‘Classy!’ Michelle had said. ‘And if I pass out, you can just lay me down on this couch and leave me. Perfect!’
They’d got there relatively early, just after midnight, and it was not until after one that the place began to fill up. By that stage, they were several cocktails down — or up, as Clare had suggested. ‘Poised on the apex of the drunk curve,’ she’d said, ‘teetering on the sloshed meridian. Time to pace myself, or I’ll be starting down the track that leads inexorably to the conviction that everyone here would love to join me in the Macarena.’
At one-thirty, the dance floor had lit up, and Michelle and Clare had been right amongst it. Anselo had been keen to let off some energy, but something, maybe a sense that the two women might tease him, made him reluctant to join them. He’d begun to find their presence restrictive. If they weren’t here, he’d started to think, I’d be free to do what I want. Dance with whomever I choose. Leave this club and go off into the night.
Michelle and Clare had pushed their way back through the crowd.
‘Come on,’ Clare had said. ‘We’re feeling like Cagney and Lacey undercover in Spearmint Rhino. We need you before people start actively averting their gaze out of pity.’
They’d taken an arm each, and pulled him onto the dance floor.
‘You can really dance!’ Michelle had had to yell it in his ear.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he’d said, not caring if she heard or not. ‘I’m full of fucking surprises.’
Clare had been found by, or had found, a young Italian, no more than twenty-five, Anselo guessed, dressed in cropped white pants and a peacock-blue shirt, half-open, showing a tanned, hairless chest. He and Clare were bumping and grinding, the young Italian’s gaze, Anselo noted, fixed on Clare’s bra-less breasts, as they moved freely beneath her sequinned dress.
‘I have to pee!’ Michelle had yelled in his ear. ‘Save my space!’
Anselo had watched her move unsteadily but cheerfully through the crowd, and disappear. He’d looked around, but Clare and the young Italian, too, had been swallowed up; he could not see them. He was alone on the dance floor, and the realisation had galvanised him, filled him with a sudden burst of euphoric energy.
That, he thought, as he pressed his forehead onto the cool surface of the toilet door, was where it had all started to go pear-shaped. He checked his watch. Only an hour ago. Sixty minutes that have ticked away in my mind, he thought, like a timer on a bomb.
Anselo tried to corral his recollections of that last hour, which were scattering about his mind like cockroaches under sudden bright light.
The ticking started when that girl came up to me, he thought. She had on a silver lace micro-dress. She was beautiful — caramel-coloured hair and skin, glorious figure, long, long legs.
She began to dance with me, and I was thrilled. I felt like the king of the world. I could blame the alcohol for that, or I could blame myself, he thought. Doesn’t really matter, does it?
The dance floor was packed. We were pressed up against each other, and I realised she had nothing, absolutely nothing on underneath her dress. And then she took my hand and slipped it between her legs.
Anselo paused. His breathing had become very shallow. I didn’t, he thought. I could have, so, so fucking easily, but I didn’t. I took my hand away, smiled and shook my head. And she smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss me once, briefly, on the mouth. Then she moved on.
I suppose there are plenty of men like me out there, Anselo thought. In our designer suits and our on-trend coloured shirts. A euro a dozen, we are. It didn’t matter to her who I was, and it didn’t even matter that I said no; she wasn’t offended. To her, the whole thing was no big deal. C’est la vie. No hard feelings. Arrivederci, signor.
It mattered to me, though. It mattered to me that I felt it again: the surge of adrenaline, the astonishing high of being noticed and admired and wanted. As if I’m some little orphan boy, who’s been lining up for years with brushed hair and tidy clothes but always passed over for those who are younger, who dimple when they smile — until one day, someone puts their hand on my head and cups my face in their palm.
I’ve let Darrell build barriers between us, he thought, and between me and my son. I haven’t protested because until now I’ve felt that I haven’t had the right. But I do have rights. And I have needs. Needs that pretty fucking clearly are not being met.
I’m like an unpaid extra in my own life, he thought, and it’s time I found the guts to speak up. He shoved open the cubicle door, and walked back out into the thump and glitter of the dance floor.
Michelle was perched on the square arm of a couch. She was trying to sit elegantly, with legs crossed, but had to keep uncrossing them and putting her foot down heavily to prevent herself falling off.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she said to Anselo. ‘Or have I been looking at you all this time with blurry vision?’
‘Dancing,’ he said.
‘Me, too!’ said Michelle. ‘Or I might have been drinking. That starts with “d” too. Easy to get them confused.’
Anselo scanned the dance floor. ‘Where’s Clare?’
‘In there somewhere, with Justinio Biebero,’ said Michelle. ‘If he were any younger, she’d have to stop between numbers and suckle him.’
‘Do you want to dance?’ Anselo said.
‘I think I might puke,’ said Michelle. ‘To be honest, at the risk of sounding sad and old, I’d quite like some fresh air.’
‘Good call,’ said Anselo. ‘I’ll find Clare and tell her we’re leaving.’
He circled the dance floor, watching out for Clare’s chestnut hair and pale sequinned dress. Silver lace shot into his line of vision, and he felt his heart double-thump. But it was a dark-haired, shorter woman dancing with a lithe black man who was wearing shiny pants with green daisies.
There she was. Clare, still dancing with the blue-shirted beardless Italian. His eyes were still fixated on her chest, Anselo noted, but now he also had his hands on her waist. Anselo wondered briefly if Clare intended to do more than dance. But even if she does, he decided, who am I to judge?
Anselo struggled his way to Clare’s side and touched her arm. The Italian boy lifted his hands in a ‘no harm, no foul’ gesture, but Anselo shook his head to indicate that his interruption was of no consequence.
‘Michelle needs some air,’ he spoke in Clare’s ear. ‘You want to stay or go, too?’
‘Stay,’ said Clare. ‘My calves may regret it tomorrow, but I’ve still got some rug to cut.’
Anselo cut his eyes to the young Italian. ‘You sure?’
Clare nodded. ‘Even though he speaks not a word of English, we have formed a very clear understanding about the safe touching zones.’
‘You’ve got a key to the hotel, right?’
‘Yep. What time are we heading back to the lake?’
Anselo shrugged. ‘After lunch? Say, two?’
‘See you then!’ said Clare, and she turned back to her dance partner.
Anselo broke out of the crowd, and had to pause for a moment as the relief of being released from the crush of people sent a rush of oxygen to his brain.
He strode up to Michelle and took her arm. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go for a stroll under la luna.’
Outside, breathing in the warm peace of the night air, he felt the same heady exhilaration, as if he’d been given a last-minute reprieve just as the hangman was about to slip the hood over his head.
‘Did you score some Ecstasio or something?’ Michelle said accusingly. ‘You’re looking full of fagioli, while I’m a sweaty and dishevelled wreck. I’ll never be like that chick in the song, the one the Aga Khan gives racehorses to for fun. You know, the one who can sip the Napoleon brandy without getting her lips wet? Mind you,’ she added, ‘do I want to be like her, I ask myself? Frigid, scrawny, dry-lipped cow.’
Anselo laughed, and Michelle said, ‘You should do that more often. Laugh. Smile. You take life too seriously!’
�
�So I’ve been told.’ Anselo’s good humour dimmed. Doesn’t take much, he thought. Doesn’t take much to bring me back down to reality.
‘How can you be serious here?’ Michelle waved her free arm. ‘Look around! We’re in Italy! Frescoes! Ferraris! Statues with boobs and willies! Men in floral pants!’
He felt a tug on his arm, as Michelle stopped short.
‘You all right?’ he said.
‘I’m feeling a tad unsteady.’ She fanned her face. ‘High heels are the likely culprits. I mean it could hardly be the twenty-two Italian cocktails, could it?’
‘What do you want to do?’ said Anselo.
‘As a matter of fact, I want gelato,’ said Michelle. ‘Gelato cures everything!’
‘It’s three in the morning,’ said Anselo. ‘Most gelateria shut at eleven.’
‘How about the hotel? Surely, they’re bribe-able? It’s Italy, after all.’
Anselo looked around. The street they were on was a mix of new, commercial buildings — much of Milan was bombed in the war, he recalled, and had had to be rebuilt — and older-style, square, solid, yellow-washed blocks with shuttered-window apartments above, the odd café below. Everything here was closed at this hour, but they were by no means the only people on the streets.
I want to keep walking, he thought. Down this street, past palazzi and gardens and shops and statues, across piazzas, down alleys. I want to walk for the rest of this buono notte and into the next giorno and I want to feel the old me drop away and a new me spring up, strong and free and in total control. So that when I return to the villa tomorrow, I’ll have all the power I need to take what’s due to me, take back what’s mine.
Michelle was leaning on him, hanging on to his arm.
‘Hotel it is,’ he said.
18
Patrick opened his eyes and regretted it. His attempt to close the bedroom curtains last night had been cack-handed at best, and the morning sun seared straight into his retinas, as if someone behind it were about to subject him to interrogation.
I should interrogate myself, he thought, holding up a hand to ward off the glare. Why did you drink twelve beers last night, Mr King? Why did you not stop after eight, by which stage you knew you were already shit-faced? Why did you try to make your wife feel guilty about leaving your son, when you left him alone all afternoon because you had to sleep off the beer you’d drunk at lunchtime? Exactly how much beer did you drink yesterday? I see. Are you an alcoholic, Mr King? Or just a fucking moron?
At least I didn’t do anything under the influence that would make me feel worse than this hangover, thought Patrick. I was loud and embarrassing last night, but then, when am I not? Chad and Marcus didn’t seem to care. Darrell gave me an anxious look when I knocked over that chair, but on the whole she laughed right along with the other two.
Neither she nor Chad seemed at all worried about their spouses living it large in Milan. I guess they trust them, Patrick decided. And to be fair, I trust Clare, too. Before we got married, she made a point of telling me that she believed in fidelity. She knew I’d shagged more women than I could remember, so this was her way of being clear that if I strayed with even so much as a look, she would thread my cock onto a kebab skewer and serve it up to me.
I didn’t have to ask if the same rules applied to her, he thought. When Clare makes up her mind about how something will be, that’s how it is. She wanted to go to Milan, so she did. There was nothing I could have said to change her mind. I’m not sure how I feel about that, the fact that my wishes were heard but, in the end, ignored. At least I can be certain she won’t play away. I trust her, even when I’m starting to doubt every last thing about myself.
Clare hadn’t slept with many men before him, Patrick recalled. But that was because she’d made rules about that, too. Her ambition for her career was as honed as a Global kitchen knife, and to make it in PR, she’d told him, it paid to play the Virgin Queen game: keep them hanging on with a promise but, ultimately, never commit. Old Liz the First made each suitor think they might be the one to get access to her royal navy via the royal fanny, but she died with the reins of power still clutched firmly in her bony white fist. Clare had told him there was no shortage of men who wanted to sleep with her, and Patrick hadn’t doubted it for a second. But he knew she was careful about whom she favoured.
I always figured that’s why she chose me to marry. I was an outsider. I wasn’t a player in her world but — and this was important — I played a successful game of my own. Our ambition connected us, Patrick thought. Back then, we moved at the same speed.
Thing is, I’m slowing down. Getting sloppy. Yeats again: lose momentum, you lose control. Happens. Even Roger Federer makes unforced errors these days. Pretty soon, he’ll be a name in the sporting histories and another guest in the crowded commentary box. And there’ll be a new boy on the court, acing his opponent so fast, the other guy won’t even bother to lift his racquet.
Patrick turned his head to see the alarm clock. It was after nine. I’d planned to be up to give Tom breakfast at seven-thirty, he thought. Now, I’ll be lucky if I can get to the bathroom without Wallacing. Some fucking father I am.
He made it to the bathroom, and bent carefully to drink out of the tap. The water swilled around inside him and, as if in a blocked sink, started to rise again, but by breathing deeply and staying perfectly still, Patrick managed to keep it down. He knew Clare kept a packet of super-strength aspirin in her travel bag for period pain, and he rummaged around on the bathroom shelf, praying she had not taken it with her. The aspirin were there and Patrick, not willing to risk more water, let four dissolve directly in his mouth. Tastes like the inside of an exhaust pipe, he thought. Serves me right.
He stood over the toilet and sent a stream of lurid yellow, pungent urine into the bowl. If that’s what my liver’s trying to process, he thought, I’d better put myself on the donor waiting list soon as I get home. That’d serve me right, too.
Patrick contemplated the shower, but a tiny techno DJ was throwing down a drum track in the space behind his eyes, while the lighting engineer made lurid strobes duck and dive in front. Patrick made it back to the bed, sat down gingerly on the edge and waited for the aspirin to work.
Five hours later — that’s what it felt like, thought Patrick, but apparently it was only twenty minutes — the rave crew had packed up their equipment and left the warehouse. Briefly, he wondered what state Clare was in after her night on the majolica tiles. She’d party hard, he thought, but she’d never get out of control. Clare always knows how to keep the lid on. Unlike her alcoholic, sick-horse-pissing, aspirin-chewing, child-neglecting, loud, embarrassing moron of a husband.
I still feel like shit, thought Patrick, but at least now I can probably dress myself without aid. Though I suspect I’ll be doing that like everything else today — slowly and very carefully.
Not trusting his balance, he sat down on the bed to pull on his pants. Shirt and jeans on, Patrick checked that everything that really needed to be buttoned and zipped was, and wandered over to the front window.
The bedroom was on one corner of the villa. Its front window gave a view right across the lake, to the eastern shore, and the side window overlooked the lawn and the gardens. The sun bouncing off the lake was doing Patrick no favours, so he moved to the side window. What he saw there undid all the soothing work of the aspirin in an instant. What he saw was Tom in the arms of Ned Marsh.
Patrick’s first instinct was to run, and he made it out of the bedroom and halfway down the stairs before his body staged a mutiny.
‘Fuck …’
Patrick hung on to the banister with a sweating hand, as a black, buzzing swarm rose behind his eyes, and bile scorched the back of his throat. He sank down onto the stair, and breathed deep, willing himself not to throw up. His instincts were still screaming at him to move, but more running was out of the question. By focusing on his breathing and on taking steps that did not unduly jar him, Patrick made his way down the s
tairs, through the kitchen and out onto the lawn.
If I die today, he thought, it won’t be from alcohol poisoning. It’ll be from fucking heart failure and frustration. He’s probably gone by now, snatched Tom and taken him fuck knows where. And there’ll be fuck-all that I can do about it.
But Ned was still there, and so was Tom.
His small son, Patrick saw, was now sitting on the lawn next to Charlotte, who had laid out biscuits and cordial on a rug. Rosie was there, too, sitting next to Tom, reaching out, as he was, to receive the plastic cups Charlotte was handing them. Ned was on the grass, sitting with one knee down, one up, with his hand resting on it.
In his brown overalls, he looks a bit like a bronze garden statue, Patrick thought. Only nowhere near as benign.
Charlotte had her back to him, so it was Ned who spotted Patrick first. He said to Charlotte, ‘Tha’s got company.’
‘Hello!’
Charlotte turned and smiled up at Patrick. She was wearing the yellow sundress he could have sworn she’d started the day in yesterday. She looked as fresh and neat as a daffodil.
Patrick recalled what he’d said to her yesterday afternoon, and the state he’d been in when he’d said it, and inwardly cringed. Oh well, he reasoned. At least she missed my encore performance last night. Where had she been? he wondered. Out with some bloke? His eye shifted immediately to Ned, but all he saw there was the usual hostility. And Charlotte was showing no signs of embarrassment at being caught with him. Ned’s too old for her anyway, Patrick thought. Too old, too working class, too uncultured. Not Charlotte’s type at all.
‘Come and join us.’ Charlotte patted the grass next to her.
Patrick decided it was best at this point, for multiple reasons, to stay standing. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Chad has taken Harry fishing,’ she said. ‘He found lifejackets and rods in the boathouse, and they’ve gone out on the lake. I shouldn’t expect we’ll be feasting on sun perch tonight, but no matter.’
The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes Page 17
