seemed to be nothing to say in response. I took the stool next to Lucy, resting the soles of my shoes on a ledge that was too close to the seat to be comfortable. Ben stayed standing.
‘Yes, there’ll be plenty of people you know. Mark, Bufty, Fliss, obviously; Arpad and Seb. Oh, and you remember Andrew Jarvis, don’t you, LS?’
I stiffen.
‘From school. And Cambridge.’
‘Oh,’ I said, feigning nonchalance. ‘Jarvis.’ His name redolent of a smirk of thick muscle beneath a tightly buttoned school shirt. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘He’s an MP now. One of Ed’s lot. Junior energy minister. He and his wife have just bought a place down the road.’
‘He found someone willing to marry him, did he? Wonders will never cease.’
‘Oh come on, he wasn’t that bad.’
‘His wife’s a sweetie,’ Serena added.
‘She is,’ Ben agreed. ‘She really is.’
I let it go. Ben has a bottomless capacity to reinvent the past. I think it’s a calculated tactic. He rewrites a narrative to suit his needs at any given time and he’s so casual about it, no one seems to care. It’s an admirable skill, really, when one thinks about it.
Ben raised his glass.
‘To us,’ he said, one hand still resting on his wife’s neck.
‘To our dear friends,’ I added. ‘Ben and Serena.’
Ben, more at ease now in a familiar pose of bonhomie, gave an expansive grin. His top three shirt buttons were undone, revealing a sprouting of dark hairs. He was tanned. He was always tanned from a recent holiday or golf game or simple genetic good fortune. He smelled of oak and leather – the same aftershave he’d been wearing for years, ever since his father gave him a bottle when he turned sixteen. He was handsome in an unexpected way. His mouth was perhaps too large, a little loose around the lips. His nose was arguably a bit flat. There were wrinkles across his brow. But when you put it all together, it worked. There was a ruggedness to his looks, a worn-in quality that suited the encroaching years. I had to admit: I’d never seen him look so good.
‘Yes,’ Serena said. ‘Friends.’
Lucy tipped the glass back to a forty-five-degree angle and sank most of the champagne in one gulp. I laid my hand on hers. Her skin felt hot. She placed the flute back on the counter, fingers shaking.
There was a noisy clatter from the far end of the room and then the sound of childish squawking.
‘Mama!’
A small, rotund shape bowled across the floor and launched himself at Serena’s legs. This was Hector who, at three years old, was the most obstreperous of the Fitzmaurice children.
‘My love,’ Serena cooed. She bent to pick him up, straining the sinews of her yoga-toned arms as she did so. Hector was a barrel-shaped child with a square head and un-charming features. His brow loomed over the sockets of his eyes, giving him the appearance of an elderly ape.
‘Hello, Hector,’ I said.
This unprepossessing lump was, I’m sad to say, my godson. To be frank, I was offended they had waited till their third progeny to ask and I’ve never wholly got over the slight. I am, however, punctilious in the observation of all my duties. He got an engraved silver tankard for his christening and has had a bottle of fine wine put aside for him every year since then at Berry Bros. Heaven knows what he will ever do to deserve it. He has none of Cosima’s grace or Cressida’s impishness. (The youngest, Bear, is still at the baby stage, so it’s hard to tell how he’ll turn out.)
‘Gah,’ the child responded.
Tucked cosily on his mother’s lap, he looked glumly out at the rest of us, clearly wishing us all to be gone. He started pawing at Serena’s blouse.
‘Mee-ma,’ he said. ‘Mee-ma, mee-ma.’ His voice rose to an un-ignorable pitch.
‘No, darling, not now. Mee-ma for later.’
She removed his chunky, dimpled hand from her breasts. Serena believes in attachment parenting. She breastfed Cosima until she was four and had a full set of teeth.
‘Could I have a top-up, Ben?’ Lucy was reaching out with her empty glass.
‘Sorry, darling. Should have noticed.’
He poured the champagne too quickly so that it bubbled up, almost to the rim, and he had to wait for the foam to slide back down. When her glass was full, Lucy took it and swallowed almost half of it in one go. I had noticed her drinking more over preceding months and I didn’t want her to be drunk tonight. It would be embarrassing and, apart from anything else, I needed an ally.
I cocked my head towards hers.
‘Don’t you think—’
‘No, Martin. No I don’t,’ she said, too loudly. Hector, startled by the sound of her voice, started crying.
‘Oh baby, oh no, oh baby, don’t cry,’ Serena cooed. She stroked his hair with her hand. ‘They didn’t mean to shout, did they? No they didn’t.’
Lucy glared at me. Then she leaned over and tapped the child’s podgy leg with one hand.
‘Hey, Hector.’ Tap tap tap. ‘Hey, hey. I’m sorry. Don’t be a baby.’ Tap tap tap. ‘You’re a big boy now, aren’t you? No need to cry.’ Tap tap tap.
When Lucy removed her hand, I could see a red mark on his thigh.
Serena turned her back to us, shielding Hector from our sight.
‘Shall I take him?’ Ben offered.
Serena stood without answering and walked out of the room with the screaming Hector. The sound of her rubber-soled espadrilles on the tiled floor as she left seemed designed to express her unvoiced fury.
Ben exhaled. He shrugged apologetically.
‘Don’t worry about it, Luce.’
‘I wasn’t,’ she said.
Ben laughed. ‘Good. That’s OK then.’
He walked to the fridge, which loomed in one corner of the kitchen, emitting a low-frequency hum.
‘Snacks,’ he announced to no one in particular, sliding out a platter covered in cling film and bringing it over to the table. He took the film off with a flourish. There was a selection of soggy-looking salmon blinis, a few slices of hard cheese that looked like Manchego and some mini-sandwiches cut into triangles. A smear of brown in the centre suggested leftover chutney that someone else had already eaten. Leftovers, I thought. So that’s all we’re worth.
‘You guys want some water?’
I reached for a blini. ‘Yes, please.’
He came back with a bottle in a
