Venus Envy (26 page)

Do you really want to make an exhibition of yourself?’ ‘No, of course not. I was trying to—’

I was about to launch into a detailed explanation, but the contemptuous look on that chiselled face suddenly shut me up. ‘I’m not seeking to talk to him, OK? That’s all you need to know.’

‘You’re not. Well, I’m sure that’ll be a great comfort to his wife.’

‘Oh congratulations, Tom,”I snarled. ‘You didn’t tell me theQueen made you Archbishop of Canter° bury. And here I am thinking you were just a mate of mine, when you’re actually responsible for the nation’s morality. Seamus has other women, you know. Lots of them - it’s not like Dolores doesn’t know it, she told me herself. She should divorce him if that’s how she feels.’

‘I can’t believe you,’ Tom said softly. Somehow that

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tone of voice hurt me more than when he flew into a furious rage. ‘Lots of other women. So that makes it all right? You don’t mind being part of his harem?’

I took a deep breath. ‘There’s nothing between Seamus and me, Tom. And I don’t owe you any explanations.’

‘Fine.’ He stiffened in the saddle and tugged on Coach’s reins. Amazingly, she responded instantly, walking obediently alongside Tom’s gelding.

I wanted to have a screaming fight with him about this, but I bit my tongue. What could you do, when the annoying bastard had just saved your bacon?

We were in sight of the others When Tom deigned to speak to me again.

‘We’re going to have to have a little talk.’

‘I don’t think so. I’ve had enough of your little talks

to last me for a bit, thanks.’

‘It’s about Olivia.’

‘What about her?’ Now he’d got my dander up. He was deliberately trying to make me feel one foot high. Everything I did was wrong: even if it was actually Gail who had brought her along, yours truly was the one who was going to get the lecture. ‘If you objected to another guest, you could have said so when she arrived. It’s going to look a bit weird if I have to tell her to leave now.’

‘I hadn’tm’ Tom broke off, looking awkward. As well he might, the rude fucker. What kind of a host was he being? ‘I hadn’t thought it through then.’

‘I see. And now you have, and my friends aren’t

good enough for you.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You might as well have, though. If you want her to leave, you’d better speak to her yourself. I’m not your social secretary.’

‘Actually… I did have a word with her last night,’ “

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Tom muttered. He couldn’t even look me in the face. Now I was shocked, even more shocked than I was angry.-Had Tom Drummond really changed that much? He had always been the perfect gentleman, back in the days when he was fat and I didn’t fancy him. Now he was uninviting my friends from his house. Not that Snowy was my friend, but he didn’t know that.

Is .it a life rule? All attractive men are bastards? Tom had got attractive, so he had to turn into a bastard too?

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‘She refused to leave,’ Tom said.

I spurred Coach pretty hard, sending her trotting towards the others. The late afternoon had turned a rosy gold, the sun over the hills washing banners of scarlet behind the forest.

‘Then you’ve got a problem, I don’t see what I’m supposed to do. I can’t force her to go. Don’t you think it’ll look a bit odd, when she’s been here for a day already?’

Tom looked crossly at me. ‘Well then, get her to keep herself to herself. The way she’s flirting with my brother is appalling.’

‘It takes two to tango, mate. Charlie’s the one who’s promising to forsake all others, not Olivia.’

‘Don’t you give a damn about the sanctity of marriage?’

‘I’m not getting married. I don’t see your brother politely excusing himself.’

‘I see I can have no effect on you,’ Tom said stiffly. ‘Maybe I’ll have more success with your little sister. She seems willing to listen, at least.’

I was sure Tom would have ecery s.uccess with Gail. She must have been thrilled, I thought bitterly, she had always set her cap at him, how triumphant for her that it was all coming right.

But the cheek of him! Like his brother couldn’t take any decisions on his own. Men like to excuse themselves - oh, she made me do it, I couldn’t resist her. It’s a Galactic cop-out, if you ask me. Tom could do his

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Sex Police thing on his own. I mean, sure, Snowy shouldn’t have been flirting with the groom, but Snowy flirted with every man. Charlie was the one in the ‘committed’ relationship. For most men, a ‘committed’ relationship means they’ll be staying for breakfast, and you’ll be cooking it.

.Coach finally ambled on to the bridlepath again, and I told the gawking guests what had happened and listened to Gillian and Gail coo-over Tom’s heroism.

‘Buck up, Alex. You look so grumpy,’ Snowy giggled.

I glanced at Charlie but his hard-on had mercifully disappeared.

‘I’m going back, if that’s OK. I need a bath,’ I , mumbled.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Seamus said right away.

Tom stared at me with all the warmth of an arctic iceberg.

‘No thanks, I want to be on my own. Feeling a bit shook up,’ I told him firmly.

‘Maybe later,’ Seamus said.

‘I’ll go with her,’ Mrs Jones said generously, shifting her vast bum in the saddle. ‘I’m sure too much exercise is no good for me. One has to pace oneself.’

The bathroom had been tidied up in my absence. Someone had laid out gallons of Floris bath essence and fresh fluffy white towels. As I scrubbedmy scalp, I stared out at the rows of lavender, washed rose in the approaching sunset, and tried not to be too miserable.

Seamus Mahon was a problem I would just have to put off. I couldn’t think about work right now..

I wondered how Tom Drummond could be having this effect on me. He was so priggish and aggravating. And of course anybody was vulnerable when somebody had just stopped them from charging over a cliff. But he was not interested in me. He’d made that

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very clear. First he thought I was the Whore of Babylon because I’d had an affair with Seamus. Then he told me I was selfish about Ellen - me! - and finally he let me know that my friends weren’t good enough and I should uninvite them from his house. That’s what he was really saying, after all. Snowy and I went to the same school, we were not upper-class like him, our parents were relentlessly suburban. He was saying Snowy should go, and what he meant was, I should go.

Perhaps he had been different at Oxford because he had had higher hopes of me then. Maybe he thought it would be smart to have a little commie, a leftie artist, in his circle. But now I was not a commie or even an artist. Now I was just failed old Alex. He probably invited me down just so he could confirm to himself what a tragic disappointment,I really was.

It was tQo morbid to be thinking like this. I decided to try and think about something else.

I came down from my room two hours later in my Donna Karan silk suit, with my hair blow-dried and gleaming, and my best make-up on.

Tom Drummond was offering pre-dinner glasses of sherry to everybody in the drawing room. He didn’t give me so much as a second glance.

Ellen and Charlie were sitting together perched on a corner of the sofa. So were Seamus and Dolores, both of them sending me hostile glances. Snowy was lounging about with Gail, Keisha and Bronwen, wearing a backless satin cocktail dress that drew the eyes of the men like a homing beacbn.

‘So Dolores, what’s the secret of a happy marriage?’ Ellen beamed plumply. ‘Good cooking, I expect,’ and she squealed with laughter.

Td say it’s not to expect too much out of life,’ Dolores said bleakly. ‘But friendship is so much more important than sex,

isn’t it?’ Ellen said earnestly. ‘I mean, that’s what you’ve got left when you’re eighty.’

Snowy got up and crossed the room. The whisky decanter was right in front of Charlie, and she bent over to freshen her crystal tumbler, giving him the full Grand Canyon view. Scarlet satin slithered around the lean contours of her body like a snakeskin. ‘The trouble is, there’s a few years to go before you reach eighty,’ she said smoothly.

‘But passion’s so overrated,’ Ellen said nervously. Her eyes were fixed on Snowy like a mouse on a cat.

‘Do you think so?’ Snowy asked sweetly, before going to sit by Danny Boyle.Danny was a single man, of course. I shot a meaningful look at Tom as Danny put a tanned hand on her upper arm and started to stroke it.

Charlie Drummond looked like he wanted to strangle Danny, but that was hardly Snowy’s fault, was it? ‘I find it’s vital,’ she went on. ‘I can’t live without it.’ Suddenly every man in the room started to cough and take large swigs of their own drinks.

‘What do you say about passion, Alex Wilde?’ Seamus Mahon suddenly asked loudly, causing his wife to shoot him a look of pure hatred. I blushed fire engine red to the roots of my hair, making me look guiltier than ever. Oh God, what had I done?

‘It’s never been anything to write home about for me,’ I said firmly. ‘I agree with Ellen.’

Seamus bridled. ‘I’m sure some of your ex boyfriends would tell a different tale, now.’

‘How on earth would you know about my ex boyfriends?’ I demanded craftily. ‘And anyway, you ever seen When Harry Met Sally? That’s all men understand.’

Keisha laughed out loud and started clapping. Seamus shut up in discomfiture, and Dolores Mahon

gave me a small - a very small - smile. I’d almost say it was fellow feeling.

I took a slug of sherry and went on. OK, I know I’m no Snowy or Gail, and all the women here were thinner and prettier than me, but my new suit was making me feel at least presentable.

‘And good divorce lawyers. Men have to be careful, these days. A prominent wife can walk off with fifty per cent, you know. Like Terence Conran’s. He said she’d only cooked a few meals, but the judge gave her ten million quid.’

Now Seamus had gone a bit green about the gills. , All the wives were staring at me like I’d sworn in church - talking about divorce law at a time like this. The expression on Tom’s face was unfathomable, but I didn’t care. That felt good, it truly did. And Dolores Mahon just winked at me.

I suppose faking orgasms doesn’t fit Tom’s ‘social topics for discussion list’.

‘We’ve only got tomorrow to do the rehearsal. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Alex,’ Ellen said reassuringly patronisingly, I thought.

‘I’m sure the magenta Laura Ash will look fabulous,’ Mrs Drummond said warmly. As a matter of fact, it made me look like a stick of salami - the big fat ones, not the Pepperami bite-size ones, and it clashed with my hair. I. was sitting here with massive red streaks round my temples and they didn’t seem to have noticed.. It reminded me of what Ellen and I used .to sing at school whenever we saw one of the mistresses walk past in a brown skirt and orange jumper, to the tune of Queen’s Flash Gordon - ‘Clash! Aaah! Saviour of the Universe!’ I expected the Lower Fifth to pop up and yell that at me as I tripped down the aisle in a flounce of cod-Elizabethan ruffles.

I knew this because Mum had the exact same Laura

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Ash at home, and forced me to wear it to a Rotary Club dinner dance one night.

‘It goes so well with my dark pink roses,’ Ellen gushed.

Snowy looked like she wanted to puke, and she was

not the only one.

‘We’ll see,’ I told them.

I thought smugly of my long, iris gown arriving tomorrow. Ho ho. Cinderella, you shall go to the ball.

When I woke up there was a light drizzle of rain falling over the fields outside. It softened the scent of the grass, it just hit you when you opened the window. What an amazing house. I could almost be sorry that tonight was my last night here.

There was a heavy rap on my door.

‘Come,’ I said. I do that because it reminds me of Captain Picard in Star Trek. I’ve always had a big crush on Captain Picard, bald head and everything, and make a new resolution only to moon after Captain P’icard. After all, he never gets it together with Dr Beverly Crusher, not properly, so he is available, and he has the advantage of being a fictional character who will therefore never be able to break my heart.

This is a strangely cheering thought. I can add Han

Solo and Indiana Jones (quite similar when you think about it) and James Bond and Robin Hood to the list. Or I could just go for dead .people, like smart Mrs Drummond, who has photos of John Wayne everywhere in her kitchen. I could fall for Sir Francis Drake and Richard the Lionheart.

But wait a second, he was gay, wasn’t he?

See? Even my dead boyfriends let me down.

You think that’s weird, you should have seen me when I was a kid. I had a crush on Hercules, and he was a cartoon character.

Ellen bounced in. Ripples of flesh shuddered around her generous thighs.

‘Come! Gosh, Alex, you should be more careful. People might mistake your meaning, ha, ha, ha! Come on, we’ve got to get you dressed and down for breakfast. Full dress rehearsal at ten o’clock.’

‘Right.’ I staggered out of bed and headed for a shower. ‘Where’s Gail?’

‘She’s gone off with Tom to pick out a wedding present. So sweet,’ Ellen said, ‘and isn’t she looking

pretty? Tom can’t stay away from her.’

‘Mmm, so I noticed.’

‘Charlie is going through the speeches with Keisha, Bronwen and Olivia.’ Ellen’s face fell a bit. ‘She’s awfully pretty, isn’t she? Charlie seems very taken with her.’

‘Well, gou’re the one he’s marrying,’ I said lightly. Still, thank God Keisha was with them. I wasn’t going to say word one to Snowy, I had decided, but how much better if they weren’t on their own.

Why did Ellen put up with it? I thought with a flash

of irritation. Why didn’t she just take Charlie aside and bollock him?

‘She’s so slim and pretty. I mean, I could never look like that.’

Not when you have three helpings of potatoes and two of pudding every night, no.

‘I don’t know what he sees in me,’ Ellen sighed, ‘I don’t really.’