Fifi and I stood shivering outside Raspberry Bs, having looped around to wait. We watched the rain fall around us for twenty minutes before Fifi said, “Maybe we should go back to the house and wait for her to make contact?”
I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to stick with the unspoken girl code of conduct – Thou shalt not abandon one of your lady friends at night, when rapists and shady murderers lurked in every dark crevice. But part of me was soaking wet, and really wanted to get somewhere warm. I was still trying to come to a decision when my phone rang.
It was Yvonne.
“Hiya!” she shouted into my ear.
“Where are you?”
“I ran into Ash,” she exclaimed, fighting with the background noise of a busy club to get her words across to me, “you know, Ash-with-the-rash?”
Charming.
“I thought you said that was only fabric softener?”
She shouted something almost unintelligible (someone had started to play ‘Sexy Bitch’ and there was a bit of a fracas on her end) I heard something about his name being about a different rash that he’d had before. So that made everything fine then. (I had no idea how Yvonne could contemplate sex with someone who’d ever had an STD – I couldn’t even bring myself to eat blue cheese).
I listened to her garble for a few more seconds about going back to his place, then cut her off by saying, “As long as you’re alright. Have a good time then, thanks for tonight and please for the love of God, use a condom.”
“I will!” Yvonne shouted.
“Not a flavoured one!” I shouted back, remembering a scare she’d had several months before, when one of the thin, gimmicky things had snapped, “they’re only for oral.”
She’d already hung up, but Fifi was looking at me like I was a psycho. Excellent. Well, hopefully whatever had given Ash his fascinating skin complaints had also made him sterile. Yvonne needed a baby like she needed an emotionally vulnerable iguana.
“Though we’ve lost one of our number, I feel we should press on,” Fifi declared.
I shifted my feet and one of my shoes squidged, bubbling water back out on the pavement.
“Mission called on account of hostile conditions?” I suggested.
Fifi considered. “I suppose so. Shall we head back to HQ for crumpets?”
I could not express how much I wanted a crumpet, as well as a bucket of tea. We’d track Water down in the morning.
To say I felt guilty, lying in bed beside my husband and thinking only about my AWOL best friend, would be the understatement of the age.
Dorian was lying at my side, one arm over me, snoring quietly into his pillow, and all I could think about was what Stephen had told me. Will had tried to stop my wedding, and he had succeeded. But he hadn’t ever told me that he was the reason Stephen hadn’t showed. He’d supported me, made sure I ate vegetables, drank something other than Vodkat, and washed my hair every few days, but he had never told me that it was his fault.
If he’d loved me since we’d met, if he spent every day of mine and Stephen’s relationship kicking himself in the throat because he wished he’d asked me out first – then why hadn’t he told me? Why hadn’t he come to me a week before the wedding, or sooner, to tell me not to marry someone else?
Needless to say, I did not get much sleep that night, and in fact I tossed and turned so much that I woke up with hair that looked like a poodle in a wind tunnel. Dorian commented on my restlessness at breakfast (served in a blue and white room with willow patterned wallpaper – I was starting to think they redecorated every night, no one could have this many rooms just for eating). I only got in a muttered comment about ‘too many crumpets before bed’ before Alice started to rattle off the preparations she was making for the party. Although it wasn’t until the next day, there was apparently a lot to do – most of it involving organising ‘people’ – the catering people, the decorating people, the flower people...
Thankfully, Fifi inhaled her almond croissants and coffee, and made our excuses so I didn’t have to. Alice let us go grudgingly, insisting that we pick up some cakes she’d ordered from ‘a gorgeous little patisserie’ in Newton St Loe.
The address I’d taken from the café was for a house in Southdown, an area on the opposite side of Bath.
“It’s quicker to get there by bus,” I said to Fifi, as she deliberated over taking her car.
“Then we shall hail one,” she declared, and surreptitiously patted the breast pocket of her blue and white striped trench coat. (Again I begged my creator to please spare me a firearms conviction).
We waited for the bus outside the Salvation Army Church, which shared a wall with the Metropolitan pub. Above us the iron crest of the Sally Army bled rusty trails onto the wall, declaring ‘blood and fire’ over the heads of weary public transport users. Waiting with us were a chavvy couple (he tall and thin, like an egret, she, round and short like a barrel, swathed in Argos jewellery) and an old woman wearing blue eye shadow up to her eyebrows. We ignored each other at the bus stop, then, when the bus arrived, we all piled on, and continued to ignore each other.
At the next stop an alcoholic old man got onto the bus, and by old, I mean ancient and weathered, like a shoe left at the bottom of a muddy river, and by alcoholic, I mean so steaming drunk at ten in the morning that he could barely climb across the bus and into a seat.
Everyone on the bus winced at his smell, which was like a combination of pocketed giblets, yoghurt, excrement, cauliflower cheese and lager. Eventually, I had to release the breath I’d taken as he got on the bus, and after that, there was no keeping out the stink. Fifi, who I’d thought would have turned green or reacted like a canary to poisonous gas in a mineshaft, smiled gamely at me.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“I spent three years in India after university,” she said, by way of an answer, “and I took EasyJet flights to and from when I visited home. Experiences that I think have taken years off of my life.”
The drunk stumbled off at the next stop and everyone on the bus breathed a collective sigh of relief (which helped to dissipate the residual odour) someone opened a window, and, because we were all still British, no one said anything.
Long term reliance on public transport had taught me not to comment on the bad, mad and downright repellent, as they tended to be the mascots of the barely-sane, poor, toothless and thick. Any comment made against their pet crazy, no matter how casual, was considered a grave slight.
We got off of the bus on a grim looking street that slanted alarmingly back towards town (two thirds of Bath having been built on near vertically ascending hills – a cunning trick to enforce bulky calves on all future residents). The houses were all of the terraced variety with handkerchief sized front gardens containing overflowing, rain-soaked recycling, most of which was beer cans and ASDA cereal boxes. Students, it seemed, where still flocking to Southdown, or at least, the ones who couldn’t afford Oldfield Park’s Georgian flats were.
The flat we were looking for was over the Happy Cat Chinese Take-Away, and we climbed the hill towards it, and then climbed the steps up to the front door. I knocked briskly, and Fifi stood by my side like a secret service body guard, only clad in a white lace dress and bright coat.
The woman who opened the door was in her mid thirties, wearing a jumper and skirt, and was carrying a spatula.
“Umm...” I said, “I’m looking for someone who used to work at Raspberry Bereft in town?”
“Oh yes,” the woman said, “is it opening up again? It was such a blow, you know, that place shutting down. Kids need jobs don’t they? Gives ‘em a reason to get up when school’s not on.”
“Yes,” I said, not wanting to get drawn into a lie. Raspberry Bs was closed for good. “Can I just have a word?”
“Sure,” she turned and shouted up the stairs behind her, “someone at the doooor!”
There was an answering teenage grumble, then footsteps thumped closer.
It took all I ha
d in me not to crow ‘Aha!’ At last I’d solved the mystery of Water’s shifting gender.
Water wasn’t a boy.
Only, Water wasn’t a girl either.
Water was twins.
They stood there, looking shyly caught out and a little rebellious (like all teenagers) – identical twins, one in a pink hoody, the other in a Pac-Man t-shirt and both wearing Vans trainers. They had the same shaggy white-blond hair and almost colourless eyes.
“Walter?” I guessed, looking at the boy, who nodded.
“Wilma?”
Another nod.
“And you both worked with me at the café?”
Twin nods.
“And why were you lying to us?”
They exchanged glances, and Walter spoke, “we didn’t lie,”
“s’just...jobs’re really hard to find,”
“and we wanted a PS3,”
“each.”
I blinked at them. In a weird way, it made sense. If, as a teenager, I’d had a double to take half the work I had to do, I would have done it without a second’s thought.
“Look, I’m trying to find Will. Do you have a phone number, or did he leave you an address?”
They closed ranks, looking less than impressed with me.
“He closed the café down and left,”
“because of you,”
“getting married. Now we can’t find new jobs,”
“and we can’t even get a slim-line PS2.”
I sighed. Who in their right minds would hire Water/Wilma? Sullen teenagers were hardly thin on the ground. Then I had an idea.
“They’re actually looking for someone over at BHS,” I said, “and, the manager is thick as pig shit, he’d never work out there were two of you.”
They accepted this bit of information gracelessly, then Walter said, “He left us n’envelope.”
“Does it say where he’s staying?” I asked.
“Dunno. He paid us, so there’s no money in it. I didn’t open it.”
I waited, and neither of them moved.
“Well, can you go and get it?”
Wilma sighed heavily and slouched off into the flat, returning after a long, long moment with the envelope in her hand. It was dusty, and had a sticky ring on it from a carelessly placed can. She handed it to me and I tore it open. Inside was a short note, scribbled on an old order pad.
Water,
I’ve given you two weeks wages in lieu of notice. If you need a reference please use the letter attached. I won’t be available for the next few months.
Aside from the note there was another sealed envelope, the reference. I flipped the envelope over, there was nothing written on the back.
I peered closer and realised that it wasn’t completely blank. There were indentations on the paper, where something had been written on a separate piece of paper pressed over the envelope. I could pick out some letters, and slowly I worked out the words. I was breathless with hope.
Peas, barley, lamb shank.
A shopping list.
I handed the envelope back to Wilma, clearly I was not cut out for this detective stuff.
We said goodbye and Fifi and I left the walkway behind the Happy Cat and plodded towards the bus stop, where we sat down on the slanted plastic bench. Fifi offered me a humbug, which I accepted and bitterly crunched into minty gravel.
“There must be another way to find him,” Fifi said eventually, “maybe we could go to Brighton, force his parents to tell us where he is?”
“He clearly doesn’t want to be found,” I said quietly. It was true, Will had left me nothing to go on. Clearly he wanted me to leave him alone, and after the way I’d acted, I couldn’t blame him.
I think Fifi knew I’d given up. She didn’t say anything else, not when the bus came or on the way to pick up Alice’s cakes, or even later as we sat in her room and I sobbed into a cup of tea, and got snot on the shoulder of her lovely dress.
Will was gone for good, and nothing I could do or say would bring him back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Parties were a minefield for me at the best of times.
For starters, what was I supposed to wear? Too casual and I felt frumpy, too dressy and I felt like I was trying too hard. If I went for jeans in an effort to make my legs and bum look good, then I’d have to stand all evening or risk garrotting my bits with the inseam, and displaying my muffin-top. But it I went for a dress I’d either feel too exposed, or I’d drop a glob of dip down my cleavage.
(Not that Alice would be serving dip, unless it was some kind of Heston Blumenthal creation that dipped itself and tasted like God’s bollocks or something.)
I was no good at party conversation, I tended to hug the wall or hog a chair all night and get morosely drunk. I couldn’t mingle, and I couldn’t dance. Worst of all I was rubbish at Twister, and all other party games – including Poker.
In short, I was an asset to a party only in the sense that I took up space and ate nibbles.
Alice’s party was not going to be like any other soirée I had ever attended. Mainly because it wouldn’t involve a bong, a yard of ale or a cheese and pineapple hedgehog. I was desperately worried that there would be a using-the-wrong-silverware mishap, or that I’d flash a member of the landed gentry when my dress slipped sideways off my shoulder.
“You’ll be fine,” Dorian told me for the hundredth time, as I contemplated changing my dress (one that Fifi had picked out for me, a black cocktail dress with heavy indigo and silver beading on the skirt).
“But what if...”
“No more ‘what ifs’ you are going to be as delightful as always, and no one is going to care if you don’t eat the caviar or if your dress falls off – that might actually liven the party up.”
I swatted at him in mock annoyance.
The party was being held in the reception room, a room with violet walls, dark oak flooring and subdued light, courtesy of a small chandelier and many expensive cream coloured candles. Dorian and I arrived fashionably late, despite only having journeyed from upstairs. The rest of Dorian’s immediate family were already there. Fifi in a pale pink 1920s dress with an ostrich feather skirt, Freddy, Siegfried and Cuthbert in suits (Siegfried sporting a plum coloured cummerbund) and Alice and Jerry in black tie, he in a suit, she in a modest cream shift dress.
There was a table in the centre of the room, draped in a white linen cloth, on top of which stood champagne bottles in an ice bucket surrounded by crystal glasses. Around the edges of the room an elegant buffet had been set up, small towers of toasted crostini and potato fondants had been arranged on immaculate, platinum edged china. Music, a soft kind of waltz, was playing through a hidden set of speakers, and at the end of the room, a gauzy silver Congratulations! banner had been draped over the door.
“Congratulations!” chorused the assembled Foffaneys (some with more enthusiasm than others). Dorian and I linked arms and smiled for a photo, then the other guests started to arrive.
First came Dorian’s grandparents, both sets (all four of them looking 1. Ancient and 2. Utterly loaded – one was even wearing a tiara, and looked slightly batty into the bargain). I shook hands with them and then they clustered in a corner to eat black olive tarts and loudly disparage the décor, and the dress I was wearing (This didn’t actually phase me as much as it could have, at least I hadn’t chosen the dress).
My Mum arrived next, in a glittering black wrap dress and red Vivienne Westwood shoes. I gaped, I couldn’t help it. Fifi was clearly as much of a fairy godmother to Mum as she was to me. Mum hugged me and gave me a present wrapped up in pale yellow paper, which turned out to be a guide to American diner cooking.
Two of Dorian’s school friends turned up with their spouses, Millicent and Barnaby, who he’d apparently been in debate society with (Both of them had long noses, making them look like distant relatives of the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and they were both insanely dull people).
Dad arrived, with the dreaded S
andra in tow (apparently she hadn’t been tempted by a Daily Mail bottom of the barrel Ibiza coupon holiday – inconceivable). Sandra had updated her wardrobe and had recently had her tan reapplied. Now mahogany brown in a yellow sequined wriggle dress, she couldn’t help but stick out like a sore thumb. Their gift to me was a large and expensive coffee maker, and I hugged them both (even though Sandra smelt like she bathed in Shalimar while smoking menthols).
Dad’s eyes nearly stood out on stalks when he saw Mum (in fairness, she did look about ten years younger) and he kept staring at her all night, going so far as to accidently spit his dental bridge into a glass of champers when Fifi twirled Mum to the music, and kissed her on the mouth.
Yvonne was the last to arrive, after a group of people that only Alice and Jerry seemed to know, all of whom were wearing enamel club badges with a horse and a hunting dog on them. As usual her outfit was at once over the top and completely appropriate for her – A skin-tight red silk dress with seamed black stockings, a black oriental shawl and sky-high heels. Her braids were in an updo, held in place with an arrangement of black feathers and a huge (fake) ruby pin. She looked like a cross between a flamenco dancer and an African courtesan. She presented me with a huge Ann Summers box, and told me to ‘keep things fresh’ (though whether she was talking about my sex life, or giving me advice on dildo maintenance, I had no idea).
All my friends were present, my family too, and still I felt like I was waiting for someone, and it didn’t take a genius to work out who. I downed a glass of champagne. Will was gone. I’d just have to keep telling myself that until I could feel it.
Once the buffet had been depleted (mostly by the grandparents and Siegfried) Alice tapped a champagne flute with a fork and called for our attention.
“And now, if you would be so kind as to follow me, the party shall begin.”
I looked at her in amazement, wasn’t this the party?
Alice opened the doors under the Congratulations! banner and led us into a larger room which held no furniture.
There was however, a band.
Prior Engagements Page 24
