Afterwife (12 page)

“Oh.” I laughed, adjusted the waistband of my big white hula-hula skirt. I was still frisky, restless for the dance floor, for dancing motherhood away, just for the night. I hopped from one heel to the other. “Have I got canapé on my tooth or something?”

He was looking really hard now. It felt like I was being sucked into those pale blue eyes, like a little wooden boat pulled toward a giant, hungry whirlpool.

“What?” I said, uncomfortable now, wishing the girl in the loo would get on with it and signal that the wait was almost over by flushing then.

He smiled, a knowing smile. Like he could read what I was feeling, knew how helpless I was to escape. “I know you’re the kind of woman who likes to be looked at, Sophie, so I’m looking at you.”

“Right,” I said, recognizing the weirdness through my drunkenness. We shouldn’t be talking like this. Something funny was going down.

“You are so very beautiful, Sophie,” he said in a way that was so disarmingly sincere sounding that it froze me to the spot.

“Thanks,” I said quietly, glancing around me in case someone was watching or Jenny was coming toward us. There was no one. Yes, I should have said “Fuck off” at this precise point but it’s hard when a man is looking at you like that and you’ve drunk too much and you’re not quite sure what’s going on. Shamefully, I was a little bit flattered too. For a moment I was not a stay-at-home mother from Muswell Hill. I was Sophie, man magnet. Like I used to be.

“You feel it?” And his eyes flashed filthy.

“Feel what?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” I said, knowing exactly what he meant, feeling my body clench with the most appalling arousal. Honestly, up until this point, I’d never felt an attraction to Sam before. It had never occurred to me that he might even be sexy. He was Jenny’s boyfriend. That was that. I didn’t go there. But now, suddenly, he was someone else too. Someone apart from Jenny, someone who existed in my space, in this private, erotic moment, with me, just me, not me as someone’s wife or mother or neighbor, but me as I used to be when I was young and single and could walk out into any street and bring traffic to a screeching halt.

“Sophie…” He reached out to me, his hand firm on my waist. I flitted away from him in one move like a dancer. The toilet door opened, a woman came out and I ran in. I shut the door firmly behind me. It was to prove much harder to shut out Sam from my head.

I should have told Jenny, shouldn’t I? But I felt horribly guilty and decided to put it down to a blip of high spirits, a drunken conversation late at night in a sexy, charged atmosphere. And Jenny was
so happy at that time. She had her hands in the air. She was mouthing the words to “Start Me Up.” Was it worth ruining her happiness for a blip? Was it worth telling Ollie, then trying to stop him from socking Sam in the jaw? No. It wasn’t. So I told no one and hoped that Jenny and Sam’s relationship would run its course sooner rather than later.

I never expected it to last, you see. After that, why would I? The guy had ants in his pants. A cock that wanted walkabout.

The secret was a burden. It was also slightly thrilling. He messed around in my head in that sexy, pureed area between sleep and waking, at the edge of my thoughts, at the edge of my vision. After that I would notice him looking at me over dinner, his eyes always on my mouth. And I’d feel a jolt when his hands brushed against mine, which they seemed to do frequently, and I’d glance up to see if Jenny had noticed. She never appeared to—maybe she chose not to see. And I tried not to flirt, I really did, but it’s always come so naturally to me, I’m afraid. It’s like breathing. Given the opportunity, why would a woman not want to flex her coquettish muscle? It’s fun. Not everything in life is fun. Flirting is.

Then it stopped being fun. It got more intense. In my head. I realized that to stop it all in its tracks I had to reel away from Sam. I started making excuses. Excuses for days out, picnics, foursome suppers. I put it all down to my busy family life, the school, the neighborhood community. And I kept Jenny and Sam as separate as I could from my Muswell Hill social life. Those two worlds had to be kept apart, you see. I didn’t want to exclude Jenny, but because Jenny came with Sam, I had no choice.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that it would only be a temporary measure.

I gave their relationship another six months, max. I figured that a guy who’d hit on his girlfriend’s best friend was bound to hit on someone else too. It was only a matter of time before he did, and
another woman exposed him. But six months passed and nothing happened that ruffled Jenny, nothing that she knew about, at any rate. The relationship was going from strength to strength. When he finally proposed, I must have given the world’s most hollow congratulatory whoop. After that point I made a real effort to try to forget what happened at that party. Either that or I had to say something. But what? She was engaged to him. She’d developed this bouncy new walk, like she had little foam wedges in the soles of her shoes, and her eyes shone. The time was never right. And oh, God, maybe there was a teeny part of me that was jealous. I don’t feel good about that. I really don’t.

Luckily they were engaged for months and months. The wedding never made it to the white stiffie invitation stage. Sam was evasive when it came to setting a date for the wedding and I, along with the rest of Jenny’s friends, began to suspect that it might never happen. Nobly, I even encouraged Jenny to demand a wedding date because I knew that this would push Sam away, that he was that type of man. You know the ones: the more you demand, the less committal they are. I thought that if they didn’t get married then I wouldn’t have to tell her about the party. Or the other things. She would be saved.

I was wrong.

H
ey, Ol.” Jenny quickly assessed his mental state. Not looking too good actually. He was wearing grubby tracksuit bottoms, an old Rolling Stones tour T-shirt, and around his shoulders, a pink cashmere scarf. Without thinking, she reached out to hug him. He sank his head against her shoulder and they stood like that for a few moments in silence. It struck her how they never would have done this when Sophie was alive, that somehow the boundaries between what had been a hands-off relationship between a wife’s best friend and her husband were blurring slightly.

“First a beard, now cross-dressing,” he mumbled, shaking his greasy black hair out of his eyes. “Come in.”

She walked into number thirty-three. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“It’s Soph’s.”

“I kind of guessed that.”

“Sorry for emotionally blackmailing you round.”

“It wasn’t emotional blackmail.”

“‘If you don’t come over immediately I might do something silly. Throw myself off the trampoline or something.’”

She laughed.

“I was being a drama queen. Sorry.”

“You’re allowed to be.” The truth was she had been hugely worried about him—he’d sounded so down, monosyllabically depressed—and had grabbed the car keys after that phone conversation and run to the car like a madwoman. She was hugely relieved to see him here, smiling grimly, wearing pink.

“Worse, there’s no tea. Sorry.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Kettle’s blown.” She followed him into the kitchen. “Put it on without any water. Went upstairs.”

“At least you didn’t go out.”

“At least I didn’t put it on then kill myself. The paintwork would have been completely destroyed. Soph would have been mad.”

“She would. Thanks to this kitchen I know the Farrow and Ball paint chart like I used to know the periodic table. Hours she took to get the exact right shade of white—sorry, ‘string.’” She checked out the soot mark on the ceiling, unplugged the kettle from its socket and made a mental note to order one from Amazon. There was a mountain of empty beer cans piled in the recycling box. Oh, well, as long as he was eating. She opened the fridge door to assess the food situation. The shelves were crammed with enough foil-covered Pyrex dishes to keep him alive for weeks. It whiffed: not fresh. “Have you not been eating this food, Ollie?”

He fiddled with the fringe on Sophie’s scarf. “Kind of lost my appetite.”

“Some liquid nourishment here, I see.”

“Ah, that’s Tash. She restocks the fridge with beer every few days.”

“Does she?” Well, that was
not
on the Help Ollie agenda! “Alcohol’s a depressant, Ollie,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so schoolmarmish and disapproving. “It’s not going to help.”

Ollie’s smile was a flare in the darkness. “Thank you, Mother.”

She winced. “Sorry.”

“If you could let the ladies know about the lasagna invasion…It’s been going on for weeks. Tell them I surrender. I can take no more. Can it stop now, please?”

“I will report back and request retreat. Ollie…” She’d come here to tell him about the wedding. She’d already put it off on two other occasions, she wasn’t sure why. It never seemed the right time. And she felt nervous about it. She just couldn’t shift the feeling that getting married was a bit like dancing on Sophie’s gravestone.

“Thanks, Jen, for dropping everything.” He frowned and suddenly looked a hundred years older than he had five minutes before. Just as handsome, though, funnily enough. “Sometimes, being alone, especially when Freddie’s at school, my head goes to funny places and I just want to be with someone who knew Sophie like I knew her. You’re the only one. I feel connected to her through you.”

Jenny busily cleared a pile of out-of-date newspapers off a kitchen chair, trying to hide an unexpected flush of pleasure. “You can always call me. Whatever time of day, you know that.” She cleared her throat, hesitated. “Ollie, I wanted to tell you something.” She took a deep breath. “Sam wants us to get married this summer.”

Ollie’s face did not change. It was a study in nonplussedness.

“I just wanted to let you know first,” she gabbled, feeling silly now. “Sophie was going to be matron of honor, and I know it will be, er, difficult for you. But I’d love you to be there. If you can face it.”

He smiled, finally. “Of course I will, you doughnut. Jenny Vale married…” He tried the words on for size. “About bloody time.” He hugged her and their faces were suddenly too close. She backed away, feeling oddly deflated. “Do you think Freddie would like to be page boy?”

“Ask him.” He reached out and touched her arm lightly. “Now can I ask
you
something?”

“About the wedding?” She knew he’d find it difficult. Poor Ollie.

“No. I was going through Soph’s things.”

“Oh, right.” She blushed.

“Every time I open our wardrobe a tiny, irrational part of me hopes that she’ll be in there. That they’re not just dresses.” His eyes shadowed gyspy black. Had they always been this black?

“I thought I wanted to keep them but now I think that as long as they’re there…it’s like a fucking kick in the face every morning. I can’t explain it. Would you sort through them, maybe find them another home?”

“Of course!”

“Just pick out…oh, you know. You choose. I’ve haven’t really got the foggiest about fashion, but if you could keep special things for Freddie.”

“To be honest, Ollie, I’ll probably end up saving Freddie a ton of cheap High Street stuff and throwing away her prized vintage Ossie Clark. I’ve not been blessed with an innate sense of style, as you can probably tell.”

“You scrub up alright, Jenny.”

Mortified, wondering if he thought that she was angling for a compliment, or worse, comparing herself to Sophie, she felt the heat rise on her cheeks once more. “And, er, what do you want me to do with the other stuff?”

Ollie’s face darkened. She couldn’t read it. He looked, as he had done numerous times in the past few weeks, like a totally different man to the one she’d known when Sophie was alive. It was as if Sophie’s death had deleted a version of him and someone else was emerging, changing the structure of his face, making it harder and rougher, older. “Oxfam. The mum mafia, I don’t know. It makes no difference to me. It’s just stuff. Her clothes are not going to bring her back, are they?”

He was wrong. For when Jenny slid back the white wardrobe
doors, there she was, a whole clutch of Nicolas from different years, different parties, shreds of Sophie in the print of leopard spot, in the fluff of a rabbit skin collar, the tilt of a cowboy hat.

There was Sophie’s peacock feather dress, the one she used to wear to weddings, when she’d invariably be late, falling through the church doors noisily, turning every head, seeking out Jenny. She remembered how they would stand there wedged together. “Do you reckon it will outlast the wedding registry appliances?” Sophie would joke and they’d both giggle silently until Sophie completely lost it and did the Honk and everyone would turn and glare at them.

Ah, here was the seventies-style caramel silk blouse that she’d worn on their shopping trip a couple of months before she died. This was the time Sophie had bought some yellow heels from Topshop and frog-marched a reluctant Jenny to the tills to buy a navy sequin shift dress—“Not age appropriate!” Jenny had protested, “not age appropriate!”—that now sat unworn in her own wardrobe, like a glamorous relic from a different, sparklier life.

The long cable-knit cream cardie that Sophie used to effortlessly wear to the park with Freddie. (Sophie did knitwear; Jenny wore jumpers.)

Some dresses, unworn, a couple with price tags still attached. There was also a series of more basic dresses and trousers in a Parisian palette of black and gray and navy, the background hum to the times they’d met for coffees in the day, walks in the park, a stolen morning matinee; Sophie’s habit of interrupting Jenny’s day of editing by luring her for noodles, flour-free lemon cakes at Gail’s, or “a quick mosey” around IKEA, “Not to buy. Just to see.” They would invariably come home laden with white picture frames, pink plant pots and enough tea light votives to light up north London.

Jenny touched the sleeve of a red vintage dress gingerly, half expecting it to vaporize at her touch like a ghost. This was one of Sophie’s favorite dresses, with a sexy slit up the side that showed off
her lovely shapely legs. She lifted the sleeve to her nose and sniffed. And there she was again. Sophie’s perfume: floral, sexily old-fashioned, the perfume of a 1950s sex bomb. She wondered how many times Ollie had done the same thing, sucked in the sexy essence of her. She quickly let go of the sleeve, feeling voyeuristic.