by Kerry Fisher
‘Whatever for? I’m next to Venetia’s husband, Randolph. His idea of scintillating conversation is how to build a telescope from scratch. You stay where you are.’
‘No, no, it’s fine. Let’s swap.’ I snatched up my place card.
‘Maia, that’s beyond the call of duty. I can’t subject you to an evening of “my child is a genius, I’m not sure the school can contain him” when you could be having a tête-à-tête with Mr Peters.’
‘I don’t mind at all. Come on, please. Mr Peters really likes you. He definitely won’t want to sit next to me. Do you think we can stick Frederica next to him?’
‘Maia, you’ve got to grow out of your fear of authority. Mr Peters is just a teacher.’
I started to protest but shut up quickly when we heard, ‘Good evening, Mrs Wright, Ms Etxeleku,’ behind us. Clover laughed and gave Mr Peters a cheeky wave.
Mr Peters rested one hand on the back of the chair next to me. His other hand was on Serena’s waist, guiding her to her place. Watching him touch her made my belly twist in on itself. I hated her in a way that made me look at her through slitty eyes. Mr Peters looked as though he’d been born to wear a dinner suit. No one would ever know he’d been a one-time lout. I had a sudden picture of him at home at the end of the evening, bow tie undone, hanging loosely, shirt open. Something inside me lurched.
‘Mrs Wright, this is PC Blake.’ Mr Peters went round the table introducing Frederica and her husband, Lloyd, Venetia and Randolph, and a man called Howard whose reedy, recently beaten dog appearance probably explained the fact that he didn’t have a wife with him.
‘Ms Etxeleku, you’ve met PC Blake before,’ Mr Peters said.
‘Do call me Serena.’
I wanted to answer, ‘Maia, aka Mr Peters’ fling. Know about that, do you?’ Instead I nodded like a fluffy dog hanging off a rear-view mirror.
‘Could we drop the Stirling Hall formality for this evening and use Christian names? Otherwise it feels like parents’ evening. Please feel free to call me Zac,’ Mr Peters said. Everyone said their first names. I mumbled mine in the direction of Venetia who wiggled her fingers at me and boomed,
‘Evening, Amayra.’
We sat down. I could feel Mr Peters right next to me. He was such a people magnet, bouncing the conversation along, managing to include everyone. I didn’t want to be part of his audience, even though he was smiling away, filling up my water glass and passing me the butter. He could pretend that I was just another mother but I would never be able to pretend that he was just another teacher. I tried to move my chair away so that his jacket didn’t keep brushing my arm. I couldn’t let any part of me touch any part of him because I could go either way. I might slap him. Or I might sob. Nine of us were on a table for eight – they’d obviously lumped all the singletons together – so I managed to scrape about two centimetres closer to Howard on my right. His breath encouraged me to scrape four centimetres back again.
Howard was one of those blokes whose chat-up lines didn’t take into account his malnourished mongrel looks. ‘So, Megan, how come I haven’t seen you before? I’d have remembered a gorgeous woman like you.’ I tried to time my breathing so my in-breath of oxygen didn’t coincide with his out-breath of horseshit.
‘Better not drink too much, Megan, you might let me have my wicked way with you,’ he said, topping up my glass with white wine. ‘I’m not much of a Chablis man myself. I prefer Chardonnay.’
‘Chablis is made from Chardonnay.’ Clover had taught me well. I hadn’t meant to correct him, I was just excited to know something that I thought posh people usually knew. But Howard wasn’t so keen on someone common knowing something posh. He tried to enlist the help of Frederica to prove me wrong. She looked at him as though he’d just dived in front of her on the red carpet and said, ‘How the bloody hell should I know? I drink the stuff, not pick it off the vine.’
Thankfully, the starters arrived. Prawns on a bed of mango and coriander. Frederica immediately complained that the prawns were in their shells. ‘I don’t do bones, shells or anything that reminds me it once had a life. Bring back the bloody prawn cocktail.’
I was concentrating on not shooting prawn juice over my dress when Howard leaned towards me. ‘The little bowls with lemon are for washing your fingers.’
I felt a movement beside me. Mr Peters was obviously a closet woman and could listen to two conversations at once.
‘Mr Sutton, or rather, Howard, did you know that Maia’s mother was a chef? I’m sure Maia would be delighted to share some of her Basque recipes and cookery tips with you.’
I didn’t think it was the right moment to point out my mother was a cook, a housekeeper, rather than a Jamie Oliver wannabe.
Howard blustered. ‘I didn’t mean any offence, it was just a joke.’
Mr Peters didn’t smile. ‘I’m always saying this to the children. It’s only a joke if everyone’s laughing.’ He carried on peeling his prawns as though nothing had happened. Howard shrunk down in his seat. I nearly felt sorry for him. I glanced sideways at Mr Peters. He was shaking his head, jaw set.
Serena was talking to Clover in that deep Lauren Bacall voice of hers. No one was asking her if she could handle the starter. Even in a posh frock I must have looked like a right pikey. It must be so obvious to everyone else that I didn’t fit in, that Mr Peters couldn’t quite shake off his habit of sticking up for me.
My appetite had disappeared, but I didn’t want to draw even more attention to myself by not eating. I stuck a prawn in my mouth and immediately regretted it. Along with the lime and coriander was chilli, which didn’t agree with me. A bolt of heat shot through me. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I dabbed at my upper lip with my serviette. Or was it napkin? I could never remember which one marked you out as rough. I knew my cheeks were turning bright red. I took a slug of water, then another. I knew that for the next twenty minutes I’d be leaking from every pore. I excused myself and went outside to stand in the cold to see if I could short-circuit my boiling blood.
I sat on a bench under a big sycamore tree watching the stars, feeling the sweat drying on my face and arms and the scorch of chilli heat slowing to a simmer. The cold air carried shouts and laughter. The quiet murmur of voices in the shadows on the other side of the marquee reached me through the dark. I heard a woman say, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ but didn’t catch the answering baritone.
I hugged my knees to me. Earflapping on someone else’s love story just underlined my own failure. I got to my feet and went round the side to avoid walking past them. As I walked through Jen1’s kitchen, I glanced at the CCTV monitor. It was flicking between views of the garage, front gates and both sides of the marquee. The grainy image shifted slightly. A man with dark tousled hair was cuddling a woman with a blonde chignon. Lawrence. But that wasn’t Clover. I stared. Jen fucking 1.
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‘Where have you been?’ Clover said, or rather slurred, as I got back to the table. My heart was still jumping. Shit. Lawrence and Jen1. How was I going to tell Clover? Would I be better off waiting for a sober moment? Or was a body blow better with booze? If she decided to shoot the messenger, she could blast my bloody head off. I didn’t mention my chilli allergy – every child at Stirling Hall was allergic to some damn thing, peanuts, eggs, milk, wheat – I didn’t want to look like I was jumping on the bandwagon. I drivelled something about needing some fresh air.
Serena and Clover seemed to be having a great time, hooting over cop shows on TV and debating whether they represented real life or not. Venetia was on the sidelines with a fixed grin like she wanted to join in but had only ever watched Panorama, Newsnight and University Challenge. I wanted to tap Serena on the shoulder and tell her to get lost, that she already had my man, so she could keep her hands off my friend. Mr Peters was in my seat and was having some hoo-ha about the length of teachers’ holidays with Howard and Lloyd.
He stood up as I got close to the table. ‘Maia, here, have your seat back.’
&
nbsp; ‘No, it’s fine, I wanted to have a word with Frederica, anyway.’
He was trying to lock me in, chiselling into my secrets with that steely stare. I wasn’t falling for that old bollocks again. ‘So you are speaking to me then.’ He was talking very quietly with his back to the others.
‘There’s no point in speaking if there’s nothing to say.’ I took a gulp of my wine, trying for a woman of the world flounce and hoping he didn’t see me dribble it down my chin.
‘Have you been okay?’ he asked.
I glanced at Serena, shrugged slightly and said, ‘Spiffing. Marvellous. Fine and dandy.’
He looked as though he was about to say something, but I could see the excuses, the lies gathering like pigeons on a phone wire. I left him standing there and walked round to Frederica. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head and just managed to stop myself shouting, ‘What? What? What’s your bloody problem?’
Frederica beckoned to me, bellowing in her stage voice as
though she was trying to reach the cheap seats. ‘So, Maia, where’s that gorgeous husband of yours tonight? Now, there’s a man who’d look good in a tux. I do think there’s something a bit Daniel Craig-ish about Colin.’
My jaw thudding open must have registered on the earthquake scale. ‘This isn’t really his kind of thing. He’s more a pie and a pint sort of man. I came along to keep Clover company.’
‘You look fantastic.’ Frederica paused. ‘Did Harley tell Marlon that you were living at Clover’s at the moment? Or did I make that up? I never know what to believe.’
‘I’ve been helping her out a bit while, you know, Lawrence and all that. Anyway, we’re going home on Monday.’ I tried to make light of it and move the conversation on. I didn’t want Mr Peters to overhear and think I was crawling back to Colin with my tail between my legs. Frederica was still projecting her voice to the other end of the marquee, when Clover, not short of a foghorn or two herself, joined in.
‘She’s had enough of the Wright family. I keep trying to get her to stay, but no, seems Colin is more of a pull than me.’ That did piss me off. Colin didn’t come into it and she knew it.
‘Gorgeous man like that, Clover? Are you surprised, darling? You’ve got many qualities but I expect there are some areas that Colin trumps you in. Isn’t that right, Maia?’ And off Frederica went, cackling at her own joke. I was relieved when the lamb shanks arrived and I could sit down again. Serena leapt up and started spooning out the asparagus, mangetout and dauphinoise potatoes, patting the men on the shoulder and salsaing round the table like she’d known everyone for years.
When she was right over the other side, Mr Peters bent his head towards me. ‘So you’re going back to Colin?’
‘You have a problem with that?’
‘Yes. Same one that I always had. He’s an arsehole.’
‘Takes one to know one.’ I sounded about twelve but it couldn’t be helped. There was a tiny moment when I thought I’d gone too far and my shoulders came up round my ears in that ‘oh shit’ position. I wasn’t quite ready to be the talk of Stirling Hall.
Mr Peters was far too classy to make a scene. He made a sound as though someone had punched him in the stomach. ‘Has something happened I don’t know about? I didn’t get the impression you thought I was an arsehole before.’
I could feel myself backing away from confrontation with him. I reminded myself that I wasn’t a pupil having to explain myself to him, he wasn’t my teacher, he was a man, nothing special, just been to school a bit more than me. I redoubled my efforts and found a lovely pit of anger. ‘Since you ask, it really fucked me off to find out that you’re leaving Stirling Hall and hadn’t bothered to mention it.’
‘Who told you that?’ he asked.
‘Is it true?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But bloody what?’ I saw Serena glance in our direction. Every muscle in my face strained with the effort of smiling at her. Mr Peters leant over and filled up her wine glass. We both sat with fixed grins on our faces until she went back to her conversation with Clover. I whispered. ‘But what? Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘God, this is complicated.’ I could hear the northern inflection in his voice. He was fiddling with his cufflinks. His voice was so low I had to lean towards him to hear. ‘I could say the same about you. I wasn’t too pleased myself to have a letter thump on my desk saying that you’d withdrawn Harley and Bronte without even discussing it with me.’
‘I didn’t send that.’
‘Colin’s taken to forging your signature now, has he?’ He was drumming his fingers on his glass.
‘No. I mean, I did write the letter but I was going to talk to you about it. I’d left it at the house because I was still thinking about it. He posted it before I could speak to you.’ His eyes narrowed and then his face relaxed. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You went all funny on me before I could tell you about changing jobs. There was a good reason for it.’
I never got to find out. Serena took Mr Peters’ hand and butted in. ‘Weren’t you saying you wanted to go to Florence, Zac? Venetia went at half-term.’
And like a preacher sharing the gospel with the great unwashed, Venetia spouted out her views on Florence and Mr Peters had no choice but to listen. ‘We thought it terribly important for Theo to see the Birth of Venus in the flesh as it were. Interestingly, he preferred Giotto to Botticelli. Of course, there are so many amazing churches. We had to set ourselves a limit of two a day. My personal favourite was Santa Croce.’ Venetia was really giving it some on the Italian pronunciation front, sounding like an advert for pasta sauce with her ‘Santa Crrrrotchaaay’.
Clover started sniggering. ‘Is that where you pray to God for a big cock to come visiting?’
Venetia looked like she was going to answer that one seriously. Just in time she realised it was a joke and bared her teeth in a thin smile. Frederica was talking about Mauritius and some amazing place on stilts; Howard started banging on about his holiday home in St Lucia. Even bloody Serena had slummed it off to California touring the Napa Valley – ‘Zinfandel Blush is to die for’. I was dying to imitate her.
Mr Peters didn’t seem about to enlighten us on whether the sky-high fees at Stirling Hall were funding luxury cruises in the Galapagos. He nodded in the right places but he didn’t offer a view. I couldn’t see whether he was still holding hands with Serena. I sat there picking at my lamb, desperate for the band to come on and drown them all out.
‘What about you, Amayra? Is it Greece you’re from? Do you go back there every year?’ Venetia said.
My will to live had seeped away. ‘I just took the kids camping in Suffolk.’
Venetia clapped her hands. ‘Oooh, glamping. It’s all the rage. Did you stay in one of those big yurts with a wood burner stove? Did it have a solar-powered shower? Did you have to pedal a bike to generate your own electricity? Most places are getting so eco-friendly these days. It must be such fun.’
‘This was just a normal campsite.’ I didn’t add that it rained all week and the four of us squashed into a tent that stunk of mould because Colin had put it away wet the year before.
‘Oooh,’ Venetia said again. ‘British seaside holidays are so trendy now. Makes the Caribbean sound so passé. You are brave though, Amayra, I don’t know whether I could face camping.’
Not brave. Just poor.
‘Whereabouts in Suffolk?’ Venetia said.
‘Sizewell.’
‘Isn’t that where the nuclear reactor is?’ Randolph suddenly rattled into life. ‘Aren’t they planning to build underground caverns to house nuclear waste there?’ Off he went into a rant about the ‘monumental folly’ of this, that and the other plan. Even Clover pretending to snooze didn’t make me crack a smile.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Serena turned to me. ‘So, Maia, how did you get on at the homeopath’s? I’ve been wondering if homeopathy could help with my hormones. As Zac knows, I get quite ba
d-tempered at certain times of the month.’ A little knee pat.
‘I just thought that was your personality,’ Mr Peters said, deadpan.
Annoyance flashed across Serena’s face. She ploughed on. ‘I forgot to tell you that I bumped into Maia at yours the other day.’
My turn to be annoyed. ‘I go to see the homeopath there. She helps me with my eczema. I think the cleaning stuff causes it.’
Serena’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘She? I thought the homeopath was a man?’
Shit. ‘I think there are two of them. The woman only does a few hours a week, I think.’ I looked at Mr Peters.
He said, ‘I’ve never seen a woman homeopath there. Maybe it was Mandy, the beautician who shares the studio?’
‘I go to Mandy,’ Serena said. She leant over, putting her hand in front of her mouth like a schoolgirl with a secret, and whispered: ‘She does electrolysis on my face.’ She started speaking loudly again. ‘Mandy’s never mentioned homeopathy to me. Come on, Maia, admit it to us, you were really there for a Brazilian, weren’t you?’
Serena found herself hilarious. I wondered if she was sporting a landing strip that she’d be putting on show for Mr Peters later that night. His face was wary, as though he didn’t like the way the conversation was heading.
A great big flush was spreading across my chest. I couldn’t think of a single girl’s name. I was searching round for inspiration when I saw sherry vinegar on the menu. ‘I think she’s called Sherry. Anyway, I’ve only been a couple of times, so I don’t know whether it works or not.’
‘What did she give you?’ Serena said.
‘I can’t remember now. Some pill thing.’
Thankfully, just as I was digging myself a hole so deep I could shake hands with a kangaroo, the cheese plate arrived. Venetia was out of her seat with excitement. ‘Ooooh, look, Duchy Originals biscuits. And Cambozola. Scrummy.’
‘I think that’s Dolcelatte, not Cambozola,’ Serena said.
Venetia frowned. ‘I did do a Cordon Bleu cookery course. Cheese identification was part of it.’
