In a Good Light (40 page)

‘Gone,' I said. ‘Packed up and gone.'

‘Oh bummer,' Christian replied. ‘We were going to play squash tomorrow. I'd booked a court. Why did he go so suddenly?'

‘Did you say Donovan's gone home?' asked Dad, catching up.

‘Yes. He left today.'

‘What a pity. It wasn't anything we did, was it?'

‘I don't know,' I said, snappishly. ‘I don't know why you all think I'm the expert on Donovan.'

‘Touchy,' said Christian, pretending to quake.

I glared at him but he replied with a stagey wink. He had put the Raskolnikov hat on by now and it rather suited him.

Grandpa Percy, who had been asleep on the couch all this time, woke up suddenly and stared around in alarm. ‘Who's that pansy?' he said, pointing at Christian. He looked affronted at our burst of laughter.

A silver Jaguar, registration DOU9, pulled up in the driveway. ‘Oh-oh, it's the whole tribe,' said Christian, hoiking up his trousers, and tucking in the salmon pink shirt, as if to try and make less of it, before going to open the door.

I was still chortling over the wit of Grandpa, when he leant towards me and whispered, ‘He's trouble, that boy. But don't worry: I've fixed him.' And he sat back, arms folded, in an attitude of deep satisfaction. I didn't have time to ponder this comment – in any case, Grandpa's remarks were seldom as apposite as his earlier one-liner – because at that moment Christian ushered in Penny's parents and began making introductions.

The Raving Tory and the Old Hag fell disappointingly
short of their epithets in the flesh. Mrs Ridyard was tall and slim with an immaculate tan, and could have passed for under forty. She wore her strawberry blonde hair in a French plait, topped by a little tuft, and her dress, shoes and bag were all in the same shade of green that must have been plucked from a colour-chart to match her eyes. Only the hand with which she shook mine betrayed her, and I remembered Aunty Barbara's oracular utterance on the horrors of ageing. ‘Neck and hands, Esther. They're the first to show.' I glanced at Heather's neck: it was hidden by the sheerest wisp of chiffon scarf.

Doug was over six feet tall and presented a massive, double-breasted front to the world. He had regular features, a full head of hair, greying from the front, and decent teeth: enough to earn the accolade ‘good looking' from women of Mum's age and over. For a self-made man he was surprisingly diffident, and offered me the daintiest handshake imaginable.

Behind them stood Penny, looking elegant in a dark blue crepe and velvet cocktail dress and velvet choker with a diamond clasp. She seemed to find the collision of her two worlds an uncomfortable experience, as a blush swept over her face and neck as she entered the room.

‘We're on our way out ourselves,' Heather was explaining to Dad. ‘So we thought we might as well drop Penny off on the way. And she insisted we stop off and say hello. I hope we're not interrupting anything.'

‘Not at all,' Dad replied. ‘We're about to have some cake, I think.' At which point Mum came in, carrying a tray and singing Happy Birthday, so we all joined in, and if Doug and Heather were surprised to see twenty candles impaled in a round of Stilton, they were too polite to show it.

Christian re-did the introductions for Mum's benefit, and
there were more handshakes and polite expressions of pleasure at having met at last, having heard so much, etc, etc. The formality of the scene struck me as highly significant. The parents of the bride meet the parents of the groom. I looked at Penny's flushed face. Perhaps she thinks he's going to ask her to marry him tonight, I thought. Perhaps he is! A weighty silence settled over the room. I felt as though the cheese required some explanation, and I was worried that Grandpa Percy might come out with another remark about pansies or worse, so I said, ‘We were going to have a proper bought cake, but one of Dad's prisoners tried to hang himself—' but Mum cut me off.

‘I nearly forgot the most important thing,' she said, and produced her present from behind the door, which it was helping to prop open. Christian and I then fetched our gifts and Penny was forced to open them in front of us all like a child, an experience I knew she would be hating.

‘Oh. A boot-scraper,' she said, liberating it from its snare of Sellotape. ‘How unusual. Thank you.' She said this with real warmth, and I realised she didn't hold it against my parents. It was only innocence, not malice, that informed their lousy taste.

Maybe I imagined the blink of disappointment that passed across her face when she saw that the box Christian handed her was far too large to contain jewellery of any kind. But I certainly didn't imagine the pause before the ambiguous word ‘Well!' when she found that it contained a yoghurt-maker. She recovered her composure instantly. ‘Thank you, Christian,' she said, laying a hand lightly on his arm. ‘Are you trying to domesticate me?'

‘No. I prefer you wild,' he replied, and Mr Ridyard guffawed.

‘A yoghurt-maker,' Mum said enthusiastically, putting on her glasses to read the blurb on the box. ‘That's useful. I wouldn't mind one of those myself.' I cringed. That was exactly the sort of endorsement that would consign it to the back of Penny's wardrobe for ever.

Penny was now lifting the lid on the agate egg. ‘Oh Esther, it's beautiful,' she enthused, transferring it from hand to hand to feel its weight and smoothness, just as I had done. ‘Look, everyone.' Her delight was so sincere, and contrasted so blatantly with her measured responses to the other gifts that I felt a little uncomfortable and almost wished I'd got her one of those antimacassars instead. The egg was passed around the company for general admiration.

‘What a lot of thought has gone into these presents,' said Heather, regular recipient of measly old diamonds.

‘I'll have you know I put a lot of thought into that cheque I wrote out,' Doug told his daughter. ‘I thought: I wonder how quickly she'll get through that. And: I hope to God it doesn't bounce, among other things.' We all chortled politely.

‘Are you sure we can't offer you some refreshments?' Dad said again, clapping his hands together and adopting the hearty vicar persona he often resorts to when at a loss. ‘What have we got, Pru?' he said helplessly.

‘Tea, coffee, milk, water . . .' said Mum.

‘Stilton,' said Christian.

‘No, we must be on our way, thanks all the same,' said Doug, glancing at his watch. ‘Some friends of Heather's are opening a restaurant tonight, so we're going along to be guinea pigs. Aren't we, darling?'

Heather grimaced. ‘We could do without it, frankly. It's right down in Canterbury.'

‘I hope they don't go in for breaking plates, like this place Christian's so keen on,' said Mum, for whom the issue still rankled. ‘I wouldn't have thought that was any way to run a business.'

‘They're only cheapo plates,' said Christian. ‘It's not Wedgwood or anything.' Mum refused to be mollified.

‘It was very nice to meet at last,' said Heather, and there was another round of criss-crossing handshakes, and Grandpa, who always took any signs of departure as a personal invitation, had to be persuaded that it wasn't time for him to go anywhere. The rest of us filed out onto the driveway to wave them off. Doug opened the passenger door for Heather and allowed her to arrange herself in a position likely to minimise creasing, before shutting her in. He gave a last wave through the open window as they drove off.

‘Wasn't that a nice surprise?' said Dad.

‘I must say, your parents are very charming, Penny,' said Mum.

‘That was just for show,' Penny replied. ‘They were at each other's throats in the car before we arrived.'

‘You're not serious,' said Mum, affronted to have been so easily deceived by appearances. ‘They looked perfectly devoted.'

‘Oh, they can turn it on for an audience, but they actually can't stand each other. Dad's wanted a divorce for years, but Mum won't give him the satisfaction.'

Christian laughed at our parents' matching expressions of consternation. ‘I'm very sorry to hear that,' said Dad, recovering. ‘If it's true. But the fact is, Penny, a marriage is a sacred mystery that no one outside it can claim to understand. So it's safest not to speculate.' Penny blushed, rebuked.

The minicab that was due to take them up to town was booked for seven but by quarter past had not arrived. Christian was starting to pace, irritably: the restaurant had made it clear that they wouldn't hold the table for latecomers. Penny and I were playing backgammon on the coffee table. She, too, had remarked on Donovan's absence, and shot me an enquiring look when Christian said he had ‘done a runner', but I had answered with a shake of the head. I knew what would happen: I'd get two sentences into my story and the cab would arrive and carry her off before she had a chance to commiserate. From the hallway came the trilling of the telephone.

‘That'll be the cab company,' said Christian, beating me to the door. ‘The driver's got lost. Or broken down.'

Then Dad's voice called, ‘Christian. A young lady for you. Martina,' and I sensed Penny stiffen.

‘I forgot to tell you, she rang a few days ago,' I called after Christian. ‘You were supposed to ring her. Sorry.' He gave me a withering look.

In the sitting room Penny and I resumed our game, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it. Tuning in was taking all her concentration. I could practically see her hair standing on end to receive signals.

‘What does she want, I wonder?' Penny said finally. ‘She's not ringing to wish me a happy birthday, that's for sure.'

‘Christian's not doing much of the talking,' I whispered. His contribution seemed to be confined to monosyllabic expressions of concern, and those reassuring grunts intended to convey unflagging attention. Then, after a longish silence at our end, we heard him say, ‘Don't say that, Martina. You've got everything to live for,' at which point we
abandoned any pretence of interest in backgammon and sat eavesdropping unashamedly.

‘I never got that message . . . I would have rung back . . . of course I haven't been avoiding you . . . isn't your mum there? . . . of course you're not a burden . . .'

A black saloon car came bouncing over the potholes in the driveway, its waving aerials giving it the appearance of a giant beetle. The driver flicked a cigarette out of the window into the flowerbed and leaned on the horn.

‘Christian, your chauffeur's here,' called Mum, for whom minicabs signified a profligacy that was all of a piece with snakeskin boots and plate-breaking. Penny jumped up, grabbing her handbag.

There was a pause. ‘Penny, tell him to wait,' came the peremptory reply.

Penny bridled at being given an order, but obliged by signalling to the driver through the window that they'd be five minutes.

‘On second thoughts tell him to go,' Christian called.

‘What do you mean? Go without us?'

Christian had apparently finished his telephone conversation, as a moment later he appeared at the front of the house making placatory gestures to the minicab driver, who was starting to rant.

‘What the hell is he doing?' asked Penny in bewilderment, as Christian produced a note from his wallet and handed it to the driver, who took it with a very bad grace, and drove off making V signs out of the window. ‘What's going on?' she said, intercepting Christian as he came back indoors. Mum and Dad had also convened in the hallway, alarmed by the commotion outside.

‘That was Martina on the phone,' said Christian. ‘She's
seriously suicidal. I think I'm going to have to go and sort her out.'

Penny's face flamed, her prospects for a pleasant evening in ruins. ‘How can you be sure it's not just emotional blackmail? She's done this sort of thing before,' she said, appealing to us.

‘I don't know. She sounded very depressed. Much worse than usual. Sort of resigned to not getting better.'

‘Where are her parents?' Dad asked. ‘Is she by herself?'

‘She hasn't got a dad. Her mum is away for the night, and she can't get hold of her.'

‘She's doing it deliberately,' Penny said. The fact that her cynicism was partly motivated by selfishness was adding an extra dimension to her impatience. I knew what she was thinking but didn't dare say:
on my birthday!

‘Do you think she's likely to harm herself?' Dad asked, very serious now.

‘It's possible,' said Christian. ‘I don't know, I'm not a psychiatrist. She certainly threatened to.'

‘Well, there you are,' said Penny. ‘People who genuinely intend to kill themselves just go ahead and do it. They don't start advertising it.'

‘That's not a safe assumption,' said Dad.

‘If you really think she's in danger can't you call the police, or a doctor? Why do you have to get involved?' Penny pleaded.

‘I can't just ignore her. It would be on my conscience for ever if something happened. Anyway, how can you be so callous? She used to be your friend.'

‘Yes, she did. Until you slept with her.'

There was a bristly silence. ‘Look, can we not talk about this now,' Christian said, sensing the moral high ground crumbling underfoot. ‘My main concern at the moment is
to prevent a tragedy. I'm sorry it's buggered up your special day. I'll make it up to you.'

‘Go on, you go,' said Penny. ‘But don't expect me to be here when you get back.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Just what I say. I won't sit here twiddling my thumbs while you swan off playing the Good Samaritan to your admirers. You encouraged her dependence on you: now you solve it. But I'm not waiting for you. You've humiliated me enough.'

‘What do you think I should do?' Christian appealed to Mum and Dad who were looking somewhat buffeted by this exchange.