‘I really don’t know,’ George said quickly. ‘And it’s entirely up to you.’ She pushed open the office door. ‘Hello, Gus.’ She looked at him sitting there with his chair tilted back tottering on two legs, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. ‘I hear we’ve been invited out this weekend.’
‘We sure have,’ Gus said and grinned at Hattie. ‘Ain’t that nice now? An’ she promises me I can have my favourite nosh too. Aren’t we the lucky ones!’
20
Hattie Clements and Sam Chanter, who was a tolerably successful novelist for most of the time, and a very successful coach for slow boys needing to be pushed through their A levels for the rest of it, lived in what George had always regarded as intellectual squalor in a large Victorian house in Bethnal Green. She had been there many times and it always seemed to her much like clambering into a deeply upholstered, unbelievably comfortable womb. There was a deep red carpet with scattered Persian-style rugs in the main living room, which ran from front to back of the house and incorporated both sitting and drawing rooms, since the wall once between them had been demolished, supporting an amazing clutter of big squashy easy chairs, cushion-strewn sofas, overloaded bookcases and oddment-laden occasional tables, as well as a small piano, a large music centre of the most up-to-the-minute state-of-the-art newness, and a big square dining table surrounded by a collection of motley but still very comfortable chairs. The kitchen at the back of the house was another amazing clutter of pots and pans and trailing ivy in overhead containers and children’s drawings pinned to the walls, and draining boards on each side of the sink piled high with newly washed dishes, and herbs growing in pots and cats’ and dogs’ baskets, and above all a constant smell of good food. It could not have been more unlike George’s own rather over-tidy flat (‘I have to keep it tidy,’ she had once protested to Hattie in embarrassment. ‘It’s so goddamn small I’d never find anything if I didn’t’) or Gus’s beautifully kept, elegant but slightly spartan home. For George the Chanter house managed to be simultaneously the most homelike of homes, and an example of the last way she would want to live herself, which was, she had to admit, highly contradictory.
When they arrived, she clutching an azalea in a pot and he with a bottle of good champagne under each arm, she wondered for a moment if Gus would have a miserable evening of it, finding the house less agreeable than she always did, and then thought a little maliciously, well, it’s his fault if he does. All this was his idea, after all.
But he fitted in beautifully and clearly felt as comfortable as she did herself. He presented the bottles to Sam with an assurance that they were still cold enough on account of he’d taken them from the fridge a bare ten seconds before starting the car to get here, kissed Hattie warmly on the cheeks and settled himself in one of the softest of the armchairs to talk cricket with Sam as they both gobbled one of Hattie’s specialities, which were buttery home-salted almonds. George, relieved in spite of herself, went off to the kitchen to keep Hattie company as she put the finishing touches to her dinner.
Hattie was flushed and happy as she moved around her cluttered space, a tea towel thrown over one shoulder of her black dinner dress and clearly quite unconcerned when she splashed herself with droplets of sauce as she stirred and tasted and generally busied herself as she chattered.
‘It’s my version of a Russian koulibiac,’ she said. ‘See? Filo pastry umpteen layers deep, and all buttered to within an inch of their lives, filled with a layer of poached salmon fillet on a bed of wild rice with olives and chopped mushrooms and a wickedly rich Hollandaise sauce all wrapped up and ready to bake for twenty minutes. It’s no wonder my dress doesn’t fit properly any more.’ And indeed, it was straining a little across her back. ‘But what the hell. Sam loves me as I am, so who am I to argue? I’ve got mange-touts with this and some marrow I’ve cooked à la hongroise — which only means with dill weed and a bit of caraway and soured cream — and an ice cold borscht to start. I hope Gus likes the taste of beetroot?’
‘Too bad if he doesn’t,’ George said. ‘I love it.’ She dipped a spoon into the jug of ruby richness that sat waiting in the middle of the table and savoured its tart sweetness. ‘To die for, hon. My God, they should taste this at the hospital and know what they’re missing.’
Hattie chuckled. ‘Well, not all of ’em. Not enough here. Still, I think I’ve got enough ambassadors here tonight to go back and tell ’em I can cook.’ She looked pleased with herself. ‘You wait till you see the pudding. I made the biggest damned cherry strudel you ever saw! I know it’s two lots of pastry, but they taste so different I didn’t think it’d matter. There’s a lot of good Chardonnay out in the back porch sitting in a bath of ice so we should have a good evening. As long as everyone keeps off talking shop.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ George said as casually as she could. ‘I rather like shop talk. It’s the best way of really knowing what people are like, I think, listening to their attitude to their jobs. Shall I cut up that bread for you?’
‘Hmm? Oh, yes please. Except I wondered maybe I should do some garlic bread to go with the starter? No, OK then. I thought it might be a bit too much. Just cut it up and shove it in the baskets. There’s butter in the fridge waiting to be curled and then if you really want to be a darling, you’ll set the coffee tray. What were you saying?’
‘Shop talk,’ George said. ‘I like it. You don’t, you said.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind it, as long as it doesn’t make people angry or critical of each other. That’s what gets boring.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ George was careful as she carried out Hattie’s instructions, thinking hard. She and Gus had talked a little of what he planned to do tonight, but in very little detail.
‘You can’t plan other people’s conversations, George,’ he had said. ‘Remember the folk tale about the guy who decides as he’s going to bed one rainy night he’ll mend his roof next day on account it’s leaking? Only he hasn’t got a ladder, so he thinks, I’ll borrow Joe’s from down the road. And then, he goes on inside his head, then Joe’ll say I have to fix my own roof, so I can’t lend you my ladder, and then I’ll say well let me have it when you’ve finished, and he’ll say but I promised to lend it to someone else and then the fella thinks — well, to cut it sideways, he gets so screwed up inside he gets out of bed, rushes out into the rain to his friend Joe’s house and bangs on the door and when Joe looks out of his window all surprised ’cause it’s round two in the morning, the guy shrieks, ‘I don’t want your bloody ladder!’ See what I mean? It’s a daft thing to do.’
‘Hmmph,’ she had said, refusing to laugh. ‘That’s as may be, but I still think there’s a lot to be said for doing some forward planning.’
‘Haven’t I done that? Aren’t we going to dinner at Hattie’s home to meet this guy Zack and see him in action? Pump him a little?’
‘I wish I knew how you managed that.’ She shook her head, mystified. ‘Hattie’s convinced it was all her own idea.’
Gus opened his eyes wide. ‘Oh, it was, it was! I just sort of opened her mind to it. It sounds like a nice line-up she’s got. Zack and Kate, to make a pair even though they aren’t, and a fella called …’ He closed his eyes to marshall his memory. ‘James Corton. I don’t know who he is.’
‘Oh?’ George said and smiled. ‘Nice old Hattie. He’s the shyest fella in the place. Scared to say boo to a goose. It’s typical of Hattie to take him under her wing. Who’s she balancing him with?’
‘I gather there’s a widowed neighbour Hattie’s fond of — what did she say her name was? Heather, I think. Yeah, Heather Pyne. I think that’s everyone. Perfect.’
‘How do you know it’s perfect?’
‘Not so many people that the conversation breaks up into little groups and not so few that it would show if you asked the same person too many questions. Ideal number. That’s why I wanted eight.’
‘Did you tell Hattie that?’ She was amuse
d.
‘Oh, no. She told me,’ and he grinned at her, his eyes so alight with laughter that she had to share it.
‘You’re a manipulative bastard, Gus, but I love you,’ she said.
His mood changed at once, and he looked at her very directly. ‘Do you?’
She had been a little flustered. ‘You know I do.’
He gave a theatrical sigh, recovering some of his jokiness, but there was behind it some real feeling, she knew. ‘Yet you allow these footloose medicos to ogle you? Ah me, if only life were as it used to be, when a man could tie his woman in his cave by her hair!’
‘Shut up,’ she advised. ‘You’ll see for yourself at Hattie’s how silly you are over this.’
And I hope he will, she thought now as she carried the bread through to the dining table. The last thing I want is any showing off from Zack. Or Gus, come to that. She felt a frisson of anxiety; this had seemed a good idea at first, a great way to get the lead on Zack she wanted, but now she wasn’t so sure. She remembered uneasily the way she had undoubtedly led Zack to believe she found him interesting and mentally crossed her fingers.
There was a flurry then as other people arrived. The front door bell rang in the hall and Sam, a comfortable-looking man whose rather dusty-looking hair, elderly check shirt and battered drill trousers (which had clearly never met an iron in their life) gave him an overall crumpled effect, went to answer it.
George stood by the table, listening. She heard Hattie go along the hall from the kitchen, then cries of welcome and the murmurings of, ‘You really shouldn’t have,’ as the usual offerings were made and accepted — more plants? More wine? Probably — and the deeper voices of the new arrivals. George strained to hear words but couldn’t and Gus laughed. She switched her gaze to him.
‘Patience, girlie. Your heartthrob will get here,’ he murmured over the rim of his champagne glass-and she thrust her tongue out at him in the rudest way she could.
‘Oh, a nice healthy sight for any doctor to be offered!’ The voice from the doorway was light and bantering but it hit George hard. Oh God, she thought. I wish I’d never agreed to this. But she turned and managed a smile.
‘Hi, Zack. I was just having a normal conversation with Gus here. You’ve met, I think?’
‘Oh, yes, the Detective Inspector? Of course I remember.’
‘Detective Superintendent,’ Gus said. ‘Not that it matters, which is what we always say when in fact it matters like hell. Good evening to you.’
‘Whoops.’ Zack smiled charmingly. ‘Trust me to make a bish. Now, Hattie, are you sure I’m forgiven? I wouldn’t normally do such a thing but I hadn’t the heart not to.’ He turned the smile on Hattie who had come in behind him.
‘It’s no problem,’ Hattie said, looking at George, her face adorned with a bright expression. ‘Zack brought along a friend of his, George. I’ll just set another place.’
Her expression didn’t alter as George caught her eye, but to George it said it all. Bloody man, mucking up the dining table. Who the hell did he think he was, bringing someone else? What was the point of explaining to people it was a dinner party they were invited to when they behaved as though it was a buffet? ‘Shove another cup of water in the soup, hon,’ George said, gazing at Zack very directly. She could say it if Hattie couldn’t, and had opened her mouth to do just that when Sam appeared, bringing someone else with him. She blinked. ‘Oh. Hello Dr — Mike — er — we’ve met before, Hattie. Dr Klein is also researching at the Institute.’
‘So Zack told me,’ Hattie said, still with that gritted-teeth brightness. ‘Now, do give everyone a drink, Sam, while I go and do kitchen things. Uh, George?’
George escaped too, following her into the kitchen where Hattie closed the door carefully and then growled loudly between her teeth.
‘It’s all right,’ George said sopthingly. ‘You always over-cater to a ridiculous degree, honey. There’ll be plenty of food.’
‘And bugger all space for people’s elbows! I know my own limitations and eight at that table is fine. Nine is purgatory. I hate him. How could you ever have fancied him?’
‘I didn’t,’ George said unconvincingly. ‘Here, give me the extra cutlery and so forth and I’ll set a place. Calm down, it’ll be fine — and it sounds as though some more people have arrived. Didn’t you hear the doorbell? Go and make sure they haven’t brought the whole of the Bolshoi Ballet to share your koulibiac’
Hattie growled again but hurried out. George followed her more slowly to re-set the table, and found the four men, Sam and Gus, Zack and Michael Klein, in happy colloquy, all apparently talking at the same time.
She caught Gus’s eye and he winked at her. ‘Hi, doll! Why didn’t you tell me this man was such an expert on ice hockey? I used to know this guy who played in Montreal — way back it was, what was his name?’ He turned back into the conversation as George got on with her chore and the last arrivals, James Corton and Kate Sayers, came in, followed by the only stranger to George, a quiet woman in a rather dowdy dress.
‘There!’ Hattie said brightly behind them. ‘Here we all are, then. Now have you enough almonds to go with the bubbly? No? I’ll go and get some more and put my koulibiac in the oven and then we can all settle down for a nice gossip till dinner’s ready.’
*
Whether it was the saltiness of Hattie’s almonds or the warmth of the summer evening that made them thirsty, it was not possible to say, but the champagne, both bottles, vanished rapidly and were immediately replaced by very cold Chardonnay fetched by Sam from the back porch, dripping with ice water and welcomed vociferously by all of them. They seemed to succumb to the softening influence of alcohol very quickly, George thought, but was glad of it. The barriers seemed to dwindle so low that even she began to relax.
Zack’s behaviour could not have been more perfect. He paid flattering attention to Hattie, his hostess, until she melted like a glacier transferred to the Equator, and seemed completely to forget her ire at being saddled with an unwanted guest. Mike Klein himself was also charming and a very different proposition from the young man George had met at Hunnisett’s party and later in Laburnum Ward. He talked as easily of books and films and music as he did of science — and the conversation ranged comfortably over all those subjects — and showed himself to be a much more interesting person than his rather unprepossessing appearance would have led George to expect. It’s not the first time I’ve done that, she thought, staring a little owlishly into the depths of her glass. Judging people by what they look like is asking for trouble. This guy is very nice: I should be ashamed of myself for making snap judgements about him.
The quietest people at the table were Sam and James Corton. The younger man, though he did talk a little to Heather Pyne, who seemed as shy as he was and even more monosyllabic, mostly sat and crumbled his bread and ate a great deal, blinking at people through his round glasses and clearly listening to all that was said, but contributing little to the general conversation. Sam was an observer, too, but in a very different way. George was used to Sam’s sort of behaviour in a crowd. The man could no more help observing people instead of joining in than he could prevent himself from breathing. He had tried to explain that once to George, long ago, blaming his novel-writing activities, and George, who found his quietness endearing, assured him she had understood. Now, sitting beside him, she was happy to join in his silent observation.
Kate Sayers was on the quiet side too, lapsing from time to time into little silences, and George felt for her; she adored her Oliver, a most difficult man who had never quite made up his mind what mattered most to him: his job as a radio correspondent for an independent news company, his life with Kate and her children, or the pressures put on him by the children of his first marriage who, according to Kate, did all they could to make his life as complicated as it could be. Kate was often distraite when she thought about Oliver. That she should be so now when he was away reporting in the Balkans was fully understandable. George lean
ed towards her, across the silent Sam, and talked to her whenever she could, leaving the noisy chatter to the men on the other side of the table, and to Hattie, who was, to tell the truth, very slightly drunk, partly with wine and partly with the praise heaped on her for her dinner, which was, quite frankly, superb. Not a scrap of the koulibiac remained and the cherry strudel was a sorry wreck of rich red juice and flakes of crisp pastry long before the coffee came to top it all up.
Sam had found a bottle of good brandy which he set in front of Gus, who looked up at him with a gleam in his eye, and accepted it gracefully, and a bottle of plum schnapps which he offered in general, but only Zack accepted that. He took a small glassful and threw it back in one swallow with an expert twist of his wrist that made Sam laugh aloud.
‘The only other person I ever saw drink schnapps like that was a Hungarian,’ he said in his unexpectedly deep voice. ‘Like you, huh, Zack?’
‘Now, how did you know that?’ Zack looked at him, his eyes very dark and bright above his flushed cheeks. He didn’t look drunk, but he was certainly elevated, George decided. There was an almost dangerous glitter about him and she caught her breath as he shifted his gaze to her. ‘Did you tell him, George? You’re the only one here who knows my origins. I reckon it must have been you.’
‘No,’ she said as casually as she could. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone about you, Zack. Why should I?’
‘Aha,’ he said loudly and took another shot of schnapps. ‘So, I’m not interesting enough?’
Fourth Attempt Page 20
