Revelry

by Lucy Lord

  ‘Your dad’s great,’ says Charlie. ‘Remember when we stayed at his place in Mallorca with Andy, Max?’

  ‘How could I ever forget it?’ They both smile.

  ‘When was this?’ asks Alison.

  ‘Summer holidays between the first and second year at uni,’ says Charlie. ‘We hired motorbikes and drove all over the island. We thought we were so cool. God it felt great, the speed and the wind in your hair.’ He looks dreamy for a minute, and I try to picture the three of them, so young and full of exuberance. I imagine Charlie was the looker of the group in those days. Max, certainly, was all gangly limbs and glasses; Andy, from what I recall, much the same.

  ‘I take it this was pre-Alison?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, they met in the second year, I think,’ says Max.

  ‘D’you remember, every night, when we got back to the Hermitage, your dad rolling the most enormous joints I’ve ever seen and getting us all monumentally stoned …’

  I start laughing. ‘At my twenty-first, my boyfriend at the time turned up with his two brothers. They were a bit provincial and straight-laced and said no to a spliff, so Dad got completely paranoid and chucked them out, thinking they were policemen.’

  Everyone laughs at this.

  ‘He seemed a real character in Ibiza,’ says Alison, draining her glass.

  ‘He is.’ I smile and pick up the empty bottle. ‘Though Ibiza was probably not his finest hour.’

  Alison and Charlie laugh.

  ‘Oh, you mean all that crap with the model?’ says Max, pulling a face.

  ‘U-huh,’ I respond, thinking about Ben. ‘Shall I get a refill?’

  ‘Tell Ellie I said it’s on the house,’ says Max.

  I am standing at the bar, waiting to be served by a girl with blue hair and a tartan eye-patch, when I feel a strong pair of hands around my waist.

  ‘Hello gorgeous,’ whispers Ben, nuzzling the back of my neck. I turn round and throw my arms around him in delight, completely forgetting I’m meant to be cross with him when he’s standing there looking and smelling so warm and ridiculously edible. In a plain white T-shirt, jeans and trainers, which doubtless cost a fortune and took him an hour to choose this afternoon, he is nonetheless the epitome of nonchalant, no-effort sexiness. He is carrying a battered brown leather jacket, which it’s way too hot for but which I imagine looked suitably moody and macho in the photos.

  ‘Let me get this round,’ he says as the bar girl comes over immediately. ‘What are you having?’

  ‘It’s OK, it’s on the house. Max said to tell you,’ I add to the girl. ‘Another bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, please.’

  ‘Great,’ says Ben. ‘In that case I’ll have a pint of Stella.’

  We settle back down outside.

  ‘No worries, I’ll have to go and mingle in a bit anyway,’ says Max, perching on the pink loveseat’s arm and making room for Ben. His legs are so long that his feet, in plaited flip-flops, sit squarely on the floor.

  ‘Thanks, Maxy, for the on-the-house stuff,’ I say. ‘I’m buggered, money-wise. Thought I’d be OK till Friday, but I gave a hundred quid to a homeless woman the day before yesterday.’

  ‘What? WHY?’ All four of them speak in unison.

  ‘Because she was pregnant, and her boyfriend had been beating her up. I just felt – you know – a bit guilty about everything. What’s a hundred quid to me, really, in the grand scheme of things …’ Max raises his eyebrows at me. ‘Especially if my darling brother keeps giving me drinks on the house …’

  ‘Yeah, thanks mate for that,’ says Ben, giving Max his most winning smile. He turns to me and laughs.

  ‘Oh Bella, Bella, you are so bloody naive, aren’t you? Did you really believe her spiel? She must have seen you coming a mile off.’

  ‘She was pregnant and covered in bruises. It spoke for itself.’ I stick stubbornly to my guns.

  ‘And she’s just spent the hundred quid on booze and drugs, so the baby probably won’t live anyway,’ says Ben. ‘Jeez, Belles.’

  ‘You weren’t there. I believed her. And how much fucking money do we spend on booze and drugs, anyway?’

  ‘We don’t have to beg for them,’ says Ben, looking and sounding so unutterably smug that for the first time since I’ve known him I want to kick him in the balls.

  ‘I think it’s really nice, what you did,’ says Alison, smiling at me.

  ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely altruistic. Maybe doing things like that just makes you feel better about yourself. Y’know, that we’re not all such shallow fuckers after all …’

  ‘I don’t think you did it to make yourself feel better, Belles,’ says Max. ‘Remember I’ve known you since you were born. You did it to make her feel better. If you feel better as a result, then that’s a bonus, but I bet the initial impulse was to help the poor cow.’

  Ben starts tickling my feet.

  ‘Well, yeah, maybe.’ I am uncomfortable with so much attention on me – foot tickling aside, of course.

  ‘So how have you been, mate?’ Charlie asks Ben, deflecting the attention, thank God.

  ‘Great, thanks. Life’s good. You know I’ve moved in with this gorgeous Mother Teresa thing.’ Ben picks up my left foot and kisses it. I hope it’s not too sweaty.

  ‘Yes,’ says Charlie, raising a thick blond eyebrow suggestively. ‘Nice work!’

  ‘And work’s going OK. Mainly modelling at the moment, but there are a couple of acting things in the pipeline that I’m keeping my fingers crossed for …’

  ‘Oooh, how exciting,’ breathes Alison. She looks as if she could eat Ben up, and I can’t really blame her, I think, snuggling closer to him proprietorially, all thoughts of homeless people out of my head. Lust is a bad, bad thing.

  ‘This week I’ve been shooting with the Royal Ballet for the Sunday Times Culture magazine,’ says Ben. Charlie laughs.

  ‘You get paid to hang out with ballerinas all day? You lucky sod. Beats bloody auditing!’

  I don’t know whether Alison or I look more put out. Then we catch one another’s eye and start laughing.

  ‘Bloody men,’ she says, hitting Charlie on the arm. ‘Let’s leave them to it. What do you do all day, Bella? I don’t think we ever really got a chance to talk properly in Ibiza.’

  ‘No,’ I say, guiltily remembering how Poppy and I lumped the Alisons together as a deeply uncool double act, without bothering to get to know either of them better. ‘What I do all day and what I am are two entirely different things,’ I start pretentiously, topping up both our glasses. ‘I’m an artist, darling, but I’m temping at the moment. It bores me shitless, but I have to pay the bills somehow.’

  ‘What kind of art?’ asks Alison.

  ‘It’s not terribly fashionable, I’m afraid. Which is probably why I haven’t sold anything for months.’ I laugh, embarrassed again, as I always am when trying to justify my painting. Alison smiles encouragingly.

  ‘I mainly work in oils – detailed studies of the natural world, but not absolutely literal. Not conceptual either, come to that.’ Oh brilliant, Bella, you’re really selling yourself. I rally. ‘I like to think of it as a kind of modern impressionism.’

  ‘You mean like …’ Alison reels off the names of a couple of little-known Spanish artists whose work I admire hugely.

  ‘Wow, if I could be halfway as good as either of them, I’d be laughing. You do know your stuff. How come?’

  ‘Well, I studied Fine Art at the Courtauld—’ Alison starts, but she is interrupted by Charlie, who has stopped leching over imaginary ballerinas.

  ‘She’s too modest as always. Ali’s just opened her own gallery. It’s really cool.’

  ‘Really?’ I’m impressed. ‘Where?’

  ‘Oh just around the corner from here, in Shoreditch,’ she says airily, and I am stunned into silence and vow never again to judge people on first impressions. Mousy, Sloaney Alison owns a gallery in Shoreditch? Well, bugger me.

  ‘What kind of things do you exhibit?�
� I ask.

  ‘A range of stuff, but I’m always looking for new, contemporary talent. I’d love to see your work. Why don’t you give me a ring, and we can discuss it.’ She delves into her Mulberry handbag for a card.

  ‘This is fantastic,’ says Ben, giving me a little squeeze. ‘I think we should celebrate this possible new direction in Bella’s career. She’s brilliant, Alison – you won’t be disappointed. Any chance of a discount on a bottle of house champagne, Max?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Max, who has just come back outside. ‘It’s on the house. I’m thrilled – could be a great opportunity for you, Belles.’

  ‘I’m not promising anything,’ says Alison, throwing her hands up in mock horror. ‘But I’m very happy to take a look.’

  She smiles at me and I feel all happy and warm and excited again.

  Four hours later, the sun has long since gone down and we’re upstairs in the Members Only bar, pleasantly pissed. Alison and I are bouncing in a couple of the hanging chairs, talking about art, shoes, EastEnders, cooking, lipstick, the Middle East, corrupt politicians – your usual conversational mishmash. We’re also doing a lot of bitching and giggling about Skinny Alison, delighted to have found a common enemy. Charlie and Ben are sitting on beanbags playing Risk with Mark, who turned up unannounced around 9.30, and a random German bloke they met at the bar. Max is flitting around being sociable, keeping the cogs of his lucrative machinery oiled the best way he knows.

  ‘How are you boys doing?’ asks Alison.

  ‘I’ve just taken Irkutsk,’ says Charlie, staring at the board, engrossed.

  ‘Ahhhh,’ says Alison soppily. ‘Boys will be boys.’

  ‘Hans here has already taken Poland and Czechoslovakia. He’s threatening to establish a Fourth Reich,’ says Mark obnoxiously, and I start to giggle.

  ‘That is quite funny,’ says the German. ‘But my name is Jürgen.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to for a piss,’ says Ben, staggering to his feet. ‘Sorry guys – don’t stop play.’ He seems, if anything, even drunker than everyone else, which does nothing to detract from his charisma. He’s just like an overgrown puppy, I think lovingly, watching him lurch across the room, leather jacket draped over one shoulder. As I watch him, something drops out of the upside-down inside pocket.

  ‘Ben, darling, you’ve dropped something,’ I shout after him, but he doesn’t hear and opens the door to the men’s loo.

  Giving Alison yet another ‘men – bless ’em’ smile and shrug, I jump to the floor and go to retrieve whatever it is that Ben has dropped. It’s his phone. It suddenly bleeps to tell me he has a new picture message. Sender: Veronique.

  Heart pounding, knowing I shouldn’t but totally unable to stop myself, I open it.

  That fucking French salope is lying stark-bollock-naked on an unmade bed, black hair tangled against the pillows, laughing into the camera. Her legs are akimbo, displaying a neat Brazilian and what looks like a pierced clitoris.

  As far as I can tell, she’s having a bloody good wank.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Darlings,’ says my mother, greeting us in a strange waft that combines Joy by Patou with hints of patchouli and garlic. ‘I’m so glad you could make it. Just leave all your stuff there, and let’s have a lovely big drinkie before we even think of anything else.’ And Poppy, Damian, Ben and I follow her out into the garden.

  After I found the photo of Veronique, I’m afraid I flipped. Not wanting to make a scene in Max’s bar, I abruptly said my goodbyes, then dragged my reluctant shit of a boyfriend out into the street. Once we were around the corner, I let rip. Veering wildly from sobbing to heavy sarcasm (‘so I suppose you think it’s appropriate to encourage fucking French sluts to send you pornographic pictures of themselves’) to screaming insults, all my jealousy, hurt, anger and insecurity came tumbling out, expletive upon expletive. Ben finally calmed me down by showing me his Sent Messages folder, insisting that he hadn’t encouraged Veronique to send him anything since getting together with me.

  ‘You could easily have deleted everything,’ I snivelled, wiping my nose on my wrist.

  ‘What do I have to do to convince you?’ He gave an exasperated sigh and handed me a hanky. ‘Here, darling, wipe your nose on this.’ The way he said it reminded me of our first night together in Glastonbury and brought on fresh floods of sobbing. Then he took me in his arms again. ‘Shhh, shhh, baby, everything’s going to be OK.’

  The wrangling went on all night and for the next day too. (I called in sick to work and made an enormous fuss when he went off to his ‘bloody moronic dancers’ in the evening. To give him his due, he returned from work very promptly that night.) He deleted Veronique’s number from his phone in front of me, and eventually, exhausted with fighting, we settled into a kind of uneasy truce.

  Now it’s Saturday, and the four of us have come to spend the weekend with my mother in Oxfordshire. I mooted the idea when Ben and I first got together, thinking what a lovely, relaxing, rustic time we could all have. Ha bloody ha.

  The house, which was built at the end of the seventeenth century out of warm, golden Cotswold stone, used to be a working mill. It was seriously ramshackle when Dad bought it for Mum and us to live in when he moved to Mallorca in the late Seventies, but Mum has put her own inimitable stamp on it over the years. We pass through the kitchen, the walls of which still have the felt-tip pen drawings Max and I did when we were little (mine were much better, of course). The garden, Mum’s pride and joy, is overblown with old-fashioned English blooms: hollyhocks and sweet peas, roses and peonies, poppies, primroses and foxgloves, in a disorganized riot of joyous summer colour. Bees hum in the sweet-scented honeysuckle bush that hugs the stone wall to the left of the stable door leading from the kitchen. A hammock made out of old decking material hangs from an apple tree. I did all of my A level revision in that hammock. The sloping lawn is as overgrown as ever; the stream, flanked by reeds and bulrushes, gushes as blissfully as ever down one side of it. Mum has laid the garden table with a blue and white checked cloth, on which sit a huge jug of Pimm’s, several glasses, and bowls of Kettle Chips, hummus, tzatziki, pistachios and olives. The Mamas & the Papas are crooning ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ from an ancient CD player. I’m home.

  Mum pours our drinks and we make ourselves comfortable around the table.

  ‘How lovely to have you all here,’ she beams, and I look at her properly for the first time today.

  My mother is wearing what can only be described as a kaftan. And it’s not a Melissa Odabash tastefully retro-inspired piece. Its orange and purple paisley, keyhole collar and nasty synthetic fabric mark it out very clearly as one of her original hippy numbers. She has piled her chocolate-brown hair up into a messy bun and lined her dark, expressive eyes with kohl. Her still-beautiful face is positively glowing.

  ‘It’s lovely to be here, Olivia,’ says Ben charmingly. ‘And may I congratulate you on your garden? It’s looking quite wonderful.’

  ‘He’s right, Mum, it looks great,’ I say. ‘It’s good to be home.’

  ‘Thanks, darling. Now, I want to hear all about everything that’s been going on in your life – apart from stepping out with this gorgeous boy, of course! Do you know, Ben, I always rather hoped you’d take an interest in my daughter. What’s taken you so long?’

  ‘Muuuum,’ I groan.

  ‘And Poppy, darling, how lovely to see you, looking smashing as ever.’

  Smashing. Bless her. Actually, Poppy is looking rather smashing, channelling Kate Moss today in her summer uniform of J Brand denim cut-offs and a customized Dior Homme waistcoat with nothing underneath. Her hair, long and loose, gleams, butter-coloured, in the sunlight.

  ‘Thanks, Olivia. You too.’ Pops kisses my mother fondly on both cheeks.

  ‘How’s Ken?’

  ‘Getting worse, I’m afraid. He didn’t recognize Damian last time we visited.’ I look over at her, startled. Shit.

  ‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry to hear that. He
still knows who you are, though?’

  Poppy nods. ‘It’s only a matter of time though.’

  ‘How’s Diana coping?’ Mum’s voice is concerned. She and Diana Wallace were thick as thieves when Pops and I were at school, though they drifted apart after we both left home.

  ‘She pretends to be as upbeat as ever, but I know it’s tearing her apart. Apart from the ongoing sadness of seeing Dad like that, the relentless monotony of looking after him really grinds you down. It’s definitely time for him to go into residential care now. As long as he’s living at home, Mum doesn’t have a life.’

  I remember Poppy saying that if it was down to her, her father would stay at home indefinitely. Things must be bad. I’ve been so full of my own woes recently that I haven’t had much time for my oldest and dearest friend, whose problems make mine fade into insignificance. Guiltily, I remember pouring my heart out to her about Veronique’s photo. Her measured reaction made my histrionics seem a little absurd.

  ‘Oh my poor love,’ she said. ‘I can see it must have been awful actually seeing the skanky cow in all her glory – I bet she stinks, by the way. But Ben did say she’d been sending him photos and there’s no reason to assume he was reciprocating.’

  ‘Oh poor Diana,’ says Mum now. ‘I must give her a ring.’

  ‘Did you go to see that care home you were talking about before?’ I ask Poppy, aware that I should know the answer to that, were I any kind of friend worth my salt.

  ‘Yup, the weekend after Glastonbury. It was actually very nice, in so far as these places can be. The people genuinely seemed to care, and there’s a fountain and an aviary in the back garden, full of lovely colourful birds. It’s just a case of persuading Mum now.’

  ‘When you’ve lived with someone for nearly thirty-five years, it’s bound to be an enormous wrench to let them go,’ says Mum gently. ‘Even if your father barely resembles the man he once was.’

  Poppy smiles sadly at her.

  ‘Thanks for understanding.’

  ‘Coo-ey,’ trills a voice from the kitchen.

  ‘That’ll be Jilly,’ says Mum. ‘She’s come down from London for the weekend. Don’t look like that, Bella, she’s one of my best friends.’