Page 9 of Old Girls Behaving Badly

‘Mum, you remember Leonard’s brother, Paul.’

‘I do, hello,’ she said beginning to rise from her seat.

‘Please don’t get up,’ Paul said walking over to her and bending down to kiss her cheek.

There had been a celebratory engagement meal eighteen months ago when Dorothy’s husband, Philip, had still been alive and Leonard had announced he wanted the wedding of his niece to be at his ‘manor’ as he’d put it. Dorothy wondered at the time what the father of the bride thought about that, but Paul had seemed keen and she’d been pleased to see he was nothing like his odious brother. He’d been warm and interesting with a genuine smile, although he did have a whiff of whisky on his breath when he’d greeted her and there it was again, now, that sour smell of alcohol. But then, weren’t they all drinking? His wife, Sandra, hadn’t been all that memorable from that time before and now, she stood back and offered Dorothy only a thin smile.

‘Rufus, our son, is around here somewhere,’ Paul continued. ‘But I’ve no idea where.’

‘He’s in the gardens,’ Juliet said. ‘I saw him earlier.’

Dorothy looked across the perfectly planted parterre and could see the man wandering among the clipped hedging. He wasn’t admiring the vista though, he had his head down, his attention firmly on the screen of his phone. Sandra scurried off to join him.

‘Hello, everyone,’ said a quiet voice behind them and Dorothy turned to see that Gina had arrived. Her relief was immediate and she could feel it flooding her body.

‘Gina! Wonderful to see you,’ Dorothy said and then struggled to her feet as Gina looked a little overwhelmed at being thrust into someone else’s family gathering. ‘This is my friend Gina,’ she announced to the assembled party. ‘Gina, this is everyone else. Right, that’s done. I’d love to take a turn about the garden with you,’ she said to Gina, keen to get her alone.

‘That would be lovely,’ Gina said.

‘No time now,’ said Miles, ‘Leonard’s just arrived.’

As he said this, Dorothy could detect a throaty roar from the front of the house. It sounded as if Leonard had arrived on a very noisy motorbike. She took a breath to settle her nerves.

There was a scuffle at the table then, and the group were up. Drinks were abandoned as they moved towards the house. Rufus, still walking in the garden, began jogging in their direction, his mother at a hurried pace behind him.

Juliet hadn’t moved. She still had her face turned down into her own phone, her thumbs moving quickly across the screen, Dorothy’s now empty glass in front of her.

‘Hello there,’ Gina said to her, but she didn’t respond or even look at Gina.

‘Juliet, please don’t spend the whole week on your telephone. The rest of us have to socialise and it’s not fair,’ Dorothy said, and then Juliet looked up, a half smirk on her lips. ‘Come on, let’s go and get this party started, shall we.’

‘If we have to,’ Juliet said in a sulky tone. ‘Not sure why I’m needed to watch you all get drunk and play stupid games.’

‘Believe me, I feel exactly the same. Now, this is Gina, my friend,’ Dorothy said, pointedly, and it was enough to make the girl turn Gina’s way.

‘Hello,’ Juliet said in the smallest voice possible and Gina lifted her hand in a little wave, which seemed a bit pathetic to Dorothy, but Juliet just looked through her anyway before walking into the house.

‘Juliet doesn’t want to be here. A week is an awfully long time when you’re thirteen. Let’s take that walk in the garden after dinner, shall we. We have lots to discuss,’ Dorothy said to Gina.

6

GINA

Leonard was an oddity – that was clear from the moment I saw him in the hallway in black leathers, a motorbike helmet tucked under his arm, those garish paintings a perfect backdrop to his style. But, like bees on a bloom or moths to a flame, the whole family seemed drawn towards him. Even Dorothy made an effort to talk to him, but I thought it may be an act, because I noticed the way she lost the bright look from her eyes when she engaged with him.

I guessed he was in his late fifties or early sixties and that sort of tallied with what I knew about him being the bride’s uncle. He had black hair stuck up at all angles, making him look a little deranged, which could have happened when he removed his helmet, to be fair. It looked as if it had come from a bottle though, because it didn’t match his eyebrows and was very solid in colour. He wasn’t unattractive, but had a swagger that was unappealing, as if he were on the stage. I held back while he greeted everyone and tucked myself into the corner of the hallway, my arms firmly around myself for support.

‘Welcome to Walstone Hall,’ he said with a large dose of self-assurance. ‘My gorgeous niece is to be married on Saturday and I have a week of activities, games and fun planned for you all. Caroline,’ he said, holding out his arms to the petite blonde woman. ‘Toby,’ he said to the man who had been playing the piano when I’d first walked into the music room, and the two stepped forward into his embrace. ‘It will be a very proud day for me – uncle of the bride,’ he said, theatrically and as if that were a prestigious role. I looked across at the rest of the group that I hadn’t been properly introduced to and guessed at Caroline’s parents. An older, blonder version of her daughter had hold of the arm of a man who didn’t dye his hair or look ridiculous, but was still clearly Leonard’s brother. He was the only one of the group who looked at Leonard with genuine affection in his expression. His wife looked somewhat wary, and Lavinia and Miles just smiled indulgently.

One other couple were present and looked to be Juliet’s parents – Miles’s sister, who I would describe as neat, with her fair hair pulled back into a perfect ponytail, and her husband. Juliet shared the colour of her hair with her father; it was a bright shade of turmeric, although his was cropped short and hers, she wore in a sharp bob with a blunt fringe. There was a lone young man too, the chap who was hanging around the garden and I tried to remember back to the potted family history that Lavinia had given me. I guessed the man had to be Caroline’s unattached brother.

They all took it in turns to hug or shake hands with Leonard and there was a general ripple of gratefulness for his hospitality. He didn’t even look in my direction and that was the moment I remembered I was staff. What I really wanted to do was eat my meal in the kitchen, perhaps with the cook, but Dorothy stepped my way to take my arm and pull me from my hiding place, and it was decided, I would be dining with the family.

The dining room was decorated in a style reminiscent of the 1988 film Beetlejuice – one of Chris and Alice’s favourites from their early teens – and I half expected the langoustines from my plate to leap up and attack me. In contrast to the classic, soft pastel tones of the music room there were black velvet drapes here and purple flocked wallpaper. The lighting was low, perhaps to create a cosy atmosphere, but as someone had closed the curtains on the bright evening sun, it was a little dark.

The artwork that hung on the walls could be considered kitsch. Not a term that I really liked as it sometimes had derogatory connotations. It referred, in my mind, to a piece that was quirky, witty and, perhaps, sentimental, but originally it was considered banal and showing a lack of depth when compared to those works produced under the umbrella of fine art. A little like the snobbery surrounding genre fiction compared to, so-called, literary. I had always kept my mind firmly open.

Leonard had several pieces displayed in clip frames reminding me of my children’s bedroom walls. There was A Friend in Need – the classic Cassius Marcellus Coolidge image of the dogs at the poker table – a couple of works by the American artist LeRoy Neiman, a Thomas Kinkade that my mother-in-law had on a jigsaw puzzle and Chinese Girl – Tretchikoff’s very familiar oil on canvas now rendered in glossy ink on poster paper. Leonard was making a point in this space, but I had no idea what it was.