Other People's Fun, page 6
Nothing further back.
‘How splendid, now, whose parent are you?’ he asks cheerfully.
‘Oh, no! Not a parent. Not of – I mean, I’m an Old Girl.’ As I say this, I want to die. The phrase is appalling, grotesque, horribly accurate. Trudie has made her escape and now he is marooned with me, trapped. ‘What were your dates? Haha, yes, as if you’re a head of state!’ he says, a line he likes to trot out, and I tell him and knock back the rest of my wine, giddy with panic.
‘So we must have overlapped,’ he says, and I say, ‘Yes, and in fact I think I babysat for your children a couple of times.’
‘Really?’ he says, frowning, doing some vague calculations. He still hasn’t asked for my name. ‘So that must have been when we were still at Flint View? The little bungalow opposite the church. We weren’t there for very long – not enough room for all of us.’
‘It had quite a brown kitchen,’ I say, and he says, ‘Oh yes, brown and orange, a bit of a period piece even then. The Franklins live there now, Jane teaches biology. It’s had several Estate Office makeovers, you wouldn’t recognise it.
‘We were only there for a year or two before I took over as boys’ housemaster and we all had to squash into Burns Flat. And then when I became director of music, we moved off-site to a house near the green. Forgive me, your name is –?’
‘Ruth Saving,’ I say, and then I have to stand by helpless as he tries to dredge up some memory. ‘I wasn’t musical, but I was a member of the choir. I think we did Carmina Burana? I was in the same year as Robbie Shepherd—’
Robbie Shepherd is now a famous tenor, feted for his lieder. None of us called him Robbie back then. As a new boy, he was heard crying in bed after lights out, and for the next seven years was known as Rob the Sob.
Waxham says, gladly, ‘Ah, I remember your year very well. Marvellous Robbie, and Verity Spackman, who seems to be running the world now, Sookie Utley, and Michael Bartlett. Michael played such a key role in the vaccine’s development. A remarkable year! You get them, every so often.’
Naturally, he’d remember fucking Sookie.
Waxham is chuntering on about another good vintage maybe seven years ago, which has produced a tech entrepreneur, a filmmaker whose short recently won a BAFTA, and a designer who dressed a Kardashian for the Met Gala. ‘And Mono, of course.’
I say I haven’t heard of Mono.
‘I’m fairly sure that’s his stage name now, there have been a few iterations. At school he was Kayden Salvador, a very gifted music scholar. People who know more about this than I do say his stuff is very much taking off at the moment. He stays in touch and sends me tickets every so often. I saw him perform at Meltdown last summer, quite the eyeopener.’ A slight agonised pause, then he says, ‘So you did some babysitting for us?’
‘Once or twice,’ I say. ‘We all fought for those staff babysitting gigs, because it meant access to TV and a biscuit tin. I think you had two little girls?’ How they fussed and bickered when I closed Clever Polly and snapped off the light. They always wanted more: another chapter, a last sip of water, a final trip to the toilet, the retrieval of a particular toy or scrap of dingy fabric (as precious as any martyr’s shroud). They could tell I was eager to leave that small hot room under the baking roof tiles, a room where there was barely space for the bunkbed and a chair, the sun nagging away at the red curtains patterned with yellow teddy bears. ‘Don’t go, Ruth. One more story!’
Firmly I shushed them and went out, pulling the door so it dragged on the bristly carpet. Staff accommodation, no frills.
I have not forgotten their names. I salted them away in the secret place where I hoarded all the treasures collected during my field trips: lucky charms and mementoes, trophies, clues, portents; nuggets of knowledge that might, following some unimaginable sequence of circumstances, show him we were meant to be together. The Kim Philby biography on his side of the bed. The Herbie Hancock LPs between the Glass and the Handel. Oh, I put it all together. He bought his jumpers from M&S, his shoes from Bally. He liked Rose’s Lemon and Lime marmalade, pork pies and Bell’s whisky. On the toilet, he read Private Eye or the Observer magazine. The details sang with significance and I noted them all, down to the brand of shaving cream in the bathroom cabinet, the mouthwash next to the sink.
These things go through my mind while he tells me about Erica and Peggy, little girls no longer. Erica is a speech therapist in Oxford with children of her own, Peggy is a solicitor in London. He saw her last week; he’s up in London a lot at the moment, working on a project with Mr Braithwaite – was Mr Braithwaite after my time? He must have been. But yes, the girls. Big family gathering last month for Carla’s birthday: you remember Carla.
Carla: a slight, pale person in dungarees and collarless shirts, frenziedly wiping sticky surfaces, or dragging hawsers of laundry from the washing machine, wondering if she should cry off staff drinks because of Erica’s earache. Even now, I couldn’t care less about Carla. ‘How is she?’ I ask. The only thing that mattered about Carla back then was that he’d given her piano lessons at his previous, first, school, when she was fifteen. That was how they met. I wonder what Erica and Peggy make of that now. How does this uncomfortable fact fit into the family legend?
‘Oh, she’s fine, yes – very well! She will be pleased I ran into you here.’ In the lull, he gestures to the pianist, holding court on the other side of the crowd. ‘Do you follow Martha’s career?’
‘Not exactly… no; someone mentioned it, I happened to be free,’ I say, but his attention has skittered away over my shoulder, one moment, just coming, and then he says, ‘Well, you must excuse me, such a pleasure to catch up,’ and he moves off, as easily as he came.
A tray comes at me and I grab another glass and empty it on my way towards the exit. I leave the glass on the trestle table, and then I start to shrug myself into my coat, dropping my umbrella in the struggle. Someone picks it up and hands it to me. In a space full of tall, shiny people, she is surely one of the tallest and shiniest. Health and wealth come off her quite forcefully, heat from a radiator.
She’s making a run for it, too. She rushed here from a meeting and now she has to get to supper across town, the Uber is on its way but she’s going to be hideously late. Wonderful music! She’s new, so it’s quite overwhelming, really.
She means, her daughter’s new – just started this term. Year Nine. ‘What about you?’ She smiles at me, hopeful, flipping her hair over her collar. I realise she’s nervous, conscious of a new hierarchy, uncertain of her position.
Suddenly my own story seems dull, so odd and pathetic, like the top I had changed into, believing it to be chic. Where’s the fun in being an Old Girl? It might be nice to be someone else, however briefly: the sort of person who wangs on about the climate emergency while taking eight flights a year. The sort of person who packs her children off to be looked after by strangers, and has any number of Stella McCartney sunglasses lying around. Maybe it would be amusing to be someone like that, for a change.
I give thanks for my Max Mara coat, a lucky find in a Kentish Town charity shop. ‘Oh dear no,’ I say, and I’m barely pulling rank; my seniority has scarcely occurred to me. ‘We’re years in. Yah, no, they’ve loved every minute.’
It’s easy. Just a matter of standing a little taller and holding back, just a fraction. It’s a matter of smiling, but not necessarily with the eyes. Courteous, but from a distance.
It’s raining very hard and her Uber seems to be stuck in traffic so we wait at the top of the steps, and because there’s no one to overhear us I riff a little on Ava and Finn, who are the right fit for this situation, and it feels rather like swimming in the sea, like being lifted and carried forward by a strong swell. I don’t know if it’s the risk or the wine or the encounter with Ian Waxham. Either way, it feels fun, a little crazy, but pleasurable.
She listens to me with a supplicant’s attention as sheets of rain blow over the pavement. Patterns of light dance in the puddles, and then tyres slice through them.
She absolutely agrees, the music is terrific. Music was at the very top of their list when they were considering Mimi’s education because she is quite gifted when it comes to flute and piano, and also has a remarkable singing voice.
Her expression conveys a modest awareness of this stage-mother yakity-yak, and also a conviction that we are really talking prodigy here.
I say, quite grandly, ‘Music at Howard has always been of a very high standard.’
‘Oh, yes, and so much of that is down to Mr Waxham. Have you noticed much of a difference since he went part-time?’
‘Not really,’ I say, losing confidence. Pleased to have information I lack, she says he was very forthcoming when they spoke just now – it’s a passion project, an opera about the sailor who went mad during that solo round-the-world race back in the Sixties. An English teacher who recently moved to City Boys is working on the libretto. They regularly meet up in London.
‘He says it’s now or never. I guess we all know that feeling! And he promised there’ll be no falling off, the choir’s in excellent hands with Miss Vance and the carol service will be up to its usual standards.’
She checks her phone. Her Uber’s arrived, just over there. ‘Hope to see you at the carols. Lovely to meet you!’ Off she goes, her long gleaming boots giving her the air of a cavalry officer. I open my umbrella and as I come down the steps the adrenalin fades and I start to feel foolish, shocked that I lied to her, and that lying came so easily. And shocked, too, by the way I felt when I was with him.
Sookie is in Cape Town, where she’s doing sun salutations on the beach and having al fresco lunches in vineyards with her BFFs, and then she’s back in London and suggesting I come over for supper, though it’s hard to pin her down to a date. I nominate one particular Thursday, a day when I’ll be in town late afternoon for an appointment with my solicitor, but she never gets back to me about it, and then the day arrives.
When I come out of the solicitor’s office, I wander through the streets in a bit of a daze, losing myself in bad-tempered festive crowds. The West End is bathed in an Arctic glare: the chasms between the buildings are strung with cats’ cradles of blue-white LEDs, promoting a new Nike trainer or Disney film. Giant balls and streamers shimmer and wink along the avenues.
I walk to clear my head and shake off the conversation. It was very practical and matter-of-fact – I’m past the crying stage now, which makes it easier all round – and we seem to be navigating according to well-established principles, but everything feels so febrile, so uncertain. I am too old for all of this. I am too old for fear; I am too old for hate. But that’s all I’ve got in the tank right now.
To get away from the crowds, I duck into an arcade lined with dinky boutiques selling high-end tourist tat: cashmere and chess sets, kilts, vintage watches, cigars. Two women stand in front of one shopfront, glass and brass so clean you could lick it, discussing where to find the best martini.
A bell tinkles as I push the door, the flame of the candle on the counter nodding in the draught. The interior, dense with the scent of bergamot and sandalwood, is dim, wood-panelled, quietly austere. It’s modelled on a gentleman’s study, perhaps, or a dressing room. One member of staff behind the counter, a well-dressed woman slightly older than me. She greets me appreciatively, as if we are old friends.
This moment – the silly fleeting thrill of being taken seriously, even by unimportant people – is always pleasurable. The truth is I don’t mind being mistaken for someone who cares about fripperies, who might decide to stock up on bath oil or hand-milled soap (‘made in the ancient method by the monks of San Michele’) without much consideration of the price.
The saleswoman waits attentively while I make my selection, my index finger hovering over the glass-topped counter: lilac, gardenia, orange blossom. Now she pulls out the drawer and places the fat bars of soap before me, a spectrum of whites and creams. There’s no harm to it, this matter of briefly inhabiting another world. It’s innocent enough.
The bell rings and a party of Japanese tourists presses in, filling the shop with carrier bags from Fortnum’s and Trumper. ‘Would you like a moment to decide?’ the assistant suggests, and I say that’s fine. Left to my own devices I sniff the bars, one after the other, wondering if I prefer the hyacinth or the gardenia, enjoying the cool smooth weight in my hand. While the saleswoman is busy with the other customers – tucking their choices into boxes, cradles filled with so many plump babies – my sleeve falls over my hand on the counter, and then as I move on I slip the box of bath oil into my pocket.
At the other end of the shop there’s quite a muddle now of payment options and tissue paper and stiff carrier bags being cracked open, so I take my time, drifting along the displays, inspecting the items on the shelves. That is when I feel it: the unmistakable burn of scrutiny. I look around. One of the tourists quickly drops her gaze, as if she is almost but not entirely sure of what she just saw. At this point I take an interest in the Giardino del Chiostro candle, and then I straighten up and move to the door. The assistant catches my eye and so I say I’ll have a think, I can’t quite decide. The bell tinkles and I am out in the cold, walking briskly down the arcade, past the backgammon sets and the shoe-shine man who is starting to put away his brushes. In my pocket, the little box bumps against my hip.
I leave the arcade and slip into the lights and the noise, the early-evening bustle. When I am confident no one is following me, I slow down and begin to wander without purpose. I feel jumpy, alive: too alive to go home. Beyond Oxford Circus the streets quieten, the pavements speckled with raindrops. Long ago, I temped around here: holiday cover on the front desk at a travel agency and a firm of solicitors.
In another life I would be meeting someone for a drink tonight, stepping into the cosily low-lit bar of a hotel, or even one of these pubs with coloured glass glowing in the windows – the sort of place where once, long ago, Nell might have gathered us around a big sticky table to share jokes about starter jobs, dissertation set-backs and crappy flat shares. If not the most ebullient member of the group, I was an important participant, her oldest friend, the person who knew her best and was known best by her. I’m not entirely sure what happened between then and now. Nell’s research took her to Sweden and Alaska, where she married someone I’ve never met, and then on to Chile; and my own life filled up with other things. And now I have a story to tell, I have no one to tell it to.
Suddenly I feel a longing to hear Nell’s voice. Nell would get it out of me. She’d know what to say. She’d understand why the email containing my news has been sitting in my drafts folder for months. I should call her now, in case the satellites are in alignment. But then I remember the time difference. She’ll be busy somewhere in the Southern Patagonian Icefield, investigating sediment plumes and surface currents. This is not the right time. I walk on.
Garden squares, mansion blocks, cream stucco terraces behind iron railings: discreetly, the architecture has become more residential, though judging by the unlit windows no one actually lives around here. Walking past a parade of tiny shops – wedding dresses, hand-painted lampshades – I realise I’m not far from the mews where Sookie is billeted. I hadn’t known I was doing it, but somehow I have found my way to her. I think of her coming home (though I struggle to imagine her reason for going out in the first place: session with the personal trainer, perhaps), turning on the lights and taking off her coat, flinging herself down on the sofa, which will be navy velvet, or possibly grey linen, disconsolately scrolling through Instagram, which reminds her of all she is missing: her children, her husband, the sun. It is possible she would be glad of the company. After all, she too is alone.
I hesitate for a moment, my reflection caught next to the dummy bride, with her silk roses and the gracious, modest arrangement of her hands, then I find Sookie’s details. And while the call connects I cross the road and enter the mews, a narrow cobbled lane lined with the ghosts of stables and carriage stalls, properties extensively remodelled for foreign investment portfolios. The windows are mostly dark.
The mews cottages cluster behind the Georgian squares like children hiding in their mothers’ skirts. In warm weather, I’ve walked past and seen inhabitants gathering on the cobbles with drinks and pop-up chairs; but tonight the only movement, apart from the intensifying drizzle, is the halting progress of someone taking a tiny dog out for a shit. Sookie’s phone rings and rings, and then clicks through to voicemail. I shelter in someone’s unlit porch as I send a text, because messaging is what you do in these circumstances, just to explain the reason for the call, as if trying to actually speak to someone on the phone is in some way outlandish, even impolite.
Hey, I’m in your neck of the woods – wondering if you’re around
There is a light on in number seven, the house that belongs to Sookie’s parents – a dim square of dimpled glass in the front door – but all the windows are black. My hair’s full of rain, and so are my best meeting-appropriate boots. Watermarks, for sure. Naturally, I forgot my umbrella. In this sheltered spot I wait to see if she will respond, just in case she’s on her way home. Nothing. Then the thrill of the three pulsing dots, proof she’s looking at my message.
