Gracious Living

by Andrea Goldsmith

  Among the crowds returning to the carpark was Stewart Warneke. Elizabeth had noticed him soon after the last race, wandering among the cars obviously in search of his wife. Lauren had been so upset that Elizabeth had deliberately shielded them from view. Now Stewart appeared and a glance at his wife told the whole story. He nodded to Elizabeth, a curt cold recognition, and led his wife away.

  ‘There’s a museum of misery,’ Kate said, occupying the space just vacated by Lauren. ‘I have to confess I saw her hours ago, long before she came and sat with you, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. What a sad waste of a life.’

  ‘Lauren made her choices.’ Elizabeth spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘She said she had no choice, but she did.’

  Kate looked at Elizabeth, usually so sympathetic, the person who never refused a shoulder or a receptive ear, the person they said was too soft, too easily moved.

  Elizabeth responded to the gaze. ‘There’s always choice,’ she said. ‘It may be that none of the options is particularly appealing, but there’s always choice.’ She leaned closer, the firm, deliberate voice again. ‘You know that, Kate.’

  And Kate did: her choice had been Walter. ‘Not that he’s ever prevented me from doing what I wanted.’

  Elizabeth smiled, it was true enough. Kate had travelled widely, there had been a roster of lovers, and she had studied – the MA had been finished just over a year ago after six years of none-too-dedicated attention, and now she was enrolled for a PhD. ‘But you’ve always put Walter first. Besides, who’s to say that without him you wouldn’t have realised your wish to live in Scotland, who’s to know if without him there might not have been a permanent relationship?’ Kate grimaced, she was allergic to permanence. ‘No, Kate, it’s not as simple as that, you don’t know how your life might have been if you’d not chosen to keep Walter, and while you might be happy enough with the way things have turned out, you would also have to admit how much easier it would have been without him.’

  ‘Easier yes, but soulless.’ Kate’s face assumed a wry smile. ‘Did I tell you he threw one of my Waterfords into the bath last week? My fault, I should have had them well out of his reach – I’m only grateful it wasn’t the piece Lottie and Martin gave me. Have you ever broken good crystal?’ Elizabeth shook her head. ‘The splinters can look very pretty against pink enamel but what a mess! More like the demise of an entire cabinet rather than one single tumbler. And Walter was in the midst of it ravaged by a dreadful rage and I was so worried he’d cut himself and yet nothing would calm him. The problem was I didn’t know what started him off. In the end I put him in his room and shut the door. It must have been an hour or so later when he came out and found me on the balcony with my herbs, and his little arms were around me and we were the best of friends.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Yes, you’re right, life would be easier without him but very dreary.’

  ‘Exactly. And you love him.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘We all have choices.’

  ‘What’s the matter with the two of you.’ Lydia peeled off from the huge crowd now gathered about the cars and stood in front of them, a platter of sandwiches in one hand, her glass in the other. ‘Now girls, listen to Lydia: you’re not allowed to be serious today, I insist on everyone having a good time.’ She offered the sandwiches, ‘Have one of these, they’re delicious, I made them myself. And your drinks! Where are you drinks? What a deplorable state of affairs!’ She turned her back on them and peered into the rabble. ‘Adrian! There you are. Over here with that bottle.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all you want?’ Adrian, large and jovial, stood before them.

  Lydia giggled. ‘Adrian, you’re awful. Now stop neglecting these girls and pour them a drink.’

  Adrian obliged with a flourish. He chatted while he poured: were they all having a good time? he certainly was. Splendid crowd, better than last year, but then only those who could swim stayed on last year. Backed any winners? He’d had a most successful day. With the glasses filled he stood over them, his legs splayed, arms unfurled, a large man who occupied a lot of space. He chatted some more, then, with a squeeze to his wife’s shoulder, a kiss and the usual ‘Too bad you’re not interested in men’ to Kate and a pat to Lydia’s bottom he left the ladies in order to attend to other empty glasses. Through it all Elizabeth had sat immobile, silent jaws pulsing.

  ‘Move over, Kate, and give me some of your chair, I simply have to take the weight off my feet.’

  Elizabeth stood up. Take mine, Lydia, I’ve been sitting for hours. Besides I want to meet Vivienne’s friend and it looks as if they’re about to leave.’ She walked away and was shortly observed in animated conversation with Vivienne and Line.

  That’s better, thought Kate.

  Lydia stretched and sighed. ‘What a wonderful day and haven’t we been lucky with the weather? The clouds just blew over; God must have decided to look after us after last year’s deluge.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kate, ‘that’s just the sort of thing to occupy God.’

  But the sarcasm passed over Lydia. ‘And what a marvellous crowd.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You’ll never guess who I saw.’ Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘A lesser, very drunk member of the royal family. You know the one I mean?’ Kate nodded, everyone did. ‘And look, there, with Adrian! Isn’t that – ?’ Kate nodded again, it was. ‘They say he’ll be prime minister one day, I wonder whether he’ll drink with us then.’ Kate was sure he would, this was a man who drank with anybody. ‘I love all this,’ Lydia was rhapsodic. ‘Love it.’

  ‘And how much have you had to drink?’

  ‘Not much. I’m not a big drinker, you know that, Kate. It’s elation you’re seeing not intoxication – I’m high on the spirit of the day.’ She looked at the crowd, in fact while she and Kate had been talking her eyes had never left it. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to attend to my duties as hostess.’ She stood up. ‘Now, Kate, I want you to try very hard and have fun.’

  ‘I am, Lydia, stop worrying.’

  ‘Good.’ And with that she flounced off, flitting from guest to guest, firstly with sandwiches, then salmon patties – now quite defrosted – flirting and nattering, the princess of the party.

  Kate looked at her watch. It was six o’clock and now even the serious punters had joined the party. The air was seething with prattling, waving, nodding plumage. The queue at the ladies’ toilets was so long that those on the end found themselves included in the parties of strangers. Although that was incorrect, there were no strangers today: if you were here, in the members’ carpark then you were, or possessed the credentials to be, a friend. And if you season that assumption with copious amounts of alcohol and a determination to have fun, you find that the edges of one party become the centre of another, that a very drunk royal is confiding in you as he would his old nanny, and a future prime minister is kneading as many parts of your anatomy as he can reach. Finally Kate whispered in his ear that she was a lesbian; he released her buttocks and she moved away. Minutes later he returned to her buttocks. ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘You don’t look like one, don’t feel like one either.’ She assured him it was true. ‘Do you by any chance do threesomes?’

  No strangers, no barriers, people swirling in a trough of smells. The air oozed with alcohol and cold savouries, and as you moved through the crowds there were short bursts of perfume and aftershave – it was the year of Madame Rochas and English Leather, Kate was to say later – hairspray and perspiration, canvas and new cars. You’d linger in vaguely familiar odours, hoping to capture vagrant memories from long ago.

  Odours of age and odours of youth. Here was a cloud of eager girls, a dozen of them with a few fresh-faced lads. But neither so eager nor so fresh-faced, one of the girls explained; they were celebrating two twenty-first birthdays, the two Jennys, friends since primary school, whose birthdays fell a day apart.

  ‘We’ve been going at this for nearly twenty-four hours,’ the girl confessed. ‘We began with a Cup Eve party, what
a night!’ A hand clapped the smooth forehead in an ancient pose. ‘And aren’t we all suffering for it. Then a birthday breakfast here at eleven.’ She lowered her voice and leaned closer to Kate. ‘Confidentially, none of us is much interested in the gee-gees, so we haven’t moved from the carpark all day. And now it’s nearly six and we weren’t brought up to do this sort of thing.’ She giggled, ‘Or maybe we were and I misunderstood. And there’s going to be a birthday cake any moment, oodles of cream and chocolate, and while you can’t be impolite, the thought of it turns my stomach.’

  Of course it would, Kate agreed, and moved away to replace youthful baying with more mature bellowing – laughter and exclamations – loud, empty and frenzied; the clamour of people having a good time, with no engagement, but in a very particular sense, together. Even the non-drinkers entered into the spirit of the day, putting on performances that often surpassed those of their less sober companions. The talk revolved like dancers on a floor: the races, sex, other people. It seemed half the people had backed Gold and Black for a fortune and the other half had intended to but someone had made them change their mind at the last minute.

  ‘Of course I backed Gold and Black,’ Paulé Warby was saying, ‘but I also had a sentimental bet on Van der Hum. I won on him last year.’

  ‘But Paulé darling,’ Sir Hugh Nethercott said, his non-drinking arm draped across her shoulders, his hand dangling over her left breast, ‘last year wasn’t a horse race, the track was a quagmire. I thought even you would have noticed the difference.’

  ‘Don’t be so mean, Hugh,’ she said, placing a jocular but nonetheless sharp elbow in his paunch and reclaiming her breast.

  ‘Temper, temper Paulé darling. Come back and let old Uncle Hugh kiss it better.’

  And back she sidles because Hugh Nethercott isn’t such a bad fellow after all and who else will she talk to?

  Sex, horses and other people.

  ‘I thought Reckless had it won.’ ‘Alex! you didn’t put your money on Reckless. Hasn’t anyone ever told you sentiment is no friend of the punter?’ ‘Too right, Roy. And what did you think of Salamander?’ ‘Still running.’ ‘It’s a mug’s game.’

  ‘Drinks anyone? Roy? Tony? Alex? Not slowing up are we?’

  David, dark and muscled as a wombat, filled their glasses and moved on.

  ‘Some people should. If Paulé Warby wasn’t holding him up, I doubt if Hugh Nethercott could stand.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Hugh’s an old hand.’ The one called Tony pulled out his wallet. ‘I’ll tell you what, Roy, I bet you twenty Hugh’s still standing when the party’s over.’

  ‘Make it fifty and you’re on, give me a chance to win back a bit of what I lost today. I had a shocker.’

  Lydia approached the three men.

  ‘Any of you men like some caviar?’

  ‘No thanks, but if you’re offering anything else . . . Eh boys?’

  ‘You fellows are incorrigible.’

  ‘Who is she?’ Roy asked as Lydia moved off to the next group.

  ‘That’s Lydia Branch,’ Tony said. ‘But forget it, she’s well and truly occupied.’

  ‘Not with her husband surely!’

  Tony laughed and shook his head.

  ‘Well, who then?’

  ‘Adrian Dadswell.’

  ‘Adrian! And you say she’s fully occupied? I’d dispute that. I saw Adrian twice last week, both times at bars, both times with a woman neither his wife nor Lydia Branch.’

  ‘And what were you doing at a bar, Roy?’

  ‘Can’t let the tools get rusty while Susan’s producing the son and heir. A man could go – wait! Look! over there. Isn’t that Elizabeth Dadswell with Lydia Branch? That Lydia’s got a bit of gall being so friendly with her boyfriend’s wife.’

  ‘She’s a nice woman, Elizabeth Dadswell, attractive too.’

  ‘Don’t think that’s particularly relevant, Alex. What do you say, Tony?’

  ‘I think she’s quite plain.’

  ‘Of course you would,’ Alex said. ‘Neither taste nor subtlety has ever been your yardstick when choosing women. Elizabeth Dadswell has a refined sort of beauty, it requires a certain sophistication to appreciate it. I’d say Paulé Warby’s more your type.’

  Roy was searching the crowd. ‘Did you see the girl Elizabeth was talking to before?’

  ‘The one with the green turban?’

  ‘That’s the one. I’m told she’s a lezzo.’

  ‘Really? No! Couldn’t tell by looking at her.’

  ‘Yeah, they should make it more obvious. A fellow could get himself into a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Sandwich anyone?’

  Elizabeth was scraping fragments of quiche from plate to bin. Kate stood nearby, intrigued by the crowd. She was reminded of a group tango; Elizabeth laughed at the image.

  ‘Is it always so – so frenetic?’ Kate asked.

  Elizabeth nodded. Always.

  ‘I can’t imagine you enjoy it.’

  Elizabeth added the quiche platter to a pile of dirty dishes, she didn’t, but what else could she do? Adrian loved it. ‘You know what he’s like – a few drinks, good food, a large crowd and he’s perfectly happy.’

  ‘But he must know you don’t enjoy it.’

  ‘Of course he does, but he says it’s not his problem. You know what he’s like,’ Elizabeth said again, ‘a slap on the bottom, a peck on the cheek, a “Keep your chin up, Liz” and he thinks he’s done his bit.’ She turned to the crowd. ‘Just take a look at him now.’

  Adrian was attempting to plait the fringes of Paulé’s shorts.

  ‘But he doesn’t even like Paulé Warby!’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. She’s a woman isn’t she? and aren’t all women his domain? It’s his right to seduce them, their responsibility to be grateful.’ Elizabeth took a clean plate and started to arrange chicken wings marinated in plum sauce. Her great-grandmother’s diamonds caught the light and sent an iridescent shower over the food.

  Kate was dumbfounded; it was not simply what Elizabeth had said – although that was startling enough – but the fact of her saying it at all. Elizabeth was a reserved and private woman; even during the time of the mothers’ group when days were saturated with emotion, Elizabeth had remained calm. If ever she experienced emotional upheavals no one knew about it. In all the years they had known each other, with the single exception of Ginnie’s second birthday, Elizabeth had never discussed her marriage, never mentioned Adrian except in the most noncommittal terms, so it had been easy to assume she was unaware of his infidelities. And yet now, Kate realised, she had given very little thought to Elizabeth’s knowledge of Adrian; now, suddenly, it was ludicrous to think that Elizabeth, who shared a house with him, who knew what time he arrived home, who could smell rich restaurant food on his breath, who saw the stains on his clothes, who heard the excuses he made, had lived in ignorance all this time. Utterly ludicrous, especially as hardly a week of their married life would have passed without Adrian’s being unfaithful.

  ‘And you, Kate,’ said Elizabeth as she nestled clumps of parsley among the chicken wings, ‘what about you, have you slept with him too?’

  Kate’s ability to lie was as undeveloped as her sense of responsibility, and all her friends knew it.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But you don’t even like men!’ Elizabeth shook the bunch of parsley at the air, not angrily, more incredulously: if Kate could sleep with him, anyone could.

  ‘I know, it’s ridiculous, even more so when you consider I’ve never much liked your husband; it’s you I’ve always cared about.’

  ‘Ah yes, but that’s part of the strategy, Adrian sees it as a duty to sleep with all my friends. I thought he would have failed with you, I know he did with Vivienne; it looks as if she’s the only one.’

  ‘It was a long time ago – not that I’m making excuses, I haven’t any, I guess it was just easier than saying no.’

  Elizabeth laughed in spite
of herself. ‘Oh Kate, how very typical of you. And did you enjoy it? Were you duly grateful?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to discuss this?’

  Elizabeth added a few carrot curls to the chicken wings. ‘As long as I keep asking questions you can safely assume I want to know. Now, was he any good?’

  ‘Well to be honest, no. At the time I was surprised, what with the extent of his reputation, but now I’m a little wiser and I think I understand.’ She touched Elizabeth’s arm. ‘Are you sure you want to know all this?’ Elizabeth nodded, so Kate continued. ‘Adrian’s one of those men who sees sex as performance, as a display, so a large erect penis with much thrusting from exotic positions is important, while the response of the woman is not.’ Kate paused and watched Elizabeth adjusting the parsley. ‘But you must know this better than I.’

  Elizabeth shrugged, it seemed she wasn’t so sure. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Adrian places a high premium on masculinity. Too high. It seems to me that if he were promiscuous wholly and simply because he liked sex then you’d expect him to do it with men as well as women; I mean, if it’s no more than simple visceral arousal that impels you then you take it wherever it’s offering. But there’s something else operating with your husband, because, as we both know, he does not have sex with men and will not.’ Kate leaned forward, took a chicken wing and rearranged some parsley to cover the space. ‘Do you remember how Adrian responded when Jules told him he was gay?’ Elizabeth nodded, how could she forget, Adrian had been upset for months. ‘Adrian seemed to take it so personally, almost as if his old friend Jules had betrayed him. And do you recall Adrian’s response when you suggested that Jules’ choice was not so different to my preference for women, do you remember?’ Elizabeth remembered all too well: it was different with Kate, he had said, all her lesbianism meant was one less woman to fuck, his mate Jules was quite another matter. ‘He’s my mate,’ Adrian had protested, ‘my mate.’

  ‘Adrian’s response to Jules was most edifying,’ Kate continued. ‘Sex for your husband involves power, and power as far as he’s concerned exists only in relation to women. Men are his equals, sex between men then is senseless, an absurdity. Remember what he kept saying about Jules: I don’t understand it, how could he? Men you love and enjoy so you don’t fuck them, women are there only for fucking – there’s no other way of relating to them. Indeed, if he were impotent he would have nothing to do with them, except of course to have his socks washed and meals cooked.’