‘Over there.’
Amy pointed across the room where my favourite middle-aged Hawaiian estate-managing gay man was engaged in a furious argument with my least favourite middle-aged Italian estate-managing sneaky bastard, Domenico.
Amy was not the only person to spot the disagreement. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. Skirts swished and crystal clinked but no one was saying a word. No one except Kekipi and Domenico. They were saying all of the words. Most of them were in Italian but there were a few in the universal language of swearing and I was more or less fluent in that.
‘What are they saying?’ I looked to my multilingual lover for answers but he looked as nonplussed as the rest of us. ‘Why don’t they teach Italian in schools?’
‘Because they didn’t anticipate you needing to translate an argument at a millionaire fashion magnate’s Italian palazzo at the age of twenty-eight?’ Amy suggested. ‘Or because you were shit at languages anyway and they wouldn’t have let you take it even if they offered it?’
‘This is insane.’ Nick looked to the floor to cover a grin. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’
‘I’m not going to believe what?’ I whined, turning to look up at him. This was so unfair; everyone at the party knew what was going on but me. I was not built to withstand such agony. ‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t think you need to speak Italian to get what’s going on right now,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear.
He was right. There was another international language that I understood perfectly and that was the language of sticking your tongue down someone else’s throat. In the middle of Kekipi’s impressive rant, Domenico, looking so sad and desperate, grabbed hold of the other man and laid one on him, right there in the middle of the party.
‘I did not see that coming,’ I said as Kekipi turned into a ragdoll in Domenico’s arms and the smooch continued. ‘What is happening?’
‘My Italian isn’t brilliant,’ Nick said with an edge of false modesty. ‘But from what I can gather, Kekipi was accusing Domenico of trying to shaft Al, Domenico was defending himself and then Kekipi said something like “how could you do this to me? I’m so stupid, you’re such a liar, yada yada yada” and then Domenico said that he would never lie to him and that he loved him and then, well, you saw what happened next.’
‘I am freaking out right now,’ Amy took the half-empty glass of champagne out of my hand and necked it. ‘Big time.’
‘I mean, they look happy enough,’ I said, unable to tear my eyes away. ‘They look really happy.’
‘They look like they need to get a room,’ Nick replied. ‘I’m an open-minded man but really, this is a fancy party.’
‘Because two men kissing is worse than two men screaming at each other over the hors d’oeuvres?’ Amy asked sweetly. ‘Kekipi is hot, Domenico is hot, I say let them go for it.’
‘Domenico wasn’t in on it?’ I was still keen to get to the bottom of what exactly was going on. ‘I’m confused.’
‘He said not,’ Nick confirmed. ‘And given the look on Artie’s face, I’d say he’s not happy about this.’
The empty stage at the end of the ballroom was bathed in a pale golden glow from the chandelier above, casting a long shadow from the microphone stand. Artie was glowering beside it, prowling up and down in front of the stage in his jet-black tux like a really pissed-off panther. Only, his elaborate facial hair made him look a little bit more like an angry goat wearing a nice jacket – considerably less intimidating. I watched, every nerve on end as Al broke away from his army of well-wishers and headed for the stage, clapping his son on the back as he hopped up the steps with the easy grace of a man half his age. I really had to find a way to take up surfing if I wanted to be so spry in my seventies. Or at least find a way to retire to Hawaii; I imagined that helped too.
‘This seems like as good a time as any to say a few words,’ Al said into the microphone as a spotlight appeared from nowhere to light him up. The almost silent crowd broke into a flurry of murmurs, reluctantly turning away from the new couple, who were still going at it, and giving their attention to their host. ‘I would like to start by saying thank you to my very good friends Kekipi and Domenico for putting this bash together so beautifully.’
Everyone clapped politely. Amy whooped and gave a very supportive fist-pump.
‘As you all know, it’s a long time since I’ve been to Milan but I couldn’t think of a better place to start my new venture,’ he continued. ‘I have been involved in the fashion world for a long time, longer than a I care to remember, really, but I’ve never been one to stand still for too long and so I’m very happy to announce the realization of a long-held dream of mine and my dear wife, Jane. Next season will mark the debut of AJB, our own collection.’
The room bubbled into life with more clapping and considerably more murmuring. The only person who looked less than delighted about the news was Artie. I took Nick and Amy’s hands and pulled them through to the front of the crowd before taking my place at the side of the stage and prepping my camera. Through my lens, I could see the touch of sadness behind Al’s smile. Sadness for the loss of his wife or for whatever was about to happen with his son, I wasn’t sure.
‘I couldn’t be more excited to confirm whatever rumours have been running amok,’ Al went on, waving to someone in the shadows at the side of the stage. ‘AJB will be a collaboration between Bennett inspiration and the unparalleled creativity of Edward Warren, without whom, none of this would be at all possible.’
Warren mounted the stage in one huge step, his scarlet velvet dinner jacket looking a whole lot more confident than the man himself. He embraced Al awkwardly and then waved to the crowd.
It was hard to sneak around unnoticed in a ballgown but I managed to get myself onto the side of the stage without too much rustling to take a few photos of the rapturous crowd. The only person who didn’t look happy was Artie. He flicked his blazing eyes from Al to Warren and back again, his beautifully manicured hands balling into tight, angry fists.
‘Just leave,’ I whispered, clicking a couple of pictures of him to send in to the Oxford English Dictionary just in case they ever needed a visual definition of ‘fucking furious’. ‘Just go away.’
But clearly that wasn’t going to happen.
‘And where will you be selling these clothes?’ Artie shouted out from the foot of the stage. ‘And where will you be manufacturing them’
‘As much as I love giving a speech, I don’t think anyone wants to listen to me rattle on with my business plan,’ Al said, smooth as anything. ‘Thank you, everyone.’
I watched Kekipi and Domenico sidle around the stage, until they were a few feet away from Artie. I was an aunt to three children and, admittedly, I didn’t get to see them that often but I knew a child on the verge of a tantrum when I saw it. Artie’s face was bright red and he was shaking with barely restrained rage. Either he was teething or he was about to lose his shit.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You don’t have a retail location and you don’t have a manufacturer.’
‘Arthur, do you really think this is the right time to have this conversation?’ Al leaned away from the microphone to admonish his son, keeping his calm exterior in place. But that didn’t seem to help. In fact, it seemed to make things worse.
‘Don’t patronize me!’ Artie said, spitting as he spoke. ‘You walked away from all of it when my mum died and left me to deal with everything on my own and now you want to start again and expect everyone to help you but I won’t. Why can’t you just retire?’
Every single one of Al’s guests looked mortified. Well, everyone except for Nick; he looked delighted and already had his iPhone out, recording the entire exchange. Baby steps, I told myself, baby steps. I shuffled backwards away from the stage and over to my friends. Whatever Nick thought, I did not feel like capturing these moments with my camera. I wouldn’t sully the lens with Artie’s sulky mug.
‘Artie
, we’re not having this conversation right now.’ Al hopped down off the stage and took his son by the arm. He lowered his voice, in an attempt to keep the conversation from the ears of the by now gagging-for-the-dirt crowd. ‘What you tried to do was underhanded and ungentlemanly and a disgrace to the Bennett name.’
‘I wish I wasn’t a Bennett,’ Artie replied, shaking off his father like an angry teenager. ‘I wish I was anyone else.’
‘If he says “I wish I’d never been born”, I’m going to die,’ Amy whispered into my ear. ‘And then I’m going to come back to life and kill him.’
Al took hold of his son’s arm once more. ‘Son, let’s go outside.’
But Artie didn’t want to go outside. Artie wanted to stay and play and he did not want to share his toys. And so he bleated out a very interesting, very loud impression of a dying sea lion and shoved his father as hard as he could.
‘Oh no he didn’t.’
I heard Kekipi before I saw him but Al’s white knight was fast on his feet and grabbed hold of his oldest friend before he could even stumble. The assembled crowd took a group step backwards and their murmuring rose to a muttering, punctuated by an ensemble gasp.
In his defence, Artie had the decency to look horrified by his own actions, his hands pressed against his face, but there wasn’t much he could do before Kekipi gave a battle cry Lady Gaga would have been proud of and launched himself at the moustache. Before I could blink, arms and hands were flying everywhere, Kekipi slapping at Artie and Artie trying to push the other man away.
‘I changed your diapers!’ Keipi shouted. ‘I helped you with your homework!’
‘No you didn’t! You’re only five years older than me,’ Artie yelped back. ‘And your answers were always wrong!’
Blinded by the absurdity of what was happening, I froze as Artie’s arm struck out sideways, slapping me right across the face. Stunned, I fell to my knees, more from shock than genuine injury, but it was enough to spur Nick and Amy into joining the fray. Amy first, obviously. When I looked up from my pool of tulle, all I cold see were arms and legs and very red faces. A hand reached down to pull me to my feet and drag me away from the melee. I took it happily, closing my eyes and letting whoever it was pull me to safety.
‘Are you OK?’ Al asked. ‘I’m so dreadfully sorry.’
‘Don’t be, I’m fine,’ I said, my voice wavering with slightly rubbish girl tears. Someone hit me. All right, it was an accident but still. ‘I’m so sorry this happened tonight.’
‘You know what they say,’ he replied, the corners of his mouth turning up into a bitter smile. ‘The only thing worse than people talking about you is people not talking about you. This just means we’re going to have to come out with a bloody good debut collection.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, turning back to see the scrap fizzle out. Domenico and the two grey-haired men Amy and I had followed into the ballroom pulled the various parties off each other.
‘Are you OK?’ Nick untangled himself from the snarl of arms and legs and appeared at my side, cupping my face in his hands and inspecting the damage. ‘I think you’re going to have a black eye.’
‘Then I’ll look badass,’ I replied, gazing up at him through the squinty eye that was beginning to close up of its own accord. ‘I’m fine.’
He planted a very careful kiss on my forehead as Domenico restrained Kekipi and one of the Italian men attempted to hold Amy back without touching her anywhere inappropriate. Given her dress, it wasn’t an easy job; he was a real gentleman.
Artie stood alone in the centre of the circle that had widened around him, one side of his moustache drooping sadly. Panting heavily, he pressed his hands up to his face, trying to repair the damage before looking around at his audience and seeing nothing but an ocean of Not Impressed. With one last wail, he dived into the crowd which parted like Moses’ waves, and stormed out of the ballroom.
Everyone watched him go before turning all eyes onto the Greek tragedy at the front of the stage. Domenico holding Kekipi, Al and Amy and their Italian friend leaning against the stage, and then there was me, swollen and weepy, swooning in Nick’s arms.
Every single pair of eyes in the ballroom was on us. I looked back out at them, hoping Al was right. Was all publicity good publicity? I wasn’t so sure. It definitely didn’t do Ikea any favours when the papers wouldn’t stop going on about their horse meatballs. And phone hacking? Still not that popular. I didn’t like being the centre of attention at the best of times and I liked it even less when the people eyeballing me were taller than me, thinner than me, richer than me and able to gossip about me in a language I didn’t understand.
Still, there was one thing worse than being judged by people you didn’t know. Staring out at all those tall, thin, rich, foreign strangers and seeing one person staring back who you knew very well indeed.
And in this case, that person was Charlie.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Seemingly having lost the power of speech as well as the use of my legs, I stayed exactly where I was, waving my arms, opening and closing my mouth and staring at Charlie with all the grace of a dying goldfish.
‘Christ on a bike!’
As usual, Amy nailed the situation fairly succinctly.
Once the smell of blood was out of the water, Al’s guests made a silent, collective decision to raise their volume back up to ‘excitable chatter’. From nowhere, the orchestra began to play again and the waiters were suddenly everywhere, a bottle of champagne in each hand. Clever waiters.
But Charlie was still stood in the doorway and while he didn’t look angry as such, given that the girl he had just declared his love to was securely in the arms of another man, he certainly looked confused.
‘Tess?’ Amy nudged me with her hip. ‘Have you had a stroke or something?’
‘What would that feel like,’ I asked, eyes still fixed firmly on the doorway. ‘Because I might be having one right now.’
‘Shit, is it getting worse?’ Nick moved in front of me, his nose touching my nose. ‘Can you see? Can you taste pennies?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ I pushed him away as gently as possible, needing to put at least a couple of feet between us. I couldn’t taste pennies but I was definitely about to taste vom. What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he moving? ‘I have to go and—’
‘What?’ Nick remained completely oblivious while Amy kept guard, practically bouncing up and down on the spot. ‘I think you’ve got a concussion, I’m taking you to bed.’
I looked at Nick’s face, making an effort to memorize everything about it, every last detail. Not just his eyes that looked so blue in this light or his full lips and firm jaw but everything. I logged his dark blond eyebrows with a couple of unruly grey strays that I knew he would pluck later and pretend that he hadn’t. The way he had more lines around his left eye than his right because he slept on that side. The very faint tan line on his cheeks where he’d caught the sun while wearing his sunglasses and the tiny, almost invisible spot of stubble that he had missed when he was shaving before the party.
When people talked about a horrible feeling, they usually described it in the pit of their stomach. This one was everywhere. My toes ached with it and my fingertips tingled as though anything I touched would explode. Worst of all, my insides felt completely empty. Whatever was going to happen, it was as though someone had hollowed me out in preparation. Whether it was to protect me or make room for what was coming, I didn’t know. With Nick’s face completely committed to memory, I moved away from him, turning towards Charlie.
‘I was going to say surprise, but bugger me!’ Charlie smiled brightly at Amy and me as he walked over but I could see there were questions on his face. ‘You don’t half know how to upstage a romantic gesture.’
‘It’s you!’ Amy prised herself out of her new Italian friend’s arms and launched herself on Charlie, smothering his face in kisses. ‘You’re here! I’m so happy. Tess hurt her head and has to go to her room right
away but why don’t we have a drink and wow, you look amazing and tell me all about your flight, I can’t believe you came, you’re the best!’
‘Get off, you mental.’ He batted her away like an overenthusiastic puppy. ‘What do you mean, Tess hurt her head. Are you all right? What happened? Really, what happened? I walked in and I thought you were sacrificing a goat or something.’
‘A lot of drama over nothing,’ I said, fussing his hands away from my face. This was so awful I was starting to understand how people found the strength to fall on their own swords. ‘Why don’t you get a drink with Amy? I have to sort some stuff out here …’ I waved my camera at him for effect. ‘I’ll be over in two minutes.’
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’ Nick asked, placing a hand on my bare shoulder.
‘No?’ I only meant to think it but somehow, the word snuck out my mouth.
‘Then I’ll do the honours.’ He took Charlie’s hand in his and shook it to within an inch of its life. ‘Nick Miller, good to meet you.’
‘Charlie Wilder,’ Charlie replied, looking at me as he spoke.
Even though Charlie was a good half a foot taller than Nick, he was at such a clear disadvantage he might as well have crawled in on his hands and knees.
‘Charlie, is it?’
If Nick knew who he was, he wasn’t giving anything away. He kept on pumping Charlie’s hand as though it might come off if he shook it hard enough.
‘Sorry I’m a bit underdressed.’ Charlie’s voice bounced as he spoke, his hand still stuck in Nick’s handshake vice. ‘I didn’t know I was crashing the royal wedding. Tess, what happened to your eye?’
‘Accidental slapping,’ I said, as Nick finally let go of Charlie’s hand although his grip on my shoulder remained very firm. ‘Do you want to go and get changed? Amy could take you to get changed.’
‘I don’t think there’s a lot of point.’ He looked down at his jeans, shoes and shirt. ‘I haven’t got a penguin suit in my bag anyway.’