Viv nudged her to look at Maggie and Leon again. They had their heads together. ‘Anal?’ Leon was querying, his body language expressive of severe discomfort. He ran his hand through his long, greasy hair. ‘Are you sure?’
Belinda wrestled briefly with self-pity, and lost. Just look at what Viv had made of her life. I could have had that. She was beginning to remember why she didn’t enjoy going out.
‘And yet you go to all this trouble,’ she marvelled, waving a hand.
Viv sighed. Not this again. Not that Superwoman crap.
‘I’m not getting into this again, Belinda, I warn you. As I’ve told you a million times, my cleaning lady does everything in this house, and I don’t lift a finger. In fact, I’m sorry to say this,’ Viv’s voice rose, ‘but I wish you’d just shut up about it.’
Even in her drunken state, Belinda was startled by Viv’s high-handed, imperious tone. Just because you abjectly deferred to someone year after year, paying them superlative compliments, that surely didn’t give them the right to assume some sort of superiority, did it?
‘All right, keep your hair on,’ slurred Belinda, ‘I only said –’
‘Listen, I’m just going to say this to you, Belinda. Just this. Sack Jorkin. Lose Patsy. Boot Mrs Holdsworth.’
‘Is that all?’
‘That about covers it, yes.’
‘Should I move to Botswana as well?’
‘I’m just telling you how it looks from where I’m standing. And where lots of other people are standing too.’
‘Mrs H washes her hair with Daz, Viv. She lives on water boiled up from old sprout peelings. She hasn’t had a new scarf for ten years.’
Other chatter stopped abruptly as Belinda’s voice rose. Only Leon could be heard, saying, ‘Penile? In what way?’
Stefan intervened. ‘I agree with Viv you should award Mrs Holdsworth the Order of the Boot,’ he offered, with a smile. ‘Viv is right, as always. Mrs Holdsworth takes the piss and cooks her own goose long enough. Tell her to up stumps. A good wine needs no bush.’
Belinda was confused, and a bit resentful. She didn’t understand how sacking the cleaning lady would in any way improve her ability to give dinner parties. And she disliked it, naturally enough, when pleasant evenings with chums and husband turned Stalinist all of a sudden. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw it on a menu. Dessert followed by show trials; then coffee and mints.
‘You need people with a bit of initiative around you,’ said Viv. ‘There’s nothing supernatural about what I do. I just hive off bits of my life I don’t want. You could do that. I give mine to Linda. The cleaning lady. She does everything. She’s doing the washing-up right now. She did all the shopping and most of the cooking.’
Belinda nodded. ‘Linda,’ she repeated, dumbly. So deeply did Belinda believe in Viv’s domestic powers, she had always suspected Linda was an invention.
‘I’ve got no sympathy for you, Belinda. None whatever.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what I mean.’
Belinda sniffed loudly, and started to fish under her chair for her handbag. ‘Stefan, shall we go home soon?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, don’t take offence,’ snapped Viv. ‘I’m only thinking of you, as usual.’
Belinda noticed that the others had stopped talking, in order to listen better. She was not unaware that tiffs with Viv were becoming a regular feature of fun nights out. She tried a last-ditch compliment, to deflect attention. It didn’t work. ‘You’ve redecorated this room,’ said Belinda. ‘It’s lovely. All this white is very attractive.’
‘Well, we got sick to death of sea green. No one has that any more.’
Belinda experienced a familiar sensation, remembering her own sea-green bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, hall and array of fitted carpets. ‘All right,’ she said, seeing that flattery was getting her nowhere. ‘Assuming I can get someone brilliant like your Linda, how do I choose which bits of my life to give her? I wouldn’t know where to stop, I mean start.’ Belinda thought about it, and felt a bit sick. ‘No, I was right the first time. I wouldn’t know where to stop.’
Viv arranged some wine bottles in a line. She was resisting the urge to hit Belinda. ‘Belinda, just imagine you had the choice. Would you rather sit in your study reading about – what is it you want to read about all the time?’
‘Doubles. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr—’
‘OK. Would you rather sit in your study reading that ridiculous old nonsense, or – I don’t know – keep the loo seat free from nasty curly pubes?’
Belinda masticated a truffle. It tasted wonderful, like violets. It took her mind off the hurtful implication that her curly pubes were nasty. ‘All right,’ she said warily, ‘I’ll replace Mrs Holdsworth. But I’m keeping Jorkin and Patsy.’
‘It’s your funeral,’ said Viv, and getting up, she started to clear dessert plates.
Stefan leaned across. ‘How about we ask this Linda if she can work for us too? She doesn’t work for you every God’s hour, I think?’
It was the most innocent of questions. But had they heard a suicidal gunshot from the downstairs cloakroom the effect could not have been more Ibsenesque. Viv stood up and knocked over her chair; Jago shot her a meaningful glance; Viv’s eyes widened in anger as she turned to face Belinda.
‘If you do that,’ she said, ‘I warn you, I’ll never speak to you again.’
Belinda laughed. They all did. Maggie even clapped. But Viv was serious. ‘Take my cleaning lady, you ungrateful bitch—’
‘Viv, we’re only talking about a cleaning lady! This is ridiculous.’
Jago chipped in. ‘I know it sounds crazy. Linda’s more than a cleaning lady, that’s all. She has a way of making herself indispensable. And let’s just say—’
‘That’s enough, Jago.’
Belinda fell back in her chair, exhausted. ‘I don’t get it,’ she confessed. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t get it.’
‘Coffee?’ said Viv.
‘I’ll help,’ offered Dermot.
Belinda and Stefan pulled faces at one another.
At the other side of the table, Leon presented Maggie with a perfect, tiny origami racing car, folded out of a napkin. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s anal about that.’
Belinda woke up suddenly. How long she’d been nodding at the table she didn’t know. Noticing Viv was missing from her side, however, she stood up to find her but lurched unexpectedly and almost sat down again. She must be drunk. Jago was now telling Leon a familiar joke about a Jewish widow addressing her husband’s ashes in her hand. ‘“Remember the blow-job you always wanted, Solly?”’
Trying for a second time, she got up successfully and propelled herself towards the door – at which point, she heard Viv on a darkened landing, whispering angrily to Dermot.
‘I wouldn’t mind but she owes everything to me,’ Viv was saying.
‘Belinda’s a real nobody,’ Dermot agreed. ‘A nothing of a nobody.’
Belinda leaned against a wall and listened.
‘I