Читать книгу The Fetch - Finuala Dowling - Страница 9

Chas and his mother remained unaware of Nina as they picked their way across the now dew-damp grass and turned down the sandy path to Midden House. Nina trailed behind them.

“You could give me your arm,” she heard Mrs Fawkes complain.

Chas grudgingly opened the crook of his arm.

“It would be nice if you could occasionally show some maternal pride in my work,” he said, “instead of bringing up your everlasting homophobia.”

“You need to be more aware of what people think and how they’re judging you.”

“Like Great Uncle Ernie, I suppose.”

“Don’t bring that up. The walls have ears.”

Sensing Nina’s presence behind them, Chas turned around. “Nina – sorry, I’d forgotten all about you!” He put his free arm around her. “Nina saved my cake,” he told his mother.

“I don’t know why you had to have such an expensive confection,” she said. “The Spar makes perfectly good tray bakes for a very reasonable price.”

Nina thought Chas would make light of this familial gripe, but his mood switched instantly.

“Oh, for God’s sake! Do you never think of anything but cheeseparing?”

“It takes a miser to know one,” retorted Mrs Fawkes.

Chas unlatched the gate and called out his customary “Hello, hello, hello!” to the guests on the lawn.

Nina had only ever seen the house from the beach. This close, it was a fairy palace; the windows all lit up and the garden humming with human voices and music, the day’s gaudy beach towels hung over the stoep railings like the flags of foreign countries she had never visited. Everywhere there were knots of people who seemed to know each other very well, laughing, touching each other, letting out the occasional shriek of surprise at the turn of the conversation or the arrival of another guest.

A threesome sitting around a card table on the stoep called out in greeting: “Mrs Fawkes!”

Nina helped Chas’s mother walk up the grassy slope and made sure she was settled in the most comfortable chair around the green baize.

“Now, how far had we got?” asked Mrs Fawkes.

The novice bridge players recited the lessons they’d learnt so far: “Cover an honour with an honour,” “Second player plays low” and “There’s many a man wandering the Thames embankment for not having drawn trumps.”

Mrs Fawkes gave a dry laugh. Then, looking up and seeing Nina still hovering nearby, she said: “So sorry, my dear, to abandon you like this. I’m teaching these three to play bridge. Find Emmanuel and get him to pour you a glass of that Italian punch of his. And tell him to bring me a brandy and soda.”

Nina went inside to find Emmanuel. At least she had an errand. Emmanuel smiled at her as he took Mrs Fawkes’s order. Nina wanted to ask him if he was happy with the library books, but he was surrounded by bottles and glasses and a crush of people asking for things. He needed his hands free in order to talk, she knew. She took a glass of sangria from a man who showed no other inclination to engage with her. Then, since she was in the way of other people who wanted drinks, she withdrew to a less occupied place on the floor.

When had she last been among so many people? Sometimes on a Saturday morning the library became uncomfortably crowded and she had to deal with complaints: someone had been hogging one of the computers for too long; a popular DVD – Riverdance, usually – or a school project book on short loan hadn’t been returned; the local prostitute was touting for business outside the toilets in the foyer again. Despite the signs, cellphones rang and were answered. Mothers let their toddlers climb through the roped queue barriers, which then toppled over.

But this crowd at Midden House was quite different, relaxed by alcohol and familiarity. Except that she was not part of the familiarity. Nina made her way slowly around the room, hoping that someone kind would catch her eye and invite her to join their group. The remains of Chas’s birthday cake lay amidst other snack debris on the dining room table. Even in its current state of dismemberment it was the most edible-looking thing there. Nina had imagined elegant canapés, clever party dishes like anchovy and olive compote. But Chas seemed to have bought several packets of spongy, bright orange maize snacks.

She cut a sliver off what was left of We love you, Chas. No one turned to her and said: “Good, isn’t it?” The coterie of friends who’d requisitioned the chairs around the table was engaged in the sort of gossip that did not brook interruption. The main speaker, a young woman, was actually sitting atop the table, cross-legged, her skirt rucked up around her hips.

Nina turned away from this uninvited view of another woman’s crotch and pretended to be interested in the paintings on the walls. One showed a young man in a Basotho hat and blanket setting off alone on horseback.

Either the group around the table didn’t mind her eavesdropping, or they hadn’t noticed her at all, because they continued to speak without lowering their voices.

“Do you remember the time she insisted on sunbathing with no top on next to the tidal pool and that Muslim woman complained?”

“What did Chas do?”

“Oh, he thought everything she did was hilarious up to a point. But when they came to arrest her, he definitely thought she’d gone too far. The officers were begging her to put her top on, just so they wouldn’t have to arrest her. But no, Dolly was in full exhibitionist mode. Chas didn’t help matters by saying to the woman in the burka: ‘Why are you making such a fuss about those raisins?’ ”

“Those raisins!”

“Yes, can you believe it? And then Dolly climbed into the back of the police van and said: ‘Take me away! See how little my husband cares!’ ”

Another oil painting depicted a gardener leaning on his hoe and chatting to a housekeeper who was halfway up the steps of a homestead. The woman leant over the balustrade; she wore a knotted headscarf. In the distance, beyond the side of the house where this cheerful encounter was taking place, a row of Lombardy poplars stretched towards purple mountains. The Free State, thought Nina.

“Family heirloom.” Chas had come up behind her. “The artist was a friend of Great Uncle Ernie’s. I’m sure it must be worth something.” He pointed at the signature in the bottom right corner: M C Wilmot. “Ever heard of her?”

“No,” said Nina and waited to be enlightened.

“Neither has anyone else,” Chas said. “It’s called ‘The Workers’. ”

“Do you think she meant it to be ironic?” asked Nina. “I mean, they’re clearly workers, but they’re also clearly not working.”

“Maybe. A bit of colonial wit. Come,” he said, “there’s someone who’s been dying to meet you.”

Nina hoped everyone saw how their host put his arm around her and drew her along with him, away from the gossiping friends. Chas led her to a quiet sunroom, part of the stoep that had been enclosed with glass, where an elderly man was reading on a sofa. His paunch, white locks and beard made him look like one of those men shopping malls hire to play Father Christmas. His connection with innocent childhood was reinforced by the presence, on the wall behind him, of a painting of a golden-haired boy, praying in a white nightshirt.

“This is Harry,” said Chas. “Harry, this is my neighbour, Nina. Well, I’ll leave you two to it.” With another “Hello, hello, hello!”, Chas made a hasty sea-crossing into another conversation.

“Hello,” said Nina, trying to take in her predicament.

Why had she been introduced to this man? Why had she been left alone with him in a confined space? How could she possibly be of any interest to him? Perhaps he’d been blacklisted for overdue library books. She did that kind of thing every now and then – helped defaulters.

“Is that another of the family heirlooms?” she asked, desperate to start any kind of conversation.

“The angelic boy? That’s Chas himself, you know, in the days when he was godly. Have a closer look, my dear, lean right over me if you need to.”

Instead of leaning over him, she drew back a little and sat on a chair next to the sofa that held Harry’s considerable weight. “No, thank you,” she said, “I can see it from here. So … how do you know Chas?”

Harry laughed. “He works for me. Well, he’s supposed to. I never see him on Mondays, or on any day before ten. And I spend a lot of time putting out fires for him.”

“Putting out fires?”

“Like the time he wrote that someone’s play was ‘impenetrable rubbish’ after sleeping right the way through it. With the playwright sitting behind him. My God, Chas just about had his head in the man’s lap!”

“So you don’t review things yourself?”

“Well, Chas doesn’t know much about art, though, of course, he pretends to, so I do a lot of the exhibitions. And, as you can see,” he said, looking down at his stomach, “I do the restaurant reviews.”

“That’s nice,” said Nina blandly, looking out of the window. The woman with the flimsy sarong was massaging Chas’s shoulders. Nina heard his laugh, the deep rumble of his voice. “Chas said you wanted to meet me – is it something about books or libraries?”

Harry looked perplexed. “Oh no, my dear. It’s just that I’m not fit enough to circulate at parties any more. I said to Chas: ‘Bring me someone young and juicy to chat to.’ So, what is it that you do with books and libraries?”

“I’m a librarian at one of the local branches.”

“Is that your life? You must be in your mid to late twenties. Do you at least have a boyfriend? Don’t you ever go out?”

As he leant over towards her, his paunch sagged and one knee came close to the ground. He looked like a supplicant.

“No, never,” she said quickly, trying to pre-empt the question she felt was coming.

“You look so Victorian,” he said. “Your skin is so lovely. You look like a milkmaid.”

Nina looked out of the window again. She’d heard these kinds of things before. You longed for someone to notice you, the real you inside, the one that had ideas and feelings, but people kept returning to your appearance instead, forcing it upon you, saying: “This plump milkmaid is the real Nina. She is not glamorous or fascinating or clever, but she would look good on a milk cart, surrounded by her churns.”

On the lawn outside, beautiful young non-dairy people were laughing, shrieking, hugging. The moon caught the white water crashing into the tidal pool. A clearly drunk party-goer was standing on the back wall in a pair of swimming trunks, trying to resist the force of the incoming waves. How utterly charmed other people’s lives looked.

She heard the tinkle of a wine glass breaking on the floor of the stoep and Chas’s voice saying: “Well, we’ll just get another one.”

Miracle of miracles, their host came into the sunroom. Had he come to rescue her? But he did not even look in their direction. Instead he moved over to a sideboard, opened it and collected five glasses, threading their stems through his fingers. He smiled at Nina as he escaped again.

“Actually,” said Harry, when they were alone once more, “it’s your bust. I love your bust. I can say that, you know, at my age. At my age I can only have a physician’s interest in your breasts. But I’ll get your number from Chas. Perhaps you could help me review a restaurant sometime.”

“Chas doesn’t have my number.”

“Then you could just give it to me yourself.”

“I-I don’t know it off by heart.”

It was a pathetic excuse. One day she’d learn to say: “No. I don’t want you to call me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Harry, pulling himself back onto the sofa so that he no longer seemed to be genuflecting before her, “what a silly girl you are.”

Something like a riposte welled up inside her, but she could not say it aloud.

“I’m sorry. I have to go. Excuse me,” said Nina.

There was no point in trying to enjoy the party now. She went to the kitchen. Emmanuel was there, washing wine glasses. “Is it alright if I go out the back way?” she asked.

He followed her outside to make sure the back gate was unlocked.

“You can’t go without saying goodbye!”

It was Chas. Nina waited while he caught up with her.

“Mother sent me looking for you,” he said. “She wanted to know where that ‘nice-looking, well-brought-up young woman who was here earlier’ was. Didn’t you have a good time? I hope Harry didn’t start pawing you. He’s a bit of an old roué.”

“I couldn’t quite work him out,” she fudged. “But I think I said something wrong and now I feel bad because he’s your boss.”

Chas laughed. “Nothing you said could possibly make things worse than they are between me and Harry Purchase. He keeps calling me in for performance assessments and rating me two out of ten for punctuality and all that kind of nonsense. But I’m not going to be his doily carrier.”

“You invited him to your party,” she observed.

“This party isn’t really my ‘A-list’,” said Chas.

“I suppose that explains why I got an invitation.”

Chas laughed again. “Tell me what you really think of Harry.”

“What I really think?” Nina looked into Chas’s merry eyes and took a deep breath. “I hope Harry dies soon. I have a list of people who have to die so that I can return to a state of zero embarrassment.”

It was wonderful to laugh in the dark about a common enemy, but even more wonderful to be discovered by Chas, to be seen by him. They were at the gate of Cockle Place and she thought they might exchange some polite words of farewell, but instead Chas swooped down and kissed her. There was no build-up beforehand, and no lingering afterwards – Chas was already on his way back to his party. When he was quite sure that Nina was watching his retreating figure, he gave a slight shimmy to his hips, as if he were dancing to some irresistible tune.