A Place in the Country (10 page)

Alone though, later that night, she admitted the truth. She wished her date was with James, and not Jim.

 

chapter 20

On the day
of the party Issy stood in front of the long mirror in Sam's room, in her new black skirt. It wasn't exactly pencil but it was short, and, though she did say it herself, she had nice legs.

“What d'you think?” She frowned, inspecting the snug little white cardigan she had gotten past her mother's eagle eyes, purely on the basis that it was only a cardi so how could it be wrong. “Do my boobs look too big in this?”

“Not exactly
big,
” loyal friend Sam said. “But it is a bit tight.”

“That's the way everybody wears them.” Issy took another anxious look. “I can always unbutton it and put a T-shirt under,” she added, still doubtful she had enough nerve to show off her body to Lysander, not to mention the other partygoers, who she knew for sure would be older than her, because Lysander was older and they were his friends.

“When are you going to tell Lysander how old you
really
are?” Sam leaned back on the pillows, arms folded. Blind Brenda squeaked and emerged from under the pillow. “Oops, sorry, kitten.” She picked her up and cuddled her.

“He thinks I'm sixteen. Anyhow, I will be in a couple of weeks, so what's the difference?”

Still, Issy sat down next to her friend, suddenly nervous. “Should I really go to this party? I mean, I don't know anybody except Lysander, and truthfully, I hardly know him, except for seeing him a few times in Oxford.”

“And then only in public places, like the café, or hanging in the street, smoking.”

“You know I don't smoke.”

“You might, by tomorrow.” Sam had seen it happen before, peer pressure was a bitch. “I'm worried about you going alone,” she added, sitting up and pulling her blond hair into a ponytail. “Lysander's different from us, he's always going to parties. He makes me feel like a kid when I'm with him.”

“Well, we are
not
kids. And time I learned how the real world lives instead of just school and Oxford and that bloody barn my mother thinks is going to be our home and make her her fortune. She's nuts.” She sounded sure of herself, but the truth was she was nervous about going alone.

“It's not too late to cancel,” Sam prompted.

Issy turned back to the mirror. Maybe the sweater looked okay? She undid the top three buttons and added her mom's gold chain necklaces. Her small duffel bag was packed. She was ready. Caroline was to drive her to the station then drop Sam off at her friend's house in Oxford.

“I'll call and tell you everything,” she said, putting on Caroline's good cream trench coat that fit her perfectly and looked terrific with her black ankle boots, especially with the golden-tan stuff on her legs.

“Pretty good, though I say it myself,” she said to Sam with a big, nervous, grin.

“Terrific,” Sam agreed loyally.

 

chapter 21

The London train
was one of those rattling old ones that stopped at every small station. Her mother had bought her a magazine but Issy was so worried she would be late she couldn't even read it.

What if tea was already over and everybody had gone on somewhere else, and there was nobody at the house to meet her? What if Lysander had forgotten all about her? He couldn't have; he'd called her that morning and said see you later, girl.

Lysander always called her “girl,” and Issy didn't like it. She would have preferred him to use her name, but he'd laughed when they'd first met, three weeks ago, in the café where everybody hung, and she had told him it was Issy.

“Kind of a ‘Bambi' name,” he'd said, mockingly, making her blush and she'd told him quickly she was really Isabel but that her father had always called her Issy.

“So where is your dad, anyway?” Lysander was sharp enough to catch her hesitation when she'd mentioned him, and she told him quickly he worked in Singapore and came here whenever he could.

“Yeah right,” Lysander said, seeing the truth, that her parents had split up. He'd told her about his mother and father divorcing, and that he'd gotten over it. He gave a devil-may-care shrug and a cocky grin and told her just to get on with it.

He was at a tutorial in Oxford, and Issy had met him in a café and been instantly smitten.

She had seen him a couple of times since. They'd gone to the movies, with Sam too, of course, and Lysander had held her hand. Actually what he'd done was take her hand and put it on his lap, which had startled her. Still, it was friendly and sexy and she hadn't actually
touched
him. And he hadn't kissed her then, because Sam was there. She had been kissed before and not thought much of it, but later when he kissed her goodnight and put his tongue in her mouth, it had given her a terrific thrill. He'd run his hand quickly over her breasts and kissed her again, no tongue this time, and told her she was cute and very pretty and sexy with it. He'd mentioned his party and said he would invite her, and now she was so nervous she was almost wishing he had not.

Thank God, the train was finally crawling into Paddington. She grabbed her duffel and was off before anyone else had even moved. Then there was a queue for taxis that took another agonizing ten minutes before she was on her way.

Lysander's house was on a smart block in fashionable Bayswater, near Hyde Park. It was white with black shutters, gleaming windows, and a shiny black front door with a pair of twirly topiaries at the top of the steps.

Issy had to press the brass doorbell twice before it was answered by a tall model-type girl with enviable straight blond hair and wide, shadow-smudged blue eyes. She had long legs in narrow jeans and wore flip-flops. Her toes were painted a perfect turquoise. Issy had never seen turquoise toenails before.

The girl checked her over. “I guess you're expected.”

She stood back to let Issy in then closed the door and walked away, leaving her just standing there.

“Who is it?” A thin woman clutching a sheaf of papers came down the stairs. She looked at Issy as though she had no clue who she was, or even that she was expected.

“I'm Lysander's friend, Isabel?”

“Ah!
Isabel.
Of course.” Mrs. Tsornin gave her a smile. “Just drop your bag and coat there, my dear, on that bench, and go along into the drawing room. They're all in there. Lysander will show you your room later, I'm afraid I'm busy right now, all the organization you know…”

Issy took off her coat and left it, as instructed, on the hall bench. She wished she had worn jeans and a T-shirt like the model-girl, and thought her legs looked too-fake-tan in this light. She might have stood there forever, alone, if she hadn't finally gathered her courage and her nerves and walked as inconspicuously as she could, into the room where all the noise was coming from.

She spotted Lysander chatting to a group of people and by some miracle he spotted her too. He came over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Glad you made it,” he said. Then took her hand and led her over to the group of young guys who were smoking like chimneys and looking at her.

“This is Issy,” he said, throwing a casual arm over her shoulders. “She's come all the way from Oxford,” he added, which for some reason made them all laugh, probably because they were all at the university there.

“Come on,” he added. “Let's get some tea. Then Miranda will show you your room.”

“Who's Miranda?” They were the first words she had spoken, except for the quick hellos.

“You'll soon find out,” one of his friends said with a mocking grin, but Lysander took her arm and got her a cup of tea and a piece of cake she didn't want. He was really cute, tall, wide shoulders, skinny hips, blue eyes and blue jeans, dark hair all rumpled, and a wicked mouth.

“You're gonna have a good time,” he assured her, smiling.

Then he showed Issy her room on the second floor, and it was time to get dressed for her first big party.

 

chapter 22

Back at the Star & Plough,
Maggie was in the kitchen, supervising Sarah, known to all now because of her year-round indoor pallor, as “Winter-White Sarah.” Promoted for the night to chief cook, she was coping with the Aga and the steak pies and fries, while Lily, appointed chief helper, dashed in and out carrying three plates on one arm and two in her other hand, shoving through the kitchen door with her shoulder while dying to get back into the bar and chat up the guys. It was, Lily said, beaming and tossing back her long red hair, a lot more fun than babysitting a usually-squalling kid and watching TV, alone.

“She's gonna drop those plates,” Sarah said, in a resigned tone. “She drops everything, including my son.”

“She
dropped
Little Billy?” Maggie asked, shocked.

“Only onto the sofa. She says she does it to keep him amused, and he does giggle. She sort of holds him up a couple of inches then lets him go, onto the cushions.”

Maggie shook her head. “Better stop her right now, that girl doesn't know what she's doing.”

“Oh yes I do,” Lily said. “I have three younger brothers and I've dropped all of them on their heads. Brains are still ticking over all right.” She gave them a jaunty grin, grabbed a couple of salads and said, “Better hurry up, Sarah, or Maggie'll be on your tail instead of mine.”

“Fuck off,” Sarah said smoothly, while turning yet another flatiron steak.

“Sarah!” Maggie exclaimed, shocked. “You must not talk like that. Remember your child.”

“Oh, I never curse in front of Little Billy.” Sarah filled a couple of warm tacos with the pork mixture then set them on a plate with a dab of sour cream and a spoonful of the chopped tomato, cilantro, and onion mix with a hit of Tabasco, called
pico de gallo
that, depending on how fast Sarah was moving, might be mild or, in moments of pressure, so spicy hot it could take the roof off your mouth. Either way, the customers liked it. Or at least there were no complaints.

Maggie sighed. She did not understand young people these days, having babies and no husbands, struggling with a life alone, trying to make ends meet. Though when she thought about it, Caroline's situation wasn't much different from Sarah's; just that she was older, and Issy wasn't a baby anymore.

It was seven twenty-five and Maggie was waiting for Caroline to make her appearance. She thought Caroline was in for a surprise with Jim Thompson. Maggie didn't know Jim personally, only from his visits to the pub, but she knew all about him. She guessed everyone did, except Caroline, and she'd decided not to fill her in because it was better if she made her own judgment. Woman-to-man judgment. The way it should be.

“So, here I am.” Caroline walked into the kitchen looking about a foot taller than she usually did in the four-inch heels and the short skirt. The pale green silk jersey dress narrowed her thighs and exposed the pretty upper curve of her breasts that, Maggie noticed, she had attempted to cover up with a rope or two of crystal beads, and the little fake silver bird-in-flight pinned in her cleavage. Issy's present. “For luck,” Caroline told her now. She wore the plain diamond stud earrings Maggie knew the ex-husband had given her years ago, and the narrow diamond wedding band on her right hand instead of on the left. Her black hair hung smooth to her shoulders and she'd clipped back her shaggy bangs with a small diamanté arrow. Maggie thought it made her look younger.

Caroline did a nervous pirouette. “You think I'm overdressed for an English country dinner party?”

Sarah turned from the stove to take a look. “Who cares? You look fantastic,” she said, smiling for once, which Maggie thought made Sarah look all of seventeen, though she was still only nineteen anyway.

Sarah gave Caroline a hug. It was the first time she had seen her looking like a real woman, and not the usual harried-mom-in-jeans-and-boots-and-sweater. She took another critical look. “Did you ever think of wearing contacts?”

“I've tried, they kill me. It's contacts and watery eyes or old-lady glasses, and since I can't see a thing without them, I'll go with the glasses. He can take it or leave it.”

“Trust me,” Sarah said, looking Caroline up and down, “he'll take it. He'd be crazy not to.”

The three of them giggled just as Lily waltzed back through the kitchen door, dropped two plates, said, “Oh shit,” then looked up and saw Caroline.

“Jesus,” she said, awed. “I didn't know you existed under that mom outfit you always wear.”

“Well, she does, and don't you be so rude, and anyway, get those plates swept up before somebody breaks their neck on them,” Maggie said sharply, but she was smiling.

Caroline wrapped the turquoise pashmina around her shoulders, carefully covering all feminine body parts.

“Just in case he should notice you are a woman!” Maggie adjusted the shawl so that it flowed around her and not over her. “Remember who you are, Caroline Evans,” she added, handing her the little black evening purse and walking her to the door, where she knew Jim was waiting, because Jesus had told her the moment he'd arrived.

“Have a good time,” she said, as Caroline gave a nervous smile over her shoulder and went out to meet her first date in seventeen years.

 

chapter 23

He had on a jacket
and tie and was standing in front of a long, lean silver sports car, waiting for her.

“Wow,” Caroline said. “I miss the sawdust.”

“I cleaned up for you.”

“Me too.”

They laughed, and his eyes admired her. “You look wonderful.”

“Sure I'm not too fancy for a country dinner party?”

“You're perfect for any dinner party.” He helped her into the car.