“And I won’t have more than fourteen glasses a week.”
And on and on she went until she had finally persuaded herself that a bottle of tequila a night was fine. I’d heard it many times before.
“Lucy, I was terrible,” she confided. “I took off my blouse and I danced around in my bra.”
“Just your bra?” I asked solemnly.
“Yes.”
“No panties?”
“Of course I had my panties on. And my skirt.”
“Well, that wasn’t so bad then, was it?”
“No, I suppose not. Oh, Lucy, cheer me up. Tell me a story. Tell me…let me see, tell me…tell me about the time that your boyfriend dumped you because he’d fallen for another guy.”
My heart sank.
But I could only blame myself. I had carefully cultivated a reputation for myself as a bit of a comic raconteur—at least among my close friends—with my own life tragedies in the starring roles. A long time ago it had dawned on me that one way I could avoid being a tragic and pitiful figure was to be a witty and amusing figure instead. Especially if I was being witty and amusing about my tragic and pitiful aspects.
That way no one could laugh at me, because I’d already beaten them to it. But right then I just couldn’t manage it.
“Oh no, Charlotte, I can’t…”
“Oh go on!”
“No.”
“Please! Just tell me about when he made you cut your hair short and he still dumped you.”
“Oh…oh…damn you! All right then.”
Who knows, I thought, it might cheer me up.
So, as amusingly as I could, I regaled Charlotte with the story of one of my many humiliating losses in love. Just to make her feel that no matter how much of a disaster her life was, it could never be as bad as mine.
“There’s a party tonight,” said Karen. “Are you coming?”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” asked Karen shrewdly. As she was Scottish, she was good at asking things shrewdly.
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I got strong-armed into saying that I’d go out for dinner with Daniel.”
“Dinner with Daniel. Lucky you,” breathed Charlotte, her face aglow.
“But why did he ask you?” shrieked Karen in disgust.
“Karen!” said Charlotte.
“Oh, you know what I mean, Lucy,” said Karen impatiently.
“I do.”
Karen didn’t mince words but, in fairness, she was absolutely right—I couldn’t understand either why Daniel had wanted to take me.
“He’s split up with whatshername,” I said, and immediately there was uproar. Karen sat bolt upright on the couch, like a corpse risen from the dead.
“Are you serious?” she asked, an odd, manic look on her face.
“Absolutely.”
“Wow,” breathed Charlotte, with a beatific smile. “Isn’t this wonderful?”
“So he’s a free man?” asked Karen.
“He is indeed,” I said solemnly. “Repaid his debt to society and all that.”
“Not for long, if I’ve anything to do with it,” said Karen, her voice full of steely determination, her head full of images of herself and Daniel walking hand-in-hand into posh restaurants, herself and Daniel smiling at each other radiantly on their wedding day, herself and Daniel tenderly tickling their first-born child.
“Where’s he taking you?” asked Karen, when she had returned to the present and the general fuss had died down a bit.
“Some Russian place.”
“Not The Kremlin?” asked Karen, sounding shocked.
“Yes.”
“You lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky girl.”
The pair of them stared at me, naked jealousy on their faces.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said fearfully. “I don’t even want to go.”
“How can you say that?” asked Charlotte. “A good-looking…”
“Rich,” interjected Karen.
“A good-looking, rich man like Daniel wants to take you to some posh restaurant and you don’t even want to go?”
“But he’s not good-looking and rich…” I protested lamely.
“He is!” they chorused.
“Well, maybe he is. But, but…but it’s no good to me,” I said weakly. “I don’t think he’s good-looking. He’s just a friend. And I think it’s a total waste to have
to go out with a friend on a Saturday night. Especially when I’d rather not go out at all.”
“You’re weird,” muttered Karen.
I didn’t deny it. She was preaching to the converted.
“What are you going to wear?” asked Charlotte.
“Don’t know.”
“But you’ve got to know! You’re not just going to the pub for a pint.”
Daniel arrived at about eight and I wasn’t ready. But I would still have been in my pyjamas if Charlotte and Karen hadn’t bullied and cajoled me into having a bath and putting on my glamorous gold dress.
Not that I thanked them for it. I just accused them of dressing up and going out with Daniel vicariously.
They gave me lots of advice on what to wear and what way to do my makeup and my hair, and they started every sentence with, “Now, if I was going out with Daniel…” and, “If Daniel had asked me…”
“Wear these, wear these,” said Charlotte in excitement, pulling some silky, lacy stockings out of my underwear drawer.
“No,” I said, taking them from her and putting them back.
“But they’re beautiful.”
“I know.”
“So why don’t you wear them?”
“What for? It’s only Daniel.”
“You’re so ungrateful.”
“I’m not. What’s the point in wearing them? It’s a waste—who’s going to see them?”
“Jesus,” said Karen, pulling out a bra, “I didn’t know they made bras this small.”
“Show me,” demanded Charlotte, pulling it from her
and then dissolving into convulsions. “My God! It’s like a doll’s bra! My nipple would just about fit into it.”
“You must have tiny nipples,” laughed Karen, elbowing Charlotte. “I didn’t know they made triple A cups.”
I stomped around the bedroom, my face red with shame, waiting for them to finish making fun of me.
Just as the doorbell rang, Karen raced into my room and sprayed me energetically with her perfume.
“Thanks,” I said, my eyes watering, waiting for the clouds to disperse.
“No, silly,” she said. “It’s so that you’ll smell like me. You’re paving the way for me with Daniel.”
“Oh.”
Charlotte and Karen fought over who was going to answer the door to him and Karen won because she had lived in the flat longer.
“Come in,” she said brightly and exuberantly, flinging wide the door for him. Karen was always bright and exuberant when Daniel was around and the door was probably not the only thing she would have liked to be flinging wide for him.
Daniel looked just like Daniel, but no doubt at some later date, I’d have to listen to Karen and Charlotte blab on and on about how beautiful he was.
It was funny that women liked him so much because there was nothing really remarkable about him.
It wasn’t as if he had piercing blue eyes and blue-black hair and a sexy, sulky mouth and a jawbone the size of a handbag. Nothing of the sort.
He had grey eyes, which weren’t a bit piercing—grey eyes were boring, I thought.
And his hair was that non-colour—brown. As indeed was mine, except that he had been touched by the Good-Hair
Fairy so his hair was straight and shiny. While mine was springy and curly and after I’d been caught in the rain, I looked like I’d had a home perm.
He smiled at Karen. He smiled a lot. And everyone that ever found Daniel attractive kept going on about what a nice smile he had and I couldn’t see wh
y. It was only a row of little lumps of enamel.
Okay, so he seemed to have a full set and they looked like they were real. And none were missing, or black, or at right angles to his face, but so what?”
The secret of his success, I reckoned, was that he looked like the boy next door, like a decent, friendly man, one with old-fashioned values, who’d treat you like a lady.
Which was so far from the truth that it was funny. But by the time his women found that out, it was far, far too late.
“Hello, Karen,” said Daniel, doing the smile thing again. “How are you?”
“Wonderful!” she declared. “Just great!”
And immediately she launched straight into unashamed flirting. She gave him lots of level looks and knowing smiles. And with supreme self confidence she possessively brushed imaginary fluff from his dark winter coat.
“Hello, Daniel.” Charlotte sidled slowly out of her bedroom. She also flirted unashamedly with him, but she played the sweet shy smiles and fleeting eye contact card. All rosy cheeks and delicate blushes and clear-eyed, clear-skinned, milk-drinking wholesomeness.
Daniel stood in our little hall, and smiled and looked very tall.
He resisted Karen’s attempts to steer him into the living room. “Thanks, but no,” he said. “I’ve got a taxi waiting outside.”
He looked at me rather meaningfully as he said that, and then he looked at his watch.
“You’re early,” I accused. I rushed up and down the hall trying to find my high heels.
“Actually, I’m exactly on time,” he said mildly.
“Well, you should have known better,” I called from the bathroom.
“You look nice,” he said, grabbing me as I hurried past again and attempting to kiss me. Charlotte looked woebegone.
“Ugh,” I said, wiping my face. “Stop it, you’ll ruin my makeup.”
I found my high heels in the kitchen, in the gap between the fridge and the washing machine. I put them on and stood beside Daniel. He was still far too tall.
“You look beautiful, Lucy,” said Charlotte wistfully. “I love that golden dress on you. You look like a princess.”
“Yes,” agreed Karen, smiling straight into Daniel’s eyes and holding his gaze for far longer than was necessary—not that he seemed to mind, the womanizer.
“Don’t they make a lovely pair?” asked Charlotte, smiling from me to Daniel and back again.
“No, we don’t,” I grumbled, shifting from high heel to high heel in embarrassment. “We’re ridiculous. He’s far too tall and I’m far too short. People are going to think the circus is in town.”
Charlotte made shocked and effusive denial of this, but Karen didn’t contradict me.
Karen was very competitive. She couldn’t help it. She was one of those people who never put herself down, was never self-deprecating, never made rueful little jokes at her own expense. Whereas I, on the other hand, rarely did anything else. I really think she actually couldn’t.
She was perfectly nice most of the time but if things went wrong, you crossed her at your peril—especially when she was drunk, when she could be quite terrifying. She had a big thing about respect. In fact, she was nearly obsessed about it if you asked me.
About two months previously her boyfriend Mark had timidly suggested that they might be getting a bit too serious, and she barely let him finish the sentence before she ordered him to get out of the apartment and never to come back. She hardly even gave the poor guy time to dress himself. (In fact, she still had his underpants which she waved in triumph out the window after him as he slunk off home.) Then she bought three bottles of wine and insisted that I stay in with her while she drank her way through it.
It was a terrible night—she sat there, looking like thunder, saying nothing, just occasionally muttering “bastard” while I nervously sipped wine by her side, murmuring what I hoped were comforting platitudes. Then out of the blue, she turned nasty.
She turned to me and grabbed the front of my dress and slurred, “Eff ah doan’ respec’ mahsell, then who’s goan to?”
“Eh?” she asked me again, her Scottish accent pronounced, her eyes half closed and her face too close to mine. “Ansairr me!”
“Indeed,” I agreed nervously. “Who’s, er, goan to?”
But she apologized the following day and hadn’t behaved the same way since. Apart from being competitive, she was a great roommate. She was good fun, had great clothes that she would loan without too much begging, she could be extremely vulgar and she always paid her rent on time. Of course, I was aware that if our interests ever clashed I should be prepared to either back out grace fully or start enjoying hospital food. But our interests hadn’t ever clashed yet—and they were hardly likely to start clashing over Daniel.
She was making the most of her close proximity to him.
“There’s a party tonight,” she told him, addressing him and him alone. “Perhaps you’d like to come along afterwardss.”
“That sounds good,” he agreed, smiling at her. “I’d better write down the address.”
“It’s all right,” I said, quite touched by the air of romance in the hall. “I have it.”
“You’re sure?” Karen asked anxiously.
“I’m sure. Now let’s go. Let’s get this over and done with.”
“Please come to the party,” called Karen. “Even if Lucy doesn’t want to.”
Especially if Lucy doesn’t want to was what she really meant, I thought with a laugh.
We left, Daniel bestowing his game-show-host smile on Karen and Charlotte, me bestowing an amused look on Daniel.
“What?!” he demanded as we went down the stairs. “What’ve I done?”
“You’re outrageous!” I laughed. “Have you ever met a woman that you didn’t flirt with?”
“But I wasn’t flirting,” he protested. “I was just being normal. I was only being polite.”
I gave him a “You don’t fool me” look.
“You look beautiful, Lucy,” he said.
“You’re such a bullshit artist,” I replied. “In fact, you should be forced to wear a warning. To protect women from you.”
“I don’t know what I’ve done wrong,” he complained.
“Do you know what your sign should say?” I ignored him.
“What should it say, Lucy?”
“Beware of the bull.”
He opened the front door for me and the cold air, the outside world, hit me like a slap. “Oh God,” I thought bleakly. “How am I ever going to get through tonight?”
Chapter 16
We arrived at the restaurant and the saddest-looking man I have ever seen confirmed our reservation.
“Dmitri will take your cloaks,” he said heavily, in a thick Russian accent.
He paused, as if he could barely summon the energy to continue speaking. “And then,” he sighed, “Dmitri will see you to your table.”
He halfheartedly clicked his fingers and about ten minutes later Dmitri arrived, a short, lumpy man in a badly fitting dinner suit. He looked on the verge of tears.
“The Vatson party?” he murmured, like a mourner at a funeral.
“Er, sorry?” said Daniel.
I nudged him. “He means us. You’re Mr. Vatson.”
“Am I? Oh right, yes.”
“This vay please,” Dmitri whispered hoarsely.
First he led us to a little counter where we gave our coats to a very beautiful but very bored-looking young woman. She was all angular bone structure and porcelain skin and raven hair and long-suffering ennui. Even Daniel’s hundred-watt grin didn’t get a flicker of response from her.
“Dyke,” he muttered.
Then we followed Dmitri through the restaurant, in what he obviously thought was stately fashion, but which was in fact just very, very slowly. I kept bumping into him. Then I stepped on the back of his shoe and he stopped and turned around and gave me a look that was more in sorrow than in anger.
Even though I had mad
e much of not wanting to be there, I had to admit that the place was beautiful. There were glittering chandeliers and lots of red velvet and huge gilt-framed mirrors and big palm plants. The place hummed and clinked and tinkled with the sound of young, good-looking people laughing and drinking flavoured vodka and spilling caviar down their fronts and onto their laps. I was very, very grateful that I’d let myself be bullied into wearing the gold dress, I may not have felt like I belonged, but at least I looked like I did.
Daniel put his arm lightly around my waist.
“Stop it,” I muttered, squirming away from him. “What do you think you’re doing? Stop treating me like I’m one of your women.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he said earnestly. “Second nature. For a moment I forgot it was you and went straight into restaurant mode.”
I gave a little laugh and immediately Dmitri’s head whipped around to glare at me.
“Er, sorry…” I muttered, feeling somehow ashamed, as if I had been disrespectful or blasphemed or something.
“Your table,” said Dmitri, with a feeble flourish, indicating acres of snow white, starched linen and hundreds of glinting, winking crystal glasses and several miles of dazzling silverware. We might only be getting raw turnip
to eat, but The Kremlin provided very nice surroundings to eat said raw turnip in.
“This is very nice.” I smiled at Daniel.
Then Dmitri and I did a little dance where we both tried to pull my chair out and then we both pulled away from it and then we both lunged for it again.
“Er, can we order a drink please?” asked Daniel, when we were both finally installed on opposite sides of the vast round table.
Dmitri sighed, his sigh indicating that he had known that a request such as this was probably going to be made, that the request was entirely unreasonable, but that he was a good, hardworking man and he would do his best to oblige.
“I’ll fetch Gregor, your vine vaiter,” he said and plodded away.
“But…” said Daniel to his retreating back.
“Oh God,” he said, “I only want to order us some vodka.”
Gregor arrived promptly and, smiling sadly, produced a very long list of drinks, which included every flavour of vodka under the sun.
I liked the look of it very much indeed. I nearly felt glad that I had come.