Something Stupid

by Victoria Corby

  ‘I don’t like brandy,’ I said.

  ‘Drink it. It’s good for shock,’ James said firmly, stand­ing over me and looking as if he was about to hold my nose and force it down if necessary. I knew he was quite capable of doing exactly that, so I decided it wasn’t worth saying that my faintness was probably due to not eating anything all day so I’d be able to do up my skirt. I drank it. Anyway it was such a minute amount that it went down quite quickly. I have to admit that once I’d finished choking I did feel better. The cold pit in my stomach had been replaced by a furnace.

  ‘Good, you’ve got some colour back in your face,’ said James with satisfaction.

  ‘That’s all the broken blood vessels due to being held upside down,’ I answered sourly.

  He laughed. ‘Rubbish! Maybe you ought to have another one for good measure.’

  I shook my head firmly. I could cope with one brandy on an empty stomach; two and I might have embarrassing difficulty in negotiating a straight line in those heels. Or in bare feet for that matter. ‘I’ll ring for a taxi,’ he said, running his fingers through his already untidy brown hair absent-mindedly. ‘As it might be a few minutes you’d better come and sit by the fire while you wait,’ he added with all the enthusiasm of someone asked to sign for an unwanted parcel. Given the circumstances I couldn’t really blame him.

  ‘She can’t. She’s bleeding all over the carpet!’ exclaimed Serena in disgust, pointing one perfectly manicured finger­nail at my foot.

  I looked down. She was right. Somewhere along the way, presumably when I tripped over the doorstep, I must have stubbed my big toe which was bleeding liberally. Now that Serena had kindly pointed it out to me it hurt like hell, as did the graze down my leg and the carpet burn on my knee which I felt for the first time. The soles of my feet hadn’t been improved by my barefoot dash across the road either. To my horror I could see a trail of footprints and ominous gouts of blood leading from the door to my chair. I couldn’t think why I hadn’t noticed them before as they stood out beautifully on the pale carpet.

  ‘James, I’m sorry!’ I pulled a nearly clean tissue out of my coat pocket and began dabbing at the biggest of the bloodstains.

  ‘Leave it! You’re only rubbing it in!’ he snapped. I left it and got up, intending to hop down the passage to the loo to wash my foot. James looked as if he might explode. ‘For God’s sake, sit down! I don’t want even more bloody footprints over my carpet.’

  I subsided like an obedient Labrador and put the injured foot up in the air, hoping the blood would run backwards to be soaked up by my tights. ‘I’ll get carpet cleaners in tomorrow...’ I mumbled.

  ‘Forget it.’ He seized an old newspaper from a pile in the corner and shoved it under my foot. ‘Stay there and don’t move until I get back with something to clean that up with. Understood?’

  I nodded meekly, muttering, ‘Jawohl, mein Führer.'

  He glared at me down his nose. He’s got a good nose for that, long and straight like a Norman knight’s on a tomb, perfect for annihilatingly supercilious looks. I returned it with a smile and, muttering something, he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  Serena leaned back against the doorframe, fingering a single diamond on a chain around her neck, her eyes following him as he went. Goodness, she seemed to have it bad. I wouldn’t have thought a mere antiques dealer would be rich and rare enough for her. By any standards James is attractive; with those indecently long eyelashes he’d be doing OK even without being tall, fairly dark and laid back. But even when she was fifteen Serena’s boyfriends tended to have daddies with yachts and spent a month at a time skiing in St Moritz, and I doubted she’d lowered her requirements in the intervening years. She turned her head and stared at me in unfriendly silence, I tried my snottiest expression back, but without her inner conviction of being so superior to the opposition I couldn’t carry it off properly. Luckily, before my eyes had begun to cross with the effort, James came back with a bowl of water and a sinister brown bottle that looked as if whatever was in it was going to hurt like hell.

  ‘You’ll have to take off those tights before I can start,’ he said absently, putting down the bowl and fishing a packet of plasters out of his pocket.

  He looked up to see me sitting there motionless. ‘Come on, Laura! I don’t want to take all night.’

  ‘Perhaps the bathroom...’ I ventured.

  He sighed heavily and gestured at my toe, still leaking gore. I could see his point. ‘Look, I’ve seen you wearing a lot less often enough for you to know your modesty’s in no danger from me.’

  When I was fifteen I’d paraded myself in my skimpiest swimsuit dozens of times in front of James and he’d barely bothered to raise his eyes. It had taken me years to get over the subsequent grudge. But I didn’t care any longer if he was about to go weak at the knees at the sight of my unclothed legs (admittedly unlikely), it was simply that even after a day’s starvation, I had hardly been able to do up the zip of my skirt this evening. I was damned if I was going to struggle out of a pair of extra strong tummy firmer tights under Serena’s unblinking gaze.

  Eventually, seeing that I wasn’t going to whip off the wretched things (wriggle, push and heave in truth), James, with considerable ill grace, fetched a pair of nail scissors and cut them off halfway to the knees. Given his mood he was surprisingly competent in tending to my wounds, but I was absolutely right about what was in that brown bottle. To take my mind off the red hot pokers being driven into my foot and to stop myself from uttering the sort of words I believe are usually only associated with women in the throes of childbirth, I stared at the scenery, most of which consisted of Serena who had taken up position against the door again. I couldn’t think why she didn’t just go and sit down somewhere comfortable until James had finished, since she obviously had no intention of either helping or offering me sympathy. Perhaps she was worried that without her restraining presence I might, overcome by lust, grapple James to the ground and have my wicked way with him.

  She was certainly looking at him as if she’d like to do just that herself. If anyone that cool could be said to smoulder, Serena’s coals were glowing. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before that it was unlikely they’d been sitting decorously at either end of the sofa when I started thumping on the door? Any observant eye could see that Serena’s perfection was ruffled and blurred around the edges; the top of her dress wasn’t sitting quite right, as if her bosom had been put back in a hurry, and maybe James’s half-untucked shirt wasn’t just due to his usual indifference to dress. I giggled in appalled horror. I have put my foot in it at times, but I don’t think ever quite as royally as this. And when I thought about my crack on the doorstep asking if I’d got him out of bed... No wonder he’d been so unwelcoming.

  He looked up curiously. I adjusted my expression quickly. ‘Were you out at something very grand tonight?’ I asked. ‘You’re both looking terribly smart.’

  ‘A City dinner,’ said Serena importantly. ‘Some of my clients were attending and naturally it’s essential that our company has a presence at affairs like that.’

  Well, of course. ‘How glamorous. You must have enjoyed it, James.’

  He looked at me suspiciously. He knew that I knew his opinion of City types. It couldn’t have changed that much. ‘Long speeches, indifferent food, and wine that tasted as if it had just come out of the cat. And only a glass and a half of that - in three hours,’ he said bitterly. ‘Serena’s boss was wise not to go.’

  ‘So you deputised for him? How terribly high-powered,’ I gushed. That earned me another suspicious look from James. ‘And what do you do now, Serena?’

  ‘After university,’ so she hadn’t gone to Oxford or Cambridge or she would have mentioned them by name, ‘I joined one of the major players in banking in the City. I’m executive assistant to one of the directors.’

  I heroically restrained myself from asking if that was another title for a secretary and made some vague comment about how exciting th
at must be. She looked as if she was receiving only her due and barely that, and then, with palpable lack of interest asked, ‘Did you ever manage to find a job in publishing like you wanted? It’s such a hard field to break into that most people fail.’

  I regretted my self-restraint. ‘I decided there wasn’t enough money in it,’ I said grandly, as if the decision had been mine and not forced on me. ‘I’m with a public relations agency.’ No mention that there wasn’t a lot of money in that either, at least not at my level.

  I had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes narrow slightly. To those not in the know PR sounds incredibly glamorous, but she rallied after a moment. ‘How interest­ing,’ she cooed. Her bright blue eyes slithered over me. ‘But not in fashion PR, I presume?’

  Goaded, I glared back at her. ‘How long have you and James been going out, Serena? Not very long by the look of it.’ My gaze rested pointedly on her disordered top.

  James gripped my foot painfully hard. ‘Not another word, Laura,’ he said in a menacingly low tone. ‘Under­stood?’

  Green eyes glared gimlet-like into mine. That brown bottle was still open. I touched an imaginary forelock. ‘Yes, boss.’ The look he shot me made me decide to behave. After all, it wasn’t his fault if his latest flight of fancy happened to be the person in the world most likely to put my hackles up, and he’d been quite decent about my bursting in, presumably just as things were really beginning to hot up. A minute or two later and he might not have been in a fit state to answer the door. So it wasn’t just to defuse the situation that I obeyed the rare prompt­ing of finer feelings and said, ‘Thank you,’ as he put on the last two plasters. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.’

  He sat back on his heels and stared at me. ‘Do you know Laura, that’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me in about ten years.’

  I stopped saying nice things to James when he failed to notice how well I could fill a B-cup. Man-like, this had completely escaped his notice.

  ‘Surely not?’ I said with a nervous laugh. ‘Anyway I mean it, thank you. And for the doctoring too. You’ve got a very well-stocked medicine cabinet.’

  James stood up, brushing carpet fluff off his knees, and grinned. ‘It’s left over from the last time Harry’s dog, Barker, was staying with me and I had to do some running repairs after he got entangled with the ginger tom down the road.’

  I craned my head trying to read the labelling on the bottle. Did that red line really read ‘for animal use only’? Even if it did, I was sure James would only use the best on his brother’s beloved dog.

  Serena shifted restlessly. ‘Laura looks absolutely exhausted, and no wonder after that terrible experience,’ she cooed. ‘She doesn’t want to hang around chatting. She needs to get home and into bed with a warm drink as soon as possible.’

  You couldn’t speak much plainer than that. Actually I agreed with her. Bed, my pig-shaped hot water bottle and the company of my cat - though that was a doubtful luxury - seemed the pinnacle of bliss just at that moment.

  James flashed her a smile for her thoughtfulness and Serena sort of glowed. But to do him credit, for he too must have been dying to see the back of me, he said, ‘Perhaps Laura should recover by the fire for a bit and have another drink?’ He didn’t sound terribly enthusiastic about it.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, standing up gingerly. Serena sent both of us a venomous look. I didn’t have the energy to tease her any further. ‘But what I’d really like would be to clean myself up and then go home. Could you call me that taxi, James?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said quickly and with inhospitable relief. ‘Use the bathroom upstairs, it’s warmer than the one down here.’

  I took a cautious step, putting my weight down slowly on the balls of my feet. It wasn’t quite like walking on broken glass but near enough to make me realise that for the immediate future I was going to be waddling along on my heels like a duck. Great.

  All things considered it was pretty decent and restrained of Serena not to put ‘wash’ at the beginning of her list of what I should do. I couldn’t understand how the face that stared back at me out of the gilt-framed mirror had managed to get so dirty. It had been clean enough when I’d left the party, well I hoped so. I peered at the liberal quantities of grime adorning my nose. Surely contact with James’s carpet couldn’t have done that much damage? Perhaps his daily wasn’t such a treasure after all. As for my hair... I had put it up in a fashionably loose knot but now it had fallen out to create a windswept style au naturel that was the complete antithesis of Serena’s pomaded, blow-dried, backcombed and extremely expensive designer hairdresser version. Actu­ally since nothing short of a pricey wig was ever going to make my hair look like hers I might as well stop thinking about it. After five minutes of brushing and polishing I was nearly back to looking human again though a complete makeover would have helped. Unfor­tunately any improvement was severely marred by the effect of a red velvet mini skirt worn over a pair of torn off tights, looking for all the world like the latest in grunge footless leggings. I thought about displaying the glory of my luminously blue-white legs in their entirety - perfect for a washing powder advertisement. But if I took the tights off Serena and James would be able to see that the skirt wasn’t just snug but a positive danger to my circulation so, as the lesser of two evils, they stayed put.

  As I came out of the bathroom I heard a laugh as if at some shared joke drifting up the stairs. Then Serena said with the resonance of someone who was taught to speak to the back of the hall, ‘Really, James, you must be a complete inno­cent! How likely is it that Laura’s potential ravisher just happened to be driving her home this way? As you said yourself, it’s not on any direct route to her flat.’ True, but the driver kept on missing turnings because he was too busy trying to put a hand up my skirt. ‘Even Laura knows that the quickest way to get to a man is to look fragile and appeal for his help.’

  Even at the height of my infatuation (sixteen and a half) I had never contemplated a scenario quite like this one in an attempt to get James to notice me. Seething, I crept silently on my bare feet over to the banisters, unable to resist the temptation to hear more ill of myself.

  ‘Do you think so?’ There was a chuckle then a pause while he chewed the notion over. I gripped the banister rail hard in annoyance. Then, after much too long for my liking, he said, ‘No, I don’t believe it. Laura really had the wind up about that bastard. And quite right too, I’ve met his type before. All that surprises me is that for once she had the sense to realise there are worse things than loss of face.’

  Serena’s answer was an exasperated sigh. I leaned for­ward as she began to speak and a board creaked under my weight. She was peremptorily shushed. I clumped down the stairs with an ostentatious amount of noise as if I had never been doing anything so underhand as skulking around eavesdropping. When I limped into the little sitting room Serena was draped along a Chesterfield, looking sulky, while James sat sev­eral feet away in a chair next to the fire. I doubted he’d gone off her because she’d been spiteful about me. More likely that he was avoiding sitting next to her in case he was tempted to return to activities more properly left until I was safely off the premises.

  They turned to look at me. I was in two minds about whether to pick a fight with James about daring even to consider that I’d been staging a stunt, but his wintery expression convinced me it wouldn’t be a good idea. I got the impression he was in a state of such barely controlled irritation, arising from acute frustration probably, that if I so much as put one sore foot wrong I’d find myself standing on the doorstep in the cold. The silence seemed to stretch into eternity. ‘This really is a lovely house, James. You were clever to find it. The mirror on the landing is super. What is it? Georgian? Did it come from the shop?’ I burbled in a vague attempt to raise the temperature half a degree or so. ‘And you’ve done so much decorating everywhere. I love the paper in the hall...’ My voice trailed off guiltily as I remembe
red the state the hall carpet was in.

  This vapid outpouring was greeted with the silent contempt it deserved from Serena. She barely bothered to glance at me before her eyes resumed studying the flames flickering up the chimney. My conversational gambit didn’t appear to strike James as particularly scintillating either, though he did have the manners to smile briefly in response. ‘Yes, the mirror’s nice, isn’t it?’ He leaned forward. ‘I’ve rung for a taxi but they say it’ll take at least half an hour to come so I’d better drive you home myself.’

  Serena’s arm tensed slightly. That was why the atmosphere was so frosty. She probably thought a walk would do me good.

  ‘Are you certain? I mean, won’t you be over the limit?’ I asked dubiously. There was a half-full glass of whisky on the table by his chair and if he’d really had such a boring evening earlier I’d be very surprised if it was his first.

  He shrugged. ‘You sound like my mother.’ I gathered he probably was, but had summed up the risk versus the benefits and decided it was worth it. Not particularly flattering, but understandable. ‘I don’t want to rush you,’ he added, getting to his feet before I could venture another step into the room, ‘but we might as well start.’

  He turned around and held up a pair of novelty slippers in the shape of huskies, complete with ears and tail. ‘These were left behind by one of the cousins when she was staying. I thought with your sore feet you’d find them more com­fortable than your own shoes.’

  Vanity battled against comfort for a long moment, then I decided that even husky slippers couldn’t make torn-off tights and a too compact skirt look worse than they already did. They were blissfully comfort­able, like wrapping my feet in cotton wool, but definitely not glamorous. I didn’t need a long mirror to guess exactly what sort of prize prat I looked, but at least they didn’t bark when I walked.