Christmas at Claridge's Page 10

  The church filled with cries as the vicar poured cold water over the baby’s head at the font, and Clem felt her phone buzz in the bag. She took it out and checked.

  Josh. Again.

  He hadn’t taken the break-up well, looking stunned as Clem launched into her usual patter, even though she’d been so busy with her new evangelical mission that she’d forgotten to call him for three weeks beforehand. She couldn’t understand how he hadn’t seen the writing on the wall when they’d failed to move past booty-calls to dates.

  Unmoved, she let Josh’s plea go to messages and looked around the congregation instead as the baby’s cries grew louder. Everyone was young, in couples and hats. Quite a few of them had babies, too. Christenings, she grimaced, were the new marriages, heralding the fact that life was grinding relentlessly forward, whether she chose to keep up or not.

  Towards the front, Tom was sitting with Clover. She was wearing a hat that looked more like roadkill and a smile that suggested the next time she stepped inside this church, she’d be in white and wearing a tiara. Things hadn’t improved between the two of them since their argument in the flat, although if Tom knew about it, he didn’t admit to it, and Clem was determined not to be the one seen to be breaking the peace. She had explicitly promised Tom she would try harder with Clover, in return for Tom delaying any drastic decisions, but Clover was playing the same game and the two of them were embroiled in a stand-of – an agony off polite, sisterly consideration, which only just concealed the visceral antipathy that existed between them.

  Today was part of that game. The baby being wetted and now attempting to shake the church from its foundations, was Clover’s sister’s child, and it was for Tom’s sake only that she was here in the name of bonding with Clover’s family. It was bad enough for him that the sister, Peony, was several years younger than Clover and already living her big sister’s dream; Tom didn’t need any extra hassle on that score.

  The service drew to an abrupt close as the baby’s cries gathered in volume and speed, and Stella and Clem stayed in their seats at the back as the guests shuffled slowly up the aisle.

  ‘Guess we should go out and show this baby off,’ Stella murmured, stroking the sheepskin bag. ‘It’s certainly a lot prettier.’

  ‘Just make sure Tom doesn’t see you handing out the flyers, OK? That’d be the last thing we need.’

  ‘Right, boss.’

  They slunk outside, leaning like stroppy teenagers against the pillars by the church door and watching the photographer group the guests together for the official photos. Clem checked her watch impatiently, desperate to escape and work on some more ideas. Now that she had started thinking in a creative vein, she couldn’t stop, and ideas were coming to her in the middle of the night, during her shower, her runs – she had to keep a notebook on her at all times to jot them down. She reckoned an hour back at the house for drinks, tops, and then they could reasonably leave.

  ‘Miss?’ She looked up. The photographer and the eyes of the crowd were upon her. ‘Could you come and stand here?’ He was gesturing to a space in the heart of the family circle.

  ‘Oh . . . no, I’m not family,’ she demurred as an assistant took her by the elbow and wheeled her into position.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Clover beamed insincerely at her. ‘You soon will be.’

  ‘But . . .’

  A hand behind her settled on her waist and gently pulled her back a little, the fingers spreading and applying a gentle pressure that was almost ticklish, almost . . .

  ‘That’s better,’ murmured a quiet voice. Foreign, male, gorgeous as hell. She went to turn to see who the voice belonged to but—

  ‘Everyone smile!’

  The flash popped, the baby cried and everyone dispersed again, eager to get away from the ear-splitting bawls. Clem looked around as strangers swarmed, all looking for their partners, children and cars.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Stella asked, looking up from her phone with pink, excited cheeks. Oscar – the rogue from the Electric – was resolutely ignoring all her protestations that theirs had been just a one-night thing and kept belligerently calling her or turning up at her stall with food and flowers and cruelly making her laugh. The fact that neither she nor Clem had been seen in their usual haunts for the past couple of months had made his job a lot harder, but he hadn’t given up, and Clem wasn’t sure whether to admire or worry about his persistence.

  ‘Nothing. I . . .’ She turned a circle one more time but there was no way to identify the stranger. ‘Oh God, I just had an erotic moment with a disembodied voice,’ she groaned, rolling her eyes. ‘I so need to get out more.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Stella sighed, pocketing the phone.

  Clem watched her. ‘Stell, if you like him, see him again.’

  But Stella simply pulled an unflattering ‘As If!’ expression and hooked her arm through Clem’s. Tom and Clover were coming over.

  ‘Wasn’t that wonderful?’ Clover sighed. ‘I just love christenings.’

  ‘I prefer funerals; more peaceful and better clothes usually,’ Stella quipped, lighting up again and loyally blowing a smoke ring in Clover’s face. ‘Better for pulling, too.’

  ‘D’you guys want to come back in our car? I’ve got space in the MG for two little ones, if you sit on the back,’ Tom said. ‘It isn’t far to go.’

  ‘Lead on,’ Stella commanded, flicking her cigarette butt to the kerb.

  The reception was being held in a tiny but very ‘done’ taupe house just off Ledbury Road. The front of the house was screened from the road by high horizontal wooden-slatted screens and an electric gate that seemed de trop for such a small house. There was nowhere to park, of course, and Tom dropped the girls off, driving away in a sulk to spend ‘the next forty minutes trying to find a meter’.

  Clover immediately peeled away to an upstairs bedroom to ‘fix her face’, whilst Clem and Stella made a beeline for the drinks table, which had been set up in the navy blue dining room.

  ‘If I don’t get a drink in my hand quickly, I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with this scene,’ Stella said, perching her round red Dolce & Gabbana glasses atop her head. ‘Christ, it’s dark in here.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ Clem said in an uncharacteristically nervy voice as she necked a vodka tonic. ‘I mean, it’s not like they’re all complete strangers – I recognize half of them from school.’

  Stella grunted. ‘Yeah. And there’s a reason why you didn’t stay in touch.’

  Clem tried to keep her face neutral as she took in the gaggles of laughing women, all accessorized with babies and bumps. They looked like an army in their stretchy wrap dresses, layered hair and low-key manicures; Clem’s turquoise silver-striped semi-sheer Isabel Marant shirtdress, slouchy boots and black nail polish were by comparison . . .

  The two of them stood in silence for several minutes, taking in the vast gulf between themselves and the other women.

  ‘Honestly look at them all – everyone acting so proper and pleased with themselves, so madly in love with their new husbands and pushing out their bellies and boobs in the hope that no one will notice how completely huge their arses are. Well, I do,’ Stella scowled, jabbing her thumb into her chest. ‘I do.’

  Clem, recognizing the change of tone in her friend’s voice, patted her gently on the arm. ‘Hold your breath and count to ten,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘You always say that.’

  ‘Because it works. Best thing I know for stopping the tears. Do it.’

  Stella held her breath as Clem rubbed her arm consolingly. This kind of aggression – a defence mechanism – usually only came out at the tail end of weddings, when the DJ started playing ABBA.

  ‘You OK?’

  Stella shrugged and necked her drink. ‘Yeah sure, it’s just . . . I mean, when did all this happen? Do you know? ‘Cos last time I looked we were all just enjoying being young and living in London – working hard, playing hard. I never really noticed that people were actually d
oing all this shit: getting married and having kids and stuff . . .’

  Clem was silent for a minute. ‘Well, I reckon there’s something to be said for freedom. I feel kind of sorry for them all actually,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, it really speaks of a lack of imagination on their part, don’t you think?’

  Stella’s drink went down the wrong way and she started coughing noisily. ‘OMG, you just sounded so like your mother!’ she guffawed once she’d recovered, slapping her hand over her mighty chest.

  Clem shuddered. ‘Don’t even joke about it.’

  They stood in silence again, still transfixed by the parade of domestic happiness as the christened baby was handed from one woman to another.

  ‘Well, for all that this isn’t our kind of party, it’s still a cracking marketing opportunity. We need to get these flyers out before Tom gets back,’ Clem said in a brisk tone, finishing her drink. ‘Come on. Then we can get the hell out of here.’

  Posting her most dynamic smile, Clem strode into the cliques – the odd one out among them: a peacock amidst a battery of hens.

  ‘Clemmie!’ one particularly annoying woman whom she distantly remembered from school, trilled at her, holding out the baby like a bag of groceries. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘God, no!’ The words were out of her mouth before she’d even had time to plaster a smile on her face. ‘Babies, uh, they totally hate me. I’m really not good with kids.’

  There was an amazed silence – what kind of woman wouldn’t want to hold the baby, after all? – before the annoying woman laughed shrilly, convinced it must be a joke or modesty on Clem’s part, and thrust the baby into her arms anyway. Clem had to grab hold of him – her? Who could tell? – or else she’d drop him.

  ‘There’s no need to be shy. Just because you don’t have any of your own yet, we all have to learn somehow, don’t we? The more exposure you get before having your own babies, the better. Trust me. I wish someone had done the same for me. I was a dis-ah-ster when little London was born.’

  Clem arched an eyebrow. London? She’d called her child London?

  Clem caught Stella’s eye, wanting to laugh, but she was too awkward, standing there with a random baby, and she wasn’t sure exactly how to hold it.

  ‘Support her head,’ someone offered.

  ‘They love being bounced.’

  ‘Let her see your eyes.’

  Clem swallowed and tried to jiggle the baby, who had begun to squirm and go red in the face. Something was building up and she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.

  ‘OK, well, there we go – that’s enough for one day’ she said quickly, passing the baby to the nearest woman to her, as if it was a game of Pass the Parcel. On cue, the baby began to bawl. Again.

  ‘Not your thing?’ one woman asked her pityingly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not yet anyway,’ another said, as if consolingly.

  ‘No. Just not my thing.’

  That shut the conversation down, and out of the corner of her eye, Clem could see Stella stifling a laugh. ‘I prefer bags to babies.’

  ‘Talking of . . . I so love yours,’ one of the women said, leaning in to stroke it. ‘Divine.’

  The floodgates opened.

  ‘Yes! I saw it the moment you came into church!’

  ‘Me, too! I’m sure I saw one just like it in Grazia.’

  ‘You did.’ Clem preened.

  ‘Where’s it from?’

  Clem smiled, back in her comfort zone, and slipped her hand inside her bag, her fingers closing around the Twitter flyers. ‘Well . . . she lowered her voice and gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘You’re being watched,’ Stella murmured, sidling up to her twenty minutes later and planting a fresh drink in her hand.

  ‘Hmm?’ Clem murmured distractedly, counting how many flyers she had left. Twelve from one hundred. A lot of the women had taken several for their friends and to distribute at the school gates.

  ‘Ten o’clock,’ Stella said without moving her lips, just in case the watcher was trained in lip-reading.

  Clem looked up to her left and felt the same sudden stillness she felt every time her eyes met his. She opened her mouth to tell Stella that it was him, the Swimmer, the one she’d been trying to get her to identify from the party, but her voice failed. He was coming over.

  ‘I think a little bit of wee just came out,’ Stella squeaked beside her, finally breaking the spell just as the Swimmer stopped in front of them.

  ‘Hi.’ It was the voice. The one from outside the church. So, he had a voice as well as eyes.

  ‘Hey,’ Clem replied, her eyes steady upon his with the surety that came from this not being their first meeting. There wasn’t just chemistry going on here; they had history together, too. That night in the Electric, as she’d flirted with a stranger in the dark, he had kissed his girlfriend deliberately – she knew it now, standing in the heat of his gaze. He played her games too.

  ‘You know my friend Stella, of course,’ she said calmly.

  Basic courtesy demanded that he acknowledge Stella at this point, but he wouldn’t look away from her.

  ‘N-no, we haven’t actually met,’ Stella stammered, five inches below both of them and out of peripheral vision.

  Clem arched an eyebrow ever so slightly at the fact that he was going to snub her friend.

  ‘Of course. It was a fun party, New Year’s Eve,’ he replied, finally breaking the gaze to look at Stella, who visibly wilted beneath him.

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘Only for a bit. I just . . . looked in.’ His eyes, dancing, pinned Clem back up again, and suddenly she knew why Stella hadn’t clocked him. He hadn’t been invited. He’d been the guy on the street she’d almost knocked over on the bike (that blasted bike). He’d followed her.

  ‘I think I’m just gonna er . . . go,’ Stella muttered as they continued to stare at each other, a thousand words passing between them unsaid.

  ‘Do you know my name?’ Clem asked, once they were alone.

  He nodded.

  ‘Where I live?’

  He gave a small smile and nodded again. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  She jerked her chin in the air. ‘Do you usually follow women around London?’

  ‘Never.’ His accent was delicious, tumbling and melodic, as if he was bouncing it off the walls. What was it? Italian? Spanish? He shifted position, stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets. Settling in. ‘I sense you would like to know my name, but that you will not ask,’ he said slowly, and she could have sworn he was smiling with his voice. She thought he could probably do many things with that voice.

  Clem didn’t reply, she simply raised an eyebrow, as if interested in this hypothesis.

  ‘So I shall tell you, because I really want you to know it.’ He took a step closer towards her, his hand resting lightly against her cheek, his thumb hovering tantalizingly above her bottom lip, as though they were already intimate with each other’s bodies. ‘And because I really want to hear how you say it in that distinctive voice of yours.’

  His proximity made her head spin and Clem swallowed, waiting, waiting for the touch, the revelation. What was it? What was his name? The thought of going another minute without knowing it seemed suddenly unbearable. It was all she could do not to rub her cheek against his palm like a cat, not to close her eyes in sweet surrender.

  ‘But no.’ He straightened up and took a half step back, so that she could feel the air between them again. ‘You must ask.’

  Clem blinked at him in surprise, her composure blown.

  ‘I have chased you up till now. You know what I want,’ he said, his eyes openly exploring her mouth. ‘Now you have to show me that you want it, too.’

  ‘You can’t just tell me your name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, what you actually want me to do is beg to find out your name?’ Clem said slowly, dazzled and disoriented by his game.

  ‘Exactly so,’
he replied, the only laughter on his chiselled face to be found in his eyes now.

  The effect upon her was immediate and she felt the heat in her cheeks at his power play. She had met her match.

  ‘What is . . .’ she began, raising her sparkling aquamarine eyes to his, offering him the surrender he wanted in return. ‘What is it that you do?’

  His reply was a barely perceptible tilt back of his head and an amused smile. ‘Take that and chew on it,’ Clem messaged with flashing eyes, and for a moment they stood locked in silent, motionless combat as the room buzzed around them in a carousel of social manners.

  His eyes roamed her face as if it was a painting and she wondered why they were even bothering to talk. Why not just cut to the chase and kiss? It was obvious what they both wanted. She had Stella and Tom for conversation.

  ‘A prochaine, Clementine,’ he murmured in a voice that vibrated through her entire body. Then he turned and left the room, leaving her to admire the athletic torso and long legs that could have been hers that night if she’d just done what he asked.

  ‘Tell me everything, instantly,’ Stella hissed, running over from the spot where she’d been hiding behind the sofa. ‘That was the sexiest fucking thing I ever saw. When are you hooking up?’

  Clem, distracted, kept her eyes on the spot where the Swimmer had been, and now wasn’t. ‘We’re not.’