Don't You Want Me? (6 page)

‘All in good time,’ he chuckles. ‘All in good time.’

In the event, Frank decided to come back for lunch because he’d forgotten some cow photographs that he needed to work from. The sight of him clearly alarmed Tim, who came over all marsupial again, declined the cup of coffee and scarpered back over the wall crying, ‘
Au revoir
.’ What an odd little man. Still, as he so rightly pointed out, it does (indeedy) take all sorts.

Frank, Honey and I shared some smoked mackerel pâté and half a loaf of sourdough bread, washed down with elderflower cordial, after which he went back to the studio, Honey went for a nap and I was left to try and decide upon an outfit for tonight: my first dinner party in ages.

When you’re part of a couple and you turn up at dinner, things are simple. You’ve made a bit of an effort, obviously, but basically you go as you. No longer: I genuinely have no idea of what I should wear in my newly separated circumstances. Clothes maketh the man and all that: I don’t know how to advertise myself.

What look do I go for? Slightly widowish, to make it clear that my life as a sexual being is now over, and that I know my place, which is by the fire, embroidering blankets for Oxfam babies? Hair in a chignon, no make-up, an ankle-length dress in a dark colour, say chestnut or plum, and something white, to suggest unsullied virtue, or at least virginity regained – would a kerchief be too much? A wimple? Probably. And anyway, I’m not at all sure I
could muster up the requisite facial expression: sorrow mingled with sweetness mingled with resignation, like Olivia de Havilland in
Gone with the Wind
.

Or there’s always the schoolmarmy look, so very popular with the modern divorcée: it says, ‘I have reinvented myself as
une femme sérieuse
now that I am free of my silly partner. I’m doing an Open University degree in Applied Sociology, you know.’ I could wear my spectacles instead of contact lenses, use the correct pronunciation for any foreign foodstuff – ‘Pass the
parmigiano
’; ‘Wonderful Rioja’; ‘
Café au lait
, please’ – and breathe excitedly through my mouth if anyone mentioned cats or self-help books (funny how women who claim to Run with the Wolves are always Women Who Stagger with the Stoats). Not really a crowd-pleaser, this look – which requires man-made fabrics and bad hair – but it goes down very well with the women, I’ve noticed, especially if you were fun-loving and easy on the eye before.

But it doesn’t quite float my boat either. What to wear, what to wear? There’s always the Hello Boys option. You know: the newly single woman of a certain age (though let’s not forget I am thirty-eight, not sixty-two) who appears with full war paint on, frock slashed to the navel, heels that dwarf every man in the room, glossy highlit hair, carmine lips, and flutter flutter with the old eyelashes. Lock up your husbands! This one, I feel, has distinct comedy possibilities, though obviously one doesn’t want to look too much as though one actually
charges
. Unfortunately, I may have to leave it this time, since the look involves a degree of cosmetic surgery: you need massive rigid breasts that start just under your neck at the very least, and an orangey tan is essential. Also, maybe lessons in tantric sex
(perhaps Marjorie from playgroup could help me out?), so that you can sit next to strange men and thrillingly whisper, ‘I come for hours.’

Oh, the gloom. Seriously, what am I supposed to wear? I’d be clearer on this subject if I knew what capacity I had been invited in: am I just a punter, an ordinary guest, or has some single man kindly been earmarked for me by our helpful hostess? Am I simply making up numbers – I was, after all, invited at late notice – or is there a plan at work here? If so, surely I should be let in on the details: assuming there’s a single man designated for single sad me, then what kind of single man is he? Do I dress up or down? Smart, or – horrible word – casual? Hair? Make-up? Shoes? Feather boa? Crotchless pants? It would be terrible to wear heels if Single Man were short, for instance. Should I show I’m still on the case by wearing something trendy? Last time I looked, this involved an Eighties revival: should I wear a Kajagoogoo T-shirt and fingerless gloves?

Perhaps I should ring Isabella up and ask her directly. Hi, Isabella. You know dinner? Well, do you foresee rampant sex for me? What do you reckon, Issy – will I pull? Shall I wear tassels on my nipples? A burka? What?

In the end, I ring Louisa from playgroup. She’s clearly been here before, because she is adamant in her advice. ‘Go as yourself,’ she says. ‘Wear exactly what you would normally wear. Don’t be shy or self-conscious, and behave exactly as you would normally behave. And have fun, more to the point. It’s only dinner. Will you ring me tomorrow and tell me how it was?’

I promise her I will. As soon as I’ve put the phone down, I bathe, drown myself in Shalimar and jump into my favourite little black dress, which happens to be moss
green: a silk, strappy nightie sort of an affair, knee-length, miraculously cut to emphasize the good points (bosom) while minimizing the bad (stomach). I throw on a bubblegum-pink cashmere cardigan, slip into a pair of purple raffia mules I’ve had for years, stick some hoops in my ears and race back downstairs to ask Frank’s opinion, stopping on the landing to ring for a taxi.

Frank and Honey are lying on my favourite pinky-red Turkish rug, building stocky creatures out of Duplo: a very charming sight, except it reminds me of playgroup again. God, we have to go again next week – can it humanly be borne? Best not to think about it now.

‘Well?’ I twirl. ‘What do you reckon – will this do?’

‘You smell delicious,’ Frank says.

Honey’s in her blue pyjamas with rabbits on them; Frank, rather touchingly, is wearing matching blue pyjama bottoms (no rabbits, obviously) and a white T-shirt. Both have freshly washed hair. They look adorable.

‘Mama,’ says Honey.

I take her on to my lap and sniff her hair, wondering when her vocabulary is going to evolve.

‘Good, but it’s not the smell I care about! How do I look?’

‘Great. Lovely.’

‘Oh, Frank, honestly. Give details.’

Honey hops off my lap and returns to her Duplo. She looks rather like a rabbit herself, with her fat nappied bottom.

‘Sexy. Like a smart gypsy.’

‘But is that a good look? I’m not sure I want to look like a smart gypsy. Like
The Diddakoi
in black tie, do you
mean? God, I loved that book. Don’t look so blank, Frank.’

‘Who’s the diddykoo?’

‘
Diddakoi
. I’ll tell you tomorrow, ignoramus. What I need to know now is, do I look potentially sexy and potentially businesslike at the same time? I mean, you’re an artist, you go for that boho stuff. Would you still think I looked nice if you were – I don’t know – a merchant banker?’

‘Rhyming slang?’

‘No – you know Isabella. She always has a couple of City types at dinner, or at least she used to.’

‘If I were a banker, I’d want to ravish you before returning to my little wifey in Wimbledon, yes.’

‘I do wish you’d be serious, Francis. And anyway, there aren’t any bankers in Wimbledon.’

‘Oi Womble,’ Honey says, looking pleased.

‘Clever girl!’ I scoop her into my arms and kiss her: my baby genius. Honey and I love all those old shows on cable – I never saw them as a child, only
Barbapapa
in French, so they’re new to both of us.

‘Stella?’

‘Yes, Frank?’

‘Don’t do it with a banker. Here, I made you a gin. To help your nerves.’

‘Chin-chin. I wasn’t planning on it, but actually now I think of it, banker-sex might be rather nice. They work long hours, don’t they? So they’d be very tired and rich and one could have the most peaceful, ordered, suburban life. With maids. God, I
long
for staff, don’t you?’

Frank rolls his eyes. We sit in friendly silence, watching Honey busily making Duplo stacks. I love my house now, I realize: the lilies are still scenting the air, the lights are
giving off a yellow glow, the squishy sofas look inviting and comfortable, and the French doors to the garden (complete with impeccably mown lawn) are letting in a damp, bosky smell. We’ll be able to light the fires in a month or so.

The taxi arrives. ‘Hair up or down?’ I ask Frank, suddenly feeling panic-stricken.

‘Down,’ says Frank, unpinning it for me and fanning it out with his hands.

‘Easy, Casanova,’ I grin.

He grins back, and wriggles his hips suggestively. ‘I’ll see you out.’

‘Don’t wait up,’ I call, as I climb into my taxi.

Isabella Howard’s Islington house is one of those interior-designed numbers of the kind where the glacial, soulless owner pays the designer thousands of pounds to make the house look warm and soulful. This usually involves a kind of update of the rich casbah look, with low tables, an overabundance of cushions, overpriced rugs from shops in Notting Hill and lots of little ethnic trinkets to suggest that whoever lives here a) is well travelled, a global citizen rather than an unimaginative provincial, and b) has an ‘eye’ for beauty. The glass lights are Moroccan lanterns; the throws on the sofas are antique saris; there is a stone Buddha on the left-hand side of the mantelpiece. I recognize her interior, having seen many like it in houses from Clapham to Hampstead, and can even tell that the decor in question is by an ageing queen with an indeterminate accent rejoicing in the name Ricky Molinari, absurdly known to his clients as Mr Ricky.

Mr Ricky has two looks: de luxe ethnic, as in Isabella’s house (he rather invented this look, cleverly deciding four decades or so ago to put his holidays in Tangiers to professional use), and ‘maximal minimal’, which is basically your old minimalist look – loft-like spaces, rubber or concrete floors, uncomfortable linear furniture in black, grey or chocolate brown – except roughed up with cherry wood, books (which do furnish a room), contemporary art (from my ex, Dominic, usually), and either orchids (bit
passé) or cacti or Venus Flytraps, planted in amusing and unexpected containers, such as petrol cans. Mr Ricky buys books by the yard, basing his choice upon the height and colour of the spines, with occasionally startling results: the faintly dusty, pretty pale green spines of
The Story of the Eye
or
120 Days of Sodom
in a Cheyne Walk lavatory belonging to an elderly woman who lives for Botox and egg-white omelettes, for instance.

I don’t share any of my thoughts with Isabella, obviously, pausing instead to congratulate her on the beauty of her house.

‘Do you really like it?’ Isabella says, touching my arm. ‘It’s taken me absolute ages to put together.’ (Actually, Mr Ricky tells his clients to leg it to the South of France, or wherever, for a couple of weeks, during which he and his armies of helpers ‘do’ the house at breakneck speed.)

Isabella, who must be about forty-five, was married for twenty years to Mark, a publisher, who left her six or seven years ago for one of his authors, a troubled young woman with very pert breasts. Mark was richissime, combining a hefty salary with family money, and eased his conscience by donating a large proportion of his annual income to his former wife. Isabella reinvented herself as a thin, spry champion giver of parties, stealthily inserting herself into every imaginable London social circle over a period of months, and returning home with the phone numbers of its principal players; she is particularly keen on ‘young people’. She brings all of these together every week for dinner and thrice a year for what she refers to as ‘my big dos’ (which always raises a snigger from me: I do love a poo joke). I slipped off her list some time ago, although, judging by tonight, I’m back on – which I’m pleased about,
because, say what you like about Isabella, she has a kind of genius when it comes to party giving and these evenings are seldom dull.

The other guests are already gathered in the drawing room, which is softly lit by pink-glass lanterns and candlelight coming from outsize scarlet candles. Some indeterminate jazz is playing in the background. The low, carved coffee table – about eight feet in length – is scattered with rose petals, and little silver dishes containing delicacies are piled on to each surface. (Frank would say that it is very like me to notice the snacks on offer before noticing the people.) The overall effect is mildly poncy – why are we pretending to be in Fez crossed with Jaipur? – but not without charm.

‘Now, Stella, darling, have a drink. The usual selection, or one of my cocktails?’

‘Mm, a cocktail please.’

Isabella hands me a flute of champagne, sugar and fresh mint.

‘Now, do you know everyone?’

I peer through the seductive gloom: no, actually, I don’t think I know anyone at all.

‘Hello,’ I say, boldly advancing towards the couple by the mantelpiece. ‘I’m Stella.’

‘Stella was with Dominic Midhurst,’ Isabella says helpfully. ‘Weren’t you, darling? How is Dom these days? Do you know?’

‘Fine, I think. He spends a lot of time in Tokyo.’ Do I really still have to be defined by a man I was briefly attached to? It seems extraordinary in this day and age.

‘Hello there,’ says the male half of the couple. ‘George Bigsby. Can’t say I thought much of your husband’s stuff,
I’m afraid.’ He laughs friendlily, his eyes crinkling up. ‘All those installations. More of a Rubens man, myself.’ His face is rather red and rather fat, and he has a big nose. Jolly, though, and he looks kind.

‘Me too,’ I smile back. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘This is my wife, Emma,’ George says, pointing to a pale, elfin woman, wearing what appear to be fairy clothes – pastel-coloured wisps of fabric clinging to her thin, boyish frame: more Giacometti than Rubens. I fleetingly wonder whether she has an eating disorder – who doesn’t, these days?

‘Hello,’ I smile.

‘Hi,’ says Emma, looking me rather rudely up and down, not what you’d call wildly enthusiastically.

‘And over here,’ says Isabella – a lesser hostess would have left me standing in silence by Emma – ‘is William Cooper, whom I particularly wanted you to meet.’ She gives me a significant look from behind his back: here is the Designated Single Man. ‘William’s a cosmetic surgeon, so if you make friends with him you can have free tummy tucks!’