Annie unwound herself from the pick-up truck, shivering in her thin dress, and followed me into the house.
‘I say, it’s Cinderella back from the ball.’ Daddy’s elbows were on either side of a plate of food. Twisted cigarette butts protruded from mashed potato like crippled seedlings. ‘How nice of you to come home.’ He turned to the man sitting next to him. ‘My daughter moves in the most exalted circles these days,’ he drawled. ‘She is becoming a member of the upper classes and wishes to forget her poverty-stricken family.’
‘You’re drunk, Daddy. Don’t be foul.’ My voice wobbled. ‘What’s wrong with my friends anyway? You sent me to that school, and that’s where I met them.’
Mummy intervened. ‘Pay no attention. He’s been perfectly ghastly all evening. He’s bored and he’s secretly dying to hear about your party.’
‘Darling heart, come and tell me some lies.’ Daddy was smiling now, reaching his hand out to me.
‘Are you going to be nice?’ I squeezed past a red-nosed woman on his right. The man opposite stood up, a pipe swinging on his lip, and shook hands with me. ‘Victor Schmidt,’ he said, and gestured to the red-nosed woman, ‘and this is my wife, Evelyn.’ Evelyn sniffed.
Daddy sneered, narrowing his eyes, ‘Evelyn is a practising lesbian. Her conversation is superfluous until she admits this.’
Evelyn shrank away from him and burst into tears, dabbing at her nose with a frilly handkerchief.
‘Patrick, for heaven’s sake leave her alone.’
Evelyn wailed and rushed from the room. Daddy slammed the table with his glass. ‘I will not tolerate hypocritical little bitches in my house,’ he yelled. Victor took a swig from a bottle of red wine and looked up at the ceiling. Mummy disappeared to find Evelyn, and Annie, eyes starting from her head in glee, wriggled past Evelyn’s upturned chair and sat down next to Daddy.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Daddy, this is Annie, Sasha’s sister. She brought me home from the party.’
Daddy raised his glass to Chris. ‘You must be the pumpkin then, dear boy,’ he said. Chris cowered by the Aga, a protective shield of cat curved in his arms. He blushed and nodded. Annie lit a cigarette and swivelled herself nearer to Daddy. He looked at her, a smile glimmering. ‘You look like a hooker,’ he said. Annie simpered and said primly, ‘Thank you.’
Daddy laughed and passed her a yellow mug. ‘Here, have a drink.’ He poured wine into the bottom of the mug, then topped it up with water. ‘This is how we get drunk in Italy, dear heart. Intoxication should be gradual.’
Weak with relief, I leaned next to Chris, keeping a good distance from the table. I found a box of chocolates melting in the top oven and in silence Chris and I consumed them.
Annie bombarded Daddy with questions. His mood had changed. ‘You are impertinent,’ he said gently, when she asked, ‘How did you get to be a poet?’ But he liked her, and even Victor unbent a little from his umbrage when Daddy took his glass like a microphone and sang ‘My Snowy-Breasted Pearl’. Evelyn did not return; Victor was so drunk that he failed to notice her absence when he went to bed. The phone rang very late. Daddy had gone to bed; Annie and Chris, she wreathed in smiles, he in yawns, had departed, promising to come back soon. It was Evelyn. In the village telephone-box.
‘I am taking a taxi to Norwich where I shall spend the night in a hotel. The taxi is collecting me from the churchyard. Please could you tell Victor to meet me at the Maid’s Head tomorrow morning.’
Mummy pleaded with Evelyn to return but she would have none of it. ‘I shall never set foot in that house again, Eleanor.’
Mummy came back into the kitchen. ‘I’d better go and wake Victor,’ she said, ‘Evelyn is in a terrible state.’
Victor refused to do anything, so Mummy gave up and kissed me goodnight. ‘Darling, I haven’t heard a word about your party yet. You must tell me it all tomorrow.’