“Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were coming?” said Fiona.
“Oh come on, Mummy, that was always Duncan’s job.”
Duncan arrived, flinging himself against Fiona’s shoulder pads. “I’ve missed you,” he said.
“And I you.” Fiona sighed. “Oh, Duncan.” She glanced from Evie to the ceiling. She shut her eyes.
They arrived at the car, which was parked on double yellow lines outside a taxi rank, its hazards flashing. Evie wished for cigarettes. It had been four hours without a smoke and now it would be at least another two. She had forgotten what heavy traffic was like. Buses coursed along the Euston Road and a set of sirens wailed nearby◦– at least that was familiar from up in Yorkshire◦– and there were so many people. The oblate tarmac shone.
“Ready when you are,” said Fiona to the driver. “My babies are home for the fundraiser, what timing.”
“Fundraiser?” said Evie, shifting in her seat. “What fundraiser?”
Duncan chuckled. “It’s the garden party tonight. Mummy’s taking us.”
Summer was in full flow in the south. It was summer up the Cally Road, summer en route to Holloway and summer in steep Highgate, where their mother was now based. Not far from the car park situated beneath Fiona Swarsby’s apartment complex, the flat level of the bus lane had been heat-manipulated into a strange and unsettling wave shape.
“Tony Dallas is living around the corner, Evie. Clem’s always asking after you,” said Fiona. “Why don’t you pop round and say hello while Duncan and I catch up.”
Clem was an old associate and would make a better time-killer than most. All the way back from King’s Cross Fiona had blathered on about Bram. How good he’d been to her, how kind he’d been to put a roof over her family’s poor heads. There was no way he wouldn’t be at the donor club party that evening, therefore Evie had to be looking her best. Clemmie Dallas had always been good at preparing for big occasions.
Evie rang the doorbell of a palatial cream-coloured house located ten minutes’ walk from her mother’s flat. A stout-armed maid answered the door, demanding to know what business Evie had there, but before she could answer, a teenager strolling through the vestibule stopped in his tracks.
“Swarsby,” he called, sliding a hand through his hair.
“Felix.”
“How are things?”
“Oh, still standing,” said Evie.
“And home without additional fingers, I see.”
“There are no external changes, at least.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Turn around.”
Evie laughed, complying readily.
Felix smirked. “And no sign of a tail.”
With haste Evie was returning to the places she had missed.
She was shown upstairs◦– built from eighty thousand pounds’ worth of solid oak, Felix said◦– and was soon smoking and drinking wine with Clemmie Dallas as if they’d been seeing each other on a daily basis for the past two years.
Clem’s domain was the top floor of the house. Her room was split into two levels: a lower chamber where she slept when she wasn’t boarding at Cheltenham Ladies College, and a mezzanine area extending deep into the loft.
Evie rested her elbow on the lip of the low window that opened out onto the mezzanine roof, admiring Clem’s fairy-tale hair and pertness. Her old foe reclined on one of the sofas, a foot resting on the head of a teddy bear the size of a small child, as she filled Evie in on the latest comings and couplings and embarrassments. Clem seemed only vaguely put out when Evie failed to engage in this commerce with any enthusiasm, angling a condescending look from the other side of the room.
“What’s wrong, duckie?” she said. “You don’t still need to act like you’re a million miles away, you know.”
The nib of the joint glowed enticingly in Clem’s mouth. So let her look. The fact was that the reputations and pliant victories of Evie’s old friends and their Tatler aspirations, together with the gossip she had been so eagerly awaiting, had meant almost nothing to her. So there had been another launch, another suppressed liaison in an alcove somewhere. It turned out that the happiness of others was dull and invasive. “I’m fine,” said Evie. “I just haven’t smoked in such a long time. I’m not as easy with the feeling as I used to be.”
Which was apparently Clem’s cue to send over the joint, sniggering as Evie took another drag and exhaled a long plume of grass smoke, barely managing not to cough.
A brass tin lay on the floor between the girls, packed with exotic-scented sativa skunk. Evie picked at one of the dense little buds, her toes kneading the luxurious rug. “God, your room’s huge,” she said at last. “Is that your horse, Clem?” She pointed to a watercolour painting of a child astride a mare. A mustard rosette was pinned on a blurred lapel.
“I think so,” said Clem. “Although I don’t ride anymore. It makes my groin look like a pair of cooked steaks.”
“God,” said Evie. “Your own horse. A room like this…”
“It isn’t as big as Felix’s.”
“… Marble dresser, walk-in-wardrobe.” Evie gestured at the array of tapes and records arranged in columns about the room. “You’re so lucky.”
Clem blew her own twist of smoke into the compact London air.
“What?” said Evie.
“Nothing.”
“What, Clem?”
“Nothing.”
Clem rose to the desk and fetched a copy of The Face magazine. She began to leaf through it, showing very little emotion as she digested a piece on Marvin Gaye’s funeral, all the while rotating with one foot a pleated ring she wore on the big toe of her other foot.
Accepting the dismissal as once she never would have, Evie returned to the window and its vista of Mary Poppins rooftops. Here, as far as the eye could see, were the jagged barbicans protecting London from the rest of the country. She might well have shown too much esteem then; she was hardly dropping her aitches. Perhaps the grass was making her more conscious, more observant, or perhaps nothing fit any more and she was only just beginning to realise it. She knew Litten had changed her, but even listening to her Walkman and running a hand along the psoriasis of flaking wallpaper at Threndle House hadn’t made her feel this poor. Clem’s lovely profile. This fecund city. How easy it was to lose yourself. How the bottom could fall so totally out of everything.
Although even Evie could see that Clemmie wasn’t the fairest of comparisons to make with herself. Clemmie was the eldest daughter of Tony Dallas, the hedge fund manager for AGP, an asset management firm with offices in London, Hong Kong, New York, Jersey and Sydney. Tony Dallas was a prominent member of the Premier Group, the Conservative party supporters’ club responsible for tonight’s fundraiser. For an annual fee and subsequent donations, Premier Group members were invited to dinners with senior party officials, post-PMQ lunches, drinks receptions, events and important campaign launches. It was said Tony Dallas was a shoo-in for a knighthood.
And her father? The patsy, the dupe, the stooge? Evie had to laugh, and so she did.
“What’s so funny?” Clem said, finally shutting her magazine.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing’s funny.”
“Actually, everything is.”
“You’re probably right.”
The girls giggled, the ice between them seeming to liquefy at last.
“I can’t believe your timing. Are you sure your mother didn’t tell you about tonight?” Clem said, rolling another joint.