The stock of alcohol accumulated. Bottles multiplied on the table, while the food remained mostly untouched. A keg of beer had appeared from somewhere, and a permanent queue was formed to fill plastic beakers at its tap. Juliette learned from Boris during a clumsy tango that the keg had been supplied by Bill, who’d rolled it all the way down Chapel Street from The Quiet Woman.
Bill was quiet, however, so subdued that Juliette didn’t notice him until late into the evening. She passed him on the way to the toilet. He was in the passageway talking with friends she didn’t recognize. He gave her a rather hangdog glance of acknowledgement as she passed by. His hair was shorter and he’d shaved off his beard, though the moustache survived. She noticed his shoes, low rise platforms in black. They looked expensive. Juliette could never feel respect for a man in platform shoes. Her infatuation with Michael Barratt, presenter of Nationwide, had ended the day a full-length camera angle revealed the height of his footwear.
Hugo was sprawled on the couch. The couch was so low that Hugo’s crossed knees seemed above the level of his own head. Beside him was a blotchy-skinned girl with a glossy mane of ginger hair. She was nestling into him, a plumpish hand fondly stroking his tightly T-shirted belly. Veronica, standing beside the food table with Rita, grappled with an urge to empty a glass of wine over the couple. Rita advised her that it was far better to ignore him completely, to appear happy in his absence, than to allow him the value of her attention.
‘But I just hate the way he’s sitting there. He’s always had that way of sitting. He spreads himself out. He oozes into furniture, not caring how much space he takes up. I really want to throw wine over him, Rita . . .’
‘Dance!’ shouted Rita. The music volume had increased as the party progressed – David Bowie, Billy Ocean, The Stylistics. Veronica only glimpsed Hugo through a thicket of dancers. Shouting had become the normal mode of conversation.
‘No, I want to throw wine over him.’
‘I think you should dance.’
‘I don’t want to dance while he’s in the room.’
‘Dance with me,’ said Rita, who was quite drunk by now, taking Veronica’s hands and pulling her into the centre of the room.
‘No,’ said Veronica, pulling her fingers out of Rita’s hands. ‘Look at him, he’s so bound up in his own little life – he’s pretending he hasn’t even noticed me.’
‘Just dance with me. Let’s dance together in front of him. Let’s do a sexy dance together, then he’ll have to notice you.’
‘I don’t think he’s pretending. I think he really has forgotten. The bastard. The fat bastard.’
Rita was dancing now, a squirmy, chest and hip-thrusting dance that Veronica had never seen her perform before, and found rather impressive.
‘Come on,’ said Rita to static Veronica, again taking her hands, ‘remind him what you’re made of.’
Again Rita produced the most startling undulations and gyrations, her bangles and beads jumping.
‘Rita, where did you learn . . .’ Veronica began, ‘No. I just haven’t got the right body to do things like that . . .’
‘Of course you have . . .’
‘He’s not even looking, Rita. And I’d be careful your tits don’t fall out . . .’
As if to show she didn’t care, Rita bent forward and shook her chest, offering Hugo, had he been looking, a long glimpse of barely controlled, swinging cleavage. The ginger-haired girl noticed, however, and responded by pushing her face into Hugo’s, eclipsing him with her bright hair, kissing him deeply. Now all that was visible of Hugo was his stomach, his legs, and his bristly hands, which rested flatly on his thighs.
‘The fat shit,’ said Veronica, ‘I would like to smash him up with a bottle.’
‘Why don’t we snog?’ said Rita, offering her mouth to Veronica, who declined bending to meet it.
‘Don’t be stupid, Rita. I think we’d be debasing ourselves to do something like that. Why should we have to flaunt ourselves just to gain the attention of a clapped-out old berk like Hugo?’
‘Because it would be fun?’ said Rita, still pouting hopefully.
‘The only fun for me would be in ending his life. Hand me a bottle, Rita, I’m going to brain the sod.’
Rita was about to hunt for an empty wine bottle, intrigued to see whether Veronica was serious, when she was distracted by faces at the window.
‘There’s someone at the window,’ she said.
‘But we’re on the first floor.’
The figures outside were knocking on the glass, pressing their faces up against the pane.
‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know. Does this window open?’
The figures were gesturing at the window catches, miming the lifting of the sash.
‘Do you think we should let them in, Rita?’ Veronica said as she tried opening the window. She had to clear away books, lighted candles and bottles to make enough space. ‘They might be gate-crashers wanting to cause trouble. Do you recognize them? It’s difficult to tell, the way they’re pressing their faces against the glass.’
The two women had to pull together to open the window. A blast of cold night air came into the room, then the giggly, youthful voices of those outside, then the people themselves. They seemed to float into the room as though they had been hovering, weightless, outside, but once in the room they became heavy and cumbersome, falling to their knees and rolling about, as though unused to the effects of gravity.
‘There’s so many of them,’ laughed Veronica, as each successive body floated in and fell on the floor.
‘There’s scaffolding outside,’ said Rita, ‘they’ve climbed up the scaffolding.’
‘That explains the levitation,’ said Veronica thoughtfully.
‘You’re Julian, aren’t you,’ said Rita, bending down to speak to the giggling brother of Juliette, who was still on the floor.
‘Yeah,’ said Julian, sitting up and quietening.
‘Julian?’ said Veronica, amazed, ‘it can’t be, he’s too long.’
‘Who are these people?’ said Veronica, indicating the three others who also, after initially raucous bursts of giggling, had become disappointingly quiet.
‘This is O’Flaherty,’ said Julian, suddenly rather formal, indicating the first boy who was holding a half-bottle of whisky, three-quarters full, ‘and this is O’Hogarty and this is O’Malley.’
The three looked uncomfortable and awkward, shifting from foot to foot, wiping their noses with their hands, scratching their ears. They were dressed in clumsy attempts at adult garb, jackets and shirts obviously borrowed from their fathers and older brothers, and which fitted them badly. O’Hogarty was wearing his father’s golf-club blazer and cravat. Their hair was combed and greased into side or centre partings, again in a bizarre parody of grown-up styles.
‘Have they got first names?’ said Rita. Julian seemed surprised that she should be interested.
‘Yeah, er, Kieran, Seamus and Marcus.’
‘Which is which?’
‘The one with braces on his teeth is Marcus. The one with big teeth but no braces is called Kieran, and the one with green teeth and spots is called Seamus.’
‘You’ve all got spots,’ said Rita.
‘Not on our teeth,’ said Marcus.
‘Show me your teeth,’ said Veronica to O’Flaherty, who seemed to be shaking, a constant tremor enlivening an otherwise pasty and static face. Veronica, sensing fear as she approached, did something no one was expecting, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, a little jab at first, then a single, longer, open-mouthed kiss. O’Flaherty’s big white hands wavered in shock for a moment, then looked as if they would dare to settle on Veronica’s rump, but instead came to rest on her waist.
‘Would you like something to eat?’ Rita said to Julian.
‘Yeah,’ said Julian, unable to take his eyes off Veronica and O’Flaherty’s clinch, only half-hearing Rita’s invitation.
‘I think you should ha
ve something to eat, you look like a boy who needs to eat.’
‘I do,’ said Julian, perplexed and fascinated by what was happening before his eyes, ‘desperately.’
Veronica had now moved on to O’Hogarty, who met Veronica’s lips with a ridiculous and grotesque pouting of his own. It was clear Veronica was working her way through the boys in turn, bestowing deep, adventurous kisses on each, and Julian was worried, being last in line, that he would miss his turn if he followed Rita to the food.
All evening they had been eyeing girls from a safe distance, daring occasionally to approach, only to be sent away with withering sneers and disdainful titters. And all the time the best chance of female contact had been here, at his sister’s party, with her older friends.
‘There’s some sandwich gateau left,’ said Rita, tugging at Julian’s sleeve, pointing to a solid, white slab on the table, untouched. ‘Come and have some of my sandwich gateau, please.’
But Julian held his ground. Thankfully Veronica hadn’t spent long in O’Malley’s arms, and was now making her way towards him. But when she arrived, he felt a sudden pang of distaste for that mouth that had so recently been in contact with those of his friends, for the tongue that had dwelt amongst the cavities and corrective apparatus of O’Malley’s teeth, that had steered past the protruding incisors of O’Hogarty, that had probed between the downy, encrusted lips of O’Flaherty, and he was amazed to find that when that tongue arrived in his own mouth, it tasted as pure and as clean and as sweet as a piece of scrubbed fruit.
Veronica kissed Julian longer than the other three, mainly because Julian yielded to her more, whereas the others had bitten back their desires out of strong, catholic fears. But when his own tongue, having waltzed in the cosy ballroom of their joined mouths long enough, broke free to explore Veronica’s mouth, those hard, complicated teeth against which his own softly scraped, the tough, polished satin of her gums, he sensed a shift in the balance of their embrace, and after a few minutes Veronica produced a series of politely pleading whimpers to indicate she was having difficulty breathing. Julian withdrew.
Veronica’s face filled his vision.
‘Did you bring any drink with you?’
‘O’Flaherty’s got a half-bottle of whisky,’ said Julian. Veronica glimpsed at O’Flaherty, who was being pulled by Rita towards her sandwich gateau.
‘It’s half-empty,’ said Veronica.
‘It’s a cold night,’ said Julian.
Veronica laughed, throwing back her head, revealing a plump, white oesophagus. Julian took his chance and bit it, softly. He felt the vibration of her laughter, the little hive of her voicebox against his lips. He moved further down her neck, licked her clavicles, her shoulders. Was she really allowing him this? Was she very drunk? Had she not noticed what he was doing?
‘You can’t come in without a bottle,’ Veronica said, then blurted out laughter. She collapsed in a mock swoon on a nearby chair bringing Julian down with her, their embrace remained unbroken.
Their kissing had been a cause for amusement amongst the other guests, and for a while they’d been the party’s centre of attention, those who knew Veronica barely able to believe her footlooseness. But after a while interest dwindled and their continued contact was soon only under the observation of Juliette, who cast concerned glances in their direction every now and then.
Veronica had adopted the role of adored empress reclining on a burnished throne, eyes closed, head tilted back, the expression on her face betokening tiredness rather than ecstasy, Julian a besotted page kneeling beside her, his head rooting about in her neck and upper shoulders, daring, every now and then, to dip to the square décolletage of her dress, as though testing the waters of a pool. If he went too far in this direction Veronica would gently pull him away, though not to a distance which would discourage Julian from trying again, going a little further each time, millimetre by millimetre further into her skin.
There was a black, crocheted shawl draped on the back of the chair. Julian took this and folded it around Veronica’s shoulders. It acted as a hide to conceal his activity from Juliette and anyone else. He folded himself into it. Caught himself in it. He had the sense of being engulfed. The party seemed to evaporate around him, to be replaced by Veronica, who had somehow taken on the proportions of the room they inhabited, so that instead of hearing Billy Ocean he heard Veronica’s blood dancing through her heart, he heard the air coming and going from her nostrils, he heard the buzzing in her neck when she laughed, and instead of furnishings there were shoulders, a neck, ears, collar bones, all now damp with his slowly evaporating spittle. Now and then he managed to reach with fingertips inside her dress, a fascinating softness that seemed to go on for ever.
If he caught glimpses of anything beyond Veronica they were shadows. A cheese plant coming and going in the light of a Belisha beacon, a soldier from the trenches fossilised on a wall. Suddenly Veronica seemed to wake and gasp, ‘My God. I haven’t given Juliette her present.’
‘Where is it?’ said Julian, taking his face from her cleavage.
‘I’ve hidden it in Bill’s bedroom. I’d better get it now before I forget . . .’
She stirred from her chair, and Julian stirred from her. He looked round and saw his friends, O’Malley, O’Flaherty and O’Hogarty over by the food table. They were tucking enthusiastically into Rita’s sandwich gateau. Rita was serving it up for them, on white paper plates. Julian had the impression of witnessing something underhand, the way the boys were so enthusiastically chomping on the food, the way some of the curd cheese was smeared around their lips, the way Julian caught glimpses of their open mouths, the cud of marmite and tinned salmon within, the sediments of chewed bread caught on O’Malley’s braces, and Rita in the middle, the knife in her hand, waiting for the empty plates to refill.
O’Hogarty suddenly glanced in Julian’s direction, gestured to him to come over.
‘It’s lovely stuff,’ he said, a shrapnel of unswallowed gateau jumping from his mouth, ‘come and have some . . .’
Julian nodded, but was following Veronica by now, entangling himself as best he could in her spidery shawl, taking a moment to consider the ridiculousness of O’Hogarty’s invitation. Hadn’t he noticed that he’d spent the best part of the last hour snogging a twenty-seven-year-old divorcee, that he was closer to having sex than he’d ever been in his life, far closer than those three were ever likely to come in the next half decade? Did he really think he should disengage himself for the sake of an ugly concoction of curd cheese and marmite? ‘He had made the wrong friends,’ Julian thought to himself, as he trailed after Veronica, out of the room and down the passageway. ‘They were holding him back . . .’
Round the corner from the kitchen, the passage led directly to the lavatory at the far end. The door to the lavatory was open and the light was on. Spotlit in tungsten yellow was a middle-aged woman, standing awkwardly with her trousers round her ankles. It was the husband-seeking woman from next door. Her loose blue shirt was not long enough to conceal her dark, hispid loins, nor did she seem bothered by the fact, glancing lazily at the couple as she wiped herself.
Julian wasn’t quite sure if Veronica was aware that he was following her, even though he had a hand entangled in her shawl, and was trailing behind her like a reluctant lapdog all the way down the corridor, but he convinced himself that he was being led on, and so he followed her into Bill’s bedroom. She turned the light on. It was strangely like a temple inside, there was a sense that the space was composed of countless tiny objects, little pots full of pens, Egyptian anubi, statuettes of indecipherable provenance, small booklets on ancient pottery, miniatures of spirit, a bottle of Tia Maria, trinkets, baubles. There was a three-foot high Airfix model of a Saturn V on the floor, a mobile from the ceiling composed of intrarotating suns. A violin was propped on a chair.
Bill’s bed was a single bed, an arabesque counterpane was filled with peacock eye cushions. Veronica was bending down to get something from und
er the bed. When she straightened up Julian began tickling her ribs so that she fell on to the bed in a sea of giggles, and he rolled on top of her, kissing her now with a more desperate sense of urgency, which soon dampened Veronica’s laughter.
‘No, Julian,’ she said quietly and without emphasis, as Julian began working at the pea-sized buttons on the front of her dress. There was a button every centimetre it seemed, ‘I really don’t think we should, not here . . .’
‘Where then?’
‘Nowhere, Julian. You’re forgetting yourself. I’m forgetting myself.’
Another button yielded, another centimetre of skin revealed.
The door opened. Veronica sat up, pushing Julian aside. She put her hand to her breast, concealing what was no more than a little dip in the straight cut of her dress.
Bill entered the room. He looked serious, a little worried. He was not alone. Hugo followed, then Juliette.
‘Checking up on me are you darling?’ said Veronica to Hugo.
Hugo was silent. Bill answered.
‘I was going to show Hugo some drawings . . .’
‘What are you doing in here Veronica?’ called Juliette from behind the two men.
‘You’re all checking up on me, I only came in here to get you your present, sweetheart,’ said Veronica. She was still having trouble with the buttons on her dress. Then she bent down to pick up the parcel she’d hidden under the bed.
Suddenly Julian lurched forward, taking Veronica by the shoulders and smothering them with drooling kisses.
‘Get off me you twit,’ said Veronica, elbowing Julian as she lifted the enormous parcel, ‘I mean “twit” in a nice way – Juliette, this is for you . . .’
I’ll Go To Bed At Noon Page 30
