That Was Then Read online

  ‘I can,’ I said, ‘ all too clearly. Especially Mel. She screamed blue murder for six months.’

  ‘God …’ breathed Desma, ‘how awful.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ observed Dennis. ‘ We couldn’t leave ours at home today, could we Eve? We were instructed to shoehorn them from their pits and drag them along.’

  ‘For Sophie, of course,’ said Rick. ‘So what’s she like?’

  ‘She’s standing right next to you, before you answer that.’

  Rick jumped. Sophie was indeed standing next to him, glass in hand and looking, disconcertingly, not at Rick but at the rest of us, with a cool, quizzical smile. It was poor Rick, however, on whom the blush rose for the third time.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, how terribly rude that must have sounded, what can I say …?’

  ‘It didn’t sound rude at all,’ she said. ‘But someone else’s answer might have, so I thought I’d better declare an interest at once.’

  We laughed – a nervous laugh tinged with relief at the thought of how close we’d been to being caught bang to rights. I introduced the others.

  ‘I hear you’re a horse doctor, Sophie,’ said Dennis. ‘Or going to be.’

  ‘Hope to be – the horse among others.’

  ‘You look far too pretty.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Ten out of ten to Sophie, I thought, for accepting that gently sexist compliment in the right spirit.

  ‘Do you play tennis?’ asked Desma.

  ‘I do, but I’m a complete rabbit.’

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘ we have to decide whether that’s false modesty or the real thing.’

  ‘It’s the real thing – I’ve got lots to be modest about, believe me.’

  Philip, who’d been hovering at her shoulder, said: ‘I find that hard to believe.’ He was working well.

  ‘And you’re enjoying life on the farm?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s no doss, but it’s good, yes.’ She looked round at us. ‘Do I know everyone?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘You and I have actually met before and I—’

  ‘Yes, you went skinny dipping with Sabine.’ I joined in with the general laughter, pulling my stomach in as I did so. ‘You are brave,’ she added generously.

  ‘Not really, it was a warm night—’

  ‘I don’t mean doing it, I mean doing it with Sabine.’

  She didn’t need to enlarge, we all knew what she meant. The men chuckled and looked at their feet, Desma and I exchanged a look.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘let me introduce us.’

  I did, and she hook hands firmly with everyone, looking into each face as she did so as if memorising it. She exuded, as well as charm, common sense.

  ‘OK,’ said Philip. ‘I’m going to drag you outside.’

  ‘Fine.’ She smiled at us. ‘ Looks as though I’m off.’

  We chorused our farewells.

  ‘Impressive young lady,’ commented Dennis. ‘Bet she’s got Martin round her little finger.’

  I watched Sophie’s small figure being swallowed up by a group which included Ben. Then, knowing that if I stayed there I’d be tempted to watch her progress, I detached myself from the others and headed back into the room. A steely clutching hand on my arm announced Sabine before I heard the equally metallic tinkle of her voice.

  ‘Eve, where are you off to?’

  ‘I’m circulating.’

  ‘What a good guest – so perfectly trained – let me find you some nice people to talk to.’

  I knew what she meant – she meant she wanted a quiet word. The next thing was that I found myself near the door with Sabine’s face twelve inches away, still wearing its ironed-on hostess smile, but emitting a steaming hiss of pent-up curiosity.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  I didn’t need to ask what she meant. ‘ She’s lovely.’

  ‘A cool customer?’

  ‘Certainly. But you’d rather have that, wouldn’t you, than a shrinking violet? It’s a lot less bother.’

  ‘I never know what’s going on in her head,’ protested Sabine.

  ‘Much better not to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I could see nothing was going to allay her groundless and amorphous fears. ‘Well, what you don’t know can’t cause you to lose sleep.’

  ‘So – you think it would? If I did?’

  ‘Sabine!’ I was exasperated. ‘No. I think she’s a nice, pretty, self-possessed modern girl and you should have no worries whatever on her account.’

  ‘I do hope you’re right …’ She shook her head, then broke once more into an animated smile as she caught someone’s eye. ‘She is certainly more attractive than I remembered, but I find her curiously unsympathetic.’

  I didn’t find this curious at all, but I knew better than to say so. ‘Just get on with your life, Sabine, and let her get on with hers. You’re devoting far too much head space to the whole thing. Let Martin do whatever needs doing. He’s like a dog with two tails anyway.’

  Sabine’s brow darkened jealously at this, but at that moment Martin himself approached from the hall, accompanied by another guest.

  ‘Darling – look who just bowled up.’

  ‘Chuckle!’ The storm clouds were dispersed by a ray of genuine sunshine. The late arrival opened wide his arms and engulfed his hostess in a thoroughly disrespectful bear hug such as only a broad-shouldered all-American male could carry off sucessfully.

  ‘Put her down man,’ said Martin. ‘And shake hands nicely with Eve Piercy.’

  ‘It’d be my pleasure,’ said Charles McNally. ‘Especially since we have already met.’

  ‘But when?’ Sabine asked breathlessly as Charles was being introduced elsewhere. ‘Where?’

  ‘When I was visiting Mel. He was staying at the hotel.’

  ‘You never said!’ She was quite put out by what she clearly perceived as my treacherous evasions, but at least it had drawn the fire away from Sophie.

  ‘There was nothing to say. It was nothing more than an encounter.’

  ‘Encounter?’

  I laughed and shook my head. ‘ Stop trying to make something of it, Sabine. We met. We exchanged a few pleasantries, that’s all. I’m surprised he even remembers.’

  ‘Ah, but he does. And so –’ Sabine tapped my shoulder with a crimson nail – ‘ do you.’

  I think I may have appeared a little discomforted, for she laughed knowingly before cruising away, secure once more in her position as woman of the world. Not that I presented even the smallest challenge to that position. It was an area, I reflected wistfully, where I gave ground to almost every other woman of my acquaintance.

  I talked for a while to two other couples, part of the Drages’ freemasonry of money. New or old was of no consequence, it was the cash that counted. At their parties one could clearly see that being wealthy was a far more bonding experience than poverty. All that we-lived-in-a-two-up-and-two-down-but-we-never-thoughtto-lock-our-doors stuff was so much rose-tinted guff. It was the rich who needed each other in order to be able to talk about money without embarrassment. And what’s more they seemed to be able to sniff out comparable levels of income for a radius of fifty miles. The appearance of some palatial residence on the market got the antennae waving, and its subsequent sale sent the message that the local chapter had new members. These were people with never less than three cars and as many homes; people with live-in domestics and a driver; people who were Friends of the Royal Opera and Ballet, and a couple of hand-picked charities; whose children’s engagements were in The Times and whose family weddings (five-pole marquee on the lawn, four-course dinner, three wines, two bands and a cabaret) cost more than most people’s houses. People who, despite their life of conspicuous consumption stayed fit because they owned their own court, pool or gym – or all three. People who very understandably found it a great relief to get together with the similarly loaded to discuss the best and most profitable way to spend it.

  The couples
I spoke to were perfectly congenial. The uncharitable might have asked, Why wouldn’t they be? But no, they were charming people, habitual party-goers and givers who knew instinctively that I was not as they were and stuck accordingly to safe, non-cash-driven topics. Of which there were surprisingly few when you got right down to it. In a Basil Fawltyish don’t-mention-the-war sort of way the more disparate incomes were a factor the more they reared their ugly heads.

  Anyway, we managed for fifteen minutes or so – the equivalent of a week in politics at a cocktail party – and then I said something about wanting to make sure my son was behaving himself (they laughed, but I was being perfectly serious) and I escaped.

  I had a nasty moment on first going out on to the terrace: there was no one there. I had visions of a mass exodus to the Ferret, instigated by Ben. But they were down on the lawn, lying indolently about on the grass like lions at a kill. Unlike us clean-living oldies they all smoked, and had created their own micro-environment, a haze of pollution that hung over them and separated them still further from their elders. I tried and failed to pick out Ben. Some mysterious generational juju made them all look alike at this distance.

  ‘Jealous?’

  It was Charles McNally, hands on the wall on either side of his Scotch, arms braced as if about to push a pick-up truck out of a ditch.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Wish you were young again?’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  He gave a small, slow shake of the head. ‘ Not me.’

  ‘Do you? Wish you were?’

  ‘Sure.’ He turned round and leaned against the wall with his arms folded. ‘I’d go back, given half a chance.’

  ‘And would you do things differently?’

  ‘Now then would I …?’ He had an easy, unhurried way of moving, and had scarcely glanced at my face. I remembered something about eye-contact being threatening to children and animals – he must have read the same article. ‘I don’t know,’ he concluded, ‘but I’d certainly make sure I had more fun.’

  ‘Anyhow, he added, after a pause. ‘I’m making up for it now. Swell party.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I couldn’t be sure whether he was being serious, but now he gave himself away by breaking into a grin and mimicking me:

  ‘Absolutely!’

  I laughed. ‘No, it is.’

  ‘You know our hosts well?’

  ‘Pretty well. I play tennis regularly with Sabine – a group of us do – and I got to know Martin later.’

  ‘Martin’s one of the good guys. And all this is in aid of his daughter – whom I haven’t yet met.’

  ‘She’s down there—’ I nodded in the direction of the lawn beneath us – ‘mixing with her own kind.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s as it should be I guess.’

  We gazed down for a while, the young people on the grass providing a shared focus.

  ‘One of those gilded young things belongs to you?’ he asked.

  ‘My son’s there somewhere.’

  ‘And you have that smart cookie of a daughter in the UAE.’

  I was surprised by this. ‘You know Mel?’

  ‘I met her. Ankatex gave a reception last time I was over.’

  ‘Ah. Yes – she certainly knew who you were.’

  As soon as I’d said this I regretted it. Had I sounded in some way insinuating? But he seemed not to have noticed.

  ‘That’s one clever girl.’

  ‘She is, isn’t she?’ I agreed. ‘I don’t know where she gets it from.’

  ‘Her mother, perhaps?’ He turned his head and gave me a steady, civil look.

  ‘Oh God, hardly! I’m almost totally disorganised, and what brain I have is scarcely ever in gear, I just muddle along.’

  He didn’t bother taking issue with me, but gave a little laugh and drained his drink, gesturing with his empty glass at mine.

  ‘Can I get you another?’

  ‘Umm, it’s OK, I’ve got a drop left,’ I waffled. He was bored by me and my gauche need to run myself down. Why embarrass myself any further by forcing him to come back with a drink?

  ‘Right. OK, if you’ll excuse me.’

  It was a relief to watch his backview – high, wide and handsome – disappear into the crowd. The sort of men I liked about me these days were safe, pleasant, companionable men; men who were happily married (I realised I had no idea whether he was or not); men who knew me enough to set us both at ease, but not so well as to get under my skin; men who flirted with me, if they did so at all, in a spirit of friendly mutual regard. Charles McNally was in every respect an unknown quantity. His calm questioning had exposed in me a dismaying lack of savoir-faire, which I was afraid might have been his intention. He was, I reminded myself, one of the sharks.

  I turned back to the garden, just in time to see Sophie, with Ben, returning from the direction of the new tennis court and the trees that shielded it from the cliff. They were in animated conversation. When they rejoined the others Sophie lay down flat on her back with her hands behind her head. Ben, laughing, sat next to her with his arms resting on his upbent knees. But in less than a minute he too lay down, and I could no longer see their faces.

  ‘I brought one anyway.’

  A full glass appeared before me on the wall.

  ‘Oh – thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  He’d come back – why? For something to say I blurted out: ‘I just saw my son with Martin’s daughter.’

  ‘All right … And – excuse me – that’s good? Or not so good?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Good, I think. Because he’s a bit of a loose cannon and she seems like a really nice girl.’

  ‘And your ambition for him is to consort with a nice girl.’ This was presented as something between a question and a statement. I got the impression that he’d already decided, but he was sufficiently polite to couch it as a query. Nettled, I adjusted my words.

  ‘I didn’t mean nice as in nice. I don’t know what sort of girl she is, but she certainly seems bright and she’s undoubtedly attractive.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  I took a huge gulp of my new drink, which somewhat undermined my earlier insistence that I didn’t need one.

  Charles McNally said: ‘I don’t have kids, but I can imagine you want them to have what we want for ourselves.’

  ‘Yes. Health, happiness.…’

  ‘Love and lots of it?’ he suggested.

  ‘Love, certainly.’

  He gave another of his little laughs, a barely audible grunting exhalation.

  ‘What does your husband think?’

  This threw me. Because Ian and I weren’t yet divorced I still wore my wedding ring and, on this occasion, my eternity ring as well. But I was not used to being with someone who didn’t understand, who didn’t know me – someone who might have glanced at my left hand on purpose to ascertain my marital status. I found it difficult, even now, to admit to not being fully married.

  ‘Well – we’re separated.’

  ‘So what does he think?’ The question was repeated unblinkingly, with an almost dismissive lack of reaction.

  ‘He wants the best for his children, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally. Including the nice girl.’ Another of those left-to-hang query statements, which I could pluck down or ignore as I chose. I decided it was my turn to set the agenda.

  ‘We aren’t heavy parents,’ I declared. ‘We never have been. I’ve never dreamed of white weddings and grandchildren, and I don’t mind who my children go to bed with provided it’s safe and legal.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Charles McNally. He ducked his head in the direction of the young people. ‘Judging by the body language down there your son is in the process of making another conquest.’

  At the same moment that he piqued my maternal pride and curiosity into looking, he prevented me from doing so by thrusting out a huge hand.

  ‘I’ll be saying good-bye. I have to talk to Martin before I go.�
��

  ‘Oh … good-bye.’

  ‘It was nice meeting you again.’

  My hand was clasped and released in such a way that it felt small and cold afterwards. I felt I’d been subjected to some kind of test, but I had no idea whether or not I had passed.

  The young, with one of their instinctive, herdlike impulses began one by one to get up and head back towards the terrace. I saw that Ben rose first, but that Sophie, still languorously prostrate, held up a hand, and he grasped it and pulled her to her feet. The group collected up the glasses and the bottles, and someone with a conscience – one of the Chatsworth boys – picked up cigarette ends and dropped them in a glass.

  They arrived on the terrace, and infiltrated the room beyond. Ben and Sophie were last to arrive.

  ‘We’re going to wander down to the beach,’ said Ben.

  ‘Now?’ I asked stupidly.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘All this time I’ve been here and I’ve never clapped eyes on the sea,’ said Sophie by way of explanation. ‘I’m always headed in the opposite direction.’

  ‘Well don’t expect too much,’ I said. ‘It’s not exactly the Promenade des Anglais down there.’

  ‘I like grim seaside towns,’ she asserted, a touch backhandedly.

  ‘So that’s OK,’ said Ben. They disappeared into the throng of drinkers. It was impossible to tell from their demeanour whether the flame of a true passion had been lit in either of their breasts – Charles McNally was a better reader of body language than I. I caught myself wondering if Ben would remember to thank Sabine and Martin, and whether Sabine had planned one of her inimitable cold collations for a chosen few, and if she had what would be her attitude to the guest of honour buggering off to the beach with a bloke? My motives were entirely selfish – I did not wish to be sucked into Sabine’s vortex of agitation about her stepdaughter.

  It turned out I needn’t have worried. No sooner had I reentered the drawing room and gravitated once again towards the pleasant and undemanding company of Dennis, than Sabine cut me off at the pass, cornered me and fixed me with her glittering eye.

  ‘The young people are going down to the beach,’ she informed me.