The Godmother (12 page)

She thought she'd cornered me, but she was wrong.

“I think it's more about taking care of each other.”

“Christ, Tessa, if you want something to care for, buy a pot plant. But whatever you do, don't be a lemming. It would be such a waste.”

Marguerite left me strangely fascinated in the moss-covered stone wall. I picked at the soft green plant until she was safely back with the congregation. I knew she was mean, but sometimes I forgot that what made her such a dangerous opponent was her intelligence. With that final unwanted compliment, she'd taken the round. Now I definitely knew that I needed a drink.

The basement of Helen and Neil's house resembled Carluccio's deli by the time we arrived, and I was quickly soothed by fabulous chargrilled vegetables, streaks of Parma ham and a fishbowl of Gavi di Gavi. I hadn't moved away from the buffet table when I was joined by David, my co-godparent, the one with the spittle on his jacket and the plastic train in his pocket.

“It's Tessa, right?” he asked. I had a mouthful, so I nodded the affirmative.

“So how do you know Helen and Neil?” he asked, helping himself to food and putting it straight in his mouth. I quickly swallowed. I wanted to make this absolutely clear. “Helen is my friend, I've known her since I was eighteen,” I replied.

“Neil?”

“Only met him after they got engaged.”

“It was quite quick, wasn't it?”

Four months. You're telling me. “When you know, you know, or so they say.”

David shrugged. “So you and Helen were at school together?”

“Actually, we met in Vietnam.”

“Vietnam? I thought Helen was half-Chinese.”

“She is. We were all backpacking.”

“Helen backpacked?”

“Well, not exactly, but it wasn't Louis Vuitton either.” He still looked unconvinced. If only they knew what she'd been like. Was still like. Underneath all the gilding. “Don't be fooled by the Gaggenhau kitchen and Manolos. Helen was the original wild child.”

Since Helen was busy doing a convincing impersonation of Bree from
Desperate Housewives,
my fellow godparent did not believe me, but I really wanted him to know the Helen I knew.

“Honestly, when I first met her she was trapped in a hammock, laughing
her head off because she couldn't get out. Lysergic acid had a lot to do with it.” David smiled. I went on. “Needless to say, we all developed a mammoth crush on her, and spent the rest of the trip a happy foursome, mesmerized by the sunsets, and sampling much of the local produce.”

“By which you mean, that not sold in the market.”

“You didn't hear this from me.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was one of the best times of my life,” I said, truthfully. I looked over at Helen and felt a pang of nostalgia. One of, or
the
best time, I wondered. Was that it? Was that what I was forever trying to recreate? China Beach. LSD. Freedom. All underlined by the raw pain of a broken heart that made me feel so alive? I looked around the room. Helen had moved on. That was clear enough. So had Al and Claudia. Friends once, so much more now. Just me, then. Standing alone on China Beach, always waiting for the sun to set? I looked up, lost in my own thoughts, to see Helen standing next to us.

“What are you two looking so conspiratorial about?” she said with a smile.

“Tessa here is filling me in on a few missing details about you.”

“Oh?” Helen looked at me.

“He's exaggerating,” I said, obviously poking David in the ribs.

“What was she telling you about? Because I can top any story about me with one about her…”

“Well, there's a challenge,” said David. “China Beach.”

I thought Helen might lose her cool, but to my relief her smile broke into a laugh.

“That's probably all true, the bits Tessa can remember, anyway,” said Helen. “But ask old innocent here about hitching a lift on the back of a Honda Eagle in the red-light district of Aix-en-Provence and driving topless through the countryside with a saxophone player…”

I pointed at Helen. “I wasn't alone.”

“Nor was I on China Beach.”

She turned to David. “Or when I got stuck in a mountain bar drinking schnapps and had to ski home with the pisteurs by torchlight…”

She rubbed her chin. “Or when I got chatting to a pilot and hitched a ride in his plane…”

Helen put her finger on her temple. “Or when I was in transit in Bali, on
my way home from backpacking around Australia, and decided to stay after seeing a certain world-champion surfer walk towards Customs…”

“Or when I—”

“All right,” I laughed. “You win. I'm a reprobate too.”

“They say youth is wasted on the young,” said Helen. She shook her head. “But not in our case, hey, Tessa?” She kissed me lightly on the cheek.

“Sounds like you two had a bloody riot.”

“The benefits of being an heiress and a perennial student.” Helen winked at me.

“What have you studied?” David asked Helen.

“Not me. Brains over here.” Helen linked her arm through mine. “Tessa was at university, then law school. It was great for me because she got lots of holidays.”

“Lots of bloody work,” I retorted.

“That's the amazing thing about you, you've always managed to do both so convincingly.” Helen turned to David. “So, David, have you ever been to Vietnam?”

He shook his head, smiling dumbly. I recognized the expression. I'd come across it a million times over. My fellow godparent had just developed a crush on the mother of his charges.

She touched him on the arm. “Well, you must. Take the kids, it's so easy over there. And the food…” She closed her eyes a moment, reminiscing again. “We had the best time.”

I smiled too. Because we had.

“When I die, I think I'd like my ashes to be scattered on China Beach.”

“Helen! A wholly inappropriate topic of conversation at your sons' christening!”

“It's important,” she insisted, her expression quite serious. “You never know what's around the corner.”

I shook my head. “China Beach will probably be like the Gold Coast by the time you pop your clogs, all casinos and girly bars.”

“OK then, any beach would do.”

“My wife comes from ridiculous aristocratic stock,” said David. “The family all hate each other, but when they die they're all put in this huge vault whether they want to be interred or not. Personally, I like the idea of being scattered on
a beach. Will I be able to? Not unless I get divorced, which I'm not planning on doing, or our kids don't get their slice of the pie.”

“You're joking?”

He laughed. “Some old madman made it a stipulation of the money.”

“That's weird,” I said.

Helen smiled and made her excuses like the professional hostess that she was. We watched her flow effortlessly into another group of guests and work her magic on them. “That's the first time I've really chatted to Helen,” said David. “She's so different from what I expected.”

“Told you.”

“You just wouldn't know it,” said David, staring after her.

“That's because you're a friend of Neil's.” It came out sounding more detrimental than it was meant to. “I mean, you know, there are some things you don't tell your husband, I guess…”

David looked back at me.

“You're not his mystery brother, are you? God, I'm always doing things like this.”

“I didn't know Neil had a brother.”

“No one does, that's why he's a mystery.”

Neil walked past with a bottle of champagne in his hand. I tried to silence David, but it was too late. I knew why Neil didn't see his family, Helen had told me. He was embarrassed by them.

“Hey, Neil,” said David. “Is your brother here?”

“God, no,” said Neil, without stopping, though I swear I saw him bristle. “He and I are not alike. Trust me, you wouldn't like him.”

But I'd love him. My thoughts obviously registered on my face because David smiled at me again.

“What?”

“You don't approve of your friend's choice of husband, do you?”

I grimaced. “No, I mean, yes…Of course I do. She's really happy…”

“Oh, don't worry, your secret is safe with me. To be honest, I don't really know the bloke that well.”

“Huh?”

He leaned a bit closer. “I work at the BBC. We've done some things together a few times but I wouldn't describe us as proper mates.”

“Why did he ask you to be godfather, then?” I asked, probably being a bit slow on the uptake.

David looked a little uncomfortable. “Well, we're not doing too badly. We think they're hoping for good gifts.”

I shook my head. “They're pretty well off themselves, I don't think that's it. What do you do at the BBC?”

“Head of comedy.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Ah, indeed.”

“Why did you say yes?”

“How can you say no?”

“I don't know,” I replied. Just when I was beginning to feel warm, happy feelings for Neil, I was reminded just how awful he was. Of all the men in the world Helen could have married, why on earth did she marry him?

“Don't worry,” said David. “My wife is great, Al and Claudia seem really nice; we'll just have to stick together and get horribly drunk at all their birthday parties and take it in turns to forget Christmas.”

“What about godfather number two—are we not going to be getting pissed with him?” I whispered.

“Not unless you want to spend all day talking about Michael Kramer.”

“I suspected as much.”

A woman leaned over David's shoulder. “Hello. I don't need to ask who you're bitching about, do I?”

“Tessa, my wife, Ann.”

I took an involuntary step back. I didn't want this woman to think that I was after her husband. “It's all right,” said David. “Tessa thinks Neil is a pig too.”

I hid my face in my hands.

“David, you're supposed to be shining the light of Jesus on the world, not slagging off your host.”

“As you can tell, Ann is a much nicer person than me,” said David.

“So nice that I came all the way over here to tell you that Sam has crapped everywhere.”

This was the moment that wife reminded husband of his familial duties and cut him from my web.

“Nice,” said David. “Excuse me, Tessa, it's my turn.”

“Oh no you don't. I'd prefer to get elbow-deep in baby crap than have to listen to Michael Kramer wang on about himself because he thinks I'm going to repeat everything to you and therefore you'll give him a job.”

“Sorry.” David looked genuinely apologetic.

“I'm used to it, I just get bored when they think they're hoodwinking me.” She turned to me. “Sorry, don't mean to sound like a sour spare part, but it is very annoying when people only talk to you because of what your husband does.” She squared her shoulders. I liked her. “Right, I'm off.”

David said, “Where's Luke?” He turned back to me. “Our three-year-old.”

“Trying to peel open the twins' eyelids. I figure there are enough staff in the house to stop anything disastrous happening.” Ann took a glass of champagne from the bar. “More booze, I think. See you later,” she said, smiling at me. “I'll be the one smelling of poo. Maybe that will ward off all ambitious comics.”

“It will definitely work on Neil,” I said.

“Not a nappy-changer?”

I shook my head.

“Well then, I hope he's hot shit in the sack,” she said as she walked off, thankfully leaving me no need to respond. Neil was not a fantastic father and, from what Helen had told me, he was not a fantastic lover. Was he a good husband? Well, I couldn't prove anything, but…I didn't want to think about that. Think happy thoughts. I excused myself from David and went in search of my godsons.

I found Claudia with the twins.

“Is it normal for babies to sleep this long?” she asked me as I approached. “Shouldn't they be fed at some point?”

“Presumably they were well fed before the service.” I glanced at my watch. It was nearly three o'clock. “Helen probably cheated and gave them meat and two veg for the first time in their lives. I remember when Billy weaned Cora, the first time she had chicken I think she slept for six hours. Her body simply shut down in order to digest the stuff.”

“You are going to be invaluable when our baby is born,” said Claudia. I sat down next to her and lifted a sleeping baby on to my lap. We had one each.

“Any idea which one is which?” I asked.

“None,” said Claudia.

The baby on my lap stretched. “It's real,” I exclaimed, leaning over him. Sleepily, the baby opened one eye and looked at me.

“Hello, little one,” I said. “You've missed all the excitement.”

He yawned with one eye open, then slowly opened the other. He was still very floppy from his deep sleep but managed a gummy grin when I smiled at him. As if by magic the baby on Claudia's lap also started to come to life. Claudia and I purred and stroked our little parcels and were rewarded with more sleepy smiles by our captive audience. I caught Helen looking over at us. She looked worried. I wanted to put her mind at rest that her little boys were fine.

“They've just woken up,” I mouthed, so as not to scare the babies. Helen broke away from the people she'd been talking to and hurried over. She was not smiling.

“They're fine,” I reassured her. “The drugs have just worn off, that's all.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”

“I'm not being serious,” I said quickly. I was just continuing the fun.

“That is a bloody stupid thing to say, Tessa.” Helen took the baby I was holding and called to the nanny to take the other. It felt to me like the child was being removed from me. He arched his back and started fussing like he had the day I'd been at their house the previous week.