by Carmen Reid
‘Of course it is, Annie,’ Nic countered. ‘Everything you own is for sale. Always has been. And we’re exactly the same size . . .’
‘Speak to me later,’ Annie whispered. ‘You might be able to persuade me once I’ve had a drink or two.’
‘Mum!’ Annie took in the pink and white vision which was their mother making a beeline for them. ‘Belle of the ball!’ she added and hugged her, but then she pulled back, looked down and saw not the suede creations she’d parted with £250 of her hard-earned cash to buy, but the bloody beige orthopaedic sandals!
‘Muuuum!’ she scolded.
‘Oh, I can’t drive the Jag in those heels, sweetheart,’ was her mother’s explanation.
‘Drive the Jag?!!’ Annie exclaimed. ‘I thought we’d agreed you were getting a taxi.’
‘I hate taxis. Such a waste of money,’ her mother replied, but before she could be told off further, she was swept away by a tide of new guests.
Owen and Lana were still hovering not far from Annie’s side, Owen very shy in the presence of so many friends and relations.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ Annie reassured him. ‘And most people here know not to expect you to talk to them straight away, Owen . . . unless you want to . . .’ she added quickly, ‘then that would be fine.’
‘Annie Valentine!’
They pulled to a stop in front of Aunty Hilda, the old crone, some mothballed old creation from the 1980s draped about her.
She was so hard of hearing now that she spoke in harsh silence-slicing sentences, punctuated with a top-volume ‘What’s that?!’ – her reply to almost anything anybody said.
She was Fern’s aunt, Annie’s great-aunt. She was acidic, rude and wealthy – thanks to her dead husband rather than anything she’d done – so she felt entitled to be judgemental and critical. She was also family, so was tolerated and invited.
‘Aunty Hilda, how are you doing?’ Annie stooped to brush her lips against a powdery cheek.
‘You’re looking nice, dear,’ was Hilda’s verdict after a lengthy up-and-down, but it came with the rider, ‘For a change.’
‘Oh, and Owen here’ – she pulled him in with her meaty arm for a sadistically close hug: ‘You’re so tall and handsome, but still the deaf mute?’
‘No! He’s not that at all—’ Annie began but Hilda chose not to hear and carried on: ‘Lana? Ah, well . . .’
Annie wanted to put her arm up to defend her daughter and issue a stern: Oh no you don’t, you evil old bag, fragile teenage ego in development. Step back.
‘Hmmm . . . feathers?’ Hilda remarked of Lana’s bolero, in a way that conveyed her deepest disregard for plumage.
Annie hoped Lana wasn’t going to say anything regrettable.
‘Well now.’ Hilda met Annie’s gaze with cool blue eyes, misting with age: ‘And where’s your husband Roddy? You haven’t gone and got yourself divorced as well, have you, like your mother and your sister? Don’t tell me Dinah is going to be the only married woman left in this family! Ha ha.’
As if this was some kind of witty conversational gambit.
Where’s Roddy? Annie turned the question over in her mind. She and Aunty Hilda weren’t exactly close. Hilda was in her eighties, her memory was bound to be failing, but still . . .
The booming voice had carried Hilda’s inappropriate question across the room and turned down the volume as people waited to see how she’d answer. From the corner of her eye, Annie – momentarily too stunned to reply – could see Fern powering down the room towards them, cushioned orthopaedic soles assisting her naturally vigorous stride, as she came to rescue them. Suddenly Annie was grateful her mother had chosen not to wear the two-inch suedes.
‘Aunty Hilda!’ Fern pretended to trill with delight, ‘how lovely to see you!’ She leaned in to give the old bat a hug, while over Hilda’s shoulder she winked at Annie, then pulled a gruesome face: ‘No-one’s even found you a glass of champagne yet, Aunty. Follow me!’
Chapter Ten
Terrifying tongue boy:
Black skinny trousers (Topshop)
Ruffled white shirt (Camden Market)
Selection of silver pirate earrings (Camden Market)
Nose piercing (his one-before-last girlfriend)
Tongue piercing (someone slightly more professional)
Total estimated cost: £75
‘Whatever.’
‘So, thank you all for coming tonight and making it such a fantastic evening, so far. There’s going to be dancing, the bar’s open till two a.m. . . . so don’t even think about going home early. Not even you, Frankie!’ Fern was closing the little speech she’d made and the relief on her face was obvious. ‘Before I go, I just want to say thank you to my three wonderful, fabulous girls. I’m so . . .’ then came the crack in the voice which gave each of her daughters a big lump in their throats: ‘. . . proud of you all,’ she managed before sitting down abruptly.
There was warm applause and Annie might even have let a tear or two well up in the corner of her eye, except Connor touched her elbow, raised an eyebrow and directed her to look towards a window in the corner of the room.
Tucked in behind a tall green chintz curtain was a couple kissing frantically. A white-shirted teen boy was kneading his hand vigorously on a – yikes! – lacy navy breast.
‘Lana?’ Annie asked out loud.
Connor nodded and shot her a wicked smile.
It was several moments before Annie could tear her gaze from them. Who is he? she wondered. It was hard to tell from the back of his head. He still hadn’t come up for air. Was he a relative? A distant cousin? Was it legal for Lana to kiss him? Kiss!? Look at that jaw action: more like eat him alive.
She mouthed the word ‘Help!’ to Connor, but his response was to whisper back: ‘Like you never!’
Annie turned back to Nic, hoping further conversation about the respective delights of Rick and their holiday to Rome would help take her mind off Lana. And, by the way, where was Owen? She hadn’t seen him for ages.
‘We’re going to stay in this gorgeous little hotel not far from the Spanish Steps . . . Do you have any holidays planned, Annie?’ Nic asked.
Annie thought about the school fees, the new property plan, the slow week on the Trading Station, and wanted to snort with laughter at the idea of blowing money on a holiday.
‘Hmm, well, we’ll see,’ was her reply. She turned her attention to the pudding in front of her: chocolate profiteroles. Now these contained everything she’d renounced for the week-long detox she’d done in order to look as fabulous as possible in the pink dress: wheat, dairy, sugar and caffeine. Suddenly a bowlful of toxins had never looked so irresistible. She sunk in her spoon and necked down three big mouthfuls, barely pausing for breath.
Connor, catching sight of the choux pastry demolition, took her firmly by her spoon hand. ‘Duty calls, Annie,’ he said. ‘They’re playing our song.’
‘Since when is “The Dashing White Sergeant” our song?’ Annie wanted to know, bending her head to take one last lick of chocolate sauce before Connor led her onto a dance floor already lined in orderly fashion with several elderly trios.
‘C’mon. The kiltie wants to dance. The kiltie wants to twirl. I’m fully in touch with my inner Highlander tonight and he wants to boogie.’
‘We need a third person for this dance,’ Annie warned him.
‘A threesome? Excellent. Who shall we have? Spotted any handsome single men yet?’
‘Not a one,’ she smiled, greatly cheered at the prospect of swinging it with Connor.
She’d always loved to dance at parties with Roddy. Disco, of course, but properly, with all the moves. Or salsa. The Roddy and Annie floorshow had been semi-practised and crowd-pleasing. A little bit subtle and a little bit cool, just the right side of showy . . . just like Roddy, in fact.
Wrapped up tightly together, snaking across the dance floor, Roddy’s warm hand on her bare back . . . suddenly she was remembering one very hot dance ses
sion at a friend’s wedding, when Roddy had twirled her by the hand off the dance floor, out of the party and along the stairs to their room.
With the lights off, and the noise of chatter and laughter outside in the corridor, he’d unzipped the poppy dress and let it fall silkily to the floor.
‘We have to carry on just where we left off,’ he’d whispered into her ear. So she’d put her hands on his buttocks, her lips to his mouth and let him salsa her all the way over to the bed.
At parties nowadays, she had to take her chances along with all the other single mothers. Sometimes, the best you could hope for was that someone not too dodgy or arthritic would ask you onto the dance floor and not make a total twit of themselves.
‘Aha, just the man.’ Connor had spotted Lana’s tongue boy walking past with a glass of water in his hand. ‘Hello there, we need you,’ he said, catching the boy by his wrist and spinning him in towards them, causing an arc of water to curve from the glass: ‘We need a threesome for this dance. This is Annie Valentine, Lana Valentine’s mother. We noticed that you’d met Lana.’
‘Oh, ermmm . . . hi there,’ tongue boy mumbled. He had shoulder-length brown-blond hair and three earrings in one ear, not to mention his nose. He was way too cool for school and looked frighteningly like a 17- or even 18-year-old.
‘I can’t dance to this stuff,’ the boy said dismissively. And that was when Annie noticed the metal stud gleaming on his tongue and shuddered.
‘Hey, c’mon, give us a chance. It’ll be fun. What’s your name anyway?’ Connor persisted.
‘Seth.’
‘This is “The Dashing White Sergeant”. You’ll love it. It’s easy,’ she said and took hold of one of his hands.
‘Whatever,’ he shrugged.
Connor removed the glass of water and took hold of Seth’s other hand, then they dragged him along with them.
It was a memorable dance for Annie, what with Connor on one side whooping, yeehahing, and twirling enough to give alarming flashes of dark hair – yes, under there, he’d gone with the traditional Scottish no pants thing – while Seth barely raised a shuffle on her other side.
Annie spotted Lana at the edge of the dance floor: arms crossed, mouth pinched, glaring at the sight of her mother dancing with her latest conquest. Lana was clearly convinced that a CIA-style interrogation was under way, with Connor on hand to administer torture.
So, Seth, what grades did you get in your last round of exams? Do you have a serious profession in mind? Have you undergone work experience within this profession? Teenage sexuality – your prevailing ethics, attitude, morality and most recent experiences: please, discuss.
Much as Annie might have liked to ask all these questions, she managed to confine herself to a polite: ‘So, how do you know my mum?’ But got only a mumbled: ‘She plays golf with my dad,’ in reply before Seth broke away and headed off in the direction of Lana’s wildly enthusiastic smile.
‘Big trouble,’ Annie muttered at Connor.
‘Oh, c’mon, it’s kissing,’ he reassured her. ‘No teenage relationship is going to survive the vast distance between north London and Essex.’
‘Hmm.’ Annie headed back to her seat to see if there was a pudding bowl around to lick.
Nic, still at the table, greeted her with the words: ‘OK, how much do you want for it? But I’ll have to go to the toilets with you first and try it on.’
So there was one reason to be cheerful. She wouldn’t make a profit from Nic, that would be entirely unethical. But she’d break even and that was well worth it. Even though she’d miss the dress . . . maybe Nic would sell it back to her in a year or so.
As Annie stood up, she saw ‘nice Mr Wilkinson’ approaching.
Mr Wilkinson was 45 but, due to severe asthma and a limp, more like 75, and she’d once been set up with him by her mother. The dinner hadn’t been a great success: nice Mr Wilkinson had got so nervous, he’d inhaled his entire inhaler, then had a wheezing fit and she’d ended up driving him to Casualty.
It was never a good sign when a date ended with medical intervention.
He was wheezing and limping towards her from the other side of the room. Nevertheless, she suspected he had dancing on his mind. Oh yes! Wouldn’t that be lovely?! They could waltz cheek to cheek and reminisce about the very nice nurse who’d booked him in that night.
‘Lovely girl,’ he’d probably tell her all over again. ‘All the way from the Philippines, you know.’
Ah, the kilted one was in sight. She could formulate an escape plan. He had already told her he was there to do her bidding all night long.
‘I think I need to go outside, now, straight away,’ she hissed at both Connor and Nic. ‘Disastrous date approaching, due north.’
Connor peeked over her head: ‘Ooh, nasty, take my arm and off we go then.’
Outside, in the chilly darkness, looking through the high windows at the brightly lit fun going on, Annie felt an unwelcome moment of gloom descending on her. With her arm still through Connor’s, she confided in a low voice: ‘You know, there are still so many times when I really, really miss Roddy.’
Connor leaned back against the stone wall of the hotel and looked out over the dark lawn. He nodded slowly, then turned to face her. ‘I still miss him too,’ he said.
‘The rat,’ she added, forcing a smile.
‘Total quitter,’ Connor agreed.
‘Do you think he has any idea how furious I am with him?’
‘Still?’ Connor wondered.
‘I get angrier,’ she confessed. ‘As the time goes by and the kids get older, I’m much more angry with him. Bloody, flaming furious.’
Connor paused before beginning: ‘I think there’s a lot more I could do for you and the children . . .’
‘No, no, you’re great – honestly,’ she assured him. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you . . . Well obviously, there’s taking Owen camping,’ she reminded him, hoping both to lighten this conversation and tweak at his conscience once again.
‘For pity’s sake, there are limits!’ He flashed one of his bright white smiles. ‘But I did have one idea . . .’
‘Yeah?’
‘What do you think about me moving in with you?’
‘What!’ Annie couldn’t have been more surprised. But seeing the hurt look on his face, she put her hand up on his shoulder and patted him, a bit like she’d pat a dog. ‘Connor, you are very, very sweet,’ she told him, ‘but I think you’ve gone a bit daft, babes.’
‘But,’ he insisted, ‘give it some thought, Annie. You wouldn’t be so lonely. You’d have me around all the time. I really love Owen and Lana. And I’d be a father figure – a man about the house.’
Momentarily, Annie pictured her and Lana discussing dresses, with Owen hanging back totally uninterested. Then she imagined the scene with Connor earnestly discussing dresses too . . . Owen still totally uninterested.
‘We could even get married,’ he added.
The kilt was obviously having a very strange effect on him.
‘Connor, aren’t you overlooking something?’ She couldn’t stop the smile from breaking out.
‘What?’
‘I love you, I really do, and I’m sure you love us all too . . . and I know that you’re a bit lonely . . . but we . . . you and I, we’re not in love and the way you’re made means we never will be,’ she reminded him.
‘Oh, but . . . you know . . . how important is all that other stuff in the long run?’
‘Don’t say that!’ She smacked his shoulder. ‘If we moved in together’ Why were they even talking about this? It was ridiculous – ‘it would put other people off.’
‘Off what?’ he asked.
‘Off falling in love with us.’
‘Oh… I’ve given up on that.’
‘Well you mustn’t. Never give up. And I haven’t, thank you very much.’
‘Ah yes, your prince in shining armour.’ He sounded a little scornful. ‘Or should that be shining Armani?
The one who’s going to whisk you off in his Bentley to enjoy a life of leisure and taking his credit card to the max.’
‘We can all dream,’ she reminded him sharply.
‘Anyway, putting off other lovers would be a minor inconvenience if you ask me,’ he added.
‘Marriage of convenience more like,’ was her reply.
For a moment she allowed herself to think about the tabloid headlines.
‘Think how it would be announced,’ she told him: ‘Love at last for McCabe of The Manor or Friends find love together.’
He gave a little laugh.
‘C’mon.’ She yanked at Connor’s arm. ‘You’re my best, best friend, Connor,’ she told him. ‘And that’s enough.’
‘Am I interrupting something? I do hope so,’ a disembodied voice came from the doorway, then a tall man stepped out into the darkness.
‘No! No!’ Annie replied.
‘I take it this is the smoking section.’ The man held out a broad red packet of Dunhill cigarettes with one hand and a proper gold lighter with the other.
Both Connor and Annie shook their heads.
‘No thanks,’ she told him, ‘I never have. But I won’t hold it against you.’
‘That’s very kind, I only smoke at parties, they make me nervous.’
Maybe he was another of her mother’s golfing pals. Whoever he was, he was much more handsome than Spencer. Lean and smart in his soft, well-fitting dinner suit with starchy white cuffs, gold links flashing at the buttonholes.
He was very upright with a handsome tanned face and the kind of swept-back sandy grey hair that put him anywhere from 40 to 60.
‘I’m Gray Holden’ – he held out his hand – ‘and I’m guessing that you must be Annie Valentine. I’ve heard so much about you.’
‘That’s right.’ She took his hand and felt his warm, firm touch.
‘Your mother told me to look out for you.’
‘Oh she did, did she?’ Annie smiled, but immediately felt slightly on guard; this could be another ‘Nice Mr Wilkinson’ in disguise.
‘Connor McCabe,’ Connor introduced himself.
