A Surrey State of Affairs Page 3

  One of them has even put me in touch with a Labrador dealer. The more I think about it, the more I congratulate myself on this part of the plan. Rupert was a sensitive, responsible sort of child who, unlike Sophie, never went through a phase of pulling Darcy’s tail feathers, so I’m sure that he will be very well suited to looking after a dog. His landlord won’t have cause to complain—if anything, a watchful pet would be a bonus for the prop-erty. Rupert could train it to snap at any wood pigeons or tramps loitering outside.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 25

  Today I informed Rupert of my plan for his birthday. I telephoned him at work so that he would be less likely to miss my call. It would be going too far to say that he greeted the news with unmitigated joy; and yet, after half an hour or so of gentle persuasion, he began to see the merits of the scheme and agreed to cancel his reservation at the Brasserie Blanc in Milton Keynes. I offered to send out invitations to the friends who were meant to eat with him, but he could not remember their addresses. It is so sad that the Internet has ruined the memories of the young.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 27

  Jeffrey has dropped a bombshell on me. Although he is, in general, a most unobjectionable sort of husband, there are moments when he intersperses months of conjugal calm with the sudden announcement that, say, the senior partner at Alpha & Omega will be dining with us that very evening, or that he will be leaving in two hours for a golf weekend in Morocco.

  Today’s news was more shattering. In the brief interim between finishing his pudding and picking up The Economist, just as Natalia was clattering about with the dishes and I was listing the arrangements for Rupert’s party, he calmly announced that we would have to cater for an extra guest next weekend: Ivan.

  Dear readers, you cannot know the dread that these words provoke. Ivan the Terrible, as I think of him, is Jeffrey’s most disreputable friend, a coarse, lumbering, foul-mouthed, foul-breathed, yellow-toothed reminder of a most unfortunate chapter of my husband’s past.

  Jeffrey met Ivan at Durham University when he was going through his Communist phase. This was before we were dating, I hasten to add. Deciding at the age of nineteen that progress was repellent, Jeffrey had a fleeting fixation with the Soviet Union, which led to his friendship with Ivan, the son of Russian émigrés, and the stenciling on his dormitory wall of a hammer and sickle. By the time I began dating Jeffrey, he had completed an internship at Alpha & Omega, joined the Young Conservatives, and whited out the offending symbol, so my conscience is clear. Ivan too has long abandoned any semblance of Communist sympathies in favor of the cut and thrust—and Armani suits—of the business world. The only legacy of his past is his reluctance to pay to get his teeth fixed.

  And yet you will understand that the arrival of such a man is by no means a welcome development when one is carefully orchestrating the correct backdrop for one’s son to fall in love with a primary school teacher.

  MONDAY, JANUARY 28

  Today I took Jeffrey’s Land Rover out to pick up Poppy, a very fetching three-month-old black Labrador puppy with a damp nose, a perky tail, and boisterous brown eyes. I am not the sentimental sort—I do not, like Sophie, cry over episodes of Animal Hospital—and yet I must admit that I have something of a soft spot for dogs.

  I grew up in a rambling old place in the Cotswolds surrounded by collies and horses; if it were not for Jeffrey’s allergies I would have bought myself a chocolate-brown Labrador years ago. In the end Darcy has made a splendid—and allergen-free—substitute, though he is never going to bow down or fetch a stick. He once gnawed his way through a Christmas tree, but it was not the same.

  Poppy must remain hidden until Friday. I do not stoop to keeping secrets from my husband as such, but there are some things it is simply better for him not to know. The mere mention of a puppy would doubtless start him off sniffing and sneezing.

  I have enlisted Natalia’s help. This is not always a straightforward procedure, but for once the girl has stepped up to the mark. As soon as she saw Poppy she threw her arms around her neck, stroking her ears and wittering away in her odd foreign tongue while I explained about Rupert’s party, Jeffrey’s allergies, and the need for canine concealment. I showed her how to measure out the dog food and top up her water bowl. Her eagerness to help with Poppy impressed me. I may reward her by popping in to Marks & Spencer to buy her some more comfortable underwear. I am convinced that this would improve her mood, which might have a resulting effect on Jeffrey’s too. Whenever she enters a room, he starts to look uncomfortable, and then leaves it, then once she has left, he comes back again. Her moodiness is obviously too much for him to bear, and I worry that all that coming and going must put a strain on the poor man.

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 29

  My neighbor Tanya stopped by for a coffee this morning. She’s a youngish woman—around the thirty mark, although she dresses more like a girl Sophie’s age—whom I’ve grown rather friendly with over the past year or so. This is despite the fact that she wears hoop earrings and insists on shortening my name to Connie, which sounds vulgar when pronounced by anyone other than Jeffrey, and only then is all right in an intimate setting.

  Tanya doesn’t have much to do with her time, and there aren’t many other women her age around here who don’t have little children to look after. She used to be a PA, or whatever they say now for a secretary, on her husband, Mark’s, trading floor, but I suspect that that was only a means to an end. They moved into a new, rather flashy faux-Tudor house with a lawn like a billiard table and regimented little rows of waxy green shrubs, so she can’t even get into renovating or gardening. Which leaves her plenty of time to pop by, sip a cup of black coffee, and lick the cream off one of my scones (she “doesn’t do carbs” or some such nonsense).

  I invited her to the party on Friday and she agreed immediately, offering to bring some “nibbles.” She gave me a strange look when I told her all about my plans for Rupert, and seemed to be about to say something when the sound of vigorous barking came from the utility room. I decided to take her through to meet Poppy, although this was, in retrospect, a mistake. Tanya shrieked in horror as Poppy uncoiled herself like a tightly wound spring and inflicted a flurry of grubby paw prints all over her tight white jeans. I tried to clean them up with the dish cloth, but Natalia must have already used it to wipe Jeffrey’s marmalade off the kitchen table, so I might have made matters worse. After that, Tanya left promptly to go into London for a “St. Tropez and a Brazilian.” I told her she shouldn’t drink too many cocktails if she was driving.

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30

  Poor Gerald still hasn’t rallied his spirits: he cut a thoroughly miserable and disheveled figure at bell ringing last night. What’s more, he appears to have developed a full-fledged phobia of men in Lycra. He told us that trapeze artists swing through his nightmares, and that he was trapped in his own home for half an hour yesterday morning waiting for a string of cyclists to disappear from view.

  I’m not without sympathy, but he does need to stiffen his upper lip, instead of looking at me with that beseeching expression that reminds me of Poppy whenever I walk past the box of dog biscuits. He’s a grown man. It’s time he took matters into his own hands.

  I invited him to Rupert’s party, which can’t come around soon enough. Poppy is not easy to hide. Jeffrey started sneezing this morning, but luckily I managed to convince him that he was coming down with a cold, and sent him off to work with a flask of hot lemon and whiskey.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 31

  Ivan the Terrible is here. I write this late at night, hunched over the computer in the study, the sound of raucous laughter and clinking glasses echoing up the stairway. I had actually attempted to go to bed, but Jeffrey was playing his accursed Led Zeppelin album so loudly it made my bedside table rattle.

  It has been a trying evening, from the moment I saw Ivan amble through the door, trample mud into my oatmeal carpet, and clasp Jeffrey in a bear hug. He was dressed in blue jeans, a black suit jacket, and a white T-shir
t, above which graying chest hair spooled grotesquely. The smile on his face reminded me of the velociraptors in the film Jurassic Park, which made Rupert wet the bed when he was nine. I only just managed not to recoil when he kissed me on the cheek. He is the sort of man who always makes as if he were going to kiss you on the lips, causing you to angle frantically to one side, before swerving at the last moment and laughing throatily.

  Throughout dinner I tried to smile serenely, even while Ivan clacked his teeth against his cutlery and scattered bread crumbs willy-nilly across my new damask rose tablecloth. Natalia, however, was not so accommodating. Perhaps there is some lingering, deep-seated animosity between the Lithuanian and the Russian races; perhaps she resented having to work late and miss Britain’s Got Talent. I do not condone rudeness toward guests, of course, but I had to dab my napkin to my mouth to stifle a small laugh when she spilled tomato and basil soup all over Ivan’s white Ralph Lauren T-shirt.

  Ivan, for his part, responded to her hostility by flirting outrageously. At least, I presume he was flirting: he kept muttering to her in a foreign language with a lascivious expression on his face. It all reached a climax at dessert, when he pinched her bottom just as she was leaning over to pour cream on Jeffrey’s profiteroles.

  Natalia let loose a barrage of what I presume was abuse in what I presume was Lithuanian, Ivan roared with laughter, Darcy started squawking, and Jeffrey went to the drinks cabinet for a whiskey and soda. Then Natalia fled to her room and put on Britain’s Got Talent at full volume, while Jeffrey reciprocated with Led Zeppelin.

  Every time Ivan visits, Jeffrey attempts to relive his lost youth. What he doesn’t realize is that, much like communism, it is best consigned to the dustbin of history.

  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1

  I wish the laws of hospitality had not compelled me to taste some of Ivan’s foul vodka last night. I need a clear head today to focus on the challenges ahead. Before the party, I must take Poppy for a walk, teach Natalia how to make smoked salmon and cream cheese vol-au-vent, decorate the house with flowers (I thought white lilies would be best—attractive yet not too fussy, which is just the look Rupert should aim for), chill the champagne, wrap the gifts, impinge some basic human decency upon the character of Ivan the Terrible, and pick up my favorite dress—soft gray wool with a cowl neck—from the dry cleaner’s.

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2

  12:33 A.M.

  Once again I find myself hunched over my keyboard late at night, pouring my heart out into the boundless ether of the Internet, gnawing my nails with angst, and ruining all my careful work with the buffing block.

  Rupert’s party was not the triumph that I had been anticipating. He is not smitten with Ruth—or any of the other girls in attendance, for that matter—and he is no longer speaking to me. Jeffrey is sleeping in the spare room. He says this is because he does not wish to wake me with the cough caused by “that wretched mutt,” but I fear this is only partly the truth. Ivan the Terrible enjoyed himself, but this in itself is a sad indictment of my attempts to provide a civilized party.

  The evening began well enough. The guests arrived, Pru, Ruth, and Miss Hughes with homemade tarts and fairy cakes, Gerald with a light coating of dandruff, Tanya with a tray of cellophane-wrapped vegetables and hummus from Waitrose. Reginald arrived with David, who wore a black-and-white scarf enveloping half his head. I suppose it did at least disguise his weak chin. Ruth squealed with delight and asked if he was Lawrence of Arabia, adding that if she had known it was fancy dress she would have worn her unicorn outfit.

  Once everyone was assembled, I made a brief speech that emphasized Rupert’s many qualities—including his bravery when he recently removed a spider with visible leg hair from the bathtub—and then we moved on to the presents. I gave him the Jeremy Clarkson book, the compass, and the rugby ball, while he managed to contain his joy in his usual understated way. Ruth rushed in with a small package tied with silver ribbons, from which The Little Book of Clouds emerged. Rupert thanked her with a shy, restrained sort of half-smile.

  Then it was time for what I thought of as my pièce de résistance: Poppy. I signaled to Natalia, and together we went to the utility room. While Natalia held her still, I attached a big blue bow to her neck. Natalia looked puzzled, though not as puzzled as Poppy, who wriggled onto her back, then snapped and pawed at the ribbon. We led her, skittering sideways, into the drawing room. A hush fell across the room. Then Jeffrey and Rupert broke out in unison, Jeffrey crying “What on earth?” and Rupert, something that sounded like “What luck.”

  Poppy, overwhelmed by the size of the audience, finally wrenched off her ribbon and galloped about the room in giddy delight, nipping Miss Hughes in the varicose veins and snapping at David’s trailing head scarf. I lost a shoe trying to catch her, and knocked over two vases of lilies, but I thought that the loss of dignity was worth it as I prepared to hand her ceremonially to Rupert. Just as I had planned, Ruth clasped her hands together and sighed tenderly.

  And that was the moment when things went sadly awry. Dear readers, it pains me to write this, but my own son refused to accept his gift, pushing Poppy gently but firmly away. What’s more, as soon as Natalia grasped the situation (the girl never listens), she started wailing that she loved Poppy and would not let her go to the cold heart computer man and threw her arms around her neck. She shrieked as I tried to prize her steely fingers off Poppy’s collar, Jeffrey launched into a sneezing fit, and the cacophony was interrupted only when Poppy vomited wetly on the Persian rug. It appeared that Natalia had fed the poor creature half the smoked salmon and cream cheese vol-au-vents. This was perhaps just as well given that she had made such a dreadful fist of them.

  We were at an impasse. Ivan downed his vodka, and Rupert, who is normally a restrained drinker, followed suit. Emboldened, my son said that there was no question of the dog coming home with him. Jeffrey said that there was no question of “it” staying here, and sneezed. Eventually Gerald came forward, with tears shining in his eyes, and said that he would give the poor abandoned, neglected creature a home, and that Natalia could visit as often as she liked. This placated her enough to clean the vomit off the rug.

  Afterward, the evening passed in something of a blur. Jeffrey turned up the music, Ivan the Terrible took hold of Ruth and whirled her around so fast that her glasses fell off, and he trod on them with his crocodile-skin loafers.

  I felt like Rupert was doing the same thing to my heart. He drank vodka, ate fairy cakes with his mouth open, and threw his Jeremy Clarkson book on the fire.

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2

  11 A.M.

  I woke late today, to the sound of my mobile bleeping. It was a text message from Rupert, which read: Dear Mum, tks for party + presents. Sorry re dog. Poppy will be v happy with Gerald. Love, Rupert.

  This is more contrition than Ivan the Terrible is likely to muster, despite the fact that he trampled mud into my carpet, smashed a valuable porcelain vase, and manhandled the girl I had earmarked as my son’s future bride.

  When I went downstairs he had already commandeered the kitchen, strewing it with various jars of grotesque pickles, which reminded me of miniature amputated crocodile limbs, and drinking vodka from my Denby Imperial Blue teacup. He was whistling some kind of garish folksy tune which he interrupted to say “Good morning, Konnie” (I could tell it was a K) and slap me on the bottom.

  Jeffrey emerged, looking well rested. He kissed me briefly on the cheek and said, “No hard feelings, eh?” which could have meant either that he did not resent me, after all, for triggering his allergy or that he wanted to check that I did not begrudge him for banishing an innocent puppy. My husband is a man of few words and many possible meanings.

  In any case, both men left to play golf, leaving me to tidy the house and ponder the previous evening. I think I can draw the following conclusions from the unfortunate events:

  I will need a more subtle and ingenious method to overcome Rupert’s natural shyness and net him a wife.<
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  Lithuanians are more sentimental than they look.

  Never invite Ruth to a fancy dress party.

  Never feed a dog canapés.

  As Shakespeare would say, “Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3

  Just occasionally, it feels as though God answers my prayers. In church today, Reginald instructed us to take a few quiet moments to commune with the Holy Father, open our minds to Him, and lay bare our hopes and fears. I closed my eyes and asked Him to get rid of Ivan, who left two dirty towels on the landing floor this morning. When I got home, I found a note on the kitchen table from Jeffrey (who couldn’t attend church because of a headache, poor man) saying that Ivan had business in London and that he had taken him to the station.

  I suppose that, in the spirit of Christian compassion, I should spare a thought for Ivan’s colleagues, whoever they may be, now forced to bear his company. His employment is a source of some mystery to me, allowing him, as it does, frequent and extensive free periods for hunting, shooting, golfing, and importuning the wives of his friends. Ivan claims that he is in the “dynamic human resources solutions” business and holds investments in commodities. I think this is the Russian way of saying that he has his fingers in a lot of pies. I hope that at least one of them burns him.

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4

  I decided to write a letter to Sophie today ahead of our ski trip. She prefers to correspond by e-mail, text message, or, more frequently, telepathy (this is the only possible explanation for her long bouts of silence), but I remain attached to the more traditional means of communication. Proper letters do not constrict one to a minuscule number of characters (my texts always spill onto two, three, or sometimes six messages) or carry computer-demolishing “viruses.” Besides, I like the smell of envelopes.