Can We Still Be Friends (15 page)

‘Perhaps you could elucidate what contribution you feel your team could make. As you know,
Design for the Eighties
will be a collection of the very finest work from the contemporary design scene. Charles’ – she nodded at pipe-cleaner man – ‘has told us that we should consider you for the role of public relations team for this event. I’m sure you also know there is a large amount of competition for this project. Tania, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but are you acquainted with this period of design – Starck, Sottsass, Patrick Shaw?’ Marisa glanced over at the decidedly animal-print sofas.

‘Oh gosh yes. I’m an old mate of Patrick’s – he and I used to have a right old time together at parties. In fact, and you can ask him about this’ – Tania leant forward conspiratorially – ‘I remember him having a scene with my flatmate Jackie – we were in a lovely place just up the street from here – back in the early seventies when I was doing my modelling, as young girls did.’ The smile Annie and Lee knew she considered to be winning was not working as she directed it at Marisa. Her flushed face showed that she was feeling nervous, and being nervous didn’t suit Tania. Luckily, Annie thought, it wasn’t a lunchtime meeting and she couldn’t bring out the wine. That could sometimes make things worse.

Charles stepped in. ‘We feel this is a uniquely appropriate time to demonstrate how key contemporary design is to the way we live now. It’s no longer the preserve of the few but has a validity in everybody’s life. It’s an exciting shift of the moment and as such this is an ideal exhibition to encourage support of something equally as central to everybody’s life as …’ There was a pause as he surveyed his audience. ‘Children.’ Despite producing the word as a revelation, it was obvious that this aspect of the event was not something he was entirely at home with.

Tania talked through the papers that had been distributed. Under the dark-green intertwined double ‘T’ that headed the thick paper was a proposal under the headings:

Guest list

Campaign strategy

Charity message

Sponsors

As Tania shared her thoughts on the structure of the evening her voice calmed, and her hands, which during the initial moments of the meeting had flailed, were confidently still. The room had become her stage and she the leading actress in command of her audience.

She’s good at this stuff, thought Annie. She’s even got Marisa paying attention. Only the previous evening, Tania had sat at the table after another presentation and given Annie a lesson in what she called ‘Tania’s finishing school for life’.

‘You’ve got to make them feel they can rely on you and
only
you. It’s like you’re telling them to take a nice hot bath with a long glass of pop. Tell them to relax. When they get out, you’ve made sure they’ve got a warm towel at the ready and
then
, and only
then
, mind you, you whack it to them … all the troubleshooting you’ve done, how you’ve headed off heaven knows what at the pass – because you were there. They didn’t have an inkling.’ The lecture had ended with a heavy sigh. Occasionally, Annie wondered whether Tania was happy.

An hour later, the glasses of Perrier hardly touched, the group raised themselves from the table.

‘Thank you, Tania, for your time and your extremely interesting proposal,’ Charles said as he picked up the papers in front of him and then prodded the glasses which threatened to slide completely off the sharp slope of his nose to a safer place. ‘We’ll get back to you within the month.’

‘I look forward to it, and do let me know if there is any other information we can provide. Lee, be a dear and get the TTPR press pack for everyone, and we’ll meet you downstairs.’

Left alone in the boardroom, Annie started to gather the glasses.

‘It is
Aarna
, isn’t it? Kendra’s friend?’ Marisa stood in the doorway, her voice a flat drawl. Her stillness was more potent than any gesture. ‘You’re her good friend, aren’t you?’

Annie nodded. Should she correct Marisa’s strange pronunciation of her name?

‘How you girls have gone your different ways.’ It was unclear whether Marisa expected any kind of response, as her gaze focused past Annie and over to the large windows where the dirty light of the winter afternoon had now been replaced by darkness.

‘I wouldn’t have expected Kendra to be involved in public relations, but she has, as I’m sure you know, taken a somewhat strange – some might say deliberately obtuse – route at this point in her life. I take it you’ve met … her friend, that ridiculous creature?’

‘You mean Gioia? Um, yes. Well, not often. She seems … nice.’

‘Nice. What part of her do you consider is nice, I wonder. Hmm. Nice? Do you really think so?’

Marisa turned to leave the room. ‘You need to get her out of this mess,’ she said as she walked away.

After Christmas Day with Alfie and John, and after Gioia’s return to London from Glasgow, when they spent a wonderful two days in her flat watching cheesy movies on the TV and making love so often that time turned on its head, Kendra lay wedged between
Gioia’s legs in the bath and decided that she had to tell her parents about her girlfriend.

She had begun to leave things in the flat, and she loved the way in which Gioia appeared to accept any part of Kendra in her life. Kendra had never previously left so much as a toothbrush in anybody’s home. As far as possessions were concerned, she had relatively few that she really cared for. Art was always offering to buy her stuff, but she couldn’t think of anything she really wanted, and she hated the way that some people took anything they could get their hands on, just so they could own it. She had to admit her mum wasn’t at all grabby. Everything she possessed fitted perfectly in its place, and there was nothing superfluous. But of course that was because she was always trying so hard. She couldn’t ever relax about anything.

Even so, when Kendra saw a pile of her knickers and T-shirts sitting on the open shelves under the window, the leather case of her camera slung on a hook near the door and a few of her compilation tapes lying on the stereo at Gioia’s place, she was pleased. She had used her father’s state-of-the-art sound system to compile the tapes for Gioia and was particularly proud of one that led Talking Heads into a track from Black Uhuru and then changed pace entirely, with Nino Rota’s jangling music for Fellini. Gioia played it all the time, raising her arms in support and singing loudly to the Heads’ ‘Burning Down the House’.

‘Kendra, your mum and dad can’t be that bad. Just tell them. You know. It’s your life. They can’t live it for you.’ Gioia had told her that only the other day. But Gioia didn’t understand. It wasn’t like that. Kendra couldn’t
just tell them.
She knew that they would be frustrated, disappointed, angry, confused. It would be awful.

It had been a last-minute idea of Art’s to go out for dinner at L’Angolo.

‘The last time I went in there I saw that friend of yours, Jim McKenzie, with some girl, probably younger than me. It was
revolting
,’ Kendra volunteered.

‘Kendra, I don’t know where you get that puritan streak. Truly I
don’t,’ Marisa had replied, looking intently at her daughter as if she could find the answer. ‘Jill knows about his little rendezvous. I believe that one is now in the past.’

They had walked the five minutes to the lively trattoria
.
The previous day, London had been covered by a snowfall and transformed into an entirely different place, the sounds of the city deadened by the white blanket that sparkled and crunched. But now the snow had melted into a filthy slush and their steps squelched along the street. The walk took them past large gardens where the snow still balanced on the branches of trees, occasionally tumbling hopelessly to the ground. Kendra was grateful for the noise and activity of L’Angolo when they arrived, Art giving the manager Riccardo a clap on his shoulder in greeting. They were guided, with ceremony, to their table.

‘I think I’ll order the
fegato di vitello
,’ said Art, examining the room.

‘You should tell them to go easy on the butter
,
honey. Maybe have it simple … 
alla griglia.
’ Marisa folded her steel-rimmed reading glasses. ‘I’ll just have a plate of my usual
verdura al olio.
’ Kendra knew it was unfair of her to be irritated by their use of Italian, since after all they were
in
an Italian restaurant, but somehow, after hearing Gioia chattering colloquially in that language, they sounded … kind of wrong.

‘So tell us. What’s new around your place, doll.’ Art poured them all a glass of wine, swirling his in the glass.

‘Oh, not much. You know. The kids are back at school, so it’s all after-school stuff now, and we are trying to put together an arts programme for spring – taking them to see some exhibitions, maybe seeing if we could do a theatre trip. Gioia believes that it’s important to get them out of the space and into other worlds sometimes. Kind of inspire them.’

‘Aha!’ Art’s concentration was temporarily diverted by the arrival of the calf’s liver, which, despite ordering plainly grilled had arrived with an accompanying plate of sautéed potatoes. He refused to acknowledge Marisa’s disapproving look.

‘I don’t know how you can eat that stuff, Dad. Calves. It’s not
even as if it was a fully grown cow that maybe, just maybe, was old enough to die. And calf’s
liver.
’

‘To each his own, darling. Your mother and I, after all, do not have the same feeling for this project of yours. We would be much happier if we could get you involved in something more suitable for somebody like you.’

‘It’s not a project, it’s a job. And you should be pleased that I’m doing something worthwhile with my life. And, as for “something more suitable for somebody like me”, what
is
somebody like me?’

Marisa cut up her vegetables with the precision of a surgeon. ‘You have had the benefits of a great education. You have had an upbringing surrounded by cultural activity and intellectual debate. You have lacked for nothing in the material sense. Surely even you would admit that, in spite of your best efforts to cause us consternation, you have been brought up in an atmosphere of enormous nurture and, as a result, “somebody like you” is somebody who should be applying themselves to greater things. Things that count in the real world.’

‘Now, we are meant to be having an enjoyable family meal here. I’m not asking for the Waltons, but I have no interest in paying these prices to hear you two argue,’ Art intervened. ‘Kendra, why don’t you bring Gioia over next Thursday? If she’s interested in all these things, your mother and I would surely have something in common with her. We would like to meet her.’ His tone did not encourage debate.

On her own turf, Marisa considered herself insuperable, armoured by her impressive house, her huge acquaintance, her solid marriage, her social grace. It would not be any kind of a fair contest, which was the way in which Kendra viewed the potential meeting.

‘I’ll ask her. She probably won’t be able to make it.’ Kendra wiped the plate with bread, concentratedly soaking up every trace of her tomato sauce. ‘It’s not her bag at all … but …’ She shrugged. The occasions were few, but when her father spoke in that particular tone it was best to go along with him.

‘Delicious
verdura
.’ Marisa turned around to look across the room, her thin hand rhythmically massaging the back of her neck. ‘Art, isn’t that Lucian Freud over there? Look, in the far corner?’

Kendra was surprised by Gioia’s enthusiasm at the prospect of visiting the Rootsteins. She seized on the occasion as an opportunity to display her style at its most dramatic.

‘Hey, girl, no holding me back’ had been her reaction when Kendra brought up the idea as they were tidying the Chapel the next night.

Gioia’s hair for the past few weeks had been piled into plaits on the top of her head with an increasing number of thick strands escaping but for her presentation at the Rootsteins’ she unwrapped it, letting it lie in glistening snakes over her shoulders. As she padded across the room to fetch an intricate collar of silver chains hung with metal and wooden charms, her leather trousers accentuated a muscularity that had nothing to do with athleticism.

In contrast, Kendra stubbornly decided not to change, leaving her hair scraped back with an elastic band and her UCLA sweatshirt coffee-stained.

‘They know what I look like, you know. I don’t see what the fuss is about,’ said Kendra, countering Gioia’s attempts to up her style level a notch. ‘It’s you that are going to be exhibit number one.’

Kendra was working on the basis of safety in numbers and, since her parents prided themselves on the mixed-age constituency of their soirées, she had also enrolled Sal into the enterprise, knowing that Sal would be excited by the opportunity. Marisa had spoken about rustling up some people from LA, leaving Kendra with an image of her mother with a lasso, herself running in the opposite direction.

‘I said we’d meet Sal at the Tube. I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ Kendra mumbled. ‘She’s dead pleased, as she thinks she might get some kind of a story out of it, and she says it’s important to network. That’s what she calls it. I call it torture.’

Sal was already there waiting, her legs stork-like beneath an
electric-blue ra-ra skirt, its width accentuating their thinness. She had sculpted her dark crop into chunky spikes and her head emerged from a bright scarf wrapped around her neck and mouth.

‘Have you been waiting ages? Hey. Nice mousse job.’ Kendra gave her a kiss.

‘No, just got here.’ Sal touched her hair. ‘I think I overdid it. It feels like concrete, but I don’t suppose anyone’s going to be wanting to run their fingers through it tonight. I don’t imagine your mum and dad’s is going to be the best place to find a boyfriend. Into battle we go?’ She looked at Gioia, hoping for a gesture that might indicate they were in this together.

Gioia laughed. ‘I’ve been telling Kendra that she’s got herself into a right old state about nothing.’

By the time they arrived, the white sofas in the Rootsteins’ drawing room were entirely covered with figures, a many-headed Hydra of chatter. The level of the music was perfectly calibrated to allow the gravel voice of Nina Simone to penetrate the noise while never rising to a pitch that could interfere with conversation.