Rules for Thursday Lovers

 

Chapter 1

 

It was dusk and squally. A stall-owner packed away the day’s news of world revolutions and tossed an old sandwich into the road. Two pigeons fought over it. Several taxis passed in a row, heading West, seats empty, lights on. One taxi slowed, the driver peered in his mirror at a couple, walk- ing out of step under a tattered golf umbrella. They didn’t hail him. Or even notice him. He accelerated, turned into the right-hand lane and lost sight of them.

Angie was regretting wearing heels. The paving was uneven. She tugged at Ted’s arm, almost dragging him towards the embankment. He seemed more absorbed in keeping control of his wretched umbrella, rather than get- ting anywhere. Infuriated, she pulled free, teetered on, slid- ing to a halt at the water’s edge. He was still lagging behind. Getting her breath, she tucked her cleavage back into her too-little black dress and tried to smooth down her damp hair. Without success. It always frizzed in the rain.

She scanned the wharf, where three barges were moored in a row. The first two pulled darkly at their ropes; the third spilled light, music, laughter from its portholes.

“It’s still here,” she told him.

He tamed the umbrella into an arrow pointing down- wards before joining her.

“That’s the one!”

“Let me check.” He held out his hand for the invitations. “No, not now.”

“Yes, come on.”

She let him have his.

The barge was rocking, its engines turning. She broke into a canter to reach it, heard his voice behind her:

“Lord and Lady Beaverwood?”

The envelope might not have been addressed to them, exactly, but it had, quite definitely, been left on their door- step. It promised a ride on the Thames, ‘cutting edge’ food – whatever that was – and an exotic home as a prize for entering some competition. In Angie’s opinion, owning something exotic would come close to being something exotic. “Never mind that.”

“Angela?”

The boat edged forward, its engine revving. A boatman was already untying the mooring rope. Gauging the distance between the wharf and the boat, Angie kicked off her heels and jumped. She found herself sailing between land and boat, her breath trapped in her throat like a plastic bag on a bare branch. Eventually she landed, scrabbled to regain her balance on the wet deck. The boatman muttered something. It could have been Polish, or Glaswegian for all she knew.

“Hello,” she said to him. “Bring my shoes,” she yelled to Ted.

The engine drowned out his reply as one shoe plopped into the Thames. Catching light from a bridge lantern, it righted itself, and bobbed gamely towards Wapping.

“Jump!”

Ted didn’t.

The boatman heaved the ropes on board and steeredthe vessel free of its mooring. It gained speed, leaving Ted mouthing something on the quayside.

As she watched him downsize, her bag began to vibrate. Rummaging amongst old Kit-Kat wrappers, some anti-his- tamine cream, her bargain book on Mongolian sourdough recipes and Dusty’s awful end-of-year report, she found her phone. It flashed Ted’s insistent ringtone at her as the barge sailed towards Waterloo Bridge and he disappeared com- pletely.

She switched it off.

They were now approaching Gabriel’s Wharf and the Oxo Tower, all lit up in neon, misty, beautiful. She drank in the damp spring air, shook her curls loose, letting her head drop backwards. Stars winked at her. A jumbo jet sliced through a watermelon moon.

From inside the boat a live band burst into Cuban salsa. With her bare feet, she kicked open the door, stubbed her toe, swore, and entered the party.

“Lady Beaverwood,” she muttered to the doorman, handing him her invitation. He ticked off a name on a list, handed her a gilt-embossed nametag, and let her through.

The wave of perfumes made her sneeze; a blast of trum- pets made her ears ring. For a moment she couldn’t see anything other than candlelight flowing like a silk ribbon through a room connecting eyes, sequins, diamonds. It was hard to pick out any individual people amongst the bob- bing heads, or define the genders of the glittering bodies that heaved around a makeshift stage upon which musicians were playing salsa with faraway expressions. A tall waiter in a tuxedo handed her a drink. It tasted of peaches; bubbles went up her nose. She looked around for someone to talk to.

“…Died of nothing at all,’ said a woman in green silk. “In oil, wasn’t he?”

“Gas.”

It was like entering a dream in damp stockings. Would anyone notice if she removed her tights? Before she had a chance to experiment with standing on one foot and tug- ging, a waiter handed her another drink; she wanted to laugh loudly and would have done so, but the musicians softened their pulse to a patter of drums that blended in with rain on the roof, and a spot highlighted a tall, spindly man with greased-down hair and a well-cut suit.

“Hi, I’m Ray Brebington.” He gave a little bow. “Giving you a once-in-a-life-time opportunity…”

On a screen above their heads floated the golden domes of Florence, the turquoise canals of Venice.
He must be referring to the competition. If she won an exotic home perhaps Ted wouldn’t cancel coming on holi- day like he normally did. Last year they’d managed to reach Gatwick before he had to race back to deal with a fallo- pian tube emergency. This year they hadn’t made any plans. Another waiter refilled her empty glass and she knocked it back in one this time, trying to look at home.

“…To fully experience Venice, Vienna, Lvov, Vladivo- stok…”

Any of them would do. She waited for him to outline the rules of the competition. She liked rules. But the room was beginning to go in and out of focus. Her lunchtime Slimline soup had left her hungry ten minutes after eating it. She rose onto tiptoe; dinner was hidden under silver covers.

“We take the time that you can’t spare to ensure your timeshare is exactly…”

Her empty glass was whisked away and replaced with red wine this time. She gulped that down too.

Ray applauded his audience’s good taste by clapping. Hoping to blend in, she cheered, waved.

“Because time is the precious commodity we are giving you.’ He appeared to be directing a regretful smile at her. ‘So, if you’re too busy before you board that plane, we haveour specialists in all of our locations, ready to…”

He reached for a canapé, tossed a large pink prawn into the air, catching it with open lips where it settled, feelers waving. One swipe of his handkerchief and his teeth were flashing again.

“…Do your wishing for you.”

Ray seemed to single her out with his gaze.

“Do you have any questions?”

He loomed towards her. She could smell his aftershave and came out in a sweat. What if he asked her to sign some- thing? She was backing away, when she thought she heard a female voice to her right:

“Angie!”

Was this directed at her? Oh no! Had she been rumbled? Was she swaying or was it the boat? Rain was now pounding on the roof overhead. A fog seemed to have descended on the room.

“Angie Riley!”

Nothing else for it! She would have to hold her ground. She was Lady Euphorbia Beaverwood. Who was daring to challenge this? She squinted at the bobbing heads and located the voice’s owner: a tall woman in a zebra-striped ball gown, crowned by an orange and black-feathered hat, her face half-obscured by a sequin-peppered veil. The woman was weaving an unsteady path towards her. Was everyone sozzled?

“It’s you, isn’t it?” the voice insisted, in a tone which she half-recognised, but couldn’t place.

“No, it’s not.”

She was about to be named and shamed as an impostor, and unceremoniously dumped, or worse, escorted onto a dinghy, and left to row herself back to central London.

The hat’s veil was tossed backwards, snagging on a startled man’s cocktail stick. Angie found herself gazing at flecked brown eyes, glittered cheeks, a long, almost transparent nose shading plum-coloured lips, until, with a tightening of the heart, she recognised the owner.

“Fiona?”

It was a lifetime since they’d huddled together in the Holy Trinity Convent, in the freezing dormitory, where a North Sea wind threw them together, making them share secrets, a single bar heater, eye-liner, and a world of strict rules that they made up and swore to.

“Is that you?”

“Who else would I be?”

Angie’s bare feet were being scrutinised.

“But you…”

“I’m afraid I’m not on the list.”

“…Aren’t wearing any shoes.”

“No, they’re…”

Fiona didn’t appear to be listening; she was staring at the stage where Ray was helping a short, bouncy man in a chef ’s apron and hat onto the plinth.

“Let me introduce you to the world’s maestro of cuisine… the Guy (Ghee) de Borzoi!”

The man gave a grand bow, the effort bringing beads of sweat to his bald spot and a hum of approval from the throng. Angie thought she recognised him from ‘Dine with Me’ on Sky.

“Trotters in snares,” said Fiona.

Angie assumed that was the name of the minuscule mor- sels he tendered towards them all like a sacrifice.

The crowd plunged forward like a herd of wildebeest sighting a waterhole. Angie was too polite to join its thrust. In a second, the tray was empty of anything but toothpicks.

“My husband,” hissed Fiona.

“Your what?”

Fiona sighed.

He was certainly a change from the upmarket but gorm-less escorts from Eton with trust funds and titles. Angie noticed the invited guests now held plates and napkins and were gathering into two queues. She itched to join them.

“He looks cuddly.”

“Daddy hates him.”

The spectre of a whiskered Papa Gregoyan, with bulging eyes, thin as an exclamation mark, emphatic as an autocrat from another century, sailed into Angie’s mind, much as he’d sailed up the drive to the convent school parlour in his powder blue De Dion Boutin coupe with gold-plated mirrors.

“How is he – your father?”

Behind them, the band was tuning up again. A mous- tachioed man from the military, carrying his laden plate, passed mouth-wateringly close. Angie had to restrain herself from grabbing his stuffed mushroom.

“Indestructible.”

“Your mother…?”

Fiona pointed heavenwards.

“So sorry, you never told me…”

“You were too busy being a socialist, remember? Didn’t want me around, embarrassing you with Daddy’s money.” They were at the buffet counter, finally. Angie pointed at all the available dishes. Her plate scantily adorned with tiny samples of food she didn’t recognise, she steered a path around a few sharp, silk-suited elbows and several perfumed bosoms towards two empty seats, Fiona bringing nothing with her but a bread-stick.

“I had to build up Guy from scratch, you know. It wasn’t easy. He was plain old Gary Barker from Brum until I set to work on him.”

The breadstick searched out something that could have been fish pate; Angie never found out. Apart from a few carrot sticks and some lettuce, the plate was looted. It was all coming back to her. Fiona always wanted what Angie had. Angie thought of Ted left behind on the wharf and wondered if he’d reached home yet.

“You’re still hiring and firing for your father?”

“No. He fired me. Or got my replacement to.”

“So, what do you do now?”

“I make hats. Famous ones. Global ones. ‘Crowning Glories’ is mine. You have heard of ‘Crowning Glories’?”

Angie could only shake her head.

“God. Look me up.”

This explained the creation on Fiona’s head. Must be some sort of promotion.

“What about you? Did you marry the animal-rights activist – it was Craig, wasn’t it?”

“No, Craig got God and…”

“He never looked that healthy.”

“Actually, I married a doctor.”

“I suppose someone has to.”

Angie felt oppressed by the feathers. Abandoning the cramped seat, she lunged towards a porthole. Rain smeared neon colours against the glass. The boat thudded as it hit waves. Had they passed the Tate yet? Was that the wobbly bridge?
Fiona was right beside her, feathers and all. She grabbed her hands, studied them. “You haven’t managed to grow your nails.”

“No.”

“You still bite them.”

“I don’t.”

“I like that.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, never mind.”

Angie saw her own reflection in Fiona’s eyes – auburn curly hair framing an even, round face and snub nose,
undistinguished by anything asymmetrical. Not young, but not old. Her head was clearing.

The music struck up again. A quickstep on bass and drums.

“Does he… you know, this doctor husband of yours… still…?” Fiona pointed downwards.

Angie felt her cheeks inflame. “Of course.”

“Ah ha! You twitched your nose.” Fiona was snorting in triumph. “You always do that when you’re lying.”

Angie turned away to stare pointedly at Guy de Borzoi, aka Gary Barker, who was repositioning a gooseberry on a pale green blancmange. “Is that who you are now – Fiona de Borzoi?”

“Nice name, don’t you think? Let’s dance.”

The sun was high over next-door’s roof when Angie sank into bed next to Ted, every part of her body aching. She wasn’t used to dancing the salsa with anyone, never mind Fiona Gregoyan. She certainly wasn’t used to staying up that late. She claimed her part of the bed, mirroring Ted’s body with hers. She loved his tan-coloured back with the well- carved torso dimpling in at the waist. She listened to the rhythm of his breath: long, short, long long, short, short, snore, start, then again, long…

A ‘touch of the Levant’, her father had said, when Ted had braved the first Sunday lunch, along with an Anglican bishop from Guyana. Her mother made all sorts of nervous jokes about anthropology and inter-faith worship.

“Ted’s Jewish,” she had said.

She touched his shoulder. He stirred.

“Did you play Lady Beaverwood the whole evening?” he mumbled.

“You should have jumped,” she said. “Doctors don’t jump.”

“You’d never believe what happened…” “Hmmm.”

“I met an old friend from school.”

“S’ nice.”

“Wouldn’t call her nice, exactly.”

“Hmmm….” He let a snore loose, then a few more. His breath returned to its natural rhythm: long, short, long, long, short, short.