The Peacock Emporium(8)



At midnight, there had been a toast, and some strange, unofficial game involving a young man with a fox’s tail attached to his jacket who went hurtling through the house, hotly pursued by several of his pink-coated friends with hunting horns. One had slipped and fallen hard on the waxed floor, knocking himself unconscious by the main staircase. But another had poured the contents of a stirrup cup into his mouth, and he had come to, spluttering and gagging, got up, and carried on the chase as if nothing had happened. At one o’clock Vivi, who was wishing she could go back to her room, said she would accompany Alexander to the blackjack table, where, unexpectedly, he won seven pounds. In a fit of exuberance, he told her she should have the lot. The way he said that she was his “lucky charm” made her feel a bit nauseated—that, or the amount of champagne she had drunk. At half past one she saw Mrs. Bloomberg in animated discussion with her husband in what looked like his private office. Just visible was a pair of prostrate female legs, in shimmering oyster tights. Vivi recognized them as belonging to a red-haired girl she had seen earlier, being sick out of a window.

At two o’clock, some unseen church-tower timepiece acknowledged the hour and confirmed for Vivi that Douglas was not going to keep his promise, that she was not going to find herself held gently in his arms, that there was going to be no longed-for kiss at the end of the evening. Surrounded by the chaos around her, the girls shrieking, their faces now flushed and bleary, the boys sprawled drunkenly on sofas or brawling incompetently, all she wanted was to be alone and cry.

“Xander, I think I’m going to go to my room.”

His arm was slung casually round her waist and he was talking to one of his friends. He turned toward her, surprised. “What?”

“I’m really tired. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve had a perfectly lovely evening, thank you very much.”

“You can’t go to bed now.” He reeled backward theatrically. “Party’s only just starting.”

His ears, she noted, were scarlet, and his eyelids had slid halfway over his eyes. “I’m sorry. You’ve been awfully kind. If you bump into him, would you mind telling Douglas I’ve—I’ve retired for the evening?”

A voice behind Alexander barked, “Douglas? I don’t think Douglas is going to be too bothered.” Several of the men exchanged glances and let off a rapid volley of laughter.

She made her way out of the gaming room, her arms crossed miserably across her chest, no longer caring how she looked. The people around her were too drunk to pay any attention anyway. The band was taking a break, and Dusty Springfield sang a melancholy melody over loudspeakers that made Vivi set her face against tears.

“Vivi, you can’t go up yet.” Alexander was right behind her. He reached out and pulled her round by her shoulder. The angle of his head told her everything she needed to know about how much he’d had to drink.

“I’m really sorry, Alexander. Honestly, I’ve had a super time. But I’m tired.”

“Come . . . come and have something to eat. They’ll be doing kedgeree in the breakfast room soon.” He was holding her arm, his grip a little tighter than was comfortable. “You know . . . you look very pretty in your . . . your dress.” His eyes were now fixed on her embonpoint, and alcohol had removed any trace of reticence from his gaze. “Very nice,” he said. And then, just in case she had missed the point, “Very, very nice.”

Vivi stood in an agony of indecision. To turn away from him now would be the height of impoliteness to someone who had made such an effort to entertain her. And yet the way he was staring at her chest was making her uneasy. “Xander, perhaps we can meet for breakfast.”

He didn’t seem to have heard her. “The problem with skinny women,” he was saying, directly at her chest, “and there’re so many bloody skinny women these days . . .”

“Xander?”

“. . . is that they have no breasts. No breasts to speak of.” As he spoke, he tentatively lifted a hand toward her chest.

“Oh! You—” Vivi’s upbringing had left her with no adequate response. She turned, and walked briskly from the room, one hand placed protectively over her bosom, ignoring the rather half-hearted entreaties behind her.

She had to find Douglas. She wouldn’t be able to sleep until she did. She needed to reassure herself that, no matter how unreachable he had been this evening, once they had left this place he would be her Douglas again: kind, serious Douglas, who had mended punctures on her first bicycle, who, her dad said, was a “thoroughly decent young man,” and who had taken her to see Tom Jones twice at the cinema. She wanted to tell him how awful Alexander had been (and harbored a newly flourishing secret hope that this dastardly behavior might spur him on to realize his true feelings).

It was easier to search now, as the crowds had thinned into small, sedentary gatherings. The older guests had departed for their rooms, some dragging protesting charges in their wake, and outside at least one tractor could be heard trying to clear a path away from the house. Douglas was not in the gaming room, or in the main ballroom, the adjoining corridor, underneath the grand staircase, or drinking with the pink coats in the Reynard bar. No one noticed her now, the late hour and alcohol consumption having rendered her invisible. But it seemed to have rendered him invisible too; she had wondered several times, in her exhausted state, whether, given his expressed dislike for such pompous, class-ridden occasions, he might have crept home after all. Vivi sniffed unhappily, realizing that she had been so wrapped up in her own private fantasy of having him escort her to her own room that she had never considered she might need to know where his room was. I’ll find Mrs. Bloomberg and she’ll tell me. Or I’ll just knock on every door in the other wing until someone can find him for me.

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