Gilliflowers (15 page)

Of course Penny being an interfering old bat couldn’t resist saying that wedlock might be a good idea before the baby was born.

Shane isn’t the sentimental type, but he was genuinely thrilled for his brother with regard to the baby. I know all his smiles, the polite, the false, the strained, the dangerous, especially the dangerous, but the one he gave on hearing the news was sincere, lighting his fine green eyes. The hug of congratulation he gave his brother was far warmer than their hug of greeting.

Penny poured out five full flutes of champagne and then divided what was left in the bottle between two other flutes, one of which was handed to Lorraine and the other to me. She was given only a small amount on account of being pregnant. I was given a small amount on account of being me. No way was Penny (B-I-T-C-H) opening a second bottle of expensive wine so I could have a full glass.

I adore champagne. I tried to puppy eye Dick into swapping his full glass for my half one, but he resisted my overtures. Like Shane he’s developed a nanny approach to me drinking. He probably considered less to be a good thing. Meanie.

Glasses were raised and a toast made to the parents to be. Penny said she couldn’t wait to see their father’s face when he learned he was going to be a grandfather at long last. He didn’t yet know James and Lorraine were up visiting, let alone anything else. She had it all planned. She’d booked a table for dinner in a nice restaurant for Saturday night. He’d not only get the surprise of seeing James, but the surprise of news that had been a long time coming. James and his first wife had not had any children, neither had Penny and Charles. I was the nearest thing to a child that Dick and Shane were ever likely to have. Not that I said so of course, suspecting it might be construed as tasteless. See, I can keep my mouth shut.

Once the excitement died down, Shane and James got on with catching up with each other’s life, especially their work, in an inquisitive yet guarded kind of way, as if afraid of conceding something to the other. It’s funny, they don’t really look alike, Shane is an inch or two taller and much more handsome, but they have very similar mannerisms. It was interesting to observe. At times they were almost mirror images of each other.

Penny and Lorraine monopolised Dick (fag hags) leaving me to hang around like a lesbian in a gay bar full of go-go boys. Charles had a few words with me, though what they were is a mystery as yet unsolved. He then gravitated towards Shane and James when their conversation moved into the political arena. Chas enjoys a political debate. He has the voice for it and could fit very nicely into the House of Commons, incoherently mooing and baaing along with the best of them.

I hate talking politics, especially with business people. The business class tends to view politics as something that should only relate to their personal profit margins, as opposed to something that should benefit mankind in general. I steered well clear and let them get on with evolving policies to suit their own wealth accruing agenda.

Penny eventually got up to go into the kitchen to begin getting dinner underway.

Lorraine went with her. Dick joined the political debate, which was now edging into the uncomfortable territory of the situation in Iraq with James querying whether or not it was more an ill managed and badly thought out policing action than a war as such.

My personal thoughts were that a lot of people were suffering and dying, so did it matter what it was called? You could call it Disneyland, but the roller coasters would still end up being targets for suicide bombers and no one would be posing for holiday snaps.

I didn’t say anything though, reluctant to commit myself to arguing a point with someone I didn’t know. I’ve only met James once before and like his pa and sis he finds me a hard equation to work out. Besides I’m not a political animal. I find it too stressful. I tend to react from an emotional rather than a purely intellectual base, thus leaving myself open to accusations of sentimental naivety, if not stupidity.

Instead my houseboy instincts kicked in prompting me to gather up empty glasses to take through to the kitchen. As I approached, treading silently down the thickly carpeted hall, I overheard the tail end of a speech by Penny.

“…and I don’t know why they allow him to tag along to family events. It’s embarrassing.”

I froze, standing stock still with the tray of glassware in my hands.

Lorraine chipped in. “I suppose he’s the gay equivalent of a mistress.”

Penny replied. “Don’t flatter him. The word mistress suggests someone with a semblance of class and the decency to at least remain out of sight. He’s a common tart hanging around for whatever he can get. I’m certain Shane will see sense one of these days and send him on his way; especially now he and Dick have made a civil marriage. It proves they’re devoted to each other. He’s a leftover from some sleazy moment of madness they both had. You know men and sex. They have different morals to women.”

Lorraine then made a comment about my accent, which she mistakenly identified as Geordie, adding with a giggle that she didn’t think you got gay Geordies, gay Gordon’s, perhaps, but not gay Geordies. What a wag. She’d be doing stand up at the Edinburgh Fringe next.

Taking a deep breath I walked briskly into the kitchen. Putting the tray of glasses on the table I smiled and politely asked the coven leader what room I was in. She told me and I walked out leaving them to wonder whether I’d overheard any of their conversation.

As usual Penny had put me in a separate room from Dick and Shane. With James and Lorraine staying it meant they got the double room I was usually parked in. I was relegated to the tiny box room where the overflow from the rest of the house ended up. It was the bric-a-brac room housing stuff no longer wanted or cherished and awaiting shipment to charity shops. She hadn’t made up the single bed. It was no surprise, she never does, though she’d left clean bedding for me to put on. Favoured guests have beds made for them, interlopers make their own.

I decided to ditch being a common leftover tart in favour of playing the good mistress for a while and classily keeping out of sight. I informed their lordships I was a bit tired and was going for a lie down before dinner.

I made the bed and lay on it reading one of the books I’d brought, The Clan Of The Cave Bear. It had a good rep and was well written, but I was finding it hard going, worthy, but a bit dull. I was determined to slog through it though, if only to say I’d read it. With three pages left to go I got the call that dinner was ten minutes away from being served. I speed read to the end of the book, heaved a sigh of relief and closed it. I then whipped off my t-shirt, treated my underarms to a generous blast of Lynx deodorant and dragged on a dressy shirt before heading down to dine with the Midlands Mafia.

I was last to enter the dining room and everyone was seated and chatting. As I walked in, James, Lorraine and Penny all exchanged a quick look. I felt my skin grow hot and not because of the external heat. I don’t think they did it with conscious intent to humiliate me. It was simply one of those automatic responses to internal stimuli, probably rooted in the kitchen incident. All the same it upset me.

I was seated at the very end of the table, nearest to Dick. He smiled as I took my place and then leaned to whisper in my ear, saying I looked gorgeous, which should have made me feel better, but didn’t. The die was cast.

Penny’s dining room table is a narrow refectory style. It seats six comfortably, but isn’t designed for odd numbers. I felt very much the odd number squashed as I was right at the end. I unbalanced the whole landscape and symmetry of the table, the settings, the flowers, everything. I even had a mismatched wine glass at my place. The matched set of six cut crystal glasses having been allocated to the couples. Knowing Penny she probably had several sets of the same glassware, but had chosen to spitefully give me an odd one to make a point.

I was suddenly deeply angry, and not only with Penny, but with Shane. I was out of place. It was a family occasion and a special one. My presence
was
inappropriate.

He shouldn’t have insisted I come. It was cruel. Penny would never understand the relationship I had with her brother. She’s middleclass, straight and conservative in every sense of the word. There are some gay people who find my kind of relationship hard to accept. For the majority of people regardless of sexuality it’s ingrained that intimate, committed relationships are something that take place between two people.

Penny and her father and brother had accepted Shane was gay. They had accepted his choice of partner, Dick, and that was as far as their acceptance went. Two people made a marriage, not three. I was a jarring note, the
mister-ess
who might be known about, but who shouldn’t be on view thereby contravening some etiquette involving social respectability.

Sitting at the end of the table with my odd wine glass I felt almost sick with self-conscious embarrassment. I never thought I’d think such a thing, but I wished I’d asked to spend the holiday with Leo. He might be an aggravating bastard at times, but at least he was a bastard who acknowledged and accepted the context of my relationship with Dick and Shane, and not just its polygamous aspects. He understood all of its drives, dynamics and construction.

Given the news the talk at the dinner table naturally ebbed and flowed around the subject of weddings and family: Shane, James and Penny’s family and the families of Dick, Charles and of course Lorraine. My family wasn’t mentioned, either by me or anyone else, because my family didn’t link into the legitimate social network, which existed between the six people I was dining with.

Lorraine, no doubt primed by Penny, scolded Dick and Shane for their ‘secret wedding’ saying they should have made a family event of it. Penny backed her up with a hearty ‘hear-hear’ while shooting me a dirty look. (Picture my pom-poms shaking) Shane smiled and said it had been as much an event as they had wished. He turned the tables on her by asking if she and James had any plans to wed now parenthood loomed. She shrugged and looked at James who rendered himself deaf to the clang of wedding bells and turned the conversation elsewhere, complimenting Penny on a lovely meal.

The food was pleasant. Penny is a good cook, but I had no appetite, not for food. I made damn good use of my odd wine glass though.

Dick suddenly noticed I was paying more attention to the wine on offer than to the food and conversation. He nudged me and discreetly asked how many glasses I’d had.

I discreetly replied I wasn’t counting and he discreetly said in that case I’d undoubtedly exceeded my quota of units and it would be best if the wine left in my glass remained un-drunk.

I was annoyed. We are talking pissed off big time here. The subject of alcohol and how much of it I drank was becoming an increasingly sticky wicket. The men folk had imposed limits and were becoming more serious about applying them. I didn’t like it. I wanted to choose how many glasses of wine or beer I drank at any one time, especially in the circumstances. There was no way I was sitting at that table feeling the way I did while staying obedient to the rules of a relationship unrecognised in the environment I was in.

I didn’t only drain the glass of its contents I reached for the bottle to fill it again, only Dick got to it first making pretence of topping up his own glass so he could set the bottle out of easy reach. I rudely reached for it anyway, filling my glass. I swigged about half and then filled it up again, thus killing that particular bottle.

He was angry. His brown eyes were a perfect reflection of the Easter weather, grim and icy. He had every right to be angry. I’d more or less told him to fuck right off, but there wasn’t a lot he could do there and then without drawing attention to us.

Shane, engaged in a property market conversation with James and Charles, was oblivious to my rebellion.

When the main course was finished Penny addressed me for the first time that evening, asking me to give her a hand clearing the dishes away. She’d obviously given her usual serving elf the evening off, probably without pay.

Dick took his chance and told Penny to sit down. He’d help me clear the dishes away. Of course she wouldn’t hear of Dick sullying his hands with menial labour.

They had a polite little argument and then Shane, totally unaware of why Dick wanted to help, smiled and chipped in, telling him it was no good arguing with Penny. It was best to just let her and me get on with it.

Silently gathering up used plates, serving dishes and cutlery I took them out to the kitchen where the supercilious bitch began instructing me as to how I should stack them in the dishwasher. I was so furious I didn’t trust myself to speak. Entertaining myself with visions of her burning at the stake while I hurled firelighters at her, I stacked the dishwasher while she put the finishing touches to the lavish strawberry gateaux she had made for dessert. Picking it up to carry through to the dining room she commanded I follow with the dessert bowls and jug of cream. I didn’t. She could get stuffed.

Instead I boldly selected a bottle of red wine from the worktop wine rack, opened it, poured a large glass, sank it and then poured another, sitting at the kitchen table to drink it more slowly. If I wasn’t going to be made to feel at home in the dining room then fuck them. I’d make myself at home in the kitchen.

Dick soon made an appearance. He didn’t look like a man in search of dessert bowls. The wine made me brash and reckless. Quickly raising my glass I said cheers and cheekily polished off the contents before he could commandeer the glass.

Needless to say he wasn’t amused.

Closing the kitchen door he strode over to the table speaking a single word in his poshest voice. “Mumpsimus!” Taking my hand he sharply slapped the back of it.

A mumpsimus is a term for a stubborn person who insists on doing something even when they know it’s wrong. Dick’s childhood Nanny had been fond of it, trotting it out when her young charges vexed her by doing something she disapproved of, which according to Dick was just about everything. Anyway, I was indeed being a mumpsimus. I knew I was in error, but I was too pissed off to care.