It was quite an odd evening, as social occasions go, but I think everyone enjoyed it. By the time Daniel had finished with her, Chloe thought she was Charlize Theron, and that Graham wasn’t fit to touch the hem of her skirt, which he isn’t, whoever he is. And Mum, as she cuddled Mabel, eating alternate chocolate buttons with her, slurping red wine and getting completely covered in all of it, was quite coming round to the idea of Kenneth Garside. ‘I mean, he’s terribly charming, is Kenneth. It’s just that he’s VERY highly sexed.’
Daniel, while saying, ‘And what on EARTH is wrong with that, Mrs Jones?’ turned out to be really, really good at the Xbox. But then he ruined the whole thing in the hallway at the end by putting his hand right up Chloe’s skirt. I mean, right up to her knickers.
PART FOUR
SUMMER OF FUN
Saturday 31 August 2013
133lb (still! Miracle), boyfriends 0, children 2 (lovely), friends loads, holidays 3 (counting mini-break), screenwriting jobs 0, possibility of screenwriting jobs (slight), days till school starts 4, major shocks 1.
It has been a brilliant summer. I called up Brian the Agent and asked him to get me off The Leaves in His Hair, and Brian laughed and said, ‘Finally! What took you so long?’ And Brian thinks we should have a go with my new screenplay idea: Time Stand Still Here which is an updating of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, only with a bit more structure, set in a former Lighthouse and Coastguards Cottages holiday complex from the Rural Retreats brochure, in which Mrs Ramsay has an affair with a friend of her son James.
Magda and Jeremy invited us to Paxos for a week, where there were lots of friends with kids; and Woney, who has now had liposuction, was parading around in brightly coloured swimsuits and matching sarongs, swinging her hair extensions and frightening Cosmo. And although Rebecca and the kids were away touring with Jake, there were play dates with Jeremiah and his mum, and Farzia and Bikram, and Cosmata and Thelonius. And we tried to do something with the garden, which consisted of planting three begonias.
We went away to a little cottage by the sea in Devon for three nights with Mum and had a great time. And Mum comes over a lot, just to do baking and things with Billy and Mabel, and she doesn’t criticize my housekeeping or child-rearing any more, and we all really like it. And she has them to stay, and they love it, though it is a bit late in the day because I’ve got no one to shag in the empty house now.
But I try to stand like a great tree and take the stick about Roxster – the Love that Could Not Beeeeeeee! as Tom and Arkis have dramatically dubbed it – and just be happy that, even if no one ever loves me or shags me again ever, at least I know it’s not completely out of the question.
Now, however, am trying to deal with a growing alarm about going back to school: the different homeworks which will probably be beyond my capabilities, the different days for show-and-tell and shin pads. More alarmingly, find myself looking back over all my encounters with Mr Wallaker – the tree, the snow, the Sports Day, the Botox, the concert – all his attempts at kindness to me and I feel shallow and think maybe he wasn’t just trying to make me feel stupid. Maybe he did really care. BUT HE WAS MARRIED, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, even if it was to an over-plastic-surgeried drunk lady. He had kids. What was he doing nearly kissing me, and confusing me? And I gave him an earful, and he saw me with Roxster, and he thinks I’m a condom-buying, syphilis-infected, shallow cougar and now we are going to have to face each other every day at school.
4 p.m. Just went round to Rebecca’s, who is back from the touring, and blurted out the whole confusion about Mr Wallaker, and the school concert and the Heath.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘None of it adds up. He doesn’t add up. Have you got a photo? Any other info?’
I spooled through the phone and found a shot of the concert and Mr Wallaker accompanying Billy.
I watched as Rebecca stared at the photo, frowning slightly. She spooled through some more.
‘This is Capthorpe House, right? Where they have festivals and stuff?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know exactly who this is. He isn’t a schoolteacher.’
I looked at her in consternation. Oh God. He was a weirdo.
‘He plays a bit of jazz piano?’
I nodded.