Читать книгу The Cows - Dawn O’Porter - Страница 25

Sophie and I used to work for an agency that supplied waiting staff for posh people’s parties. We’d serve miniature Yorkshire puddings with horseradish cream, or other such pretentious tiny things, to London’s society crowd. We dealt with a lot of pretentious arseholes, but we also got to snoop around their houses. Huge Notting Hill townhouses and massive Sloane Square apartments. They were another world from what we were used to in Walthamstow. Our families did well by our local standards, we were the upper end of the scale for where we were from, but nothing in comparison to the people who had these parties. They seemed like something out of the movies, and they lived in a London that we didn’t recognise as ours. We used to laugh about how we would be if we lived that way. We fantasised about wearing wild dressing gowns, marabou slippers, wafting around our mansions with glass after glass of champagne. It was a ridiculous dream, but every time I arrive at Sophie and Carl’s house, I realise she is living it.

I pick Annie up so she can ring the doorbell. It’s Victorian, so quite stiff. Her little fingers struggle to push it, so I put mine on top of hers and say, ‘One two, three.’ We hear the perfectly tuned, beautiful bells of Big Ben that their £400 doorbell bellows out whenever anyone pops round. Sophie’s voice booms out of a speaker, ‘Hang on, just upstairs,’ but as she says it, we hear heavy footsteps walking towards the door. Annie holds onto me a little tighter, which makes me feel so good. She’s been angry with me all day. But in that way that kids do, when a shred of fear from the outside world creeps in, she knows her mummy is the one to make her safe. I squeeze her back, happy to be a team again, as the door slowly opens.

And there is Carl. All six foot two of him. His dark hair neatly cut and parted at the side. His fifty-one-year-old, well-looked-after body hidden underneath a cream V-neck jumper, with a checked shirt poking out from underneath. I’m not sure what you’d call the trousers he has on, a casual chino? This is him when he’s relaxing at home, but he still looks smarter than most of the men I know when they’re at work.

‘Hey Carl, so nice to see you,’ I say, stepping inside and kissing him on each cheek. I feel under surveillance, like I could say something incriminating to piss him off. I remind myself I am a parent, that he is not my husband, and it actually doesn’t matter if he likes me or not. But still, I feel judged.

‘Hello Tara, Annie; welcome. Sophie is somewhere, come in,’ he says, warmly, reminding me that most of my opinion of Carl comes from Sophie’s paranoia.

‘Hiiiiiii,’ says Sophie, coming down the large staircase. She looks fully the part and as beautiful as ever. All casual in black, but impeccably styled.

‘Aunty Sophie!’ says Annie, letting go of my hand and running over to her. They’ve always got on great. Sophie is childlike by nature, so connects well with kids. I am pretty certain this would not be the case if the kids were her own. It’s another reason why marrying Carl suited her. He has three boys by his first marriage, and no interest in having any more.

‘Hello sweetheart,’ she says, picking Annie up and giving her a huge kiss. I see her shoot a look to Carl, to make sure he is watching. She thinks him seeing her with children makes her seem responsible in some way, I think. ‘Shall we go into the kitchen?’ she says.

In the kitchen, a huge white three-sided cube that opens up to a sprawling and perfectly preened garden, Carl goes over to a wine fridge that is four times the size of my actual fridge and says to Sophie, ‘Maybe a 2008?’

‘Lovely,’ she replies.

As he opens it, Sophie opens the back doors so that Annie can burst into the open air and run around the flower beds. She gets to do no such thing at home, because my garden is basically a shed with no roof on it. I do love seeing her play happily, a gentle reminder that maybe I am doing OK at being a mum.

‘So, did he text?’ Sophie asks me, as Carl puts three enormous bulbous wine glasses in front of us. He puts three fingers’ worth of wine in mine, three fingers’ worth in his, but as he’s pouring Sophie’s, she puts her hand up as if to stop him putting so much in hers. That is the first time in the history of my existence I have ever seen her do that. Carl looks impressed. Sophie looks at me and winks.

‘No, not yet,’ I say, tasting the wine. It’s unbelievably delicious, like the smoothest, creamiest, most perfectly chilled drink I have ever consumed. I bet it cost £50 a bottle. I drink it slowly, despite wanting to neck it. ‘I obviously gauged that completely wrong. He hasn’t contacted me all weekend, I’m gutted,’ I continue.

‘I presume you’re talking about a young man?’ says Carl, like an old dad.

‘Yip! Tara went on an Internet date on Friday,’ Sophie says, as if she is telling Carl of a new phenomenon that the kids are doing.

‘Actually, that’s not quite what happened. I went to meet the guy from the Internet but I ended up with a guy I met at the bar,’ I say, correcting her, then wishing I hadn’t because that didn’t sound great. Carl looks confused, and I feel dirty.

‘I don’t think I could ever date someone I met on the Internet, I’d be so worried that they would expect something from me on the first date,’ says Sophie, like butter wouldn’t melt. My jaw falls open and I stare hard at her, as if to say, ‘I’m sorry, what character are you playing here?’

‘I was never much of a dater,’ she continues. To which I have to stop myself yelping, ‘No, you were just a shagger!’ What is this rewriting of history she has to do to keep her husband happy? I know what it is; it’s a fear of him leaving her and her being left with nothing. But would he, really? He’s a bit of a pompous snob, but I don’t think he’s that bad.

‘So, hang on,’ interjects Carl. ‘You were going to meet someone on the Internet but ended up with someone at the bar?’ He looks more intrigued than judgmental, but Sophie still looks nervous.

‘Yes. I went up to the wrong guy. By the time I realised it was the wrong guy we were already getting along really well, so I just stayed there with him.’

‘And what about the other guy?’ Carl asked.

‘He left with someone that looked like a prostitute, so he looked pretty happy,’ I say, looking at Sophie, as if to say, ‘You might lie about real life, but I don’t.’ I can see this terrifies her; she’s wondering how to separate herself from my debauchery.

‘God, we are so different,’ is what she goes with, causing me to spit out about £2.50’s worth of wine all over the solid white glossy kitchen table that seats twelve people.

‘Tara, careful,’ she says, getting up to fetch a cloth, with which she mops up my mess. I feel like I’m fifteen and sitting at a table with my friend’s parents who think I’m a bad influence.

‘Sophie, we are not that different. Are we?’ I say, not willing to take any further unnecessary humiliation this weekend; I think I’ve hit my peak after Jason and Wankgate. She stops wiping and looks at me. Carl is behind her, and she looks deeply into my eyes as if to say, ‘Please, just go with this.’ But why should I? Why should I sit here and be made to sound like some old slapper when she was basically ‘Miss Trollop of Walthamstow’ from 1998 through to 2010? Just as I am about to say something brilliantly clever and collected to set the record straight, Annie runs into the kitchen.

‘Mummy, I think I’m going to be sick,’ she says, looking as green as the garden behind her. And then, like an earthquake shattering a dam, she projectile vomits all over Sophie and Carl’s perfectly pristine floor.