Perfect Blend: A Novel (27 page)

“Of course. I just assumed … I’m sorry.”

A mug of tea and half a packet of chocolate digestives later, Lulu said she was desperate for a cigarette, which she was more than happy to smoke in the street. Victoria said she couldn’t possibly do that because the children were arriving and would see her. Amy suggested she go into the bathroom and lean out of the open window.

The open window did not stop the smell of marijuana escaping from the bathroom and into the kitchen. Victoria’s nose was soon twitching.

“What’s that strange smell?”

If Amy told her it was weed, Victoria would throw Lulu out and the party would be over. She couldn’t do that to Arthur.

“Oh, it’s old Mr. Fletcher brewing coffee.”

“It doesn’t smell like coffee.”

“It’s one of Brian’s posh blends. I gave the old boy some beans as a present last Christmas.”

At that point, Lulu emerged from the bathroom and announced that she had her shit sufficiently together to start the party. This was just as well, as it was past three and most of the children had arrived. Much to Victoria’s embarrassment, not to mention Charlie and Arthur’s fury, most of the boys were in football shirts. Simon was herding them into the garden, where they were running riot. The idea was that parents deposited their offspring and returned half an hour before the end of the party for a glass of wine.

Lulu went into the garden and put the ghetto blaster on the lumpy, scruffy patch of grass that passed for a lawn. The next moment the kids’ noise was being drowned out by “Monster Mash.” “Okay, everybodee … It’s … party time. And we’re starting with … balloon bending.”

“Yay!”

For the next couple of hours Lulu segued from magic tricks to sing-alongs, from puppets to face painting. The adults all said they were exhausted just watching her. To give Lulu a break, Amy and Victoria supervised tea time, which went down better than expected because Val had come bearing fondant fancies with Day-Glo icing, chocolate fingers, and salt and vinegar Hula Hoops. Victoria tried to stop her from dishing out the fatty sugary contraband to the children, but Amy guilt-tripped her into allowing it by saying, “Aw, just look at all those excited little faces. How could you possibly refuse them?”

As Lulu departed to wild cheers and applause from the children, their parents started to arrive—mothers mostly, some with babies and toddlers.

Amy overheard a few quizzing their offspring about how much sugar they’d consumed. One woman caught sight of a leftover fondant fancy and picked it up as if it were a dead rat and showed it to her friend. They both eyed Victoria and started muttering. Amy heard the word “hypocrite” uttered more than once.

While Simon and Trevor supervised an impromptu kids’ disco in the living room, other mothers and a few fathers stood around in groups discussing house prices, loft extension nightmares, or the
gîtes
in Périgord that they’d picked up for a song, thanks to the recession. Education was the other biggie. Mothers who had been showing their children flash cards from the moment they emerged from the birth canal and had started them at Mini Maestros, Little Hawkings, and Smarty Artists soon after were now concerned that their five-year-olds weren’t being sufficiently challenged at school. Most of the mothers admitted to visiting their child’s teacher regularly to point out that little Inigo or Tamsin was gifted and to demand that the school ramp up its act. They seemed at a loss to understand why the teachers were so unhelpful.

By then Amy and Victoria were wrapping up slices of birthday cake and adding them to the going-home bags. Phil and Val were loading the dishwasher, reminiscing about their daughters’ childhood birthday parties. Victoria nudged her sister and jerked her head in their parents’ direction as if to say, “Look how well they’re getting on.”

Victoria was wrapping another slice of cake in kitchen paper when Arthur appeared.

“Mum, what’s a member?”

“A member is somebody who belongs to a group. For instance, you are a member of the school chess club. Why do you ask?”

Arthur looked confused. “Do members go to hot, moist centers?”

“Activities sometimes happen at sports centers, but I’m not sure they’re hot and—” She broke off. The penny had dropped with the most almighty clang. “Omigod! Where’s Joyce?”

Arthur said that she was in the garden, “doing poems for the mummies and daddies.”

“What?”

By now all the adults were exchanging glances. Phil went to the kitchen window, which looked out onto the garden.

“Joyce says that Volvos are soft, red, and wet,” Arthur continued, “but that’s wrong. Granddad drives a Volvo, and it’s green and made of metal and it only gets wet in the rain or when he takes it to the car wash.”

Amy let out an involuntary snort of laughter. Victoria glared at her and shot off into the garden. “I cannot believe that bloody woman!” Fearing things might get violent, Amy followed, but Phil overtook them both. He grabbed hold of Victoria’s arm. “Leave this to me.” His tone brooked no argument.

He began trotting toward the far end of the garden, where a group of parents were hovering around Joyce, who seemed to be holding a spontaneous poetry recital. It was clear that the parents didn’t quite know where to put themselves, but they were too polite to walk away. As she spoke, an empty wineglass in her hand, Joyce was wobbling and swaying so much that she could barely stay upright.

“His manhood arose,” she proclaimed, arm outstretched like a Greek tragedian who had downed one too many Chardonnays. “A tower of vermilion, penetrating a forest of curls/Her swollen mound aglow/He gave her his pearls.”

Chapter 12

WHILE PHIL WAS
bringing a precipitate end to the poetry recital, Amy did her best to convince her sister that Arthur was far too young to decipher Joyce’s erotic metaphors and that his childhood innocence remained untarnished.

“How can you be so sure?” Victoria snapped. “You have no idea what this has done to Arthur’s moral compass.”

By now Simon was on the scene, having been brought up to speed by his mother-in-law. “Victoria, stop being so bloody neurotic. Believe me, our son’s moral compass—such as it is—has come to no harm.”

Victoria grunted and then started ranting about how Phil had brought shame on the family name by consorting with Joyce. Simon told her not to worry, since the Walkers weren’t quite up there with the Montagues or the Capulets. Victoria demanded to know how he could make jokes at a time like this and raced off to speak to the parents. She passed Joyce and Phil on the way. Phil was half guiding, half frog-marching an unsteady Joyce toward the back door.

“How dare you humiliate me like this?” Victoria spit. “How dare you?”

Phil raised a hand as if to let his daughter know that she should back off and he had the situation under control. He and Joyce were only a few feet from the door now. Everybody could hear what they were saying. “Haven’t you got any bloody sense?” Phil barked at her. “How could you do that here? At a child’s birthday party? What were you thinking? Victoria is mortified. How much have you had to drink?”

“Pop Tart, I had two glasses of wine. No more. I promise.”

“Rubbish. You were pissed as a pudding before we got here. You know it and I know it.”

Amy heard Victoria offering the parents “my most profound and heartfelt apologies.” None of them claimed to be angry or offended by the recital, which, it transpired, had come from Joyce’s self-published collection,
Pudenda
. In fact, most of them said they’d found the whole thing highly amusing. Their only concern was for Arthur, who had gotten bored with the kids’ disco and had decided to hang around with the adults. Everybody felt guilty for not noticing him.

Victoria was convinced that they were just being polite in claiming to find Joyce’s display funny. “I’ll never live it down,” she said to Amy on the phone late on Sunday night. “I’ve told Simon we’re going to have to emigrate. It’s the only thing for it.”

Amy burst out laughing. “Behave. Nobody’s emigrating.”

“Okay, maybe not emigrate, but we’ll have to move to Surrey. I hate Surrey. It’s full of orange women with boob jobs and big lips.”

Victoria decided that her only hope was to send hand-tied calla lily bouquets to all the mothers who had been forced to witness Joyce’s obscene display.

When Amy’s phone rang on Monday evening, the last person she was expecting to be on the other end was Joyce.

“Amy, I just don’t know what to say about what happened yesterday. I am mortified. I came into your home and behaved in a way that is unforgivable. Your dad was furious with me, and quite rightly. He and I had a long talk last night, and I told him he had every right to walk away, but he refused. Instead he wants me to join AA, and he’s said he’ll support me. I can’t begin to tell you what a wonderful, caring man he is. I really don’t deserve him.”

It was true, Amy thought. In so many ways, Phil was a wonderful man. He’d worked for charity all his life. He doted on his daughters. Yet during the last few years of his marriage to Val, he had neglected her so badly. What was it he had found in the troubled, alcoholic Joyce that he hadn’t been able to find in Val? The answer was pretty obvious. Joyce was a damaged soul who needed him in a way that Val never had. Maybe Amy had never understood just how much her father needed to be needed.

“AA sounds like a good idea,” Amy said.

“It’s time. I’ve been in denial about my drinking for so long. My mother was an alcoholic. She spent most of my childhood smashed or in bars getting smashed, and in the end it killed her. I don’t want that to happen to me.” She paused. “Amy, I really am so sorry about yesterday. If there were just some way I could make it up to you …”

“Look, it was embarrassing, but no harm was done. I think it’s Victoria you should be apologizing to.”

“I’ve tried phoning, but she refuses to speak to me. Simon was surprisingly understanding and said he’d get her to call me, but I’m not holding my breath. I was wondering if you could talk to your sister and try to impress upon her how awful I feel about what happened.”

Amy said she would do her best. “And Joyce, good luck with AA. I hope it works out.”

“So do I. You have no idea how much my relationship with your dad means to me.”

As soon as she got off the phone, Amy phoned her dad to tell him about her conversation with Joyce.

“I knew she would phone,” Phil said. “Joyce has her problems and yesterday’s display wasn’t good, but deep down she’s a good woman. She’s loving, caring, funny. She’s got a heart of pure gold.”

“I know. I can see that,” Amy said. “And most important, she needs you to be her rock.”

“Ah, there is that.”

“But Mum needed you, too.”

“Oh, she did when we first married. Back then she wasn’t much more than a girl, but as she got older, her self-confidence grew. She got a job, had her own money. Like I’ve said before, I felt superfluous to requirements.”

“So you couldn’t deal with her independence.”

“It’s the old male ego thing, I guess. I’m not proud of it, but I’m too old to change now and I know that even after Joyce has kicked the booze, she will always need me.” He paused. “You know, with me and your mum, it wasn’t all my fault. For years she’d been telling me how dull I was and how I’d gotten old before my time. She used to tell people that she was married to a farting sofa. None of that did my self-confidence much good, you know. The problem was that we married too young, before we really knew ourselves and what we wanted.”

“It’s okay, Dad, I’m not accusing you. I know it takes two for a relationship to break down. I just get sad sometimes, that’s all.”

“I know, love,” Phil soothed. “I know.”

WHEN AMY
told Brian and Bel about Joyce’s erotic poetry recital, they hooted and demanded to know why they hadn’t been invited to the party.

Bel said she was going to order a copy of
Pudenda
to read in bed with Ulf. On Tuesday night, when she spoke to Sam on the phone, he couldn’t stop laughing either, especially when Amy got to the bit about Arthur coming into the kitchen asking about members and Volvos.

“So when shall we get together this week?” Sam said.

Amy suggested Friday. “Charlie has a birthday sleepover. You could come here.”

“Great.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Amy, you there?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking. Charlie’s feeling a bit iffy about going to this thing on Friday. Although this kid’s in his year group, he’s in another class and Charlie doesn’t know him that well … I could suggest he give it a miss, and then you could come and meet him.”

“Amy, this has to be your call. If you’re ready for Charlie to meet me, then I’m ready, but you have to decide.”

She didn’t skip a beat. “I’m ready.”

“Okay.” Sam laughed. “Looks like we’re both ready.”

IN THE
end, Amy thought it would be a good idea to kill two birds with one invite. She spoke to Sam again, and they agreed that on Friday he would arrive about six. The three of them would hang out for a couple of hours so that he could get to know Charlie. Then, after Charlie had gone to bed, Bel and Ulf and Brian and Rebecca would come for dinner. “I’ve only met Ulf once,” Amy said. “I’ve never met Rebecca. Oh, and FYI, she’s a born-again virgin. So if Brian seems a bit irritable and tense, you’ll know why.” She giggled, and Sam said it was the first time he’d been in a relationship with a woman who could list shamans, erotic poetesses, and born-again virgins among her friends.

“By the way,” Sam said, “you sure Brian’s not going to punch my lights out because of my tenuous connection with Bean Machine?”

Amy laughed. “Of course not. He knows it’s nothing personal.”

AMY DECIDED
that if she was going to have a dinner party, she wanted her floorboards finished. It seemed ridiculous even to think she could get a decorator at such short notice, but she managed it. The last chap she phoned, after having called a dozen or more, said he’d just had a cancellation.

He turned up at seven on Wednesday morning and painted the floorboards while Amy was at work. By the evening the rubberized paint was dry. Amy couldn’t get over how magnificent her floors looked. The white walls and matching boards looked so stylish. Her flat had gone from shabby to shabby chic in a couple of coats of paint. Now she wanted to buy a new dining room table and chairs and have the kitchen and bathroom refitted. Like that was going to happen. Instead she made do with treating herself to some new orange velvet cushions from the Habitat sale, which, although she said so herself, looked stunning on her acid green sofa. In the same sale, she also found some giant orange silk tulips. Usually Amy hated artificial flowers and silk ones worst of all, but these were so big and over the top that they didn’t pretend to be real. She put them on the coffee table in a tall metallic vase. They looked magnificent. Charlie said they got in the way of the TV screen and insisted on moving them while he was watching cartoons. When Amy asked him what he thought of the floors, he said they were all right and could he have some crisps.

She cooked for Friday’s dinner party the night before. She made a Spanish chicken casserole with orange and chorizo. It all went into one pot, along with the rice, so all she had to do was heat it up an hour before they were ready to eat. For dessert she made chocolate mousse, which she decanted into six pink cocktail glasses and left in the fridge to set.

That evening, while she and Charlie were having supper, she dropped into the conversation that her new friend was coming over the following day, a couple of hours before the dinner party, and that he was the man who had sorted out Charlie’s fight with Arthur at Café Mozart.

“I remember him. He was nice,” Charlie said, nodding. “So is he going to be your husband?”

“Oh, sweetie, it’s far too early to start talking about things like that. At the moment we’re just friends. Okay?”

“K.”

SAM TURNED
up at six on the dot with a very large bouquet of white roses.

“Oh, Sam, you shouldn’t have,” she said, taking them from him. “But I’m glad you did. They are gorgeous.”

“I’ve done my Charlie prep, by the way.”

“What?”

“I worked out my conversation strategy while I was driving over,” he said. “I thought I’d start with Arsenal and move on to Nintendo via popular cartoons, superheroes, and his art, of course.”

“Sam, please tell me you’re joking.”

His face broke into a grin. “Of course I am, but it did cross my mind.”

It was only as they walked into the living room where Charlie was watching
Shrek
that Sam noticed that the floorboards had been painted. He said how great they looked and how he couldn’t believe she had gotten them done at such short notice.

“Pure luck,” Amy said. She turned to Charlie. “Sweetie, could you switch that off now. I’d like you to say hello to Sam. Do you remember him from Café Mozart?”

Charlie looked up. “You told Arfur off.”

“I did indeed,” Sam said.

“I’m watching
Shrek
. Do you like
Shrek?”

“Actually, it’s one of my favorite films.”

“Guess what my favorite bit is.”

“When the dragon chases them?”

“Uh-uh … Come here. I’ll whisper. It’s a secret. You can’t tell my mum.”

“Oh, thanks,” Amy said, chuckling. “You boys just gang up and leave me out, why don’t you.”

By now Charlie was cupping his hand over Sam’s ear. They both burst out laughing. “I agree, that is a brilliant bit,” Sam said.

Amy suggested letting Charlie finish the film, which had only a few minutes left to run. “Then, as it’s such a lovely evening, we could all go for a walk in the park.” She explained to Sam that there was an Italian café there with a pretty sundeck. “Charlie can have spag bol and ice cream, and we can sit with a couple of Peronis.”

Amy couldn’t help thinking that Sam played the next couple of hours pretty much to perfection. He didn’t make too much of a fuss of Charlie, nor did he attempt to become his new best friend. He chatted with him about school and drawing, and the two of them played knockabout with Charlie’s football. When they got back, Charlie asked Sam if he’d like to see his magic tricks. Amy took Sam to one side to warn him that these “needed some work” and tended to go on a bit, but Sam didn’t seem remotely bothered. “I’ve lost count of the number of magic shows my nephews have subjected me to,” he said. Amy left them to it and went into the kitchen to put the casserole in the oven and make the salad.

Twenty minutes later, when she came back with two glasses of wine, Charlie was still performing his terrible tricks, but Sam was hanging in there and giving every impression of being transfixed.