11
“I drink to separate my body from my soul”
—Oscar Wilde
I must get ready. Our guests will be here soon. I pull on dark jeans, straight and tight, and a top I’ve always liked. It’s silky and slouching, revealing my collarbones and shoulders. I’ve not been eating well and am probably too thin but I like how I look in this. Long-limbed and lean. My face is another matter. The lack of sleep has taken its toll and there are purple shadows under my eyes. I reach for the Dermablend to cover my scar and dab a little under each eye as well. I need makeup tonight. Tom doesn’t like me with makeup, he says it makes me look tough. Tonight I need tough. For some reason I feel nervous and out of sorts. I apply eyeliner, bold and dark, and roll mascara onto my lashes. A sweep of bronzer across my cheekbones, dark lip gloss and I’m ready. I wind my hair into a careless knot and secure it with a comb, loose strands framing my face. I add the necklace Tom bought me for my thirty-fifth birthday, a cascade of hammered silver, and stand back to survey the damage. The woman looking back at me has a sharp edginess far removed from my everyday self.
I go down to the dining room. The table’s laid and the roses are soft and blowsy, already shedding petals like giant confetti. I’ve kept things simple for the meal. Asparagus, poached egg and hollandaise to start, Stilton-crusted fillet steak with a port wine sauce and then a lemon torte. The torte and the sauces I made yesterday so thankfully I won’t need to spend too much time in the kitchen tonight.
Our neighbors Madeline and Joe have just arrived. I can hear Tom in the hall and make my way through to greet them.
“Hi,” I say, “I’m Isabel.” I smile and add, “Izzy to my friends.”
Joe air-kisses somewhere west and east of my cheeks.
“Izzy, hi, Joe and this is Madeline.”
He’s tall and slightly overweight with light brown hair and a pleasant face—apart from the slightly predatory glint in his eye. He takes my hand and lingers over it for just a fraction too long.
I turn to Madeline. She is tiny, a waif with tumbling Titian curls. Her face is devoid of makeup bar a dusting of gold at the edges of her eyes. She has milk-white skin with a sprinkle of freckles across a tilted nose and a surprisingly full-lipped mouth. She turns to me and smiles slightly, revealing tiny even teeth, vaguely translucent like grains of Arborio. I knew I should’ve done risotto. Her eyes are the color of the sea, each, I note, with its own shard of ice.
“Isabel,” she says and extends a chilly hand, every nail a perfect pearly oval.
My hands with their blunt-cut nails look mannish in comparison. She has dressed up for the occasion in a shimmering sheath of a dress that clings to every curve. I had felt happy with how I looked but now I feel gangling and wrong, my features painted on like a babushka doll.
The evening is unseasonably warm and we’ve arranged drinks in the garden before dinner. Tom has bought lanterns and fairy lights which give the terrace a magical glow. My nervousness has increased now they’re here and I find myself shivering despite the evening’s warmth. I down my first glass of prosecco with unseemly haste. Tom looks pointedly at my glass, his eyebrows waggling like errant caterpillars. I choose to misunderstand and chirp, “Top-up, anyone?” proceeding to refill my glass well beyond the level of good manners. I need the wine to kick in to take off the edge. In fact, I wish I could flip back my head like the Pez sweet dispensers we had as children and decant the whole bloody bottle down my throat.
Dinner is shaping up to be a disaster. Not because of the food—the poached eggs were perfect, the hollandaise smooth and creamy—because we have split into two factions. Madeline is talking exclusively to Tom and I am left with Joe. Not that he isn’t a nice man, I’m sure he’s lovely but there’s something overly intense about him that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.
I quickly learn he’s a research scientist in the food industry and a nutritional expert with every fiber (Ha!) of his being. I now know all there is to know about complex carbohydrates, low GI, soluble fiber and more. I try to steer the conversation away by asking him about his holiday. Instead he neatly segues into the health benefits of cold-pressed Mediterranean olive oil. I fear the boredom will become too much for me and I’ll lose consciousness, plunging head-first into my food or toppling to the floor. I give Tom my “help me” face but he doesn’t notice.
I find myself watching Madeline instead. She has a way of looking up at Tom from under her eyelashes which looks coquettish although it may just be a mannerism, the consequence of being so short. She’s hanging on his every word and I register a twinge of jealousy—where did that come from?
Maybe it’s because there were girls like her at college. Ethereal helpless creatures on the surface but shot through with tempered steel. All wide-eyed sweetness around men, who flock to protect them; ruthless with girls who they see as competitors.
I’m aware I’m drinking too much. I feel unmoored and slightly wired, my filters are slipping. The window is disturbing me too. I don’t like the shimmering reflection of the candles against the growing darkness outside. I wish we had proper curtains. I feel too exposed, as though there’s a watcher out there. Again and again my eyes are drawn to it. The flickering lights catch at the corners of my vision giving the illusion of movement, or a face beyond the glass. My heart thumps in my chest and I feel frightened. I don’t like it at all. The tension in me is building and threatening to spiral out of control.
I go through to the kitchen to prepare the steaks. Tom makes no move to help. I sear the first three and place them in the oven. I can hear Tom’s voice from the dining room and the answering tinkle of Madeline’s laughter. I look at his steak. It’s exactly two centimetres thick and blue, that’s how he has to have his fillet or fill-ay as he insists on calling it. Why can’t he come out here and help cook the damn thing himself. In a sudden fit of spite, I pick it up and hurl it at the wall. It lands with a splat and hangs there for a stunned moment before sliding down the tiles, leaving a bloody trail. I realize I am very, very drunk.
I become aware of someone else in the room and turn to see Joe. I didn’t hear him come in and now he’s right behind me, so close that we’re almost touching.
“I wondered if you needed any. . .”
His voice tails away and together we watch the steak complete its descent. I look at his shocked face and begin to laugh. High pitched drunken laughter that feels as though it’ll never stop.
I say the first thing that comes into my head, “Tenderizing,” which sets off fresh peals of laughter. This isn’t good.
“Tom’s,” I hastily add, lest he thinks all the food has been hurled indiscriminately around the kitchen.
He scuttles back to the dining room, all offers of help forgotten, and I retrieve Tom’s steak. It looks vaguely gritty so I’ll have to wash it. Another Tom cardinal sin, “never wash steak, it removes some of the juices.” Oh well, I give it a quick rinse and slap it in the pan before adding it to the others. I stagger to the fridge for the Stilton and the port wine sauce and somehow get the whole thing finished, plated and out to the table.
Joe avoids my eye and Tom senses a shift in the atmosphere and tries to draw us both back into the conversation.