These Days of Ours (22 page)

‘Flo’s fine. And she loves Lucy.’ Or
My Lucy
as Flo referred to her.

‘Lucy loves her,’ said Charlie tenderly.

Shrewdly, Lucy had accepted Charlie and Flo as a unit. Loving a divorcee who shared access with a capricious ex-wife meant their affair was compromised by his obligations from the beginning. He
was often unavailable to her, but she’d never questioned Flo’s status in the pecking order, or gone head to head with Becca.
To go through all that
, thought Kate,
Lucy must
love Charlie a lot.

Charlie dried the mug, badly, and put it back in the wrong place. ‘What if she’s a symptom of my . . . what did you call it?’

‘Your early onset midlife crisis? I was only teasing. You make it too easy for me, with your soft top car and your new six pack and—’

‘A gorgeous bird on my arm?’

That was very un-Charlie language. ‘We all know Lucy’s much more than that. Just relax and let it fall into place. Face it, mate, you love being in love.’

‘I do.’ Charlie held up his hands as if under arrest.

‘Love suits you. I can’t imagine you playing the field.’

‘I’m not sure I know where the field is.’

Kate found the field chilly.

Flo burst out of the bathroom, leading Lucy by the hand.

‘I should get going,’ said Kate, casting about for her evening bag.

‘Hang on.’ Lucy dug in her own tote. ‘I borrowed these from the shoot today.’ She slapped Charlie when he frowned. ‘OK, I
stole
them.’ She handed over
a pair of enamelled earrings, chrome chimes hanging from them.

‘Perfect.’ Kate clipped them to her lobes, noting how Lucy pecked Charlie on the cheek as Flo danced about their legs. How long could this puritanical reserve last? Could it,
should
it, last forever? Kate wondered if Lucy wanted babies of her own.

Turning away, Kate loathed her unwanted insider knowledge. Neither Charlie nor Lucy were aware that Charlie was incapable of giving her a baby. They could waste years trying before turning to
alternative methods. Was it right or wrong not to tell them? Kate had consulted her oracle, Dad, and decided to cross that bridge when they all came to it.

‘Do you approve of my bag?’ Kate held it against her, glad to have a fashion maven on tap. Disloyally, Kate welcomed Lucy’s input more than Becca’s; the latter tended
towards the low-cut and the high-hemmed, her only criteria whether or not it rendered the wearer ‘hot’.

‘I love it. Very nineties. I have sooo much retro in my evening bag collection.’

Retro
?
The bag, which constituted Kate’s entire evening bag collection, had been a present from Charlie back in 1995. She’d dug it out from the back of a drawer and
dusted it off, glad to see it again after a long absence in fashion Siberia. It rarely went out; its last excursion had been to Dad’s funeral. Tonight it would enter a whole different world;
the bag was on its way to its very first country house weekend party.

The table, like the room, referenced the glamour and formality of a bygone age. Kate, who’d worried she might be overdressed, now felt a little dressed down.

Under cover of the tablecloth, Warren’s hand was on her thigh. He seemed to have intuited her intentions: maybe they were better suited than she realised. Amid the clamour of conversation,
Warren whispered just behind her ear so that his breath tickled.

Touching the nape of her neck, bared by her pinned-up hair, he said, ‘Sexy. I like it.’

Kate looked into his eyes, emboldened. He’d never been so frank before.

Their hostess, Helen, orchestrated the table with an archness that seemed very studied to Kate. She interrupted them now, with a tap on her glass. ‘Now now, you two. At least finish dinner
before you get to grips with one another.’

She’
s got history with Warren
, thought Kate, looking up to find Helen’s sparkling, calculating eyes on her. She took another forkful of delicious food: it was
ambrosial, but there wasn’t enough of it. Everything else on the table was super-abundant: heavy blossoms spilled from oversized vases; the wine sat like blood in crystal decanters; fat
candles dripped wax from many-armed candelabra. The green and gold edges of the opulent room were dark, but Kate and the other guests were well, if favourably, lit by the candles.

Different tonight, Warren was revved up, intent. The other guests, all smart and professional types with perfect manners and ready conversation, seemed to share this electric feeling. Kate
giggled at the jokes, even if they were a little heavy on the double entendres for her taste.

‘You’ve got, like, incredible eyes.’ The woman opposite, a frail thing in couture, spoke suddenly to Kate. ‘Hasn’t she?’ With jerky movements, she gestured at
the others to appraise Kate.

She’s high
, thought Kate.

‘Kate’s a peach,’ said Warren. His smile was wolfish. Kate, who hadn’t been devoured for quite some time, thought of bedtime and smiled back at him.

‘Before dessert, a little fun.’ Helen stood up and handed something to the man to her left, then continued around the table, giving each diner a bejewelled mask, the Venetian design
that sits on the nose and disguises just the upper half of the face.

Kate took hers.

‘Blue,’ said Helen. ‘For our novitiate’s beautiful eyes.’ She took Kate’s hand and kissed it.

Glad she’d been able to suppress her snort, Kate looked forward to telling Becca about the weirdo mistress of ceremonies.

‘Dessert,’ said Warren, ‘is always something special here.’ Behind his coal black mask his eyes glittered.

‘There’d better be custard,’ whispered Kate. ‘Or I’ll complain.’

‘If that’s what you want, Helen will arrange it.’ He didn’t seem to get the joke: Kate wouldn’t dream of asking for custard at such a table. He kissed her suddenly,
and hard.

As her neck bent back, Kate felt the force of his mouth against hers, and swooned pleasurably. She pulled away, unwilling to kiss too passionately in company. ‘Later.’ She squeezed
his leg.

He gave a little growl, more lupine than ever, and Kate felt something drop away deep inside her. A dessert lover, she would happily forgo custard to be alone with Warren. He was going to be
wild
when they finally escaped these peculiar friends he liked so much.

‘I must powder my nose.’ Kate stood. The twee language felt appropriate for the
fin de siècle
splendour of the house.

‘Hurry back!’ called her stoned admirer from across the table, her tiger-striped mask pushed back into her hair.

Nose powdered, Kate explored.

Mostly unlit, the house was a dark Pandora’s Box of jewel-like rooms with gilded cornices overhead and plush rugs underfoot. A door led to another door and another until Kate was on the
terrace at the back of the house, grateful for the sweet fresh air she hadn’t realised she needed.

No light punctured the darkness in the grounds that wrapped around the house. Kate had driven through a tight tangle of lanes to reach it; it stood at the centre of its domain. She remembered
how keen Warren had been to collect her in his sporty car.
I like to get to places under my own steam
, she’d insisted. He was an assertive man; he’d pushed. When Kate had pushed
back, he’d liked it.

‘You’re an independent little thing, aren’t you?’ he’d said.

Kate didn’t know any other way to be. And she’d corrected him: ‘I’m not little.’

He’d liked that as well.

The others will be wondering where I am
. Kate turned, but her feet were reluctant to leave the terrace. On the brink of a form of commitment to Warren, she was rooted to the spot. Drawn
to the virile, attractive man, Kate also felt a repulsion she couldn’t explain.

Out of step with many – Becca for one – Kate took sex seriously. It was an emotional contract for her, something profound. She desired Warren; it wasn’t prudery that got in her
way. It was something else. A subliminal Stop sign.

Kate
, she told herself.
Get back in there and jump on him.
She needed to climb out of her rut. She was a mindless hamster in a cage, working all hours, breaking off only to babysit
a goddaughter or visit a mother who picked a fight every time.

I need somebody to call my own
. A man she didn’t have to share. One who returned her desire.

Such a man was only feet away. Stirred, back on course, Kate rooted in her bag for a breath mint as she hurried back across the terrace. Her fingers found paper.

Kate was heartily sick of that note. During the funeral she’d resolved to tear it into tiny pieces and throw it away, but in the vortex of grief and grim practicalities she’d
forgotten. The damn thing certainly chose its moments to jump out at her.

But this is a new era.

Charlie, despite his feeble protests to the contrary, had settled down. The note was out of date. For all Kate knew, Warren would send her notes that would overwrite the wording of this frigid
little rejection.

I’ll burn it!
At the table, she would hold it to one of the candles. It would be just the sort of behaviour to amuse this kooky entourage.

Ferreting out the envelope, Kate was nonplussed by how it felt. Taking it from Charlie at the fancy dress party, she’d stuffed it into her bag without noticing; at the funeral she was in
no state to realise, but now she saw that the envelope was thick, heftier than the flimsy note she’d returned to sender.

Opening it, Kate extracted two creamy sheets of watermarked paper, tattooed with lines and lines of Charlie’s distinctive handwriting.

Kate scanned the pages, concentrating hard.

Heat began to build in her stomach. She needed action, violence even. She needed to run. Kicking away her shoes, Kate took off, trying to outrun old news she’d just read for the very first
time.

Tearing through the house, Kate took a wrong turn or two as she tried desperately to locate the party, to find Warren. He held a promise of something different to the unhappiness snapping at her
heels.

Bursting through ornate double doors, Kate stopped at the sight of the table, lit in the centre of the shadowy room like a stage. All the players turned at the noise, their foxy masks giving
them the look of startled animals.

Helen, still at the head of the company, appeared to be doling out dessert, smearing thick cream on the breasts of the flaky young woman who was stretched out, naked, among the overturned vases
and sticky pools of spilled wine.

Bent over the woman, his lips to her body, Warren wore only his shirt.

Kate noticed, in the same second, the red weals on his buttocks and the whip wielded by a portly man who’d bored her earlier with anecdotes of his stamp collection. Both men’s
erections rivalled the whip for rigidity.

‘Kate,’ said Warren. ‘Join us, gorgeous.’

The sacrificial offering on the table began to laugh, wildly.

Helen’s mask was white and feathered. ‘Kate’s shy,’ she said.

‘Trust me, Kate. It’ll be fun,’ said Warren. He took off his mask, tucked in his chin. It was the look Kate gave Flo when the child refused to eat her greens. ‘Oh dearie
me. Have I misjudged you? I thought you were special.’ He held out his hand, as if all was forgiven. ‘Come on. We don’t bite.’

Like Cinderella, Kate fled shoeless down the dark sweeping staircase, not knowing if Warren gave chase. When the venerable front door refused to give she yipped in panic and tore at the
latch.

Hearing her name, Kate turned.

At the top of the stairs, Warren held up a candlestick. ‘Don’t go. Please. Let’s talk, yeah?’

Kate pulled harder. The latch co-operated. The gravel was sharp underfoot.

In a moonlit lay-by, Kate turned off the ignition, crossed her arms over the wheel, and laid her head on them. She cried like a child, untrammelled and noisy.

Taking their natural course, the tears eventually receded, like the tide, leaving flotsam and jetsam in its wake. Kate folded out the creases in the paper.

Kate’s past was in a foreign language and she’d been working from a poor translation. Like the freaky party she’d just fled, her history was not as it
seemed.