the weird collective energy I could feel but couldn’t quite understand. It wasn’t a party buzz, not in the way I remembered it. It was a kind of doing energy. Task-based. It seemed they were there to have a reasonable party in a measured way; they may say they’re up for staying ’til the small hours, but they’d more likely be cycling back to their mum’s at the back of twelve. And sober. And with some useful information or new connection with someone; some new creative project in the pipeline. As I passed through another bank of good teeth, shining complexions, and big hair, I realized I wasn’t intimidated or embarrassed, I didn’t think any less of myself as I shambled through to that front room.
Instead, I felt another batch of Fuck yous coming on. Fuck you, with your holier-than-thou sobriety, your earnest social activism, your fear of difference while signaling to embrace it in insta-friendly ways, your stupid blogs, your houseplants and cacti, all your show-off “content” and social media strategies, and really, Fuck you.
Iain had already started a conversation with a bunch of lads and was fishing the gin and the plastic tumblers we knew we’d need from a Spar carrier bag. He held them in his fingers like the claw of a fairground grabber, slushed the gin neat into the cups, and handed them around. I took one from Iain and necked it. Two of the lads giggled like it was the wildest thing they’d ever seen and shook their heads at first, before one shrugged and downed it. Iain did the same, then the other two. See, we’re good for something, us oldies. Maybe some of them would talk to me after all. I felt good enough to practice my questions on the nearest “Barney.” I was trying but failing to get anywhere with him. I sensed you watching my investigation and sure enough, you sought to obfuscate my efforts.
“Here, I got you a drink.” You passed me a plastic half-pint of red wine. “You looked like you were dry. You having a good time? I’ll come find you again in a minute, just spotted someone I need to catch up with. Ciao!”
“Barney” waved dumbly at the air where you’d been. “Who did you say she knows here?”
“I didn’t. I don’t.”
What else could I do but keep starting conversations with new Barneys, asking how they knew you, or opening up with something like, “Such a nice crowd here, you’re all as nice as Lily.” And they’d say something like “Lily?” or “I literally met her this second, she’s the sweetest.” No one I spoke to had any idea who you were. Sure, your true friends could be out there somewhere, but if they were, they
were actively avoiding me.
I didn’t buy it.
You’d brought us to a party where you were some kind of social phantom. This meant Iain and I were floating around untethered and vulnerable. I needed to stay close to him, but I had to speak to you alone too if I was going to get close to any kind of answers.
I’d lost you somewhere in that grotty little house. And I’d lost and found Iain again a couple of times as the place filled and we ending up talking to various young, insipid faces. I kept reaching for Iain. Below the vision of all those people who didn’t know you, to me we were holding hands like our love was a beautiful, ancient secret no one could see. It was OK. I was still in control because I was his and he was mine: a warm island of two in a Snowflake sea.
I let his hand leave mine when I finally saw you come back into the room. You’d evaded me, made me wait for you. I know you did this on purpose, to make me so ready for any crumb you’d toss my way. I had so much I wanted to ask you, but I had to stay cool.
“How are you enjoying the party, Lily?”
“It’s great. You guys having a good time?”
“Sure. Your friends are all lovely.”
“Aren’t they.”
“Yeah, you must introduce me to some of your best friends properly.”
“I definitely will, once I manage to get you guys in the same room.” You didn’t even pretend to look around for these imaginary people.
“And who is your best friend, Lily Lunt? Go on, point out your friends, your real, actual friends, from your school, from your actual past. Where are they?”
“They’re everywhere. Everyone loves me.” You tossed your head extravagantly, then brought your face to mine in defiance. “Who do you think my best friends are? Who would you pick?” You lost the light in your eyes for a second. I felt close to actually getting somewhere, but with your eyes so dark like that, you started to scare me.
“Right, come on, let’s get cracking!” Iain was behind me, trying to plonk himself down on the arm of a faded armchair. He missed the target and would have fallen on his arse, had he not grabbed me on the way down. The extra weight on my ankle made me cry out.
Precious You Page 20