8
DAPHNE
It was after eleven and she was sewing and drinking her third coffee of the morning when Libby meandered in. She was beginning to need the incredibly long sessions of sleep that Daphne remembered from her own adolescence, when Ed called her Sleeping Beauty.
‘Hi, Libs. How are you today?’ She secured the needle in the fabric and got up.
‘OK. Did you remember that Paige is sleeping over after Caroline’s party? We’ll get out the mattress, OK? And we’re going shopping first.’
‘Fabulous. What about Chloe? You haven’t mentioned her recently. Is she going to the party? Maybe you shouldn’t just drop her altogether?’
‘Chloe’s fine, OK?’ Libby laughed and Daphne sensed that Chloe’s welfare was the last thing that mattered to her in the guerrilla warfare and tribal alliances of school friendships.
‘Glad to hear it. So, should we order pizzas this evening?’ This was an easy way of getting some appreciation and, sure enough, Libby beamed with innocent pleasure.
‘I’m going to meet her in Putney this afternoon. We wanted to see if we could buy something for the party.’
‘Great. Have you still got some savings from Sam’s Christmas money?’
‘A little bit. But I wouldn’t say no to some more…’ Libby smiled winsomely.
Daphne enjoyed these little negotiations. She acknowledged that her life consisted of simpler satisfactions than the extreme situations of her youth. Internally, however, she heard a needling echo of Jane’s comment: ‘What would you do if a man made Libby love him?’ The answer was obvious: Libby was far too sensible!
As she worked on Putney she remembered the parties she had been to as a girl; in particular, a celebration she had given on the day her O levels finished, which was coincidentally the summer solstice. Ed and Ellie went away for the longest night of the year, and friends started arriving from late afternoon to rig up speakers in the garden at Barnabas Road. By the time the sun was setting there were about fifty teenagers dancing on the grass, jumping into the hot tub in their underwear or climbing up to the tree house, taking turns for a few minutes of privacy. The rule of entry had been ‘bring a bottle’ and, as nobody had thought of getting plastic cups, they were all drinking directly from bottles of beer, cheap wine and rum.
She hadn’t invited Ralph. Why would she? Not only was he separate from the rest of her life, he actually encouraged her (in tones of noble self-sacrifice) to ‘get a little boyfriend’. She agreed it was only fair to juggle him with boys closer to her age, just as he had always juggled her with his family. Her favourite boy of the summer was Martin. It wasn’t love, but she liked his hot white skin and hair dyed sooty black. He smelled of glue and Mars bars. He and his two best friends looked a bit like Johnny Rotten’s gang, though they had just taken their A levels, would get good grades, and were destined for university. It was Martin who lured her and Jane into their brief punk phase, giving them the hair colour he used (very dramatic in Jane’s case) and encouraging them to wear clothes covered with chains, zips and safety pins. They went to concerts where the band spat on the audience and they wandered along the King’s Road making eyes at boys with green Mohicans.
She pictured herself dancing on the grass with Martin, so stoned they couldn’t stop laughing – bending and swaying to the music and buckling at the source of a shared, if unidentifiable, joke. When the tide went out, they clambered down the ladder to the mudflats and Martin fixed up an improvised brazier and lit a fire. They kissed, slipping and grasping on to one another, and then danced, besmirched with sludge, as the party took on the atmosphere of a pagan celebration. By chance, she glanced up to the garden wall where people were gathered, and there was Ralph. He gave her a small wave and a pained expression. By the time she had climbed back up the ladder to find him, he was dancing flirtatiously with Jane – presumably his idea of provoking her. Certainly Jane looked pleased.
A gentle rain began to fall and Ralph asked her to go inside the house for a minute. She looked around but couldn’t see Martin anywhere. In the kitchen, she noticed herself in the ornate mirror hanging behind the wooden sofa. Her hair had sprung up into an explosion of curls, her arms and legs were slicked with river mud and her eyes were blackened with smudged eyeliner. ‘Wild girl,’ Ralph said, as if offering a challenge. They kissed drunkenly, mouths tasting of cigarettes and alcohol. He looked sad and she felt she had the upper hand; she could choose to reject him, or they could go and screw each other. She knew it wasn’t about being in love any more – it was different now, however much they cared for one another. She thought, I can do this. I’m playing this game and making up my own rules. I’m not a kid. They went up to Ed’s study and did it standing against the door, fast, almost angry. Then Ralph left and she went back to the garden.
She might have felt like a woman of the world, aged sixteen and allowed by law to choose her lovers, but she had not yet experienced an orgasm. Ralph had not enquired. They had also been wantonly careless about contraception – the ‘French letters’ were never produced again after Aegina and they didn’t discuss the subject. She had numerous pregnancy scares when her period came late and she fantasised about the ensuing catastrophe – Ralph, shocked and concerned at her hospital bedside after an abortion, her parents confused and miserable.
It was late afternoon when Libby and Paige returned home from their shopping expedition.
‘Hi, Daphne. How are you? Thanks for having me over.’ She was very confident and pretty, hair woven into cornrows ending in beaded braids and wearing a tight top that revealed a pierced belly button. Her manner was more sophisticated than Libby’s. She reminded Daphne of the older girls at Hayfield, whom she admired and feared in almost equal measure, whose world was impenetrable.
‘Look what I bought!’ With the aplomb of a conjuror, Libby whisked out a pair of shiny, black, spike-heeled shoes. ‘They’re for tonight,’ she said, before Daphne could speak. ‘We’re going to dress up. I’m so excited.’ Until recently, Libby’s parties meant balloons and jelly; all of a sudden, they included fuck-me shoes.
‘They were really cheap – on sale,’ said Libby. ‘I love them.’ She put them on and wavered on spindly legs, precarious as a newborn fawn.
‘Hey, Mum, can you make us some of that popcorn with honey and chilli?’ Libby liked offering Daphne the chance to appear like an improved version of herself – more conventional and orderly, matriarch of a household with charming traditions like unusual popcorn. They were able to present something more substantial than an alliance of two orbiting females – something resembling a family. If they’d been alone together, Daphne would probably have said, ‘Oh come on, Lib, make it yourself,’ but she played along with the game. ‘Right, but be prepared for a chilli-fest – I like it spicy.’ Libby’s casual acceptance of her care was part of the game too. The girls scurried off to Libby’s room to get ready for the party and the merciless beat of dance music thudded through the flat.
After making the popcorn, she returned to her work. The sun had set and it was the perfect moment between day and night, the sky lit up pink. She opened the windows in the sitting room and the warm evening air brought compound scents of silty river water, mown grass and the roasting meat smoke from a nearby barbecue. Quite some time passed before Libby’s bedroom door opened and the two girls made their entrance. Bright red lipstick, overdone eye make-up, teetering heels and miniskirts revealing lengths of bare, skinny legs. Their arms were covered with glitter, their nails painted bubble-gum pink. They looked like caricatures of underage sex workers. ‘Wow!’ Daphne tried to smile.