The combination of the espresso martini and Clemmie’s flat shoes gave Polly a second wind. Quirk was on the decks now, serving up brilliantly mixed tracks, and every new one that came on made it impossible to stop dancing, with the euphoric energy of the crowd seeming to power Polly along.
Guy was up to his usual dance-floor antics, posturing around like Freddie Mercury when ‘We Will Rock You’ came on, throwing shapes to Daft Punk, singing along to ‘A Little Less Conversation’ with appropriate actions and facial expressions.
They all danced together, then Guy took turns to whisk Polly and Clemmie around, while Lucas did his thing – on his own, with Clemmie, with his mum, and with a succession of attractive young women.
‘Tune!’ he yelled to the opening riff of ‘Groove Is in the Heart’, launching into moves that made him look like a freaked-out funky chicken.
When they announced the last track just before 2 a.m., Polly joined in the cries of ‘Booooo . . .’ then, as the very distinctive opening bars of Quirk’s mega-hit soul ballad played, Guy grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him.
‘Will you have the last dance with me?’ he asked her.
She smiled, and without thinking took his right hand in the classic ballroom dancing position, her other on his shoulder.
‘Relax,’ he said. ‘Don’t think, just be.’
Closing her eyes, Polly allowed herself to go consciously limp, like in a yoga meditation. She was still half-expecting Guy to throw her into some over-the-top dip or spin at any moment, as he usually did, but this time he just rocked back and forth, turning slowly with the music. It was very restful – and something more than that.
Polly opened her eyes to see Guy looking at her thoughtfully.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asked.
Polly nodded. She was enjoying feeling the warmth of someone else’s body – a man’s body – pressing against hers far more than she was prepared to admit, even to herself. She wondered whether it was entirely appropriate, and looked around for Lucas and Clemmie. She couldn’t see either of them and was relieved. She hoped they both had someone nice to dance with.
She breathed in deeply. Guy always smelled gorgeous; one of the things she liked about spending time with him was that there was always something delectable in the air around him. She looked up at him again and found his dark brown, almost black eyes still gazing back at her. He licked his lips reflexively and she felt a twinge – somewhere she really shouldn’t have.
‘So, tell me,’ said Guy, lowering his head so they were almost cheek to cheek. She could feel his warm breath on her face and she liked it. ‘Do you and your horsey friend dance together like this?’
For a moment Polly didn’t understand what he was asking. Then it sank in.
‘Do you mean, er, Edward?’ she said. She didn’t want to say ‘Chum’ to Guy. He’d make fun of it.
‘Fotherington-Thomas-the-Tank-Engine, or whatever his name was. The one at your mum’s place who was looking at you like a hungry monkey eyeing a banana.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Guy,’ said Polly, pulling back from him.
‘Well, you seemed pretty keen to go off for a walk with him.’
‘We needed to take the dogs out,’ said Polly. ‘Digger and Artemis are very close.’
She knew it sounded ridiculous as she said it. Guy threw his head back and laughed.
‘Woof!’ he said. ‘Oh, that’s a good one – we’re just good friends, it’s our dogs who fancy each other.’
‘Can you not be so childish?’ said Polly, pulling her hand out of his. ‘He’s a very old friend, we went to uni together.’
She started to walk off and he ran after her, putting his hand on her shoulder.
‘Please dance with me, Polly,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, I was being stupid. It’s the last song.’
‘Well, that makes it a good time to ring for a car, then, doesn’t it?’ said Polly, shrugging him off and walking away. ‘Before everyone else does.’
By the time the two Ubers drew up to take them home, Polly had mostly forgiven Guy. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, but his words still rankled with her as she looked out of the window at sleeping North London.
Why did he always have to go that one bit too far? She loved his company, he brought the fun into her life that was so lacking from it, but every time she felt herself relax into enjoying his friendship, he managed to push her buttons in some way.
Clemmie and Lucas had no such reservations.
‘How brilliant is your friend Guy?’ Lucas was saying. ‘He’s going to come and see the band next time we play. I’ve told him he’s got to get on the dance floor – his dancing will fill it. He’s such a cool dude. I want a suit like his. Can I have one for my birthday?’
‘For a suit like Guy’s I think you’ll have to save up a while,’ said Polly. ‘They’re bespoke – you know, specially tailored for him. Savile Row.’
‘Like James Bond,’ said Lucas. ‘So is he minted, then?’
‘If only I knew,’ said Polly. ‘He must be. He doesn’t seem to have any backers for his perfume company and it’s a very expensive business to start up. I’ve tried to find out where the cash comes from but he’s cagey about it.’
‘Have you googled him?’ asked Clemmie.
‘Of course,’ said Polly. ‘And there’s absolutely nothing. He’s proudly not on Facebook or any social media either.’
‘Maybe it’s a false name,’ said Lucas.
Polly looked at him and blinked. Why had she never thought of that? It was exactly the kind of thing Guy would do. He’d called himself Roger when he booked the yoga class, so assuming another identity was clearly a concept he felt quite happy with. But why did he have to be so coy? It didn’t make any sense, and she had quite enough mystery in her life already with David.
It was all still going round in her head as she climbed into bed at nearly 3 a.m., eagerly looking forward to even a few hours of blessed peace from it all under the covers. But when she finally got her head on the pillow, she realised the curtains weren’t closed properly and a bright shaft of light was shining through the gap, right into her eyes.
She got up again and went over to the window to pull them shut. She deliberately didn’t look at the moon, remembering the last time she’d gazed up at it, nearly three months before, on New Year’s Eve.
As she jumped back into bed, she could vividly recall how raw with pain she’d been that night just eleven days after David’s sudden departure – longing for the security of his strong arms pulling her to him, for his dry jokes and constant music.
Now she felt even more alone. Time hadn’t lessened the pain of his absence at all; it felt worse the longer he was away. She felt cast adrift, unanchored without his grounding presence.
But was it really David she was missing now? There was no doubt she yearned for physical contact, that closeness of feeling attached to someone. The question was, if she could have her choice, whose arms would she really want to have around her?
She wasn’t sure.
Monday, 21 March
‘Service, Groger!’ yelled Shirlee, back in her now customary position at the stove, several frying pans on the go. ‘One veggie special for Miss Clemmie – eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and beans – and you’re up next, Lucas, so stop fiddling about with that stereo and sit down.’
‘Wilko,’ said Lucas, as the first notes of ‘Weather With You’ rang out.
Polly smiled. She was sitting at the table sipping one of Clemmie’s bright yellow turmeric and ginger brews, taking in the scene, not sure what surprised her about it the most. She hadn’t known Guy was coming to yoga until he turned up – Shirlee had ‘forgotten’ to tell her he’d booked and paid for ten classes in advance – and the very idea of Lucas up, dressed and lucid at twenty-past-nine on a Monday morning was off-the-scale astonishing.
She hadn’t been expecting Clemmie to come home for the whole of the Easter holidays either, so that was a particularly lovely surprise. But, taking a
moment to observe the happy scene – Maxine closely examining a crochet project Clemmie was stuck on, Shirlee and Lucas having a little dance as he made his way over to sit at the table – something struck her: it felt completely normal and right to have this happy scene playing out in her kitchen.
Just three months before, she’d only known Shirlee as a regular yoga attendee, she hadn’t even met Maxine, or Guy – yet now it seemed completely natural to have them all sitting in her house with her kids.
What had breakfasts been like before, she asked herself. Years earlier it had been fun like this, with all of them at the table, David making stacks of blueberry pancakes, lively music always playing. But once the kids had got older that had stopped, with everyone grabbing breakfast in their own time. During the week David had got into a routine of having toast at his desk, before leaving the house at exactly ten-past-eight. At the weekends they might still eat breakfast together, but he’d mostly have his face in the paper, loud classical music making conversation difficult.
This new regime, of breakfast as a fluid social gathering, was a revelation. She’d grown to love it in the weeks since Shirlee had first sprung the New Year’s Day brunch on her, and having the kids there made it even more special – and now there was Guy too.
He was the last person she would have imagined fitting into such an ordinary domestic setting, but he did and they all seemed to love him. It turned out Lucas had set his alarm especially to be up for it after Guy had texted him the night before to say he was coming for yoga.
As she looked round at them all, chatting and laughing, enjoying their food, she couldn’t help smiling to herself, and then a thought suddenly struck her: was she actually happier without David?
The idea was such a shock it made her feel almost queasy, and when Guy landed a plate of bacon and eggs on the table in front of her, she knew she was going to struggle to eat any of it. Her mouth had gone completely dry and her appetite had disappeared.
She clicked her fingers under the table and Digger came trotting eagerly over. She slipped him a rasher of bacon, and was just going in for a second one when Shirlee noticed.
‘Don’t like my bacon, Poll?’ she asked. ‘Too kosher for you?’
Everyone turned to look at Polly, and ridiculously, she felt herself go red.
‘No, oh, I . . .’ she stuttered, but she just couldn’t explain. How could she possibly tell them – especially her kids – this new truth? That she’d lost her appetite because, while the last three months had been the strangest and, at times, most miserable of her life, she’d just realised that she was probably happier without her husband of twenty-plus years than she’d been with him?
She couldn’t tell them that, and suddenly it was all too much. Knowing she wasn’t going to be able to keep herself together, she got up from the table and rushed from the room.
Even before she hit the stairs she was crying hard. Not the tears-rolling-silently-down-the-cheeks kind, but wracking, painful sobs, as all the suppressed confusion came rushing out. She ran into the bedroom and threw herself on the bed face down, howling.
On top of everything else, what had really made it too much to take was that she had been intending to keep this particular breakfast swift and then spend the morning with Clemmie and Lucas, devising the strategy about David they’d so hopelessly failed to make the week before.
They’d all been too hung over to do anything on Friday after the Quirk party, then it had been the weekend and Clemmie and Lucas both had plans – so Monday morning had been Polly’s deadline for them to sit down and decide what to do. Now it all just seemed too hard, and she felt like she was going to be stuck in this terrible limbo forever.
Even as she cried, she could hear voices on the stairs – Shirlee’s unmistakable penetrating tones and Clemmie’s quieter responses. Just behind them she could hear Guy’s distinctive deep pitch and Lucas’s emphatic delivery.
Were they all out there? The only one she couldn’t make out was Maxine, who would probably have been the most helpful.
She groaned and reached up for a pillow, which she pulled over her head, but too late to avoid hearing a gentle knock on the door and Clemmie saying, ‘Mum? Can I come in?’
Polly lifted up the pillow to see the door open a crack and Clemmie’s head peep round the edge.
‘Mum?’ she said again, and Polly reached out towards her with her hand, to indicate she wanted her to come over.
‘Shirlee wants to come in too,’ said Clemmie, uncertainly.
‘Not now,’ said Polly. ‘I just want to see you at the moment – tell the others I’m fine, I’ll be down in a minute.’
Clemmie disappeared behind the door again and Polly could hear her telling the others to go back to the kitchen, then she came back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her and rushing over to the bed. She lay down next to Polly, stroking her mum’s head.
‘Poor, darling Mummy,’ she said, ‘it’s all too much, isn’t it?’
Polly nodded, loving her daughter with all her heart.
Clemmie took her hand away and Polly reached out for it.
‘Don’t stop,’ she said, ‘I like it.’
‘You used to do that to me when I was little, do you remember?’ said Clemmie.
Polly nodded, closing her eyes, trying to think of nothing but the lovely comforting sensation of Clemmie’s hand gently stroking her head.
‘Granny used to do it to me,’ she said, remembering how Daphne had soothed her the exact same way when she’d opened up to her about David just a few weeks before – and that made her think about what her mother had said that evening about never really liking David.
Her comments about the wedding had stayed with Polly, quietly niggling away at the back of her mind. And about his dislike of make-up. All the little ways in which he had trivialised the things she enjoyed and quietly controlled her.
‘What set you off just now?’ asked Clemmie, breaking into Polly’s thoughts. ‘Is there anything in particular you haven’t told me about?’
Polly thought for a moment. Yes, but she couldn’t tell Clemmie she’d finally come to understand that she might be happier without her father. She might have to tell Lucas and Clemmie that one day, but not yet.
‘I just felt overwhelmed,’ she said. ‘It was so lovely at the table with everyone there, having fun, and then I remembered we’ve still got to make a plan about what to do regarding your father, and it all just got to me. Nothing’s ever simple at the moment.’
‘I know,’ said Clemmie. ‘I saw lots of friends at the weekend, but I didn’t enjoy myself because I knew we’d have to face up to all that this morning. I’m sure Lucas is feeling the same, although we haven’t talked about it. It’s all so unknowable it seems easier not to talk about it, doesn’t it? But then it sort of eats you up and makes you feel crazy from the inside out.’
Polly nodded.
‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ she said. ‘I have such a good time here with Shirlee and Maxine and the other yogi bears, then I go out with Guy and that’s brilliant, and I have all my perfume events, with some really exciting things coming up . . .’
And I have my walks with Chum, she thought, but didn’t want to have to explain that.
‘So I’m having a ball at the moment in so many ways, but then underneath it all, the great unknown is still there. What on earth is going on with David now, and what’s going to happen in the future?’
Clemmie suddenly sat up.
‘I’ve had enough,’ she said, turning to look at Polly. ‘As of this moment I’ve officially had enough. I can’t stand seeing you this unhappy and I can’t take any more of it myself. We know he’s in the country – or at least he was on Thursday. If he’s flitted off in the meantime, someone in the History Department will know where he is. We need to find him and sort this out.’
She stood up. ‘Have a shower and get dressed into something you feel good in,’ she said. ‘I’m going down to tell the others.’
&
nbsp; ‘Tell them what?’ asked Polly, sitting up herself.
‘That we’re going to find Dad.’
Clemmie headed out of the door and then put her head back round it.
‘And put some make-up on,’ she said. ‘I’ve noticed you wearing it more recently and it really suits you. You looked like Granny on Thursday night – in a good way.’
In no time, Polly was dressed in her favourite jeans, with stack-heeled ankle boots and a black polo neck – and carefully made up as Clemmie had ordered, with her hair brushed and a good spraying of PM. The sound of the shower in the main bathroom and the music coming from Lucas’s room told her that he and Clemmie were also getting ready.
She was relieved to find when she went downstairs that the others had already left. The kitchen table was bare, everything cleared up and put away. All that remained of breakfast was a plate next to the cooker, with tin foil over the top and a note propped against it. In Shirlee’s giant handwriting, it said:
Eat! Eat! You’ll need your strength. Good luck sorting that man out. Go get him girl! Love Shirl xxx
Polly stood staring at it, taking it in. So Clemmie had told her and Maxine and Guy what they were going to do . . . and presumably, the whole story behind it.
For a moment she was appalled at the idea, and then realised she didn’t care any more. She had nothing to be ashamed of. David was the one with the secrets, not her. It was actually easier if people knew what she was going through.
She pulled the tin foil off the plate and picked up a cold fried egg. She was ravenous.
As they walked along the Strand from Charing Cross, Polly began to regret scarfing down Shirlee’s food. Her stomach felt as though it was expanding like an air balloon and she couldn’t stop belching.
‘Have you got any gum, Lucas?’ she asked.
He shook his head.
‘I’ve got some peppermint oil,’ said Clemmie.
They retreated into the doorway of a shop while Clemmie fished around for it in her handbag and Polly tipped a few drops of the strong liquid onto her tongue.
The Scent of You Page 28
