Misspent Youth (7 page)

T
HE AVTXT WAS CLEVER
, with green devil icons performing a mildly obscene cheerleader act, spelling out the words to the invitation. Annabelle had laughed when she received it, sending back a swarm of saucy angels to chant an RSVP. It wasn’t quite what she would have chosen to go to, a cocktail party to welcome Jeff Baker home. But Tim had been sure to invite several of their friends, so she wouldn’t feel left out. As usual, she thought. Tim was always very careful in his approach, always making sure that everything they went to was a just-good-friends outing. So careful, in fact, she wouldn’t even say they qualified as a couple yet. A small part of her was quite irked by that. How obvious did she have to be?

She had to admit, though, the party wasn’t as awful as she had expected. It was ninety percent adults, and most of them over fifty. But the manor’s large reception rooms were wonderfully elegant, and Sue Baker had hired a very upmarket catering team for the event. Waiters and waitresses circled with glasses of champagne on silver trays, and mounds of delectable canapés. The men were mostly in suits, while the women wore expensive dresses. Shame so many of them lacked any sort of elementary fashion sense, Annabelle thought.

She’d given a lot of consideration to what she ought to be wearing herself. In an ideal world she’d be wearing something from Stephanie Romane’s designer line, but she didn’t have that kind of money. Instead she’d spent an age trawling through sites that offered reproductions of varying quality, finally settling for a simple orange summer dress with quite a short skirt that was indistinguishable from the real thing. It earned her a lot of looks from the men, of all ages.

Annabelle had arrived quite early on in the evening, calmly tolerating Tim’s puppyish enthusiasm. His eyes kept switching between her legs and her chest, with a rest between so he could blush, hoping she didn’t notice. At least that aspect of their relationship was predictable. Boys always acted as if they’d had a lobotomy around her. He’d introduced her to his aunt Alison, who clearly didn’t give a damn about appearance judging by the dress she wore, and was actually a lot of fun. Annabelle chatted with her for a while before the other girls arrived. After that Tim got dragged away by his mother, so she stayed with Rachel, Lorraine, and Danielle; the three of them clustered in a corner, warding off wishful glances from the older men.

“Colin’s asked me to the ball,” Danielle gushed. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “God, I’m just so much relieved somebody has. Finally! I was worried I’d have to go with Philip.”

“I thought Colin was going with Vanessa,” Rachel said.

“No. Me!”

“Does Vanessa know?” Lorraine murmured.

Annabelle took a sip of her Bacardi and lime to cover the fact she couldn’t summon up any zeal for Danielle’s success. Tim still hadn’t asked her. There was such a thing as playing it too cool, as he was about to find out if he didn’t ask pretty damn soon. She listened to Danielle bubbling on about what she was going to wear.

“I’ve heard Martin and Sophie are going together,” Lorraine said.

“Heavens, you have got to be joking,” Rachel said.

The girls all giggled. Annabelle managed a weak smile; Sophie was a good friend; she didn’t feel quite right joining in with the innuendo.

“By the way, hope you don’t mind,” Rachel said slyly. “But Simon’s asked me to go.”

“Why should I mind?” Annabelle asked. “We finished weeks ago.” That vibrant party had been so different from this one. At the end of the night she and Simon had wound up in an upstairs bedroom with Derek and Louise. They turned the lights down low, and Derek handed around an intube. He’d been passing the stuff around liberally all evening, which is why they’d all had such a wild raucous ride through the party. When it was her turn Annabelle took a dose just as hefty as the others. Then Derek suggested a game of strip Chinese sticks.

It was a deliciously wicked way to end the evening. Every time she tried to remove another stick, it would send the rest clattering down. When that happened, both brothers watched with silent lecherous grins as she removed another piece of clothing. She was the one they admired and desired, the center of attention. It made her indecently hot. And the sticks kept on tumbling down.

Simon never complained. The game swept him on as fiercely as it did her. It was afterward when it all fell apart between them. Now she tried to think of something to say that would imply strength of character in finishing with him. “If you want him, have him.” A line she was sure she’d heard on a pre10 movie.

“Oh, I will.”

“Always keep them dangling,” Danielle warned.

“I’ll do more than that to him.”

“What are you going to wear?” Lorraine asked.

“Oh, I got my dress weeks ago,” Rachel said. “Haven’t you seen it?”

“No!”

Must be the only one, Annabelle thought sharply. There were bluesoaps that had fewer viewers than that dress.

“It’s purple satin. Classic strapless from Demoné. With so much gorgeous lace edging. That’s antique, you know. Daddy had a fit when he found out how much it was, but I had to have it. It’s just
me
.”

“Wow,” Lorraine breathed.

“I’ve seen it,” Danielle said brightly. “It’s lovely.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said. “What about you, Annabelle? Have you bought a dress yet?”

Annabelle finished her Bacardi in a single long swallow. The evening gowns on Stephanie’s site cost an absolute fortune, and she hadn’t found any reproductions that were any good, not in her price range. She knew she’d wind up hiring one for the night. “I haven’t decided what I’m wearing,” she told them, even though they were being evil. Rachel knew damn well she hadn’t got anyone to go with. That one and Simon were going to be well suited, she decided. “I’m going to get another drink.” She walked away, her empty glass held casually low, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

God damn Tim for not asking her yet!

I
T MUST BE A SIGN
of true age to think parties were a pain to be avoided at all costs. Long before this one started, Jeff had decided there was no way he was going to spend more than an hour pasting on a false smile and saying: “Really, how interesting,” to people he didn’t like, didn’t know, and considered utterly boring. And this was a party in his honor. Age, or grumpiness? he wondered.

However, once it got started he found himself mellowing. For one thing, he could actually enjoy the champagne. Drinking too much in the early evening before he had the regeneration treatment used to mean getting up to pee all bloody night long. No damn genoprotein cure for that! And back then he was sure his taste buds had decayed, while now he found the vintage Veuve Clicquot to be perfectly crisp and light. He’d also gotten the most awful headaches, which neurofen could never cushion. Well…he’d just take his chances on the hangover front tomorrow morning.

As ever at these things that Sue organized, he didn’t know half the people enjoying his own home. Or maybe that was: didn’t remember. The two sessions in Brussels he’d undergone to check out his memory retention hadn’t been as reassuring as he had expected. About half his life seemed to have vanished. Old pictures, even videos of himself with other people that they’d shown him to try to stimulate association had done nothing. They really did belong to someone else’s life.

One thing he hadn’t lost was Tracy, his first wife. Those painful details still burned hot and bright in his memory. Trust that bloody harpy to cling to him no matter what.

But he’d remembered the one thing that was truly important to him, though: his wonderful son. Tim had sat opposite him during the whole Eurostar train trip back to Peterborough. The two of them were nervous and awkward to begin with, as if they were on a first date; but his urgency to find out what his son had been doing for the last eighteen months pushed him past that initial hesitancy. Mutual delight at being in each other’s company soon had Tim emerging from his shell. Listening to his son babble on about school grades, and friends, and events, Jeff could scarcely believe that this young adult was the same gawky lad he’d said good-bye to a year and a half earlier. It was as if he’d expected the world to go into stasis and wait for him. Sue, of course, hadn’t changed in any respect, which helped spin out that particular illusion.

The other person he’d been delighted to see was his little sister. Alison had arrived at the manor for his party, and the two of them had looked at each other for a long emotional moment. Then she parted her lips in a soft indulgent smile as they finally embraced.

“It really is you,” she whispered, sniffing hard and blinking moisture away from her eyes. “Oh God, Jeff.”

“There, there.” He patted her gently as she cried. “I’m okay, everything worked.”

“You’re just how I remember. I was at school when you were like this before. You helped me with my homework.”

“I remember.”

She leaned back to study his youthful face. “We had to write it down in exercise books and sheets of A-four. There were no computers in those days, no dot matrix printers and laser jets. Just pens and calculators.”

“I must have got my Sinclair Spectrum around then. The hours I spent using it! But I don’t suppose it was much use for your homework.”

“We always used to do it on the kitchen table.”

“And Mum would be fussing round with the ironing, getting supper ready.”

“Waiting for Dad to get home.”

“While Ruffles got in the way.”

“Damn stupid dog.” She wiped a hand across her eyes, looking annoyed when she saw the streak of tears on her skin. “I haven’t thought about Ruffles in years.”

“Decades.”

“Yes, decades. And you’ve got those decades again, haven’t you.”

He held her chin in his hand, making her look at him. “Are you jealous?”

“God, yes! But I’m glad it was you they chose. I mean that, Jeff.”

“Thanks.” He kissed her brow.

“For God’s sake,” Alison grunted in mock anger. “You look so damn good, you’re making me self-conscious. I’m going to have to start using those ridiculous cosmetic treatments. I swore I never would.”

“You look great as you are.”

“Oh please! Do you think genoproteins can get me to match up to Sue?”

“No problem.”

“Ha! I’d need two of your treatments before I stood a chance to get equal to her. How is your dear wife taking all this, by the way?”

Jeff grinned at the lack of enthusiasm. Alison had never approved of Sue, though she adored Tim. He waved a hand at the line of waiters hovering with their laden trays. “In her element.”

Alison grunted, and handed her coat to one of the eager young men. She took a flute of Veuve Clicquot and sniffed at it suspiciously. “Huh. Gnat’s piss lite. Give me a decent gin and tonic every time.”

After that Alan and James arrived, and the three of them greeted one another with childish whoops in the hallway. Alan was seventy-two, a retired aerospace engineer who lived over in Stamford. Taller than Jeff, he didn’t spend much of his pension on cosmetic genoproteins, preferring to buy treatments that kept his joints and muscles in shape. By doing so, he was still able to play golf three times a week and keep a ten handicap. It was his only real remaining interest now that his old company had quietly dropped him from even token consultancy work. In contrast, James was only sixty-eight, and still working at the finance and asset management company he’d set up nearly forty years before in the first dotcom boom. Unlike most of the companies from that era, his had survived. Not that he put in many hours a week now that he was a nonexecutive director. But his salary allowed him to buy the full range of male cosmetic genoproteins. He’d kept his apparent age in his late forties, with a thick shock of ebony hair and skin that was suspiciously tanned. Unfortunately, not even his treatments could do much about his weight; forty years of expense-account meals had bloated him into a man who waddled rather than walked.

The two of them were among Jeff’s closest friends. Out of those who were still alive, Jeff thought sourly. But it was good to see them.

“Definitely some features I recognize on this appalling teenage youth,” James boomed as his meaty hand enveloped Jeff’s. “Jesus Christ, is it really you?”

“So they tell me,” Jeff said with a shrug.

“How the hell can you know?” Alan asked. He was giving Jeff a strangely contemplative look. “I mean, damn, man, where’s the evidence?”

“I remember being me.”

“Yeah, but, like, prove it.”

“Give the guy a break,” James protested.

“You can run a DNA fingerprint if you’re that worried,” Jeff said.

“I have to concede, it gives the lawyers something to argue about,” James said. “It’s like Tim’s found a long-lost older brother. And dear old Jeff would never wear anything like this.” Thick fingers stroked the lapel of Jeff’s gray-green jacket. “New, aren’t they?”

“My clothes?” Jeff queried. “Yes, well, even geniuses can’t think of everything.” It was only after he got home that they realized none of his old clothes would fit. Until then he’d been wearing loose shirts and trousers supplied by the medical facility. Sue had spent an urgent fifty minutes accessing the Gucci and Versace sites; then they’d all waited anxiously for the Community Supply Service van to make its afternoon delivery with the start of his new wardrobe.