The Peacock Emporium(12)

“You need to knock some sense into her,” said Colonel Forster.

Douglas’s head jolted backward.

“Anthony.” Justine Forster pursed her lips. She opened her compact and examined her eye makeup. “She . . . It’s just that she can be a bit of a handful.”

“I like her like that.” Douglas’s tone was one of contented belligerence.

She had dragged him to dance halls run by black people in some of the less savory parts of London, chiding him if he expressed anxieties, exhorting him instead to dance with her, to join her in drinking, laughing, living. And because she seemed perfectly at ease in those places, his worst fears rarely materialized, and he was forced to confront his own conceptions of poor people, or black people, or, at any rate, people unlike himself. Along with his fears, he had made himself shed a few inhibitions, smoked and drunk dark rum, and when they were alone allowed himself to approach Athene sexually in a way that he had been brought up to think of as not just daring but probably illegal.

Because she didn’t mind. She didn’t care about shopping, or fashion, or furnishings, or the things that had bored him about so many of the girls he knew. If anything she was careless with her possessions—at the end of a dance she would remove her shoes, complaining that they were a bore, then fail to bring them home. There would always be another pair of shoes, she would say, laughing. Worrying about things was such a bore.

“Yes. Well, dear, don’t say we didn’t warn you.” Justine Forster was eyeing a piece of wedding cake as if it might spring up and bite her.

“Very silly girl,” said Colonel Forster, lighting his pipe.

“What?”

“Our daughter. No point beating around the bush. She’s jolly lucky to have married at all.”

“Anthony.” Mrs. Forster glanced at Douglas fearfully, as if this damning commentary might prompt her new son-in-law to announce a change of heart.

“Oh, come on, Justine. She’s surrounded by feckless young people, and it’s made her feckless. Ungrateful and feckless and silly.”

“I don’t think she’s feckless.” Douglas, who would have been appalled to think his own parents might discuss him in this way, felt the need to defend his bride. “I think she’s brave, and original, and beautiful.”

Athene’s father regarded him as if he’d just admitted to being a pinko. “Yes. Well, you don’t want to go admitting all that to her. Don’t know where it might lead. Just see if you can settle her down a bit. Otherwise she’ll end up as no use to anyone.”

“He doesn’t mean it, Douglas, dear. He just means that we—we’ve probably been a little lax with her at times.”

“Lax with who?” Athene appeared at Douglas’s shoulder. He smelled Joy and cigarette smoke, and his innards clenched. “Are you talking about me?”

“We were just saying that we’re very glad you’re settling down.” With a wave of her hand, Justine Forster suggested she would like the conversation closed.

“Douglas and I have no intention of settling down, do we, darling?” Douglas felt her cool hand on the back of his neck. “Not if it means ending up like you.”

“I’m not going to talk to you, Athene, if you’re going to be deliberately rude.”

“Very silly girl,” muttered her father.

Douglas was feeling extremely uncomfortable. “I think you’re being rather unfair on Athene,” he ventured.

“Douglas, dear, well-meaning as you are, you have no conception of what Athene has put us through.”

Athene leaned down and picked up Douglas’s brandy, as if to examine its contents, then swallowed the amber liquid in one gulp. “Oh, Douglas, don’t listen to them,” she said, replacing the glass and pulling at his arm. “They’re such bores. This is our day, after all.”

Within minutes of their being on the dance floor he had almost forgotten the exchange, lost in his own private appreciation of her silk-clad curves, the scent of her hair, the light feel of her hands on his back. When she looked up at him, her eyes were glittering with tears.

“We don’t have to see them now that we’re married.” It wasn’t a question, but she appeared to demand some kind of reassurance. “We don’t have to spend half our time as stuffed shirts, sitting in horrid old family gatherings.”

“We can do whatever we want, my darling,” he whispered into her neck. “It’s just us now. We can do whatever we want.” He enjoyed the sound of his own voice, the authority and comfort it promised.

She held him tighter in a surprisingly strong grasp, her face buried in his shoulder. Over the sound of the music, he had been unable to make out her reply.



* * *



—

    “Won’t be a minute,” said the girl in the cloakroom. “Some of the tickets have got separated from the coats.”

“Fine,” said Vivi, her foot tapping with impatience to be gone. The sounds of the reception were dulled now, muffled by the expanse of carpet that lined the hallways and stairs. Past her, elderly dowagers were helped to powder rooms, and small, shoeless children skidded up and down under the quietly outraged gaze of rigid, uniformed staff. She wouldn’t return home until Christmas. It was likely that Douglas and that woman—she still could not bring herself to say her name, worse still to describe her as “his wife”—would be away for Christmas. His family had always been big on skiing, after all.