‘Oh God!’
‘And let’s start at a hundred pounds,’ said Nick Walker. ‘Am I bid one hundred pounds? Thank you, sir. At one hundred – thank you – and ten. And twenty. And thirty …’
‘What a waste of money!’ Amber spat.
‘I think it looks rather nice,’ said Laurie. She glared at him.
‘I mean, hiring
you
, you idiot!’
‘Oh, darling, you say the sweetest things.’
‘ …one hundred and forty …at the back there. Any advance on one hundred and forty?’ At the table to our left, a hand went up.
‘Oh, well done, sir! We have one hundred and sixty over there to my left. This is a fine Panama hat. Perfect for summer days and cricket matches. Any advance on a hundred and sixty? Thank you, madam. One hundred and eighty. With the lady at the back there, at one hundred and eighty pounds. And two hundred. Well done, sir. Two hundred pounds. And twenty. And forty. And sixty. Against you, sir. Thank you, sir. And eighty. Three hundred, sir?’ The atmosphere was inten-sifying with the pace of the bidding.
‘Thank you, madam. Three hundred and
fifty.
’ Everyone gasped, then laughed.
‘And it’s with you at three hundred and fifty pounds, madam. At three hundred and fifty, once …twice …and-’ the gavel came down – ‘
Sold
!’
‘Why don’t you ask your mum if he’s here?’ Amber whispered, as the next lot, a day at Wentworth Golf Course, went under the hammer. ‘She’s been going round all the tables. She might have seen him.’ By now the bidding was well up as the auctioneer teased and cajoled people into putting up their hands.
‘And that’s two thousand pounds,’ we heard him say. ‘Any advance on two thousand pounds?’
‘She’s too far away,’ I pointed out.
‘So I had a stool test …’ I heard Hugo drone as he sipped his coffee. ‘My doctor said it was normal, but to be honest …’
‘Still at two thousand pounds. Once …Twice …Thank you very much! And the next item is our star lot. Showing here.’ Two of the waiters had lifted it aloft. ‘It’s a magnificent painting by Patrick Hughes – one of this country’s most important contemporary artists.’
We all craned to see the picture, with its strange eyebending perspective. It was a huge canvas of a maze.
‘And I’d like to start the bidding for this at eight thousand pounds – a snip, may I say, for a Patrick Hughes. So, starting at eight thousand …And I have eight thousand on my left. Thank you, sir. And eight thousand five hundred at the back there. And do I have any advance on eight thousand five hundred pounds?’ I looked to see who was bidding for the Patrick Hughes. And then, suddenly I saw Charlie. There he was. Right on the other side of the ballroom. He’d been obscured by the huge centrepiece of flowers, but now he’d pushed back his chair, and was just visible in the semidarkness.
‘He’s over there,’ I whispered to Amber. She trained her opera glasses in Charlie’s direction.
‘Oh yes. There he is. There he
is
!‘
‘Nine thousand pounds. And nine thousand five hundred.’
‘Oh, Charlie,’ Amber murmured. ‘Oh, Charlie.
Oh
!’
‘What?’
‘He’s with a
woman
!’ Oh God.
‘Well, who is it?’
‘Can’t see.’
‘Let me look.’ Amber’s left hand went up in an elegant arc as she passed the opera glasses over Laurie’s head.
‘
Thank you
, madam!’ shouted Nick Walker happily. ‘Ten thousand pounds from the young lady in the fetching green ballgown.’ Oh God. Oh God. ‘At ten thousand pounds,’ he
repeated. ‘Any advance on ten thousand pounds? Still less than the market value for a painting by Patrick Hughes.’
Amber looked stricken.
‘Sit on your hands!’ Laurie hissed.
‘And it’s still at ten thousand pounds. A bargain, may I say. With the lady in green …Ten thousand.’
‘Oh God!’ Amber moaned.
‘Going once!’
‘Oh no!’
‘Going twice! At ten thousand pounds now. Last chance. LAST CHANCE! At ten. Thousand. Pounds …’ Amber was white. The gavel was raised. It might as well have been a guillotine about to descend on her neck. ‘And going now at ten thousand pounds …At ten thousand pounds. Again, once …twice …and – Oh,
thank you
, sir! Ten thousand
five hundred
! With the gentleman at the back there.’
‘Never mind, darling,’ said Laurie with a smirk.
‘Oh, why don’t you belt up!’ she said, giving him a look that could cremate. ‘Who’s Charlie with, Minty?’ she asked.
I peered through the glasses.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t see her face.’ All I could see was a blue strapless dress, and strawberry blonde hair. Then the blue strapless dress and strawberry blonde hair stood up, and their owner slipped across the back of the room.
‘Oh God, she’s moved now. She’s moving towards the door. She must be going to the loo.’
‘Quick, let’s follow her!’ said Amber. ‘Come on, Minty.’ She had grabbed my hand.
‘And at twelve thousand pounds now. Still with the gentleman at the back …’
‘ …God, I’ll
kill
her,’ Amber hissed as we squeezed our way through the tables. ‘Stealing my boyfriend like that.’
‘And last chance now at twelve thousand pounds. Last chance. It’s your very. LAST. CHANCE. And at twelve thousand pounds …going …
going …
GONE!’
As we pushed through the double doors we heard the crack of the gavel, and a burst of applause, like sudden rain.
‘The loo’s this way,’ said Amber, as we hurtled down the stairs. Inside, we found a small queue of women, their long taffeta skirts rustling as they waited. They were tut-tutting, and shaking their heads.
‘– did you see that girl in the blue dress?’
‘– disgraceful!’
‘– pushing in like that!’
‘– no manners.’
‘– must have been desperate.’
‘– must have been drunk, you mean!’
For through the wooden door, we could hear the sounds of strenuous regurgitation. And then it stopped. And we heard the cistern flush. And then Helen emerged, looking white, clutching a length of folded toilet-paper to her mouth.
‘I’m awfully sorry about that,’ she said, weakly, as she made her way to the basin. ‘But actually, I’m not drunk. I’m pregnant.’ An embarrassed hush descended, while she splashed water on her face. Then she looked in the mirror, and our eyes met.
‘Oh, Minty,’ she said, with a wan smile. ‘Hello.’ And I turned to look at Amber. But all I saw was the end of her green silk skirt before the door swung shut behind her with a firm, resounding ‘click’.
She cried, of course. Not at first. At first she didn’t say anything. She just waited outside the hotel while I collected our coats, and then a doorman hailed us a cab. And when we got in the back, she was silent. She just stared out of the window at the rain-soaked streets. But then she started to sniff, and by the time we were halfway up Great Russell Street she was sobbing. And she sobbed all the way to Primrose Hill. I didn’t blame her. It was a terrible shock. A door had been slammed shut in her mind. After five months of anger and obsession, Charlie had finally been consigned to the past.
‘You should have talked me out of it!’ Amber wailed. ‘You shouldn’t have let me do it.’
‘I did
try
to stop you,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember?’
‘No,’ she howled. ‘Oh, all right, yes. Yes, I do remember now. Oh, Minty-’ she laid her head on my right shoulder, and I could feel her tears on my skin. ‘Oh God, I wish I’d listened,’ she sobbed. ‘I feel so bad.’
I felt bad too. I felt bad for Amber, though she’d brought it on herself. I also felt bad about the fact that we’d left the ball without saying a word to our escorts. It seemed rude, even if they were being paid. I wanted to dash in and explain that we were leaving. But Amber wouldn’t wait. She wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. When we got back to the flat, we just sat, very quietly, in the kitchen.
‘How come you didn’t know?’ she whispered.
‘Because she didn’t tell me. I had no idea.’
‘Well, if you
had
known,’ she croaked, ‘would you have told me?’
‘No,’ I said, after a moment. ‘Almost certainly not. Unless there was a particular reason why you
had
to know. But if I’d known before the ball, well then, yes, I would have told you. But I didn’t know. For a long time I thought she was keen on Joe.’
‘Hello!’ squawked Pedro. I went into the hall and picked up the phone. It was Laurie.
‘I’m sorry we left so abruptly,’ I said, ‘but Amber wasn’t feeling well. Hang on a moment …’ I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. ‘Laurie wants to know if he can have a word with you.’ Amber was hunched over the kitchen table. She shook her head.
‘She’ll ring you another time,’ I said.
‘Bloody well won’t,’ I heard her say.
‘Laurie sounded very worried about you,’ I explained. ‘I think it was nice of him to ring. He didn’t have to do that.’ She didn’t reply. She just gave me this strange, blinkless, stare.
‘Money well spent,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘I said it would be money well spent,’ she repeated, and then she emitted a bitter, mirthless laugh. What an evening it
had been. What a shock. And it was as much of a shock for
me.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Helen again as we sat in her shop two days later. ‘But I simply couldn’t tell you.’ I watched as her fingers quickly threaded the stems of red freesia and white roses through a moss-covered frame. ‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she went on, as she snipped and split the ends. ‘I didn’t want Amber to know, because I knew she’d be hurt and furious, and, to be honest, I was worried about what she might do. I mean, I know she’s your cousin and everything, Minty, but, well, you know what she’s like.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’
‘And that’s why I couldn’t say anything to you.’
‘I wouldn’t have told her,’ I said, with slight indignation. ‘I’m not one to blab, you know.’
‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t want to tell anyone,’ she explained. ‘Because I didn’t know what was going to happen.’
‘How did you meet Charlie again?’
‘A couple of days after you and I got back from the honeymoon, he came into the shop. He didn’t know it was my shop, but he was passing and, on the spur of the moment, he decided to send Amber some flowers.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, remembering the valedictory wreath of pink roses.
‘He felt bad about breaking up with her, even though he knew it was right. And he seemed so pleased to see me again, although we’d hardly spoken at your wedding. Then, with everything that had happened in that previous week, he just wanted to talk. So he asked me out to lunch. Then a few days later, he asked me out to dinner. And that’s how it all began.’
‘I see,’ I said, as I fiddled with a discarded carnation. ‘So that’s why you were being a little – distant.’
‘Yes. Because of Charlie. It was
very
awkward. And then six weeks ago I got pregnant. I didn’t mean to. And I was desperately worried in case he thought I was trying to trap him. So I wasn’t talking to anyone while I made up my mind what to
do. And I decided to tell him, and he was thrilled about it. In fact, he was so thrilled about it he took me to Paris for the weekend and proposed.’
‘Ah. So
that’s
why you went back. But why did you keep the engagement a secret?’
‘Because Charlie didn’t want to hurt Amber’s feelings, that’s why. So we didn’t tell a soul and we didn’t announce it in the papers. But I suppose the cat’s out of the bag now, so it doesn’t matter any more.’
‘You see, I thought you were being a bit funny with me because you were keen on Joe.’
‘Why did you think that?’
‘Because you’d bought his book, and you were talking about him so enthusiastically.’
‘Well, that’s because he’s terribly nice, Minty. He’s stable,’ she added pointedly. ‘He’s creative, he’s good-looking, and he’s fun.’
I looked at her and said nothing.
‘OK,’ she said, putting down her secateurs. ‘OK, OK, OK – I confess. The reason I was so positive about him and the reason why I kept in touch with him was because I thought that when he came back to London you two might …’ Her expression was full of meaning.
‘We did,’ I said bleakly.
‘You
did
?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, good. That’s wonderful.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I said. ‘It’s terrible.’
‘Why? Don’t you like him?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that when we were …you know …I accidentally called him Dominic.’
‘Oh,’ said Helen, seriously. ‘Oh dear, you insulted him.’
‘Yes, but not in the way he likes.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, sorry,’ I said, ‘it’s a kind of private joke. Anyway, he
was
very
upset,’ I went on. ‘And he won’t speak to me now. He says I’ve got too much baggage. He says I haven’t got over Dom.’
‘Well, you obviously haven’t,’ she said. She pulled a feathery spray of gyphsophila out of an aluminium tub. ‘It’s five months now, Minty,’ she went on, as she sliced the end. ‘Nothing stays the same. I wish you
could
get over Dominic. It’s not even as though he’s worth it.’
‘I
am
getting over him, in some ways,’ I replied. ‘But the problem is that what he did was so hard to understand.’
‘Well, your friends understand it, Minty. We all thought he was …flaky. Neurotic. It was so obvious. A man too scared to step on a plane? And so domineering,’ she went on. ‘You were so loyal, but we could all see how controlling he was. Those little jokes of his at your expense if you ventured an opinion. Rolling his eyes at us, if you talked for more than a minute at a time. Charlie said that Dominic was always making cracks to him about how “opinionated” you are, when you’re not.’
‘At dinner parties he used to tread on my toes, under the table, if he thought I was saying too much. Or he’d discreetly squeeze my hand, to shut me up.’
‘How horrible!’ she said crossly. ‘How could you
stand
it? Who the hell did he think he
was
? And he just talked about insurance all the time,’ Helen added contemptuously. ‘Didn’t he realise it’s simply not the done thing?’
And I thought no, despite all his etiquette books; despite all that acquired polish; despite that gleaming patina, that glitz, that gloss – Dominic had never learned how to behave.