Liz kept smiling, keeping her head on one side: ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘Ailsa said “it all went wrong”. I’ve never quite understood what she meant.’
Liz darted a look at her husband, who pointedly looked away. ‘Her house was so gorgeous,’ she said. ‘They did such a good job with it.’
‘She’s good at doing up houses.’
‘She certainly is. I know she was sad to leave it.’
I kept looking at Liz, trying to keep my gaze level. ‘So why did they?’
She took a sip of her drink, holding the glass to her mouth longer than was necessary. ‘Why did they what?’
‘Leave Kent.’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged, and let out a little laugh. ‘Life’s complicated. We miss her!’ she said. ‘We all love Ailsa. Tonbridge’s not the same since she’s gone! Do you want another drink?’
I shook my head and she and Will, after conferring, headed over to the bar area.
Tom was leaning at the bottom of the steps up to the hall; Ailsa was back on the dance floor. I craned my head. She was entertaining Ricky now, the two of them dancing together quite closely; her head was back, her eyes closed.
I set off with purpose in the opposite direction up the steps onto the terrace, through the smokers and shouters and onto the grass, and once I was there it was easy to keep going, ducking between the shrubs and under the decorative wrought-iron arch, to the ‘wild meadow’ at the bottom of the garden. It was fuller and richer than the last time I’d given it any attention. I sat on the raised railway sleepers they’d erected around it; I smelt creosote and soil; my ear was tickled by the floaty grass things that took up much of the space. Their house was as loud and fluid and bright as one of those party boats you see passing on the Thames – a stream of noise, voices and music, a streak of light against the dingy river. I could only see the top half of my house beyond the trees, but it looked black in comparison, gloomy and uninhabited, the brickwork stained, the window frames grey and splintered. The sash of Faith’s window had clearly slipped, leaving a foot-long gap between glass and wall. Several slates were missing on the roof. Tom was right – it was probably letting in damp. I thought again about Peter Caxton’s proposal. If I had a cash injection, I could mend the broken gutters. I could patch the property up, make it more habitable.
I curled my toes, shuffling my shoes against the chipped bark.
Had Ailsa been serious? Did my feet in fact smell?
The light on the lawn flickered, sent finger-shaped shadows. The music had got louder – a wailing blur. I didn’t want to go back now. I thought about trying to clamber over the fence, but it was too high to scale, even if, when I reached the other side, I could get through the brambles. No, I should go back, see Ailsa again. Her wing woman. Kent. What had happened there? I thought about how hard she always tried to pretend everything was fine, and how vulnerable she was beneath her façade. And poor Max, too. Tomorrow I should offer to help clear up, maybe in the different surroundings of her house we would properly talk, I could see if I could get through to her, help her navigate a way out.
I stood up, brushing the compost off my jeans. I looked down at my trainers – at the stringy particles of bark that clung to the soles. And then, I stood very still. Beneath the throb of the party, the pulsing rise and fall of it, I caught something else; movement perhaps, a different quality of sound. The iron arch sighed, swayed; there was a murmur, a rustle, a loud inhalation and then a giggle.
‘We’re safe,’ Tom said, his voice slow and suggestive. ‘The shrubs are protecting us.’
A few seconds in which no one spoke. More rustling and a click, the sound of deep breathing.
I kept my feet as still as I could. By moving my head, I could get Tom in my line of vision. His head was forwards, almost touching a woman’s, and his hands seemed to be cupped over hers.
He straightened up and she let out a sigh. ‘Delicious,’ she said. Delilah.
She had her back to me, but she held her cigarette out at shoulder height in the manner of a 1920s debutante.