The Peacock Emporium(5)

“Vee? Are you decent?” Vivi jumped guiltily as Douglas rapped sharply on the door. “Thought we might nip downstairs early. I bumped into an old schoolfriend and he’s saving us a couple of glasses of champagne. Are you nearly done?”

“Two secs,” she shouted, layering mascara on her eyelashes and praying that tonight would be the one in which he was forced to look at her differently. “I’ll be right there.”



* * *



—

    He looked perfect in black tie, of course. He looked taller and straighter, his shoulders square in the crisp dark cloth of his jacket. When she’d told him he looked handsome, jokingly, to hide the intensity of longing his appearance had provoked in her, he’d laughed gruffly and said he felt like a trussed-up fool. Then, as if embarrassed to have forgotten, he had complimented her too. “You scrub up pretty well, old girl,” he said, putting his arm round her and giving her a brotherly squeeze. It wasn’t quite Prince Charming, but it felt radioactive on her bare skin.

“Did you know we’re now officially snowed in?”

Alexander, Douglas’s pale, freckled schoolfriend, had brought her another drink. It was her third glass of champagne, and the paralysis she had initially felt when confronted by the sea of glamorous faces before her had evaporated. “What?” she said.

He leaned in so that she could hear him over the noise of the band. “The snow. It’s started again. Apparently no one’s going to get past the end of the drive until they bring more grit tomorrow.” He, like many of the men, was wearing a red coat (“Pink,” he corrected her), and his aftershave was terribly strong, as if he hadn’t been sure how much to use.

“Where will you stay?” Vivi had a sudden picture of a thousand bodies camped on the ballroom floor.

“Oh, I’m all right. I’m in the house, like you. Don’t know what the rest will do, though. Keep going all night, probably. Some of these chaps would have done that anyway.”

Unlike Vivi, most of the people she could see around her looked as if they stayed up until dawn as a matter of course. They all seemed so confident and assured, uncowed by their grand surroundings. Their poise and chatter suggested there was nothing particularly special about being in this stately home. The girls wore their dresses easily, with the insouciance of those for whom smart evening wear was as familiar as an overcoat.

And despite the incongruous elegance of the wedding-cake ballroom, it had not been long before the band had been persuaded to drop its playlist of traditional dances, and strike up something a little more modern. An instrumental version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand“ had sent girls squealing on to the dance floor, shaking their elaborately coiffed heads and shimmying their hips, leaving the matrons on the sidelines to shake their own heads in perplexed disapproval, and Vivi to conclude, sadly, that she was unlikely to get her waltz with Douglas.

Not that she was sure he’d remembered his promise. Since they had come into the ballroom, he had seemed distracted. In fact, Douglas hadn’t seemed much like himself at all, smoking cigars with his friends, exchanging jokes she didn’t get. She was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the imminent collapse of the class system—if anything, he looked disturbingly at home among the black ties and hunting coats. Several times she had tried to say something to reestablish their shared history, to recall a degree of intimacy. At one point she had boldly made a joke about his smoking a cigar, but he hadn’t seemed particularly interested—he had listened with what her mother always called “half an ear.” Then as politely as he could, he had rejoined the other conversation.

She had started to feel foolish, so she had been almost grateful when Alexander had paid her some attention. “Fancy a twist?” he had said, and she had to confess that she had only learned the classic dance steps. “Easy,” he said, leading her on to the floor. “Stub a cigarette out with your toe, and rub a towel on your behind. Got it?” He had looked so comical that she had burst out laughing, then glanced behind her to see whether Douglas had noticed. But Douglas, not for the first time that evening, had disappeared.

At eight a master of ceremonies announced that there was a buffet, and Vivi, a little giddier than when she had arrived, joined a long line of people queuing for sole Veronique or boeuf bourguignon and wondered how to balance her extreme hunger with the knowledge that none of the girls around her were eating more than a few sticks of overcooked carrots.

Almost accidentally, she had become embedded in a group of Alexander’s friends. He had introduced her in a manner that was faintly proprietorial, and Vivi had found herself tugging at her bodice, conscious that she was revealing quite an expanse of flushed cleavage.

“Been to Ronnie Scott’s?” said one, leaning over her so that she had to hold her plate away from her.

“Never met him. Sorry.”

“It’s a jazz club. Gerrard Street. You should get Xander to take you there. He knows Stan Tracey.”

“I don’t really know—” Vivi stepped back, and apologized when she jogged someone’s drink.

“God, I’m starving. Went to the Atwoods’ do last week and all they served was salmon mold and consommé. I had to pay the girls to give me theirs. Thought I’d bloody faint with hunger.”

“Nothing as mean as a mean buffet.”