2cool2btrue (18 page)

“I don’t think we can afford it.”

“I’ll pay for it. I know a great guy. I’ll give you his number.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He is about to say something else when a big bloke with a buzz cut and another young, blonde girl on his arm appears and says, “Jared, mate, how are you?”

“Grey. Good, thanks. How are you? How’s the movie business? This is my son Charlie.”

We shake hands and then, relieved, I say “Excuse me,” and slip away to find Nora.

I end up talking to someone called Annabelle who works in management consultancy, specialising in the personal finance sector, read politics at Durham although she doesn’t use her degree now, lives in Fulham where her flat has doubled in value over the past five years, likes to go skiing but was in Bali earlier this year where she spent the whole day lying on the beach and relaxing.

Yep, it’s one of
those
conversations, so when another girl joins us I excuse myself and continue my quest for Nora.

I pass a woman with huge blue/grey hair and a ball dress with massive puffed sleeves, talking on her mobile.

“He wants Gonk. No,
Gonk.
The thing with the bug eyes and the blue hair above the bed…What’s the matter? He said what to you? Well, I don’t know where he picked up that kind of language. Look, I’m sorry but just give him his Gonk. Okay, let me have a word. Hello darling, it’s Mummy. Maria will get it for you if you say sorry…no, I know, but you mustn’t call her that…have you got it? Jolly good. Listen I can’t say hallo to Gonk now because I’m a bit busy but…Oh hallo, Gonk…how are you?”

Some people are dancing by now. A middle-aged couple are going for it with great seriousness. She looks like she is trying to stamp on armies of ants and he seems to be having a series of minor heart attacks in slow motion.

Finally I find Nora talking to a middle-aged woman and a young guy.

“Hi, Charlie,” she says. “Lady Philips, Alex, this is my friend Charlie.”

Alex is a hearty-looking rugger-bugger City type in his early twenties and Lady Philips looks like she sits on a lot of committees. I say hallo to them both and realise that the woman thinks “friend” means “boyfriend.” So does Alex. Perhaps he thought he was in with a chance.

I’m just thinking I might slip away and ring Lauren, not to check she’s in, really, but just to say hallo, having a crap time, when Lady Philips and Alex bugger off and Nora asks me, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Have you found out anything?”

“No, not really, have you?”

“No, nothing much. Except that apparently Piers and Lady H might have, you know, at one point.”

“What? Piers?”

“And Lady H.”

“She’s old enough to be his mother. Actually, I did learn something: apparently Sir James might have invested in 2cool.”

“That’s interesting. But I can’t even begin to imagine how we’re going to find out where Piers is. Unless Lady H knows something.”

“Oh, come on, even if they were having it off—and I find that very hard to believe—she’s hardly likely to know where he is now, is she?”

“How do you know? Look, she’s just over there. Let’s go and talk to her.”

Before I can object, Nora has steered me over to our hostess.

“Lady Huntsman, we were just saying what a lovely party this is,” beams Nora.

I nod dumbly, fear having removed my ability to speak. The woman Lady Huntsman is talking to smiles at us both, again, no doubt assuming we’re an item.

“Thank you,” says Lady Huntsman graciously. “I was a little nervous because they’re new caterers but everything seems perfectly satisfactory.”

“New caterers? Oh, such an anxiety,” says the woman she has been talking to, shaking her head knowingly.

“I was just telling Charlie that you do so much for badgers, don’t you?” says Nora to our hostess. “I mean protecting them.”

“Well, I play a small part; fundraising, flagging up the issue.”

“Charlie’s been wanting to get into badger conservation for a long time, haven’t you Charlie?”

What?

“Oh, we’re always looking for fresh blood for our badger meetings,” says Lady Huntsman.

“There you go,” says Nora. “I told you they’d be interested.”

“Yes,” I say robotically.

“What do you do for work?” asks Lady Huntsman. I tell her I work for a website called 2cool2btrue.com. “Oh, the one that all the young people are going on about. I’m sure that’s the one my daughter Anastasia is logged on to all the time. And I think James has got something to do with it too. Oh, well, if you had any time outside work to devote to our little group that would be absolutely super.”

“I’d love to,” I say. Oh, what the hell!

There is an embarrassing silence and then Nora says, “We don’t have them in America.”

“No, you have muskrats instead,” says Lady H authoritatively.

“Oh, look, let’s have another drink,” says Nora. She reaches across me to the waiter who has approached us and this time it happens: she manages to bring with her half a dozen glasses along with the one she’s picked up. Every single one of them falls onto me, it seems.

“Oh, Charlie, what happened?” she says.

I’m about to tell her exactly what the bloody hell happened, Lady H or no Lady H, when our hostess says, “Oh, dear. So easily done. Come upstairs and we’ll get you changed. Don’t worry. Why don’t you have one of James’s shirts? He must be about the same size as you.”

I don’t want one of James’s bloody shirts, I really just want to go home and see Lauren. By this time the party is actually beginning to thin out.

“Listen, Lady Huntsman, it’s very kind of you but I think perhaps I’d better be going, anyway.”

“Nonsense, it’s only, what is it?” She tries to focus on her watch. “Well, it’s early, anyway.”

Fortunately we’re quite near the stairs so my embarrassment at being led, dripping wet, by the arm like a seven-year-old who has disgraced himself on a school trip, is intense but short lived.

She opens the door of a large bedroom and I follow her in.

“Now, quick, take that wet shirt off and I’ll have someone put it in to soak.”

“Really, Lady Huntsman, it’s drying already.”

“Nonsense, it’s soaked through. You’ll catch your death.”

“Well, have you got a hairdryer or something?” I suggest. “That would probably do it.”

“A hairdryer? Don’t be ridiculous. Take it off. Quick, quick. I’ll go and find one of James’s shirts. Be right back.” She disappears through another door.

It is getting quite uncomfortable—cold and sticky—so I undo my tie and take off my cuff links. I put them on a nearby table, slip off my shirt and make a gesture towards folding it. I lay it on the bed but then decide that it might soak through and so I put it on a chair. Bloody Nora! Bloody, buggering Nora.

Lady Huntsman shouts something from the other room.

“Er, sorry?” I call after her.

“I said I’d do
anything
for badgers, absolutely anything, wouldn’t you?”

“Erm, well, it depends on what circumstances…”

She pops her head round the door. “Mind you, I am a woman of extreme views,” she declares.

“Mmm, I’m sure,” I say. “I can appreciate that.”

She looks at me for a moment and then disappears again.

Feeling slightly exposed, I fold my arms. Then unfold them. Then I swing them by my sides and then fold them again. Aren’t arms a nuisance sometimes? I wait around a bit more and then call out, “Lady Huntsman?”

No answer.

What the hell is she doing? I potter around the room a bit. Absentmindedly I look into the half-open door of a wardrobe as if Piers might be lurking in there. I suddenly sense Lady Huntsman standing behind me so I turn round quickly.

“Oh, hallo,” I say unnecessarily.

She’s there all right but where’s the shirt?

“You obviously play a lot of sport,” she says, eyeing me up.

“Um, well, sometimes, er, you know, used to.”

“You certainly keep fit.”

Quite what happens next, I’m not sure, but it seems like she has fifteen pairs of hands. Her lips are on mine and I can smell her perfume and feel her soft, well-powdered skin against me.

“Lady…argh!…Huntsman…please.”

“Shut up. Make love to me.”

“I—”

But she’s kissing me again, hard and deep, her hands pulling at my hair. “You said you were going to make the party swing.”

“It wasn’t actually
me
who said that, ow, if you remember, it was Nora. I don’t know what—” A bit of a fine distinction given our current situation, even I must admit.

“And all that crap about badgers? People always use badgers to get to me.”

“What?”

Then her lips leave mine and she is on her knees unbuttoning my fly.

“Lady Huntsman, please. Oh, my God. Look, please don’t, erm, take this the wrong way.” Suddenly my trousers are round my ankles and she is pulling at my undies. “Look, just—” Now I’m on the ground on my back, trying to drag myself away from her with my elbows. I don’t want to be any more forceful in case I hurt her but she’s quite strong for a woman of her age, especially one with such a slim build, and she’s bloody persistent, I’ll give her that.

With a sharp tug she has yanked my underpants down and her lips are travelling up my thigh, her hand finding my cock and beginning to work it manically. Just then the door opens and Sir James looks in. I’m partly horrified, partly relieved.

“Oh, my God,” wails a weak, high-pitched voice, which I suppose, by a process of elimination (he’s not saying anything, she has her mouth full) must be mine.

This is it. What could a rich, powerful man do to you, if he found you assaulting his wife? He must have some of the best lawyers in the land at his disposal. He’d make sure I never worked at anything again. I’d have to leave the country. But instead of looking horrified or angry he looks vaguely disappointed.

“Oh,” he says. “We’ll use the spare room, then.”

“We” turns out to be Annabelle the management consultant who specialises in the personal finance sector. She peeps round the door after him and looks stunned for a moment before being dragged off to the spare room.

“There are clean sheets on the bed,” calls Lady Huntsman after him.

I make the most of this interruption, turn over and do a sort of sprinter’s start away from her. I throw myself against the far wall and get my breath back. We eye each other for a moment. Then I reach over to the table and pick it up, legs pointing at Lady Huntsman, lion-tamer style.

“Honestly,” she says, pulling herself up. “What’s wrong with you boys these days? Is it all this new-man rubbish or something?”

“No, I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m going out with someone,” I tell her, gasping for breath and wondering if I can safely get to the door without her trying another rugby tackle on me. She looks remarkably unruffled considering the struggle we’ve just engaged in.

“Oh, so what? I’m
married
to someone. Live a little, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, it’s nothing personal.”

“Is it AIDS? I’ve got condoms.”

“No, it’s…” I can hardly tell her she’s old enough to be my mother and I don’t fancy her. “I’m, er, just not in the mood. I wasn’t expecting…sorry,” I mutter girlishly, pulling up my trousers as well as I can with one hand and edging out of the door. I put the table down and scurry out. “Sorry,” I mutter again. Outside I manage to do up my fly and get my shirt on.

“Crikey.” It’s Alex. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Just changing my shirt,” I gasp. “Someone spilled something down it.”

“And your trousers, too?”

“Yes. Bit of an accident.”

“I was just looking for the loo,” he says, suspiciously.

“It’s in here,” I tell him, jerking my head back towards the door I’ve just come out of. I move aside to let him past.

Warily, he nods a curt thank you. As soon as he’s in and I hear him say, “Oh! Lady Huntsman, I’m so sorry, I thought—” I pull the door shut and scamper off to find a quiet corner to finish getting dressed in.

I open a door further down the corridor and step into a silent, darkened room and switch on the light. I see a pair of female legs sticking upwards. In between them is my dad’s friend Grey. He glances round at me and then looks at the owner of the legs.

“For Christ’s sake, don’t any of the bloody doors lock in this house?” he asks her.

“No, obviously not, now shut up and get on with it,” she says.

I withdraw, slip back into the corridor and bump into Nora.

“Oh,” she says. “What happened to you?”

I laugh bitterly.

“I met you.”

She ignores this comment. “You look worse than before. Did you get a clean shirt?”

“I got everything but.”

“She try it on?” asks Nora, looking slightly pained.