Chapter Fourteen

14

Anglican

Cowgirls

DAVID & BEA

“Bea! Good Lord, I’ve just remembered.” David jerked his hand from his mother-in-law’s arm and slapped his forehead, “I invited Paul Magarry to come and forgot to tell the guy at the door. I wonder…” He turned to scan the crowd anxiously, perhaps Paul had gotten himself in. “I’d better go…” Thinking that Paul was quite capable of raising hell if he was hassled by the doorman, David felt a small panic of responsibility and made a quick choice.

“There’s the girl with the coats. Here, take Tillie’s and she can tell you where the washrooms are, the girl can. Okay? All right? I have to talk to the doorman. I hope Paul hasn’t turned up already. We’d have heard it, though.” He paused and focused on Bea who looked forlorn and, he thought, a bit like a coat rack. “You’ll manage. I’ll come right back and wait for you here and then we can do the room together. Okay? Here, give me your glass, you don’t need that. And hang onto the check tags, or whatever the girl gives you, we want to be able to ditch this popstand when it gets too much. Okay? I’ll be right back, I promise.” David turned and turned again, “Oh… and you could leave your hat with the coats.” And he turned once more to work his way across the floor.

ELIZABETH & MARTIN & DAVID

“Well? Where is she, Martin? I rather expected you to have been here on time, before these people began to arrive. I had to be here to make sure things were done properly, you can’t trust these caterers to have sense, and I expected you would have her here to show to me, to introduce us, that is. I mean, people have asked who made the Art and I have nothing to tell them. Her name, of course, but nobody’s ever heard of her – so what good is that? And that c.v. you sent me hasn’t a name on it worth repeating, I mean, where has she hung that anyone cares? and I haven’t even seen this person. Is there anything interesting I should know? Is she challenged in some brilliant way? She’s not from Hong Kong? Is she dreadfully old? No, she’s young, you said. Too young, perhaps? No. She’s not dying from one of these new diseases, is she?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs Preston, Elizabeth, I’m sorry, we just couldn’t be earlier. I did my best. I had planned for six-thirty, I had her dressed for six-thirty – a really smart little Sung thing I picked out – and there we were, waiting for the car and who should turn up on her doorstep unannounced but her mother and her very elderly grandmother! A lovely woman, charming, a grand old lady, but frail, you see, quite worn by the trip and we just couldn’t rush away, it would’ve been cruel, she was so thrilled to see Katherine again, you know how they are. And who knows, with the very old it could always be the last time, eh. I pressed Katherine to hurry, I knew you’d be here with all this responsibility and no one to help, but she insisted… well, actually her mother did, that the old lady have time to catch her breath, it wasn’t for me to say. But I said you couldn’t be expected to be kept waiting and just put my foot down and pushed them all into the car and we came at a mad dash…”

“What? D’you mean to say the grandmother’s here, too?”

“Uh, yes. Katherine’s grandmother, her mother, as well, nicely dressed, the grandmother, she’s…”

“God, Martin! She’s not going to collapse on us, die, or something, this old woman, is she? I won’t have that, this’s an important social event and I won’t have these people creating any sort of fuss. Artists! I knew I should have had you show her to me before. I told George, I said…” Elizabeth broke on a dry cough and her eyes winked in memory, “George said pants, trousers, he said a suit, I’m sure of it! He saw this girl, this woman, whatever, this afternoon, he said she was wearing…”

“No, no, no, no, not to worry, not to worry, she just likes to dress… uh… up, smartly tailored things. It’s all right, she’s fine, very presentable, oh yes. Look, I’ll get her and bring her over right now. Okay? She’s right… Oh, she was there a minute ago. I’ll find her, won’t take a minute. And I really do want to say again, Elizabeth, that I think you’ve created a marvellous event here, people are just…enchanted! Back in a flash.”

Pouring sweat, Martin prayed his Grey Flannel wouldn’t let him down, not admitting to himself that he was wearing women’s Secret as a fail-safe, and he reached to his breast pocket before thinking better of it and rummaged instead into an inside pocket for a white linen handkerchief to mop at his hairline. “David, where on earth is Katherine? Are you drinking both of those? You cannot get shit-faced, this is important. Where is she? Elizabeth’s beside herself with excitement. Give me one of those, you look like a lush. Thank you, where is she? Why aren’t you with her? I asked you to watch her.”

“Christ, you’re an ass, Marty. I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea, I’m not her keeper, you are. Maybe she figured out what an asshole you are and left.”

“No! David, she wouldn’t. Would she? No, this’s too important, it’s her whole career, even she’s not that stupid.”

“No, she’s not that stupid.” David looked pensive. “She does get bored though.” And he was suddenly bored with teasing Martin, bored with Martin’s flapping panic, bored with his own anxiety over Paul’s arrival. It all felt like a cheap fabrication, an artificial problem soaked in fake concern and none of it was his, not really, it was Katherine’s problem, not his. No, I’m wrong, it’s not fake anxiety, it’s real all right, even if it’s wandering, it’s real, my collar’s shrunk two sizes in two minutes, but… Shit! Why am I stuck again in a situation I didn’t set up? Because of Katherine. Yes. And that’s why I’m getting out of it.

Stiffening, his shoulders rising, David purposefully scanned the room, “She’s there, in front of that buffet set-up, with Tillie. You go get her and leave me out of it. I’m busy.” And he pushed away again for the door.

GEORGE & MAUDE & ELIZABETH

“They’re here, Maude, your guests have come. Oh God!”

“What’s wrong, George, you going to be sick? Where’s your hankie? Here, I’ve got one somewhere…” Maude rummaged in a pocket of the lamb producing a crumple of white lawn and lace and a peppermint that fell unnoticed to the floor, “Here. She hasn’t got those rubbers on, has she? I told her to say she was in the sheep trade up Caledon way, just a batty old cork up to her hips in sheepshit and money, but I didn’t think she’d do it. Wipe your face.”

“No, she’s not… Thanks. No, she’s all right, it’s not her, it’s her friend. God, Maude, you’ve got to help me with this. Please. Come on, we have to get over there quick.” Propelling his sister-in-law with a hand at the back of her neck, George steered a line for the door. “We’ve got to stop her before Elizabeth…”

“George!” Maude dug her heels into the slate which slowed but didn’t stop them, “Tell me, or I’ll holler.”

“Your friend’s friend,” he continued to push, “she’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yes. Honestly though, Maude, just a friend, somebody to talk to, there’s nothing more to it, believe me. But Elizabeth, you know Elizabeth, she’d never understand, especially not Bena.”

“Bena! Yes, I remember, that’s her friend, Katya’s. Oh hell, Hungarian princess… Jesus, George! Let’s move.” Maude picked up her Oxfords and lowered her head into the throng.

George attempted smiles at a few guests disgruntled by Maude’s elbows and hurried to keep up. “It’s even worse, Maudie, they met this afternoon in front of the Gallery, a screaming match. – Excuse me, I’m so sorry. – Elizabeth and Bena and your friend was there, in her boots. I saw them.”

“Does she know?”

“Who?”

“Lizzie! Does she know about this Bena?”

“No, she can’t. God, I hope not. It had to be chance. She’d have raised bloody hell by now and she didn’t even tell me about the fight. I don’t wonder, it was pretty awful.”

“Who won?”

“It looked like a draw.”

“Jesus, George, rematch.”

“Exactly, and worse. We’ve got to get them out of here.”

“George!” Elizabeth loomed imperious and annoyed and caused her husband to lose the very last of his drink to his shirt cuff. “She has finally arrived, I’m told. Late, but here nonetheless. You must stand with me, I’ve sent young Martin to…” Her eyes lit on her husband’s hand on a lamb collar, “Who…?”

“Who?” Geese chased down George’s spine and sucked up his breath. The lamb turned under his hand.

“Hello, Lizzie, dear, thought I’d pop in for a short one. Who’s here, dear?” Maude grinned at her sister and reached a finger to stroke the grey challis, “You look nice.” Dropping her eyes in a show of embarrassment, she shuffled and sidled her scuffed old lace-ups until, forced to keep pace, her sister had turned her back to the door. “Sorry for these, Lizzie, all I can squeeze into these days. My own fault, should have gone shopping with you when you offered. You were right as usual. Who’s here?”

Elizabeth didn’t believe the humility, but didn’t have time to figure it out, “She is, the woman you said wore pants, George.” A hard eye forced her husband into a fresh sweat. “The artist woman, girl, whatever, the one who painted that.” And she tossed her head at Katherine’s great granite rocks on the grey marble wall. “She’s come.”

“Oh, thank God!” George blew his breath in relief and, fumbling her handkerchief over his face, shot Maude a sidelong look of appeal.

Taken aback, Elizabeth was becoming suspicious, though not sure of what, “I didn’t think it mattered that much to you, George, my little effort. And why are you here, Maude? After your behaviour on the telephone, I’m not sure I care to see you. And where were you two going, anyway?”

“We…”

“We were looking for you, dear, so I could say hello. Weren’t we, George? And now I have and I know how you have to get on with your queen-of-the-valley thing, so I won’t keep you, I’ll just go…” she slipped George a look and tipped her glass in the direction of the door, “…circulate and speak to people while you and George tend to your artist. Okay? Good enough? Fine.” She patted her brother-in-law’s arm, “It’d be nicely done if you were ’way over there by the painting when you introduce her to people. Don’t you think? Yes. I’ll see you later. And in case I tire,” the hand that was meant lightly to touch her heart clanked her glass on a button, “I’ll just slip away in a cab. Don’t you worry, George, I can see to it.”

Elizabeth shot a finger at the glass, “You don’t need more of that!” Her lips pursed, she took in Maude from head to shoes and her nostrils flared, “And I’d rather you not tell people who you are. Come along, George, I want this artist person to tell us what she really means.”

Maude smiled at her sister’s nose and headed off for a quick freshener before tackling George’s rescue.

Elizabeth spun on a heel and collided with a tall young man who, though grim and unapologetic, looked familiar, and a backward glance she couldn’t resist reminded her of the long legs she’d tripped into earlier in the day. “How did he get here? Who is he?”

George, eager to steer her to the far side of the room, answered off the top, “Oh, somebody’s husband I expect, dear. Come along.”
Remembering that guard, that dubious Paul fellow, patting the young man’s… jeans, Elizabeth sighed, “And the wife’ll be the last one to know.”