Robespierre, the charcoal grey incorruptible.
‘I bet you’re absolutely lethal in court,’ I said.
He gave a thin smile, and told me about a drugs case in which he’d been prosecuting the week before. I found it riveting. I was also fascinated how detached he was.
Then a diversion was caused by one of Marcia’s young men who had mistakenly thought it was fancy dress and had turned up as a goat in a furry coat and pink udders. I had had enough to drink by then to think it terribly funny and started crying with laughter. Looking up suddenly, I saw Pendle absolutely devouring me with his eyes.
‘Are you taking me for A levels?’ I said, groping for a tissue. ‘Didn’t your mother ever teach you it was rude to stare?’
‘I’m sorry. You’re extraordinarily like someone I used to know.’
‘My boss doesn’t like solicitors,’ I said. ‘He says but for them he’d have had a perfectly amicable divorce.’
‘They all say that. What do you do?’
‘I’m a copywriter. I sit in an office all day thinking what to put. Then when I finally put it down Rodney, my boss, comes along, changes it all, and pretends it was his idea in the first place. He’s been away all week shooting.’
‘Grouse?’ asked Pendle.
‘No. Butter commercials in Devon.’
I’d obviously been hogging the most attractive man in the room for too long because Marcia came up and asked Pendle if he was all right. Bloody rude, I thought. Then she asked me if I was going to the Old Girls’ reunion in Pavilion Road. I said I wasn’t. Had I seen anything of old Piggy Hesketh. I said I hadn’t. Then I admired her dress, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Laura Ashley, of course,’ she said smugly.
Red-faced flatmates were now staggering in under piles of plates towards a table at the other end of the room.
‘There’s eats whenever you need them,’ she said.
Suddenly there was a lot of shrieking and some rugger types arrived.
‘Oh God,’ said Pendle.
‘I do hope everyone’s going to dance again once they’ve eaten,’ said Marcia. ‘I must go and turn up the vol.’
‘Dust to dust, Laura Ashley to Laura Ashley,’ I intoned, helping myself liberally to a bottle of Cointreau that had been left on the table.
I looked at Pendle again, suddenly deciding I wanted him very much.
‘Who was the person you think I’m exactly like?’ I said.
He was about to tell me when Marcia came roaring over saying she must break us up — like a French loaf — because she terribly wanted Pendle to meet Charles who was a partner in D’Eath and March. Almost at once the lecherous accountant, who’d given up spraying cashews and taken up toast crumbs and pate, came over and asked me to dance, so I jigged around with him and had another belt of Cointreau to keep up my spirits. Then I had some gin and orange that had been brought by one of the rugger players for his girlfriend. Then one of the rugger players asked me to dance and thrust me around like a cocktail shaker.
‘If you don’t stop, I’ll turn into a White Lady,’ I panted.
Normally I don’t drink much, but Pendle’s presence had jolted me. I knew I was reaching the dangerous stage when suddenly a wicked alter ego emerges making me cast smouldering glances at happily married men, and cannon off groups of people like a shiny red billiard ball. A stockbroker in a flowered scarf kept turning off the lights. I expected to see Pendle’s eyes gleaming in the dark like a cat.
People were eating now. Despite the fact that the pate tasted like old socks and the kipper mousse contained more bones than Highgate Cemetery, everyone was sycophantically asking Marcia for the recipe.
‘Lots of brandy and garlic,’ she was saying.
‘Nice tits,’ said the rugger player, looking at my nipples. The pockets of my cheesecloth shirt, which usually covers them, had ridden up after all that shaking.
‘It’s much easier of course if you get your butcher to mince the pork and the pig’s liver first, like my butcher does,’ said Marcia.
‘I’d like a balloon,’ I said to no one in particular.
‘Come back to my little black hole of Belgravia,’ said the accountant.
‘Then you chop up some fresh thyme,’ said Marcia. Suddenly she noticed that her mother was sitting unattended on the sofa, stuffing herself with kedgeree and, grabbing my arm like a vice, said, ‘Oh Pru, I know you’d like to meet Mummy.’
Why should I meet Mummy? I was far too busy keeping handsome men in stitches with my witty repartee. I stuck my legs in like our dog when he doesn’t want to be bathed, but Marcia was too strong for me — much stronger than any of the rugger players. Next minute I was rammed down on the only tiny corner of the sofa that wasn’t occupied by Mummy.
‘Lovely kedgeree, Marcia,’ said her mother enthusiastically. ‘I don’t know how you do everything.’
‘Oh it’s just organization;
‘You must be very proud of Marcia,’ I said insincerely.
‘Everyone says that,’ said her mother smugly. ‘She gets on with everyone, runs the flat, holds down a job, and of course she’s Sir Basil’s right hand, and then there’s all her voluntary work.’
After Marcia she moved on to shopping, rabbiting on and on about triumphant forays to Dickins and Jones, dignified rebukes to shop assistants, the matching saucers tracked down, the jersey with the pulled thread returned. Really I wasn’t up to it at all.
Behind her the accountant was making more code signs trying to get me on to the dance floor, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the rugger player waiting to tackle from the left. The flatmate who hadn’t been able to have a bath was dancing with the goat, which seemed appropriate. Perhaps they were having a pong-pong match. A couple were necking unashamedly on the next door armchair, the man’s hand well advanced into the girl’s blouse. I was terrified Marcia’s mother would see them. Marcia had turned up the volume to drown the more excessive of the rugger songs and the distant sounds of some of the fruit salad being regurgitated in the lavatory.
I couldn’t hear a word Marcia’s mother was saying. My only hope was to watch her teeth and laugh when she did. I was in despair; my glass was empty; I thought of sending out maroons. I knew as a copywriter and as a potential novelist I ought to be studying the old monster. One day I might want to put her in the book. The true writer’s supposed never to be bored by anyone, but what was the point of studying her if I’d be far too drunk to remember anything about her in the morning?
Suddenly I saw Pendle through a gap. He was talking to the blonde with dirty fingernails, but he was glancing at his watch and had the abstracted look of a referee about to blow his whistle. That decided me.
‘I must get you some of Marcia’s delicious pudding,’ I yelled in her ear, and floundered towards the food table. Marcia passed me going in the other direction.
‘Poor Mummy,’ she screamed, ‘I was just coming to rescue you.’
I ate some kedgeree out of the dish. It was quite good. I licked the spoon thoughtfully and took some more. One of the rugger players tugged off the goat’s udders and, to much shrieking, threw them out of the window. Pendle suddenly looked round and caught my eye. He left the blonde and came over.
‘“I stood among them, but not of them”,’ I intoned, ‘“In a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts”.’
‘You got trapped,’ he said.
‘I’ve been taken on a tour of three million department stores. I feel utterly shop-wrecked.’
He didn’t smile. I licked the spoon, then helped myself to more kedgeree and ate it. Then I realized how disgusting it must look. I blushed and put the spoon down. The mauve candles bought to match the Michaelmas daisies, which Mummy had presumably brought up from the country, were almost burnt down.
‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plaintiff,’ I said, picking at the battlements of wax. Still not a flicker. Really he was making me feel very edgy with all this staring.
