Venus Envy (12 page)

The party was already in full swing. I recognised a bunch of faces from the News of the World: a couple of EastEnders, Dannii Minogue and Tara PalmerTompkinson. Definitely a b-list crowd. But what the hell, I was thrilled anyway. So many designer colours and tight little black numbers; about the only person who really stood out was Bronwen. Keisha moved off in search of Lennox, and Bron and I settled in to get plastered.

Funny how you don’t notice how much you’re drinking at swish parties. The silent waiters are always ghosting past and refilling your glass once it’s a centimetre shy of the brim. So you’re gulping it down but it only feels like you’ve had one drink. Well, that’s my excuse, anyway.

Twenty minutes into it Bron and I were well away. ‘Look at that,’ I sniggered, pointing out a blue rinsed matron in one corner wreathed in feathers. ‘Twenty crows did not die in vain.’

‘Or that.’ Bron giggled madly at Peter Stringfellow and the young woman draped over his arm, wearing nothing but sheer plastic with butterfly motifs plastered over tits and crotch. ‘Is it OAPs’ day out? Or maybe someone told her it was .fancy dress, and you were supposed to come as a condom.’

‘Well well well,’ said an obnoxious voice from somewhere above my ear. ‘What are you two ladies whispering about, bless you?’

I gave Dick the dick a wintry smile. Bronwen looked up like she’d been electrocuted. Her misty-eyed adoration made me want to puke.

‘You girlies, always giggling in corners with your

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female secrets,’ Dick said patronisingly. ‘All about boyfriends and babies, I expect?’

‘Sort of. We were actually talking about period flow. And men with premature ejaculation,’ I snarled.

Dick paled while Bronwen shot me an imploring look.

‘Come on, Bron,’ he said cursorily. ‘Alex is doing her ball-busting thing again. No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, actually. And a man who can have his balls busted by a woman wasn’t much of a man in the first place!’ I shouted after them, but Dick had dragged Bronwen into the crowd.

‘On your own again?’ It was Gall, waltzing past with the beefy Tony on one arm. He got ruddier and ruddier whenever I saw him. ‘You really ought to try to mix tnore.’

Annoyed at being caught by myself, I thrust through the crowd looking for Keisha. I found her about ten seconds later, puffing on a fag under the shade of a giant palm tree festooned with golden bells.

She looked upset. OK, she looked very slightly, almost undetectably to the naked eye, perturbed. But that meant serious trouble.

‘What’s the matter with men?’

‘Why don’t you ask me something simple, like the recipe for world peace?’ I asked.

‘Bloody Lennox. He wants me to move in with him.’ ‘The bastard.’

‘No, Alex, God, get real. He says he hates it that I’ve got other men. He wants us to be tbgether more often.’

‘Just tell him that you’re not ready for that kind of commitment.’

‘I did. He said if he wasn’t enough for me I could luck right off.’

‘How poetic. Look, Keisha—’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to know

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why they can’t just go with the flow. Men, they all want to trap you, it’s just all or nothing.’

Keisha shook her lovely head and got up, stomping off towards the exit. I sighed but didn’t follow her. She hated people around her in this mood.

Snowy glided up to me. ‘Darling! Have you seen who’s here? Seamus Mahon!’

‘Really?’ I lit up like the Christmas lights on Oxford Street.

‘Yes,’ Snowy purred, ‘he’s just oer there. Kissing his wife. Aren’t they the most adorable couple?’

TOO

I didn’t panic.

For at least thirty seconds.

I kept calm. I told myself, don’t overreact. Don’t react at all. That’s what she wants you to do, the glossy-haired witch.

‘You must have got the wrong guy,’ I said shakily. ‘No.’ Snowy arched an eyebrow. I wondered if she knew - I wean, I hadn’t told her, but Gail sucked up to her like a Vacuum cleaner.

‘Seamus is in Paris,’ I announced. ‘He’s got an important meeting tonight.’

‘Clearly not as important as polishing his wife’s tonsils,’ Snowy purred. ‘I mean, that fabulous creature in the silver Prada shift is definitely Dolores, I’d know her anywhere - such a sweetheart - and they told me the man with her was her husband.’

‘Can’t be. She must be having an affair,’ I stammered.

Snowy laughed. ‘Get real, Alex! She’d hardly tongue-wrestle another man in front of le tout Lono dres.’

‘What?’ I snapped.

‘The whole of town, darling! No, that’s a married kiss, isn’t it thrilling to see passion can last past the altar?’

‘What does he look like?’

‘Hmmm - skinny, black curly hair. Can’t see the face, because it’s plastered on to Dolores. Rather tacky

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brown suit, looks like an Ozwald Boateng. Bit of a dandy …’

‘Seamus isn’t a dandy,’ I said, sick with fear because it did sound a lot like him.

‘Well, come and see. You tell me,’ Snowy laughed. ‘If Dolores is having an affair, what juicy goss that would be!’

For a second the fear was replaced by a wild hope. Seamus had sworn to me he was going to Paris, because I’d been asking all week if we could go out tonight. And Dolores Mahon having a snog in front of the cameras - God! Wouldn’t that be grounds for div—

I stopped dead No grounds for divorce there. You ‘ didn’t get divorced for a lip-lock on your own

husband.

Dolores and Seamus were right in front of me. She was shimmering in silver like some immaculately groomed, wafer-thin mermaid. And Seamus, my Sea mus, the love of my life, my saviour, was standing next to’ her. His mouth locked on hers. One hand caressing her waist, the other absently stroking her high, pert little ass. His body language was so entwined with her

they might as well have been Siamese twins. ‘Well?’ Snowy asked silkily.

‘Mmm, yeah.’ Amazing how my voice could work when my brain was closing down. ‘That’s the boss man.’

Seamus took his mouth off Dolores for a second, but he was only coming up for air. In a gesture that twisted my guts around my heart like a rope, Seamus took Dolores’s head in his hands, her platinum curls bubbling over his fingers, and covered her lips in tiny, butterfly kisses.

He does that to me, I thought in outrage. That’s one of my favourite things he does! I could hardly be!ieve it

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myself. It seemed everything was happening in a sick sort of slow motion.

I didn’t hear Keisha come up behind us until she tapped Snowy on the shoulder. ‘Mohammed says he’s been looking for you.’

‘Must dash, Alex, love, but I’ll be back - you can introduce me to Seamus, and I’ll introduce you to Dolores.’ Snowy giggled. ‘Fair swap?’

Keisha’s hand tightened on my shoulder. ‘Look, I said he was a bastard. Better to find out now.’

‘Better to find out now? To see my baby practically fucking another woman?’

‘Alex.’ Keisha sighed. ‘She’s his wife. You’re another woman.’

Now I was crying, not delicate little tears, great big heaving sobs and salty floods gushing down my cheeks and streaking my foundation. ‘But he’s meant to be in Paris. And his marriage is dead.’

‘I wouldn’t be writing up the tombstone, hon,’ Keisha said softly.

I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrored pillars. Thank God my mascara’ was waterproof, but my eyes were as red as a rabbit’s and my make-up was striped like a Brighton deckchair. My nose would have done Rudolf proud. And at that moment, something clicked in Seamus’s head, because he sort of froze, and then turned his gaze towards us very slowly.

He saw me. Emotions swept across his face. The first was horror, the second was guilt and the third was panic.

Dolores looked down at him. ‘Sugar,’ she whispered loudly, ‘who’s that girl making an exhibition of herself? Do you think she’s drunk?’

Keisha was opening her mouth to deliver God knows what, but I kicked her in the shin before she could get it out.

I wanted to scream. To hit her. To hit him. To have

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the earth swallow me up, to run away - something, anything - but I couldn’t move. I lay there like a hedgehog caught in the headlights. Paralysed.

Then Seamus said, ‘Come on, darlin’,’ and dragged Dolores away through the thickness of the crowd.

Keisha pulled me into the bathroom and flung tissues at me. ‘Quick, mop yourself up.’

‘I can’t,’ I sobbed, ‘I want to-go home.’

‘Not a chance.’ Quite brutally, Keisha started dabbing away at my cheeks. ‘What make-up have you got?’ She rummaged around inside my handbag, but produced only a concealer and some lipstick.

‘I left it at home. Can’t I use yours?’

‘ ‘Oh, good one,’ Keisha said sarcastically, patting her own ebony cheek. ‘Somehow I don’t think my Iman Dark Mahogany is going to be a match. We’ll just have to make do.’

She painted and dabbed and restored my face, if not to attractiveness, to some semblance of decency.

“Seriously. I can’t take it.’

‘Well, you’re going to seriously have to. You’re not giving him the satisfaction. And what would Olivia White say?’

That decided me. Feeling like I wanted to puke, I headed out into the throng, muttering Shakespeare. ‘“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with. our English dead. .” ‘

‘Come again?’ Keisha demanded. ‘Here, drink this.’ She grabbed a kir royale and thrust it into my hand. I stiffened. I could see Dolores again; one arm firmly threaded through Seamus’s elbow, she was dragging him in my direction. I didn’t want to look, so why was I staring? It was like some awful road accident you just couldn’t take your eyes off.

‘Laugh,’ Keisha snarled. I gave her the Look of

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Death. ‘Laugh,’ she insisted, as I ignored her. Dolores was bearing down upon us like a Sherman tank.

I burst into a peal of laughter, almost spilling my champagne.

Keisha had tickled me unmercifully at the side of my stomach. Cheating cow. But now Keisha was giggling, watching me try to save the champagne, and the two of us actually were cracking up.

‘Hello, Seamus,’ said Keisha loudly before I could stop her, ‘I’m Keisha, Alex’s flatmate. She’s told me so much about you.’

‘She has?’ asked Seamus, looking frightened. ‘Er this is my wife, Dolores. Alex works for me. How’s yourself, Alex?’

You’d have thought that would be it. I’d puddle, I’d break down, I’d weep like a weeping willow watching Gareth So.uthgate’s England penalty whilst chopping an onion.

But you’d be wrong.

Something else about being a woman. You find you have reserves of strength in front of your enemies. How dare Dolores Mahon look so bloody smug, with her servants and her haute couture and my Seamus? I thought furiously. I was buggered if I’d let her see me upset. I could almost feel my sinews stiffening. Hey, I thought nastily, I’ve been fucking your husband, so you can wipe that smile, off your face.

OK. OK. I know I’ve lost your sympathy now, but I’m trying to be honest and that’s what I thought, at the time. They say violence doesn’t solve anything, but they’re wrong there: it would have made me feel a hell of a lot better. I wanted to jump up and slap that careful make-up job right off those sculptured cheekbones.

‘I’m great. I just split up with my boyfriend, earlier.’

‘Some men think they can get away with anything,’ Keisha added, staring at Seamus very hard.

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‘Oh, don’t be too hard on him,’ said Dolores sweetly. ‘Maybe he has an explanation.’

I couldn’t look at Seamus, but my heart did skip a. beat when he added urgently, ‘I’m sure he has.’

‘Alex doesn’t have time to listen to his explanations,’ said Keisha superbly, ‘she’s going out with Lennox Collins.’ And before I could splutter anything in protest, Keisha smiled brightly at the Mahons and dragged me into the throng.

‘Now you can leave,’ she said proudly. ‘And on Monday, you just ignore him. Do what you do.’

‘You’re kidding, you think I’m going into work on Monday?’

Keisha looked at me like I was an alien from the Planet Zog. ‘Don’t .be a jerk, of course you are. God, Alex, you’re such a drama queen. So you had a bit of a horizontal jig with an asshole, well, welcome to the club!’

‘Look, he said he had an explanation,’ I said limply. I braced myself.

‘An explanation!’ Keisha roared. ‘Suuure, honey, let me save you some time! The explanation is that he wants to screw his wife and his secretary at the same time. You can’t even give him points for originality.’

‘He sent me poems on the computer. He was so romantic - didn’t I tell you how we fed the ducks in the park?’

‘Well, excuse me. I was wrong, he’s obviously Prince Valiant come to save you.’

I shut up. Because secretly, that’s exactly what I thought he was. Keisha just didn’t understand that Seamus was special. And if he said there was some explanation, then there was. I trusted him. That’s what love’s all about, isn’t it? Trust.

We threaded our way through the crowd, looking for Bronwen. She should have been easy to spob in her

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clumpy boots and purple concoction. I sniffed the air for the pungent whiff of grass. But no luck.

Snowy was laughing in a corner, surrounded by men. Her nipples were winking through the pure silk of her dress. Mohammed and his pals looked absolutely entranced.

‘Someone’s having a good time,’ I scowled.

‘Well, Snowy’s a party girl,’ Keisha said neutrally. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’

We took a night bus home.

Keisha dragged me upstairs and made me change

before I started crying. ‘No Point getting your suit ‘ fikhy, at least you got one good thing out of the

bastard,’ she said. That set me off again.

‘He’s not a bastard. I bet she made him do it.’

‘Oh yea.h, she made him jump all over her. Alex, he’s seen around town with lots of women.’