by Beth Morrey
“Denzil has a boyfriend?” A dark-haired, snaked-hipped man in black jeans was gesticulating at the Nigella-lookalike historian as she nodded and smiled, swaying rather seductively to the music.
“Yes, they’ve been together for years but they never see each other because he lives in Spain and Denzil doesn’t like flying or leaving the dogs. He’s a choreographer. Phwoar, wouldn’t mind him choreographing me.”
“I don’t think he’s that way inclined,” I replied, noticing Miguel’s eyes slide toward Denzil, who was rocking on his heels by the marble fireplace.
Angela nodded. “All the best ones are gay.” She gulped the last of her wine and grabbed another glass. “Come on, let’s take ourselves on a tour of the place.”
“Are we allowed?”
“No one will notice, they’re all too plastered.”
Giggling, we tiptoed down to a polished concrete vault to ogle Denzil’s treasures, including the famous Damien Hirst. Enclosed in a glass case, it was a boiled sweet jar containing a heart cast in resin with a steel dart through it. A little sign underneath read LOVE STRUCK. Angela stared at it with the intensity of the very drunk.
“That’s what it’s like,” she said finally. “A piercing that never heals.”
“That’s awful.”
“It is awful.” She reached out and traced a finger across the glass, along the line of the dart, ending in its point. I thought of the story of Achilles I’d told Otis when I babysat him that night. What a mother’s love could lead her to do. It had been the wrong story. Or too much the right one, maybe. Sometimes it was better not to find your mark.
We turned to go back upstairs and Angela began another tirade, this time about the price of art, and whether it was art, and that Denzil should have spent his money on something else, like funding art in schools, or saving Syria or rescuing dogs, and then she tailed off, because coming down the stairs was a man, and as he emerged into our silvery crypt we both saw how good-looking he was. When he saw us he stopped short, embarrassed, but also interested, his gaze lingering on Angela. She was wearing the same outfit she wore to Mel’s wedding, and looked very pretty despite the squinty eyes and disheveled hair.
I smiled at him. “Have you come to see the Hirst? We were just admiring it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I was curious.” He had an American accent and reminded me of Clark Kent in those Superman films. I saw with amusement that Angela was fluttering and fiddling with her hair, and, looking down, realized I was holding both our glasses.
“Well, must go and deliver this!” I said merrily and left them to it. Going back up the stairs, I heard Angela emit a little Alicia-esque tinkly laugh and chuckled to myself.
Several glasses down, I was having a lovely time. Knowing enough people to keep myself entertained, and sustained by a well-built waiter, I talked to Simon, a dog walker whose wife, Maddie, had just given birth, and who’d been sent out to tell everyone about their new baby, Timothy. “He’s beautiful,” he kept saying. “So beautiful. How could I have thought we wouldn’t love him as much as Tiggy?” Tiggy was their Border Terrier. I chatted to another dog walker, Phillip, who told me about his retriever Dexter’s latest misdemeanor, jumping into the river after a swan, right in front of a park warden, concluding “but he’s a lovely boy, really.” In my opinion, Dexter was a sociopath, and Phillip was spineless, but I’d seen them together in the park one day, playing with an old piece of rope, both tugging away, and they looked so happy together I’d stopped to watch them. Sometimes love didn’t pierce the heart, but cushioned it.
Later in the evening, I found myself standing next to Miguel, his gaze roving over the assembled party, foot tapping to the music. He was extraordinarily lithe and taut, with a coiled, feline grace. So different from Denzil and his Boxers, but maybe that was the point. As if aware of my scrutiny, his amber-colored eyes slid round to mine and he looked me up and down appraisingly.
“Nice dress,” he said. “Original?”
I nodded, rearranging my shawl, which had slipped a little. “It was my grandmother’s.”
“She had good taste,” he said. His accent was lilting and exotic, almost affected. He was incredibly stylish and slightly over the top, like the gold-tipped lilies in the vase next to him.
“She did,” I agreed.
“What was she like?”
I turned, surprised at the question. “She was . . . depressed, I suppose. She used to make things. Sewing, mostly. She made this dress. But it was a kind of therapy, I think. When she felt sad, she would make something.”
“What was she sad about?”
“Nothing particularly. And everything.”
Miguel nodded, his eyes back on the milling guests. “When I feel that way, I dance. What do you do when you feel that way?”
I thought for a second. “I walk.”
“You’re lucky you can.” He smiled sideways at me, wickedly, and, like Angela, I saw why he’d pierced Denzil’s heart.
We danced later, he and I, a proper old-fashioned tango, cheered on by our fellow partygoers, who surrounded us, whooping and applauding. Sylvie was there, clapping delightedly, and as we twirled, I saw Angela emerge in the doorway, still with Clark Kent. Her mouth dropped open when she saw me, and then she grinned and leaned against him to watch. I could feel my old bones creaking and protesting as we swerved this way and that, but like Miguel said, I was lucky I could still do this. Denzil, his cigarette holder tucked behind his ear, was looking at Miguel with the quizzical half-smile of an indulgent father. Badger and Barker sat either side of him, like security guards, daring anyone to approach.
The music finished and everyone cheered. Miguel bowed to me and kissed my hand, and I retreated, breathless, to the chaise longue to recover. Angela dashed over, dragging her new beau.
“You were amazing!” she declared. “I had no idea you could do that!”
“Leo and I used to dance occasionally,” I replied, fanning myself with a napkin. “It’s one of my many hidden talents.”
“What are the other ones?” asked Angela’s companion, smiling.
“Knowing when to retire gracefully,” I said, getting to my feet. “I think I might take myself home. I’m rather tired.”
“We’ll get you a cab,” said Angela, turning and beckoning Denzil.
“No, no, it’s not that far,” I said weakly, because it was, particularly at that time of night.
“Nonsense,” she said, conferring with Denzil, who nodded and started to tap on his mobile. After a second he looked up. “It’s on its way.”
Ignoring my protests, they bundled me into my coat, and Denzil escorted me out himself. As we stepped out onto his porch, flanked by the stone dogs, I could see a car pulling up outside the house. Denzil waved to it and turned to me.
“Nice dancing,” he said. “See? I told you it would get easier.”
I smiled and patted his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”
He grinned. “I should be thanking you. You provided the entertainment.”
“I like Miguel.”
“So do I,” he replied serenely, stroking one of the stone dogs’ heads.
I worried about the expense of a cab on the way home, but when we arrived the driver wouldn’t take my money, saying it was on Mr. Joseph’s account. I was so grateful and glad I’d had a nice night out that I tangoed my way up the path to the front door, laughing at Bobby’s capering as I let myself in. I’d left the lights on in the kitchen for her, and now they provided a welcoming glow as I pottered about finding her a late-night treat and making myself a cup of cocoa.
Just before we went to bed, I checked my email and was delighted to find a message from Alistair. I settled down with my warm drink to read it, anticipating a few Christmas plans, things we might get up to while they were in London. I had already ordered a case of his favorite Doom Bar beer.
“I should have known,” I sobbed to Bobby. “I should have known it would turn out this way.” She leaned against me and I sank my fingers into her fur, pressing her warm body against my legs and staring at the first drops of rain fluttering against the kitchen window.
Once, after a particularly lucrative book deal, Leo took me on a trip to the Seychelles. It seemed to me to be a fairy-tale place and I couldn’t quite believe it was real as we flew over the islands by seaplane. We stayed in a tiny resort, our little island hut constantly stroked by turquoise waves, and while Leo read his research notes I sat burying my toes in the molten sand and looking out to sea. I found the coral fascinating—from above it just looked like a dark shadow, dull as ditch, but dip your head underneath and it transformed into a vivid and glorious other-world, tiny electric-hued fish darting about while the sea skeletons danced around them. One day we donned snorkels and had a swim, but I found the intensity of it all too overwhelming; when I glanced toward the reef and caught a glimpse of the depths beyond, I became disoriented and Leo had to drag me to the surface, and hold on to me as I gasped with the awe of it.
On the last day, we were sitting on the beach again, ankle deep in the ocean froth, and I was admiring the way the sea made my skin look luminescent, when suddenly the undersea breeze lifted, the sand shifted and there was the round outline of a creature, a stingray, subtly shuffling its way along the shoreline. That frightful flap of fish wings unnerved me and I backed up the beach, drawing my feet up to my knees and thinking about the way the sea life by the coral pirouetted and spiked, a pretty dance of death, always waiting for the predator to pounce. I was transfixed by that tail, missing me by millimeters as it slithered slowly past. Leo didn’t even see it. Afterward I realized it was always with me, that threat. Always waiting for the ax to fall. Waiting for the sting in my own tale.
Chapter 29
Will you fasten me?”
The light was fading in our bedroom as Leo and I got dressed, shifting past each other irritably as we buttoned up. He was wearing a tie, which he never liked doing, harrumphing as he adjusted it in the mirror, while I pulled tights over my raddled legs and tried not to let my recently painted fingernails snag. The coq au vin was bubbling in the Aga downstairs and it would go dry if we spent much longer primping, but Alistair insisted we had to be smart. I turned and presented my back to my husband in my gray chiffon. He smoothed his hair and attended to me distractedly. He would rather have been in his study with Disraeli, but we had no choice in the matter. This was the Girlfriend Dinner, and everything had to be right, despite my reservations and Leo’s lack of interest.
She was younger than Alistair. At least ten years. Ali didn’t say so, of course, but from certain details he let drop, I was able to ascertain she was in her early thirties and did something called experimental archeology, which sounded supremely silly to me, probably involved dressing up and role-playing famous battles. He’d never bothered introducing us to anyone in this way before, and I was simultaneously flattered and daunted by what that meant. When we spoke on the phone the previous week he said they’d drive down from Birmingham and stay the night, which threw me into a whirlwind of preparation, making the spare room ready, ordering a chicken from the butcher’s and buying myself a new outfit. Leo hadn’t commented on it yet. He’d straightened himself up and was looking extremely distinguished, golden-silver hair brushed back from his forehead, very much the eminent professor. Perhaps he intended to intimidate this Emily woman for his own amusement—which would be just fine by me.
“Let’s bloody well get on with it, then.”
Downstairs, I put the final touches to the dining table, adjusting the damask cloth and neatening up the special-occasion cutlery. The dresser drawer it lived in had stuck, and I had a bruise on my hip from wrenching at it. I checked the coq au vin and potato gratin, both sizzling nicely, and then called to Leo in the living room to pour us a drink. When he handed me my gin and tonic, I grimaced at its weakness.
“That dress new, is it? All for the golden boy?” Even then, Leo teased me for my favoritism, although our “children” were nearly fifty and forty, respectively. But I wanted to look elegant for Alistair and his please-let-it-not-be-fiancée. I wanted her to like me, and then meet someone her own age and forget the old lady she fondly imagined might be her mother-in-law. I didn’t know why but I knew she wasn’t The One. I must be charming and slightly forbidding, and I expected this would come fairly easily.
Right on time, unusually for Alistair, we heard the door knock and Leo went to answer it while I arranged myself casually on the sofa, then immediately got up to go and lean against the fireplace. Then back to the sofa, legs crossed, drink in hand, supremely relaxed and welcoming, but not effusive. Should we play some music? Something discreet and sophisticated—Mahler, maybe. Perhaps the Eighth Symphony. But then Alistair came into the room with Emily and in that moment everything changed because I could see immediately that here was a woman he loved more than me. I’d lost, before the game even started. Berating myself—snap out of it, Jocasta—I moved forward to greet them.
She was young, and of course beautiful, in an understated way, blond hair drawn back in a severe ponytail, thick-fringed blue eyes hidden behind serious glasses. What a handsome couple they made, framed in the doorway together, his hand on her elbow, ushering her forward. She came to me, the matriarch, first, her hand held out. There was no ring on the other one, thank God. I shook it briefly and indicated our cabinet in the corner.
“Hello, my dear. Would you like a drink? Was it a good journey down?”
“I’d love one, thanks. Yes, gin and tonic would be great. Traffic was terrible!”
Australian. She was Australian. I could see Leo flinching at the inflections as he picked ice out of the bucket, and remembered his shock and dismay when Melanie introduced Octavia as her girlfriend all those years ago. Now it was my turn. I tried to think of the girl I had imagined for Ali, the equivalent of Leo’s Caius scholar, but the truth is there never was anyone, even in my head, who measured up. I was always going to disapprove, but the sight of this bronzed Amazon disguising her magnificence with scraped-back hair and spectacles was even more galling than I feared. As my son strode toward me, the image of his father, I smiled, trying not to let my adoration show.
“Ma.” Ali kissed me on the cheek and I resisted the urge to clutch his collar. “You look great.”
“She hit the shops hard this week,” quipped Leo, and I glared at him as he handed me my second drink.
We stood for a moment in the inevitable awkward silence, and then Leo said something about Michael Vaughan and New Zealand, and he and Ali were off. The cricket pitch was their only common ground. So I was left with this Emily, who looked annoyingly comfortable, sipping her preprandial and gazing round our living room.
“So, Ali tells me you work at the university.”
She shook her head. “Not really. I was seconded there for a term, but now I work on a farm near Kinver Edge.”
“A farm?” It was hard to keep the dismay out of my voice. Alistair’s girlfriend, the farmer.
She laughed. “Yes, we run it along Iron Age principles. So we can learn more about the agricultural and domestic economy of the era. It’s really fun.”
“It must be . . . fascinating.” I had visions of her in sheepskin, wielding a scythe.
“
I love it. I like getting my hands dirty.” She turned to the men, who were still talking sport. “You only won because you had a South African on your team.” They both chuckled appreciatively, and Ali’s pride was palpable.
I smiled brightly through gritted teeth. “Shall we go through?”
The coq au vin was too dry, the gratin too salty, but at least the wine was plentiful. Alistair and Emily did that thing of finishing each other’s sentences, starting to say the same thing and then breaking off to grin at each other. They were both eating with just a fork so they could hold hands under the table. It was unbearable. My conversation became more and more monosyllabic with every “No, you say it!” and I knew it was the wrong way to be—I should be winning her over and finding subtler ways to disentangle them, but the way he was looking at her was intolerable. Leo never looked at me that way, and she wore the adoration nonchalantly, like a woman who expected to be worshipped. Of course, that reeled Leo right in; soon he was quizzing her about hill forts and blushing when she said she’d read his latest book.
I served clafoutis, homemade, because it was Ali’s favorite, but he didn’t even mention it, just munched heedlessly, cueing her up to tell their “do you remember whens,” as Leo roared with laughter and poured her more wine. She was every woman I’d ever resented, a whole hemisphere of bitterness and insecurity directed toward those too-white teeth glinting in the candlelight, that long neck thrown back, their fingers constantly entwined.
Abruptly getting to my feet, I collected their bowls and took them to the kitchen to recover my composure. Cleaning the dishes, ferociously wielding the washing-up brush like a weapon, I jumped as I felt hands on my shoulders. Ali, come for the “so, what do you think?” talk.
