Chapter 38
Patrick and Regina’s behemoth of a house stood behind presidential-style electric gates. Jason and Lew privately referred to it as ‘the White House’ because Regina had had the facade of it painted a blinding shade of white a couple of years ago so that it would stand out from the other five clone houses on the prestigious cul-de-sac. She also had an eight-foot fountain installed in the front complete with stone cherub posed in arrow-shooting mode on top.
‘You look nice tonight,’ said Lew as Charlotte took his arm when they got out of the taxi, because the pebbles on the drive weren’t compatible with her heels.
‘Thank you.’
‘Haven’t seen that bag before, is it new?’
Charlotte stopped in her tracks. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means have you bought yourself a new bag, because I haven’t seen that one before. It’s called conversation.’ Mentally Lew threw up his hands in exasperation.
‘Do you mean “we’re on an economy drive so you shouldn’t be buying anything”?’ she replied tightly, resuming walking, but her grip loosened on his arm.
‘Okay, I’m sorry I asked,’ replied Lew, refusing to be pulled into an argument and setting a sour note for the evening. ‘If it is or isn’t new, it’s nice . . .’
‘It’s not new,’ said Charlotte, but he knew she was lying because that nervous smile was playing at the corner of her mouth.
‘I wouldn’t begrudge you a handbag, Charlotte. Just not one made out of a white crocodile.’
‘It’s. Not. New,’ she insisted through clenched teeth.
Lew rang the doorbell and Patrick greeted them looking even heavier and hairier than the last time they’d seen him. He’d gone past Chewbecca and advanced to Bigfoot. ‘Come in and what can I get you both?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together.
‘I’ll have a glass of red,’ said Charlotte.
‘Same for me, please,’ added Lew, noting that Charlotte hadn’t said please. Another one of Regina’s less desirable influences, thought Lew. People of class and distinction didn’t have to say please, would have been her ridiculous justification.
They were the last to arrive. Regina, who was directing things in the kitchen, came out to greet them warmly. She made no mention of what had happened during the week in the shop and Lew had put it to the back of his mind so that it wouldn’t encroach on his enjoyment of the soirée. Then they joined Jason and Gemma who were in the garden under the pergola, glasses in their hands: wine for him, Shloer for her. Patrick was the best host and, as Regina liked to show off, she usually pulled all the stops out when it was their turn to hold a dinner party. Lew hoped – for once – they’d have an evening that passed without incident. They were all well overdue that privilege.
Gemma and Jason jumped up to greet them too. Gemma, especially, looked delighted.
‘We aren’t meeting up enough,’ she said, settling back onto the big rattan outdoor sofa. ‘We must be due a shopping trip soon, Charlotte.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Charlotte. ‘But I’ll have to check my diary, it’s mad busy at the moment.’
Mad busy? thought Lew. With what? he wondered. Gemma hadn’t bought the lie either if the small shrug of her shoulders and the withered ‘Okay’ were anything to go by. It was funny that as soon as Regina rang, there wasn’t anything that his wife wouldn’t drop to accommodate her. It saddened him. He hoped that Gem and Jason did have a baby and that she met more deserving friends with children.
Lew and Jason had a quick catch-up. Jason was expanding the business to include American vehicles, Lew learned. He started reeling off figures of what he was paying out and his expected profits but Lew couldn’t quite concentrate because he was watching how Jason’s forehead didn’t seem to move when he spoke. Jason, it appears, was worshipping at the altar of the Botox god these days. And he’d had his eyebrows shaped.
Regina appeared and plonked herself down next to Charlotte and Lew noticed how wide and genuine his wife’s smile grew, as if she was at school and the head girl had just picked her out to be her friend. Patrick followed and sat on the chair arm next to Lew.
‘Shouldn’t you be putting the chip pan on, Reg?’ laughed Jason.
‘Fernanda has everything in hand in the kitchen. I’m better off out of the way,’ she replied.
‘Fernanda’s leaving us soon,’ put in Patrick. ‘She’s getting married and is going back to live in Brazil.’ He looked sad about that.
‘Lovely for her, but sad for you, I imagine,’ said Gemma. Fernanda had been their live-in housekeeper for three years.
‘We will miss her a lot,’ agreed Patrick, scooping up a handful of vegetable crisps from a bowl on the table.
‘You’ll miss looking at her arse,’ chortled Regina, swigging back the last of the wine in her glass. Patrick didn’t respond, as if he was so used to these sorts of comments now, they didn’t even flash up on his radar.
‘Jason’s just been telling me he’s expanding the business, Gem,’ said Lew, moving the conversation away from women’s arses and back to the much safer subject of cars.
‘Tell me about it. I never see him these days,’ Gemma replied, rolling her eyes but smiling at the same time.
‘As you gentlemen know, you have to put in the time to build up the business,’ said Jason, winking at his fellow entrepreneurs.
‘Excuse me, and women as well,’ said Gemma, jabbing herself in her chest.
‘I’m talking big business not trimming someone’s fingernails, Gem,’ laughed Jason, but there was too much derision in there for Lew’s liking. He was reminded that the last time they’d met, Jason had also said something in front of them all that put his wife down.
‘Cheers,’ said Gemma with a good-humoured tut. She hadn’t taken offence by the sounds of it. Maybe I’m being over-sensitive, thought Lew.
‘Yep, it’s all going really well,’ said Jason. ‘So if you want to get rid of that old banger of an Aston Martin, Patrick, I’ll give you a couple of thou’ for it.’
‘In your dreams,’ said Patrick. ‘She’s the love of my life.’
‘Apart from Regina, obviously,’ put in Charlotte.
‘Of course,’ nodded Patrick, but not very convincingly.
‘I might come and see you. I need something more satisfactory than I have at the moment, Jason,’ said Charlotte. ‘A little less conservative and more racy.’
‘Anytime. Just come in my office when you’re ready,’ he replied, quirking a waxed eyebrow. ‘Always go for speed above comfort, that’s what I say. I can sort you out, no problem with that.’ A click of the tongue, a cheeky wink. Lew wondered what the hell had gotten into him. Had a little money gone to his head so much? A bottle of dye had also gone to his head, he noticed. The grey hairs that had been sprouting at his temples were now as dark as the rest. He was turning into Boycie from Only Fools and Horses.
‘So how’s Sparkles doing, Gem?’ Lew enquired. As soon as he asked, Jason started another conversation about cars, leaving Lew and Gemma to it.
‘Very well, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I’m building it up as much as I can and training up a manager to take care of things for a while when I catch on.’ She crossed her fingers and raised them.
‘Any luck yet?’ Lew asked, casting Charlotte a quick, concerned glance, but she was too busy listening to what the others were talking about.
‘Alas no,’ she said. ‘Jason’s always knackered when he gets in. His working hours aren’t conducive to my temperature chart.’ She chuckled. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been bitten by the broody bug at forty though. I mean, what’s that all about?’
Jason and Charlotte groaned loudly at something Regina had said, which led Lew to think she’d made another joke at Patrick’s expense.
‘I’m a big believer in there being a right time for some things, Gem, and not always when you’d expect it,’ said Lew. ‘Now, when the baby comes, you’ll have some money at your back and security and age and experience that you didn’t have before.’
‘You’d have made a nice dad, Lew,’ said Gemma, giving his hand a sudden squeeze and his gut a hell of a sucker punch.
*
Bonnie was spending the night quietly tucked up in bed with her book after a Chinese takeaway from the restaurant around the corner, and a large glass of red wine, or rather a mugful, because she hadn’t brought any glasses from Greenwood Crescent. It didn’t matter what she drank from, but she felt that she wanted to toast her new life properly and she had. Wishful thinking and having the guts to back it up with some action had got her this far, she had to believe they would help her keep it.
When she went to pick up her chow mein from the takeaway counter, she could see through to the restaurant which was full of couples and groups all smiling and eating together and she wished she were part of the scene. Maybe in time she might meet a kind, sociable man with good friends and a great line in banter. It was something else to wish for. She pictured Lew at a table with his buddies that night, laughing, drinking wine, though not from mugs. She imagined him turning to her, grinning at her. She imagined feeling lucky that he was hers and the person she’d be going home with that night.
*
Fernanda sounded the dinner gong and everyone filed back into the house, seating themselves around the amazing glass and metal dining table which Regina had custom-made by a Japanese designer. The chairs were stunning polished chrome, although Lew always thought they became very uncomfortable to sit on after an hour, however impressive they were to the eye.
Whilst Patrick refilled everyone’s glass, Fernanda served up the starters: exquisite parmesan crisp baskets filled with a warm bacon and avocado salad with tiny quail eggs sitting on top.
‘Fernanda, Fernanda, they are not going to let you go,’ said Jason. ‘You are too good.’
‘They should lock you in the house so you can’t get out,’ added Gemma, which sent a shiver tripping down Lew’s spine.
Fernanda chuckled. ‘I have to go, Mr Whiteley. My fiancé needs me to cook for him.’
‘He’s a very lucky man,’ said Patrick, tucking straight in as if he hadn’t eaten for days.
‘No wonder you’re on course for doubling your weight by next month,’ Regina remarked.
‘I’ve starved myself all day for Fernanda’s cooking,’ came Patrick’s retort.
‘You – starve yourself?’ said Regina, with a loud ‘ha’. ‘Yeah, looks like it. You’re turning yourself into a hog roast.’
‘Children, children,’ said Gemma, raising her glass. ‘Come on, let’s toast something. I know, what about friendship.’ She raised her glass and everyone lifted theirs to join with it in the air. She chinked it against Lew’s and the thought came to him that out of everyone around that table, at that moment in time, he liked her the most. In all the years he’d known her, she’d always been sweet and uncomplicated, hard-working and smiley. She’d been a rock for Jason and never bragged about anything she’d accomplished. Lew hoped that Jason appreciated what a gem he had in Gemma.
Regina had made Patrick change seats so she was sitting next to Charlotte, interrupting the boy-girl, boy-girl, boy-girl pattern. She’d made such a fuss about it that Lew hoped Gemma didn’t feel put out that they were cosying up to each other so obviously.
‘That’s a lovely bag you have, Charlotte,’ said Gemma, noticing it parked on the urban-chic sideboard behind her.
‘Lulu,’ Regina answered for her. ‘Love a bit of Lulu.’
‘Guinness?’ asked Gemma.
‘Well obviously,’ laughed Charlotte. ‘You didn’t think she meant the singer Lulu, did you?’
Lew stopped himself barking at Charlotte for being rude.
‘I bartered the price down for you, didn’t I, darling?’ said Regina with smiling pride and wagged her finger whilst imparting some words of wisdom: ‘You always have to be prepared to walk away.’
Lew couldn’t help himself asking, ‘Oh yes? When was this then?’
‘Thursday,’ said Regina.
Charlotte cast him a laser-like stare.
So it was new then. Charlotte had lied. As Lew already knew.
‘I have no idea about designers,’ said Gemma, shaking her head.
‘You don’t say.’ Gemma didn’t hear Regina mutter that to Charlotte, but Lew did.
‘My wife does,’ said Patrick. ‘I don’t recognise her without a dozen carrier bags in her hand.’
‘And I don’t recognise you without fucking love-bites on your neck,’ Regina spat, throwing an icy bucket of water over the conviviality.
‘Take it easy, Reg.’ Even her new best friend Charlotte winced at that.
‘I was only joking, so chill everyone,’ said Regina, flapping her hand and reaching for her wine glass. ‘Fernanda, we’re all finished, I think.’
Fernanda arrived to gather up the dishes.
‘Fernanda is going to have plenty of babies with her husband,’ said Regina, grabbing hold of the young woman and jiggling her stomach. Fernanda laughed it off, but she looked horrified.
‘I wish you lots of luck, Fernanda,’ said Gemma, who looked as disturbed as Lew did by Regina’s manhandling of her.
‘Any development with you two on that front?’ asked Patrick, addressing Jason and Gemma.
‘I don’t know why you’re bothering,’ said Regina. ‘Have a drink and forget about having a sprog. You’re too bloody old for a start.’
‘No she isn’t.’ Lew stepped in. ‘Women are having babies later and later these days.’
Regina guffawed, reaching for the decanter of wine on the table. ‘You’ll be the oldest mother in the schoolyard, Gem. Everyone will think you’re the granny.’
Gemma’s smile of amusement looked strained.
‘I can’t think of anyone who will look less like a granny at the school gates,’ Patrick said with warmth and feeling.
‘Totally agree,’ added Lew, watching Regina drink her fully replenished glass down in one.
‘Steady on,’ Patrick warned his wife. She gave him a very nasty look and snatched up the decanter again.
Fernanda delivered two plates in front of Regina and Charlotte. Mains was halibut in lobster sauce with a colourful fan of vegetables on the side of the plate.
‘It’s nice to hear that someone is getting attached. Everyone we know seems to be splitting up,’ said Gemma. ‘Our neighbours, two of my clients plus the cleaner at Sparkles and she’s in her late fifties. Mind you, she looks great on it. She’s got a toy-boy, dropped two stone and started wearing clothes from Top Shop.’
‘Good for her,’ said Patrick.
‘You should go down to Sparkles, Patrick,’ sneered Regina. ‘You’ll be trying to shag her next seeing as you have a penchant for older women. GILFs I think they’re called.’
Lew felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise.
‘I read a very interesting thing in the Mail yesterday,’ Gemma said quickly, doing her best to guide conversation to a safe harbour. ‘It said that if most people were offered the chance to be truly happy, but they had to forfeit all their possessions, they wouldn’t do it.’
‘How can you be happy without any possessions?’ replied Charlotte, wrinkling up her nose.
‘Surely the point is that you are, because that would be the deal,’ said Patrick, coming to Gemma’s defence.
‘No one would agree to that deal though, would they?’ put in Jason, with much the same expression on his face as Charlotte had. ‘It’s just stupid.’
‘I think I would,’ said Patrick with some force.
‘You? You’re the most materialistic person I know,’ mocked Jason.
‘Am I now?’ Patrick threw back, locking eyes with Jason. ‘Maybe I was once upon a time but I think you might have wrested that crown from my head, Jase.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jason laughed, but there was little amusement in it.
Lew turned to look at poor Gemma who had meant to extinguish any flames, not throw petrol on them. He mouthed a silent, ‘you okay’ message at her. Her husband, however, wasn’t so caring.
‘See what you’ve started, Gemma?’ he hissed at her, sounding so much like Regina that Lew began to wonder if she was a virus.
Gemma’s head dropped and Lew felt a sudden jab of anger. Friend or no friend, he was being a knob.
‘Oy,’ he warned.
The usually jovial Jason twisted his head sharply towards Lew. ‘What do you mean, oy?’
Patrick pulled the heat back to himself. ‘Gemma sweetheart, alas for some, happiness is a Chaput farmed crocodile bag, though obviously not for the poor doomed crocodile.’ He swivelled around on the chair so he could address his wife directly. ‘Isn’t that right, darling? So the argument for them is a paradox.’ He poured Regina a glass of water and she looked at it in disgust.
‘What the fuck is that?’
‘Water. Don’t worry, I’m pouring everyone a glass and not just singling you out.’
Regina picked up the glass and threw the contents over her shoulder, where it splattered all over their Osborne and Little wallpaper.
Patrick sighed despairingly. ‘For God’s sake, Regina.’
‘Fuck you,’ came the reply.
Lew speared a lance of buttery asparagus, hearing a clock in his head start to count down to a full repeat of the Koh-i-Noor night, although instead of a mixed platter, Regina would start missiling baby courgettes and Jersey royal potatoes. Her eyes had started to roll; she was pissed and dangerous.
‘This is lovely,’ he said.
‘So it should be, the amount I pay Fernanda. Hey Fernanda, don’t I pay you well?’ Regina barked in the direction of the kitchen, sounding more fish-wife than society hostess.
‘Not enough for her to put up with you treating her like a slave,’ said Patrick out of the side of his mouth.
‘Er . . . what was that?’ Regina rounded on him. ‘What was that, you fucking prick?’
A surge of tension charged the air as if the room had just been plugged into an electric socket.
Patrick wiped his brow with weary fingers ‘Regina, please just—’
‘Don’t you Regina me. You and your unfaithful tiny organ.’ She grinned nastily and looked around the room for allies to join in laughter with her. She found one in Jason who snorted then tried to cover it up as a cough, payback for Patrick’s recent dig at him, Lew surmised.
‘My organ only looks tiny when it’s playing in your bloody massive St Peter’s Basilica of a vagina,’ Patrick threw back at her. ‘Although “playing” implies pleasure and trust me, there is nothing pleasurable about fucking you.’
His words hung in the air, echoes clinging to them. Even Regina was stunned into silence, at least for a few seconds, though it felt much longer.
‘What did you say?’ she said, in a Regan MacNeil Exorcist growl.
‘You heard,’ said Patrick, snatching his napkin from his lap and throwing it down onto the plate of fish. He stood up, gave a short burst of mirthless laughter, then shook his head. ‘I give in,’ he said. ‘I finally give in. I don’t want to be here any more.’
His eyes swept across the table at all the people sitting around him and, before he spoke next, they came to rest on Lew, as if he knew he would be assured acceptance there.
‘I should have left. I should have had the balls to pack my cases and go to Marlene. I loved her. Correction, still love her. She’s beautiful, she’s kind, considerate – and do you know how we met? Fucking swinging, that’s how. And it was her bloody idea.’ He extended an accusing finger in his wife’s direction.
A collective gasp sounded in the short silence that followed that disclosure before Patrick carried on, not allowing Regina a millimetre of butting-in space.
‘Yes, folks, Snow Bloody White here, Mrs Butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-enormous-gob, or so you all think, decided that our sex life wasn’t interesting enough so she signed us up to a swinging club in Leeds. I hold my hands up’ – and he did physically too – ‘I agreed to it, though not as enthusiastically as you might think because I said to her that this could all blow up in our faces and, oh boy, did it. So she ended up screwing this bloke’s brains out in one room and I ended up with his wife who had been dragged along like I was and didn’t really want to do anything. So we talked. And we talked the next time we met as well. Then the next time we kissed because she’s gorgeous but I respected her too much to try anything else. That’s how it started. She left her husband for me but I didn’t leave my wife for her because I’m one of those dicks that didn’t think I’d be really happy without possessions.’ He locked eyes with a startled Gemma and went on in a voice that was raw with feeling, ‘But I was so wrong. Things don’t make you happy, people do. Which is why I am walking out of this door now and leaving.’
He turned to Regina who, for the first time in her life, was mute and addressed her directly. ‘I do not love you. I’ve no doubt you’ll rip up my suits and smash my watches but I do not fucking care.’ Then he walked out of the door and in his wake the room was sucked into a vacuum of silence for a long, long moment as if they had all witnessed a nuclear bomb land in their midst and were waiting for the ensuing shockwave to hit them. Then the moment of fallout occurred and all hell broke loose. Regina turned into a monster from Doctor Who, lashing out her arms, spitting, vomiting a string of f and c words as Charlotte tried to comfort her. Jason started darting around the room as if he should be doing something but didn’t know quite what. Fernanda busied herself with a cloth, dabbing the wall and picking up everything that Regina started to throw around. Only Gemma was inanimate and sat glued to her chair, eyes wide as a petrified deer’s.
‘Was that all my fault, Lew?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely not, Gem, don’t even think that.’ It should have been her husband comforting her, but he was buzzing to and fro like Roadrunner. ‘I’m going to find Patrick.’
Lew hurried down the long hallway and caught up with him at the front door, just as he was putting on a jacket and loading his pocket with keys and his wallet from the hallstand drawer.
‘Patrick, are you all right, mate?’
Patrick turned around and it was the oddest thing, but he looked ten years younger than he had five minutes ago.
‘I don’t think I’ve been this good in years, Lew,’ he replied. ‘Thanks.’ And he smiled gratefully, his eyes glistening with emotion.
‘Thanks?’ Lew asked, confused. ‘What for?’
‘For this. For just following me to the door to see if I’m all right. It means a lot.’
Lew felt the heavy weight of Patrick’s hand coming to rest on his shoulder and he thought, as if he had received some psychic message from the contact, this is a man so starved of kindness that he doesn’t know what to do with it when he receives any. Then Patrick pulled him into a hug and slapped his back hard, trying to masculinise the tender gesture. When he pulled away his cheeks were wet.
‘Look after yourself, Pat,’ said Lew.
‘I will. And you. Life’s too short to struggle on when you know you’re in the wrong place. See you around. Keep in touch with me. Please.’
And before Lew could say that of course he would, Patrick, like a hirsute Elvis, had left the building.