Peacock Emporium (3 page)

I don’t want to be someone’s lovely wife, thought Vivi, gazing at her reflection and feeling the familiar drag of dissatisfaction. I just want to be Douglas’s passion. She allowed herself The briefest rerun of her fantasy, now as well thumbed as the pages of a favourite book – the one in which Douglas, shaking his head at the unexpected beauty of her in her ballgown, whirled her on to the dance floor and waltzed her round until she was giddy, his strong hand placed firmly on the small of her back, his cheek pressed against hers . . . (It owed an awful lot, she had to admit, to Walt Disney’s
Cinderella.
It had to, as things tended to get a bit blurry after the kissing.) Since arriving here, her daydream kept being interrupted by slim, enigmatic Jean Shrimpton lookalikes, who tempted him away with knowing smiles and Sobranie cigarettes – so she had started a new one, in which, at the end of the evening, Douglas escorted her back to this huge bedroom, waited longingly at the open door, and then finally, tenderly, walked her over to the window, gazed at her moonlit face and—

‘Vee? Are you decent?’ Vivi jumped guiltily as Douglas rapped sharply on the door. ‘Thought we might nip downstairs early. I bumped into an old schoolfriend and he’s saving us a couple of glasses of champagne. Are you nearly done?’

The pleasure of Douglas’s calling for her wrestled with her dismay at him already having found someone else to talk to. ‘Two secs,’ she shouted, layering mascara on her eyelashes, and praying that tonight would be the one on which he was forced to look at her differently. ‘I’ll be right there.’

He looked perfect in black tie, of course. Unlike her father, whose stomach strained uncomfortably over his cummerbund like a wind-filled sail, Douglas simply looked taller and straighter, his shoulders square in the crisp dark cloth of his jacket, his skin thrillingly alive against the flat monochrome of his shirt. She thought he probably knew he looked handsome. When she’d told him so, jokingly, to hide the intensity of longing his appearance had provoked in her, he’d laughed gruffly and said he felt like a trussed-up fool. Then, as if embarrassed to have forgotten, he had complimented her too. ‘You scrub up pretty well, old girl,’ he said, putting his arm round her and giving her a brotherly squeeze. It wasn’t quite Prince Charming, but it was a touch. Vivi still felt it, radioactive on her bare skin.

‘Did you know we’re now officially snowed in?’

Alexander, Douglas’s pale, freckled schoolfriend, had brought her another drink. It was her third glass of champagne, and the paralysis she had initially felt, when confronted by the sea of glamorous faces before her, had evaporated. ‘What?’ she said.

He leant in so that she could hear him over the noise of the band. ‘The snow. It’s started again. Apparently no one’s going to get past the end of the drive until they bring more grit tomorrow.’ He, like many of the men, was wearing a red coat (‘Pink,’ he corrected her) and his aftershave was terribly strong, as if he hadn’t been sure how much to use.

‘Where will you stay?’ Vivi had a sudden picture of a thousand bodies camped on the ballroom floor.

‘Oh, I’m all right. I’m in the house, like you. Don’t know what the rest will do, though. Keep going all night, probably. Some of these chaps would have done that anyway.’

Unlike Vivi, most of the people she could see around her looked as if they stayed up until dawn as a matter of course. They all seemed so confident and assured, uncowed by their grand surroundings. Their poise and chatter suggested there was nothing particularly special about being in this stately home, even though there was a fleet of minions whose only wish was to serve them food and drink, and that they were unaccompanied by chaperones on a night when boys and girls were likely to have to stay in the same house. The girls wore their dresses easily, with the insouciance of those for whom smart evening wear was as familiar as an overcoat.

They didn’t look like extras from a Disney film. Among the tiaras and pearls there were heavily outlined eyes, cigarettes, the occasional Pucci skirt. And despite the incongruous elegance of the wedding-cake ballroom, the many swirling ballgrowns and evening dresses, it had not been long before the band had been persuaded to drop its playlist of traditional dances, and strike up something a little more modern – an instrumental version of ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ had sent girls squealing on to the dance floor, shaking their elaborately coiffed heads and shimmying their hips, leaving the matrons on the sidelines to shake their own heads in perplexed disapproval, and Vivi to conclude, sadly, that she was unlikely to get her waltz with Douglas.

Not that she was sure he’d remembered his promise. Since they had come into the ballroom, he had seemed distracted, as if he were scenting something she didn’t understand. In fact, Douglas hadn’t seemed much like himself at all, smoking cigars with his friends, exchanging jokes she didn’t get. She was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the imminent collapse of the class system – if anything, he looked disturbingly at home among the black ties and hunting coats. Several times she had tried to say something private to him, something that re-established their shared history, a degree of intimacy. At one point, boldly, she had made a joke about his smoking a cigar, but he hadn’t seemed particularly interested – had listened with what her mother always called ‘half an ear’. Then as politely as he could, he had rejoined the other conversation.

She had started to feel foolish, so had been almost grateful when Alexander had paid her attention. ‘Fancy a twist?’ he had said, and she had to confess that she had only learnt the classic dance steps. ‘Easy,’ he said, leading her on to the floor. ‘Stub a cigarette out with your toe, and rub a towel on your behind. Got it?’ He had looked so comical that she had burst out laughing, then glanced behind her to see whether Douglas had noticed. But Douglas, not for the first time that evening, had disappeared.

At eight a master of ceremonies announced that there was a buffet, and Vivi, a little giddier than when she had arrived, joined a long line of people queuing for sole Véronique or boeuf bourguignon and wondered how to balance her extreme hunger with the knowledge that none of the girls around her were eating more than a few sticks of overcooked carrot.

Almost accidentally, she had become embedded in a group of Alexander’s friends. He had introduced her in a manner that was faintly proprietorial, and Vivi had found herself tugging at her bodice, conscious that she was revealing quite an expanse of flushed cleavage.

‘Been to Ronnie Scott’s?’ said one, leaning over her so that she had to hold her plate away from her.

‘Never met him. Sorry.’

‘It’s a jazz club. Gerrard Street. You should get Xander to take you there. He knows Stan Tracy.’

‘I don’t really know—’ Vivi stepped back, and apologised when she jogged someone’s drink.

‘God, I’m starving. Went to the Atwoods’ do last week and all they served was salmon mould and consommé. I had to pay the girls to give me theirs. Thought I’d bloody faint with hunger.’

‘Nothing as mean as a mean buffet.’

‘Couldn’t agree more, Xander. You skiing this year?’

‘Verbier. Parents have borrowed Alfie Baddow’s place. You remember Alfie?’

‘We’ll need skis to get out of this place soon.’

Vivi found herself moving accommodatingly sideways as several conversations continued around her. She was starting to feel discomfited by the way Xander’s hand had ‘accidentally’ brushed her behind several times.

‘Anyone seen Douglas?’

‘Chatting to some blonde in the picture gallery. I gave him a wet willie as I went past.’ He mimed licking his finger and sticking it into his neighbour’s ear.

‘Another dance, Vivi?’ Alexander held out a hand, and made to lead her back on to the dance floor.

‘I – I think I’ll wait this one out.’ She put a hand to her hair, and realised, with dismay, that her curls no longer felt smooth and round, but had collapsed in stiff fronds.

‘Come and have a go on the tables, then,’ he said, and offered his arm instead. ‘Be my lucky charm.’

‘Can I meet you in there? I really need to – to powder my nose.’

A chattering queue was snaking out of the downstairs bathroom, and Vivi, standing alone as the chatter and noise ebbed and flowed around her, found that by the time she’d reached its head she genuinely needed to go. She was rather discomfited when suddenly, with ‘Vivi! Darling! It’s Isabel. Izzy? From Mrs de Montfort’s? Don’t you look fab!’, the now limited space between her and the lavatory door was filled.

The girl, whom Vivi only vaguely remembered (this might have been as much to do with the amount of champagne she had drunk as genuine lack of recognition) wheeled in front of her, inelegantly hoicking up her long pink skirt with one hand, and planted a kiss just behind Vivi’s ear. ‘Darling, I couldn’t just nip in front of you, could I? I’m absolutely
dying.
Going to disgrace myself if I . . . 
Marvellous.’
As the door swung open in front of them, Isabel vanished inside, and Vivi found herself crossing her legs, her bladder’s thwarted sense of anticipation turning a vague need into an uncomfortably urgent one.

‘Bloody cow,’ said a voice from behind her. Vivi flushed guiltily, imagining this to be directed at her. ‘She and that Forster girl have been completely monopolising Toby Duckworth and the Horseguards all night. Margaret B-W’s terribly upset.’

‘Athene Forster doesn’t even like Toby Duckworth. She just fools around because she knows he’s got a pash for her.’

‘Him and half the bloody Kensington barracks.’

‘I don’t know how they can’t see through her.’

‘They certainly get to see enough of her.’ There was a ripple of laughter through the queue and Vivi plucked up the courage to glance behind her.

‘Her parents hardly speak to her, I’m told.’

‘Are you surprised? She’s getting quite a reputation.’

‘You know the rumour is that she . . .’

The voices behind her dropped to a murmur, and Vivi turned back to the door lest she was thought to be eavesdropping. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to think about her bladder. Then she tried, even less successfully, not to think about where Douglas might be. She was worried that he might be getting the wrong impression of her relationship with Alexander. And she was disappointed by how much less fun the ball was than she had anticipated. She had hardly seen Douglas, and when she had, he had seemed like some unreachable stranger, not like
her
Douglas at all.

‘Are you going in?’ The girl behind her was gesturing at the open door. Isabel must have vacated it without a word to her. Feeling cross and stupid, Vivi stepped into the lavatory, then swore as the hem of her skirt flushed dark with the unidentified watery slick on the marble floor.

She peed, tugged, dissatisfied, at her hair, patted with her compact to dull the sweaty sheen on her skin, tried inexpertly to add solid mascara to her already spidery lashes. There was nothing fairytale about her appearance now, she mused. Unless you brought the Ugly Sisters into the equation.

The impatient knocking on the door had become too insistent to ignore; she emerged into the hallway, primed to apologise for her too-lengthy sojourn inside. But no one was looking at her.

The row of girls was gazing away from her towards the gaming room, where a commotion had sucked away the atmosphere from them. It took Vivi a couple of moments to adjust, and then, with the rest, she slowly followed the sound of clattering and sporadic exclamation, feeling the air grow suddenly chill. There was the sound of a strangulated horn, and Vivi observed that the hunting-horn-blowing competition, which Xander had told her about, must have started. But this horn was not being blown with any finesse; the air was expelled in gasps, as if someone was breathless, or laughing.

Vivi stopped in the entrance to the gaming room, behind a group of men, and gazed around her. On the opposite side of the huge room, someone had opened the french windows on to the front lawns so that stray snowflakes blew in at an acute angle. She wrapped her arms round herself, feeling her skin goosepimple. She realised she had trodden on someone’s foot and stepped aside, glancing guiltily up at the man’s face, ready to apologise. But he did not notice. He was staring straight ahead, his mouth partially open as if, in his alcoholic daze, he was not convinced of what he was seeing.

For there, wheeling between the roulette and blackj ack tables, was a huge grey horse, its nostrils flared and eyes rolling as it trod nervously back and forth, its hooves still covered in snow, surrounded by a sea of gleefully appalled faces. On its back was the palest girl Vivi had ever seen, her dress hoisted up to reveal long, alabaster legs, her feet still clad in sequined party slippers, long dark hair flowing behind her, one bare arm lifted as she steered the animal expertly in and out of the tables by its headcollar and lead rope, the other raising a brass horn to her lips. Vivi noted absently that, unlike her own already mottled arms, the other girl’s did not give the slightest suggestion of cold.

‘View halloa!’ One of the pink-coated young men in the corner was blowing a horn of his own. Two others had climbed on to the tables for a better view.

‘I don’t bloody believe this.’

‘Jump the roulette tables! We’ll pull them all together!’

Vivi could see Alexander in the corner, laughing and raising a glass as if in mock salute. Beside him, several matronly chaperones were conferring anxiously, gesticulating towards the centre of the room.

‘Can I be the fox? I’ll let you catch me . . .’

‘Ugh. God, that girl would do
anything
for attention.’

Athene Forster. Vivi recognised the dismissive tones of the girl in the queue for the lavatory. But, like the rest, she was captivated by the unlikely sight before them. Athene had pulled her horse to a halt and was bent low over his neck, entreating a group of young men in low, gravelly tones: ‘Anyone got a drink, loves?’

There was a kind of knowledge in her voice, of things sadder and stranger than you would ever understand. A crack of grief that would be audible even at her happiest. A sea of glasses was proffered towards her, glinting under the thousand-watt brilliance of the crystal chandeliers. She dropped her horn, lifted a glass, and downed the contents in a single gulp to local applause. ‘Now, which of you darlings is going to light me a cigarette? I dropped mine jumping out of the rose garden.’