Getting Home (18 page)

For a theme she chose French, because it seemed easy to her and she was aware that the culinary illiterates could buy their contributions at Parsley & Thyme. Josh and Rachel, the DeSouzas, that couple I've just been doing a terrace for, and those people with the rose garden, Allie and Ted … Her hand hesitated over the P pages in her address book. The Pikes. Perhaps not, not after that victim support business. It might be childish to bear grudges, but she did. They would not be offended; Chester was always travelling and his status set them above the rest of community.

She looked at the final list and saw herself partnerless among the couples. Should she ask an extra man to balance the genders? Not Marcus, after yesterday. Not one of The Crowd: he would stall the conversation by expecting to talk about films or art or politics. No, better to be as she was, just by herself.

‘You must by psychic, Stephanie dear. I was longing to see you.' Allie made it sound as if she was utterly ravished by the invitation. ‘But will you be all right, by yourself? So clever of you to choose French. We'll bring a tart or something.'

On Wednesday, Mr Capelli from the Foreign Office tried a joke. ‘It's a pity,' he suggested, ‘that Mr Sands wasn't travelling in the Yemen. Foreigners who are kidnapped in the Yemen seem to actually enjoy the experience. Beautiful country, interesting culture, very good food and the kidnappers always save the best for their guests. Arab tradition of hospitality, I suppose. The only real complaint we've had is that they seem to think all Westerners drink whisky so they tend to give them too much.'

Stephanie was thrown. Needing inspiration, she gazed at her pinboard. The Empress Josephine was said to have been a natural diplomat. ‘How interesting,' she suggested.

‘Yes, isn't it,' was the enthusiastic response. ‘Of course, when we have your husband safe home, Mrs Sands, we will know more about the Kazakhs. They might be just as good. We hope they are.'
And pigs might fly. Get my husband back, idiot.

The part of entertaining that Stephanie enjoyed most was setting the table. She got busy laying out her antique linen napkins on the beautiful pale wood, polishing her fingermarks off the silver sphere salt and pepper mills, cutting trails of ivy for a centrepiece. The glasses – wedding presents – made her a little sad.

The rose garden people, who were new to the neighbourhood, brought a redolent
daube de boeuf à la Provençale
and murmured awed appreciation of Stephanie's roses. Joshua Carman brought a bucket-sized pot of his celebrated
cassoulet
with his own hand-decorated label, and looked daggers at the
daube.
The terrace couple came with an immaculate home-made
tarte aux pommes
which must have taken an hour in the slicing alone.

The first indication that the evening was ill-starred came with the DeSouzas. Belinda shamefacedly offered an identical
tarte aux pommes
in a box from Parley & Thyme, saying, ‘I suppose this is French, isn't it?' in the guilt-trippy way she contrived whenever made to feel like an immigrant.

Last of all came the Parsons, with the unmistakable colour and rumple and averted eyes of a couple who had fought before they set out, bringing the third identical
tarte aux pommes
from Parsley & Thyme, but considerably damaged. In fact, it looked as if someone had sat on the box. ‘That'll be OK, won't it?' Allie watched while Ted produced the battered contribution, as if resentful of having to consider such trivia.

‘It's fine,' Stephanie reassured her, swiftly taking the box to the kitchen where she could mask the damage unseen.

‘We haven't seen you in a while.' Ted followed her, needing more than ever to place the maximum space between himself and his wife. The fight had been about the party, which Allie had alleged was part of his conspiracy to wreck her looks and diminish her to a
hausfrau.
Unwisely, he had recalled that she had accepted the invitation.

He leaned against the worktop, looking as if he felt stupid. ‘How's it going with Stewart?'

‘Still the same. No news. I'm keeping busy.'

‘Good, good.' There was always something indistinctly wretched about Ted. His shoulders were too high and his chin too low and his arms held too tight to his side, as if something was crushing the joy out of him. If he. could smile and open out his chest, hold his head up and get rid of the pinched look around his eyes, he would look vigorous, almost handsome. Tonight he seemed exceptionally pathetic. Stephanie took pity and poured him a decent whisky, which he downed as eagerly as his poor dog snarfed biscuits.

‘My!' Rachel Carman's sharp shiny eyes ran over the scene in the dining room, comparing it unfavourably with her own. ‘We are formal.'

‘Stewart and Stephanie were always formal,' her husband reminded her.

‘You mean they
are,'
Allie corrected him, flashing Stephanie a glance intended to show support, as she followed Ted into the room.

‘Can I introduce Sonia Purkelli? And Ray, her husband? They've just moved into Cedar Close.'

‘And we have the most
divine
rose garden.' Sonia Purkelli was a little gushy, a fault on the right side that evening since she babbled sweetly on while Allie and Belinda, unable to relax, perched unnaturally on their seats throwing brittle interjections at no one in particular. Josh poured wine down his throat with silent dedication and Ray Purkelli, a skinny, leathery man, sat blinking like a lizard, getting the measure of the new neighbours.

‘Your table is charming,' Ted told Stephanie, warmed by the whisky and wondering what life would be like with a wife who could do charming, and cared if you were unhappy.

‘Isn't this delightful?' he said as they took their drinks to the tables in the garden and he looked around at the green, scented harmony as if amazed that plants could be beautiful. The grass was soft under his feet, a growing carpet. Moron, he thought, could lie on it in real comfort.

‘Would you like me to open some more wine?' he asked. ‘I see old Josh is in training for the Olympics again.' It was a neighbourhood joke that wine-drinking was Dr Carman's Olympic event.

Stephanie laughed. ‘He says it cleans the arteries, doesn't he?'

Pulling the corks, Ted reflected that her laugh was pretty, light but throaty like the call of some gentle bird. His wife screeched. Gemma Lieberman laughed like melted chocolate bubbling on a stove, but he would never hear that laugh again. He filled his own glass first. ‘You're so organised,' he muttered, looking at the invitation list and the cake chart and thinking of the knee-deep flotsam of checkout magazines in Allie's study.

‘I'm busy now,' she explained. ‘I have to be organised.'

‘Are you lonely?' he asked.

‘Of course,' she answered. In her mind, Ted and Allie blurred into one entity; she felt it was as safe to confide in him as it would be in his wife. ‘I miss Stewart so much. Somehow … I don't know,' she paused, weighing the exact burden of her pain, ‘it's having to keep things normal for Max, and not having anyone to talk to, I suppose. Anyone who's in the same situation, I mean.'

‘I know how you feel,' he returned. ‘I get lonely myself.'

‘But you've got Allie, and the girls, and Damon …'

‘No.' He had downed a couple of Scotches at home. Evenings with Allie went better that way. ‘They're in the house, of course, but we're not a family somehow. I guess everyone knows about Damon's problems?' She nodded, leaving off activity for an instant and leaning against the fridge in a manner which was more taking than she realised. ‘But even before that, I don't know what it was, exactly. It's hard to explain. Sometimes I feel loneliest when we're all together.'

There are men to whom a declaration of loneliness to a person of the opposite gender is an invitation to sex. Ted appreciated this, Stephanie, despite her experience with Marcus on Monday, did not. Ted began to wonder if Stephanie might be a little bit sweet on him. He carried plates in and carried plates out and watched her taking care of her guests, a glow spreading across her forehead where little wisps of hair curled like vine tendrils, and felt he ought to take care of her.

He refilled his glass, and noticed that although she was pale-skinned the sun had flushed her nose and cheeks the colour of shortbread. Abandoned with a little boy, a terrible thing for a young woman. Someone should look after her, he thought. She should not be working in the sun and opening her own wine. He filled his glass again. In the kitchen, she camouflaged the battered
tarte
with whipped cream while Ted looked on, dumb with drink and enchantment.

‘For dessert, ladies and gentlemen, we have three French tarts,' she announced brightly, evoking some laughter. Ted found he had boundless admiration for a woman who could be so elegantly suggestive. Ray Purkelli started to speak and disclosed a career in marketing automobiles. The men at once paid him close attention and the atmosphere settled at last. People were smiling. ‘Let's have coffee outside,' Stephanie suggested, going out by herself with the cups. Ted followed, empty handed, noting the remarkable length of her legs.

She put the cups on the table on the terrace and started striking a match to light the citronella flare which supposedly deterred night insects. A sudden zephyr blew the match out.

‘Here.' In his severely mellowed state, Ted considered that this fooling with phallic objects was an obvious overture. He stepped forward with a manly lighter. ‘Let me.'

‘Ted, you've been so kind.' Unmistakable, he concluded. She was giving him the green light. He dropped the lighter, put his hand over hers and pulled. He thought he pulled with a light but masterful force. In truth he pulled quite violently, overbalancing them both so they fell on the bench. He launched a kiss which landed near her ear.

‘Ted!' His lips were still puckered and he had screwed up his eyes as well. She saw he was going to fire again. His breath smelled of whisky. She felt his arms holding her rigidly around her waist. ‘Ted, stop it. People will come out any minute.'

Laughter billowed distantly from the French windows to the dining room. ‘No they won't.' He opened his eyes. She was a silhouette against the windows and a squirming burden in his arms. ‘They're having a good time. We can have a good time too.'

‘No we can't. Don't be silly, Ted.'

‘You don't mean that.' But his arms slackened and he allowed, her to pull away from him. She jumped to her feet at once, feeling all the wretched, messy, embarrassed terror of a male in rut which she had forgotten since her college days and had hoped never to feel again.

‘Of course I mean it.'

The cold consciousness of his mistake rose up like vomit in his throat. ‘But I thought …' He contracted his limbs and felt his head drop into his hands and his elbows dig into his knees and his spine collapse into a defeated curve. ‘Never mind. Oh God. I was wrong.'

‘Yes, you were. I love Stewart – whether he's here or not. And Allie's my friend, for heaven's sake. I
like
you, Ted, but that's all. How could you imagine …'

He barked in irritation, ‘Why do women ask those kind of questions all the time? How do I know how I could anything? Your husband's gone, you said you were lonely.' She noticed him swaying on the seat and realised that alcohol was the major part of the equation. But something in his inflection had troubled her, and called back the memory of Lauren Pike's clipboard.

‘What do you mean, my husband's gone?' Hateful, that word gone.

‘He
is
gone, isn't he?' A suspicion floated up from the boozy depth of his mind. ‘Oh God. I thought, I mean I understood …'

‘What? What did you understand, Ted?' She felt quite unsteady herself. Were they both drunk?

‘Nothing. Nothing. It doesn't matter.'

‘It does matter to me, at least I think it does. What do you think has happened, why Stewart isn't here?'

‘Look, let it go, Stephanie …'

Her mood had shifted violently. ‘If it's that serious I can't let it go, can I? Tell me or I'll tell Allie you made a pass.'

He let out a sarcastic, B-movie laugh. ‘As if she'd care. I should think she'd be thankful.' But the name of his wife was like a whip lashing him into line. He curled up even smaller and cradled his skull in his hands before mumbling, ‘The word is he ran off, Stephanie. That you'd been having … uh … problems and … uh … he was seeing someone else maybe. And all the kidnap stuff is just—'

‘Lies?' she finished in a disbelieving tone. ‘My God, is that really what people think? They think Stewart left us?'

‘It's just what was around … you know, the word,' Ted pleaded, trying to summon some authority for his error. ‘People don't really pay any attention to that stuff …'

Except you, dear Ted.
She did not say that. Westwick training was hard to break. All she did was fold her arms and stand over the miserable man she had counted among her friends until ten minutes ago, feeling like fainting but not daring to sit down in case he touched her again.

‘Hey – did somebody say coffee?' Josh Carman crashed across her fern bed, missing the lily pool by a few inches. He carried a full glass of wine. The rest of the party followed but, to Stephanie's relief, were sober enough to keep to the terrace. At that moment she felt she could have torched anyone else who damaged her garden with the citronella flare.

The party had now become a monster beyond her control. People sprawled and chaffered and roared with laughter at nothing at all. This was unusual, for early nights and sober mornings were the mid-week style in Westwick, if, indeed, husbands could be extracted from their schedules in time for dinner at all.

The thrush in the crab tree hopped restlessly from branch to branch, unable to roost in peace. Women grew flirtatious, except Allie, who sat in poisoned silence with mineral water and tightly crossed legs. Men up-ended bottles and hopefully looked around for replenishment. In the normal way, Stephanie would have felt justified in fetching the brandy, but now all her hospitable instincts were frozen. Who are these people, she wondered, watching the Goya-esque faces in the candlelight, who called themselves friends and slandered me behind my back?