The Gilded Ones

by Brooke Fieldhouse

  ‘I imagine that Patrick’s gone down to find you something to drink.’ I’d heard the flat door opening and the tap-tap of his brogues on the stone stairs. I wondered where his cellar was and thought of the canal running all that distance beneath our feet.

  ‘You can sit here – anywhere for now but we may rearrange you later… or perhaps out on the terrace?’ It was agreeably warm, and there were long shadows but…

  ‘We’d quite like to be here, where the action is.’ I glanced at Denise who obviously agreed with me. Her eyes had a look as if my remark might well be prophetic. Denise sat at the end of the window-side of the table, which was laid for eight; I placed myself opposite and assumed that Patrick would take that head of the table, Martinique the other end.

  ‘You won’t have had this one before!’ Patrick glided back through the door carrying two galvanised aluminium buckets. I hadn’t heard him close the apartment door.

  One bucket was half-full of ice and contained four bottles; the other iceless pail had six bottles protruding at various angles like glass skittles. He plucked one of the non-chilled vessels and gently cradled it in front of the two of us like a father parading his newborn. The label had the feel of a circus poster of the Edwardian era.

  Martinique untied her apron, whipped off the hat again, hung both on a steel peg by the hob top and darted out of the room.

  ‘Ahl-low!’ The voice coming from below was a parody of ‘Mr Angry’ a character I’d heard on a Radio 1 phone-in programme. Male or female? …Wasn’t possible to tell, so when the figure entered I didn’t feel surprised either way. What did take me aback was the similarity in look to Patrick. The person who bowled into the room was female, early twenties, five foot seven, stocky, broad-chinned, flat-nosed, but instead of the black pupils she had the most wonderful pale bright blue sparkly eyes which seemed ever so familiar.

  ‘“You won’t have had this one before…” Has he said that yet?’ Her parody of Patrick sounded a little breathless. I nodded to the newcomer like an obedient dog. ‘That’s because it’s from his very own vineyard,’ she added. Patrick pursed his lips, stood on tiptoe. This I took to be a kind of double pride; acknowledgement of his oenological achievement plus the fact that the information was coming from a chip off his own block.

  ‘Really?’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The newcomer sat down next to Denise. Patrick meanwhile was conspicuously corkscrewing the non-iced bottles.

  ‘Martiniqua, glasses!’ As if on cue Martinique hurried into the room dressed like a matelot in hooped top and white trousers. Her skin was less shiny than it had been at her exit. More obvious than ever were the differences between her and Lauren, and also her ability to fit in. If you saw Martinique walking down Whitehall she would look like most power-dressed female Brits, but if you caught sight of her sauntering along a street in Toulouse you wouldn’t consider that she was anything but native French. On the other hand, if Lauren was beamed down to the Toulouse street she would stick out like a sore Brit.

  I stared at the ‘ahl-low’ female. She raised both eyebrows and smiled without showing her teeth. She was dressed in a voluminous green – almost dayglo – smock and blue denim jeans.

  ‘Yippee I oh ki yay!’ The voice coming from below was not dissimilar to the one of thirty seconds previously except this time it was discernibly female. I found myself standing – partly out of politeness, but mainly through astonishment – because the person who burst through the door, surely, was the she who was sitting almost opposite me? They were twins – same smock, same jeans.

  ‘Bea-Bea!’

  ‘Jen-Jen!’ There was noisy air-kissing and the space under the roof light seemed to be a tangle of hazard green.

  ‘How was Argentina?’

  I’d got my bearings now. It was Bea who was sitting opposite me. I knew about Jen because she was the mother of the two-year-old amateur eye surgeon… And so, it unrolled that Bea was a journalist currently working on a piece called Falklands Fallout.

  ‘We both trained as architects then I went and did something different,’ announced Bea to no one in particular. Introductions it seemed were not the thing here.

  ‘Yo yo!’ The voice from below was unequivocally male, and as the young man came in I could see he was a few years younger than the girls… About my height – five ten – he hesitated at the other end of the table before taking a seat next to Jen. Martinique walked round the table placing a number of small white bowls across its surface containing fat olives, giant cashews, and plain crisps the size of small papadums. The girls each took a crisp and munched with mouths tightly closed. There was the sound of a cork popping followed by a soft fizzing, and on her second circuit Martinique handed each person a wine glass containing an aerated light golden liquid.

  ‘It’s a new one. I’m interested to hear what you all think.’ Patrick’s lips were in the ‘O’ shape, his head tilted and turned like a small girl who’s just finished reading her poem to the class.

  ‘Cheers, Dad.’ Al downed it in one. Patrick was standing behind me and I realized he was waiting for my comment.

  ‘Very nice, Patrick…’

  I felt his eye travelling down my back.

  ‘Did you know that your mother dropped a stitch when she knitted your pullover?’

  Because the evening temperatures were down to 12⁰ or less, I’d worn a sleeveless Fair Isle under my jacket. They were enjoying a fashion revival so I’d sported it with a grey tab-collar shirt, buttoned but no tie. I thought it looked quite good. I knew all about the dropped stitch in the middle of the back and had never had the heart to tell my mother. As I usually wore it with a jacket it had never seemed to matter but this evening was warm – even with the French windows standing open – and I’d removed my jacket. Patrick was still wearing his. He turned to Denise who seemed to be about to offer her verdict of the wine.

  ‘If it isn’t Blanquette de Limoux it’s a blend using that as a base, methode traditionelle…’ Denise raised her glass and turned it, ‘… Probably Languedoc region.’

  Patrick moved away from my back, round the end of the table, and practically fell on his knees in front of her.

  ‘You and I have something to talk about. Don’t go away.’

  ‘This would be very good drunk with oysters,’ insisted Denise.

  ‘Do you eat oysters often?’ asked Patrick, the irises of his eyes bigger and blacker than I had ever seen them before.

  ‘Oooh yes,’ Denise let out another of her throaty chuckles. I knew she did, unlike me she was an experienced and accomplished cook. Are they fresh? She would always interrogate the red-faced fishmonger, a question which to my inexperienced ears seemed superfluous. If they weren’t fresh then why were they on his stall? And if the monger was unscrupulous enough to be offering produce which wasn’t fresh then surely, he wouldn’t admit to it anyway? Shortly after one of the ‘are they fresh’ incidents I happened to see a TV programme on oysters, and with my new-found knowledge I rather swottishly suggested to Denise that a more pertinent question might be are they ‘rock’ or ‘native’? She hadn’t heard of either.

  Patrick marched to the knife drawer, took out a carving knife and – what looked to me – like a large screwdriver. He planted the steel in the centre of the butcher’s block with his left hand and began vigorously drawing the flat of the knife across it, first one side then the other. Conversation among the three children buzzed. Denise let out another of her throaty chuckles.

  ‘We were just saying, Al, isn’t it funny that all three of us did architecture? I dropped out after three years; Jen was the only one to qualify…’ Bea was addressing her siblings but the story was clearly for Denise and my benefit.

  ‘I needed something home-based for the babe.’

  ‘… and Al flunked after a year.’

  ‘… Didn’t suit me.’

  ‘It was living in a house
with all those girls that did it – where else would you have got the idea of changing courses and doing fashion?’

  At first, I thought Jen was referring to Al being the only son – and ‘all those girls’ being the family home – but clearly all three children had their own flats, lived their own lives. Al was silent. There was the sound of oven doors being opened and closed. I could see Martinique prodding things. The smell was more appetizing than ever – my taste buds had been stimulated by the sparkling wine.

  Had I encountered Bea or Jen on separate occasions I would have assumed that they were the same person. Patrick had referred to his trio of offspring as ‘my children’ – no names. As far as I was concerned Bea and Jen looked like mirror images and it was only through sitting next to one and opposite the other that I began to see them as two individuals.

  Both had similar light brown hair; touches of blonde and henna – Bea more Bananarama flyaway, Jen a neater – like the girl dancers in the Human League – longer-style Eton Crop. They both had the startling blue eyes which I’d seen somewhere before, both formed ‘O’s with their lips, and both regularly engaged in the backward tilt of their heads as if they were examining a set of cross-hair sights located on the end of their noses. But if anyone looked like Patrick it was Bea; the flat nose, the thick neck, and as she indulged in one of her backward tilts to the head I was sure I could make out the trace of an Adam’s apple. Jen’s features were smaller, neater – more feminine.

  ‘Hi everyone!’ A tall young man appeared in the room dressed in black trousers and white shirt. He crossed the room towards Denise and me.

  ‘Hello, I’m Laurie, you must be Denise, and you must be Pulse.’ I was amazed. Not only was he the first person in the room to offer a greeting, for a seventeen-year-old he seemed remarkably mature. Tall – taller than me, but he didn’t have that hulking gaucheness that a lot of oversized teens have – as if they were unformed humans teetering on the edge of catastrophe. He had the aura of a man of thirty, and his English was immaculate. He was carrying a small wooden case with a handle.

  ‘I’ve got a boy just his age,’ Denise turned to Bea as Laurie walked away. Bea turned to Jen and the two of them exchanged deadpan looks breathing in unison through their noses.

  Laurie walked over to the butcher’s block where Patrick was still thrashing the carving knife against the steel. There was a brief exchange between Patrick and Martinique which I could just hear over the talking hive of the three siblings. Denise had managed to start something – if somewhat perfunctory – with Bea… about Argentina.

  ‘Laurie wants to carve the beef, Patrick.’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of carving my own joint of beef…’ he continued lacerating at the steel ‘… which I paid for.’

  ‘It’s what he’s been doing today, he wants to practise – there’s no need for you to do that, Patrick, he’s brought his own knives.’

  ‘So, my knife isn’t good enough.’ His foot stamped down on the tiled floor.

  ‘It’s not that, Patrick; it’s what he’s been learning on his course.’

  I was abruptly aware of the scuffling of leather against the marble floor. I felt a rush of wind behind my back, and saw Patrick marching past his empty chair towards the French window. He was holding the carving knife – holding it like a dagger. The scene had endowed itself with the bizarre appearance of a non-costume rehearsal for Macbeth. I heard the slam of the French door followed by an almighty thump. Denise closed her eyes, while the three siblings carried on chattering.

  Laurie was already carving the beef, Martinique removing various vegetables from the oven and saucepan and transferring them into tureens. I could hear the crash of dinner plates. As Denise moved her head in an attempt to join Bea’s chatter I had a view through the French doors onto the terrace. It appeared to be deserted, and I could see the circular white table upon which lay the wooden waffle-shaped tray. Something was protruding vertically from the chunky teak. It was still quivering slightly.

  ‘I’m serving out directly onto plates – cafeteria style,’ instructed Laurie.

  ‘No beef for me,’ from Al.

  ‘Al’s a veggie…’ Jen spoke directly to Denise and me for the first time, ‘… he’s done it just to spite Dad.’

  ‘The English eat far too much rosbif.’ Laurie’s exaggerated Franglais sounded odd next to his perfect English.

  A bovine roar rose up from out on the roof terrace.

  ‘If I haven’t been sufficiently generous then please help yourselves.’ Martinique transferred the lidded tureens onto the table, and Laurie distributed the plates now loaded with a delicious-looking combination of meat and vegetables. Martinique put out fresh wine glasses, polishing each one as she placed it on the table.

  On my plate – in addition to the thinnest slices of beef I’d ever seen – were three small new potatoes, two larger roast potatoes, julienned carrots and parsnips – also roast – and four perfectly aligned stalks of asparagus. As I helped myself to what appeared to be horseradish I heard the click of the French door and once again was aware of Patrick hurrying past me, this time making less noise. He took one of the bottles with the Edwardian circus-type label and did the entire circuit of the table filling each person’s glass with the dark red wine.

  I couldn’t help contrasting in my mind this scene with that of Sunday lunches at home with Mum and Dad. Chops were the rule with no more than a cubic inch of lean on each. Spuds were painstakingly peeled in a bowl by Dad while he watched football in flickering black and white. To save time my mother would resort to tinned vegetables, and she had never been a great one for spotted dick, suet or treacle puds, so ‘afters’ would usually follow the 1960s convenience formula of Instant Whip, or if my mother’s fourteen-stone sister was expected, a lemon Royal Chiffon. The only time we had a joint of meat was when we had a visitor, and Dad would attempt to carve whilst breathing heavily and making a great deal of clattering.

  ‘I can’t wait for your verdicts.’ Patrick’s voice sounded oddly low and flat. I gathered that this vintage was his. Al took a manly slurp.

  ‘Not bad, Dad.’ Patrick certainly wouldn’t be asking for my opinion again but I knew who he would be asking. As he took his seat at the head of the table Denise took a sip, bent forward and whispered something to him. I couldn’t help noticing that in reply Patrick’s right hand disappeared somewhere under the table. Denise gave a throaty chuckle. I saw Martinique glance their way, her eyes in conference mode.

  I cut some beef, skewered a new potato with my fork and raised it to my mouth. Patrick was watching me. ‘What did you think of Wimbledon, Pulse?’ His voice seemed unnaturally loud, and there was a silence as I chewed and swallowed conspicuously with the feeling that everyone was awaiting my response. Evidently Patrick, Martinique and the three siblings had been. All had had tickets for Centre Court. I hadn’t even watched it on TV. He persisted.

  ‘… Lords?’ I wasn’t sure whether he meant The House or cricket. ‘I know you live in W4, don’t tell me, you’re a closet Brentford fan?’ He pursed his lips.

  ‘Dad’s only showing off because he gets VIP tickets for Arsenal,’ said Jen – rather a spirited defence of me I thought – ‘… from Uncle Falco,’ she added.

  ‘Yes, the two of them park the Jenson somewhere discreet and eat fish and chips out of a polystyrene container,’ echoed Bea. Patrick leaned back in his Eames chair as if taking applause for this endorsement of him as a man of the people.

  ‘Is there any sport that you like, Pulse?’

  ‘Swimming…’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I went to Glyndebourne,’ offered Denise.

  Patrick’s lips formed the ‘O’.

  ‘I thought the arias weren’t as good as last year,’ said Jen.

  ‘The soprano was weak,’ insisted Bea.

  ‘Actually, it was last year I went. The season hasn�
��t started this year,’ reminded Denise who smiled at Patrick, and held up her glass. ‘I always think wines are better when the grapes are not over-blended,’ continued Denise. I noticed Patrick’s bottom lip moving as if his tongue was pushing against it. ‘Blending more than three grapes at a time is a bit like an artist mixing too many colours on his palette. He has this misguided notion that because red, green and blue are so delicious-looking that if he mixes them together it will produce a super colour, and what does he get? … Mud.’

  Patrick’s eyes had become blacker than coal and the skin around his mouth had puckered like the anus of some unknown creature.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone eat asparagus like that before.’ Patrick was looking at me sideways and forcing his lips into a smile, as if he were an indulgent father watching his child struggle to express itself in some perverse way. I’d started to eat the asparagus from the ‘big end’ where the stalks were at their widest – saving the most tender and best for last.

  ‘I must confess that the only asparagus I’ve eaten before has been in liquidised form, courtesy of Messrs Heinz.’ Everybody laughed – perhaps at my honesty. It was by no means the first time I’d wanted to tell Patrick to fuck off.

  Jen, plus husband and menu-wielding babe had just returned from holiday in Rome so I had opportunity to regain ground by telling my story about how as a sixteen-year-old schoolboy I’d borrowed money from a newsvendor near the Trevi Fountain.

  Getting there at all had been a miracle. Mum and Dad certainly didn’t have the money but the term before, I’d won the school essay prize, a substantial sum and more than enough to pay for the trip.

  ‘We were on a school trip; thirty of us and two long-suffering teachers. We stayed at a hostel in the suburbs run by nuns who locked the doors at 10.00pm. Two of us went into town on the bus and spent part of the evening drinking wine and listening to the jukebox in a café. We’d been issued with only so much pocket money each day so we didn’t blow the lot at once, and when we found we were a few lire short of the return bus ride we asked a newsvendor to help us out, insisting that we’d come back the next evening to pay him back. Much to our astonishment he gave us the lire, and much to his astonishment we returned the following evening and paid him back.’