‘Of course not. We don’t do anything properly.’
Kate looked puzzled. ‘You can give a speech if you want to. It doesn’t matter if it’s off the cuff. Often a spontaneous—’
‘I’d rather dip my face in a tray of acid,’ Charlie cut her off. ‘Simon would feel the same.’
Kate sighed, gathering her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. ‘I bet he wouldn’t if he was certain of being able to give a really good speech. Confidence, that’s all he’s lacking. This is unfamiliar territory for him.’
‘Sounds like you know more about him than I do.’
‘I know he adores you. And before you say “Why doesn’t he show it, then?”—he does. If you don’t see the signs, it’s because you’re looking wrong.’
‘I thought I was looking deathly,’ said Charlie through clenched teeth.
‘Simon does things his own way. He needs time, that’s all—time to get used to being a couple. Once you’re married you’ll have plenty of time. Won’t you?’ Kate sounded as if she was proposing something unutterably wholesome: a brisk walk in the fresh air. ‘Stop worrying about what you ought to be doing and stop comparing yourself to other people. When are you going to set a date?’
Charlie laughed. ‘I hope you know what a lone voice you are,’ she said. ‘You’re the one person who doesn’t think me and Simon getting married would be the biggest mistake since the dawn of time. Including me and Simon, that is.’
Kate pulled Charlie’s cigarette out of her mouth, threw it on the ground and stamped on it with a gold pump. ‘You should give up,’ she said. ‘Think of your future children, how they’d feel having to watch their mother die.’
‘I’ve no intention of having any.’
‘Of course you’ll have children,’ Kate said with authority. ‘Look, if you want to feel sorry for yourself, let me make it worth your while. Do you know what everyone’s saying in there?’ She pointed at the pub. ‘Almost every conversation I’ve been party to has centred around whether you and Simon have done it yet. I’ve heard two people predict that you’ll be divorced within a year and a good five or six say they doubt there’ll be a wedding at all. Do you know what Stacey Sellers has bought you as an engagement present?’
Charlie had a nasty feeling she was about to find out.
‘A vibrator. I heard her laughing about it, telling Robbie Meakin and Jack Zlosnik that Simon probably wouldn’t know what it was. “He’ll run a mile when he finds out,” she said.’
‘Don’t tell me any more.’ Charlie jumped down from the wall and started to walk towards the bridge. She lit a fresh cigarette. Dying wasn’t an altogether unappealing prospect, unobserved as she would be by her own non-existent children.
Kate followed her. ‘Then she said, “Oh, well—at least Charlie’ll be able to get her rocks off after Simon’s scarpered in terror.” ’
‘She’s a cockroach.’
‘More of a slug, I’d say,’ Kate amended. ‘She’s all squish and no crunch. And she’s going to have a field day if you walk out of your own engagement party and don’t come back. Do you want her to think you’re ashamed of your relationship with Simon?’
‘I’m not.’ Charlie stopped. ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks.’ Kate grabbed her arms, wrinkling her nose as cigarette smoke wafted in her face. ‘You love him more than most people love the people they’re married to. You’d die for him without a second thought.’
‘Would I?’
‘Take it from me.’
Charlie nodded, in spite of feeling as if she ought to argue. Why should she take it from Kate? Was it possible to measure the levels of love present in one’s guests while serving up baked Alaska?
Kate released her grip. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘unless all the gossip I keep hearing is completely off the mark—and gossip rarely is, in my experience—then you and Simon have got some kind of problem with your sex life.’ Before Charlie could tell her to mind her own business, she went on, ‘I don’t know what it is and I’m not asking to be told. But I do know one thing: there’s more to love, and to life, than sex. Now, the only way to put a stop to what people are saying in there is to go back and interrupt every conversation. Address your guests. Don’t leave them to speak to each other—they can’t be trusted. Stand on a chair—you’ve got flat heels on—and give a speech.’
Charlie was surprised to hear herself laugh. You’ve got flat heels on—had Kate really said that?
‘Char, wait for me!’ The voice came from the knot of trees by the side of the bridge.
Charlie closed her eyes. How much had Olivia overheard? ‘My sister,’ she said, in answer to Kate’s raised eyebrows.
‘I’ll see you inside in no more than three minutes,’ said Kate.
‘Who was that?’ Olivia asked.
‘Sam Kombothekra’s wife. You’re late.’
‘It’s not a concert,’ said Olivia. It was a saying she’d picked up from her and Charlie’s father. Howard Zailer said it about all the things he didn’t care if he was late for. He never said it about golf, which he played at least five days a week. Howard’s passion for golf had been forced on his wife, though they both pretended Linda’s sudden enthusiasm for the game had been arrived at independently, by a huge stroke of luck.
‘So, are you giving a speech?’ asked Olivia.
‘Apparently.’
Olivia was wearing an ill-advised tight skirt that bound her legs together, and could only take tiny steps towards the pub. Charlie had to restrain herself from screaming, ‘Get a move on!’ She would march back into that room and beat the shit out of anyone who looked as if they might have been predicting the demise of her and Simon’s engagement. How dare they? How dare they drink champagne we’ve paid for and slag us off behind our backs? Her speech—forming in her mind as she walked with feigned patience beside her shuffling sister—would be a verbal thrashing for all those who deserved it. Not exactly party spirit in the traditional sense, thought Charlie, but at least she was fired up.
Once inside and upstairs, she stood on a chair. She didn’t need to bang anything or call out to get attention. All eyes were on her, and people quickly shushed one another. ‘Can someone turn the music down?’ she said. A man in a white shirt and a black bow-tie nodded and left the room. She didn’t know his name. She wondered if he knew hers, if word of her unsatisfactory sex life had spread as far as the Malt Shovel staff who were helping out for the evening.
A quick scan of the room confirmed that Kathleen and Michael Waterhouse had left. Simon, in a corner at the back, was looking worried, no doubt wishing Charlie had conferred with him before opting to make a tit of herself in front of everyone they knew.
The music stopped mid-song. Charlie opened her mouth. Two seconds ago she had known what she was going to say—it would have left no conscience unflayed—but she kept looking at the wrong people. Lizzie Proust was beaming up at her, Kate Kombothekra was mouthing, ‘Go on,’ from the back of the room and Simon chose that precise moment to smile.
I can’t do it, thought Charlie. I can’t denounce them all. They don’t all deserve it. Possibly less than half of them deserve it. Kate might have been exaggerating. It struck Charlie that denouncing was probably the sort of thing that ought to be handled with a bit more precision.
You’re standing on a chair in the middle of the room. You’ve got to say something.
‘Here’s a story I’ve never told anyone before,’ she said, thinking, What the fuck am I doing? She hadn’t told the story for a very good reason: it made her look like a world-class moron. She saw Olivia frown. Liv thought she knew everything about her older sister. It was almost true. There were only a couple of stories she’d missed out on, and this was one of them. ‘When I was a new PC, I went into a primary school to give a talk about road safety.’
‘The headmaster had never seen you drive, then!’ Colin Sellers called out. Everyone laughed. Charlie could have kissed him. He was the perfect undemanding audience.
‘
In the classroom, apart from me and the thirty or so kids, there was the teacher and a classroom assistant—a young girl—’
‘Woman!’ a female voice yelled.
‘Sorry, a young woman, who was working as hard as the teacher was—wiping noses, helping to draw pictures of highway code symbols, ferrying kids to the loo. The teacher had introduced herself to me at the beginning of the lesson, and she’d made all the children tell me their names, but she never introduced the assistant, which I thought was a bit rude. Anyway, when I’d finished doing my bit and the bell was about to go, the teacher stood up and said, “Can we all please give PC Zailer a huge round of applause for coming to visit us and giving us such a fascinating talk?” Everyone clapped. And then she said, “And now, let’s put our hands together for Grace.” ’
Charlie cringed at the memory, even at a distance of several years. She saw Sam Kombothekra laughing next to Kate, the only person who seemed to have anticipated what was coming next.
‘Thank goodness, I thought to myself: finally the poor classroom assistant—Grace—is getting some acknowledgement for all her hard work. I started clapping vigorously, but nobody else did. All the little kids were staring at me as if I was a nutter. And then I realised that they all had their palms pressed together, praying style . . .’
A tide of giggles rose in the hot room. Charlie heard her father’s throaty guffaws. Her mum and Olivia were on either side of him, watching him to assess how much he was enjoying himself and infer from that how much enjoyment they were entitled to.
Think nice thoughts.
Kate Kombothekra was giving Charlie a thumbs-up sign from across the room. Stacey Sellers had a smear of guacamole in the corner of her mouth.
‘That’s right,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s when I remembered that I was in a Catholic school, and that Grace, as well as being a girl’s name, was also the name of a prayer. The fact is, I knew nothing about Catholicism, having been raised by atheist hippies whose idea of a deity was Bob Dylan.’ Linda and Olivia Zailer looked worried momentarily; when Howard laughed, they smiled, but turned warning eyes in Charlie’s direction. ‘If I had any ideas at all about Catholics, I probably imagined they were all repressed weirdos who think they’re right about everything all the time.’ Charlie gave it a few seconds before saying, ‘And then I met Simon.’
Laughter broke out. Stacey Sellers’ tittering was audible above the general noise. Too late to back out now, thought Charlie. ‘Simon, a good Catholic boy, is bound to have had preconceived ideas about the children of atheist hippies: foulmouthed, loose-living, promiscuous, bent on annihilating themselves and everyone around them.’ One, two, three, four. ‘And then he met me.’ This time the laughter was deafening. Charlie tried not to feel hurt. ‘And, in fact, he’s now looking at me as if I’ve sprouted horns, so maybe the engagement’s off. I hope not—if it is, all prezzies will be returned.’ As an afterthought, Charlie added, ‘Which means, Stacey, that you’ll get your vibrator back, though I doubt you’ll manage to get much purchase on it, having had two children the natural way. Anyway, moving swiftly on . . . Thanks so much for coming, everyone. There’s plenty of booze left—have a great evening!’
Charlie saw Simon marching towards her while she was still climbing down from the chair.
‘What the fuck . . .’ he started to say, but his words were drowned out by Lizzie Proust who appeared between him and Charlie, dragging the Snowman behind her. ‘That was absolutely the best speech I’ve ever heard,’ she told Charlie. ‘Wasn’t it, Giles?’
‘No,’ said Proust.
‘It was. You were terrific!’ Lizzie hugged Charlie with one arm, keeping hold of her husband with the other. By the time she’d managed to struggle free, Charlie couldn’t see Simon any more.
‘I don’t think it was the best speech your intended has ever heard either,’ said Proust, giving her a wintry look.
‘Most people seemed to like it, sir.’ Charlie smiled resolutely. She wouldn’t let him ruin her mood, so recently improved. Her speech had been good. But now where was Simon? He couldn’t really be angry, could he?
The music came back on, louder than before, and a different CD: Wyclef Jean’s Carnival II. Charlie noticed Proust’s instant displeasure, and wondered fleetingly if he’d ever been open-minded even in his youth. She felt a hand close around her arm: Debbie Gibbs. ‘I wish I could laugh at myself the way you laugh at yourself,’ she said. Her eyes looked wet.
‘I can laugh at you if you want,’ said Charlie. Debbie shook her head, not getting the joke. You’re a cop, not a comedian, Charlie reminded herself.
Once Debbie had moved away, Olivia pulled Charlie to one side. ‘Mum and Dad were never hippies.’
‘Well, whatever they were, then—champagne socialists. People with wooden floors who go on CND marches and eat pasta a lot—but that would have taken too long to say. Much easier to summarise now Dad’s a golf bore.’
‘Don’t start, Char.’
‘Interested in his golfing stories, are you?’
During Olivia’s treatment for cancer, Howard Zailer had been fully involved. As much as Linda and Charlie were. It was when he’d retired that his horizons had started to narrow. By 2006, when Charlie’s name had been splashed all over the papers, he had been willing to talk to her only briefly about what she was going through; it wasn’t life-threatening, after all. Howard couldn’t be late for his day’s play, or, if it was evening when Charlie happened to ring, for a drinking session with his friends from the club. ‘I’ll hand you over to Mum,’ he said whenever she phoned. ‘She can fill me in later.’
‘You’ll have to forgive me if I’m determined to like my family in spite of their faults,’ Liv said huffily, looking Charlie up and down. ‘It’s not exactly an abundance of riches scenario, is it? I don’t have any relatives who aren’t a pain in the arse in some major way. I suppose you’d like me to cut all ties, take myself off to the pound to sit in a mesh-fronted cage until some perfect new family comes to claim me.’
Charlie decided it would be unwise to pursue the point.
Olivia had no such reservations. ‘Do we all get to say exactly what we think, or is it just you? I wasn’t going to say a word about how ridiculous this whole charade is, your loony engagement . . .’
‘That policy has subsequently been revised, I take it?’ Charlie snapped.
Liv didn’t get the chance to answer. Shouting was coming from the bottom of the stairs near the presents table. Simon’s voice. Everyone who could hear it was shifting in that direction, not wanting to miss out.
Stacey Sellers was crying. Simon was holding a large vibrator, wielding it like a truncheon. ‘This is what you thought we’d want, is it?’ he yelled, throwing it on the floor. It landed amid strips of wrapping paper, next to what was left of its cardboard and plastic box.
‘There’s nothing wrong with sex toys. They’re not dirty,’ Stacey screamed back at him. ‘Haven’t you ever watched Sex and the City? Don’t you know anything?’
‘She’s got a point,’ Olivia whispered in Charlie’s ear. ‘A libido might not be essential but a sense of humour is.’
‘Liv says she’ll have it if we don’t want it,’ Charlie shouted down the stairs.
Simon looked up at her. ‘Get your stuff,’ he said. ‘We’re going. ’
‘Going? Simon, it’s only ten past nine. We can’t leave—it’s our party.’
‘I can do whatever the fuck I like. Give me your keys. I’ll see you later.’
Keys? Did he mean he planned to spend the night at her house? He had to mean that—it was unambiguous. Charlie looked around to see if anyone was smirking. Most people seemed more interested in Stacey’s weeping. There was no way anyone could know that Charlie and Simon had never spent the night together at either of their houses or anywhere else, that she’d feared it might never happen, even after they were married. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she told him, grabbing her coat and bag from the stand at the top of the stairs.
&nb
sp; Olivia was waiting to pounce. ‘I’ve only just got here. Can’t Simon wait?’
He certainly can, thought Charlie. Let no one say of Simon Waterhouse that he couldn’t wait. He could wait so long that Charlie’s heart was in danger of fossilising. She was the one who couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘So. Are you going to tell me?’ Simon sat on Charlie’s lounge floor, knees pulled up to his chin, an unopened can of lager in his hand. His skin looked grey and grainy. Charlie could see specs of grit in the parting in his hair. Hadn’t he showered before coming out?
She stood in the middle of the undecorated, unfurnished room, trying not to howl. They were missing their engagement party for this, to be mired in this grim atmosphere, this stilted conversation. ‘It doesn’t matter, Simon. For Christ’s sake!’
‘So you’re not going to tell me.’
Charlie groaned. ‘It’s a TV programme. About four women who live in New York, all right? They’re friends, they screw lots of men—that’s about it.’
‘Everyone’s seen it. Everyone except me.’
‘No! Probably there are loads of people who have never even heard of it.’
‘Repressed weirdos. To quote your brilliant speech.’
‘It was brilliant.’ Charlie tried to harden her misery, turn it into anger. ‘I’ve explained why I did it. Kate Kombothekra told me everyone was taking the piss out of us. I thought I’d steal their thunder by doing it myself.’
Simon sprang to his feet. ‘I’m going home.’
Charlie put her body between him and the door. ‘You came back here so that you could ask about Sex and the City and then leave? Why are you here, Simon? Did you overhear someone at the party talking about our sex life, or lack of? Kate says they were all at it. Maybe you wanted everybody to see us leaving together and draw the wrong conclusion.’
‘It’s what I heard you saying that’s the problem!’ Simon shouted in her face. ‘Foul-mouthed, loose-living, promiscuous, bent on self-destruction. Lucky for me my parents had left by then.’
‘Scared of Mummy and Daddy finding out, are you? What I’m really like?’
The Dead Lie Down: A Novel Page 5
