He missed Holly. She was always quick at getting ready; in fact, she despised any sort of preparation at all. In the hall she’d fidget with him; they’d commiserate together on the hopelessness of women and their boring preoccupation with how they looked. But today Holly, especially imported from school for the occasion, had gone ahead in Geoff’s car, so he waited alone.
‘For God’s sake, Rosemary, hurry up can’t you!’ How peevish he sounded! ‘The table’s booked for eight and the others left hours ago.’
‘Bags of time, darling.’ The voice floated down. Even when she was late like this she managed to sound brisk and superior. ‘We needn’t leave for five minutes.’ How did she do it?
Laura and Mac (odd name that; still, Laura always did specialize in odd friends), Laura and Mac were joining them at the restaurant; they had come up from Bristol specially. And naturally enough, Claire had gone with Geoff. So there was just the two of them left to go together. The two old fogies.
‘Get a move on, will you!’
‘Almost ready.’ That maddening sing-song floated down.
‘Heaven knows why you’re taking so long!’ Tonight he not only felt irritable; he also felt assertive. He hardly ever did; it was something to do with going to a restaurant and footing the bill, also something to do with being the prospective father-in-law for the first time. He must do the thing properly. For Claire and Geoff. Claire Hare, funny how it rhymed. The fact that it rhymed made him even more irritable. He twisted the key-ring round and round his finger.
In the cramped darkness of Geoff’s car Holly slid her feet backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in and out of her shoes. It was a fascinating feeling. Slip-on shoes! Proper grown-up shoes! Her very first pair. No babyish laces, no soppy straps. This was the proper thing. Mummy had bought them for her that afternoon; they’d gone specially to Harrods and she truly felt a different person now. At least three years older, like the girls at school said they felt when they’d got their first bra. She’d be getting one of them soon, too.
And staying up late, and going to the Post Office Tower Restaurant which was terribly high up, she could see it from the flats’ roofs down the road. Someone said it went round and round too. How fast?
And all because of Claire being soft on Geoff. Sitting there all soppy in the front with her arm round him! Honestly, she couldn’t see why she liked him so much. He was all right but he was like a lot of grown-ups. Interested in all the wrong things. Not like Mac.
Still he did drive nice and fast. He was talking about it now. ‘… round we go … that’s the job.’ They shot ahead and round a corner. Holly was too wedged to sway.
‘Just think,’ Claire’s voice, ‘this is the first time we’ve all been properly together. The whole family and everybody knowing and celebrating like this.’
‘Should be eatable, too. Should be, I mean, knowing the prices they sting you for in that place – whoops, watch it there!’ Lights flashed by. ‘Beats me how they passed their test!’
‘In a way,’ said Claire, ‘I feel quite nervous. I wish we weren’t going to such a grand place. It’s always so difficult to relax, I mean, it would have been easier if Mummy just cooked something special at home. But I suppose my father wants to make the big gesture, do the thing properly. He likes to do that. Just hope we won’t be too stiff.’
‘These occasions are always on the stiff side, aren’t they. Bound to be. Prospective son-in-law and all that. I’ll enjoy it because of you. Darling.’
‘Really?’
‘You see, you always bring out the best in people. Darling.’
‘Sweetheart!’ She leant across and kissed his ear. Dangerous, thought Holly severely. And silly.
She got bored with listening to them and started picking at the car seat. But then she remembered it was Geoff’s car seat and she oughtn’t to pull out all the loose bits. Apart from its nice loud engine, Geoff’s car was actually rather dull. It was too tidy and there was nothing to fiddle with. It smelt of cigarettes and some soppy man’s scent he always wore. She preferred her parents’ car; it smelt of dog.
She turned her attention back to her feet. Such lovely shoes! In, out, in, out slipped her feet, so easily; so grown-uply.
The sisters did look lovely in the candlelight, one had to admit that. Their beauty seemed increased by being repeated, with variations, in the three faces. Up in the restaurant they were sitting on the edge of an abyss, suspended above a void, for behind their seats and far, far below glittered the lights of London. So fragile, the girls looked, against that space which stretched out around and below them, the three of them poised at this historic moment.
Rosemary was looking at them. Especially she was looking at Claire, the orange glow of the city behind her. It was Claire’s evening. A warm flush – of joy? Not exactly; more of significance – a warm flush spread over her face, she could feel it. Hope my powder won’t run, she thought. She also thought: hope, hope Claire will be happy.
Daddy, Claire realized with a sinking heart, was finding it all rather a strain. No wonder – meeting Geoff formally like this, Mac turning up and adding to the burden, coping with an elaborate menu – no wonder he had on his selfconscious look. He often got like this in restaurants; pubs, too. He was inspecting the menu; Claire watched him. Even in the dim light she could tell by the tilt of his head and his too furrowed brow that he was about to say something pompous. He was. He looked up, paused and stated: ‘I always find duck acceptable, don’t you? The canard à l’orange.’
‘Right,’ said Geoff. ‘I’ll take your word for it. Duck for me, sir.’
Claire stiffened. Sir?
‘I can’t understand these words,’ Holly said in a clear voice. ‘I don’t know French. I just want some fish and chips.’
‘Hush, darling!’ said her mother. Mac looked admiringly at Holly.
‘Don’t be silly, Holly,’ said her father. ‘If you want some fish then I would suggest the truite aux amandes. That’s trout, you know. A delicious fish.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want it messed up with anything.’
Laura looked nervously at Mac. Was he suddenly going to say he wanted baked beans? She wouldn’t put it past him. He was looking from face to face with an inner grin and she didn’t trust him an inch. Not that she wouldn’t giggle a bit if he did. How odd, too, he looked in his suit – at least, Mike’s suit. He looked so uncomfortable in it, as if someone had sewn him into it then left all the pins behind. It had been an effort to get him to wear one at all, but she’d wanted him to so he wouldn’t stand out too much. But how he hated suits, with a personal intensity, as if putting on some pieces of cloth made him into a different person, someone to be despised.
‘Daddy,’ said Holly, ‘if I have some peas, will they be little ones like I have at home or big ones with potato in like I have at school?’
‘They’ll be perfectly delicious, Holly, whatever they’re like. Now will you please choose? We’re waiting.’
Mac said nothing. Laura thought: Am I disappointed? Then she thought: God, for a moment I’d forgotten. How could I?
Geoff leant towards Claire. ‘Your parents are doing us very well, I must say,’ he whispered. He pointed to the menu. ‘See what I mean by the prices?’
Claire nodded, looking across at Laura and Mac. She could tell by Laura’s fixed, smug look that they were holding hands under the table. Just for a moment she wished that Geoff would hold her hand. But she knew he wouldn’t, for somebody might see and he’d mind that.
The wine list arrived and Claire, hating herself for noticing, still couldn’t stop her eyes being drawn to her father’s face as if to a magnet. It was a solemn face; she watched it with dread. He spent a lot of time over the list, turning the large shiny pages like a scholar. ‘Any preferences?’ he asked the young men at last.
‘I leave it up to you, sir,’ said Geoff. ‘I’m sure you’re the expert.’
Claire didn’t look at Geoff. She turned her attention to the s
alt and pepper pots. She placed them in the mathematical centre of the table, concentrating on getting it exactly right. It must be that he was nervous. Mustn’t it? Nervous like Daddy, in his different way.
‘As long as it’s wet,’ said Mac, ‘and made from grapes.’
Everyone froze. Laura looked down and fiddled with her napkin. There was hesitation all round, then thank goodness Rosemary laughed lightly: ‘Yes, darling, none of us are connoisseurs. Just choose something you think’ll be nice.’
Dan retired back into his wine list.
There was a general pause. Now that the ordering was over, everyone was feeling rather stiff and waiting for Dan to start asking the questions for this sort of evening, for really they had never talked much. Shouldn’t he ask about job promotion, the future, the proper son-in-law questions? Though there was nothing about Geoff that she particularly admired, Laura felt a wave of sympathy for him at this moment, and another for her father.
Most of all, though, she felt sympathy for herself. What am I going to do? she thought.
Mac let go of her hand and scratched round his collar. In mid-scratch he caught the eye of a waiter, a sleek specimen who was standing about fancying himself. She saw Mac rolling up his eyes and making his imbecile’s face. The waiter stared back unblinkingly. Mac grinned.
Laura didn’t grin, though. She hardly noticed, for again she was thinking.
Dan looked at the bottle of wine. It was being held out in front of him in a caressing, expectant way, the waiter pausing for the affirmative he, Dan, should be giving. He looked at the label; Chateau Chasse-Spleen, it said. The words failed to cheer him. 1961, it said. Still he felt desolate. Does every father, he wondered, feel like this? The sense of loss? The unreasonable irritation with the young man? The excessive politeness with which one covers this up?
‘Well, Geoff,’ he began. He nodded at the waiter. ‘I hope you realize how lucky you are.’ He stopped and gazed into his glass. Some liquid, just a small dark pool, lay at the bottom of it now, and beside him he felt the waiter hovering. He gazed at the little pool; it made him feel rather sad. Really he ought to be enjoying all this.
‘Accountancy’s not my line,’ he said. He drained his glass. It was delicious of course; he nodded to the waiter. ‘Does it offer a young man like yourself plenty of scope?’
‘Yes indeed. There’s a lot of space to play around with in accountancy. Once you know your objectives you can branch out …’
Geoff knew his objectives; it showed. All of them could recognize that. The two men started talking and Claire relaxed. Not that she needed to be tense in the first place, really. Geoff was obviously impressed by the meal and hiding any nerves he might be feeling. What did it matter that she longed for one of Laura’s messy, free-for-all sort of meals, even a quarrelsome one? In this place her father and Geoff, despite the talk passing between them, were just two unopened packages sitting there opposite each other.
Still, Geoff handled things very well, despite the sirs. She hoped Laura hadn’t heard them. But he was so capable and most extraordinarily handsome. How she longed to hold his hand!
Just then her eye was caught by something Laura was doing. She stared harder. The waiter was standing beside Laura and – could she be seeing right? – Laura was actually putting her hand over her glass.
‘What, no wine, Laura?’ her father asked.
‘Er, no thanks.’
‘You don’t approve of my choice?’
‘Don’t be silly, Daddy. I, er, just don’t feel like it, that’s all.’ She laughed lightly. ‘I’ve gone off it.’
At that moment she caught Claire’s eye and Claire saw, with a shock, that she quickly turned and looked out of the window. That was what did it. That furtive look. Claire went cold.
Just then the starters arrived. A bevy of waiters appeared bearing artistic little arrangements elaborated with parsley and curled, impaled bits of this and that. Claire pushed the thought out of her mind.
Dan looked down at his prawns. Fat, rosy and complacent, they seemed to mock him. The luxurious restaurant, sumptuous food, velvety wine – all seemed inadequate substitutes for the loss of his daughter. Somehow their very deliciousness made this inadequacy the greater. Twenty-one years of her and suddenly she was gone. She might have lived away from home for a while but that was a question of geography not of ownership. He looked across the table. Ownership by a well-dressed, bland, alien male. A sensible-looking chap, no doubt, but still … No more laughing at his, Dan’s, jokes; from now on she’d be laughing at Geoff’s. If he ever made any, that is.
Dan glanced over at Mac. Now here was a different proposition. Not the sort of person to keep Laura in the style to which she’d been accustomed, one could tell that a mile off. Still, under all that hair he looked as if he might have something to say. If he, Dan, knew the code, that is. So many young people nowadays seemed to be operated by some secret key possessed only by each other. They sprang alive then, they actually talked and laughed.
Claire finished her avocado and left the skin, limp and oily, on her plate. She looked down at it, thinking of her sudden startling worry. Perhaps she’d been mistaken. A hand whisked away her plate. She looked at the blank linen mat. Yes, perhaps there was nothing there at all.
A theatrical pause. Then, at some secret signal waiters appeared; with a flourish the main course was brought in. There was much whisking about of napkins, solicitous stoopings, little flurries, and finally the production of sizzling plates some of which were flaming.
If only she could speak to Laura alone! Perhaps later they would go to the cloakroom and there, females together, she could ask Laura the urgent question: Why don’t you want to drink? Do you feel sick? How long have you been feeling sick for? Is it, oh is it what I think it might be?
The pattern of the evening, quite satisfactory up to now, at least not disastrous, had suddenly been jolted apart. The fact was, she could imagine it happening; Laura was so very careless. Still, if it wasn’t the cloakroom it could always be Greenbanks tonight, for they would be sleeping together in their old bedroom. That would be the time for confidences. Perhaps the last time, as in two weeks from today she would be married.
Laura’s eyes, avoiding Claire’s, came to rest on Holly. Holly was tearing her paper napkin into tiny balls, each one exactly the same size, and arranging them in a circle round her glass. Such calm self-absorption seemed rather refreshing. Restful too; Holly wasn’t exactly the type to look up and start prodding one with questions. Good old Holls.
Just then she stiffened; her mother was turning to Mac. ‘Mac’s an odd name,’ she said pleasantly. ‘What’s your real one?’
‘John.’
‘And where does the Mac come from?’
‘MacDonald.’
An expectant pause, but no more information was forthcoming.
‘Er, is that your surname?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re from Scotland, then?’
‘No, Bristol.’
Mac was eating Lobster Thermidor. At least, thought Laura, he could answer in words of more than one syllable if he was shovelling down four quids’ worth of shellfish. Obscurely it disappointed her that he hadn’t made a more humble choice and thereby shown his indifference to this sort of set-up.
Her mother was battling on. ‘You’re a student, I expect?’
‘Nope.’
‘Ah. What do you do then?’
‘Bus conductor.’
A hush. Forks poised, mid-air. Laura looked down at her lap. The napkin in it was completely shredded by now. In fact she’d torn it further than shreds; it was at the wisp stage. Silly to get so nervous! She looked round the table, her nervousness mixed with defiance. Nervousness won. ‘Actually, he’s really an artist,’ she said.
‘Ah.’ Her parents subsided, just a little. ‘So it’s only temporary, I expect,’ said her father.
‘That’s right. I got the sack today.’
‘What?’ gasped Laura. ‘
No! Mac, is that true?’
‘Uh-huh. Non-attendance.’
A ripple ran round the table. For a moment everything was swept from Laura’s mind.
Dan was cheered. All of a sudden he was actually thankful that Claire was marrying Geoff. After all, she could have ended up with someone like Mac. There might be reservations about Geoff but at least he wasn’t a failed bus conductor.
Mac, probably to escape the attention, dropped his napkin and ducked under the table. Laura could imagine him down there; a moment of pure peace. Very nice. Down there he could breathe; he could also inspect the shadowy underworld of legs amongst which he found himself. She forgot her nerves; she forgot her other dreadful worry; she couldn’t help smiling. Intriguing things, legs. She could imagine them, some trousered, some skirted, some crossed, some planted firmly apart, some shoeless and dangling (Holly’s), and all innocent of their owners. Down there, such a serene world of guiltless appendages; up here all this stilted chitchat and fiddling with napkins.
Her legs stirred, suddenly selfconscious after this long perusal of them. She saw her mother shifting in her seat. Mac, with a last regretful look, straightened up.
Geoff was enjoying the meal. Mr Jenkins was certainly doing them very well. When could he dare to start calling him Dan?
‘Geoff.’ Claire was leaning towards him, whispering. ‘Don’t you think Holly’s going to be beautiful? Doesn’t she look lovely tonight, like a princess who doesn’t yet know she is one.’
‘Yes, she’ll be very pretty, but you’re looking fairly stunning yourself. I like that dress. Darling.’