by Ruby Soames
My nose is pressed against the window facing the bride as she steps down from centre stage and greets her guests. She waltzes around the room, thanking everyone in turn and talking with the waiters as they refill her glass. Every once in a while, when she loses the groom, she’ll sauté in the air, waving him over so she can rest her head against the chest of her recently-acquired husband, frequently looking up at him like a child asking for a second ice-cream.
Strands of her hair are now on the shoulders of most of the guests, some are pinching it out of their mouths. This is someone determined to leave her mark.
Elvis looks up at me. He’s through chewing on his lead and is waiting for us to renew his walk. A few faces turn in my direction but I’m not the only observer. A young man lurks behind a pillar pretending to be on the phone, but he’s actually taking photos of the wedding couple – and of me. Even though it’s been a few months since I was Joseph’s girlfriend, the press are still hungry for a story. I wonder if the tabloid press will ever leave me alone. I can imagine it now: Sarah Tyler: Never the Bride.
Numb fingers and a rumbling tummy, I notice the café’s now open and that Sergei and Owen are playing chess outside. I buy a hot chocolate and sit down next to them.
‘If you don’t unblock that knight he’s got you in three moves,’ I warn Sergei.
He looks at the board, then at me.
I raise my eyebrows, sip my drink. ‘Just saying.’
‘Bloody right you are.’ He moves his piece. ‘Thanks love.’ He sits back. ‘But if you don’t unblock that boulder across your heart, life’s gonna get you.’
3
A tough, stinging wind bullies every living thing in the park and people pitch their heads down against the onslaught of twigs and sharp leaves. Elvis and I make for the exit. In the car park, I pass the newlyweds, half-running for cover to a waiting Rolls Royce. A lethargic splutter of confetti is stolen by another gust.
A shivering woman in a short polka dot dress calls out, ‘Enjoy the Caribbean, you lucky devils!’ She then turns to her partner and sings quietly, ‘And good laaaaa-uck!’
Her partner chips in whispering, ‘He’ll nee-ee-eed it!’ They have a hard time masking their laughter.
A girl next to them cries out, ‘Shit! The tickets!’ She tears open her handbag and pulls out some printed papers in a plastic sheath.
‘Mr Hardwick! Mr Hardwick!’ she taps on the car door with her rings as the groom searches for the button to open the window. ‘Your reservation stuff!’ The chauffeur jumps out and opens the door as Mr Hardwick’s fingers root for the documents.
‘Thank you, Susan.’
‘Samantha. Sorry.’ She bites her lower lip anxiously. ‘And those papers are the confirmation details for the Paradise Beach Club Hotel. Enjoy the Caribbean, Mr Hardwick. Mrs Hardwick.’
The bride digs confetti from her cleavage as the groom peers through her hair to wave goodbye. The car rolls out of the park gates.
The secretary looks back at her friend, ‘Oops! That was a close one – imagine if they hadn’t gone!’
Samantha’s friend looks absently at the disappearing car, ‘Where they going?’
‘Barbados.’
‘Lucky for some, eh - Susan!’ teases the friend as she lights a cigarette.
‘You’d think he could remember my name!’
‘Just be glad she’s gone!’ says another woman punching the air. ‘Thank God that’s all over. I’m taking Monday off if that’s alright.’
‘Oh yeah, we all need a mega rest – but right now I’m freezing my tits off!’ She turns to her friends, ‘Hey, who’s this?’ She messes up her hair and pouts: ‘Oh ‘Enrrry … my big, sexy, teddy bearrrrr, I want a big Harrrry Winston diamond…. Henry, give it to me. Now!’ The girls laugh and say their goodbyes with all the sentimentality of people who’ve gone through hell together.
Samantha and her friend turn towards Kensington High Street. I’m right behind them when one of them drops a white card on the pavement. Since making myself unemployed and feeling pretty useless to the world, one of the ways I’ve tried to bump myself up is by taking my civic duties seriously.
I scrape the invite off the ground and catch her up. ‘Excuse me, you dropped this.’
‘So?’ she says and they turn and walk on.
Elvis and I wander to the nearest bin. But, just before dropping it in, I see it’s the wedding invitation.
Henry Hardwick QC & Yuleka Malthuzan would be delighted to celebrate their marriage with you at the Orangery, Holland Park, Sunday, January 26th 2014, 11 o’clock
R.S.V.P.
I run my fingers over the raised print.
Mr Henry Hardwick.
That’s my father’s name.
4
‘Have a lovely time in the Caribbean, you lucky devils.’
Simon’s right. I need to get away.
Away.
Elvis trots ahead carrying an empty Burger King bag in his jaw. I head to where I’ve been living for the last few months in Kensal Rise, or ‘North Kensington’, as my flatmate calls it. The roads are empty. The only sound is the patter of Elvis’s paws and dried leaves being scraped across the road.
As I get my key out, two men jump out of a car and rush over to me. ‘Sarah?’
I turn to find a camera being held up to my face.
‘Does Joseph West deserve the Oscar for best love rat?’
‘Is it true he wants to get back together with you?’
The keys tremble in my hands, made worse because Elvis is twirling around their legs wondering which one to bark at first. A lens clicks away like rifle fire.
‘How do you feel about Sylvia Amery having his child?’
‘Have you got photos of you and –’
‘Fifty grand for a Tell All? Come on, darlin’, unload yourself, make a packet, what’s ‘e ever done for ya?’
A black leather hand clutches mine. ‘Mirror. Dave Barry. Get your side of the story. How about –’
I manage to open the door just enough to turn sideways into the building. I catch my breath, wait for the thumping in my heart to slow down.
Someone shouts my name through the letterbox.
I use Elvis to drag myself up the three flights of stairs where I rest my head on the door, praying for the strength to face Tash, my flat-mate – and landlady.
As soon as I open the door, Elvis, a stranger to shyness, bounds in pulling the lead from my hands and Tash shrieks while swiping a dishcloth over his head. Elvis grabs the end of the dishcloth in his jaws and tugs. Tash yelps, lets go of the cloth while he continues pogo-ing in front of her until, finally, I am able to haul him back.
‘For God’s sake! Sarrrrah!’ Tash yells.
The table is set for twelve, and I remember she has friends coming for lunch. Every day for the last week I’d been warned by the little Post-it notes she leaves around the flat, to make myself scarce on Sunday. Tash is entertaining. And ‘entertaining’ is something she takes very seriously indeed. In fact, she takes everything very seriously.
‘Those … men out there!’ I mumble, leaning over my knees and stretching my back.
‘Oh God, yeah. They knocked Marcus off his bike yesterday.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault. To be honest, it doesn’t do my business any harm!’
‘You don’t talk to them, do you?’
‘Why not?’ she answers. ‘In fact, I invited a few of them in for an espresso yesterday – they were so cold, poor lambs. They were really interested in Yukushia’s new collection and the restaurant I’m revamping – and they promised to donate to the Fundraiser for Haitian Orphans. Oh come on, you can’t buy publicity like that. I still don’t see why you don’t make some money out of them, what’ve you got to lose?’
‘I can’t believe you sometimes.’
‘Sarah! He’s still –’ She stands frozen, hands held out. Elvis has pawed open the black dustbin bag and is dragging chicken giblets across the floor.
‘It’s OK. OK. I’ve got him! I’ve got him … it’s OK.’ Elvis is reeled in and held down struggling against my lap.
I hold both hands tight around the dog, wondering if I could quickly make a cup of tea. The signs aren’t good.
‘I didn’t hear you go out this morning, I must have been at the gym. Did you get my messages?’
‘No. Someone stole my phone. I think it’s those guys out there, the paparazzi.‘
‘More likely you lost it. You know I’ve got people coming?’
‘Yes! I’m just on my way out.’
I decide against the tea but before I turn to go, she calls out, ‘Oh, Sarah, is there any chance you could give me a little something, y’know. Sorry, it’s just that I’m flat broke at the mo and there’s a chair at Sotheby’s that I want to make a bid for … hum? Could you?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The rent.’
‘Oh yeah, sure. I’ll just get it for you.’
‘Great. I mean it’s –’
I take Elvis into my bedroom and we curl up under the mountain of old clothes, musty towels and dog chews. Duvet therapy as Joseph and I used to call it when he’d been rejected for parts he wanted and the strain of contract law was getting me down.
Except this time it’s just me.
And Elvis.
And his breath smells.
5
Tash is in PR. When she’s not buzzing in and out of private clubs, first-night restaurant openings and single-syllabled delicatessens, she re-brands anything from breakfast cereals, perfumes, ex-soap stars, hotels to internet millionaires – her only failure to date has been her flatmate.
Kamilla decorated Tash’s place last year and knew she’d been looking for someone to rent a room so, after moving out of the apartment I shared with Joe and finding mum unbearable, I asked if she were still looking for a flat mate – I should have wondered why no one else had taken her up on the offer. Tash had jumped at the idea of harbouring me from the press and was thrilled to have front-row seats at that moment’s crisis, she’d even reduced the rent because she said I was different to the people she hung out with. My friends and I were what she called ‘authentic’. What she meant was that we hadn’t been to public school, that we went to Ibiza rather than Provence in the summer and we had jobs rather than living off family trust funds. Her world was, of course, always her own, but she was more than happy to muscle in on mine.
At first she seemed caring and gave me refuge. Of course I always suspected her investment in me was because she hoped Joseph and I would get back together and she’d have a seat at top table. In those early days she took Elvis to dog yoga classes – Doga – to calm him and took me to her eyebrow consultant; she insisted I was a ‘hat person’ and restyled my wardrobe. We sat up at night drinking home-made mint teas while she confided things about herself I’d rather not have known. One night after we’d drunk too much red wine, she’d told me her dream was to hold a soirée for a dozen guests who were each at the top of their profession. Pushed to elaborate, she explained that in order to have a good dinner party you had to have one person at least from the following categories – and these she read out from her silk-bound Smythson’s notebook:
‘OK. So! I need to have one intellectual: someone who’s written a book/Alcoholic/Good to quote/Oxbridge, that sort of thing. Then someone who’s beautiful: a model, preferably, this makes the men perform better. Then I’d like someone who’s cool: W11 aristocrat with a druggy past and interesting tattoos. A party always needs someone who’s come all the way on their bike from Hoxton Square – someone like Kamilla, for example, and because she’s Asian, that’s another plus – Ethnics are really in at the moment. Someone famous: can’t have enough of these. Gay: that’s important, a man’s better unless I could find a gorgeous dyke who swings. And a footballer …? Maybe? Be nice, wouldn’t it? Oh, and someone old: but not poor or slobbering. Old and rich, someone’s who’s maybe met Picasso/Titled and/or with a stately home and someone young, someone under-25: promiscuous/tragic. Don’t want just white faces, of course, so someone black – a dancer or in politics, maybe? And not too many regional accents, don’t you think?’
Needless to say, I featured in none of the above and I’m late with the last three months’ rent. A figure plucked from nowhere and inflated considerably from what it was when I moved in. It’s only a matter of time before she and Marcus (Art gallery owner/New York connections/spits when he talks) throw my stuff onto the road.
I claw my way up to the surface of my bed gasping: Mr Henry Hardwick?
Somewhere in the pile of papers and books by my bed, I see Joseph’s last email to me which I’d printed out. I re-read it.
Sarah,
It seems there’s nothing I can say to convince you that what the papers say isn’t true. As long as I’m a media figure, these stories will keep coming out – but I don’t know what I’ve done for you not to trust me. I don’t deserve not to be believed. I’m exhausted shooting this film and at the same time, trying to recover the moral high ground that you’ve taken in our relationship. I’m innocent.
I’m an actor, not a therapist, but I think you want to prove I’m going to turn out like your biological dad. I love your mum, you know that, but I also think she brought you up to believe all men are like him and that you will always get your heart broken. With this mind-set and my job, we don’t stand a chance. On the outside you’re such a tough-talking, beautiful, bright person and the girl I love – on the inside, you are a frightened little kid still looking out for the father who abandoned her. I am not him. Sadly, you will find this out too late.
Rebecca is arranging for my stuff to be removed from the flat. Forward her any bills or admin you need me to attend to.
You have let me down, Sarah, not the other way around.
Have a good life and I hope you find ‘the one’ who can love you in the way you think you should be loved, but if you want some free advice from the person who knows you better than anyone else, you will never find love until you sort out your childhood issues, and in that, I mean your dad. Go find him. Deal with this shit directly with him and not with me or anyone else that you get involved with.
Joe.
I’d written back:
So it’s all because of my childhood that I read today on the internet that you and Sylvia were taking a short vacation in Hawaii – and the pictures! – what an imagination I must have. There was a competition on the radio today where listeners had to list all the beautiful women you’d been linked to in under a minute. No one won the weekend at Champney’s Health Club. And congratulations on the baby.
I’m not someone who’ll stand by you listening to these stories while you deny it.
I shall forward any mail, reporters, teenagers claiming to be pregnant by you directly to Ms Amery. Apparently she has tamed you. Good luck to you both.
PS You have enough dogs in your life already, I’m keeping Elvis.
That man today, in the park, getting married – he’s the reason I sabotage my life, push all the good stuff away, the reason I lost Joseph?
6
Whenever I meet someone, there’s always the point I dread – the bit where we fill each other in on our family histories. I say, ‘I never met my father’, hoping the conversation will end there; it rarely does. In fact, it only incites more questions.
I knew that my father lived in London with his family. He was head of a barristers’ chambers and had a solid reputation in business law. He had been on the cover of the Law Review when I was at university. I’d read about some of the cases he’d worked on – I went through every word of that article believing he’d say something about me. He didn’t, of course, and I didn’t learn anything about his private life there either. I’d never seen him in the flesh, until today. Henry Hardwick had been cruel, insensitive and hurtful to my mother. He’d shown no interest in me and I had no reason to seek him out – until now.
The man in the park could easily
be him, but there’s only one person who could confirm it and that same person could also give me a bed for the night.
I huddle over the phone and dial my mum’s number. It rings three times. I put it down. Call for another two rings. Hang up. Call again, leave to ring. It’s the code.
‘Mum?’
‘Agnes.’
‘Oh, hi Agnes. Alright?’
‘Whatever. Your mama is not he-ah.’
‘Has she popped out?’
‘No. Prison. Then psychic war, she say.’
‘Psychiatric Ward?’
‘This right. Saturday. Police no find you. Police send her to crazy hospital. Same last time. You collect Monday morning. Is no problem. I can’t talk now – I am hurry up. Hurry up.’
Psych Unit. Monday. Something for the diary.
7
I need money but all I’ve got is my van, my stereo and the Limited Collection handbag that Joseph gave me after his first trip to LA. I put anything of worth in the middle of the floor. Minutes pass while I stare at it, nauseous from the smells emanating from the kitchen; no doubt, the result of Tash’s many haut-society cookery courses.
A light tap on the door and a fluffed-up Tash peers around holding a table plan, she wants to know when I was thinking of leaving. I tell her ‘in a minute’ and go to the bathroom to stall her. Sitting on the toilet I pick up a notebook where Tash has scribbled:
GOALS Feb 15-22nd: Car ins./Bk villa St Trop 4 Aug/Lotus position by May/Read @ least 2 bks from O.P. shortlist/Buy Cara D bag, Vogue, p110/No desserts, just a bit of others/Invite JW and SA for dinner Thursday Night (?)/Look down more when talking to boys/write column for a newspaper? (Call Giles?)/Change nutritionist/ Get Sarah out!!!
I flush. Return to my room and pack all I can in a suitcase.
