Red weals were starting to appear on Sara’s flesh by now, from the force with which she was pummelling her thighs. She stopped, a little shocked at herself, and caught sight of her reflection in the dressing table mirror. Her hair, released from its towel, but not yet combed through, stood out from her head in a tangled heap. Her eyes were dark as coals. She looked like one of the furies of Greek mythology – snake-haired avenger; righter of wrongs. Might as well dress the part, she decided, unearthing a bodycon number that she had bought on a whim one day with Carol. Its bandage-y, chest-flattening look seemed to strike the right note of sexy androgyny. Just the thing to remind Gav what he was missing; what he had turned down.
“… And I don’t want to stay late,” she muttered, as they stood on Lou and Gavin’s doorstep waiting to be let in.
“Why don’t we wait and see?” said Neil, his tone only superficially friendly. “We might even enjoy ourselves.”
A shadow loomed behind the stained glass and Lou’s voice could be heard, light, warm, pleased with itself, as she threw some remark over her shoulder. In the moment of the door’s opening, as the familiar dank scent of their house met her nostrils, Sara’s resolve weakened momentarily. She remembered all the times she had stood here feeling blessed – blessed to be spending an evening in their company, blessed to know them. A tightness came in her throat and she swallowed hard.
But here was their hostess, in a halo of light, bra-less in a faded T-shirt and Thai silk fisherman’s trousers. She had done something weird with her hair again and she was wearing an unusual amount of eye make-up.
“Hell-o!” she said, as if they had not seen one another for ages. “Come on in.”
She gathered Sara to her, without making eye contact, and inclined her head on her guest’s shoulder, in an odd gesture of supplication.
“Hi,” said Sara, stiffly. She disentangled herself and watched Lou greet Neil, in what seemed, by comparison, a cursory manner.
“Dinner smells good,” she said, relenting a little. In truth she was spooked to find a meal already under way – this had never happened before. She even wondered whether it might be a tactic on Lou and Gav’s part – had they somehow guessed that they had overstepped the mark? Were they hoping to smooth things over with the help of Ottolenghi? If so, they had better think again.
Entering the kitchen, she almost tripped over Gavin, perched on the low windowsill, legs crossed at the ankle, bottle of beer in hand. She thought she had prepared herself for this moment, but seeing him felt like a physical blow.
“Here she is,” Gav said, all pantomime goodwill, “here’s my girl.”
He yanked her towards him with a comic flourish. For a moment she was back in the restaurant courtyard, her nose full of the ripe fug of his body, her thigh pressed hard against his. He puckered up for a chaste kiss, but she turned her face away, coldly. That was when she saw the other guests.
“So, yeah,” said Gavin, after he had given Neil a man-hug, “Sara, Neil, meet Claudia and Chris.”
Sara stretched her mouth into a smile. She should have known. She should have known they would pull the rug from under her; conspire somehow to put her on the back foot. There had never been other guests before, only the four of them. It felt like a slap in the face. It might have been just about tolerable if their fellow invitees had been drawn from Gavin and Lou’s usual coterie of movers and shakers, but these two were well below par. Claudia was a mousy little thing, dressed older than her years, in a long, ribbed cardigan and dangly earrings. A decent stylist could have done wonders with her dirty-blonde hair, but it hung either side of a middle parting in two limp hanks. She waved at them feebly from the other side of the table. Chris was, if anything, even less charismatic, his only distinguishing features two unruly beige eyebrows, which clung below his receding hairline like tumbleweed to the side of a precipice. He was wearing a sports shirt with the collar turned up. He leaped up and shook hands, making lots of eye contact. Even Neil looked depressed to be meeting him and Neil would give anyone a fair crack. It was as if, scenting controversy, Lou had dragged the nearest couple in off the street to deflect any unpleasantness. And yet, they were getting the full treatment, the candles, the flowers, a Sufjan Stevens album playing quietly in the background. While Lou cooked up a pot of frijoles refritos on the stove, Gavin chatted away to Chris as if he were interested in what he had to say.
Claudia chinked her glass against Sara’s with a conspiratorial look as though drinking wine were a little bit naughty.
“So, how do you know Gavin and Lou?” she asked.
“We live next door,” Sara replied, her tone barely civil.
“Sara and Neil took us under their wing when we first came back,” Lou said, over her shoulder, to Claudia. “God, what a state we were in, Sara – do you remember?”
Oh yes, she did. She remembered. She remembered the sense of dizzying good fortune at being selected, of all the women in the street, to be Lou’s friend. She remembered sipping coffee, and listening, rapt, to Lou’s fairy tale of Spain. She remembered barely breathing, as the confidences had poured out, in case Lou took fright and stopped talking. And now, as she watched Claudia, slack-jawed with admiration, gobbling up every word Lou said – she remembered her old self – the credulous, grateful acolyte she had been.
“It was so funny, being around people again,” Lou recalled fondly, “we were practically feral. And the language. I kept breaking into Spanish.”
No, you didn’t, thought Sara. Now the spell was broken, she could see how transparent, how juvenile were her hostess’s attempts to impress.
Lou didn’t seem herself tonight, Sara thought. Some subtle thing was different. She seemed tired and a little apprehensive. Perhaps she could sense the tide of Sara’s affection running away from her.
“It must have been difficult, making the adjustment,” piped up Claudia. “London’s so anonymous, isn’t it?”
“Well, I know what you mean,” said Lou, diplomatically, “but this neighbourhood kind of bucks that trend.”
“Is it a trend?” asked Sara. “Or is it a cliché? I must say I’ve never found Londoners particularly unfriendly.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it was unfriendly, exactly,” stammered Claudia, the colour rushing to her cheeks. “I suppose I’ve just always found it rather daunting.”
“Why, where are you from?” Sara demanded.
“Well my family’s actually from Derbyshire, but I had quite an itinerant childhood because of my father’s work. We were all over Europe, really.”
“Claudia is Jerzy’s daughter,” Lou explained. Sara dredged her memory. Which one was Jerzy? Ah yes, the bendy ringmaster with the fatal charm and the drink problem. Now it made sense. These two kids may have had the charisma of pond slime, but they were part of a dynasty. They were creative by association.
“Oh okay,” said Sara, “so you must be involved with Little Creatures, then?”
“No, actually,” Claudia sounded apologetic, “that’s Beth’s thing. She’s my stepmother. No, it’s wonderful, how it’s all taken off for her, but I’m not really a theatre person.”
Sara had been about to ask what kind of person Claudia was (although, God knows, she could happily have lived without knowing), when Lou put a dish of food on the table alongside a basket of home-made tortillas.
“Dig in,” she said, pulling up a battered stool.
Sara slopped a spoonful of the rich, coriander-flecked goo onto a tortilla and rolled it up.
“Guacamole? Salsa?” Chris passed various dishes back and forth, as if he, not Gavin were the host. Claudia num-nummed appreciatively. For a while no one spoke.
“I thought you’d be bringing the boys over, Sara.” Lou’s tone was a little wary.
“They weren’t really up for it,” Sara replied, meeting Lou’s eye with a callous stare. She felt giddy with daring. How liberating it was to have burned her bridges, to no longer care that she might be hurting Lou’s feelings – to actually wa
nt to hurt them.
“Oh,” said Lou.
“They didn’t want to miss Top Gear,” Neil said apologetically.
At close quarters, Lou really did look quite peaky, Sara noticed. There were broken capillaries on her cheeks and a spot on the side of her nose. No, it wasn’t a spot – it was the hole where her nose ring should have been – it seemed to be turning septic. Not a good look. She still managed to look irritatingly attractive though – like some consumptive courtesan wasting away for love.
Lou turned to Claudia and said, with a brittle brightness, “It was such a stroke of luck, moving next door to these guys. Sara and Neil’s boys are almost exactly the same ages as Arlo and Dash and they get on brilliantly. We hardly see them when they’re all together, do we? They just go off and... ”
But Claudia and Chris never found out what it was they just went off and did, because a piercing shriek stopped Lou in mid-sentence. Footsteps clattered on the stairs and Dash burst into the room.
“I need you. To get Zuley. Out of my room!”
“Sweetheart…” Lou had the grace to look a little embarrassed, “calm down and tell me what the problem is…”
“The problem,” he shrieked, “is that Zuley and Arlo have made a den in my room.”
“Darling, it’s Arlo’s room too.”
“And they’ve used my duvet cover and knocked over all my Warhammer stuff, so can you please come up now and fucking well get them out?”
“Dash!” barked Gavin, without much conviction. He frowned at Lou, who seemed at a loss.
“Why don’t I come up and see?” Claudia said, squeezing past Sara’s chair. She grasped Dash gently by the shoulders and steered him, with a surprising authority, out of the room. For all Sara loathed Dash, she found herself egging him on now; anticipating the backlash with no little relish – the barrage of swearing, Claudia’s red-faced return. It didn’t happen.
“Amazing, isn’t she?” said Lou, seeing Sara’s expression. “And they only met on Wednesday.”
“But I thought you went way back?”
“The family, yes; but me and Claud haven’t really seen that much of each other. I suppose I just feel a closeness, because Jerzy was like a father to me, growing up.”
A father you wanted to fuck, Sara thought.
“So when we heard they needed a place to crash we thought, why not?”
“And how long will that be for?” Sara asked, turning to Chris.
“Just a few months,” he said, through a mouthful of guacamole, “until we can get a place of our own.”
“Months?” said Sara. “Gosh.”
“Chris and Claud are looking to buy in Deptford,” Gavin said, leaning forward to top up Sara’s wine.
It was the first chance she’d had to look at him properly, since she’d arrived. She wasn’t over him, she realised, not at all. The sight of him still turned her inside out. The thought of his hands on her, the thought of his mouth, his tongue… But he was behind glass now. Nothing spoke more eloquently of his indifference, than the impersonal affability with which he had treated her since she arrived. She could see now that his seduction had been half-hearted. He probably wouldn’t even have bothered on his own account. Flirtation was second nature to him – Korinna the art-house avatar; predatory Rohmy, from the after party; Mandy the childminder – they had all fancied their chances with Gav, not realising that they were just walk-on parts in a wider drama – a game of cat and mouse between Gavin and Lou. But Sara had thought herself different – above them all – pre-eminent in Gavin’s affections. She had known he would never leave Lou – she wasn’t stupid. But she’d believed she answered a need in him that Lou couldn’t – she had been quite certain of it. Just as she had been certain they would make love; that the opportunity would arise, and that it would be transformative.
It had not happened, and now it never would, and she was forced to sit here watching him waste his charisma on these replicants; these non-people. They laughed and chatted, apparently welcome inside the charmed circle, from which she was now excluded. Her time was past.
“… Because prices have gone up by eight percent just in the last six months,” Chris was saying, “so it’s now or never, essentially.”
God, he was dull.
“Well, you’ll be in a strong position,” Neil said, “as first-time buyers.”
“Hopefully.” Chris darted a doubtful glance at Gavin. “We’re just hoping we won’t have trouble getting a mortgage, because I’m self-employed and Claud hasn’t got a permanent post yet.”
“What’s your line of work, Chris?” asked Neil pleasantly.
“I’m an accountant,” said Chris.
Sara stifled a yawn.
“Should be a pretty safe bet then,” Neil said.
“I expect so,” agreed Chris, “but they’ll want to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
“Let them dot,” Gavin said, shrugging, swirling the wine in his glass roguishly, and knocking it back, “let them cross. We’re in no hurry. Be great to have you guys around. Get us out of our rut.”
Claudia came back into the room, then looking quietly pleased with herself.
“All quiet on the Western Front,” she said. “Arlo’s had a story and Zuley’s nearly asleep.”
“Oh, you angel!” said Lou. “I’d better pop up and see her. She’ll never forgive me if I forget her magic cuddle.”
Magic cuddle? Sara almost choked on her wine. Did the woman have no shame? Had she forgotten that Sara knew what went on around here? Then again, perhaps Lou was more interested in recruiting new members to her fan club, than in presenting anything resembling an authentic personality to a friend whose good opinion of her seemed to matter less and less with each day that passed.
“She’s bright as a button, isn’t she?” Claudia said, applying herself, enthusiastically, to her cold tortilla.
“Who, Zuley?” Gavin grinned smugly, “Yeah, not bad.”
“Not bad?” Claudia affected outrage. “She’s a Key Stage One reader, I’ll have you know.”
Gav looked bemused. “Is that good?”
“At four? It’s amazing,” Claudia said. “I’ve taught kids of seven who couldn’t read as well as that.”
“So you’re a teacher, Claudia?” Sara said.
“Newly qualified.” Claudia blushed and plucked at her earring. “I’ll probably be doing supply for a bit, while I find my feet.”
“How does that work?”
“They just call you up when someone goes off sick or whatever.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“Well,” said Claudia, happily, “I shall be here, I suppose. Helping out where I can.”
So there it was. The home-school had been outsourced. No wonder Gavin and Lou were rolling out the red carpet for these people – they were worth their weight in gold. While Claudia honed her teaching skills on the kids, Chris would no doubt be running an eye over Gavin’s tax affairs. Sara almost wanted to laugh, it was so perfect. Didn’t they say sharks had to keep moving or they’d drown?
“They asked us, by the way.” Claudia leaned towards her and spoke in a defensive half-whisper.
“Sorry?” said Sara. The poor woman was still tying herself in knots of humility and gratitude.
“They asked us to come and stay,” said Claudia. “We didn’t ask them. I was only ringing to find out about the area, I never dreamed they’d offer to put us up.”
“I dare say they could use the rent.”
“Oh, we’re not paying rent,” said Claudia, “they wouldn’t hear of it, which, when you consider that it’s an open-ended arrangement and a very generously-sized room, says a lot about them, don’t you think?”
Gavin came back, whistling, a bottle of Burgundy in his hands.
“An oldie and a goodie,” he said, “had this one laid down for a bit, but as long as we’re celebrating. Have I missed something?”
“No,” said Neil, with false bonhomie, “we were just comme
nding your hospitality. What are we celebrating?”
“Didn’t Lou tell you?” Gav rolled his eyes. “Typical. We’ve just heard that the BFI is releasing Cuckoo in a new series of DVDs celebrating contemporary women film-makers.”
“Fantastic!” said Neil.
Claudia and Chris swooned.
Sara was confused. Was this a coup or a comedown? In the real world, when a film went straight to DVD, it was considered a flop.
“Does that mean it won’t get a cinema release?” she asked, a little too eagerly. And yet her schadenfreude was self-defeating. If the damn thing didn’t make any money, it was she and Neil who stood to lose out.
“Oh probably, yes, at some point,” said Gavin vaguely, “but either way, this is fantastically prestigious. It’s a huge boost for her career.”
Lou came back into the room, to a smattering of sycophantic applause.
“What did I do?” she said, affecting bafflement. “Oh, the film? Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
Gavin poured the wine with great ceremony and stood to propose a toast. Reluctantly, Sara raised her glass along with the others.
“To my gorgeous, sexy, prodigiously talented wife. Thank you for never, ever being boring.”
“To Lou,” Neil said, rushing into the respectful silence a little too quickly.
“Lou,” cooed the others, in unison. Sara mouthed the shape of the word.
Lou flapped her hand dismissively in front of her face. Tears came to her eyes and she caressed her breastbone, as she had done post-screening, when the emotion had all been too much. She sat down, but then almost immediately stood up again.
“Actually…” she said, with a catarrhal gulp, “sorry, Gav, but you’re not getting off scot-free here.” Her tears welled again. “This man…” she said. She half laughed and shook her head, “this man. If talent is a word that could ever be applied to me, which, incidentally, I dispute…”
The People at Number 9 Page 22
