dissociation the whole time, as if this wasn’t her
real
home but another parallel place resembling it in every detail.
Before he cycled off to his friend’s house, Tom came into her room with instructions. His eyebrows – faint dark brush strokes, not red – lifted in surprise at the sight of her hair decor, but it would have been beneath his dignity to comment.
— Keep an eye on the Pune, Kristie. Don’t let him make an idiot of himself. I’d stick pretty close to Mum, in case he starts shooting his mouth off to her in front of all her friends.
These days all his campaigns were directed against one thing: the Punic Wars, he called them. Kristen had no intention of spending her evening standing guard over her mother. Before the party began she stowed supplies among the flowerpots in the greenhouse: two slices of Peggy’s lemon fridge cake in a Tupperware box, apples, and the old Action Man flask filled up with sherry. Sherry wasn’t really what anyone drank at parties, but it was the only alcoholic drink she liked, so far. She also put a candle and a box of matches ready, and for a few minutes felt excited, then silly, because nothing could really happen if she was all by herself. But the greenhouse might be a good place to hide away in, if the party was awful.
The sky was shut under a grey lid of cloud, the late afternoon was limply warm. Kristen ran a bath for her mother, combining scented oils like a witch mixing potions; once she thought she heard, behind the thunder of the tap, waves of rain insisting at the open windows, but when she looked out the garden was still dry and blank. Her dad was hanging paper lanterns in the trees. Peggy’s 1950s strapless evening dress, green silk, was laid out on the bed with her new strapless bra, new tights still in their packet, ropes of beads; in a glass on the dressing table was the yellow rose she’d cut in the garden for her hair. When Peggy had finished setting out the food the caterers had delivered, she came upstairs to change.
— That bath smells extraordinary. I suppose it’s safe to get in, I won’t turn into a frog or anything?
Undressing, she scrutinised her daughter in rapid assessment. — What are you going to wear, darling?
— This, said Kristen briefly. She looked away from the sight of her mother in her underwear, the complicated adult voluptuousness. — D’you like my sequins?
Peggy baulked for one audible instant then forgave her. — You’re rather wonderful, she said. — You’re like …
— No, shut up, don’t say what I’m like.
The Pune, miraculously, wasn’t the first to arrive, as Tom had predicted he would be. And when he did come he looked quite like a normal human being, he’d changed out of the usual Pune-wear into a black polo-neck top with black trousers. He walked round everywhere with his cigarette in his hand, of course, sucking on it as if it was the first one he’d had in weeks; and his trousers were too short, they showed stretches of hairy leg when he sat on the floor with his knees up in front of him. He wasn’t any good at the polite stuff like talking to strangers, but some of the teachers from school knew him and got down on the floor with him, even when the party was really still in its stage for standing up chatting, holding on to plates and glasses. The group on the floor seemed to have more fun, they were shrieking with laughter. Kristen was sure she heard him telling them the thing about him being the only twenty-one-year-old virgin left.
Kristen moved around between the clusters of guests for a while, standing at the edge of each one with her glass of juice, looking from face to face as they spoke, responding politely if they made an effort to include her. But there wasn’t much they could ask her about, apart from school: she saw herself insignificant, as if from a great distance, her inner life compacted into a small flat tasteless cake. She got tired of telling them that chemistry was her
real
home but another parallel place resembling it in every detail.
Before he cycled off to his friend’s house, Tom came into her room with instructions. His eyebrows – faint dark brush strokes, not red – lifted in surprise at the sight of her hair decor, but it would have been beneath his dignity to comment.
— Keep an eye on the Pune, Kristie. Don’t let him make an idiot of himself. I’d stick pretty close to Mum, in case he starts shooting his mouth off to her in front of all her friends.
These days all his campaigns were directed against one thing: the Punic Wars, he called them. Kristen had no intention of spending her evening standing guard over her mother. Before the party began she stowed supplies among the flowerpots in the greenhouse: two slices of Peggy’s lemon fridge cake in a Tupperware box, apples, and the old Action Man flask filled up with sherry. Sherry wasn’t really what anyone drank at parties, but it was the only alcoholic drink she liked, so far. She also put a candle and a box of matches ready, and for a few minutes felt excited, then silly, because nothing could really happen if she was all by herself. But the greenhouse might be a good place to hide away in, if the party was awful.
The sky was shut under a grey lid of cloud, the late afternoon was limply warm. Kristen ran a bath for her mother, combining scented oils like a witch mixing potions; once she thought she heard, behind the thunder of the tap, waves of rain insisting at the open windows, but when she looked out the garden was still dry and blank. Her dad was hanging paper lanterns in the trees. Peggy’s 1950s strapless evening dress, green silk, was laid out on the bed with her new strapless bra, new tights still in their packet, ropes of beads; in a glass on the dressing table was the yellow rose she’d cut in the garden for her hair. When Peggy had finished setting out the food the caterers had delivered, she came upstairs to change.
— That bath smells extraordinary. I suppose it’s safe to get in, I won’t turn into a frog or anything?
Undressing, she scrutinised her daughter in rapid assessment. — What are you going to wear, darling?
— This, said Kristen briefly. She looked away from the sight of her mother in her underwear, the complicated adult voluptuousness. — D’you like my sequins?
Peggy baulked for one audible instant then forgave her. — You’re rather wonderful, she said. — You’re like …
— No, shut up, don’t say what I’m like.
The Pune, miraculously, wasn’t the first to arrive, as Tom had predicted he would be. And when he did come he looked quite like a normal human being, he’d changed out of the usual Pune-wear into a black polo-neck top with black trousers. He walked round everywhere with his cigarette in his hand, of course, sucking on it as if it was the first one he’d had in weeks; and his trousers were too short, they showed stretches of hairy leg when he sat on the floor with his knees up in front of him. He wasn’t any good at the polite stuff like talking to strangers, but some of the teachers from school knew him and got down on the floor with him, even when the party was really still in its stage for standing up chatting, holding on to plates and glasses. The group on the floor seemed to have more fun, they were shrieking with laughter. Kristen was sure she heard him telling them the thing about him being the only twenty-one-year-old virgin left.
Kristen moved around between the clusters of guests for a while, standing at the edge of each one with her glass of juice, looking from face to face as they spoke, responding politely if they made an effort to include her. But there wasn’t much they could ask her about, apart from school: she saw herself insignificant, as if from a great distance, her inner life compacted into a small flat tasteless cake. She got tired of telling them that chemistry was her
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