Finding Monsieur Right Page 12

  The others nodded in agreement.

  ‘Like a kind of frisson?’ said Isabelle.

  ‘Ooh yeah,’ Ivy said, narrowing her slightly protuberant green eyes. ‘Brrrrr ...

  Across the table, Clothaire was quizzing Isabelle’s guest about his academic credentials and career choice. ‘But I don’t understand what you say. Explain me why you want to be a florist. It’s a job for a girl, that, no?’

  ‘Some people think so,’ Tom Quince said vaguely.

  ‘I once knew a charming florist,’ Chrissie said, smiling at Meredith’s relative. ‘He was so very fragrant always.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Tom Quince said, nodding. He looked at Clothaire. ‘Not a florist, by the way, a gardener.’

  Clothaire snorted.

  Tom Quince ate a mouthful of soup, then said, ‘Though, as a matter of fact, I did consider becoming a florist. But what I enjoy most is making gardens.’

  ‘It’s very powerful stuff you’re harnessing, very healing,’ his neighbour Belladonna said, looking at him through her eyelashes. ‘You must have a really deep connection with telluric forces.’

  ‘Like me, Bella is a pagan,’ said Jules, his other neighbour. ‘Unlike me, she likes nothing better than dancing naked in the moonlight. I prefer to wear a toga. It’s more dignified.’

  ‘I like to commune fully with the earth mother,’ said Belladonna, curling a lock of her black hair around her forefinger. ‘I’m a white witch, you see.’

  Clothaire banged on the table and frightened Raven, who bounded down to the floor with an indignant miaow.

  ‘No, but you are joking with this! You went to a good university. You are an intelligent guy, yes or no? You should do something more interesting.’

  Tom Quince calmly shifted his gaze from Belladonna to Clothaire. ‘No doubt you’re right.’

  ‘Have you quite finished?’ asked Jules, who had come to stand behind Clothaire. ‘I thought so. I’ll take this if you don’t mind.’ She whisked away his half-empty bowl and placed it on top of a perilously high pile of crockery that she then carried across to the sink.

  Isabelle looked across the table to check that Tom Quince was not bored. She needn’t have worried. He was laughing with Jules at something Belladonna had just said. Belladonna, incidentally, looked rather good, if (in Isabelle’s opinion) slightly blatant, in a laced-up dress that made the most of her cleavage. Isabelle felt relieved while also experiencing a vague and mysterious annoyance.

  Karloff got up the courage to help Jules dish out the next course. Clothaire stared down balefully at the food that was placed before him:

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Cheese and onion tart. All right?’

  ‘What? Et alors? There is no meat? You are joking with me? This is food for the ... chicks, the women!’

  ‘Actually, I think meat stinks,’ Ivy said in a slow singsong voice, as though speaking to a very small child.

  ‘I’m a vegetarian too,’ Karloff said mildly. ‘Like Ivy. And Bella. And, er ... Jules. It’s not food for girls.’

  ‘And so explain me why you are wearing lipstick and mascara?’ Clothaire said, leaning back in his chair.

  Before Karloff could respond, Isabelle interjected hurriedly, ‘The tart is really good, you know. Try a little piece.’

  ‘Pfff, vegetarians! You make me laugh,’ Clothaire said, lighting a cigarette. ‘Like you there,’ he said, gesturing towards Belladonna. ‘You are telling me that you are a vegetarian vampire, maybe? Or maybe you drink only the vegetarian blood? Hein, alors?’

  ‘It’s fancy dress. That means role-play, you know,’ Belladonna replied with a frosty smile. ‘Besides, you don’t have to be a vampire to want to bite certain people’s necks,’ she added, baring her pointy canines and smiling at Tom Quince.

  ‘You are all stupid or what? Nobody has explained you that we are omnivore?’ Clothaire boomed, grinding his cigarette butt several times into his piece of onion tart.

  ‘That’s what the corporations want you to believe,’ Ivy said with extreme solemnity. ‘Actually, it’s all just a big lie.’

  ‘We are all Gaea’s children,’ Belladonna said. ‘We may partake of her vegetable bounty but we mustn’t kill other living things. It’s terrible karma.’

  ‘I think it’s a question of personal taste ...’ Isabelle began.

  Clothaire spun around to face her. ‘Et l’autre emmerdeuse qui s’y met! Nobody asked your advice, Isabelle. Just shut up when I’m talking, OK?’ he thundered.

  Isabelle shut up. Clothaire lit another cigarette, presumably marshalling his thoughts about the proper diet for human beings. Nobody else spoke. After a moment’s silence, Isabelle looked around the table in confusion. She suddenly realised that when something like this happened in Paris, another guest – more often than not her dear Agathe – would laugh the whole thing off, scolding Clothaire in an indulgent way so that Isabelle never minded his outbursts. Tonight, on the other hand, the other guests all stared at Clothaire, open-mouthed. All, in fact, except Tom Quince, who was looking straight at Isabelle with an odd expression on his face, almost of anger. She blushed ferociously.

  ‘I have just had the most mar-vellous idea,’ Chrissie said, not a minute too soon. ‘Ju-Ju, why don’t you go get your Ouija board and we’ll have ourselves a little Halloween séance.’

  This broke the horrified spell around the table. Jules went to fetch the alphabet board in her room. While Legend, Karloff and Ivy cleared the table, Isabelle slipped out into the garden. It was a clear moonlit night. Earlier in the day, Jules and Chrissie had made a bonfire of dead leaves on the lawn, and the pile of ashes was still smoking a little. Isabelle walked over to the bench and sat down. A minute or so later she heard the kitchen door open. She didn’t turn her head, knowing full well that it was Clothaire, probably with another cigarette.

  ‘Are you all right, Isabelle?’

  Isabelle looked up to see Meredith’s great-nephew standing beside the bench. She flinched a little and stared straight ahead of her.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m absolutely fine,’ she said primly.

  ‘I thought perhaps ...’

  ‘What?’ she said, and started to shiver.

  ‘How stupid of me. Here, let me.’ There was a quick rustling sound, and then Isabelle felt herself enveloped in something warm – his jacket. He sat down next to her.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she said in a much smaller voice than she had intended.

  They sat in silence for a while. Tom Quince threw his head back and looked up at the sky. Then he turned towards her and spoke. ‘What was it you wanted to ask me, by the way? About Meredith?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Isabelle replied, much relieved by the change of subject. ‘The other day at Lucy’s house, I was looking at the portrait of Meredith and ... Did you notice the –’

  A cry came from the kitchen door. ‘Yoo-hoo! Isabelle?’ And then, in the same voice but one octave lower: ‘Tom? Where are you?’

  Belladonna was coming across the lawn, holding the hem of her dress in one hand and beckoning with the other. ‘Come on, we need everybody to gather for the séance.’

  They went back into the house. Most of the guests were sitting around the table, looking at the board and chattering excitedly. Clothaire was leaning against the dresser, away from the rest. When he saw Isabelle, he came forwards, put an arm around her and gave the back of her neck a quick squeeze. She smiled at him and automatically took off Tom Quince’s jacket, which she handed back to its owner. They all sat down, except Clothaire who went upstairs to watch television.

  The spirits – helped along by Isabelle and, rather less discreetly, by Chrissie – proved to be in great verve. They told Jules that ‘S-O-M-E-O-N-E-T-A-L-L-A-N-D-D-A-R-K-S-E-C-R-E-T-L-Y’ pined for her and Karloff that his destiny was to be ‘L-O-V-E-D-B-Y-T-H-E-Q-U-E-E-N’.

  ‘The Queen?’ Karloff wondered aloud.

  ‘Well, not the Queen, you know, obviously,’ Legend said meditatively. ‘She’s a bi
t old for you, apart from anything else.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s metaphorical,’ Belladonna said. ‘The spirits often talk in riddles. Can we ask about my love life now?’

  ‘In a minute, Bella darling,’ Chrissie said. ‘I think we should get to the bottom of this first.’

  ‘Go on, Kazza,’ said Ivy.

  ‘All right. Er ... what Queen do you mean?’

  The glass stood still for a moment, then began to move confidently, spelling out: ‘T-H-E-Q-U-E-E-N-O-F-D-E-N-I-A-L’.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Dunno, really.’

  ‘Well, there is one queen in the room,’ Legend said, pointing at Chrissie.

  ‘Who, me? Oh, come off it, Legend! Karloff darling, you know I find you maddeningly gorgeous, but you’re really not my type. No, no, that’s not it, I’m afraid. Let’s see ... the Queen of denial. The Queen, you see? Of. De. Nial. Mmm ... It does remind me of something, something that is right under our noses ... Now what could it be? Any ideas, anyone?’

  ‘I think we should ask about the future of the band,’ Jules said severely, adjusting her golden headdress.

  Having dispatched such enquiries as briefly and encouragingly as possible, the spirits returned to what they really wanted to talk about: ‘T-H-E-Q-U-E-E-N-M-Y-G-O-O-D-N-E-S-S-W-A-K-E-U-P-W-H-A-T-S-W-R-O-N-G-W-I-T-H-U-I-T-S-S-O-O-B-V-I-O-U-S-T-H-I-N-K-U-F-O-O-L-T-H-I-N-K.’

  They all looked at one another.

  ‘Wow, this spirit really has a one-track mind,’ said Ivy.

  ‘Yeah, it’s getting a bit dull,’ said Belladonna, glancing at Tom Quince. ‘Shall we put on some music? I feel like dancing.’

  ‘There’s no full moon tonight, Bella. Don’t get overexcited,’ Jules said drily.

  ‘Yeah, let’s play a game instead,’ said Legend. ‘How about Eek?’

  ‘What is that?’ asked Isabelle.

  ‘Well,’ Ivy replied, ‘somebody hides, then the others all look for him or her, while saying “eek”.’

  ‘On all fours,’ Jules interjected.

  ‘That’s right. When you find the hidden person, you stop saying “eek” and hide with them. At the end everyone is hiding together and the last one left has lost.’

  Isabelle and Chrissie exchanged a smile. The game had distinct possibilities for generating greater intimacy between Jules and Karloff.

  ‘Let’s put all the lights out,’ Belladonna said, enthusiastically blowing out the candles.

  Leaving the darkened kitchen, they went upstairs and congregated in the hallway.

  Hearing voices, Clothaire emerged from Chrissie’s room. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Playing a silly game, Clo-Clo darling,’ said Chrissie, earning himself a venomous glance from Clothaire. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘It’s a sort of cache-cache,’ Isabelle explained.

  Clothaire drew himself up to his full height. ‘OK, and you were just going to ignore me, like I’m not there? Thank you very much, Isabelle. I am capable to play, you know.’

  ‘Of course you can play,’ Jules said tonelessly. ‘Can’t think of anything that would be more fun.’

  While Isabelle briefly explained the rules, Chrissie said, ‘Now who’s going to hide? Perhaps it should be someone who doesn’t know the house all that well. Like ... oh, I don’t know, Karl ...’

  ‘I’ll hide,’ Tom Quince said quite unexpectedly.

  ‘Great,’ said Belladonna.

  ‘Everybody close their eyes and count to a hundred,’ said Jules, putting out the light. ‘Then start searching, and don’t forget to go “eek”. No talking.’

  As a low chorus of ‘eek, eek’ rose in the darkness, broken up by a few high-pitched giggles, Isabelle carefully made for the stairs, trying to avoid collision with the other players, who were dispersing like a pack of puppies. Trying to spare her Dior tights by shuffling on hands and feet rather than on her knees, she reached the first floor and sat against the wall. Across the landing was Jules’ bedroom. Hopefully there would be nobody in there and she could have a moment of peace and quiet. Inside, it smelled of chocolate incense. ‘Eek?’ Isabelle whispered as she padded carefully around Jules’ bed.

  After a moment she realised that the darkness was not absolute in the room. The curtains were slightly parted, letting in a ray of moonlight, which illuminated the floor beneath the window. ‘Eek?’ said Isabelle, noticing a dark object sticking out from beneath the hem of the curtain: it was half of a shiny black brogue. Cautiously lifting a corner of material, she discovered Tom Quince sitting on Jules’ cushioned window seat. Silently, he held a hand out to her and helped her up. They rearranged the curtain and sat side by side for a while.

  Eventually, Isabelle turned to her guest. He was staring straight ahead and looked, oddly, rather cross.

  ‘I’m sorry you and Clothaire didn’t have more time to talk.’

  ‘That’s all right. You and I haven’t had time to talk either. About Meredith.’

  ‘No. This has turned out to be more of a children’s party than a dinner for grown-ups. I hope you don’t mind playing games.’

  ‘Games? No.’

  ‘It’s just that ... you don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself,’ Isabelle said worriedly.

  ‘Actually, I was wondering if you were, Isabelle. Maybe I’m just being dim.’

  ‘Dim?’

  ‘Obtuse. Other people’s relationships are always impossible to understand for an outsider.’

  Isabelle turned this over in her mind, then slowly looked up at him. Suddenly, the curtains were parted theatrically:

  ‘Eek-eek to you, my chickens!’ Chrissie said in a loud stage whisper. ‘Room for a little one?’ he said, wedging himself in between them.

  Before long, Jules and Belladonna joined them and squeezed in, too. When Karloff also turned up, things became rather crowded behind the curtain.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Belladonna said, ‘we could sit in each other’s laps? To save a bit of space?’

  ‘Brilliant idea,’ said Chrissie. ‘Karloff, honey, why don’t you take my place, and I’ll sit in Bella’s lap ...’

  ‘No, I meant ...’ Belladonna said, standing up.

  ‘Shush! You’ll give us away! Sit back down like a good girl and I’ll sit on you. You know I weigh almost nothing. Now, Karloff, you’d better take someone else in your lap. Oh, I know, Isabelle, can you let Jules through? The poor thing is all squashed up against the window.’

  Isabelle stood up.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jules said, without moving.

  The door creaked open. Hearing it, Chrissie had no choice but to push Isabelle hurriedly into Karloff’s lap. They all held their breath. ‘Eek?’ said a voice in the dark. Then there was a loud bump.

  ‘Ah, bloody hell!’ said Legend. ‘Who put that there?’

  She appeared between the curtains, grinning as she surveyed the hidden group in their various constrained attitudes. ‘You look like one of those phone booth challenges.’

  At this point there was a metallic clanging sound outside the door.

  ‘That’ll be Ivy,’ Legend whispered, perching on Tom Quince’s knee.

  A moment later, Ivy, who was the smallest player, had been hoisted up onto the pile and was lying lengthways across her friends’ laps.

  ‘That leaves only Clothaire,’ Karloff whispered.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ivy. ‘How long shall we leave him to stew?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got any plans for the rest of the night,’ said Legend.

  ‘That way he can really think things through in peace,’ said Jules. ‘Without interruptions from meddling females.’

  Isabelle held up her hand to silence them. Coming down the stairs was the slow plodding sound of footsteps, punctuated with Clothaire’s exasperated voice going ‘Hic! Hic?’ in the quiet house. He sounded so lonely that Isabelle could stand it no longer. She pulled the curtain open and ran to the door.

  ‘Clothaire! We’re all here!’

  She opened the door an
d put her arms around his waist.

  Jules put the light on, illuminating the rest of the group. They all blinked at one another.

  ‘Mulled wine, anyone, to finish us off?’ Chrissie suggested.

  Walking down the stairs to the kitchen, Belladonna said to Isabelle in confidential tones, ‘I really like your friend. He’s adorable.’

  Isabelle smiled at her. Thank goodness there were some perceptive people who could see through to Clothaire’s qualities.

  ‘Thank you. I think so too,’ she said.

  ‘Mmm, yes, he is quite attractive in a surly kind of way,’ said Chrissie, who was right behind them.

  ‘Not her boyfriend,’ Belladonna said. ‘The other one, Tom. He’s so mysterious. Do you think he’d come to our next gig if I asked him?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s his kind of ...’ Isabelle began. ‘I really don’t know him very well.’ Not at all, in fact, she thought crossly. She had made no progress at all in her enquiry. At least now the game was over she might get him on one side and question him.

  But when they reached the hallway, Tom Quince stopped and turned to Jules and Isabelle. ‘It’s getting late. I should get home.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t go!’ Belladonna said pleadingly before Isabelle had a chance to speak.

  ‘I’m afraid I must. Thanks so much for supper,’ he said, smiling at Jules, who, astonishingly, smiled back. ‘It was very nice to meet you all.’

  ‘Good night, and do come again,’ said Chrissie, shaking his hand coquettishly. ‘Come on, sleepy chickens,’ he said, addressing the other guests. ‘Mulled wine awaits downstairs.’

  ‘What’s that you say? Mulled wine? That sounds completely dégueulasse,’ said Clothaire, starting up the stairs. ‘Me, I am going to bed. Tu viens, Isabelle?’

  ‘Oui, tout de suite,’ she said, looking around at him with a smile. ‘In a minute. I’m just saying goodbye to Tom.’

  Isabelle frantically tried to think. How to engineer another meeting with him? She opened the door and stood aside to let him pass. ‘Er, so ...’ was all she could manage.

  ‘It was very nice to see you again and meet your friends,’ he said vaguely. ‘Sorry we didn’t get a chance to have that talk. Was it something important?’