After Ever After (31 page)

I laugh incredulously and take one from the fridge.

‘I had absolutely no idea you felt that way,’ I tell her as I search for the corkscrew, our new intimacy emboldening me. ‘In fact I had no idea you had feelings.’

Georgina laughs and raises an eyebrow as I look fruitlessly for my bottle opener.

‘You’ll find your corkscrew in the drawer under the sink by the dishwasher, dear,’ she says lightly, and we exchange a smile as I retrieve it.

‘Well, it’s true that expression of emotion has never really been my thing, it’s something Daniel has taught me over the years. At St Mary’s School for Girls they taught you deportment, arithmetic and geography but not how to communicate properly. Actually, I’ve learnt an awful lot from watching Oprah Winfrey. Sometimes one just has to lie back and pretend one is American.’

We laugh together as I pour out the wine and clink glasses.

Fergus and Daniel enter the kitchen with a wary trepidation that Ella has managed to mimic in miniature, her big eyes round and anxious. When they see us smiling and sharing a glass of wine, all of them, even my baby, seem to give a collective sigh of relief. Daniel and Fergus exchange a glance.

‘I told you I heard laughing,’ Daniel says with a smile. ‘He thought it was screaming and that you two were after murdering each other in here.’

Oh God, I could die listening to Daniel talk. I’m sure it’s not the done thing to fancy your father-in-law, but even after forty years of living in Hertfordshire he still has a little twinge of Dublin in his voice.

‘No, we’ve made up, in fact,’ Georgina says lightly. ‘Now, Daniel, have you brought all the chairs down? Fergus, have you made the beds? You know you can never trust your guests not to go in bedrooms?’

I sip my wine as my mother-in-law takes over my party, and walk over to Fergus, winding my arms around his waist.

‘I love you,’ I whisper into his ear, just loud enough for him to hear, fuelled by an urgent imperative to let him know. He looks down, almost surprised, and smiles a tiny smile that tells me he loves me too.

Cathedral bells ring out through the house and Ella almost leaps from her father’s arms in excitement as she seems to have recently learnt that the bells signify some kind of change from her usual routine.

‘Come on then, baby, visitors!’ Fergus says to her as they go to answer the door, and I wish for a moment that I could call that peaceful moment back and live it for one second longer.

‘Hello! Hello! Hello!’ Camille greets Fergus in triplicate.

‘I didn’t know what to bring so I brought some jerk chicken. I’d like to say I made it to my Aunty June’s recipe, but I bought it from Tesco on the way up!’ As her one woman cacophony enters the room she flings her arms around me in a fragrant hug, dumping her Tesco’s bag on the counter.

‘Let me look at you!’ she all but shouts, and I catch Georgina rolling her eyes. ‘You look bloody great!’

‘Thanks. So do you,’ I tell her, just as I see Dora. Camille’s entrance was so ebullient that for a moment I wondered if Dora had even come, but there she is standing almost translucent, almost absorbed into shadow.

‘Hello,’ I say, kissing her lightly on the cheek, sweeping my eyes over her, trying to make out if she’s lost more weight from her naturally slim frame, or if it’s just that her skirt and clingy top make it look like she has.

‘All right?’ She half smiles at me and looks around the collection of people. ‘Got a beer in the fridge?’

I want to be able tell her that it’s too early to start drinking, but as I’m holding a glass of wine in one hand, and as it is almost twelve o’clock, I suppose I can’t. I watch her drink deeply, straight from the can that Fergus hands her. Her fine hair has grown a little, and that might be accentuating the hollows of her cheeks. She has some shadows under her eyes, but Dora has always been the sort of girl with paper-thin skin that looks as if it might tear or bruise under the slightest pressure, and if the mythical Kev has been keeping her up then she’s bound to look a little fatigued. The waistband of her skirt gapes a good inch from her hips, but for the first time in my life I’m not jealous of her natural thinness. She looks fragile and brittle. I know enough now to know that weight loss does not necessarily add up to drug abuse. In fact, during our phone calls Dora delights in telling me which of the perfectly healthy-looking and sometimes even chubby celebrities she’s seen at her last meeting – confidentiality never being her strong point where gossip is involved. But even as I feel the heft of my own hips push at the material of my trousers, I know when someone is too thin, and Dora is too thin. Something’s going on and I need to find out what.

‘So, little bird,’ she says, taking Ella from Camille’s arms. ‘How are you? Yeah? You look a lot less scary than the last time I saw you. The last time I saw you, you were like this big lump with mad staring eyes and you never really had much to say for yourself.’

Ella grins at her happily. ‘Goy de goy de goy!’ she intones in a sing-song voice, and I worry that Dora’s thin arms might drop her but I manage not to say it out loud.

‘I’ve always said that,’ Dora tells her as if she was a thirty-year-old herself. Before I can say any more the doorbell goes again, and as I head up the hallway I think of appropriate responses for whoever it might be. To be honest, even before I open the door I know it’s Gareth, and an unexpected rush of anticipation gathers rosily in my cheeks. It’s not as if I welcome the tension he’s bound to bring into my home, it’s more like the … novelty of being at the centre of something again, even if it is the centre of something so dangerous.

After almost a week of dreading this moment, I find I’m looking forward to seeing him. Maybe after he’s had time to think about it he’ll realise he made a bit of a prick of himself, and we can go back to being gardening friends again. The drama will be over for sure, but at least I’ll be able to relax again.

I swing open the door and grin at him, which on reflection might be why he looks so disconcerted. I’m trying to show him that I have no hard feelings, but he looks as though he thinks I might have overdone the sherry, or just possibly he was looking forward to seeing discomfort and anxiety in my face. I push that thought away and beckon him in.

‘All right?’ he says at last. The bright sun gives his hair a reddish tint and somehow seems to intensify the gold of his eyes, and noticing that makes my mouth dry and I swallow hard.

‘Hi,’ I say awkwardly and back away from the door, clearing his entrance into my home. He steps through the doorway until we are just a few breaths apart and I can see him even now adjusting his game plan. It is clearly not over for him, despite all my half-hopes that it might be.

‘I’m sorry about what I said the other day, all that macho stuff about “if you were mine” and all that. It was well out of order.’ He shuffles and hangs his head, and for a moment I feel as if he might be genuine, except for that look on his face when I first opened the door and the way his body is slowly drifting closer to mine.

I take a step back and examine the door frame, unable to reconcile a growing sense of disappointment.

‘I really like you,’ he continues. ‘I think I got carried away with other feelings, feelings I shouldn’t have. I know you’re really happy with Fergus. I won’t try or say anything like that again, all right? Do you forgive me?’ He dips his chin a little and smiles up through his lashes.

For a second longer I look at the door frame before dragging my gaze to meet his.

‘Okay, make sure you don’t,’ I say with perfect composure, trying to let him know that I know exactly what he is doing, even if I’m letting him. Trying to let him know that I’m in control. ‘Everyone is in the kitchen.’

I take a few deep breaths of spring air before closing the door again. As Gareth reaches the end of the hallway I hear him say, ‘All right? I’m Gareth.’ I look up abruptly and see Dora standing looking after him. For a moment I’m certain she couldn’t have seen or heard anything, but as she looks back at me she raises an overplucked eyebrow.

‘You’re a bit of a dark horse, aren’t you?’ she says with the very edge of a smile. ‘Must tell me all about it later …’

Before I can reply the doorbell chimes again, and I think that should I ever happen to be in Canterbury and should the cathedral bells sound anything like these ones, then I will probably be compelled to go around opening stranger’s doors and thrusting mini-sausage rolls in their faces. The bright sunlight makes me blink after the gloom of my hallway assignation, and for a moment I’m not really sure what I’m seeing.

Mr Crawley and my father and my father’s friend have arrived together.

‘Mr Crawley?’ I greet him with delight. ‘Dad!’ I say to my father. ‘You made it. Well done!’

I look at his friend, who is entirely the opposite of what I imagined she might be, and hold out my hand. ‘Hello, I’m Kitty.’

The curvaceous black woman squeezes my fingers very tightly. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she tells me. ‘I’m Joy Parsons, I met your dad at a social I run.’

I smile and nod – Dad never mentioned anything about it being at a social, but whatever it is I must admit he looks good on it. Sort of … well, almost kind of vibrant. I show the threesome into the living room, calculating that there must be no room left in the kitchen by now, and if I’m honest I’m keen to keep my dad from the group until I’ve fully assessed his mental health. After all, he may look vibrant, but he still might be a raving loony.

‘So, I thought you were going to call and Fergus was going to get you from the station?’ I say to Dad, testing him for some deranged response. He looks, well, sort of polished.

‘Well, yes dear, but you know my memory. I left the number at home and as we came out of the station, Joy and I, we asked this gentleman here for directions and it turned out that he is a friend of yours and he gave us a lift! What a coincidence, eh?’

I smile gratefully at Mr Crawley and wonder how it is that he manages to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time whenever I need him to be.

‘Wine.’ Mr Crawley hands me a bottle and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Nothing too fancy, I’m afraid, but not too bad. Where’s the little one?’

‘Oh, she’s starring as the main attraction in a game of human pass-the-parcel in the kitchen. Take a seat and I’ll get you a drink, then get everyone to come in here.’ I look hard at my dad. He looks okay, and if somehow he got from Hackney to here on public transport with Joy then he must
be
okay, at least for now. As I leave the room, trying to keep the drinks order in my head, he follows me into the hallway.

‘Don’t worry,’ he tells me earnestly.

I look at him enquiringly. ‘Worry about what?’ I say breezily.

‘Worry about me. I … I need to talk to you later about a few things? Okay?’ He grips my wrist tightly until it hurts, and the familiar sensation of claustrophobia I have always felt when he’s around begins to creep up on me.

‘Yes, yes, okay. Of course,’ I say, releasing his grip with my fingers. ‘Of course. Now I must go and sort out the food. Fergus!’ I call out as I back away from him. ‘Dad is here! And Mr Crawley! Oh, and Joy!’

I look over my shoulder to find my dad still watching me. ‘Go back in the living room, Dad, and sit down. I’ll be back in a sec.’

As I enter the kitchen I see that between them Camille and Georgina have laid out all the finery M&S had to offer
and
the vol-au-vents on the flowery china. Daniel is folding serviettes under the close observation of his wife, and Dora is standing in the door frame of the open back door, intermittently waving the smoke from her cigarette into the back garden.

Fergus and Gareth are standing on the lawn, with Ella sitting happily at Fergus’s feet ripping up pieces of grass and eating them. My irritation at Fergus letting his daughter snack like a calf is soon eclipsed by the fact that they look as if they are arguing. They are standing only inches from each other’s faces, eyeball to eyeball, mouths and chins set in anger.

‘What’s going on?’ I say to the room at large, and as I push past Dora she breathes a stream of smoke into my face.

‘They’re having a bit of a disagreement, I think,’ she says with half a smile. ‘Over some English rose I reckon.’

I shoot her the most venomous look I can muster in a state of high anxiety as I head towards them.

‘I’m sorry,’ I hear Fergus say, ‘but that’s a deceitful and underhand way to behave. And entirely unprofessional.’

Gareth shakes his head angrily. ‘If you would just let me finish,’ he says, his eyes burning, ‘I discussed it with Kitty and
she
agreed to it. Or does she need your say-so for everything …’

I almost trip over my baby in a rush to get between them.

‘Agreed what? What’s the problem?’ I sweep Ella up off the ground to her angry protest, and use my finger to fish a pulpy mass of grass out of her mouth.

Gareth looks pleased to see me.

‘I agreed with you that the original budget wouldn’t stretch to everything you wanted in here,’ he says, his eyes still fixed on my husband. ‘I told you the new costs and you agreed them. It’s up to you. If you want me to complete with the price we first agreed then we drop the gazebo, or the big plants, the trees and the Wendy house …’

‘Oh not the trees,’ I say with dismay.

Fergus looks at me in disbelief.

‘Did you seriously not think of checking all this with me before you spent another thousand pounds?’

I feel his anger like a slap in the face, a slap I can hardly endure in front of a triumphant Gareth.

‘Well, usually when I ask you about cash, you say not to worry and that everything is fine. I meant to ask you, but …’ I desperately don’t want to fight. Not here, not now and not in front of Gareth – the last thing I want is for him to think I’m put upon by an overbearing husband.

I turn to Gareth, avoiding his eye. ‘Look, let’s just drop the gazebo, okay? It’s not that big a deal, and the trees – we don’t need the trees.’

Gareth shrugs, but before he can reply Fergus interrupts.

‘Yes we do, if you
want
the gazebo, if you
want
the trees, then you will
have
them,’ he tells me angrily. ‘I just wish that when I discussed this with our gardener I’d been prepared for what he was about to say!’