Rules for a Perfect Life

by Niamh Greene

  As if she’s reading my mind, Peg rummages behind the counter and brings forth a tin from its depths. ‘Mushy peas,’ she says, winking. ‘You can’t beat them.’

  ‘Peg!’ I say, astounded. ‘I love mushy peas!’

  ‘Well, of course you do,’ she replies, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to be able to read my mind like that. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  I can’t remember the last time anyone besides Mum made a homemade meal especially for me. Any dinner parties I’ve been to in the last few years weren’t exactly home-cooked affairs – usually whoever hosted bought everything in ready-made. Sometimes, at the posher dos, there was a caterer, even waiting staff. In retrospect it all seems so opulent and over the top. Peg is acting like this is nothing unusual, but I would never think about making something to eat for any of my neighbours. In fact, I barely knew any of my neighbours back in the city, except to nod to. Ted and Peg have made a real effort to include me since I’ve been here. I guess that’s why they call it a community – people look out for each other.

  ‘Thank you again, Peg,’ I say, feeling a little overwhelmed. They’ve been so kind to me.

  ‘You’re very welcome. So, we’ll see you on Thursday for our big night out. We’ll pick you up at seven.’

  ‘OK.’ I smile. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘Great! You don’t mind sharing the back seat with Edward and Matilda, do you?’

  Edward and Matilda? ‘They’re coming too?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Didn’t I mention that?’ Peg asks. ‘I’m such a feather-head, honestly.’

  ‘We thought they could do with a good night out as well,’ Ted explains. ‘Blow off the cobwebs a bit, let the old hair down. There’ll be lots of teenagers there too, so Matilda should have a great time.’

  ‘Sure, I know what you mean,’ I lie.

  The warm, fuzzy feeling I’d been enjoying disappears in a puff of smoke as I realize I’ve agreed to go to this ball with my landlord and his teenage daughter – the one who hates my guts. Great. That’s just great.

  ‘So, get your glad rags out!’ Ted cheers. ‘It’s going to be a brilliant night – I can feel it in me waters.’

  My heart sinks as he unwraps another Mars Bar and takes a celebratory bite. Ted’s wrong. This isn’t going to be a brilliant night, it’s going to be one big disaster – I can feel it my waters, or I would if I knew where they were exactly.

  Rule Nineteen: Dance like no one’s watching

  ‘I’m not sure about this beef.’ Peg pokes the meat on her plate with her fork. ‘I think it’s off.’

  ‘Really?’

  I cut a tiny corner from my steak and chew it slowly. It tastes delicious but I’m afraid to say so. What if Betty from the butcher’s supplied the meat? If I compliment anything to do with her Peg will be royally offended, and I certainly don’t want that, not when she and Ted have been so nice to me.

  ‘It’s a little chewy,’ I concede, and she smiles knowingly at me.

  ‘You’re right,’ she agrees. ‘It hasn’t been hung properly, that’s the problem.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Oh, yes. If beef isn’t hung properly it can taste like cardboard.’

  ‘The vegetables are nice enough, though.’ I’m hoping this is the right thing to say – I get the feeling I shouldn’t praise anything too much.

  ‘Yes,’ she agrees half-heartedly. ‘Of course, they would have been far nicer if they were steamed.’

  ‘True,’ I say, and she smiles at me, happy I concur.

  ‘So, Maggie, what do you think of the hunt ball so far?’ Edward leans across the table to talk to me.

  He’s wearing a black tux and he looks sensational – nothing like a trussed-up waiter, unlike poor Ted who keeps pulling at his bow-tie, as if it’s slowly strangling him.

  I’ve spent most of the night so far trying to avoid talking to Edward mostly because although Odette isn’t sitting with us, she’s floating round the room somewhere. However, there is another reason I’m reluctant to engage in conversation and that’s because every time I look at him I experience a strange fluttering in my chest. A fluttering that’s making me feel very uneasy indeed. ‘I like it,’ I answer politely, carefully cutting up some more beef into tiny little pieces. Concentrating on doing that minimizes the sizzling embarrassment I feel every time he looks at me.

  ‘Not too boring for you?’

  ‘No,’ I reply, dicing my carrots and pushing them round my plate. Why am I so hot and bothered?

  ‘It’s too boring for me!’ Matilda groans. ‘Why can’t I go and talk to my friends?’ She looks longingly across the room to where a gang of teenagers are sitting together, tossing napkins back and forth across the table at each other. She spent the entire journey here in Peg and Ted’s little white van in stony silence and she’s barely uttered a word to anyone all night. I’d no idea why she’d even agreed to come until I spotted Daniel with the group on the other side of the room. Obviously he’s the motivation behind her get-up. Her strapless, backless, barely there black dress is incredibly short and she’s plastered fake tan on every visible inch of skin. It’s a look that any city teenage girl would be proud of, and apparently it’s just as popular here in the middle of nowhere. When she took off the modest wrap she had draped around her shoulders to reveal what was underneath I saw Edward pale. Despite many discreet hints from him, she has since refused to put it back on.

  ‘You can talk to them when we’ve finished our meal, Matilda,’ Edward says mildly, trying to defuse the tension.

  ‘I have finished.’ Matilda pushes her plate away. ‘It was disgusting.’

  ‘Didn’t you like any of it, Matilda?’ Ted asks, his face creased with worry as if he’s somehow personally responsible for this.

  ‘I’m a vegetarian,’ Matilda replies. ‘Meat offends me.’

  ‘A vegetarian, you say?’ Ted is interested. ‘Why is that? Is it for health reasons?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Matilda says coolly. ‘I just decided I don’t want to eat anything with a face, that’s all.’

  ‘Anything with a face, eh?’ Ted repeats. ‘Did you hear that, Peg?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Peg isn’t paying any attention to the conversation, she’s far too busy carefully observing someone else. I follow her gaze to another table – where Betty from the butcher’s, in a purple satin sleeveless gown, is tucking into the beef with relish. As I watch she takes the gravy boat and drenches her plate with another generous helping.

  ‘Matilda here says she won’t eat anything with a face.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Peg says distractedly, her eyes glued to Betty’s fleshy shoulders.

  ‘Since when, Matilda?’ Edward scoffs lightly. ‘You had a beefburger last week, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘A lot has changed since then,’ she says loftily. ‘Not that you would ever notice.’

  ‘Ah, yes, a week is a long time in the life of a teenager,’ Ted says, dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. ‘Even I know that.’

  Matilda stares at him, eyes narrowed, as if she can’t quite believe he was ever a teenager.

  ‘Did I ever tell you that I saw the Beatles perform live once?’ he says to her, out of the blue.

  ‘No way!’ Matilda forgets to be cool for a second and her jaw drops in genuine admiration.

  ‘Yes, I did. They weren’t that good, though.’

  ‘The Beatles weren’t that good?’ Matilda is astounded.

  ‘No. I never did like Paul McCartney – far too saccharine. Now the Stones – they were class. Jagger knew how to play a crowd. Of course, I can barely remember that gig – I’d smoked so much hash beforehand, I was really out of it.’

  ‘You smoked hash?’ Matilda can’t believe her ears.

  ‘Of course,’ Ted replies. ‘Ah, the music’s starting – great!’

  ‘Oh, God, not this crowd,’ Matilda mutters, suddenly remembering to be stroppy again.

  A group of five is setting u
p on the stage, all dressed in identical blue suits and blue suede shoes, their hair slicked back into greasy quiffs. ‘Who are they?’ I ask.

  ‘The oldest swingers in town.’ Matilda groans. ‘They’re brutal.’

  ‘They’re not that bad,’ Edward remonstrates.

  ‘You’re right, they’re worse. I’m outta here, Dad, see you later.’

  Before Edward can protest, Matilda stalks away from the table. She’s heading straight for Daniel. He doesn’t even lift his head to say hello as she sashays towards him, wobbling a little on her heels. He’s completely ignoring her – I’d forgotten how charming teenage boys can be.

  ‘Maggie, will you give me the honour of this first dance?’ Ted bows formally in front of me as the band swings into life.

  ‘I’m not much of a waltzer, Ted,’ I warn him.

  ‘And neither am I, so we’ll be perfectly matched.’

  ‘Go on, Maggie.’ Peg is no longer watching Betty. ‘It’ll give me the chance to quiz Edward here about his love life!’

  Edward shifts in his seat and a pink colour creeps into his cheeks.

  ‘You’re a terrible woman, Peg,’ Ted guffaws. ‘You’re making the poor man blush.’ He swings me away from the table and on to the dance-floor, which is already packed with people. Apparently the city phobia about being the first to move doesn’t apply here – everyone is happy to get out and start to enjoy themselves immediately. It’s quite refreshing, even though Ted is stamping all over my precious Prada sling-backs. He wasn’t lying – he’s no dancer.

  ‘So, Maggie, how are you enjoying country life?’ he asks me now, as we sway around the floor.

  ‘I like it,’ I reply. ‘It’s certainly not dull, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Did you think it was going to be?’

  I bite my lip. Damn. I don’t want to offend him, not when he and Peg have invited me here tonight.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re not insulting me. I was terrified when I moved to Glacken first.’

  ‘You’re not from here?’ I had simply assumed he was. He certainly sounds as if he is.

  ‘Oh, no.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m a blow-in, like you.’

  ‘Where are you from, then?’

  ‘I’m from Lyross.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘About ten miles away.’

  Is he serious? He thinks he’s a blow-in because he moved to Glacken from a village ten miles away? ‘That’s not very far,’ I say.

  ‘Geographically, no. But psychologically it may as well be a million light years away.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It took people a long time to accept me into the community. I’m still known as Ted from Lyross among the villagers, even though I’ve been here for thirty-odd years.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘That’s mad.’

  ‘Yes, even my children would have been considered blow-ins. It takes generations for the villagers to really accept an outsider. The children didn’t happen for us, of course.’

  A flicker of grief passes across his face as he says this but I pretend not to see it. I don’t want to embarrass him.

  ‘Still, I’m glad to be here,’ he goes on. ‘I did my travelling in my youth.’

  ‘You did? Where to?’

  ‘All over, really – Australia, America, South Africa …’

  ‘You travelled all over the world?’ I’m gobsmacked. I never would have guessed that.

  ‘I did, yes.’ He smiles a little wistfully. ‘I worked on the ships before I settled down. It was a wonderful life. But that was before I met Peg, of course – she put a halt to my gallop.’

  ‘Do you ever miss it?’ I ask, curious.

  Ted glances across to where Peg is chatting to Edward. ‘Between you and me, I do,’ he admits. ‘Sometimes I think I’d love to go exploring – you know, take off with no great plan and just see what happens. But Peg …’

  ‘She’s more of a home bird?’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ he says. ‘We were planning to travel – when we found out that children weren’t going to happen for us. But the years just seemed to pass us by. Peg was nervous about flying, too, of course …’

  ‘She’s over that now, though.’

  ‘Yes, she is. But she still doesn’t really want to go, and now there’s this supermarket thing. I don’t want to push her …’

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ Peg is at Ted’s shoulder. I’d never even noticed her coming.

  ‘Nothing, sweetheart!’ Ted fixes a smile to his face.

  ‘I see. Nothing, was it?’ Peg smiles back. ‘Well, Maggie, I hope you don’t mind if I interrupt you? I’d like to take my husband for a whirl.’

  ‘Of course.’ I kiss Ted’s whiskery cheek. ‘That was lovely, Ted, thank you,’ I whisper. He squeezes my hand and I squeeze his back in return – the message is clear: this conversation stays between us.

  I turn to go back to the table as Ted takes Peg’s hand and bump straight into Edward’s torso. Where did he come from? It’s as if he appeared out of thin air at my side.

  ‘Would you like to dance?’ he asks quietly, his eyes locked on mine.

  I gaze at him, my heart suddenly pounding in my ears. Odette is here somewhere – what will she do to me if she sees us dancing together? She’ll have a canary, that’s what. A vision of her launching herself across the floor to rip the hair from my head flashes into my mind. Then again, such a public display wouldn’t be exactly her style. She’d probably do something far sneakier – like slip a cyanide pill into my drink. I get the feeling Odette would like to watch me die a slow and very painful death.

  Then Edward smiles hesitantly at me and instantly I make up my mind. I don’t care what Odette thinks or what she does: all I know is that I want to dance with him. It’s almost as if I’m longing, yes, longing, to feel his body close to mine. Which can’t be right, can it?

  I nod yes to him and he slips his arm around me. It’s nothing like dancing with Ted. Edward moves smoothly, his hand resting lightly on the small of my back, guiding me. For once I actually feel like I’m waltzing properly and not just being frogmarched about. If I could only stop my knees knocking together with nerves it would be even better.

  ‘You look beautiful tonight, Maggie,’ he says in my ear, as we move together across the floor.

  ‘Thanks, so do you,’ I reply. ‘Not beautiful, of course. You look well. That’s what I mean. Very well. Clean too. You look really clean.’ I sound like an idiot. Why can’t I think before I speak – what is wrong with me?

  ‘Thank you,’ he says solemnly. ‘It took me quite a while to scrub up.’

  ‘Me too!’ I exclaim, then bite my lip again. Why did I have to go and say that? What a stupid thing to admit, even if it’s true. It’s been so long since I’ve been anywhere remotely fancy that it took for ever to do my hair and makeup. I couldn’t even check how I looked because there’s no full-length mirror in the cottage but I think my D&G dress is OK – it slipped on and zipped up easier than usual. I may have lost a few pounds from all the mucking out, which is an up-side to all the sweating and scrubbing that I hadn’t thought of.

  An awkward silence descends between us and I desperately try to think of something intelligent to say. My mind is completely blank. For some reason not a single thing, intelligent or otherwise, comes to mind. Could it be because he’s so close? His hand is still resting on the small of my back and all I can think about is the heat of his fingers on my skin. But thinking like that is insane. The only reason he asked me to dance is because he’s being polite. Anything else is in my head.

  ‘Thanks for offering to teach Polly how to paint,’ he says at last, and I exhale with relief that the ice has been broken. Now I know for sure that I’ve lost weight – the last time I wore this dress I had to hold my breath all night I was so nervous the seams would pop.

  ‘That’s no problem. She’s a lovely kid. I probably should have asked you first, though, before I said it to her,’ I babble.
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br />   ‘It was probably less you offering and more her suggesting – am I right?’ He chuckles.

  ‘I don’t mind, honestly,’ I say. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘Well, she can’t wait – it’s all she can talk about.’

  ‘I hope it lives up to her expectations.’

  ‘A private lesson with an award-winning artist?’ He whistles. ‘I’m sure she’ll love every minute.’

  I cringe as he says this. Why, oh, why did I ever pretend to be something I’m not? I feel like such a fraud – probably because that’s exactly what I am.

  Should I confess here and now? I do want to tell him the truth, but something is stopping me. It’s so lovely moving slowly together to the music that I can’t bear to spoil the moment. And baring my soul, revealing all, would definitely do that because something tells me that Edward wouldn’t be impressed with my story.

  ‘Was Polly sad she couldn’t come tonight?’ I ask, to change the subject.

  ‘Not really. She thinks balls are naff,’ he laughs. ‘Besides, June has promised to make her hot chocolate as a treat.’

  ‘They’re very close, aren’t they?’ I ask, bumping against him as the floor becomes more crowded. If we get any closer together we’ll need special equipment to prise us apart – it’s not such an unappealing idea, not when, under my fingers, I can feel Edward’s taut, lean back. The same back that I clung to when we were investigating the burglary at Rose Cottage. Who knew a back could be such a thing of beauty?

  ‘Yes, they are. June is great with her. It’s just that she can be a little …’ Edward searches for the right word to describe his mother-in-law ‘… colder with everyone else.’

  Ain’t that the truth! June is a pussycat with her younger granddaughter – but she’s a vicious tiger with everyone else. Should I tell him what she said to me at the gymkhana? That I should pack my bags and go back to the city? It’s tempting, but what good would it do? June hates me, and snitching on her won’t change that. I decide to keep quiet.