How It Was

by Janet Ellis

  Michael pulled the key from the ignition. ‘It’s a party,’ he said. ‘You might enjoy it.’

  I thought I heard a sliver of sharpness in his voice. I wondered whether to leave my coat in the car, rather than face the ignominy of having anyone take it from me. They were bound to have staff, even if it was just for tonight, weren’t they? But a cold wind hit as soon as I got out of the car and I wrapped my coat around me.

  Next to the doorbell was a handwritten sign, instructing the visitor to: ‘pull hard’. It was an old-fashioned affair, the sort of bell that you couldn’t hear yourself as you pulled the lever. It must ring somewhere deep inside the house. I could hear chatter without words and music with a thudding bass, but no discernible tune. It was the unspecific background noise of any party. No one came.

  ‘Good start,’ said Michael. He pulled at the lever again. ‘Come on, someone.’ He turned to me with an expression that confirmed he’d expected this sort of thing.

  ‘S’open.’ The boy who’d directed the car came past us and pushed at the door. In the hall’s light I could see spots on his chin, a crop of the livid pinks and yellows of rhubarb and custard sweets. There was an assortment of people in the hall, in groups of two or three, engaged in urgent, quiet conversations. They looked across expectantly at us as we came in, then resumed their pairings, disappointed. It reminded me of the way cows looked at you if they thought you might be bringing hay. I didn’t know any of the parents at Sarah’s school well enough to recognise them in party civvies, but I suspected that none of them would have worn quite so much velvet all at once. Under the high ceiling, a pall of cigarette smoke already clouded the air.

  There was no evidence that any special effort had been made to prepare for a party. There were no large vases of flowers or trays of drinks in sight. The hall light blazed brightly, a bare, unshielded bulb. The family’s own coats, an assortment of weather-proofed jackets and anoraks interleaved with dog leads and skipping ropes, took up all the hooks. Two chairs nearby were already overflowing with outer garments. People had started putting their coats on the floor. I placed mine gingerly on top of one of the piles on the chairs, prompting an eruption of sleeves from all the coats underneath it.

  ‘Hi.’ A man stood beside me, holding out a drink. ‘Punch,’ he said. ‘God knows what’s in it. Probably emptied the cupboard and just threw some sliced orange in at the last moment. Hello. Are you bride or groom?’

  ‘Sorry?’ I took the glass. It smelled of Christmas and something woody caught in my teeth.

  ‘Adrian or Aggie?’ The man wore a paisley jacket. He seemed to have borrowed his trousers from a smaller sister. ‘You might be both, I suppose. Which one is your friend?’

  ‘Oh, well, Adrian, I suppose. My daughter—’ But he had gone. Where was Adrian? I wanted to see him, and I dreaded it, too. Wasn’t the host supposed to greet the guests? The party seemed to be happening somewhere beyond this room.

  ‘God, what is this?’ Michael held his glass at arm’s length, looking for somewhere to put it down.

  I drained mine and handed it to him.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘I think it had lighter fuel in it. I’ll keep an eye on you, in case you burst into flames.’

  The music was suddenly louder. ‘All along the watch tower!’ a woman sang. ‘Love it, but you can’t really dance to it, can you?’ She moved her arms, sweeping the sleeves of her dress against her face. Her eyes were ringed in purple and maroon, like a bruise. She moved her hips as if she danced unobserved.

  ‘Our very own Pan’s Person,’ the man beside her said to me. ‘She’d like to think so, anyway.’ He watched the woman; her dress was fluid and bright. Cut low at the neck, it revealed the circles of full breasts when she bent forward. My free hand went involuntarily to my chest to check that my own bosom was securely stowed. ‘What is this dress supposed to be anyway?’ he said. ‘It looks like an explosion in a fabric factory.’ He grabbed the woman’s skirt and pulled it, walking away from her so that it extended quite a long way into the room.

  ‘Get off! It’s made of scarves. Different silk scarves. Careful! It’s fragile.’ She batted his hand lightly, then held it. They embraced and danced together to a different rhythm from the insistent thumping above their heads.

  Michael put our glasses on the windowsill. His was nearly full. ‘It’ll probably strip the paint if it spills,’ he said. ‘Hadn’t we better find either of the Cavanaghs?’ He walked towards the music. The noise came from above; the living room must be upstairs. The house had an instant exoticism merely by having rooms on unexpected levels. On some of the steps we had to step over piles of books or children’s discarded clothing. There was a basket of dry washing in the middle of the landing but I couldn’t tell if it was destined for, or returning from, a wash. Nobody moved aside to let us past, they simply carried on their conversations or their canoodling on either side of us, like an undisciplined guard of honour.

  A man with a large woolly head of hair leaned both his arms against the wall, pinning a woman between them. His face was very close to hers, as if he were choosing between interrogation or kissing. I thought I recognised her from somewhere; she had the long blonde hair and sticky, plum mouth of a magazine model. Pictures, actual real paintings, of many different styles and subjects, were arranged higgledy-piggledy above the dado rail, many more of them than I had ever seen hung together. There were plenty of them propped against the skirting, too. As we went past an open doorway, I caught sight of a large bed. The sheet and blankets were only loosely pulled up, the pillows still dented. It was an unwanted glimpse of intimacy.

  ‘Marion?’ Michael jerked his head for me to follow him.

  The music crashed against my chest as I walked through the wide doorway into the room beyond. Someone had rigged a flashing light that pulsed red and green, but it was rather dark otherwise. Too many bodies were squashed on to each available piece of furniture. People danced, either pressed together or wriggling apart. In the gloom, I could just make out Adrian. He had a cigarette in one hand, the other was resting on a woman’s lower back. They were both turned away from each other, talking to someone on either side of them. I registered a tumble of thick, dark hair, hanging loose. From a broad sweep over her shoulders it thinned to a little curl at the base of her spine.

  ‘I’m going to get us a drink,’ Michael yelled. ‘There’s a table over there.’

  Adrian’s hand stayed specifically, gently, on his wife’s back, on the pale green of her dress, on her hair. I stared at the spot so intently that I thought Adrian must have felt it, because he looked up and saw me. He bent to his wife’s ear and whispered something. I braced myself for the woman to look around, to look straight at me to see who he’d meant. That’s Sarah’s mother – you know, Bobbie’s friend. Instead, she shook her head and carried on with her conversation.

  As Adrian came towards me, several people grabbed his arm or shouted something at him. He responded, smiling, but didn’t stop. ‘The parting of the Red Sea,’ he said, reaching me. His shirt was very fitted and although his trousers didn’t look in any danger of falling down, he’d threaded a large and complicated belt through the loops.

  ‘You got a drink?’ he said.

  ‘Michael’s getting one,’ I said. I had to shout my answer, which made me feel foolish.

  ‘Where is he?’ Adrian said.

  ‘Over there.’ I pointed to where Michael was picking up first one bottle, then another, reading the labels. I knew he was trying to find what he thought was something decent.

  ‘Blue jumper?’ Adrian said. Michael seemed to be the only person in the room wearing a jumper of any colour.

  I nodded.

  ‘I want to talk to you.’ Adrian took my elbow. ‘But we’ll get him sorted first.’

  I felt a bit sorry for Michael, heading towards us triumphantly carrying two glasses, happily unsorted. He handed one to me.

  ‘This is Adrian,’ I said, and took a large gulp of whatever was i
n the glass so I couldn’t say anything else.

  ‘How do you do?’ Michael extended his free hand.

  ‘Jolly well, old bean,’ said Adrian unkindly, although I didn’t think Michael had heard him. They shook hands; only one of them was aware of the incongruity. ‘Now, Michael, I want you to meet’ – he swung round, with one finger circling, playing lucky dip with his guests – ‘Malcolm!’ he said, guiding Michael towards a rotund man with a thin, striped scarf wrapped many times round his neck like a cloth serpent.

  I watched as Adrian described them to each other; I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but both men seemed mollified by the other’s credentials.

  He took my hand, leading me from the room. I wondered if his wife had seen us leaving. I looked for Michael over my shoulder, but the space between us was now filled with people and noise. Adrian didn’t let go of me, he didn’t seem to care how it looked if we were hand in hand. ‘Going to get some more glasses,’ he said, extricating himself as someone caught his arm. We went down the stairs as if we lived in the house together, as if it were our party. There were fewer people here, although a larger number clustered in the kitchen.

  A tall man wearing a cloak was standing at the open fridge, glumly inspecting the contents. ‘Isn’t there any bloody food?’ he said. He picked up something from one of the shelves. ‘What the fuck’s this?’ he said, holding what looked like a very old roast potato between finger and thumb. I was less shocked at his careless expletive than by his rummaging, uninvited, through someone else’s leftovers.

  ‘Where are you going, man?’ he asked, as we went past him.

  ‘Getting wine glasses,’ Adrian said, and repeated it several times, miming drinking in explanation, as people clapped him on the shoulder or shouted a greeting. At the far end of the kitchen he opened a door into a corridor.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I said. I hoped I wouldn’t have to find my way back alone, I hadn’t been concentrating on the route.

  ‘In here,’ he said. He still held my hand. He flicked a switch and a single bulb under a flat metal shade made a small yellow pool of light, revealing a long room full of empty stone shelves.

  It looked like the sort of place where you’d store drying apples or leave a blancmange to set. It was cold. I shivered as he closed the door behind us. ‘Where are the—’ I started to say, although I couldn’t finish my sentence because he kissed me and that was obviously what he’d planned all along.

  I kept thinking about Michael and then noticing things like spiders’ webs. There were a great many of them, festooned with trapped insects and dust. I didn’t feel guilty about Michael because there wasn’t any room to feel anything else apart from how lovely the kissing was and how much I wished I could only think about that and not how hard this room would be to clean. But it was like swimming, whenever I put my head under the water and started to dive lower, I’d have to come up for air.

  My shoes pinched and I swayed unsteadily on the thin heels. He stood with his back to the door, close enough to prevent anyone coming in, and pulled me towards him. I could smell his dark and musty scent. It was the sort of dense perfume that would cling to my skin and clothes. After some more kissing which also involved his lips on my neck, which was pleasant, and his tongue on the general area round and inside my mouth, which was particularly nice, he stopped and looked at me. Without looking away, he put one hand under my dress and wiggled his fingers into my knickers and then further. I began to think that it might be a good idea if he didn’t stop what he was doing. It occurred to me fleetingly that it was a shame that, at this angle, with this poor lighting, he couldn’t see the pretty sprays of flowers on my underwear or that it matched, but soon I couldn’t maintain any coherent line of thought at all. There was something just out of reach I wanted to get to. It was like being a mouse in a mixing bowl, the slippery sides sending it repeatedly back to the bottom. I knew he was watching me as I scrabbled and slid. I put one hand over his and forced my heels into the floor, to keep myself earthbound.

  I wanted to lie down afterwards. I wondered if the wide, empty shelves would take my weight. Adrian was still breathing hard. He undid his belt. Releasing the buckle was as unwieldy as lowering a drawbridge. His trousers took some unpeeling. He curled my fingers round him, frowning and closing his eyes. I listened to his laboured breathing and felt his frantic movements as I held him. It was very repetitive. It made me think of feeding my infant children, the way you had to keep scooping the same spoonful from their cheeks and chin back into their mouths over and over again. When I felt him spill, I relaxed my grip, but I thought it would be rude to take my hand away. He stood panting, holding on to my shoulders as if he’d just run up a hill.

  He wrestled the thick leather of his belt back through the oversized buckle. The pockets of his trousers were entirely flat. ‘God, I need a cig,’ he said. He looked at me as though he’d just remembered I was there. ‘You’re great, you know that? I thought you’d be good.’ He ruffled his hands through his hair. ‘Let’s go away together. Soon.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, a night. A bed. A few hours together.’

  ‘I don’t know if I could,’ I said. ‘How could I?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a friend you could say you were staying with?’ he said, patting his chest pockets as if they really could contain a packet of cigarettes.

  I looked at him, seeing the way he was rearranging his hair into just the right state of unkempt and tucking his close-fitting shirt even more firmly into his waistband. There was Bridget, of course. ‘I may have someone,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ he said. He grabbed my arms, not quite looking me in the eye. ‘It would be brilliant. Think about it and let me know,’ he said, as if he were a salesman and I was a persuadable client. ‘Ready?’ He opened the door. ‘You go first. I’ll follow you out in a minute.’

  Nobody looked at me as I made my way back through the kitchen. In the hallway, the round man we’d left Michael with was talking to a semicircle of people, one arm across his big chest and the other gesticulating, as if he were addressing the Senate. As I got closer I could see that the reason for their grouping was a large joint, being passed between them with careful regularity. I wondered what had happened to Michael. From the tone of the man’s voice, I could tell he was dull. As I walked past them, one of the group turned round. He held the joint out wordlessly to me. I took it.

  ‘Have you seen my husband?’ I said to the orator.

  ‘Do I know him?’ the man said, not quite looking at me.

  ‘Michael,’ I said. ‘Blue jumper. He was upstairs with you.’ I felt suddenly desperate.

  ‘Is that his name? Oh yes. Something in accountancy, isn’t he?’ He took the joint from me. ‘He was fascinating. Lucky you.’ The man smiled, revealing uneven teeth. ‘He told me all about his job,’ he said, his voice heavy with feigned boredom. ‘Anyway,’ the man said, ‘your daughter arrived and, sadly, we had to part.’ He turned away, dismissing me.

  I felt transparent with fear. Sarah? What was she doing here? I looked round the hallway. Where was she? Where had Michael gone? There was no sign of either of them. Perhaps they’d already gone home? I thought of Michael searching for me. Someone might tell him we were last seen fetching some glasses. I felt as if my insides were calcifying, it was hard to move or speak.

  ‘Still here?’ Adrian touched me lightly on the shoulder. If I hadn’t seen him moments before, fused to me and breathing hard, I’d hardly have believed it was the same person. He was calm and steady, as if this was the first time we’d spoken that night. He’d found a cigarette somewhere and he sipped from a full glass of wine. His gestures looked deliberate and larger than life, and he held the cigarette and glass as if they were props that had been set for him before this entrance.

  ‘Marion, there you are.’ Michael appeared at my other side. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask where I’d been. I didn’t want Adrian to hear me lie.

/>   ‘Michael!’ said Adrian easily. ‘Did Malcolm tell you all about his fish?’ he said, raising his eyes. ‘He breeds koi carp. They’re more important than family to him. Isn’t that right?’ He slid one arm around the large man’s shoulder, dangling his wrist and the lit cigarette. ‘Doesn’t seem to realise that they’re the most boring things on earth. Or in water.’ He squeezed the man to him and kissed him loudly on one plump cheek.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ said Michael, politely answering Adrian’s question. ‘Marion, Sarah’s here. She arrived with – with your daughter,’ he said to Adrian. ‘Sorry, I don’t know her name. I think they’re both a bit drunk.’

  ‘Bobbie went to a party tonight, so I sincerely hope she is drunk,’ said Adrian. ‘But if her boyfriend’s pissed too, I’ll kill him. He was supposed to be driving her home in his silly little car.’ Adrian was loud, addressing the whole room. I realised with a start that he was probably quite drunk, too. ‘It’s a bubble car.’ He laughed. ‘What sort of a bloke gets into a bubble car?’

  ‘Where is she?’ I said, standing close to Michael.

  ‘Upstairs,’ he said. ‘I think we ought to get her home.’

  The flight of stairs looked higher than before. I could see Sarah at the end of the landing. The girl beside her must be Bobbie. She was wearing a blouse with huge leg o’ mutton sleeves, a long purple skirt and shiny black boots that laced at the front like a Victorian housemaid’s footwear. Both girls were holding full glasses of something that definitely wouldn’t help them sober up. Sarah watched me advancing towards them and, as I drew level with her, she laughed.

  ‘Did you just nearly fall upstairs?’ she said. ‘I didn’t know it was you, you looked so funny staggering about. You shouldn’t bloody wear heels if you can’t walk in them.’

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I said. Sarah’s cheeks were spotted with bright pink, as if she were flushed with fever. She blinked hard as if she needed to clear her vision and I turned round to see Adrian coming towards us.