Venus Envy (28 page)

to the celebrity parties with Snowy. Snowy was supposed to be Gail’s new best mate and she was going to drop her just because some geezer told her to?

‘Gall, you can’t. He hasn’t even given you a reason.’ ‘Tommy-‘ Tommy? What is he, a rock opera?

.

‘Tommy says he does have one, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to tell us. He just wants her out of the house and thinks we should drop her. Tommy says to trust him, OK? And I do trust him, I think he’s just wonderful,’ Gail finished defiantly.

‘It wouldn’t be the right thing to tell us. My, how convenient.’

The door creaked open again; Ellen was beckoning me back in. And I could see Tom heading up the stairs towards us.

‘Excuse me, OK? I have to go.’

And I bolted inside, so Ellen could give me lessons on how to hold a small posy and walk behind her up the aisle.

If I were to wear this dress, I’d be completely coordinated. My face would be a perfect match.

‘Stand back from Ellen, dear. A good three paces,’ Mrs Jones insisted. ‘The brid6smaid’s place is always behind the bride. You mustn’t detract from her.’

‘Not to worry,’ said Melissa again, sniggering meanly.

I took a step backwards and scowled at everybody. Ellen tried to give me a sort of placatory look, but I ignored her.

‘It does truly look lovely with the flowers,’ Ellen

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twittered. ‘And we’ll get my make-up girl to give you a bluey sort of eyeshadow, then it’ll be marvellous on you.’

‘Yeah, well. We’ll see,’ I told them mutinously.

Keisha, Bronwen, rescue me! They won’t let me take the Magenta Monster off until we’ve done the ‘walk through’ on the croquet lawn. Bloody hell, what was that fat eejit’s problem? I thought murderously. I mean, they gave you your lines to repeat, she didn’t even have to ask for the ring. Then we had to walk down the aisle, Ellen on Tom’s arm because her father was pushing up the daisies. It was like the super’models. What’s so damn super about looking anorexic and walking? Walking’s pretty easy, you know. Even Kevin the postboy can manage it. I mean, I could be a supermodel, if I had heroin for breakfast, cocaine for lunch and ‘e’ for dinner. And facial plastic surgery of course

)on’t you hate it when fashion editors do photos of the waifs eating hamburgers? Yeah right - and now show me the shot of her puking it up in the loos five minutes later. Hey, I’m six foot and weigh eight stone three - and of course I eat normally!

Sorry. Got carried away there for a second. Anyway, I’d had as much of Gail bleating at me as I could take. She was the poster .girl for the new men’s movements, she thought anything a potential husband said was binding as the laws of the Medes and the Persians. Tommy this and Tommy that, and did she mention Tommy’s marvellous pesticide-free orchards and organically reared cows. Snowy may have been her mate but Snowy stood as much chance now as an electric toothbrush in a nunnery.

I couldn’t believe Tom Drummond’s arrogance. He

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thought he was going to make us all knuckle under to his social order. But I was afraid he was going to have a surprise or two on the way.

Keisha came striding across the lawn to meet me.

First I thought she was having a fit, then I realised it

was just her natural reaction to my lovely dress. ‘Pretty,’ she smirked.

‘Oh, sod off, you bitch. Where’s Charlie and Snowy?’

‘Practising his speeches,’ Keisha said, lifting one eyebrow.

‘She’s behaving herself, is she?’

‘Well, they’re not having hot monkey sex in the library,’ Keisha said.

‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’ If they weren’t actually doing the nasty, it was none of my business, I thought smugly. Ellen was a big girl. She’d have to take care of herself.

Everybody assembled in the dining room for lunch. I sat next to Bronwen and watched Tom carve the joint, his thick stubby fingers so deft on the handle of the knife. Charlie poured the wine, lingering by Snowy’s glass. Ellen had a look of panic on her face as she saw the glance that passed between them.

Honestly, if some people can’t cope with a little flirtation…

After tomorrow Charlie would be hers. They’d be off on honeymoon: ‘St Lucia. So wonderful at this time of year.’ In a very expensive hotel, miles away from Olivia White.

The other guests started talking. The local hunt, the

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Paris fashion shows, the crisis at the Royal Opera House. Nothing the London hicks could talk about.

Gail didn’t care. She was gazing adoringly at Tom, her big blue eyes locked on him like a newborn calf. Her plunging neckline revealed her smooth skin, as white as meadowsweet, her manicured nails freshly painted a light shell-pink. Her hair was as glossy as one of Tom’s horses.

‘The beef’s safe, isn’t it, Tommy? He only uses grass fed cattle.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Alex probably won’t touch it, then. She likes her food with chemical garnishes,’ Gail giggled.

‘Oh, Alex never likes anything I do,’ Tom said coolly, looking at me.

‘She’d have been glad of this when you were poor students “ogether,’ Gail probed. She glanced at me jealously.

‘At Oxford, I wasn’t poor,’ Tom replied, still gazing at me. I withered under his stare, it was so clinical. ‘And she wouldn’t have touched this then. She used to be a vegan. She wore a T-shirt saying “Meat is Murder”.’

‘How silly!’ Gail breathed.

‘That was a Smiths album,’ I muttered. ‘Anyway, I was different then.’

‘I suppose you can afford a bad diet when you’re at college,’ said Gillian. nastily, ‘and you’re young and fresh like Gail. It’s when the bloom has gone that it starts to show..Old women like us have got to watch it, Alex.’

Tom bit back a smile, and I looked at my plate. ‘I don’t have a bloom,’ Gail said, fishing madly. ‘You most certainly do,’ Tom replied instantly.

Keisha made an exaggerated fishing rod motion, but Gail ignored her, triumphantly. She looked over at me.

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‘Honestly, Alex, I can’t think how you let a catch like Tom go,’ she said loudly.

There was a crashing silence. Mortified, I flushed purple.

‘Alex never “let me go”. She never had me,’ Tom said. ‘We were only friends. We never dated seriously.’

‘I can’t imagine why not,’ Gail breathed, sounding like she’d just won the lottery.

‘I’m not romantic,’ Tom said quietly, looking into my sister’s eggshell-blue eyes. ‘But maybe I was waiting for the right girl to come along.’

‘Oh, Tom and I were never even a starter,’ I said fiercely. ‘I really couldn’t be more different from anyone.’

At that moment the dogs set up a mad barking, rushing towards the hall from their begging positions under the table. Snowy’s white wine was knocked over as they jolted her chair.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, dabbing at it with her napkin. ‘Let me help you,’ Charlie begged, leaping up from hi chair as though he had a firework in his pants. He was round at her side, mopping up the spill solicitously, gently wiping her tanned forearm. Tom gave me a pleading look which I completely ignored. They could all take care of their own problems.

‘It’s a delivery man,’ Mrs Drummond said loudly. ‘ wonder what that can be? We have all the wedding goods arriving tomorrow!’

She opened the door and took a small box from him.

‘Goodness, Alexandra, it’s for you,’ Mrs Drummond announced. ‘From Gloucester.’

‘Is it our wedding present?’ Ellen asked miserably. Charlie shot her a furtive glance and stopped drying Snowy’s upper chest.

‘Not exactly. It’s a new bridesmaid’s dress,’. I was

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forced to admit. ‘Much better than the Laura Ashley, truly.’

‘Oh,’ said Ellen uncertainly.

Tom stared at me in complete disgust.

I marched upstairs. Ellen was struggling into her corset again for the rehearsal, while I slipped seamlessly into the violet dress. Out of the harsh shop lights it looked even better. I admired myself sorrowfully in the age spotted mirror above my dresser. I was a wash of iris against the soft greens of the clipped lawns outside; tall and pretty as a delphinium. With no ruffles to obscure it, my long neck looked almost.swan-like. The clever reds in my hair took on depth and movement.

I may not have been Gail, but I was very pretty.

I was turning to the right and left when Tom walked in to the room. He stopped dead when he saw what I was wearing. He breathed in hard, then sort of shook himself and fixed glittering eyes on me.

‘Don’t you ever knock? And don’t even start with me,’ I flounced. ‘This is a beautiful dress. I’m not going to look like a trussed turkey, and that’s it.’

‘I’m not going to,’ Tom said coldly. ‘You’re clearly determined to have your own way.’

I sat down on the bed, making sure he caught my skirts in all their silky, swishy glory. ‘So what do you want?’

Tom started walking backwards and forwards across my bedroom. Very disconcerting. He was striding, like a soldier. It mad me. want .to snap to attention.

‘Olivia White has been flirting with my brother all afternoon.’

‘Yes, Gail told me you had spoken to her,’ I said icily. ‘Why don’t you talk to Charles? Or give Olivia one of your marvellous lectures. Maybe she’ll come to heel a bit better than I do.’

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‘Will you grow up?’ he shouted angrily. ‘It’s not about you and me. It’s about this - this woman trying to get her claws into my brother. You don’t know Charles, he can be foolishly impulsive.’

‘For the last time, it’s not my problem,’ I snapped. ‘She is not a fit person for you to be friends with. OK? Can’t you just trust me, Alex? For the sake of the friendship we used to have?’

Used to bare. So that’s it, I thought. He wasn’t interested in me any more. ‘Nobody tells me who my friends are going to be.’ Tom stopped walking and pointed at me. ‘Very well. You leave me no choice. That woman is out of my Jaouse as of this afternoon. I am going to throw her out. You may as well pack up her suitcases. She’s gone, Alex, with or without your help. I had hoped to avoid these dramatics.’

‘Are you finished?’ I asked languidly. ‘I have to touch up my makeup.’

I. turned to my mirror, ignoring the burning sensation of his eyes on my back. It was the most infuriating gesture I could manage. In a few moments, he clomped heavily out of the room, not bothering to close the door.

‘Come on, Alex,’ Gail called, ‘you’re wanted on the south lawn.’

The south lawn? Boy, was .she familiar with the layout of Carrefour. She had probably earmarked all the 1oo roll for replacing with the scratchy recycled crap we refused to use in the flat.

‘OK.’ I dashed out and put on a pair of walking boots. They looked a bit Mel B under the formal gown, but I wasn’t ruining my little silk heels on Tom’s croquet lawn, however dry the ground.

‘Wow,’ said Gail, annoyed. ‘That dress makes you

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look like you dropped ten pounds. Did Tom see you in it?’

‘He hates it.’

‘Really?’ beamed Gail. ‘What a pity. Anyway, he’s going to tell Snowy to leave.’

‘So he said.’ I shook my head as I opened the garden gate. Clouds of late butterflies, red-brown and white, -tumbled up from the buddleia bush. Thick wallflowers were a blaze of copper against the hedge. ‘I’m going to warn her.’

‘Alex! You can’t do that!’ Gail protested. ‘Tom would go—’

‘I don’t give a bugger what Tom would do,’ I said furiously, ‘I’m going, to warn her, he can’t just treat one of us like that.’

‘But you can’t stand Snowy.’

‘That,’ [ told her firmly, ‘has nothing to do with it.’ ‘And that dress!’ Gail whined, trotting up behind me. ‘Don’t you think you should wear the one they want you to? Don’t you think you should do what Ellen wants?’

I clapped my hands over my ears. ‘No. I don’t care. I’ve had enough of everybody. I’m going to please myself from now on and you can all bloody well watch

OUt.’

When I arrived running on to the croquet lawn all the hoops had been cleared away. Ellen was standing next to Tom in her wedding gown. Snowy was watching from a wicker chair, sipping a gin and tonic, and the coven were milling around talking.

They took in the new dress with looks of amazement and envy. Very gratifying. I heard some of their husbands saying things in the low tone of voice they use about Snowy, and that suited me fine.

I flashed Tom Drummond a look of triumph. ‘Where’s Charlie?’ I asked.

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As I got closer, Ellen turned to face me. She took in

the long, luscious sweep of my new dress, with its wasp waist and cloud of perfect colour. Now I no longer looked like Coco the clown. Ellen’s antique concoction looked fine, but there was no longer an ugly froth behind it to make it look delicate.

.Now she did not look the better of the two of us. I

had clawed back my place.

I made a point of walking past Snowy’s chair. ‘Could you help me with my zip, sweetie?’ I asked loudly. Tom Drummond could huff and puff all he liked.

Snowy stood up to tinker with it, stretching her

long, rangy legs.

‘Wonderful dress. Did Gail pick it?’

No she didn’t, you snotty cow, I thought, but what I

said was, ‘Snowy, you’d better watch out. Tom Drummond is going to throw you out. He’s dead serious, I think he might call the police or something.’

‘God! Did he say why?’ Snowy murmured carefully.

She didn’t seem that surprised.

‘He wouldn’t say, but, you know,’ I giggled, ‘he thinks your flirting with Charlie is serious. As if! Anyway, if I were you I’d grab your stuff and check into a hotel. I mean, he can only ban you from his house, can’t he? He can’t stop you coming if you’re a friend of the groom’s. Get Charlie to give you your invitation,’ I suggested warmly.

‘Mmm,’ Snowy whispered, ‘maybe I will.’

I said, ‘Thanks, that’s better,’ and walked over to Ellen.

‘Charlie’s not here,’ she said in a small voice, ‘he