Finding Monsieur Right (2010) (15 page)

Isabelle had not been very keen on dressing up at first, but Chrissie, who could be very perceptive when he put his mind to it, had rescued her by pronouncing that she should come as Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany's
, more of a concept than an actual costume. Isabelle would wear her own little black dress with a long string of pearls, and borrow Chrissie's cigarette holder.

As she sat at Daisy's dressing table (returned to its original use for tonight) putting her hair up in a restrained version of Holly Golightly's beehive, she tried to sway Clothaire one last time. 'I just think it might be more polite to make a little effort,' she said pleadingly.

'No.'

'You might enjoy it, you know.'

'No.'

It was entirely useless, as she knew from past experience. Clothaire had refused point-blank to visit a fancy-dress shop, so Chrissie had offered him dozens of colourful possibilities drawn from his own wardrobe - since many of his clothes readily doubled as fancy dress. Clothaire had stared coldly and said no. It would be all right, Isabelle told herself, carefully applying lipstick. There would be at least one other guest Clothaire could talk to at dinner: Tom Quince. They would probably get on really well.

Isabelle made her way downstairs, promising to call Clothaire when it was time to eat. By now everyone else was dressed and they stood around in the kitchen, admiring one another's costumes. Standing on a chair, Jules was lighting the candles on the wrought-iron chandelier hanging over the table.

'
Do
be careful, Ju,' Chrissie drawled from beneath his straw hat, 'you're a walking fire hazard in all that lame.' He looked across at Isabelle and grinned. 'Well, I do declare! If it isn't Miss Holly Golightly!'

The mummified Legend, whose ponytail rose untamed through the bandages at the top of her head like a small geyser of crude oil, shuffled towards Isabelle and gave her the thumbs-up. 'Bloody hell, you look great. You should wear black more often.'

'Everybody should always wear black,' Ivy said gravely, leaning on her sword in front of the dresser, which now bore a whole cortege of grinning jack-o'-lanterns.

The doorbell rang and Isabelle went to answer it. It was Tom Quince in a dinner jacket, carrying a basket under his arm.

'Oh hello, Mr Qu--. I mean Tom.'

'Hi, Isabelle. Now -' he gestured apologetically towards his outfit '- I was absolutely determined to come as something more exciting but it's been a busy week and I ran out of time. And this was hanging in my wardrobe and it was clean. I hope it's OK.'

Isabelle smiled. 'It's fine. You look like ... James Bond. But with a basket.'

'Well, yes, naturally. He never leaves the house without one.' He handed the basket to her, saying vaguely, 'I thought you might like these.'

Isabelle peered at the contents - several yellow objects she couldn't identify.

'Oh. Thank you very much.'

'You don't know what they are, do you?'

'Well, no. Sorry.' They looked quite exotic. 'Mangoes?'

He shook his head. 'No, quinces.'

As she still looked a little blank, he went on: 'Like my name, you see. Or rather my great-aunt's. It was meant to be a subtle literary joke.'

'Oh! Quince, quinces! Of course. I'm sorry. I had never thought about what her name meant particularly.' She smiled. 'Thank you very much.'

'You look lovely.'

'Thank you,' she said, tucking the basket under her arm. 'The others are in the kitchen downstairs. I'll call Clothaire, my boyfriend. He is very much looking forward to meeting you.' That wasn't exactly true. Clothaire had shown no enthusiasm whatever.

Tom Quince's expression did not change at all. He ran his fingers through his hair. 'Ah, yes. Excellent,' he said after a barely noticeable pause.

Just as Isabelle finished introducing everyone in the candlelit kitchen, Clothaire came in, looking displeased. 'I have been waiting upstairs for an eternity, Isabelle,' he said in French, ignoring everyone else, 'I thought we agreed you would call me when it was time for dinner.'

'I was just about to call you. Dinner is almost ready. This is my boyfriend, Clothaire. Tom Quince, Meredith's great-nephew.'

'Oh, 'ello.'

'Hello.'

They shook hands and Isabelle, pleased with her match, left them to it. She was certain that they would hit it off. Chrissie began to dip a ladle into the large bowl of Bloody Mary, filling glasses to the brim with characteristic insouciance. Several ice hands floated eerily on the surface of the drink - the result of Ivy's earlier activities. Isabelle was impressed. Clothaire, however, took one look at the gothic cocktail, shook his head disdainfully and demanded a Scotch. Meanwhile Belladonna's powerful mix loosened tongues and by the time they began to sit down to eat in the candlelight, everyone was talking at once.

Isabelle had planned to sit next to Meredith's relative at dinner and engage him in conversation about the significance of the ink splodge in the portrait. But Chrissie called her to the stove to help him serve the pumpkin soup and by the time they had finished filling bowls with sweet-smelling orange brew, the seating plan had shifted. Tom Quince had ended up next to Belladonna while Jules, whose goal was presumably to sit as far away from Karloff as possible, had promptly taken the seat on Tom's other side. Only two places remained, one for Isabelle between Clothaire and Karloff and one for Chrissie between Legend and Ivy. Isabelle would have to wait until after dinner to broach the topic of
The Splodge
. They all began to eat.

'This is pretty good, actually,' Legend said from between her bandages, after a few carefully negotiated mouthfuls.

'It's much better than that idea of yours, anyway,' said Belladonna. 'That was just rank.'

'I don't know about that. I still think a boiled calf's head would have made a great centrepiece.'

'So rank.'

'Maybe. Really gothic, though.' Having made her point, Legend tossed her jet-black ponytail.

'I would like to know,' Isabelle piped up, 'how you decide that something is gothic or that it isn't.'

'Anything that has sort of ... a dark presence is gothic,' said Ivy, her freckled white face framed by her silver chainmail balaclava.

The others nodded in agreement.

'Like a kind of
frisson
?' said Isabelle.

'Ooh yeah,' Ivy said, narrowing her slightly protuberant green eyes. 'Brrrrr ...

Across the table, Clothaire was quizzing Isabelle's guest about his academic credentials and career choice. 'But I don't understand what you say. Explain me why you want to be a florist. It's a job for a girl, that, no?'

'Some people think so,' Tom Quince said vaguely.

'I once knew a
charming
florist,' Chrissie said, smiling at Meredith's relative. 'He was so
very
fragrant
always
.'

'Good for you,' Tom Quince said, nodding. He looked at Clothaire. 'Not a florist, by the way, a gardener.'

Clothaire snorted.

Tom Quince ate a mouthful of soup, then said, 'Though, as a matter of fact, I did consider becoming a florist. But what I enjoy most is making gardens.'

'It's very powerful stuff you're harnessing, very healing,' his neighbour Belladonna said, looking at him through her eyelashes. 'You must have a really deep connection with telluric forces.'

'Like me, Bella is a pagan,' said Jules, his other neighbour. 'Unlike me, she likes nothing better than dancing naked in the moonlight. I prefer to wear a toga. It's more dignified.'

'I like to commune fully with the earth mother,' said Belladonna, curling a lock of her black hair around her forefinger. 'I'm a white witch, you see.'

Clothaire banged on the table and frightened Raven, who bounded down to the floor with an indignant miaow.

'No, but you are joking with this! You went to a good university. You are an intelligent guy, yes or no? You should do something more interesting.'

Tom Quince calmly shifted his gaze from Belladonna to Clothaire. 'No doubt you're right.'

'Have you quite finished?' asked Jules, who had come to stand behind Clothaire. 'I thought so. I'll take this if you don't mind.' She whisked away his half-empty bowl and placed it on top of a perilously high pile of crockery that she then carried across to the sink.

Isabelle looked across the table to check that Tom Quince was not bored. She needn't have worried. He was laughing with Jules at something Belladonna had just said. Belladonna, incidentally, looked rather good, if (in Isabelle's opinion) slightly blatant, in a laced-up dress that made the most of her cleavage. Isabelle felt relieved while also experiencing a vague and mysterious annoyance.

Karloff got up the courage to help Jules dish out the next course. Clothaire stared down balefully at the food that was placed before him:

'What is this?'

'Cheese and onion tart. All right?'

'What?
Et alors
? There is no meat? You are joking with me? This is food for the ... chicks, the women!'

'Actually,
I
think meat stinks,' Ivy said in a slow singsong voice, as though speaking to a very small child.

'I'm a vegetarian too,' Karloff said mildly. 'Like Ivy. And Bella. And, er ... Jules. It's
not
food for girls.'

'And so explain me why you are wearing lipstick and mascara?' Clothaire said, leaning back in his chair.

Before Karloff could respond, Isabelle interjected hurriedly, 'The tart is really good, you know. Try a little piece.'

'Pfff, vegetarians! You make me laugh,' Clothaire said, lighting a cigarette. 'Like you there,' he said, gesturing towards Belladonna. 'You are telling me that you are a vegetarian vampire, maybe? Or maybe you drink only the vegetarian blood?
Hein, alors
?'

'It's fancy dress. That means role-play, you know,' Belladonna replied with a frosty smile. 'Besides, you don't have to be a vampire to want to bite certain people's necks,' she added, baring her pointy canines and smiling at Tom Quince.

'You are all stupid or what? Nobody has explained you that we are omnivore?' Clothaire boomed, grinding his cigarette butt several times into his piece of onion tart.

'That's what the corporations want you to believe,' Ivy said with extreme solemnity. 'Actually, it's all just a big lie.'

'We are all Gaea's children,' Belladonna said. 'We may partake of her vegetable bounty but we mustn't kill other living things. It's terrible karma.'

'I think it's a question of personal taste ...' Isabelle began.

Clothaire spun around to face her. '
Et l'autre emmerdeuse qui s'y met
! Nobody asked your advice, Isabelle. Just shut up when I'm talking, OK?' he thundered.

Isabelle shut up. Clothaire lit another cigarette, presumably marshalling his thoughts about the proper diet for human beings. Nobody else spoke. After a moment's silence, Isabelle looked around the table in confusion. She suddenly realised that when something like this happened in Paris, another guest - more often than not her dear Agathe - would laugh the whole thing off, scolding Clothaire in an indulgent way so that Isabelle never minded his outbursts. Tonight, on the other hand, the other guests all stared at Clothaire, open-mouthed. All, in fact, except Tom Quince, who was looking straight at Isabelle with an odd expression on his face, almost of anger. She blushed ferociously.

'I have just had
the
most
mar
-vellous idea,' Chrissie said, not a minute too soon. 'Ju-Ju, why don't you go get your Ouija board and we'll have ourselves a little Halloween seance.'

This broke the horrified spell around the table. Jules went to fetch the alphabet board in her room. While Legend, Karloff and Ivy cleared the table, Isabelle slipped out into the garden. It was a clear moonlit night. Earlier in the day, Jules and Chrissie had made a bonfire of dead leaves on the lawn, and the pile of ashes was still smoking a little. Isabelle walked over to the bench and sat down. A minute or so later she heard the kitchen door open. She didn't turn her head, knowing full well that it was Clothaire, probably with another cigarette.

'Are you all right, Isabelle?'

Isabelle looked up to see Meredith's great-nephew standing beside the bench. She flinched a little and stared straight ahead of her.

'Yes, of course. I'm absolutely fine,' she said primly.

'I thought perhaps ...'

'What?' she said, and started to shiver.

'How stupid of me. Here, let me.' There was a quick rustling sound, and then Isabelle felt herself enveloped in something warm - his jacket. He sat down next to her.

'Thank you very much,' she said in a much smaller voice than she had intended.

They sat in silence for a while. Tom Quince threw his head back and looked up at the sky. Then he turned towards her and spoke. 'What was it you wanted to ask me, by the way? About Meredith?'

'Oh yes,' Isabelle replied, much relieved by the change of subject. 'The other day at Lucy's house, I was looking at the portrait of Meredith and ... Did you notice the -'

A cry came from the kitchen door. 'Yoo-hoo! Isabelle?' And then, in the same voice but one octave lower: 'Tom? Where are you?'

Belladonna was coming across the lawn, holding the hem of her dress in one hand and beckoning with the other. 'Come on, we need everybody to gather for the seance.'

They went back into the house. Most of the guests were sitting around the table, looking at the board and chattering excitedly. Clothaire was leaning against the dresser, away from the rest. When he saw Isabelle, he came forwards, put an arm around her and gave the back of her neck a quick squeeze. She smiled at him and automatically took off Tom Quince's jacket, which she handed back to its owner. They all sat down, except Clothaire who went upstairs to watch television.

The spirits - helped along by Isabelle and, rather less discreetly, by Chrissie - proved to be in great verve. They told Jules that 'S-O-M-E-O-N-E-T-A-L-L-A-N-D-D-A-R-K-S-E-C-R-E-T-L-Y' pined for her and Karloff that his destiny was to be 'L-O-V-E-D-B-Y-T-H-E-Q-U-E-E-N'.