Tigerlily's Orchids (11 page)

But when she was alone again, living on her own and with her two pensions, with a sigh of relief that was very nearly happiness, she had settled into a permanent binge drinking and thus ending up here, in this hospital. Margaret knew nothing about her alcoholism, none of them ever had. Like hundreds of people, she had slipped in the snow and injured herself. But she never had any sort of accident before and probably never would again – or not until another bad winter. Margaret thought herself exceptionally unselfish and caring to have come to visit her at all.

‘Well, I expect you'll be all right on your own, won't you?'

‘I'll be OK,' said Olwen. ‘I'm going to have a sleep now.'

It was only by composing herself for sleep and closing her eyes that she could handle this terrible deprivation, because in the past it was only while she was asleep that she wasn't drinking. She thought about Mr Ali's shop. That girl had bought wine from him. Did he also sell spirits? Olwen thought of all the corner shops she had ever been in in various parts of London. The ones that sold wine had also sold spirits. She held on to that, trying to sleep. A different ambulance from the one which had brought her took her home on Saturday morning. It wasn't really an ambulance at all but something called a people carrier which, appropriately enough, was full of people all being dropped off at various locations in north London. Olwen asked the driver if he would drop her at Mr Ali's shop.

‘Can't do that, darling,' said the driver. ‘My job is to take you home, right?'

‘I'll only be a minute.'

In not at all a ‘darling' kind of voice, he said, ‘Sorry, darling, but it's no.'

The other people in the bus made fidgeting grumbling noises in fear of his changing his mind. He got down at Lichfield House and helped Olwen up the still-unswept front path, on to which more snow, rain, hail and sleet had fallen since she was last there. He took her as far as the lift, summoned it, checked she still had her key and saw her off up to Flat 6. The lift door opened and there stood Molly Flint with a longhaired boy who had a ring in his nose and a stud in one eyebrow, waiting to get into it.

‘Not really' was useless for this urgent request. ‘If you're going out would you go to Mr Ali's and see if he's got any vodka? Gin will do if he hasn't got vodka.'

The boy was shaking his head furiously and Molly said, ‘Sorry, I can't,' thinking of Sophie who had never got her five pounds. ‘I can't. I'm late.'

C
arrying two boxes, each containing six wine glasses from John Lewis, Stuart was on his way to meet Claudia in a Starbucks. He had responded to her latest message, cravenly denied that any of the others had reached him, and faced up to this meeting which had been arranged for a long time. His only stipulation was that it shouldn't be at his flat.

None of this was enough to save him from the wrath of Freddy Livorno. Doubting that Stuart had taken his warning sufficiently to heart, Freddy put his little gizmo back among the dried flowers. Claudia's call to Stuart was rapturous. She must
be in a bad way, Freddy thought furiously, if she was that excited about meeting her lover in a coffee shop. Could she come to his party tomorrow night?

‘We'll see about that,' Freddy said aloud.

T
he beautiful girl must live somewhere in the area. He had seen her walking with her father along Kenilworth Avenue. Of course, that might only mean that they were visiting friends in the neighbourhood, but that a friend's house was nearby would hardly account for her shopping at the newsagent's on the roundabout. No, she and her family lived locally. Enquiries among his neighbours and perhaps at the shops in Kenilworth Parade would surely locate her.

Stuart was thinking about this all the time he was having coffee with Claudia at the Euston Road Starbucks. Afterwards, he could barely have repeated a word she had said, though he vaguely remembered something about her falling in love with him. What he did recall was her asking, quite humbly and pleadingly for her and for the second time, if she could come to his party.

‘Oh, all right, I suppose so,' he said very ungraciously. He was surprised to learn that there are some women, and Claudia was evidently among them, who like you more and
want
you more if you treat them unkindly. It was a revelation. After they had parted he was thinking that he must put this into practice in the future but not, of course, with the beautiful girl. If he was ever lucky enough to find her – and he must,
he must – he would never be cruel to her, but treasure her, cherish her, treat her like the exquisite jewel she was. He had been home no more than five minutes and was smoking his first cigarette of the day, when Claudia phoned him on his landline to say that she'd definitely come to his party. She was longing for it.

It was a fine clear day but very cold again. Little patches of frost lingered in shady spots. He pushed the long table close up against the window, set out some plates on it and arranged the new floral paper napkins in two neat piles. Richenda had told him he should have napkins and that the ones he already had, patterned with Christmas trees, wouldn't do. More people were about than usual, doing their emergency shopping before the next snowfall, forecast for the following night. Wally Scurlock was coming up the path, carrying a small bottle of something in a translucent red plastic bag. On the doorstep Stuart saw him encounter Rose Preston-Jones, taking McPhee for his walk. He went back to the kitchen, made himself a large mug of hot chocolate and began stuffing as many bottles of champagne and wine into the fridge as it would take. The coldest place on the exterior of his flat was the windowsill of the spare bedroom where some optimistic builder had fixed a window box. Stuart put the remaining two champagne bottles and four of wine into the box. They would stay cold there. Proud of his resourcefulness, he lit another cigarette and contemplated himself in the spare-room mirror. There was no doubt that a handsome man's sexiness was enhanced by a cigarette. He posed, first with the cigarette hanging from his mouth, then holding it negligently some few inches from his face. It was no wonder really that Claudia was in love with him.

*

W
ithout a drink, Olwen had made it through the night. That is, she was still alive. She found some stale bread at the back of the fridge, removed the pale blue mould and ate a slice of it with the scrapings from the bottom of a marmalade jar. There was nothing to wash it down with but water and when she had drunk that she was sick.

If asked (by that inner enquirer to whom the secrets of all hearts may be told), she would have said she was afraid of nothing unless it was being denied access to drink. But she was afraid this morning. Ice lay on the puddles on the path. The pavements weren't being gritted. The whole country was running out of salt which, apparently, was an essential ingredient of grit. Next time she fell she would break something, she was sure of that, and breaking something meant only one thing to her: many weeks of drink deprivation. Wearing her fur coat, she made her way down in the lift and, standing at the top of the stairs to the basement, called out to Wally Scurlock. Eventually, when she had called a dozen times, he came up.

The modicum of respect with which the Scurlocks favoured the residents of the four blocks wasn't extended to those they deemed unworthy. These included a couple in Hereford who lay in bed each day till noon, a man in Ludlow they suspected of being a transvestite and, of course, Olwen.

‘Yes, what is it?' Wally came wearily up the stairs.

‘Will you go down to Mr Ali's and get me a bottle of vodka? Or gin would do.' Olwen realised some politeness was required. ‘Please?'

‘It'll cost you.'

For a moment she thought he was referring to the price of the vodka but it soon dawned on her that he meant his fee. She always carried a lot of money on her which she withdrew, two hundred at a time, from the cash machine outside the post office in Kenilworth Parade. ‘Five pounds?'

‘Ten,' said Wally. ‘I want it in advance.'

He wasn't long about it and within a quarter of an hour the treasured bottle was standing on the draining board in her kitchen. Until that moment Olwen hadn't been certain that Mr Ali sold spirits, but this was confirmation. Still, for the first time since she had moved into Lichfield House she was coming to understand that she would have to cut down. She must make this bottle last her until Monday by which time the ice might have gone. The first glorious glassful poured, she sat down on the sofa and decided she would go to Stuart's party. At first she hadn't even considered going but, when she came to think of it, drink would be there, possibly only wine, but four or five glasses of it would eke out the vodka …

Stuart had asked the neighbours opposite, putting notes through the doors of three houses. This was not because he wanted Duncan Yeardon, the Pembers or Ms Jones and Mr Lee at his party but because this way it was possible that he might find out from one of them where the beautiful girl lived. He had had a reply only from Duncan but perhaps it wasn't done round here to write acceptances to a drinks party invitation.

The three girls were in two minds whether to go to the party but the bitter cold was getting them down. Whether to go and thus miss meeting friends (who probably wouldn't turn up) at a wine bar in the Haymarket was discussed by Molly and Sophie throughout the day. Noor, of course, could come and go as she pleased. The prince would pick her up in his white Lexus.

‘Stuart's very attractive, isn't he?' said Molly.

Sophie lifted her shoulders. ‘Yeah, but I think he's gay.'

‘Is he?'

‘Every time you see him in the lobby he's looking at himself in that mirror. Should we take a bottle?'

‘If you want. Mr Ali's got Moldovan Chardonnay at three ninety-nine.'

The Constantines were going. They had said they would and not to turn up when they had said they would was against their principles. The party was due to begin at seven thirty and Rose Preston-Jones had invited Marius Potter down for an early supper. Sorrel soup began the meal, the main course was a walnut pilaf with sprouts and chestnuts and the pudding grapefruit yogurt. McPhee climbed onto Marius's lap and licked his left hand.

Rose had asked for a reading of the
sortes
before they went across to the party and Marius had brought
Paradise Lost
down with him. His eyes on Rose, thinking how very much prettier she looked than those who plastered their faces with make-up, he opened the book at random. The sentence he read slightly embarrassed him but it made his heart beat faster too, and there was no escape from reading it aloud.

‘ “Henceforth an individual solace dear: / Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim / My other half.” '

It was foolish to feel awkward of course. Rose had blushed becomingly to match her name. His own embarrassment would have been less but for those Hackney memories. When the colour came into her cheeks she looked more like that girl of long ago so that he could hardly understand how he hadn't been able to place her when first he moved in.

‘Let's go across to Stuart's, shall we?'

C
laudia was the first to arrive. Must have been the only time in her life she'd actually been early for anything, Stuart thought. She congratulated him on the window-box refrigerator, opened a bottle of champagne and helped herself. She of course had brought nothing. He would have been amazed
if she had. Marius and Rose came next, then Mr Lee and Ms Jones who were called Ken and Moira, complaining about the cold. The sister of one of them had skidded on the ice in her new BMW that morning, the car was a write-off and if she hadn't been wearing her seat belt … Duncan Yeardon arrived as Moira was describing the accident and contributed experiences of his own when he worked for the AA or the RAC or something like that back in the dark ages. Stuart started worrying when they all rejected wine in favour of sparkling water in case he hadn't got enough.

‘They'll just have to have tap,' said Claudia, who had taken over the running of the party as if she were his wife.

No fear of this in Olwen's case. She homed in at once on to the Sauvignon, pouring herself a tumblerful. Eyebrows were raised at the sight of her, for she was wearing a dress. Memories of the few parties she had attended, mostly the office kind, had come back to her a couple of hours earlier as she reached about halfway down the vodka bottle. She had worn a dress to those parties, she still had that dress. It was in a cupboard somewhere. The flats in Lichfield House were well appointed with cupboards and she opened hers one after another. Rubbish fell out, old newspapers, unwashed clothes, dozens if not hundreds of empty bottles, green, brown, clear glass, a single blue one that must, once, have contained Bombay Sapphire gin. They rolled across the floor.

The last cupboard held clothes, the ones she had worn before her tracksuit days. At first she couldn't see the dress and, fumbling along the shelf at the top in case she had rolled it up and stuffed it there, her hand came in contact with a bottle. A full bottle of Absolut vodka. Tears of joy came into her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

She remembered then. She had hidden it there in case of just such an emergency as had come about in these past
freezing days – hidden it and forgotten it. For a moment the tears were also for her anguish when she had been utterly deprived and no one had helped her, but finding the dress, black, ancient, in desperate need of dry-cleaning, its hem coming down at the back, put an end to crying. A long swig of vodka once the dress was over her head, and she was off down in the lift to celebrate her find at Stuart's party.

The tumbler of wine in her hand didn't stop her helping herself to champagne when Claudia came round with the tray and they all toasted Stuart's ‘happy house'. By that time Jock and Kathy Pember had come. Molly and Sophie with Molly's boyfriend arrived late but this, as Sophie's father used to say, was ‘par for the course'. A good deal of the champagne had gone before they got there but their Moldovan Chardonnay was received gratefully by Stuart who kissed all three of them, thus convincing Molly that he wasn't gay, after all. Further confirmation, to her dismay, was provided by Claudia who clung closely to him, kissing his neck.