Love (3 page)

“Fifteen of these and seven of those,” she instructed a willowy blonde in a pinstripe trouser suit who had previously just drifted like flotsam against the shop's various objets d'art. The girl encased the spoils in tissue paper and a serious paper bag for them to carry away.

To reward a successful scarf purchase Lucinda took her to lunch in Daphne's, following her doctrine of Never look an expense account in the mouth. The pair sat in the conservatory, the icy sunshine pouring through the windows, the occasional waft of basil or warm bread whetting their appetites. Lucinda was pale and ethereal and beautiful; she'd risen effortlessly in the fashion world partly because she was universally adored and partly because she could couple a Philip Treacy hat with a Saint
Laurent suit in a way which women would lie down and die for. Amy thought she was the last word in glamour and was fast becoming her best friend. Lucinda loved Amy because she was witty and charming and ever so slightly gauche, and what a pleasure it was to have someone so fresh around in the airless, sometimes stale world of fashion. Lucinda was also stable and clever and the perfect mentor for a would-be heroine. Mutual appreciation was the name of the game. Amy was about the youngest person there and, if we're being truthful, the most beautiful. She was naturally superseded in grooming by each and every woman in there (her nails harbored rare cultures, and possibly whole undiscovered tribes, beneath them), and her hair was more crap than coif, but still, thanks to a beauty routine which was one part witchcraft and two parts tap water, she managed to look fresher than the arugula salad and considerably more appetizing. That is, if the appreciative leers of the film moguls and all the fat-walleted (and, all too often, fat-bottomed) men lunching there were concerned. Some, probably the English, gave that coolly arrogant stare which said, “You may think I wouldn't mind a bit of rumpy with you, young filly, but you're sadly mistaken, I'm far too important to fancy you.” Then there were the obviously Latinate appraisals of unadulterated pleasure, and the terrified Americans, all PC paranoia: should they smile or would it clash with their Calvin Kleins, and what will his wife think and what would his therapist say? Amy smiled inwardly at her cornflake-packet guide to national character delineation and decided that it was not crass to generalize, in this instance. Serve them right, pervy bastards.

“So, has Luke called yet?” Lucinda ravished a roulé of goat cheese without injury to her lipstick.

“No, but I really wasn't expecting him to, and I'm really not too bothered, y'know. It was just a kind of finishing off. Smoothing over. He's not really my type.”

Lucinda smiled sympathetically, wholly believing Amy to be putting a brave face on her misery.

“Lucinda! I don't care, honestly.”

“OK, sweetheart. Why don't you come to a party with me tonight, get out your glad rags, and find yourself a bigger fish than Luke to fry? There'll be tons of people there.”

Amy nodded weakly. She wanted a night to catch up with herself after a manic week at work but knew better than to offend Lucinda when she had her charity hat on. “Luce?” She looked up from a vinaigrette-laden frond of curly endive. Lettuce, let's face it, endive, arugula, radicchio, bloody lettuce. Amy winced at the stupidity of her fellow diners, paying through the nose for vegetation. Still, as they rationalized it, at least they stayed slim.

“Luce, you do see, don't you, why I'd rather just, y'know, sleep with these guys than go out with them. There's so much more romance in the moment, in some bubble of perfection than ending up wearing jogging pants and stopping shaving my legs.”

Lucinda smiled with as much mother-earth compassion as a woman who dictates other women wear hipsters can muster.

“Darling, if you love someone, eventually it doesn't matter that you've eaten garlic or have furry armpits, really, it becomes more than that.”

Amy squirmed with disgust. Q.E.D., she would stick to glossy unreality, faint hearts and all.

“That's your trouble, darling, you want too much—you want a Ralph Lauren ad for a life, but those boys are all gay and babies vomit all the time. It's not so pretty in reality.”

W
hen was the last time you went to a party which lived up to your expectations? Parties, let's face it, are a metaphor for dashed hopes. By far the best bit is the getting ready. Keats got it right, thought Amy, pushing her toe into the tap to stop it dripping. “Sweet fancy melteth like bubbles when the rain pelteth.” The anticipation is all, the reality just never seems to come up to scratch.

The steamy lilac vapors rose around her, and she sank beneath the waters as oh-so-handsome men swirled in her head and her evening built up before her into the glorious Technicolor of late-1950s films. Her head became a rainy Saturday afternoon in front of the television. All ladies in pistachio gowns removing themselves from the whirl of the ballroom to a balcony of orange blossom and cool air; moments later a devilishly good-looking man would emerge onto said balcony and there'd be a brush of skin or proclamation of love. Or perhaps some film noir of rainy nights and cruel, red mouths and dark encounters. Whatever, it had to be better than real life, she thought, rising from the bubbles and simultaneously drenching the floor.

The party was a champagne-and-oysters affair in Holland Park, at a magazine editor's house. This particular
editor loved the world to know she had exquisite sofas and perfect cornicing so was altogether happy to have a relative nobody such as Amy there, as an apostle for her interior decorating. This editor was also known as the worst bitch in London, and a total nutter to boot.

“We call her Dagenham, because she's one stop up from Barking,” a journalist who labored under the dictatorship of the hostess proudly informed Amy. He sniggered as though he'd just stuck his tongue out to his schoolteacher. He gave her a whistle-stop rundown of the assembled luminaries. Most of them seemed to inhabit the strange cloisters of daytime television. Take a vow of nonentity and you, too, can retreat there to atone for some long-ago sin on prime-time TV. Amy remained a paragon of unimpressedness as these besweatered men and fluffy women were introduced to her. She bore with fortitude the slings and arrows of insult as they addressed her just beyond her left ear, one eye trawling the room for someone more interesting, or at least more wealthy.

Lucinda was one of life's believers in social self-sufficiency; you picnic on conversation, mingle with ease, and charm and flatter effortlessly, or else why were you invited? Amy came from the school of thought which preferred a girlfriend to weld herself to as a permanent source of security, a safety valve for difficult conversations and the human equivalent of a T-shirt declaring, “Hey, it's OK, I know someone here.” Thus Lucinda bellowed with laughter by the fireplace with a group of curtain designers and Amy stood alone. Lucinda's boyfriend Benjy spotted her, much to her shame and relief.

“I take it you're Amy, I've heard lots about you. Benjy, I go out with Lucinda.” He proffered his hand.

“Yeah, I'm Amy, nice to meet you.” He was very handsome, blue-black hair and china blue eyes, slim and slightly wasted looking. Very man-of-the-moment. But Lucinda had obviously been ahead of the game, spotted his fashionable potential three years ago before he was a glimmer in a style guru's eye.

“What do you do?” asked Amy, knowing full well he was a scriptwriter but opting for perfunctory rather than inspired conversation.

“Oh, I write scripts, mostly documentaries right now, but I'm doing the odd project of my own, films of obscure Russian novels, par-for-the-course stuff.” He smiled self-consciously, aware of the pretentious edge. “How are you finding life as a Voguette?”

“Oh, you know, ups and downs. I've had my fair share of tears in the loos but otherwise it's fun. Lucinda's fantastic.” Amy tried not to wince as she downed an oyster.

“Yeah, she has her moments.” He drifted off into love thought, gazing at his beloved across the room. Amy looked on enviously. Why can't a man look at me like that? she lamented. They were joined by a film producer who snapped Benjy up into industry conversation and Amy found herself on the periphery again. She just smiled on cue and surveyed the room.

In the corner, in the midst of some particularly fine parquet flooring, the editor squealed her objection to various minor royals (they obviously hadn't RSVP'd) and slunk up to the only gorgeous man in the room. Amy instantly recognized him as the rising young star and recently divorced (“It's hard to keep a relationship going
when I'm filming in LA and he's onstage in London,” quoth actress wife predictably in some glossy magazine) actor … she couldn't remember his name. Seth? Gus? Tudor? Something faintly ridiculous anyway. He was so beautiful, Amy had seen him as Mr. Rochester and he'd won her heart.

“Forget bloody plain, dull Jane Eyre,” she'd wanted to say. “I'm here and won't give a damn about the dodgy woman in your attic.” He was the epitome of the man Amy wanted, brooding yet sensitive. And he was talking to the editor, who evaporated in a combination of lust and a bustier hooked too tight while he was cool but charming, courteous yet aloof. Amy felt cross and desperate. What was she doing here? There was no real fun in living a glamorous life vicariously. She wanted to belong, but knew she wasn't even approaching gossip-column material, let alone
Harpers
-cover status (as the Actor, naturally, was). Her legs were too funnel-like, her bank manager had a vendetta against her, and she hadn't yet made it to the inner sanctum of fashion where fey men air-kissed her and pleaded with her to wear their velvet jodphurs. God, she was depressed.

Amy the wallflower was in full bloom, her tendrils climbing the russet rag-rolled walls, her leaves clinging to her bucks fizz with all her might. Amius Wallflowerus. All those old insecurities seeped from beneath her newly glam façade. She stood with her legs twenty inches apart in an age-old bid to look shorter and less conspicuous. In her mind her lacy G-string became a pair of maroon nylon gym knickers and her hair distinctly stringy. From her hideaway beneath a potted lime tree she attempted conversation with a bespectacled columnist
(poor eyesight, a definite blessing as he couldn't see her hideousness) but she just sounded like John Major, all
Spitting Image
gray and nothing more riveting to discuss than crudités. Vegetables, for heaven's sake. After the third Samaritan (those charitable types who can't bear to see a lone someone fiendishly stuffing twiglets in their mouth in a bid to look busy) had tried to salvage her social reputation and fled in defeat, she thought it kinder to everyone if she went home.

“Don't look so glum, sugarplum.” It was the photographer. Memories of her very nice, Anaïs Nin summer came churning back. Art gallery openings and lessons in aperture. Cool martinis in sweltering bars and not quite as many phone calls as she'd hoped for. In a panic Amy looked down to check that it was actually her red velvet trousers she was wearing and not the brown, holey leggings she'd mentally dressed herself in.

“Toby, my God, hello, what …”

He kissed her on the lips and smiled. “Good to see you, Ames.”

“What are you doing here?” she said, wondering if she could somehow surreptitiously put some lipstick on before their conversation. She settled for licking her lips.

“I'm Dagenham's new favorite. I have to go to all her parties and look the part, foppish Bohemian, neo-Bailey. She fancies herself as a new Jean Shrimpton, albeit twenty years too old.”

Amy was horrified. “You mean, you and her?” Her nose crinkled in barely concealed disgust.

“No, you darling dummy, I just have to laugh at her jokes and wear velvet scarves a lot.”

Amy thought back to her early impressions of the
photographer, so dashing and creative, she had almost fancied herself as Jean Shrimpton. She'd worn a few short floral-print dresses and combed her fringe down. Then she'd realized that she was more in love with herself than Toby. She'd spend all her time thinking about how she looked, what she said, and when she wasn't with him she barely remembered what he looked like. And she'd been wildly turned on by his camera. He'd photographed her naked brushing her teeth and she'd soared on a wave of sexiness. But the photographer was not really boyfriend material, and at the time that was what she'd longed for. His lens was sexy but he was just a bit too elusive; she'd finally stopped calling him and hadn't heard from him since.

But tonight he was her savior, and his hallowed position in this inner sanctum made him even more appealing.

“So, shall we go, petal?” He brushed his hair back from his face, and she remembered his appeal, brown eyes, long lashes, never quite clean shaven.

“What? Why?”

“Well, you were, I presume, leaving, as you're wearing your coat?”

Amy nodded.

“So why don't we go somewhere we can have some fun? The beach?”

“Toby, it's eleven o'clock at night in February.”

“OK then, Battersea Bridge.”

They clambered into his mini (it didn't really do the trick for her, she had to be honest) and juddered their way to the embankment, laughing at the party guests and breathing the air of silliness. No more best behavior,
they were like children let out of class early. They left the car on some double yellow lines on Cheyne Walk and hopped out. In the wind the little waves of the Thames fluttered against the sides of the houseboats. Amy marveled at how cozy it would be inside, until Toby pointed out the lack of showers and central heating and more dry rot than the
Mary Rose
.

“You're so boring, Toby, don't spoil everything.”

“I'm your knight tonight, doll face, be careful.”

Yes, Amy thought to herself, knowing that she didn't really want to be doing this. She wanted to be going home with the Actor, to his Mayfair home with deep duck-down pillows and a grand piano like the Robert Redford character in
The Great Gatsby
, and then he'd ask her to stay, forever. Instead she held hands with Toby and they walked along the riverbank. Amy wrapped herself in a little dance around the lampposts with dolphins swimming down them; he followed her with pretend camera pops, her own little feature film. Her own paparazzo.