“Hello, mate,” said Gary. “How’s it going?”
“Survivin’, survivin’,” said Dave. “’Ere, this is Max. Ugly little blighter, in’e?”
Hughie had got up with exaggerated cordiality to greet the couple. He was surveying the baby with a show of fascinated detachment.
“You see, what is so marvelous about infants is that they don’t recognize celebrity at all,” he said. “You simply have no idea, Maximilian, do you, who you are surrounded by?”
“Right,” said Gary.
“Ugly little blighter,” said Dave.
“’Ere, d’you get that ’orse?” said Gary.
“Yeah. It’s a bastard.”
“Dave’s taken up hunting,” said Gary to Hughie.
“My dear,” said Hughie.
“He thinks he’s the lord of the manor,” said the wife, in a genuinely posh voice.
“Where you keepin’ ’im?” said Dave.
“We’re ’avin another stable block built ’cos I’ve been keepin’ the Ferraris in the stables so we’re ’avin this new block built all in the style of the old one. I’m gonna put some of me wine in there as well ’cos I’m not happy about the cellars in the Rectory. I ’ad this bloke come round and ’e said it was too damp for it down there, so we’re ’avin another cellar under the new stables that’s all, like, the right temperature.”
“I do hope the horses don’t crap in your Château Margaux, dear boy.”
“Right,” said Gary. “Huh huh. Yur.”
“He wouldn’t notice the difference if they did,” murmured the wife.
“Do you drive the Ferraris?” asked Hughie.
“Nah. Well, a bit. It’s more for the investment. No capital gains. Nah, I drive the Aston usually, or the Roller. ’Owbout you? Got a decent motor?”
“Ooooh, no, no. No, I just bang round in an old Ford Fiesta,” said Hughie. “I have so much trouble you know being ‘spotted.’ I simply can’t get anywhere in a more ostentatious vehicle.”
Dave Rufford looked utterly crushed for only a moment. “Yeah, well, I ’ave me windows tinted,” he said.
One of the waitresses came and bent over Richard. He talked to her, looking distressed, then stood up to address the group with the air of a man about to announce the death of a child.
“Everyone, everyone, a moment, please. I’m so sorry. Mick and Jerry can’t be with us. They have a problem. I am so sorry, my loves. They send you all huge hugs.”
When Oliver appeared I had been sipping away nervously for quite some time. He came down the staircase looking gorgeous in a large soft navy overcoat and a very white shirt. He looked around the room and burst out laughing as Jenner scurried towards him.
“Richard, you mad fucker, what on earth are you doing to your guests? It looks like something by Hieronymus Bosch.” He shook Richard’s hand, allowed himself to be relieved of the coat and declined the offered cocktails. “I’m not touching one of your concoctions, Richard, I’ve been had before. I’ll have a Scotch if you’ve got one.” Then he came straight over to me and kissed me on the lips. “Sweetheart, I’m really sorry, I just got caught, how awful for you. Has Jenner been looking after you? Richard, how dare you put her on this insane chair?”
He took my hand and helped me to my feet. When I stood up, I noticed that I was drunk. Fortunately Richard had whisked Oliver away so perhaps he hadn’t noticed. I stood rooted to the spot, terrified.
Someone announced dinner. There was a display of wriggling and leaping as the guests extracted themselves from the chairs and set off in the same direction. We were all going to have to go down another spiral staircase to the next layer.
My brain was starting to revolve now, really quite fast. Trying to control a rising panic attack, I concentrated very hard on the stairs, counting the treads. As long as I didn’t fall over or say anything then no one would know. There were many round tables with white tablecloths. I got into my chair, somehow. There was a white hexagonal plate in front of me with a tiny bird on it, trussed up with one of its eggs next to it. Oliver was at the other side of the table. He was next to Jenner’s girlfriend. She seemed to be about twelve. She was beautiful, all dressed in black, and talking to Ken Garside, the movie director who had made the film about the drains.
I stared at them, trying to focus my eyes. Snatches of their conversation drifted over. Her voice was a Miss London singsong with every sentence dropping to the same note.
“What? No? Ree-ly?” Apparently something disgusting was happening, drainwise, downstairs and Things kept being released into the swimming pool. “It’s reelye bad, you know. D’you think we should, like, take the whole pool out?”
She seemed to feel that Ken Garside should know all about plumbing because of the drain movie. He looked very puzzled. I drank some water, hoping it would clear my head, but instead it set my stomach off. I felt a shift inside, followed by a wave of nausea.
Oliver had rescued Ken Garside from the drain discussion and was talking to Annalene about Jenner’s film. “Seriously, Annalene . . . very, very impressed . . . get away from this old bastard . . . spread your wings.” I couldn’t understand why he was being so enthusiastic. The girl was really wooden and stupid. The film was total rubbish, but I could hear him enthusing: “Definitive. . . seminal . . . key.”
The chap sitting on the other side of me touched my arm, making me jump.
“Could you pass the butter, please? Hi, I’m Liam.” I knew. He was another celebrity.
“Hello. I’m Rosie.” I concentrated hard on passing the butter.
“Are you OK?”
“Yes, thank you, I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. I squinted at the Irish actor. He had been in a film the year before about the IRA. There were interviews with him in the papers saying, “I can’t take this sex appeal stuff seriously,” and extolling the virtues of married life. He used to be pictured with his two babies and a sensible-looking wife whom he’d been with since school. Recently there had been stories about him having an affair with a model. He’d been pictured putting two fingers up and telling the photographers to fuck off.
“Do you know lots of these folks here?”
“No, no.”
By now, I really didn’t want anyone to talk to me. It simply wasn’t wise. If I could just stare quietly at a piece of bread then all would be well.
“Me neither,” he said. “I’ve never fockin’ met any of them before. I’ve never met Richard Jenner. He just rang me up. It’s fockin’ mad.”
“Why did you come, then?” I said, trying to get my brain to stay still.
Just then Hughie Harrington-Ellis came and sat on the other side of me.
“Shall we eat?” he said. The thought of food was not good at all. I stuck my fork into the bird’s tiny little egg feeling like a child murderer. I took a bite and there was a vile taste in my mouth which mingled unpleasantly with something sweet on the quail’s skin. My stomach heaved, then settled.
Hughie turned his back to me and started talking to the Irish actor. I could hear the Irish voice, full of indignation: “Tabloids . . . filth, scum . . . reptiles . . . none of their fockin’ business.”
“You didn’t say that when you were doing all those profiles with your wife and baby, did you?” I slurred.
“As Oscar said,‘In the old days men had the rack, now they have the press,’” said Hughie, ignoring me, “the lowest form of life, ‘unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.’ That’s Shaw.”
“. . . vindictive . . . gobshite.”
“. . . ’avin a fireplace put in next to the bath, made out of bits of this ancient Greek pillar.”
I could hear Oliver across the table. “You see the problem with Melvyn . . .”
“Fockin’ scombags.”
“Sold two Ferraris.”
“. . . two hundred grand . . .”
“. . . seen her show? Total embarrassment.”
“. . . seems a bleedin’ lot for a
fireplace, but . . .”
“. . . Renaissance man delusions . . .”
“. . . lookin’ at ancient history when you’re ’avin a bath an’ a fag . . .”
Suddenly, I knew I was going to be sick. Where was the loo? I looked round the room. Whiteness, black dresses, and very bright ties against very white shirts danced and crossed each other. The floor was not attached to the walls, it was another of the platforms. I was going to have to walk fifty feet across that wooden floor before I could even start on another spiral staircase. Oliver looked across at me. I felt the vomit rising, started to get to my feet, sat down again, politely cupped my hands over my mouth and threw up into them.
*
When I finally laid my head on my pillow that night, I wanted to die. At first Oliver had been kind. He came over to me like a shot, gave me napkins and whispered, “It’s OK, it’s OK, I’ll get you out of here, come on.” He placed himself between me and the faces, put his arm round me and propelled me to the staircase. He counted me up the stairs, “Come on, come on, next one, next one.” I looked down, the faces were still all there, pink, like piggies.
After a while I was in a bathroom, which was hospital white. I washed my mouth and face and lay down on the cool floor, wanting to stay there, possibly live there, perhaps even marry the cool floor. I could hear Oliver and Richard Jenner outside. Oliver sounded angry.
When we got outside he was not being nice anymore. I was being sick again in the flower beds outside the flat. “It’s like going out with a fucking puppy,” he said. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You should never drink the cocktails at Richard’s house. He does this every time. It’s completely ridiculous.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
There was a pause. “So. It’s my fault, is it?” he said pleasantly. “It’s my fault. Of course. But then you didn’t need to knock them back, did you?” A wild look came into his eye. “You didn’t, did you? You didn’t need to knock them back. How many did you have?”
I was getting the hang of what to do when he was like this—nothing. If you neither did nor said anything he had nothing to react to.
“How many did you have?” he said again as we walked to the car. I didn’t respond. He suddenly spun round to face me, towering over me.
“How—many—drinks—did—you—have?”
He glared down, his mouth contorting. There was a post box beside us. He brought his fist down on top of it, hard. It must have hurt him but he didn’t react. Then he turned back and opened the car door. “Get in.”
We drove along in silence.
“Rosie,” he was quiet now, controlled, “I asked you how many drinks you had. How many drinks, Rosie?”
The vomit was on its way up again. I gulped, violently.
“You’re not going to be sick again. Shall I stop the car?”
I shook my head.
“How many drinks did you have?”
Silence. Driving.
“How many drinks did you have?”
We continued in this vein until King’s Cross. As we hit the West-way he grew calmer.
He stopped the car outside my house. I looked across at him. He was beautiful. He was a lunatic: his brows furrowed, his mouth twisted.
“I’m not coming in with you,” he said.
Fair enough. I looked down, sorrowfully. My coat had regurgitated food all over it.
“I finally did it,” I said.
“What?”
“Turned into a pizza.”
*
I did not expect Oliver to ring after that. I had let myself down, I knew. I was a danger to myself and everyone around me. The hangover took three days to clear. I went round to Shirley’s with Rhoda on day four, Saturday night, and lay in front of the TV eating Milk Tray. For the first time since I had met Oliver, I began to believe life was possible without him; that it might be nicer even. Previously I had begun to fear that there was something secret and horrible about me which I didn’t understand. That would explain why sometimes Oliver was nice to me and loved me and sometimes he didn’t want me at all and was vile and distant.
“It’s not you that’s horrible, it’s him that’s horrible,” said Shirley. “We love you all the time.”
“I wouldn’t go over the top about it,” said Rhoda.
“But it can’t be all his fault,” I pointed out.
“Look. Shuddup. You have no judgment,” said Rhoda.
“OK, you threw up in his car—” said Shirley.
“I did not throw up in his car.”
“OK, you threw up on his friend.”
“I did not throw up on Hughie Harrington-Ellis. I threw up in my hands and a small portion of it strayed onto Hughie Harrington-Ellis.”
“I think it was a perfect symbolic gesture.”
“An existential act.”
“You have no idea what that means. You are just too tragic,” I said.
*
When I got home I was in high spirits. I had made a mistake, I’d fallen for the wrong guy. So what? Sort of thing that could happen to anyone. No harm done. Live to see another day. Make mine a large one—oops, it’s down me trousers. Harhar. Free. Free as a bird, free as a fish. Then the phone rang.
“Hi, plumpkin. It’s podge-o here.”
It was no use, I loved him. I loved the texture of his voice. I loved his posh vowels. I loved his funny little ways.
“Podge-o,” I whispered. Contact, warmth, friendliness, relief: an end to enforced feelings of hatred.
“Are you all right, plumpkin? I’ve missed you. I’ve told everyone that line:‘I finally turned into a pizza.’ You’re so sweet. Listen, guess where I am?”
“Where?” I said, trying not to be too friendly.
“Notting Hill Gate.”
It was only five minutes away. I said nothing.
“Listen, sweetheart, I’m sorry I was so angry the other night. I was drunk. I was thinking maybe we could go away for a few days together. I do love you, you know.”
“Do you?” I said, softening. “I’m sorry too—I was repulsive.”
“I’ll be round in five minutes, then,” he said.
The following week, the day before we were supposed to go away, he canceled. He said he was feeling trapped because we were getting too serious. Two days after that we had a wonderful night together, and he asked me how I felt about moving in with him. It was stop, go, stop, go. I’d just start to get my teeth into the pain of breaking up, and he’d turn up and offer to stop the pain. I should have just walked away, but I couldn’t release myself.
If only your mind was washable. There have been so many times since then when I have wanted to lift off the top of my head, like the top of a boiled egg, take out my brain and rinse it under the tap like a dirty sponge, squeezing it over and over again, until the water ran clear. Then I would take a hosepipe and flush out my empty head with it, getting out all the gunge, pop the nice clean brain back in, give the top of the head a bit of a hose round and pop that back on too. Then I would not be sad anymore, not hurt, not disillusioned, but clean, naïve and jolly again.
In the absence of a brainwash option, I began to view the Africa trip as an escape. I thought of the vast, empty, open spaces, the deserts, the savannas and thought that perhaps in Africa life would be simpler: pure, unsullied, uncompromised, full of meaning.
CHAPTER Eight
Two days after the family had arrived at the camp I was sitting in the offices of the UNHCR in Sidra. Kurt, one of the younger officials, was talking on the phone in a high-pitched voice, from time to time letting out an irritating, scoffing, gurgling laugh, jabbing his thumb excitedly on the knob at the end of his pen.
“No! I don’t believe you! But you know I think also that he is not so good with the local staff. No, really. I have seen him with Kamal. They say he is racist, you know. I don’t know but, really.”
I shifted in my
seat impatiently. Kurt mouthed, “Won’t be a moment,” and carried on. He was wearing the ubiquitous UN navy-blue cardi with a crisply ironed white shirt underneath, short-sleeved, no doubt.
“No!” Another gurgle of laughter. “Listen, I have someone with me. But listen, what about the weekend? Do you come to Port Nambula? We can go diving, if you like.”
Click, click, click went the pen. I wanted to rap him over the knuckles with it.
“But listen. I think Francine told me they have Gouda cheese at the duty-free shop. . . . Yes. Real Gouda, you know with the little red cover.” More giggling. “Fifteen U.S., I think. You can bring me some? Bring me four. And you can get some beer?”
I stood up and sat down again. The previous morning I had driven down to the camp to find that four more families had arrived during the night, and that they were in a worse state than the first. All that day new refugees kept coming. We had a hundred and ten new arrivals now. Five deaths. The radio still wasn’t connecting, so I had packed up the jeep and driven to Sidra.
Kurt put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Just a few minutes.”
“I’ve got a lot to do, Kurt. I’m in a hurry. I’ve got to talk to you.”
He was back on the phone again. “But I don’t believe you! And when did this happen? Friday? Oh, no. But you know he is going to have to watch it or he will be out. But what do you say about the diving? You want to come?”
I told Kurt I would come back later and strode out of the building, heading for my vehicle. The person I really needed to speak to was André, the head UNHCR man in Sidra, but André wasn’t there, only useless, stupid Kurt. It was twelve o’clock and I had achieved nothing whatsoever. This morning had felt like running through treacle. It was always like this when you came to town and started trying to have meetings, but this time it mattered.
I set off to drive back across town again to the Sidra regional COR office, feeling a knot tightening in my stomach. I had to get this sorted out, report the problem, request emergency food, find out what was happening with the ship, and get back to the camp. As I approached the souk, I braked to avoid a goat and the car behind drove into me. It was a taxi-truck with fifteen people in the back. No one was hurt. One of the headlights was smashed and the front was a bit dented but that was all and it was his fault. Nevertheless long conversations had to be gone through and a huge crowd gathered.
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