Virtual Strangers

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘Dad,’ I say. ‘You and Hester - you’re pretty serious, aren’t you?’

  His big rough hands manage the tiny clasp easily.

  ‘Tch, Charlotte! Goodness me! One day at a time. There’s only a few things I take seriously at my time of life, dear, and they’re good health, peace and quiet and the state of Welsh Rugby. The ‘serious’ you refer to isn’t nearly as pressing; it’s not so engrossing when you get to my age. There,’ he then says. ‘You look lovely. A picture.’ He proffers the cake again and this time I take it. ‘Why d’you ask?,’ he says. ‘Trying to get rid of me, are you?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ I say, and despite his wide grin, I don’t think he realises quite how much I mean it. I don’t think I did until now. ‘Really,’ I add, ‘I’m getting worried that she’s going to whisk you away.’

  He picks up my cup and saucer and chuckles.

  ‘The only whisking around here will be done by your Kenwood Chef. We’re fine as we are, Charlotte. Right, ready for the off?’

  With that knowledge on board I realise I feel infinitely more gracious and well-disposed towards Hester. Unbelievable, with so much grown up stuff under my belt now, that I have still so many odd bits of growing up yet to do.

  Sitting, some twenty minutes later, in the leathery gloom of Rhys’s Mercedes (250 GYN - his weekly tally of internals?) I decide I shouldn’t be so tough on myself. It’s not that I have anything against my father getting it together with someone - and I know Hester is essentially a well meaning old lady. It’s just that, having got him, and with us finally having adjusted to one another, I find I’m reluctant to lose him again. And not only for myself; he’s important to Ben; much as his own father loves him, he’s away more than home, and often not when it counts. And though I don’t have any axe to grind with Felix about it, I’m glad Ben has a positive male role model around permanently; and without so much testosterone zipping around.

  ‘Your father seems a very nice chap,’ observes Rhys. ‘Navy, you say?’

  ‘Second Lieutenant. He was on the Ark Royal.’ I tell him proudly.

  Not just an old man who makes jam and times vegetables.

  ‘Nice to have him around?’

  I nod. ‘He’s the best.’

  The CancerCope ball is one of the highlights of the local glitterati circuit. The event all the socialites want to be seen at. We are not they though. We are, Rhys explains, invited guests; he has been involved in research with the charity for some years, and has fronted some major fundraising campaigns. As such, he is here as a guest of the charity. Most of the rest of the two hundred odd people are paying over £60 for the privilege of being here.

  So this is high-faluting company indeed. I recall Davina’s words, via Adam, about all the big noises. There’s big noise aplenty. I feel relieved about my last minute fake fur addition. An extravagance from Felix during the phase that we thought that extravagant gestures might solve things, it only got used for mess dos once an aeon. I’ve worn it no more than twice since being on my own.

  Once inside and divested of it, however, I suddenly feel insubstantial again. And uncomfortable around all this loud joy de vivre. And not just psychologically. Fat cats abound. Men with big paunches that bowl around like bumper cars, and big-bosomed ladies so dripping with sequins and sun tans it feels like an outsize shop sale preview night.

  God, what am I doing here?

  Well, hello there!’ says a voice; boomy, masculine. Bill Stableford’s.

  ‘Hi Bill,’ I say. Then ‘Bill, this is Rhys.’

  ‘Hello there,’ Rhys replies, shaking hands, peering. ‘Already acquainted, aren’t we?’

  Bill nods. ‘Indeed we are. Via Carolyn.’

  Rhys nods too. ‘Absolutely. Keeping well, is she?’

  Bill nods again. ‘Splendid. Great job.’

  Rhys nods again too. ‘Good, good,’ he says.

  Oh dear. I think I have arrived at hysterectomy central. I realise that I may be forced to spend the evening with a succession of people whose main opening conversational gambit will be related to the ill-health of North Cardiff’s collective reproductive tract.

  Rhys, who is beginning to exhibit a proprietorial touchy-feeliness, bends his head and groans in my ear.

  ‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘Sorry. Occupational hazard. Thing with this type of shindig is the tedious business of having bland conversations with men you don’t really know, with their wives genitalia hanging between you like a pair of metaphysical curtains. Course, it’s not so bad with the women themselves.’ He winks at me and slides a hand over my shoulder. ‘I find women are generally far less euphemistic about these things.’

  He smells nice. He is nice. I so wish he could have the effect he desires. Instead, I find the word ‘genitalia’ makes me feel edgy and stressed, rather like the word ‘stiffy’ did when I was ten. It’s just a tiny chemical signal that’s needed, but without it, I find real, pukka sexual overtures become anxiety inducing in the extreme.

  ‘Rhys, old chap!’

  ‘Lord, here’s another one,’ he mutters. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be safe once we get to our table. Michael! How are you?’

  ‘Would you excuse me?’ I ask them. ‘I’ve just seen someone over there who I need to speak to.’

  Hugh is at the bar, where he blends in rather more readily than he probably thinks he does with the only just post pubescent bar staff. The Willie/Metro contingent are some distance beyond him. Austin in white tux, but no Jones’s as yet.

  ‘Thanks, low life,’ I say mildly. His eyes narrow.

  ‘Thanks for what?’

  ‘For that good word you put in for me with Austin.’ He looks blank. ‘That was all about me, wasn’t it? All that stuff I heard you say?’

  He sips the froth off his lager. And adds a white moustache to his fluff one.

  ‘Well,’ he says finally. ‘It was all true, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know - you tell me. You’re the one who knows what I’m like. Knows how funny I am and so on.’

  ‘Look,’ he then says. ‘What is it with you? You’ve had it in for me since the day I fucking started. Mrs bloody know it all. Mrs mother superior.’

  I’m genuinely surprised. Me? Superior?

  ‘What on earth are you on about?’

  ‘You know very well. The Pringle business.’

  ‘The what business?’

  ‘You ratted on me.’

  ‘I certainly didn’t.’

  ‘Don’t lie.’

  ‘I didn’t! Hugh, I may not have approved of your ‘tactics’ as you called them, but I never saw it as my responsibility to tell anyone else about it. Yes, I have principles, but I’m not a snitch.’

  He looks suspiciously at me.

  ‘Hmm,’ he grunts. ‘Anyway. You’ve done all right. You’ve got your branch, haven’t you?’

  He sounds exactly like the petulant juvenile he is. He should go far with Metro.

  I can’t be bothered to talk to Hugh Chatsworth any more. Possibly never will.. So I return to where Rhys is now holding court to a huddle of matronly women. All post-hysterectomy, presumably, as the snatches of conversation that reach my peripheral point in the throng, seem mainly to be about pipework and plumbing. Rhys isn’t right about a female distaste for euphemism - as I acknowledge his smile, I hear one woman explain what a relief it is not to have all that downstairs plumbing clanking around, because the hot water system is now firing up nicely.

  I leave them to their titters and look around hopefully. The Willie Jones Jackson table consists of Austin, Brian Jackson, his wife and Hugh, plus a Metro manager I recognise,and the stylish Ianthe. I belatedly recognise an un-Davina-like Davina and then cast my eyes over the remaining chairs. There are twelve to a table and the remaining five on theirs are all taken, presumably by the very same big noises in planning that were instrumental in the cessation of my inopportune tryst. But - I scan wildly - there is no sign of Adam. He’s not there. No Adam. No Adam. Why not?

  But th
en Rhys steers me off to our invitees table, where we are separated by six feet of starched linen plus several diners, and then we say grace.

  Thank you, Lord, for this excellent repast and so on and so forth. And thank you for Rhys because he’s such a nice guy, oh, but by the way, can you find him someone else for me? And I’m so sorry for all the times I use your name in vain, and it isn’t really in vain, you understand, but oh, God, why isn’t Adam here? What have you done with him? Why didn’t you send him? Was it all too much? Could he simply not bear to be around me? Well? Well?

  God sends back message ; he’s a Doctor, you silly cow. He’s probably on call or something. God, you’re self-important, Simpson! Don’t flatter yourself! And in any case, didn’t he make it absolutely clear where he stood? Didn’t he? Didn’t he tell you he loved his wife and was intent on making progress with her? And hasn’t he? Hasn’t he? Is she not the very incarnation of progress? Is she not progress personified? Is she not the embodiment of what a dogged persistence and much love can achieve? Does she not look like a woman who has bloomed and ripened and thrust forth her pistils? Has she not, in fact, intimated as much? This very day, in fact? This very day?’

  Go into sulk.

  I open my eyes to find there is already something edible in front of me. A small pinkish disc, like an ice hockey puck , but with a dribble of sauce and a thimbleful of red caviar. A fishy hors d-euvre, which I really don’t fancy. But eat anyway, as I know small children have emptied their money boxes to pay for it. Hmmm. I am becoming dangerously chopsy. I almost want to refuse to eat. Don’t people realise where their hard earned donations are going? Don’t people care? I think of Minnie’s little pot of stamps for the blind, and all those gold and red milk bottle tops that my mother would rinse off religiously each morning and put on the kitchen windowsill to dry. They would glint in the sun like oversized sequins - treasure, to help all the sick children feel better. Not to pay for the likes of me to sit here. Which is ludicrous, I know, as this ball will make thousands, but I can’t seem to help it. I push it away.

  The plate is removed and as the diners who flank me are both engaged in conversation with more personable people, and because it is in the nature of such functions that there is generally a twenty minute wait between courses, I excuse myself and head off to the loo.

  Where my blooming and ripening ex-boss has gone too.

  ‘Well,’ says Davina, as we exit our cubicles and our reflections make contact. ‘Now that is nice, Charlie. That greeny-blue really is you.’

  Right about the colour analysis, then.

  ‘Thank you. So’s yours,’ I reply, finding that much as I want to dislike it, I actually mean it. Davina’s looks, normally leached from her by the wet roof slate colours she generally favours, are enhanced by the soft pastel hues in her dress. And the straight honey hair that she usually ties back is tonight a big glitter flecked cascade of curls. In short, she looks beautiful. I want to go home.

  ‘You like this?’ she asks. I nod again. At it. ‘Ah!,’ she says. ‘It’s the Ianthe effect. It’s after Monet, you know. And she helped me choose it. I would never have dreamed I’d wear something like this! Just goes to show, eh?’ She smiles at herself in the mirror. ‘She has such taste, doesn’t she? A natural artist.’

  Jesus. Scrub colour analysis. This is a serious stuff. Progress, I guess. Davina slips her lip gloss back into her handbag and turns her smile on me.

  ‘You look great,’ I repeat. And then, despite my absolute, absolute rule never to bring him into any conversation with Davina ever again in my life, and despite the fact that as soon as I bring him into mind, let alone larynx, in public, I know, that I will turn the colour of a freshly cropped radish, and despite the fact that even as I think about formulating a sentence with his name in, I emit saline in sufficient quantity to make my eyeballs look like a pair of marbles in a puddle - despite all that, I smile and say;

  ‘Shame Adam’s not here to show you off to everyone.’

  She’s been beaming and smiling pretty much throughout. So much so that when her face suddenly changes back into something approaching its usual configuration (shifty, suspicious, trifle with me at your peril eyebrows etc.) I am jerked back to reality with a twang. She adds some penetrating eye contact and stares at me with it. While inside I’m going sixteen shades of puce.

  ‘Yes,’ she says finally. ‘It is a shame, isn’t it?’ She pokes at her hairdo. I poke at mine. ‘But just,’ she adds, ‘the way that things sometimes work out.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I reply. And then her beam reasserts itself.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘Shocked?’

  She knows, then. She knows. But she means work now. She must do.

  ‘Um. Yes. A little. Though I did know there was something going on. Funny,’ I eject a laugh to illustrate, but it comes out as a squawk. ‘I thought that you didn’t know about it. I kept seeing Hugh and Austin Metro together, and I thought they were plotting something behind your back.’

  She roars with laughter at this. She has become so, so strange.

  ‘Oh, bless!’ she says, shaking her head. ‘No, you know what these things are like. We had to keep covert. But, my God, it has been stressful. And it was a pretty tough decision for me, I can tell you. If you’d asked me six months ago how I would have responded to Austin’s proposal, well! Phew! You know me! And what with everything else,’ she embellishes the words “everything else” with a grimace. ‘I would rather have died. Well. You know, Charlie, don’t you? Work was all I had left.’

  I feel I have entirely lost the plot of this conversation. I get the look again briefly, then she’s once again smiling as we head to the exit.

  ‘So what changed?’ I ask. ‘I could never have imagined you leaving.’

  She puts a hand on my shoulder and beams again - really beams - at me.

  ‘I changed,’ she says, holding the door open for me. ‘Me.’

  There is little time to gather my thoughts into anything resembling an understanding of the situation, because when we come out of the toilet we bump into a large man with a moustache who Davina introduces as Mr Routledge - the gentleman who bought Cherry Ditchling.

  ‘Ah,’ I say, slightly light-headed with confusion. ‘You fell in love with the beautiful gardens, no doubt.’

  I have no idea why I have said this, but am soon to be pleased beyond measure that I have, because he replies,

  ‘Gardens? What gardens? Har, har, har, har. Show me five acres of prime flat land, and I’ll show you covered hardstanding for twenty five cars.’

  ‘Mr Routledge,’ Davina explains, ‘has the biggest collection of Classic Jaguars in Wales, apparently. He was particularly keen on Cherry Ditchling because of its lack of gradient.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, nodding. ‘You’ll not be keeping the ha ha, then?’

  ‘Bugger the ha ha, my lovely,’ he says sternly. ‘Gone the way of the summerhouse. Bulldozed. Ptchung!’

  Elevenish. Elizabeth Shaw Mint Crisps et comedian.

  What am I doing here?

  On the way back to my table, I passed the Harris-Harpers, who looked as if they’d only just arrived. David Harris-Harper (big noise in conveyancing, presumably), was at the bar, ordering drinks. His dinner suit jacket was made from a bronze coloured brocade, and six months ago, I would have thought what a catch he looked. Top three material, always, David. Tonight all I saw was a man.

  Kim Harris-Harper (big noise, period) came across and waved an arm towards Davina’s departing form.

  ‘That’s some dress,’ she observed. ‘Hmmm. How the other half lives, eh?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? (Blah, blah, blah. Gush, gush, gush. Go with it. Just learn to cope. Grow up). Ianthe designed it, apparently. Ianthe’s the woman who did the Willie JJ makeover.’

  Kim nodded and went; ‘Ah! The legendary Ianthe! Hmmm. Still, Davina looks happy, I suppose.’

  I nodded back. ‘Yes, doesn’t she? Very.’ Then tagged on, for effect, ‘Which
is nice.’

  Kim sipped her drink.

  ‘Hmm. I suppose so. Bit of a shock though.’

  Here we were again. ‘Shock?’

  ‘This whole giving up work, earth mother, Romania thing she’s embarked on. Bit of a turn up, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The baby bit. You wouldn’t have thought it, would you? I mean, she’s always been so -well, so utterly not into that sort of thing. And even if you accept the biological countdown argument - and the physical constrictions, obviously - you still can’t help but be a touch fazed. I mean, orphanages? Foreigners? Squalor? Davina? Can you see it?’

  I was still trucking through eastern Europe. I’d turned left at baby and got lost straight after constrictions.

  ‘It’s a turn up.’ And then some. Though not totally incredible.

  ‘Well, precisely! I know it’s all very fashionable these days, but really! You’d think she’d exhibit a little more sangfroid - I mean she’s pushing forty, for God’s sake! And can you really see Davina hunkered down on the axminster playing Tootles the Taxi with some two year old sprog? Even given a perfectly adapted sprog, it’s hard to imagine. And these children have problems, don’t they? In fact, barely function, most of them, from what I’ve heard. And that’s quite without all the other malarky, isn’t it?’ She shook her head. ‘I just can’t see it. There are limits and there are limits. I mean no-one’s saying she doesn’t have a right to be happy. Of course they’re not. And I’m as broad minded as the next person. But, well, some things really are beyond the pale. It’ll be mendhi and a black wig next, a la Madonna.’

  ‘Is that a wig? I thought it was her own hair.’

  ‘Doesn’t anyone’s hair really grow that fast? I don’t think so. And don’t tell me those biceps aren’t steroid enhanced. Anyway, I just think you can take these things a little too far. Don’t you?’