Pleasant Vices (27 page)

‘We can't,' was Daisy's immediate reaction. ‘Polly will tell. Besides, I don't want to go to a party towing my baby sister along. Whatever kind of twit will I look?' In spite of her doubts she was still getting ready. There had to be a way, some last-minute salvation. She'd wondered if she dared ask Mrs Fingell to babysit, but hadn't enough left of her allowance to pay her with. Besides, Daisy could hardly ask her not to mention it to Jenny. If she did, Mrs Fingell might not only refuse to come, but might tell Jenny anyway. It just wasn't worth the risk of asking her. Daisy would get out somehow though, with or without Polly. The dress with the stars on was neatly ironed, she'd found a pair of black tights that only had one ladder in them, and now she was carefully sticking on a pair of rainbow-coloured false eyelashes. ‘Do these look stupid?' she asked, blinking hard at Emma's reflection in the bathroom mirror.

‘No they look great. Hurry up, we've only got to fix Polly and then we can go; it's gone eight already.'

She's dying to get at Ben, thought Daisy, appalled that she was about to spend the evening at the same party as him, and no doubt have to watch him snogging her best friend. Taking Polly looked like being the only possible thing to do. ‘How much fun am I going to have with Poll watching my every move?' she moaned, wondering how Oliver would ever get the chance to pounce on her.

‘Well at least you'll be there – you won't be missing it, that's what matters. She'll probably fall asleep under a table or something. Stop worrying and let's go and persuade her to come. Will we need to bribe her?'

‘Threaten maybe. She likes to watch
Casualty
on Saturdays, counts how many patients get rushed into Crash and never come out alive. Nearly all of them, she says.' Daisy fluffed out her hair so that the desired amount dangled over her left eye. The blue ends looked just the right shade against the dress. She couldn't waste all this effort.

Polly knew something was going on, and one way or another was planning on profiting from it. Daisy wasn't spending hours getting ready for a quiet evening in, that was for sure. She was just dialling Harriet's number to consult with her on suitable blackmail charges when Daisy and Emma marched importantly into the sitting-room and switched off the television.

‘Hey, I'm watching that!' she shouted at them.

Daisy took the telephone from her and replaced the receiver, then took her hand and led her to the sofa. Polly felt nervous, Daisy was being quite gentle with her, which left her unsure how to react. Daisy being stroppy and demanding, she could deal with – she was used to that. Daisy and Emma sat each side of her on the sofa, and Polly waited for the worst, possibly a thorough beating-up.

‘Polly, how would you like to go out to a really good party? With us,' Emma asked, smiling sweetly at her as if she was offering her a treat.

‘Yes. But it has to be a secret. You mustn't tell the parents,' Daisy added.

Polly pretended to consider for a long moment, trying not to smirk. They thought she wouldn't want to go, that she'd need persuading. How stupid of them. She slowly curled her legs up underneath her to look more settled for the night. ‘But it's
Casualty.
I always watch that.' Defiantly, she folded her arms, wondering how far she could go with making Daisy furious.

Daisy bit her lip. ‘We'll set the video. You've got to come Poll, I can't leave you here on your own.'

‘No, you can't do that,' Polly agreed. ‘What do I get if I come? You've got to make it something really good, because you wouldn't want to be grounded again would you?' she said slyly, her big eyes staring innocently at Daisy's multi-coloured eyelashes.

But Daisy had looked at the clock and knew her options had expired. She wanted to leave, and leave now. Her patience evaporated and she grabbed Polly by the hair. ‘You're coming with us Polly, and you're going to be really good and do just what I tell you, and you're never going to mention this to anyone, not ever or . . . or . . .'

‘Or what?' Polly held her breath.

Daisy grinned, frighteningly. ‘Or, you know that mouldy cat that you and Harriet half-dug up last night?'

‘Ye . . . es . . . ?' Polly mumbled.

Emma, one step ahead, smiled equally maliciously.

Daisy was still grinning. ‘Well I saw a film once, and there was a very silly man in it who told tales when he shouldn't have and one morning when he woke up there was a horse's head in bed with him, all horrible and bleeding. In your case you could end up sharing your bed with that putrid pussycat. Imagine that.'

‘Yeah, that's right.' Emma slid closer to Polly and whispered in her ear. Polly could smell her musky perfume. ‘You wouldn't like that, would you Polly? I know I wouldn't.'

If he'd known that Serena was coming, Alan would have thought of some excuse, a previous engagement that was impossible to miss. He could understand that for some men, the sort more used to playing ‘away fixtures', the thought of sharing a dinner table with both a wife and a focus of lust was overwhelmingly thrilling, a real kick to the old and flagging virility, but for him it was heartstoppingly hazardous. Suppose he got drunk and said something really stupid, like calling the wrong one ‘Pudding'? Adultery, even the planning stages of it, obviously didn't come naturally to him. He was a shambling amateur at it. Who were those men who ran sleek-stockinged mistresses and dared to book smart hotel rooms by the hour for conscience-free afternoon sex? Both women were looking equally desirable, Jenny with her lion-coloured hair, already starting to look sexily dishevelled in her low-cut black velvet dress, and Serena in silky pink, the jacket not quite covering something lacy and black underneath that looked enticingly like underwear. Jenny's body was known, familiar. Serena had the advantage here of being the more tempting through being untried.

Guilt gripped Alan's intestines and made him peevish, blocking off his appetite. He'd been really looking forward to going out with Jenny, liberated from all guilt-inducing fantasies for once in a way that reminded him of taking well-earned time off work. He liked his wife; much better than that, he loved her. What he felt for Serena was completely separate, and the two women had no business facing each other and exercising their social graces across a restaurant table. If he'd known, he could have conjured up a wedding anniversary, or a godchild's birthday treat, or a suddenly dead Irish aunt with a compulsory three-day wake in Kilburn, and simply taken Jenny out to Riva in Barnes as he'd planned. He wished he was there now, watching the men admiring Jenny and looking forward to
linguine
with crayfish in a deliciously creamy tomato sauce. It would all have been so conveniently close to home, too, not two counties away out there in God-forsaken pony club territory, with something that may or may not be Vivaldi giggling shrilly from sub-standard speakers. Bernard really should have left discussing the office finances till Monday, it surely couldn't be that much of a crisis, Alan thought as he sat sulkily crumbling his bread roll (freshly baked on the premises, the menu promised) and wondering if he dared to risk the garrulousness that came with even the smallest amount of alcohol.

He thought he recognized Frankie as the woman waiting on the pavement the night he had driven Serena home. She'd definitely been that sort of squarish shape, though he hadn't seen enough of her to notice the pretty, feathery haircut, or the huge green eyes. Serena introduced her at the table as simply, ‘My friend Frankie; we share the flat.' He had been under the impression that Serena had bought her flat herself, so Frankie must be a lodger brought in to help with the mortgage. Typically sweet of Serena not to mention that, thought Alan. He flinched nervously in his seat as, next to him, she swished one silky leg across the other under the table, terrified that he would unconsciously (who was he kidding?) find his thigh drawn towards hers under cover of the tablecloth and that Jenny, all-seeing and all-knowing, would see and know all.

Sandwiched between Bernard and Frankie, Jenny wondered, rather cattily, why the lovely Serena was manless on a Saturday night. Perhaps she had an absent husband; a fiancé in the Navy would rather suit her, she thought, somebody who looked good in a uniform, doing something important defending the Gulf on the
Ark Royal
. She looked like the well put-together Surrey sort who would have no trouble with Officers' formal dinners, or telling a Captain from a Commodore at thirty paces. She had a plummy little ex-deb voice, just falling short of being gushing as she asked Jenny about her family.

‘And has Polly recovered from her exams?' she enquired politely, making Jenny feel immediate and unreasoning resentment that Alan must have discussed his family with her. Instead of sensibly imagining them over coffee in the office or whiling away the journey to a client's audit, she instantly pictured the two of them indulging in cosy chats among crisp linen pillows on Serena's bed, making languorous after-sex conversation, with Alan recounting amusing little tales of disordered family life. Jenny tried not to seethe, tried to control her wandering imagination. It was only one evening, it could and would be got through.

Bernard, Serena and Alan had the advantage of knowing what they had met to discuss. ‘We'll just get the boring stuff out of the way quickly and then we can get on with enjoying ourselves,' Bernard announced jovially, as if pleasure in the dinner could be put on hold and resurrected at will. ‘Just got to sort out whether we've actually got work premises to return to on Monday or not.' He laughed as if, deep down, it was quite unthinkable that the firm could really be in dire trouble, as if this never really happened to people like him.

Jenny, for one, felt dismissed from the discussion across the table, and after ordering food from a waiter who quite rightly curled a scornful and amused lip at the shameful Restaurant Watch slip, knew she was relegated to making conversation with Frankie and Monica. Her brain cut out momentarily while she pondered whether she should have ordered the sea bass instead of lamb, and returned seconds later to find Monica comfortably launched into listing her weekly timetable.

‘And on Tuesdays and Thursdays it's Meals on Wheels, then Fridays I do the hospital run.' She did a girlish giggle and confided, ‘They call it the After Eighties clinic, a bit like the mints, because that's the minimum age for our old dears. The charge-nurse calls them the Still With Us brigade, because that's what everyone says to them; “Still with us are you dear?”, you know, everyone from the ambulancemen to the consultant. Naughty really, I know,' she laughed cosily, her necklace with dangling fruit-drop beads cheerfully bouncing at her throat.

‘Rather patronizing, don't you think?' Frankie's icy voice chipped in as she leaned forward earnestly. ‘Just because people are old, surely that's no reason to treat them as if they've no more intelligence than domestic pets?' Jenny turned to Monica, who looked slightly puzzled, as if she wasn't sure she'd heard properly. Frankie had a coldly serious look on her face, her pale pink mouth tight with righteousness. Jenny felt sorry for Monica, who, naïve and well-meaning soul that she was, had no streak of artful wit with which to defend herself.

‘Are you in social services by any chance?' Jenny asked Frankie with an innocent note of interested enquiry.

‘Physiotherapy. I work with stroke survivors. We don't call them victims any more, of course,' Frankie answered. ‘It's a matter of positive attitudes.'

‘It must be enormously rewarding, helping the poor old things regain their faculties.' Monica had recovered and smiled eagerly, making a misplaced bid for Frankie's good opinion. Frankie glowered at her. Not over-rewarding for the patients, Jenny thought, having their broken-nerved limbs coaxed back to useful life by a therapist who thought it was a political crime to call someone ‘love', however carefully respectful they were being while they were not doing it.

From across the table small hints of disastrous financial insolvency were making their way to Jenny's ears. Just the odd word, like ‘bailiffs', and ‘receivers' and ‘liquidity factor'. The situation at the office sounded even worse than Alan had been telling her: more clients than ever not paying up. The overheard snatches told her that, unless the firm came up with the annual office rent, plus inevitable extortionate increase by Monday lunchtime, eviction would surely follow. No wonder Bernard couldn't wait another forty-eight hours to discuss it with Alan. What kind of accountancy practice goes broke? Jenny wondered. She listened to them discussing the hiring of motorbike couriers to dash round picking up as much money as indebted clients could pay to prop up the bank balance, and felt very much like she was having the final, over-lavish banquet aboard the
Titanic
. The waiter hovered, dawdled with the wine and listened, with a superior smirk on his face, which broadened as he caught on to the prospect of this collection of punters not being capable of paying their bill. Alan and Bernard and Serena pored over a pocket calculator so tiny that they could hardly read the figures, and Jenny heard Alan complain that it was useless, it was solar powered and running down. You'd think, she mused to herself, that a bunch of chartered accountants could either run to a proper state-of-the-art computer notebook, or be able to do the old-fashioned adding-up thing with a bit of paper and a pencil.

‘We're late,' Daisy said, sprinting down the road and dragging Polly after her. It wasn't easy running in the boots, and her little toe on her left foot was already rubbing. By the end of the evening it would be raw.

‘We're not. Parties are always dead boring at the beginning; nobody's there and nobody's drunk!' Emma shouted breathlessly, trying to keep up with her and having to stop and gather up her layers of ancient jumble-sale skirts. They were at the far end of Sophie's street, and could hear the music. Boys were loitering in the road, swigging from cans of beer which would later be kicked into hedges, and working themselves up to being offensively noisy. One of them called out to Daisy, jeering, ‘What's that? Your kid?'