Just Friends (37 page)

Back at the house, Freya lay on the bed and snoozed while Jack took a bath. When he returned they swapped around. By the time Freya returned to the bedroom, Jack had disappeared, tactfully giving her a chance to dress for tonight’s party. She stood by the bedroom window and tilted her face to the hand mirror, trying to catch the sunlight that still glowed strong through high shreds of flamingo-pink clouds. Her cheeks were faintly sunburned, but none the worse for that. She decided to leave her skin as it was. Tonight she’d go for the natural look—though not too natural: She reached for her faithful mascara. Makeup and hair completed, she wriggled herself into her dress—the turquoise fish-scale number she had worn to Coney Island—and sat down at the dresser to check out the result in the mirror. Not bad.

There was a soft knock on the door.

Freya grabbed a comb. “Yes?” she called casually.

“It’s me,” said Jack, opening the door. “You ready yet?” He ambled into the room, then paused as he registered what she was wearing. “Oh . . . the mermaid outfit.”

“It’s too bad if you don’t like it,” Freya said defensively. “I don’t have money to splash out on new dresses left, right, and center.”

“Who said I didn’t like it?”

She saw that Jack was wearing immaculate white jeans, an electric blue linen shirt and black sneakers with white laces. His tawny-blond hair was clean and combed, swept back from his broad, tanned face. He looked like Mr. America. He came over and stooped low, shoulder to shoulder with her, surveying them both in the mirror in a way that Freya found disconcertingly intimate.

“The perfect couple,” Jack pronounced with a smile.

She thought he was mocking her, and got quickly to her feet. “I just want to give this to Tash, then we can join the party.” She picked up a large gift-wrapped package from the bed, where she’d put it ready.

“Here, let me carry that,” said Jack.

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“Why not?” He pulled the package gently from her hands.

They found Tash and Roland holding court in the library downstairs, knee-deep in discarded wrapping paper and surrounded by the spoils of marriage: monogrammed bath towels, crystal marmalade jars, chrome gadgets, Japanese bowls, Italian espresso cups, Egyptian cotton sheets, and countless other essentials of modern living. Tash knelt on the floor, flushed with excitement, ripping off paper under the admiring gaze of her girlfriends. Roland sat behind her on the sofa, languidly smoking a cigarette while Tash oohed and aahed at each new acquisition. “A pasta machine! How fabulous. Oh, Roll-doll, do look.” She was wearing a flimsy, slithery dress that could have been a slip or a nightie—fuchsia pink with a turquoise bra underneath.

As soon as there was a gap in the proceedings, Freya stepped forward and handed her parcel to Tash with her best smile. Ignoring the card, whose message Freya had spent so much time composing, Tash tore off the wrapping.

“Golly, what is it?” She passed it over her head to Roland. “By the way, everyone, this is Daddy’s daughter by his first wife—the one who died. And that gorgeous hunk is her boyfriend, Jack. So hands off, girls!”

“It’s a painting.” Freya kept her voice light. “By a young artist I handle, who I think will be really big one day.”

Roland was looking at it with his head cocked on one side, then on the other. Smoke trickled out of his nostrils. “Which way up’s it supposed to be?”

Tash giggled, and darted a look at Freya. Her eyes glowed like coals.

Freya tried to smile. “Stick it in an attic, if you don’t like it, but I’d advise you to hang on to it. It could be quite valuable.”

“Oh, right.” Roland perked up. He heaved himself off the sofa to give Freya an unnecessarily smoochy kiss on one cheek. “Thanks very much, Freya. Jolly nice of you. Makes a change from all those toast racks anyway, doesn’t it, darling?”

“Hmmm? Oh, look what Lulu’s given us, Roll: a jug in the shape of a pig. Isn’t that adorable?”

Freya stood straight and stiff, smiling vaguely at the bright blur of gift-wrapping and party dresses, feeling as freakish as a stork among cooing pigeons. As soon as the focus of attention shifted elsewhere she caught Jack’s eye and retreated through the French windows. Her heels clacked sharply across the stone terrace.

“Well,
I
liked it,” said Jack. “It’s a portrait, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is! Even you can see that.” Freya folded her arms tight. “Why does she always have to be so vicious?”

“She’s just a young girl who’s getting married tomorrow. This is her big moment.”

“ ‘This is Daddy’s daughter by his first wife,’ ” mimicked Freya. “She can’t even bring herself to say my name out loud. Bloody hell, I tried so hard to give her a special present.”

“Let it go,” said Jack. “She’s probably a little jealous of you. Her daddy is really your daddy, and she knows it. You’re taller than her, smarter than her, and you have a gorgeous hunk of a boyfriend like me. Who wouldn’t be jealous? Come on, let’s check out the party.” He put his arm around her.

“What are you doing?” Freya wriggled her shoulders.

Calm blue eyes looked down into hers. “I’m pretending,” Jack said smoothly. “This is a party, and you’re my girl. Remember? This is how normal couples behave.”

“Oh. Well. All right.” Freya allowed herself to relax fractionally into the warm crook of his shoulder. At least Jack was tall, so that she could wear proper high heels.

For some time she had been subliminally aware of music and the whoop and roar of a party revving into life. Now she looked about her. A steady procession of cars was rolling up the long driveway, scattering sheep to the lengthening shadows of holm oaks and hawthorns. From all directions, people were emerging from archways and sweeping across lawns to funnel down the broad path leading to the courtyard where the party was being held.

Help! There was someone Freya recognized, the daughter of the local Master of Foxhounds, who had been brought over to “play” with her when she first came to Cornwall and had become a casual holiday friend. Vicky: that was her name. Goodness, she’d gained a lot of weight. Vicky came over to greet Freya, arm in arm with her husband Toby (balding, middle-aged paunch, local solicitor). With a pleasurable spurt of one-upmanship Freya introduced Jack (young, American, a writer). The four of them joined the party crowd, chatting companionably. Freya’s spirits rose. This was going to be all right.

At the entrance to the courtyard, a line of eager teenage girls and boys, recruited from the village, held trays of drinks. Freya helped herself to a Pimm’s, letting her gaze roam while Vicky and Toby engaged Jack in small talk. The large courtyard, normally cluttered with firewood, machinery, and rusting oddments had been completely cleared. On a mown square of grass at the center, a jazz band was playing “Just One of Those Things.” Charcoal braziers glowed red, ready to barbecue the fish she and Jack had bought earlier. Next to them were trestle tables laden with sticks of bread, bowls of salad, and wedges of cheese, punctuated by sheaves of wildflowers in ordinary garden buckets—simple but festive. Freya caught sight of Annabelle talking to one of the barbecue men, and on impulse excused herself from the group and strolled over to her.

“Congratulations, Annabelle. This all looks marvelous. You must have been slaving for weeks.”

“Oh . . . well . . .” Annabelle seemed flustered by the compliment. She smoothed her dress over her hips. “It’s very nice of you to come all this way,” she offered. “I wish you’d come more often. Truly.”

Their eyes met. “I’ll try,” said Freya.

“And do bring Jack again. We all like him so much.”

“Really?” Freya swiveled around to locate Jack, wanting to share this joke with him, and saw that he was being bored stiff by Toby. Catching her gaze, Jack gave her a bug-eyed stare that begged for rescue.

Freya beckoned him over, miming an instruction that he should also bring a drink for Annabelle. Within a minute he had extricated himself and was handing Annabelle a glass. “Here you go, Mrs. Penrose. Drink up.”

“Oh, do call me Annabelle. I feel ancient enough as it is.” She took a long drink and let out a grateful breath. “I needed that. Thank you, my dears, both of you. Now, would you do me a favor and see what those men are up to in the Great Office?” She gestured at the dilapidated building that formed one side of the courtyard. “Tash set her heart on having this karawaki thing, so of course I couldn’t say no, but I don’t like the idea of strange people mucking about with the electrics. It would be a pity if the place burned down after five centuries, don’t you think?”

Somehow Freya and Jack managed to maintain straight faces until they were safely inside the building.

“British understatement: I love it!” exclaimed Jack. “A five-hundred-year-old building burns down, and it’s ‘a pity.’ ”

“Karawaki!” giggled Freya. “It sounds like a Japanese car.”

She looked around the high hall, with its ingeniously timbered roof, flagstone floor, long windows with cracked and broken panes, and an unmistakable smell of damp. The village pantomime used to be put on here at Christmas time, until the leaks in the roof got too bad. This was where she had practiced her roller-skating, juddering over the uneven flags, and played marathon matches of Ping-Pong with Vicky on rainy holiday afternoons. Here, too, Annabelle had achieved wonders. There were tables draped with pink paper tablecloths and decorated with flowers, already being colonized by guests carrying platefuls of food. A large area had been covered by a temporary dance floor; above it pink and silver balloons printed with NATASHA and ROLAND hung down from the rafters. Beyond this, at the far end of the room, was a stage, where two men were setting up loudspeakers and a karaoke machine.

She followed Jack up onto the stage, and while he engaged the men in conversation about amps and fuses, peered curiously at the karaoke machine. She was joined by a young man in a glittery jacket, very full of himself, who introduced himself as Rocky, the karaoke host, and asked what she wanted to sing. “Anything you like except ‘Stand by your Man.’ I’ve had requests up to here for that one.”

The hall was beginning to fill up. There must be a hundred people altogether, mostly twentysomethings from London, who had been billeted all over the surrounding countryside in cottages, hotels, pubs, spare rooms, mattresses on floors, and even tents. Shrieks of excitement rose above the general buzz; the jazz band was superseded by funk-rock from the speakers; a tantalizing smell of grilled fish wafted in from outside. Freya saw Jack signaling to her that it was time to go sit down and eat. She was assailed by an unfamiliar sensation: she was happy.