Julia Gets a Life (9 page)

            Richard hasn’t the smallest idea about lifestyle as an expression of personal taste, which I presume is why he felt it necessary to pour scorn on my most recent accessorising when he came to pick up Max and take him swimming earlier. And once again, Max didn’t help. Unlike Emma he has no sense of solidarity, and prefers to join with his father in what they clearly both consider to be completely harmless sniping.

            ‘What’s this?’ Richard said, holding up my newest acquisition.

            ‘It’s curly willow’ I said. ‘With integral fairy lights. In a burnished terracotta urn.’

            ‘Yes, I can see
that.
I just wondered what its purpose was on the telephone table. Does it have a smell or something?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Does it play a tune when the phone rings?’

            ‘Of course not.’

            ‘Then what’s the point of it?’

            ‘It’s decorative.’

            ‘It’s looks like one of your mother’s Dali flowerpot creations with some dead stalks stuck in it, to me. Har, har, har.’

            Max; ‘Har, har, har. If you think that’s gross, you should see what Mum’s put in the downstairs loo. Wait there!’

            Oh, his sides were splitting, I can tell you.

            ‘Ta ra!’

            ‘What’s
that
?’

            ‘Dad, can’t you
see
? It’s a ‘decorative wreath’, of course. It has bits of orange, and shrivelled up chillies - see? - and, get this.
Twigs
. In little bunches. Oh and this is string, isn’t it, Mum?’

            ‘Ha, ha, very funny. You’re both such wags, aren’t you? For your information, smarty-pants that you both are, these were made by Emma, in her art class at school. I happen to think she shows a great deal of creativity. And I also happen to think it is very important to let our children know that we are both impressed by and proud of their artistic achievements, don’t you, Richard?’

            Hah! All utter rot, of course, but I know I can rely on Emma not to split on me.

             (In actual fact, I have had to put my curly willow pot and wreath in the SCOPE bag that came this morning, because I read in
Homescene
yesterday that rustic is definitely out, and that galvanised metal and industrial flooring are both very much of the moment. Except in bedrooms, where turquoise and terracotta with flashes of copper are still acceptable - which is good because I just got the emulsion.)

             But they are both treading a rocky road; Max, because I have absolute control over hours allotted to the new
Playstation PSP
his father has just bought him and Richard himself because if he persists in his current line of merry banter on these occasions (which, yes, I
do
understand are very healthy and psychologically enriching for all concerned) I will have no choice but to deposit the children at the front garden gate whilst scowling aggressively in an arms folded and legs slightly apart manner on the doorstep. Also I will start referring to him as ‘your father’ instead of Dad, and ring him frequently with requests for Nike AirMax trainers and Calvin Klein Puffa Body Warmers. We will soon see who’s taking the piss then.

Chapter
9

            Dinner parties. Who’d have then?

            It’s currently trendy round our way to eschew the dinner party. Dinner parties appear to be no longer fashionable, and have been supplanted by;

            Having a few close friends for supper (dinner party)

            Having two close friends and their children over for Sunday Lunch (dinner         party at lunchtime, plus chicken nuggets plus hangover during
Antiques Roadshow
)

            Having a
How to Host a Murder
party (dinner party plus dressing up and         farting around)

            Entertaining business colleagues (dinner party where women do not know          each other and always have to drive home)

            Having a few close friends around after the pub shuts and phoning the Chinese   take away for an Indian - or vice versa - and everyone falling asleep before it       arrives. (Dinner party at our house)

            Actually, I’m rather a good cook. When Richard and I were first married, we assembled forty seven jars of herbs and spices, which I kept in almost fanatical alphabetical order along the back of the kitchen worktop. The saffron, in those days, was forty four pence. I still have the whole jar of fenugreek.

            And I used to love doing dinner parties. There is surely a time in everyone’s life when a Saturday afternoon wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a kitchen shop to buy gadgets and trivets and little paper chefs hats to put on racks of lamb. And I had the entire Robert Carrier collection
and
all the binders.

            But that was then. I can’t be fagged any more. Now I get stressed just thinking about them. Even thinking about going to
other
people’s dinner parties. Especially if they’ve mentioned that they may flambé or something.

            Which puts me on a completely different planet to Moira Bugle. Which I was anyway, of course, as I am thirty eight trying to get away with thirty and she is about one hundred and two. And she is Moira Bugle. Which means she does as she damn well likes.

            In the end I chose to attend Moira Bugle’s soiree in one of those dresses that look a bit like underwear and have two layers; mine was sort of silvery underneath and sort of mauvy and lacy on top - very Madonna, very
now
. And I wore mauve strappy sandals (which Emma and I found in
the
most trendy shoe shop in Cardiff, which was uplifting) and one of those little beaded drawstring bags. Emma said,

            ‘You could go clubbing in that and no one would have a
clue
how old you are - if it wasn’t for that big varicose vein up the back of your knee, you could be twenty five, easily.’

            Brilliant.

             I had a great big fat repulsive throbbing
pulsating
vein up the back of my leg. Arrrrrgh! How could I ever go swimming again?

            And I had completely forgotten about it. Really. I had
completely
forgotten it’s existence. I almost rang Richard then and there.

            ‘That’s it,’ I would have said. ‘That’s the real reason I don’t want you back. It’s because you care so little for me that you didn’t even see fit to mention the big throbbing vein on the back of my leg. Rat!’. I mean, I could have had it injected, or lanced, or whatever they do to them
years
ago. At least used concealer stick on it, or something. Which is what I eventually did. And popped it into my little mauve bag.

            So off I went. I took a bottle of mid-priced eastern European white wine (trendy, or what?), a large bunch of freesias (all the same colour - class) and a box of
Ferrero Rocher
chocolates which I won in a prize draw (Fortunately, Moira has no nose for clichés) and stood on her doorstep for a good half minute while she made the journey from kitchen to hall.

            Moira and Derek are not only older, but also quite a bit richer than us.
Me.
They have a mock Georgian house on the edge of the village that has a square footage that probably matches it. I was ushered vociferously into the lounge and presented by Moira (in shimmering
eau de nil
palazzo pants) to the already assembled throng. These were;

            Moira’s Derek - fifty-ish, something in local government, half cut.

            Caitlin and Stuart Goodrich - almost fifty-ish, both very nice. She makes            embroidered cards. Stuart has some sort of business. Is Richard’s big pal at the        tennis club -
oof!

           
Dawn and Boris Griffiths
-
Early forties (getting nearer) but big on beige. She     local playgroup leader, sweet. He entirely unknown quantity but looks like             sort who might grope bottoms.

            And me. Which made seven in all. Seven? Moira? Surely not. Of course not.
Bing Bong!
went the door.

            And then Howard Ringrose walked in. He of the biceps and hamstrings and suchlike. Toyboy and hunk and God Of Year Six. He? How? He? Moira? How on earth?
Why?

             Someone must have seen me ogling him in the playground. Or noticed a sheen of sweat on my upper lip while he ran through the fixture list for the summer term. Or must have noticed that the little artery that crosses my clavicle was pulsating ever so slightly as I said ‘Hmm, that’s what you call
not really muddy
, is it, Max?’ in jocular fashion by the changing room door. Or, or, or....
and
told Moira. Eeek!

            ‘Well,’ said Moira chirpily, ‘that seems to be all of us. Howard, I’m so glad you managed to join us. It seems Joan was quite adamant that you tear yourself away. Howard’s mother,’ she told us, ‘has been rather poorly. But she didn’t want Howard here missing the fun. What with SATs and all that. And I’ll bet it’s the only decent hot meal you’ll be getting all weekend, is it not? Well! Drinkies, you two?’

            I thought she was going to suffix the ‘two’ with ‘youngsters’, about which I would have had rather mixed feelings, but she went straight on to explain why she had invited a late-twenty something, cool person to a gathering of women on the very brink of hormonal dysfunction and men with hair hanging out of their noses. As you would. (I assumed my own presence had been explained earlier. And if not, why not? I was still fully fecund, even if the route to creation did have a ‘road closed’ sign across it.)

             Joan, it turns out, is Howard’s mother, and is also a friend of Moira’s (Moira knows everyone old within a ten mile radius). Apparently, she now lives in Bristol - which is where Howard comes from, and it was Moira who told her about the vacancy at the primary school in the first place etc. etc. Who would have thought it?

            ‘Anyway, nice to see you,’ said Howard..

            ‘Nice to see
you
.’ Damn. So
obvious
.

            ‘How are things going?’

            Howard knew all about Richard, of course. I had to tell Emma and Max’s teachers in case the standard of their school work suddenly plummeted and/or they burst into tears in the middle of PSE lessons or something. Which was wretched at the time, because I was in the bursting into tears stage myself, and the thought of my children bursting into tears in class made me want to burst into tears pretty much
all
the time, and what with Howard being my friend, and deeply sympathetic, I obviously did. Copiously. (Curiously,
thankfully
, Emma and Max had already moved on to the much more pragmatic ‘Great! We can watch
Little Britain
without Dad moaning!’ stage, of course.)

            ‘Much better, now,’ I said.

             ‘I’m glad. I’ve been worried about you.’

           
Wow!

           
‘By the way, I really like your hair like that.’

            Yes!

            So we had the dinner party. We had canapé things with what looked like burned bogies on them, then (at a table that looked just like those ones they set up in old fashioned department store windows) some sort of cold soup, then goujons of something with home-made tartar sauce, then chicken breasts wrapped up in string with some sort of spicy stuffing inside them (and dauphin potatoes, broccoli, beans, artichoke hearts etc. etc.), then pavlova
or
fruit salad
or
chocolate creme brulees (
or
nothing, thanks, really. No,
really
) then about thirty seven different varieties of cheese. Oh, and some grapes.