Desperately Seeking - By Evelyn Cosgrave Page 0,23

You’ll never have a better party.’

‘I’m out of here,’ said Lucy, unfurling herself from the chair. ‘Nice seeing you, Mike. And don’t listen to any more garbage from her. The wine’s already gone to her head.’

‘So,’ I said to him, motioning for him to take Lucy’s seat beside me, ‘what do you think? I’m getting married! Did you ever think you’d see the day?’

‘Ahm, it’s great.’

‘You know,’ I said, refilling my glass – he hadn’t touched his, ‘there was a time when I’d convinced myself I was going to marry you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah.’ I giggled. ‘I did. When you were going out with Jean and Mum used to make ye take me on your dates when she’d nowhere else to offload me. Do you remember?’

‘I do.’

‘And I wasn’t even that young, but I do remember thinking that when I got older I’d just marry you. It seemed the sensible thing to do.’

‘And… what were you going to do about Jean?’

‘Oh, I didn’t think that far ahead. I probably presumed you’d have got tired of her by then.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, don’t look so serious, Mike. I got over you when I fell in love with George Michael. Though it didn’t work out with him either…’

Mike didn’t seem to find my joke as funny as I did. ‘So where’s Keith? It’s usual to invite the fiancé to the engagement party.’

‘Oh, he’ll be along in a while. I told him things would be starting a little later than originally planned. I’m only thinking of his heart – he has no idea how much stress my mother can generate at one of these things.’

‘Anyway, Kate,’ he said edging a little closer, ‘I really hope you’ll be very happy. You deserve it.’

‘Thanks, Mike, I really appreciate that.’

It was odd, but as he took my hand and gave it a squeeze, I did wonder that he wasn’t a little happier.

Just then, as if on cue, Keith materialized in front of us. He just stood there for a second as if he didn’t quite know what to do. Mike got up immediately, pushing his chair back with undue force, and put out his hand. ‘Congratulations, Keith,’ he said quickly, almost automatically. ‘Well done. I hope ye’ll be very happy.’

‘Thanks, Mike,’ he said giving Mike’s hand a perfunctory shake. ‘I’m sure we will be.’

Suddenly Jean crashed through the door with a tray of canapés, howling about how I never lost it and it was so typical of me to be sitting on my ass while everybody else did the work. Didn’t I know that everybody was in the sitting room waiting for us? Didn’t I realize this party was for me? To shut her up I grabbed Keith and descended upon the crowd waiting anxiously in the sitting room where there followed an obscene amount of hugging and kissing and wailing, all of it conducted about two octaves above what was healthy for the human ear to deal with.

Keith rose manfully to the occasion, saying the right things, hugging heartily, kissing tenderly, even blushing slightly. I got dragged into the centre of it while everybody admired the fabulous vintage ring and congratulated Keith on his great taste in jewellery as well as women, and for a moment I revelled in the attention, even though I was still unsettled by the events of the afternoon. Thankfully, my father interrupted the orgy of well-wishing – he had urgent need of Keith in the cellar – so I went off to find Lucy again.

However, it wasn’t long before every room in the house had filled with my extended family, and Lucy and I had no option but to join the throng. Lucy was accosted by some long-lost neighbour in the hallway and I situated myself centre stage in the sitting room. It was packed with people I didn’t care about, but that couldn’t take from the feeling of warmth I always get in that room. It hasn’t changed much since we were kids, but unlike most seventies living rooms it was never done out in shades of orange and brown polyester. My mother’s taste in clothes translates well to a high-ceilinged turn-of-the-century drawing room. The walls are white where they aren’t bearing some interesting, if largely unnoteworthy, artwork. These pieces are Dad’s choice. The furniture is a mixture of mahogany, maple and oak, all of it antique. The periods are mixed but the theme is not: each piece – the sofa, the leather armchairs, the chaise longue, the maple sideboard, the bookcase, the end tables