Laying the Ghost (5 page)

Evie’s eyes then widened and she clapped her hand (café-au-lait nail extensions) over her mouth. ‘Oh I’m
so
sorry,
Nell! How tactless of me! And you were
so
sweet to come tonight!’ She lowered her voice as her daughter Polly sidled up and, with a sullen lack of grace, due to being under strict orders to be helpful, grabbed Nell’s coat out of her hands and stamped up the stairs with it. There was an airport duty-free Dior lipstick in the left pocket – would it still be there when she went home? Mimi had said Polly was on a warning at school for thieving cash from the Year Sevens.

Evie took hold of Nell’s wrist and gave it a waggle. ‘We’d have
completely understood
if you’d decided to give us a miss, you know. We’d have been sorry if you had, of course, but we’d have understood. Drink?’ She handed Nell a glass of champagne and then steered her towards a relatively uncrowded corner of the sitting room, a space that Nell rightly guessed to be unpopular because of the icy blast coming from the open French doors, beyond which she could see Don Mitchell out on the terrace. He was waving a big knife, tending skewers of something on his gas-powered all-dancing barbecue and being effusive to whoever would listen about the upside to global warming, under a pair of blazing patio heaters and an array of multicoloured fairy lights. Why would anyone want to have a barbecue in February? Wouldn’t a vat of warming goulash or comforting cassoulet have been more the thing?

Inside the house, huddled close to the log fire, women
who’d
anticipated Evie’s usual stifling heating shivered in strappy silk. Nell started to shift towards a warmer spot. ‘No, no, I wasn’t going to miss your party. It’s good to be out,’ she tried to reassure her hostess. ‘And happy anniversary. It is china isn’t it, twenty years? I got you this …’ She handed her prettily wrapped package to Evie. Of course she knew it was china. Hadn’t her mother said it was such a shame she and Alex hadn’t quite made it to the actual day, she’d been so looking forward to handing on the Wilkinson family Crown Derby soup tureen? Alex had said that was almost a good enough reason in itself for separating, which had made her laugh for the first time in a while till she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to find Alex the slightest bit amusing any more, for that way lay the possibility she’d have to admit she might miss him.

‘It
is
china,’ Evie agreed, ripping the paper off a piece of traditional Bajan blue decorated pottery, bought last-minute at the Bridgetown airport shop. ‘Well,
traditionally
it is.’ She smiled and fingered a sparkly earring. ‘But in the more modern lists it’s down as
platinum
… Ooh Nell, this is
lovely
. Very … arty,’ she said, kissing Nell’s ear vicinity again. ‘I’ll just go and find somewhere to … er … put it. Do mingle, sweetie. You know lots of them, obviously.’

‘The platinum’ll be Don’s Amex, poor bastard,’ Ed whispered to Nell as Evie wafted away to offload her present and deal with guests who had less potential for
being
emotionally volatile. Nell giggled and took a long deep gulp of champagne, hoping it would speed to her head. It would be good to get cheerful. A few hours’ light sleeping in the daytime had left her with a feeling of other-worldliness. That, combined with the jet lag, was making her certain her brain was made of soft cheese. She liked Ed, liked his velvety old-hippie, fashion-oblivious, long-haired and mildly dishevelled style, and was glad he seemed to be turning into a permanent fixture with his new job at the college, rather than just the visitor he’d been before the death of his mother. Maybe it was due to all those years living in a village community down in Dorset, but he was the rare kind of neighbour who wouldn’t think twice about challenging an unfamiliar bloke up a ladder claiming to be your new window cleaner. She hoped he’d never come off worse for being that sort – she’d hate to find him bleeding in the road, stabbed by some lowlife he was telling off for trying car doors. He’d been the one who’d babysat Seb the time Nell had gone off in the ambulance blue-lighting three-year-old Mimi to the hospital with febrile convulsions. Where, exactly, had Alex been selling global networks that week? Munich or Maine? Who knew? She remembered she couldn’t get hold of him at the time and had cursed the miracle that was the so-called communications business.

‘I don’t think Evie was keen on the china aspect of the anniversary and I’m ninety per cent sure that
platinum-wise,’
Nell said, ‘we were meant to clock the earrings. In a straight choice between Ming or bling, for her it’s no contest.’

‘Why are they having a barbecue, for heaven’s sake?’ Ed asked. ‘It’s freezing! They’re mad, aren’t they?’

‘Being able to afford your fuel bills, it’s the new swanking. In-your-face eco defiance. The same way her Range Rover is absolutely essential for the children’s safety, as if any parent who drives a nice economical Prius was deliberately putting their kids at risk. Did Charles come with you?’

‘He’s in the kitchen trying to get Evie to open something that doesn’t take the enamel off your teeth. He hates champagne – says it causes fights.’

‘Hmm. He might have a point.’ She and Alex had had some of their worst rows after champagne. The first time he’d packed and left had been five years ago after her own birthday dinner when she’d thrown a lemon tart at him because he’d left the table three times to take phone calls and she’d found him sitting on the stairs, smiling and murmuring silly tendernesses at some unknown down-the-line slapper. ‘There’s a demon in every bubble,’ that was what Patrick used to say. Not that they drank much of it in their student days. Who did, back then? It was a big-occasion treat, not something you picked up in the supermarket for any old Friday night, like now. But she remembered being at his sister’s wedding, on one of
those
rare, hot midsummer nights at his family’s farm in Hampshire. Late in the evening, she and Patrick had drifted to opposite ends of the marquee. She was on the dance floor, mildly drunk and unused to endless supplies of Pol Roget, propped up in a crush of people against the warm, solid body of Patrick’s oldest friend Simon. The place was steamy hot and smelled of damp vegetation from the crushed grass underfoot and the swags of overripe flowers that were now dropping their exhausted petals.

The Eagles’ ‘Desperado’ was playing – the slow, sensuous music doing its seductive tricks so that she didn’t pull away when Simon’s hand edged under her top and slid across the bare, clammy skin of her back, but instead relaxed closer against him and let the heat and the moment get to her. Even now, she remembered how his breath against her neck had made her tingle. She remembered wishing he’d bite her, just gently. Then the spell had abruptly shattered as Patrick pulled her away, viciously kicking at Simon with casual, warning spite. There was drink spilling, someone shouting, ‘Oy, watch it, pisshead.’ Her arm hurt – Patrick was hauling her out of the marquee, not saying a word, and he didn’t let go till they’d crossed the garden and reached the orchard, far from the range of lights. Without a word he’d pushed her to the grass and pinned her down, gripping her wrists above her head as he kissed her, too hard.

The things that stay with you, she thought now while she pretended to be interested in Isabelle from no. 14’s battle with the council over cardboard recycling. She remembered the sound of the hens fussing and shuffling in their night-time lock-up, the uneven, tussocky grass pressing into her back, the syrup scent of the stickily ripening plums on the tree above her as Patrick fucked her till she screamed. She’d cried after that, overwhelmed by excess pleasure, not from misery. That was something else champagne did. Made you all emotional, all unnecessary. Now she looked at the inch of bubbly drink left in the glass and decided that tonight, from here on, she’d stick to water. It wasn’t really the ideal day to indulge in champagne memory games. All the same … she wondered if Patrick ever thought of that night. If she ever found out where he was, and if she spoke to him, mentioned the word ‘orchard’, would he look at her blankly and wonder why she was talking free-range fruit, or would he smile and remember the tender circlet of bruises on her wrist?

‘You were mugged by a ginger boy called Callaghan? How do you know? Did he swop his schoolbag for your Mulberry one? Was his name all over his homework? How amateur!’ Kate’s voice sounded too bright and shrill for Nell, who braced her muzzy head in her hands as she sat over steaming coffee at her kitchen table. How obviously
rude
would it be to cover her ears, just lightly? She felt very much as if she was hearing all this with an echoed delay, like watching a TV film with badly synchronized sound. Jet lag. She and Mimi had only been away for a week – hardly any time at all. Because it was such a short break, and so Mimi could get back easily into early-morning school time, they had deliberately not tried hard to adjust to the Caribbean time zone, and yet after only twenty-four hours at home she felt as if it would take days and days of constant sleep to sort her woolly brain out.

‘“Callaghan” was on his Manchester United shirt. The police knew exactly who he was – seems he’s the only redhaired ASBO kid stupid enough to wear his name in big print when he’s out robbing. He only took my Visa card, Topshop card and my cash in the end, too. No more than about thirty quid. He even left my purse – just emptied it out, scooped the money and fled. Obviously my driving licence and Amex were way beyond his fencing skills.’

‘So far … By the time he’s had a year or two in a Young Offenders’ gaff he’ll be well qualified in profitably offloading the full contents of any wallet or bag. Your gym membership will be up for grabs on eBay and the points on your Nectar card will be getting a family of five into the theme park of their choice for free.’ Kate, reaching for a fifth chocolate digestive, shifted in the pink Lloyd Loom chair which creaked and protested under her considerable weight.

One day Kate would surely get firmly wedged in that chair and Nell would have to find the wire-cutters to slice through the woven strands and loosen her out of it. That would be a sad day (not least for the ever-dieting Kate: this week her faith was in a Porridge and Parsnip regime, though clearly not when she was in other people’s kitchens) – for this was the last of six non-matched Lloyd Looms that she and Alex had collected over their early years together. The others had taken their turns at disintegrating, having all eventually fallen to bits from being carelessly left outside on too many bad-weather nights, till they’d rotted enough for it not to be worth bringing them back in.

As soon as the spring sun started to warm the terrace, she would consign this chair to the garden for good. Before Kate’s torso expanded to chair-destruction point, the last one deserved a final brave outdoor summer. Each evening at six, she would take a glass of chilled white outside, water the agapanthus pots on the terrace, then sit in this rickety chair and think over the day. She would let it absorb every summer thunderstorm, every ray of blistering sun, alternately soaking then stiffening till its shards of woven raffia unravelled and broke, and the seat inevitably gave way and split from the sides. It would be like setting a caged pet free. And for the kitchen she would tempt bankruptcy by buying eight Philippe Starck Ghost chairs, regardless of how out of place they would look with her ancient pitch-pine table. She loved them; Alex
hated
them: when she’d suggested the chairs a year or two back he had gone all sniffy and said the transparent Perspex would remind him of his mad mother’s Tupperware collection and he wasn’t having them in the house, thank you. What, he’d asked, was wrong with solid traditional wooden ladder-backs? ‘Where do you want me to to start?’ she’d snapped. How could she ever have thought it would work, an artist setting up home with a man who’d thought Ron Arad was a footballer and Terence Conran an Olympic ice skater?

‘So – what did you think of
After He’s Gone
? Helpful? Tina said it was her absolute bible when Micky left her for that dancer in Hartlepool.’

Nell laughed. ‘Well, it was very … um, practical. If I followed it to the letter I wouldn’t have a single second to think about missing Alex. I’d be out every night at car maintenance classes or speed-dating.’

‘Well,
do
you think about him?’ Kate was never one to skirt the issue.

‘I missed him in bed last night.’

‘Ahh … well now, sex …’

‘No,
not
sex! It was a bit cold, that’s all. I needed someone to put my feet on. For the first time ever I could see the point of those cashmere bedsocks that I’ve always thought were a bit disgusting. Still do, actually. It can’t be right, can it, being in bed in socks? It’s like going to bed with all your make-up on.’

Kate grinned. ‘But I do that sometimes, don’t you? I thought everyone did, or is that the sign of a hopeless slattern? What about when you’ve come home from a party a bit pissed and you can’t be arsed? Or you’re both in that mood where you’ve just got to have sex
right now
. Sorry, sorry! Should have remembered your new celibate state. Mustn’t mention the “s” word.’

‘So I’m going to buy an electric blanket.’ It sounded so dreary, Nell thought; the defeatist decision of a sighing woman who has given up. Well, that was true enough, for now.

‘You can’t give up sex, not at your age. You need another man.’ Kate had a sly, scheming look on her face. Nell hoped she wouldn’t find she was already signed up to a dating agency ‘as a present’.

‘Kate, no, I really
don’t
need a man. When you’ve just had Pest Control round, you don’t rush out and buy a pet rat. What I need is more coffee.’ Nell got up and switched the kettle on again.

‘No, really, you do need a man,’ Kate insisted. ‘A nice new shiny one to do lovely sex with so that you don’t turn into a desiccated old stick. And you need to join things, make yourself a life. No giving up, no surrender, babe.’

‘It said that in
After He’s Gone
. I’ve already
got
a life. I’ve got a job.’ OK, working alone, from home, she conceded privately. ‘And friends and a social life and a family.’ (Well, Mimi still, anyway; she wasn’t out half the time. Yet.) ‘And
I
don’t want to join things; and
please
not a reading group. I can’t think of anything worse than sitting around on other people’s uncomfortable sofas drinking nasty wine and talking about books I’d never have chosen to read. Nor do I want to go to the theatre on a weekly basis to see plays I’ve no interest in, or trail round galleries in a group pretending to be fascinated about paintings I wouldn’t even hang in the garden shed. Sorry … got a bit carried away there. I didn’t mean to sound so vehemently negative.’