She looked at the floor. Jules was sprawled on it on her stomach, playing some kind of paper game with Rosie. Rosie was lying on her stomach too, her hair falling on to the paper she was writing on. Round them, shuffling unsteadily, was Poppy in her party dress and Jules’ peep-toe shoes. Every so often, she bumped into Rosie and Rosie said, ‘Ow!’ elaborately and piercingly, and Karen, talking to Lindsay, took no notice.
Blaise, Eleanor observed, was in the kitchen. She wasn’t, presumably, cooking although, through the arch that divided the sitting room from the kitchen, Eleanor could see her opening the oven door, and sliding baking trays in and out. It was an unspoken rule for Friday nights that you could make a small effort about food and drink, but not a large one, on account of a fatal female propensity to hospitable competitiveness. The night Paula produced champagne had been proof of that. It wasn’t simply that it might not be fair, but more that it might unbalance things. Supermarket wine, cheese on crackers kept things level, kept things manageable. But it looked to Eleanor, from her armchair, as if Blaise had temporarily forgotten this tacit regulation. She put her wine glass down on the ledge of a nearby bookcase, and heaved herself out of her chair. Then, carefully negotiating the bodies on the floor, she limped out to the kitchen.
The kitchen table bore several gleaming boxes with photographs of perfect little canapés printed on them.
‘What are you doing?’ Eleanor said.
‘Just heating things. Bought stuff, as you can see. Nothing special.’
Eleanor bent over the table and scrutinized the boxes.
‘I consider king prawns and smoked salmon reasonably special.’
Blaise put a tray of tartlets the size of fifty-pence pieces on the table and began to lever them off carefully with a palette knife.
‘It’s for Paula, really. A bit of a celebration—’
‘Is she,’ Eleanor said, ‘engaged to be married to this man?’
Blaise stopped levering and looked across the table.
‘No, I just—’
‘Aren’t you rather overdoing things?’
Blaise gestured at the table.
‘A few little quiches? Hardly.’
Eleanor grunted. She straightened up a little, still leaning on the edge of the table.
‘At least the children are being normal. Noah is being excessively normal by being prudently fast asleep.’
The front doorbell rang.
Blaise gave a little start.
‘Come with me—’
‘Certainly not,’ Eleanor said. ‘It’s your house.’
Blaise dropped the knife on to the tray of tartlets and almost ran towards the front door. Eleanor went slowly back to the sitting room. Jules and Rosie were still on the floor, Karen and Lindsay were sitting as before but silently, staring towards the door, and Poppy, unevenly balanced in Jules’ shoes, was standing with her arms out in a stagey, touching gesture of welcome.
The front door opened. There were voices – Blaise, Paula, even Toby – and a man’s voice. Poppy raised her arms to a kind of salute and then Paula was in the room.
‘Hi, everyone!’
They all stood up, except Jules, who remained where she was.
‘Oh!’ Paula said. ‘Lovely! Oh, great! Great to see you all!’
They converged on her, young women and children, as if she had come through some great ordeal, as if they had somehow thought they would never see her again. She was laughing, they were all laughing, Poppy was squealing. Eleanor watched them from where she had halted by her armchair, and then her gaze travelled steadily behind them to the man who was standing in the doorway. He was not looking at Paula and the young women. He was looking at Eleanor. He gave her a brief, grave nod.
Paula broke away from the group and ran across the room.
‘Eleanor—’ She put her arms round Eleanor. ‘I meant to come and see you. I wanted to—’
Eleanor held on to the chair back with one hand and patted Paula’s back with the other.
‘Do you remember my saying to you once that I reserved getting upset for the big things?’
Paula pulled away.
She said, ‘This just might be a big thing!’
Eleanor looked past her. The man was pleasant-looking enough, well built, what she would privately deem personable. She turned back to Paula.
‘I was afraid you were going to produce a god for us.’
‘A god!’
‘All the build-up. Where is Toby?’
Paula turned round.
‘There.’
Toby had cast himself down on the floor next to Jules. She was whispering to him.
‘How is Toby?’ Eleanor said.
‘Impossible,’ Paula said. ‘Adorable. You know Toby. I’m going to get a drink.’
She spun away from Eleanor.
‘Drink, babe?’
The man looked across at her. He smiled. Then he moved towards them, still smiling.
‘Love one.’ He turned to Eleanor and held his hand out. ‘Jackson Miller.’
His handshake was firm and warm. He was not handsome, certainly, but there was something about him, something physically confident, that made Eleanor want to withdraw her hand in self-defence.
‘I am Eleanor.’
‘I know,’ Jackson said. ‘I know who you all are.’
‘You are an exception to our rule, Mr Miller.’
She saw him hesitate. Had he been about to say, ‘I like being an exception,’ and thought better of it? She waited a moment, watching him, and then she took pity and said, ‘Could you pass me my stick?’
He was plainly glad to. He assisted her competently back into her armchair, propping her stick so she could reach it.
‘Is your mother still alive?’
‘No, she passed away ten years ago.’
‘You seem practised. You seem good at heaving old ladies about.’
‘My pleasure.’
Eleanor looked at the floor. She caught Toby’s eye and beckoned. He got up clumsily and came over. He did not look at Jackson.
‘The trouble about these new living arrangements,’ Eleanor said, ‘is that we hardly see each other. We used, you see, to live on the same street. This street.’
‘You have an amazing place now,’ Jackson said to Toby. His tone was not at all cajoling.
‘I liked it here,’ Toby said to Eleanor.
Paula came spinning back, holding two glasses of wine.
‘Oops, at last! Did you think I’d forgotten?’
Jackson looked at her.
‘No.’
Eleanor said to Toby, ‘You could fill mine, if you like.’
Toby looked at her glass on the bookcase.
‘There’s some in it—’
‘But not enough,’ Eleanor said. ‘Not enough to be encouraging.’
‘OK,’ Toby said. He picked the glass up and sniffed the contents.
‘Toby!’ Paula said, remonstrating.
‘What do you think it smells of?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Vinegar,’ Toby said. ‘Pee.’
Paula groaned. She bent her head as if about to rest it, in theatrical despair at Toby’s conduct, on Jackson’s shoulder.
Toby wandered off, holding the wine glass at an exaggerated distance from himself.
Jackson didn’t look at Eleanor. He simply stood, his eyes on Paula, waiting for her to recover.
‘Boys,’ Jackson said easily. He glanced at Eleanor, smiling. ‘Boys.’
Jules made a picnic on the floor for the children. She put a selection of all the weird little things Blaise had bought on a plate, emptied a bag of crisps over everything and put the plate on the carpet. Then she arranged a ring of cans of drink round the plate, and sat down cross-legged, her bare feet with their chipped crimson toenails well on display.
Rosie came and sat beside her. She had taken the feather boa away from Poppy because she thought Poppy was getting too overexcited and had wound it round her own neck instead. She sat down caref
ully with her back to Poppy because Poppy was doing some kind of dance not very far away from Paula’s man friend, and it was, frankly, embarrassing. She picked up a crisp.
‘Is this normal food?’
Jules had her mouth full.
She licked the fingers of one hand and said indistinctly, ‘No way.’
‘I like Daddy’s food,’ Rosie said.
‘I like all the gross stuff,’ Jules said. ‘Burgers and chips and doughnuts.’
Toby materialized beside her. She gave the nearest leg of his jeans a quick tug.
‘Sit down.’
He slumped beside her. He reached into the pile on the plate and extracted a small pastry triangle.
‘Is this a samosa?’
‘Try it.’
Toby bit. He put the rest of the triangle back on the plate.
‘What’s the matter?’
His eyes strayed to Blaise’s giant plasma television.
‘I want to turn that on.’
‘You just want to be annoying,’ Jules said. ‘Eat the crisps. They aren’t scary.’
‘Daddy’s got a new studio,’ Rosie said. ‘He’s going to paint a picture as big as a wall.’
‘Cool.’
‘We’re going to see it. We can paint in it. He’s going to let us do oil paints and mixing.’
Jules popped the ring pull on a can of lemonade.
‘I do mixing. With music.’
Toby inspected a crisp.
‘Is the red stuff peppery?’
Rosie looked across at him. She adjusted her boa.
‘Do you still play with your theatre?’
Toby studied the crisp. He had played with his theatre only two hours ago. He didn’t mind Rosie, but there was something about life just now that was preventing him from being able to be helpful, even in conversation. He flicked the crisp on to Blaise’s pale, clean carpet.
‘Not now,’ he said.
‘Wait and see,’ Karen said to Lindsay, ‘how long it is before Blaise notices that crisp.’
Lindsay was holding a plate with two small things on it. She looked at the carpet.
‘I’ll pick it up—’
‘No,’ Karen said, ‘just wait. It’s amusing.’
‘Not if it fusses Blaise. It’d fuss me.’
‘I shouldn’t have pointed it out.’
Lindsay made an effort and surveyed the room.
‘Look at Poppy.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘She’s such a flirt—’
Karen took a swallow of wine.
‘At least she’s got taste. He’s pretty gorgeous.’
Lindsay picked up a tiny vol-au-vent and put it down again.
‘D’you think so?’
‘Oh yes!’
‘I think—’ Lindsay said, and stopped.
‘What?’
‘I think he’s a bit – well, animal-looking.’
‘Yes. So?’
‘I don’t like that.’
‘You know,’ Karen said, ‘one of the comforting things about being married is that you can look at gorgeous men quite objectively. You can look at them the way you’d look at a sculpture or a painting. You can just think to yourself that the room looks better for having them in it.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Lindsay said. ‘I wasn’t married long enough.’
There was a beat, and then Karen said, not looking at Lindsay, ‘Sorry. That was careless.’
‘Paula looks wonderful,’ Lindsay said. ‘So happy.’
‘It’s a good stage, this early in-love stage. It makes you like everyone and everything much more than usual.’
Lindsay put her plate on the floor.
She said suddenly, ‘D’you think Eleanor’s ever been in love?’
Karen glanced across the room. Jackson Miller had pulled an upright chair up close to Eleanor, and was leaning towards her almost deferentially.
‘Heavens, no,’ Karen said. ‘Far too much good sense.’
‘Bit sad, that?’
Karen turned to look at her.
‘I don’t want to be tactless a second time,’ Karen said, ‘but I’d have thought you’d had too much pain to justify any pleasure there’d been.’
Lindsay pushed her hair behind her ears.
‘Then you’d be wrong.’
‘Thank you,’ Paula said.
Blaise took the last baking sheet out of the oven.
‘For what?’
‘All this,’ Paula said. ‘Making it special.’
‘Eleanor ticked me off.’
‘That’s what Eleanor’s for, to tick us off. But I like it, I like it that you made it special.’ She looked back through the arch to the sitting room. ‘What do you think?’
Blaise slid the contents of the tray on to a plate.
‘I think he’s conducting himself admirably.’
‘Talking to Eleanor?’
‘Talking to Eleanor and sizing us all up.’
‘He wasn’t at all fazed,’ Paula said, perching on a tall black stool. ‘He just said, “Good idea,” when I suggested it and when I said, “Won’t it be a bit of an ordeal?” he said, “Why?”’
‘Good for him.’
‘He’s so confident,’ Paula said. She took a swallow of wine. ‘I wish I was—’
‘About him?’
‘Oh no. About myself.’
‘Is he married?’
Paula took another swallow.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘So many men are—’
‘Well, he has been. Twice, in fact. But not now.’
Blaise picked up her own wine glass.
‘What does he do?’
Paula grinned at her.
‘ Typical you. Lindsay asked me if he had children. He’s a businessman. He runs a company providing mobile technical support. Computer geeks on motorbikes.’
Blaise looked at Jackson with some interest.
‘Good idea.’
‘He’s full of good ideas. You’ll see when you talk to him. Come and talk to him.’
‘Not now.’
‘Why not now?’
Blaise looked past Paula to the sitting room.
‘Don’t force the pace, Paula.’
‘I’m not!’
‘Even this evening,’ Blaise said, ‘is forcing the pace a bit.’
‘But it’s lovely! Look at them! Listen!’
Blaise put out her free hand and took hold of Paula’s arm.
‘It’s fine. But it’s – not like we usually are.’
‘Of course not—’
‘And we can’t make him an honorary member.’
‘I never said—’
‘Paula,’ Blaise said, holding her arm, ‘if this relationship turns out to be very important, fine. But it’s your relationship. You can’t share it. That’s all.’
Paula stared at her.
‘What are you on about?’
Blaise let her arm go. Paula slid off the stool.
‘Nothing. Forget it.’
‘D’you think I can’t be in love and still stay friends with you all at the same time?’
‘I said forget it. I’m being clumsy. I just meant—’ She stopped.
Paula pushed her face close to Blaise’s.
‘I’ll show you.’
Blaise said nothing.
‘I was first in this group,’ Paula said. She took another gulp of wine. ‘I practically started it. You only—’
‘I know,’ Blaise said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Paula moved away. She picked up the plate of canapés. From the archway, she turned and looked back at Blaise.
‘I don’t know why you seem to begrudge me,’ Paula said. ‘I didn’t think that’s what friends were for.’
Lindsay sat down on the edge of one of Blaise’s deep sofas and looked at Noah’s back. He had lain down and rolled himself over almost as soon as they had arrived, and had stayed there, steadily sleeping, for over two hours. It seemed criminal to wake him, bu
t she had to so that they could go home. Not far, to be sure, and she could still just carry him, but when she looked at his back, and the back of his oblivious dark head, her heart smote her. It felt, at this end of the evening, unbelievably selfish to have come out and dragged Noah with her. Noah should have been tucked up peacefully in his own bed with Shamila, from the flat downstairs, babysitting him for pocket money, while she did her citizenship homework.
‘Your son?’ Jackson said. He was crouching down by the sofa so that his face was on a level with Lindsay’s.
She gave him a fleeting glance.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not very good at ages,’ Jackson said. ‘Maybe he’s five?’
‘Six,’ Lindsay said.
‘Not a party animal—’
‘He’s very at home here,’ Lindsay said, staring at Noah. ‘He’s lived round here all his life. He knows this house.’
‘And you are Lindsay.’
Lindsay nodded.
‘Paula’s told me about you.’
‘She’s a good friend—’
‘I’m sure,’ Jackson said easily. He straightened up. ‘Want me to lift him?’
Lindsay shook her head.
‘I’ll do it. It might scare him—’
‘A stranger—’
‘Yes.’
‘OK,’ Jackson said. ‘Nice to meet you.’
Lindsay didn’t look up.
‘You too.’
‘I like your friend Eleanor.’
Lindsay nodded again.
Jackson bent.
‘Have I done something wrong?’
‘Oh no—’
‘You just seemed—’ He stopped.
Lindsay took a breath.
‘I’m really happy for Paula. Really happy.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s just – that I have to see to Noah.’
Jackson waited a moment. Lindsay felt he was smiling but couldn’t look to see.
‘OK,’ Jackson said.
‘Daddy’s back!’ Poppy squealed.
She went racing into the kitchen ahead of Karen and Rosie. Lucas was sitting at the kitchen table, eating eggs.
He looked up as they came in.
‘Good evening?’
Karen made an equivocal gesture with one hand. Rosie had smudges of fatigue under her eyes.
‘Good evening, Pops?’ Lucas said to Poppy.
Friday Nights Page 9
