They took a taxi to Chiswick and the infamous Thai restaurant. The diners were a mixture of adventurous foodies (adventurous in that they would take their palates to West London rather than the tried and tested establishments of Fulham Road and the Conran Empire) and locals making the most of the newly discovered cult status of their local. As they walked into the small room and the name “Rock” was uttered in low Shakespearean tones by Orlando in response to the maitre d’s “What name is that booked under, sir?” heads turned and eyes were on the small party. Amy felt a rush of pride and reached for Orlando’s hand so everyone could see they were together. It wasn’t exactly the entrance she’d planned with flashbulbs and red carpets but it was thrilling nonetheless.
“So, how are the folks, Olly?” asked Benjy casually.
“Fine. Mom’s well, Dad’s much the same as ever. They potter in the garden and I still haven’t persuaded them to come and see me on set, so nothing changes.” Amy pondered Ma and Pa Rock. Were they cruel as Amy’s mother had said, for calling their child such a name, and why hadn’t they come to see him on set? Obviously negligent parents, she decided.
“Why won’t they see you, Orlando?” asked Lucinda. More intelligent to ask before assuming that they locked their child in a cellar from an early age and fed him nothing but gruel.
“Oh, they’re terrified that if they come, they’ll jinx me. Mom once came to see me rehearse the fool in Lear when I was at college and I fluffed my lines on the opening night so she’s never come near me at work since.”
“How adorable,” said Lucinda, laughing. Amy reformed her opinion for the time being but wasn’t convinced of their lack of humanity on the name front.
“So dish the dirt on one another’s childhood antics then,” Amy instructed the boys.
“Benjy used to bite people.”
“Rubbish!”
“Absolutely true, the Sweeney Todd of toddlers. We were all convinced you were a changeling child, and had been switched at birth. Lily was an angel with her little halo of curls and daisy chains and you just ate your fellow infants.”
“Orlando, you’re talking utter rubbish!” Benjy insisted. “What about you when you were losing at football and you used to hide the ball?”
“I don’t remember that. Anyway the girls were probably far more scandalous as nippers than we were, girls always did more outrageous things.”
“Do you remember when Lily did cartwheels without her knickers on?” asked Benjy, laughing.
“Scarred me for life, I think. OK, who wants wine? Are we ready to order?” The waiter appeared and filled his pad with soups and garlic prawns and a rainbow of curries, green and red, and birds’ nests of noodles and rice.
“I’m ravenous. If they don’t hurry up, I’ll eat the Formica,” moaned Lucinda.
“If they don’t hurry up, Benjy, our resident cannibal, may eat us all,” Orlando said.
“So, Orlando, tell us about Return of the Native,” said Lucinda, vaguely imitating an interviewer.
“Very little to tell. I thought it was a good bet to make a film in Dorset, so I could be in the country for more than five minutes at a time and catch up with the parentals and stuff, but now I’m in New Zealand I’m cursing the day I said I’d do it. It’s a good script though, and the team’s good.”
“Except Tiffany Swann,” said Amy chippily.
“Goes without saying, my love.” He ruffled her hair and her feathers perked up, all pigeony again. She had a swift glance around the tables to see if anyone had witnessed that moment of affection. If they had, they pretended not to have.
They saw the wine bottle replaced several times and relaxed into an easy pattern of laughter and banter.
“I actually thought this place would be horrid,” Amy confessed to Orlando.
“Charming of you to say so, darling.”
“Oh my God,” Lucinda attempted to whisper but was too drunk to lower her tone.
“What?” asked Amy.
“You see that guy who’s just walked in with the seventeen-year-old on his arm?”
“It’s my father.”
“Bloody hell,” whispered Amy. They sat huddled, their heads almost touching, all staring in the direction of the leather-jacketed man who had his back to them and was helping some honey-thighed beauty into her seat. He turned toward the maitre d’ and they all turned away, pretending not to be looking.
“Don’t I recognize him?” Amy asked.
“Very probably, he used to be quite famous.”
“Quite famous, he was my total idol when I was seventeen,” said Orlando, stunned with admiration.
“Luce, you didn’t tell me it was him! I can’t believe your father is so amazingly famous. I thought it might be Bill Wyman but I never thought it would be him,” said Amy.
Four are flabbergasted in a restaurant, as Enid Blyton would have it. Except it was only two. Benjy, of course, was the only other party to this secret on the face of the planet, but even he was having trouble dealing with the idea as it was standing there in the flesh. Lucinda was mildly amused by their reactions to her errant father and quite proud, too. There, one glass of wine and her secret was out. The idol slid into the seat and looked every inch the jaded star. Amy could just see Anita falling for those famously colored eyes. Yes indeedy, who wouldn’t travel to the ends of the world for a night in bed with him. Men and women alike had. Good old Anita, thought Amy. Cool, cool Lucinda. Amy silently wished her father were a rock star but try as she might all she could envisage was a Cliff Richard and the Shadows-type figure; she cringed at: “Orlando Rock, meet my father,” and a figure in a leather jacket and Buddy Holly glasses stepped forward.
“Do you think I should say hello?” asked Lucinda hesitantly.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“When I was about fourteen and he bought me a pony.”
“Did you call him dad?”
“No, course not!”
“Wild.” The others were awestruck and Lucinda, as if realizing for the first time what a big deal it was to have such a father, began to feel rather nervous.
“Let’s just forget it,” said Lucinda, nervously returning to her green curry. “It’s all a bit of a head-fry.”
So they tried to forget it but kept sneaking glances at snake hips and honey thighs in the corner.
“And I thought Orlando was supposed to be the famous party here tonight,” said Amy.
“Do you suppose he’s sleeping with that child?” asked Lucinda, obviously distracted by the paternal presence.
“That would be too disgusting,” Amy said.
“Sounds like a wonderful thought to me,” said Benjy. Lucinda kicked him under the table and stored the comment up for argument later. Orlando refrained from agreeing. He didn’t have the security of a three-year-old relationship from which to make outrageous remarks like that.
“Why do men think that they have to be clever and handsome to sleep with young nubile girls?” asked Amy. “Don’t they realize that any idiot with half a Ferrari can pull?”
“It’s because they’re witless; whereas women wouldn’t want to spend the evening listening to a seventeen-year-old boy talk about skateboards just so she could press his pecs later, men don’t care, conversation is not a priority,” Lucinda replied bitterly. Bitter with her lothario father and cross with Benjy for being nothing short of a pervert.
“You only have to look at her breasts to answer that question,” said Benjy. Boy, was he heading for trouble later on, and he just kept on courting it. Next time they go out to dinner Benjy will have to give the wine a wider berth, it seems.
From the breasts of an adolescent the conversation cannot stoop much lower. They chitchatted and lapped up the remains of the soft mango ice cream and dripped the last of the wine into their glasses and the time came to leave. Benjy and Lucinda were straining for a fight in a pointed, veteran-relationship way and Orlando and Amy were straining for each other. Amy slid off her shoe and wriggled her toes over Orlando’s ankle. Amy watched Orlando’s lips seek out the last droplets of red liquid from his glass and stroked her toes up his leg toward his knee. He winked at her, and courage taken, she slipped her foot up further, replicating a thousand seduction scenes, feeling her way between Orlando’s thighs. His head moved instinctively back and eyes closed for a fraction of a second, long enough for the maitre d’ to note the untowardness and look away. Amy bit her lower lip and wiggled her toes. Delicious, she thought. Orlando contemplated the logistics of a quickie in the Ladies but they had company, so ever the gentleman (not that he had much choice), he allowed himself to be ushered into a cab with the others. Libido responds to danger as much as to audience, or perhaps it’s the very fact that you always want what you can’t have. So, when constrained by decorum into sitting and chatting with friends, all you can think of is heady sex on the dinner table and hot kisses on your neck.
So, cool and fruity as mango sorbet, they toyed with one another in the back of the cab, Amy’s hand easing up the inside of Orlando’s thigh; Orlando slipped his hand up her blouse and stroked and teased her nipple, running his fingers over the satin-soft skin of her breasts. They kissed whenever Lucinda and Benjy fell into conversation with one another, and ached to be home.
“Your place or mine?” Orlando whispered as he kissed her behind the ear.
“Mine?”
“Fine,” he agreed willingly.
“OK, guys, we’re out of here. If we leave you a fiver, that should cover the fare,” said Benjy, bursting into their erotic reverie.
“See you, darlings, thanks for a lovely evening.” Lucinda kissed them both good-bye.
“I’ll tell Nathalia that you’ve got food poisoning. Take Monday off,” she told Amy. Amy was too heady to appreciate the act of kindness, but Lucinda will undoubtedly get her reward in heaven. Just as surely as the poor inherit the earth and the meek are happy because the kingdom of heaven is theirs, there must be a clause for those who help the course of true love on the way. Blind Cupid. Kind Lucinda. Kindred spirits really. The arrow-struck couple took their taxi as far as home and thence Nirvana.