‘Thanks to him and her too I guess, I could afford to buy the pile.’
“The pile” in question was a substantial house and large garden she had been able to afford with the enormous settlement she had received from her banker (or wanker) husband and she now lived in the manner, as she put it, that all divorcees aspire to.
‘I’m absolutely loaded now, darling,’ she told me in her aristocratic way. ‘The bastard pays me £100,000 big ones a year and the lump sum bought the pile. I’ll never need to work again even if he drops off his perch which I sincerely hope he will.’
And so it was that Saturday that I was leaning against the back of a large sofa clinging to a glass of wine which was by no means my first of the evening and rather wishing I could have taken my ex to the cleaners in similar fashion when an Indian woman of about forty five years and wearing a stunning saree of blues, reds and golds wandered past. She stopped.
‘Are you Faye?’
‘It rather depends how you’re spelling it.’
‘Oh, how’s that?’
‘Well, if you spell it f-a-y as in Morgan le Fay then, I admit, I lack the supernatural skills but if, on the other hand, you spell it the boring was with an e on the end, then, yes, I am.’
She smiled. ‘I thought you might be. Lilly said I might try to prevent you from wallowing in your recent misfortune.’
The misfortune she was referring to was almost certainly the circumstances which had led to my being alone at the party instead of being accompanied by my faithless ex who had gone off to the United States to pursue her illustrious career.
‘I’m going alone,’ she had said. ‘I don’t want to be held back.’
What had made it worse was that she had said this on a Friday morning, precisely twelve hours after she had taken me to bed and fucked me senseless. The fuck was not unusual but the Friday morning conversation was so utterly unexpected that I’d had nothing to say, no words to plead or persuade; all I had was a numbness that left me speechless but by no means without tears. That had been just two weeks earlier than the night in question.
I studied the woman. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Anita. Anita Choudhury if you want to be formal. What do you do?’
So, Lilly had not told her everything.
‘I’m an actress.’
‘Would I have seen you in anything?’
‘You might have seen my award-winning performance as a goose in an advert for foie gras, the humane kind of course, although you probably wouldn’t recognise me without the beak. Or possibly in my world-famous role as a tea bag. I do a lot of commercials.'
She smiled and what could have been a rather miserable countenance was transformed; gleaming small, white teeth showed against her full lips which were, I noted, painted a delicious deep red that contrasted beautifully with her mid-brown skin.
‘Are you doing anything at the moment? Apart from drinking wine that is.’
I slid my arm through hers and led her out into the garden through the wide French windows that made one wall of the large sitting room where she’d found me.
‘I am currently playing the part, rather convincingly though I say so myself, of a waitress in a small, family-owned restaurant. The owner is a lady who cooks like an angel and takes pity on thesps like me who cant get a proper part because there are too many of us and not enough parts to go round.’
The evening air was warm, the sky that lovely blue that an English summer evening can make it when everything that is good about an English summer coincides.
She looked down at my arm encircling hers.
‘Why have you dragged me out here?’
‘Because it clearly hasn’t escaped your notice that I have taken one or two glasses of wine and when I meet an exotic like you it pays for me to be as far away from the bottle as possible for a while so I can avoid making a complete tit of myself. What do you do? No, let me guess. You’re a teacher.’
‘Sort of, I suppose.’
‘What does “sort of” mean?’
‘I’m a consultant in A and E at the BGH.’
The Bath General Hospital is a tribute to the National Health Service; a straggling Victorian monstrosity that is home to one of the finest teaching hospitals in the UK.
‘I am suitably impressed. So you are not someone who is experienced in the noble art of waiting at tables?’
‘Actually I did rather a lot of that when I was a student. What did you mean by “an exotic like me”?’
I stepped away from her and looked her over. I had not been wrong. She was about 5’ 9” and slender. Her hair was long, thick and glossy black, almost jet and her body, draped as it was in the beautiful silk, was nonetheless obvious. She was bare at the midriff and a small jewel was visible in her navel; another in the left side of her nose.
I, on the other hand was not looking my best. Oh, sure I had made an effort but somehow distress has a, well, distressing effect and I felt positively dowdy by comparison.
‘Just look at you! You’re too bloody stunning for your own, never mind my good and that saree looks like it was made for a princess. If that’s not exotic then I have no idea what is. How do you get that saree to hang so perfectly and stay there?’
She smiled again and I noticed how natural the smile was.
‘Practice.’ She took my arm back through hers and we walked. Our heels (hers at least 5” and mine, 3”) clicked on the slate of the pathway that led us through a small, curved avenue of trees that suddenly ended with a view of the lake that sat like a jewel in Lilly’s huge garden. A long granite bench seat was placed strategically at the end of the avenue and we sat. I smoothed my long, dark blue skirt under my arse as we sat at either end and I turned to look at her.
‘Has Lilly sent you to get me sober?’
‘Her words were to distract you.’
‘It’s worked. Lilly’s a good friend. We were at school together.’
‘Oh God, am I never to be free of English boarding school girls?’
I looked at her questioningly but she smiled again and I realised she was teasing me.
‘I,’ she said, ‘am the product of a similar school.’
‘They let all sorts in these days.’
‘They do. At least they do if Daddy is an Ambassador and Mummy is a renowned surgeon.’
‘You see. Humble beginnings are no barrier to a good education.’
‘Quite so. But the aged parents are now happily retired in Bangalore and I, their sole heir, is earning a stipend curing the drunks and accident victims and fighters who pass daily through the portals of England’s finest hospital.’
‘That must be uplifting; to see the Brits at their best.’
‘It is the lot of the A and E department and, to be fair, I enjoy the buzz even if many of the patients are victims of their own stupidity.’
I couldn’t help wondering if this was a dig at my slightly inebriated state. I stood.
‘Shall we go back?’
‘I think I will stay here a bit longer. I haven’t seen this view before and I’d like to enjoy it while it remains so warm.’
‘Well, I need another drink.’ I was feeling a little rebellious and I wasn’t in the mood for a health lecture.
‘Okay. Perhaps I’ll see you later.’
I sat down again. “Maybe I’ll stay a little longer too.’
‘Fine.’
We sat in silence and I took in the view, the serenity and the warm summer hum in the air. A duck landed comically on the water, its feet hitting the surface followed by its rear end and we both laughed.
Anita stood then and took my hand. ‘It’s getting late. Come on, let’s go back to the party.’
I got up and allowed myself to be led back through the avenue and along the path back to those French windows. The light was failing and the house looked warm and inviting. Other guests stood around in groups, talking as people at parties always do about nothing.
I stopped and Anita turned to look at me.
‘Did Lilly say anything else?’
‘She said you were funny, her closest friend, a wronged woman and unhappy.’
‘Guilty on all counts except perhaps, the funny at the moment.’
‘I thought the line about Morgan le Fay was pretty good.’
‘Not, I have to confess, the first time I have used it.’
‘First time you’ve used it on me though.’
I couldn’t argue with that so I stepped forward and we went into the house. Anita led me by the hand to the sideboard where the drink was laid out and she grabbed two glasses of Champagne.
‘Are we celebrating something?’
She looked at me. ‘Saturday evening? How come you’re not waitressing?’
‘Madame Lefevre said I could have the evening off. She said I was like a spectre at the feast while I struggled with my emotional life and she thought my expression would either curdle her Hollandaise sauce or give her customers dysentery so she told me, nicely, to fuck off and have some fun and come back when I was feeling less like a bear with piles.’
‘She has a way with the English language.’
‘She has.