The anonymous blue-suited young man behind the bar took Carole’s order. She didn’t feel like tea or coffee, resisted the lure of the white wine she really wanted because she was pacing herself for the engagement party, and so ended up with a mineral water. Even that failed to sparkle much in the Avalon Bar.
David came in after she had been sitting for about five minutes. As ever, just late enough to be infuriating. She had rather hoped he might have brought something to change into for the party, but no, he was still in the beige suit, to which he had added an inappropriately bright, flowered tie. Carole was shocked how immediately and instinctively critical thoughts came to her mind in David’s presence, but then that attitude had had a long time to build up. They’d shared the mounting resentment of the years when their marriage was supposedly ‘all right’, then the petulant spats of the divorcing process. Since that time Carole had only avoided feelings of irritation by keeping an iron control over her thoughts and never letting them stray towards her ex-husband. She shouldn’t have been surprised that seeing him again opened up the floodgates of annoyance.
And, trying to be fair – not an activity that came naturally to her – she was in no position to carp at David’s sartorial shortcomings. She was wearing her inevitable Marks and Spencer’s ‘little black dress’ and, though she had deliberately bought something unfashionable in the hope that it would never go out of fashion, she knew the garment was showing its age. Carole felt a sudden access of gloom at the image of the two of them – a lacklustre middle-aged couple. The balloon of superiority over the Martins, which had been inflating slowly in her mind, was punctured. She and David looked at least as drab as Howard and Marie.
Still, the evening had to be got through. And the protocol of politeness had to be observed. “Can I get you a drink, David?”
“Erm…” He looked at his watch. “I’m not sure that I’ve got time. When exactly does the party start?”
“Six thirty. But we don’t want to arrive on the dot.” How many times before had she said that in the course of their marriage? Neither of them had instinctive social skills; both had got nervous before parties and needed to gear themselves up beforehand in different, and mutually irritating, ways.
“Erm…well…” David was still assessing the feasibility of a drink. “The fact is, I should be ordering a taxi.”
“Didn’t you come by car?”
“No, I came on the train and got a cab from the station.”
“Ah.”
“Why? Did you come by car?”
Carole knew what reply this should have cued, but she resisted the answer. The Renault was her haven of security. Alone within its shell, she could arrive at the party venue – another hotel – park some way away, and then go through the process of make-up-tweaking, deep breathing and general psyching-up that she needed before she faced company. Even more important, with the car parked outside, she would have her escape route. If the party got too boring, or too confrontational – if she got too exasperated by the presence of David – she always had the option of slipping away early. With him relying on a lift back to their hotel, her freedom was curtailed.
But, even as she had these thoughts, she knew her position was hopeless. She would have to bite the bullet.
“Yes. So you don’t need to get a taxi, David. I can give you a lift.”
“Oh, thank you, Carole. That’s…erm…very kind.”
He had another look at his watch. His ex-wife felt another tug of familiar vexation. How could someone who was always so aware of time be persistently late for everything?
“We don’t need to go yet. You’ve got time for a drink.”
“Yes, and of course, if you’re driving, I don’t have to worry about it.”
“You wouldn’t have had to worry if you’d got a taxi,” Carole pointed out.
“No, I suppose not.” Suddenly – and unexpectedly – decisive, he announced, “I’m going to have a large Scotch. Think I’ll need a bit of a stiffener for the evening ahead.”
For Carole, this was most unusual. During their marriage, David had never drunk spirits. While he was at the bar ordering, she wondered whether, in his second single life, he had turned to drink. Men, she recalled reading somewhere, were much worse at coping with divorce than women. Had David gone to pieces since they parted? Did he have a whisky bottle permanently on the go?
While these seemed unlikely conjectures, they did remind Carole how little she knew of her husband’s current domestic circumstances. She had a phone number she deliberately couldn’t remember, and indeed an address, but not one she had ever visited.
“So you have met the Martins, haven’t you?” she asked, once David was ensconced beside her with his uncharacteristic Scotch.
“Yes. Yes, I have.”
Carole probed, “And what did you think?”
“Well, they’re…erm…They seem a very pleasant – a very quiet couple.”
“And Gaby’s brother?”
“No.”
“Or the uncle they keep talking about. Uncle Robert, is it?”
“Yes, but I haven’t met him either.”
To Carole’s disappointment, David seemed content to let the conversation about the Martins end there. But she should have remembered from their marriage that David rarely volunteered his opinions of people. If she’d wanted to find out what he thought, she had always had to dig.
“I got the impression,” she began, “when I had lunch with them and Gaby, that Marie seemed rather…frightened of something.”
“Life,” said David ponderously, “is a rather frightening business.”
Carole tried again. “And don’t you think it’s odd that Stephen and Gaby haven’t put any announcement about the wedding in the paper?”
He shrugged. “I would have thought that was up to them.”
“Yes, but – ” Carole persisted – “it seemed to me that it’s Gaby and her mother who’re anti the announcement.”
“So?”
“So – why are they?”
The second shrug was more irritating than the first. “Who knows? I don’t think it’s a very big deal. Some people like to announce their forthcoming marriages in the papers, and some…erm…don’t.”
Carole wasn’t getting anywhere with David. Indeed, when she came to think about it, she’d never got anywhere with David. It was amazing that their marriage had lasted as long as it did. Even more amazing, in fact, that they’d ever got married in the first place.
David looked at his watch again. “I really think perhaps we should…erm…be getting along.”
This time she couldn’t argue. She picked up her Burberry raincoat. “Yes, we must go and face the…”
‘Martins’ was the word she used, but her tone said ‘music’.
Nine
If any support were needed for Gaby’s assertion that her parents should have nothing to do with the wedding planning, the engagement party provided it. The venue was another chain hotel, almost indistinguishable from the one in which Carole and David were staying, and the function room booked for the event made the Avalon Bar look sexy. Clearly all arrangements for the food and drink had been left to the hotel’s banqueting manager. While Marie and Howard Martin’s hearts were undoubtedly in the right place, they had very little experience of – or aptitude for – entertaining.
As Carole entered the room (the Caledonian Suite, with sad plaid on the walls), she wondered what phone calls must have been exchanged between Gaby and her mother over the event. She now knew that her son and fiancée’s tastes ran to the lavish, so she wondered how they were reacting to this charmless venue. One look at the strain on Gaby’s face provided the answer. The girl had not wanted to interfere. Her parents had taken the unusual step of initiating a party; advice on how to do it would only have upset them. Their daughter had to bite her lip and let the event be done their way. In both Gaby and Stephen’s eyes glinted the insecure energy of people determined to make the best of a bad job.