Venus Envy (19 page)

will Charles. He’s a City trader, you know, makes ,three hundred thousand a year.’

‘How marvellous,’ I said dully.

I hoped Charles was fatter than Roseanne Barr and had ginger pubes. Then I felt hatefully guilty: poor Ellen, it was hardly her fault. Just because I was a dumped, bitter, shrivelled-up old maid!

The conversation started to flow again, in low, subdued tones that gave me the impression everybody was talking about us. Mrs Drummond left me to it, and went to introduce ‘Kreena and Bronwine’ to a fusty group of Young Tories behind me. And I was left to Lady Macbeth.

‘Is Tom about?’

‘No, he’s out in Gloucester with Charles. Supervising the stag night, though I must say, I don’t think it’ll be too riotous. Charles is so considerate of Ellen’s feelings. Tom waited to welcome you in for absolutely ages, they were late getting off,’ Mrs Jones disapproved.

‘And Ellen?’ I was damned if I was going to start apologising to this old bag.

‘Ellen’s upstairs asleep. You musn’t disturb her, she needs her beauty sleep.’

She certainly does, I thought unkindly. Oh, I know, but I was tired and stressed.

‘Sounds like a fabulous idea. I’d love to turn in as well, I’ve had a shattering day.’ ‘Alex!’ I spun round to see Sue Cooper standing at my left elbow, flicking her hair in what we used to call the ‘St Mary’s flick’. It was annoying then, and it was annoying now. Sue went on from school to Oxford, only not like me, doing a real academic subject, French at St Hugh’s. ‘What bare you been doing with

yourself? Are your sculptures selling?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Never mind - I expect you have some frightfully well-paid job and are dating Brad Pitt,’ Sue said, in a voice which suggested she thought the exact opposite. ‘I’m in. the Civil Service and I married Clan, do you remember him, he’s a lawyer now. And I’ve got little Tommy,”aged two, staying with his granny.’

‘I’m an administrator in Human Resources for Hamilton Kane.’ I hoped fervently that this sounded more impressive to her than to me.

‘Oh?’ Sue arched her perfect eyebrow. ‘How refreshing, downsizing your life, very postmodern. I heard you were dating Oliver Brown?’

‘Not any more. We broke up,’ I muttered. Georgia Jones was listening to this with triumph.

‘Did one of your ex-boyfriends really wind up in prison? It’s too exciting, all our lives are so boring, good job, getting married,’ said Sue, who didn’t sound bored in the least. Now I knew how one of those butterflies feel when boys stick pins through their tummies to watch them wriggle.

‘I’m so tired, I’m going to have to go to bed.’ It sounded firm to the point of rudeness, but it was better than starting to cry in front of this shower. ‘Excuse me.’

Mrs Drummond was very sweet and steered me off

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up the wide stone staircase. I couldn’t see Keisha and Bronwen making any move to join me, but then they probably found these guys fascinating, whereas I’d been trying to escape this sort of scene all my life. Plus, Keisha and Bronwen had fantastic jobs, whilst I basically organised holidays for a woman who farted like a carthorse.

‘Do get tons of rest. There are so many parties and terrific things to do tomorrow, and I know you’ll want to catch up with Ellen and the boys,’ Mrs Drummond said briskly.

I sank down wearily on to a queen-size bed with ” stout oak legs, covered in a stiff white linen cloth that felt a hundred years old. The red flannel on the sink, he dusty books piled thoughtfully on the bedside table, the soft green lampshade with little tassels, it was so country, so relaxing, I almost envied Ellen. Outside my windows drifted the scent of freshly cut grass, delicious in the warm night air. I remembered what the landscape was like round here, the hedges thik with cow parsley and danddions, and drystone walls bisecting the hills.

Ellen wouldn’t be queening it over Carrefour, though: Tom’s father died when Tom was seventeen, so Tom’s been the owner of this ever since. He’s the elder brother, they do it like that in families like this. Last time I was here his mother controlled the trust fund, but Tom’s all grown up now.

I suppose I was looking forward to seeing him, but to be honest, this all seemed like a waste of time.

I wondered what Seamus was doing right now.

I62,

I woke up to a sound so strange my sleeping brain couldn’t compute. Then I realised what it was: quiet. And birdsong.

I got up and padded across the wooden floor to the window, throwing it open. The air outside was chill but so fresh I could have breathed it for ever. I vaguely remembered when I was a child, first going up to London from Surrey, how it was so filthy I thought I could taste the dirt every time I inhaled, but you get used to aything after a while.

The faint tang of grass clippings was still there. Somebody had actually laid out croquet hoops on the lawn. There was a hoary old orchard weighted down with apples behind that, small misshapen ones grown without pesticides, I bet they tasted fantastic. And the meadows rolled up past the grounds, peppered with black and white cows lazily whisking their tails about, their breath rising like plumes of smoke in the cold. The sky was clear blue, it would be a blazing day later

on.

I was staring at the lavender beds and the kingcups lining a tiny stream to my right-when the door creaked and Keisha walked in, swathed i/1 a huge ancient bathrobe. ‘God, I slept like a log.’

I realised I had too. Whether it was the drive or the country air, I must have been asleep almost before my head touched my pillow.

‘You’d better grab a bath before all the hot water runs out.’

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‘Who says it’s going to?’

‘Well, think about it, Alex, how many people are there in this house?’ Keisha pointed out, so we legged it into my bathroom, which was small, whitewashed and decorated with dead starfish and ships’ timbers. The bath was a big old iron thing standing on dolphin legs, and the water clattered into it. ‘I love it,’ Keisha said, enchanted, while I stripped off and jumped in,

pulling the Pantene 2 in i out of-my nylon bath-bag. ‘Do you really? Aren’t you …’ I tailed off. ‘What, ‘cause I’m black?’

‘They are a bit stuffy, Little Englandy,’ I said.

‘A1, I’m telling you. At least five guys older than my dad were practically falling down the front of my dress,’ Keisha said smugly. ‘And three of the girls were desperate for tips on how to get into TV.’

Relief flooded over me like the lovely hot water. God, it was such bliss to sink your head in it and scrub in the shampoo, and grab that Victorian shower attachment which probably was Victorian. I never feel gogd anywhere unless I’ve washed my hair. It’s even

more necessary than the first cup of coffee.

‘How’s Bronwen doing?’

‘Lost to the world. She got bogged down with this bunch of Tories who wanted to talk about Welsh devolution,’ Keisha laughed.

I grinned, because Bronwen and politics was like William Hague and modelling. An ugly thought.

‘They should be just Bronwen’s type. Staid and boring and probably deep into sexual perversions, with oranges and polythene bags.’

‘What about just your type?’ Keisha demanded. Ignoring my protests, she brought out a white-tipped Marlboro from her fluffy pocket and struck up. ‘There’s a whole bunch of gorgeous young men here. Or so I got told yesterday.’

‘I didn’t see any,’ I sulked.

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‘That’s because they were all out at the stag party. There’s even Lord Henry Molyneux.’ She made an airy gesture with her hand. ‘Younger son of some Irish geezer. Maybe you could bag him.’

‘Vom,’ I made a sick noise. ‘Harry has thick glasses and he’s going bald.’

‘You’re so superficial. I could overlook it,’ Keisha giggled, ‘Lady Keisha, wouldn’t they all drop dead of shock?’

‘If you’re into stag-hunting and freezing old Irish castles—’ and I stopped dead, because that reminded me of Seamus.

‘What about Tom? I know you like him.’

‘Of course I do, but -‘ I stepped out on to the mat and grabbed a towel big enough to cover Kansas, reached for the Aussie Hair Insurance and drenched my split ends, a sort of advance apology for the hairdryer. My hair takes so much punishment it’s amazing it hasn’t all dropped out. Lucky Keisha only has to get hers washed once a week, it’s not fair.

There was a photo of the Drummonds on the shelf

and I showed her what I meant.

‘That’s Charles.’

‘Uuurgh. And that’s - oh my God, is that one person?’

‘Exactly,’ I said, smiling fondly at Tom. Then it hit me, perhaps I had better not be so picky. Perhaps Tom the Goodyear Blimp was the best I could hope for in life. After all, so far I was-Oh for Five, as the Americans would say. Ellen’s getting married had hit me pretty hard. I know it must make me seem like a complete bitch, but it seemed that everyone in the world was paired off except me. And Bronwen, but Bronwen is built like Gail, that sort of wispy fairy elf vibe, the type whom men fall over themselves to get close to. Once she was over Dick, there was a long

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line of eligible blokes who would crack open the

champers at the very thought of her.

Why had my life gone so wrong?

‘There’s bound to be someone here. You’re just closed to anyone who’s not perfect. The trouble with you, Alex,’ said Keisha, and now I was gonna get a lecture from a girl who only dated blokes on the covers

of magazines, ‘is that you’re a hopeless romantic.’

‘Girls are supposed to be romantic.’

‘But they’re not supposed to be hopeless. You meet a

man and you’re head over heels in love with him in five Seconds. You never take the time to check him out. And if he doesn’t appeal immediately, you dismiss him.’

‘Don’t you believe in love at first sight?’

‘No,’ Keisha shouted calmly over the whirr of the

dryer. ‘Lust at first sight. You’ve got them mixed up.’

‘It was love with Seamus.’

‘How could it be love? You didn’t know anything about him. But you latched on to him, and then you couldn’t see any of his faults, because you wanted it to be right so badly. You’re so desperate to get paired off you’re just sabotaging your chances of anything real.’

‘Well, thank you, Dr Keisha.’ I was so annoyed, I

flung the hairdryer down and struggled into a Nicole Farhi knit suit without even looking at her. Because maybe something she was saying had triggered something I was not ready to face yet.

Memories of the first time I saw Oliver. I was still in

my squat then, dragging my sculptures round to galleries and getting the door slammed in my face. It was after another rejection that I bumped into him, literally. I was rounding the corner in a blur of tears and barrelled into a thin, rangy bohemian type who was pointing a camera at a very beautiful girl. Only now he was pointing at a Westminster Council dustbin instead.

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‘Cut! Jesus, why the bloody hell don’t you look where you’re going!’ he shrieked, so loudly I dropped one of my carrier bags, and a statue of a twisting otter smashed into a million pieces.

My inhuman wail worried Oliver so much he handed his camera to an assistant and dragged me into the nearest pub.

‘Get the lady a brandy,’ he barked, and even while the tears were streaming down my cheeks I remember thinking how cute his sloppy blond fringe was. I might honestly be in the depths of misery, but one part of me is always open to the possibility of a gorgeous male. ‘What was it? My God, I’m so sorry’

‘My sc-sculpture,’ I sobbed, downing the brandy and sputtering, because it seared my throat like paint stripper.

‘Shit. Look, how much was it worth? Of course you must let me pay for it.’

‘It was worth bugger all,’ I said, commencing a fresh round of sobbing. Oliver had actually called a halt to filming and taken me back to his hotel, let me use the bathroom, which was rapture, and heard my whole sorry story. And he didn’t even try to get me into bed, not that time, anyway. I could dimly make out the flood of feeling I had that afternoon - that Oliver was a white knight and he was here to save me.

Pretty much the same feeling I’d had with Seamus. And then there was Gerald. How passionately he’d wooed me when I was first down from Oxford, the flowers he used to buy and rip to shreds in front of me, throwing the petils on the road: ‘You should have blossom strewn under your feet.’ Gerald had taken me to the opera, to the ballet, to just about every cultural thing going. ‘You’ll love Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier is perfect for you.’ And he was enchanted by my sculpting, so much so he wanted me to come to the British Museum, to the Ashmolean, everywhere we

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could stand and look at male nudes. Gerald shivered with delight. ‘The curve of his buttocks.., oh, look at the muscles sliding under the skin, Alex darling.’ I took his refusal to have sex as a sign of his sensitive soul. I didn’t realise that Gerald’s enthusiasm for romance was frantic fire-fighting of his gayness. Gerald didn’t want to be gay. But he was, as I found out when I lost weight and chopped off all my hair, looking as gamine as I was ever going to, and Gerald still didn’t want me. We had our first and last row, in which he declared his undying passion for Hillary St John, the scoutmaster of my parents’ village.

I suppose, deep inside, I had known something was wrong. Men always want to have sex with you. They ,might not want to marry you or talk to you or even date you, but they do always want to shag you. That is one of life’s eternal truths.

What if Keisha was right, what if I was such a believer, it was always going to turn around and kick me in the face?

ust at first sight, hmm. I wonder. I mean, I do long for men when I first see them, but it’s not in that overblown, squirmy, panty way you read about. It’s a sort of longing that they be the one. That they like me. That they notice me.

‘See you at breakfast,’ said Keisha, walking out and heading downstairs.

I frantically slapped on my protective covering of make-up. Mouth open .as I daubed the eyeshadow on with my Shu Umera brush that cost forty-five quid. Forty-five quid for an eyeshadow brush, I must be going bonkers. But the effect was pleasing, even in the harsh daylight and this tilting dressing-table mirror, brown-spotted with age.