Chapter 12

The first Saturday of February saw Warwick in traditional stance.  A stance so mobile, though, it qualified as choreography – the ‘Dad’s birthday party shuffle.’  Bobbing from foot to foot, hands behind back for the odd two minutes when he wasn’t hugging people, fidgeting with the bow tie he felt such a prize spanner wearing, and monitoring every crawl of his watch hands.

There was consolation, though, in it being Warwick’s last do as Dad’s employee.  His presence would be demanded next year too of course – but perhaps by then he could invent a field trip, or a stack of essays that he simply couldn’t put off? 

Warwick smirked at the thought, concealing his face by bowing over his watch yet again.  Only seven forty-eight.  And forty-two seconds.

Remarks like ‘Bit of a choker that, eh, Ron?’ wafted across the golf club all evening.
Anyone would think I’d abdicated as King.

The only guests who might have been of interest to Warwick – Frank and Christine Osbourne – had declined their invitation.  ‘They’ll be visiting Dommy-doms, apparently,’ was Ronnie’s sneering explanation.  ‘Probably another comet in the offing.’

Not wishing to meet eyes, Warwick riveted his to inanimate objects.  The table of raffle prizes; the trophy cabinet; the plaque of captains on the wall – its annually added names the only thing that changed about these dos.  Dad didn’t even play golf – beyond the occasional putt at the Upper B club, to fulfil yet another cliché: that golf was the pastime of moneyed, middle-aged men.

Another watch check.  Seven fifty-one and twenty seconds.

A boozy whoop made his teeth prickle.  It was Sue, with her arm around Chancey, laughing gum-exposingly at something Ronnie was saying.  Last time Warwick saw Heidi’s gaudy parents was over breakfast after a late night at Chance mansions.  He’d been witness to the tableau of them squabbling, loud and raspingly Black Country, in monogrammed orange dressing gowns.

Warwick was surprised they’d come, and had no yearning to reacquaint with them.  He couldn’t hear, but Lionel Chance had said ‘No hard feelings, Ron.  In fact our Heid’ll be along in a bit – with her new fella.  From Lower B, he is, but a proper gent.  Coulda come in the taxi with us, but insisted on fetching Heidi and escorting her here himself.’

‘Heid met him through his sister Robyn, who’s her mate from the flower shop.  Now there’s the sorta wench you’d want a-working for you.  Right little entrepreneur.’

‘Where’s the delectable Heidi this year?’  Dennis Passey, another overweening Rotarian, nudged Warwick blokishly – once done with the ‘So what’s this about you going back to school?’ routine.

‘She won’t be coming, we broke up.’  Warwick couldn’t bear Dennis, whose drooling whisky blasts practically melted Heidi’s boob job last year and who was known to be ‘knocking off’ – as the parlance would have it – his much younger next door neighbour Elaine.

‘Can’t fight the girls off forever.’  His wife Noreen, who was clinging off Dennis as though doing an abseil down him, play-thumped Warwick, all grandma-ishly flirtatious, making the ice in her huge gin and tonic lurch.  ‘Gorra settle down sometime, y’know.’

‘Her folks are here, though,’ Dennis interrupted, pointing his cigar at Chancey and Sue.  ‘I need to collar Chancey myself, about that little Audi I’m hoping to get for you, my love.’

To ease your adulterous conscience, no doubt.  Warwick wondered, as Dennis nuzzled pissed little Noreen, if she had the foggiest about her husband’s extracurricular deception.

‘Meantime, we’ll have to find you a new bride, young Warwick.’  Noreen nudged him energetically again, and he was practically gassed by her cat-pee perfume. 

‘Anyone catch your eye?’

‘She’s all right,’ Dennis did a little phallic waggle with the cigar – then let it droop as a lanky young man ambled in behind the figure of his approval.  ‘Oh, but hard luck, she’s with a chap.’

She was ‘all right’ actually – in demure black: a handkerchief-point, long-sleeved dress which would have looked drab on a twiggier girl.  It revealed nothing, but with her killer body providing plenty of hints it didn’t need to.  Her tawny hair was twined into a side bun below her right ear, with a few escaping wisps to save the look from starchiness.

Then the self-conscious young woman overlooked the ‘Mind the step’ warning and tellingly lurched into the room cursing ‘Shite!’

‘Hello Heidi,’ Warwick smirked, ‘enjoy your trip?’

‘This’ll knock Wozzy-boy’s eyes out,’ Rob had assured Heidi as she twizzled up her friend’s hair (newly dyed a less brassy brown) in the florist flat.  ‘You’ll be the belle of the golf ball tonight, and he’ll wallop himself up the bum for chucking you.’

‘You sure?’  Heidi gurned at the mirror.  The hairdo felt Victorian, and this black hanky point thing of Rob’s really wasn’t her.  Heidi’s calves were sweating: she hadn’t worn a skirt below her knees since school – and even then she’d folded the hem up (warranting a detention). 

‘Course!  Nothing gets an ex seething more than if you bounce back with a new image and a new bloke.  Wish I could come, and see the look on his face.  There!’  She waved a make-up mirror behind Heidi so she could examine the back.  The girl certainly had a way with Kirby grips.

Pity she couldn’t do something about my bloody feet, Heidi thought now, hiding in the toilets to which Warwick directed her two years ago, dipping tissues under the cold tap to swab across her eyes.  In the mirror she looked snuffly and overdone, like a sad child in granny clothes.

Arrogant tosser – he so isn’t worth this.  Guess he wasn’t right for me after all.  I come here to teach him a lesson and end up looking the fool.

His expression when she fell absolutely stung her.  Even here, where they met, he exhibited no warmth; no sense that this setting held any poignancy for either of them.

Warwick was such a gentleman then.  He’d even wanted to marry her –for about five minutes.  He didn’t know how she cherished his dissimilarity to the squash club mob; how touched she was that a guy didn’t want to merely jump her then bog off in his Porsche.  She even misread his lack of an invitation to cohabit as a sign of old-fashioned restraint.  He had no idea how he’d bolstered her.  What Warwick took for conceit in her was actually confidence he’d engendered. 

A horse-nosed woman in pearls came in, recognised Heidi and trotted into the cubicle with ill-hidden amusement.  Heidi hurled her pappy tissue into the bin, imagining it splatting against that woman’s face (or Warwick’s) and, with a final determined sniff, marched out.

I wish I hadn’t bothered with all this.  I’ll see if Rowan wants to go home soon – think I’ve ruined the poor guy’s evening enough.

In fact Rowan’s Saturday was being pepped up no end.  He harboured no designs on Heidi, and she knew it (his heart – and other responsive body parts – since New Year having throbbed only for the sadly spoken-for Emily).  There were worse ways to spend a night, though, than chewing vol-au-vents with the rich while testing untapped thespian prowess.

His ‘besotted new boyfriend’ act got an airing earlier than expected, when he found himself next to Warwick at the bar.

‘You’re seeing Heidi now then?’ Warwick queried.  He reminded Rowan of certain business account holders at the bank.  Heidi’s got her faults, but she can do better this smug nob. 

Instantly defensive of his bogus lover, Rowan gushed: ‘Fantastic girl, isn’t she?’

‘She has her moments.’

‘I really like her.  When I met her, she was,’ he dropped his voice theatrically discreetly, ‘in a bit of a state.  Distraught actually, after, you know, what happened.  But she’s turned her life around.  My sister’s got her working in the shop, and even roped her into line dancing, and – ’

‘Heidi working?’  Warwick almost gagged on his whiskey.  ‘Which shop?’

‘The florists.’

Such country insularity amused Warwick – as though there was only one florists in the entire world.  ‘Which one?’ he prompted kindly.

‘Moss & Petals.’

‘That’s your sister?’

Heidi was back – her eyes inflamed, but her expression was one of brittle defiance.
‘Oh, hello darling.  I got you a Malibu and coke.’

‘You’re an angel.’  She smiled thankfully at Rowan, noticing that his concern as he hugged her around the waist was at any rate genuine.  ‘Hello Warwick,’ she added with considerably less zeal.

‘Just getting acquainted with Rowan here.  He tells me you’re a florist now.’

‘Not quite.  I’m helping Ro’s sister Robyn out, on the advertising side.  Rob’s a genius with flowers.  She’s doing Zara’s bouquets, you know.’

‘I see.  I couldn’t quite picture you with soil down your nails.  Wouldn’t have thought village florals would be good enough for Zara either.’  Zara and Marcus were unfortunately mutual friends, of whose wedding – at Alveley Manor, Warwick and Heidi’s one-time venue – he hadn’t escaped the guest list.

‘Not a bit of it.  Rob’s a florist to the stars.’

‘Impressive.  And how’s the line dancing?’

‘Good fun.’  Heidi tried not to picture the teabag-sized bruise splattered across her left buttock from a botched cha-cha slide.  That community centre floor was hard, and some of those village biddies had a good snigger behind their hands.  Rob, though, offered Heidi a hand up, and a kindly ‘Stilettos aren’t really the best for line dancing.’

‘Anyway, Woz…Warwick, what’s this rumour Daddy tells me about you going to university?’

‘University.  Yes, I’m finally going to live my dream and train as a teacher.’

‘Like Erin?’  She still couldn’t say it without spitting (rather a feat for a name with no sibilant consonants). 

‘Like her.  Been doing A-levels at Wolverhampton College in the evenings, to enable me to get on to the degree course.  You remember I was never able to meet you on Tuesdays and Thursdays, by the way?  Well that’s where I used to go.  Got two Bs.  I never told you about it, obviously, as I knew you wouldn’t be the slightest bit interested.’

‘Bet your dad’s pissed off.’

‘Just a tad.  He always said teaching was for lily-livered liberals.  But he’s stamping on my ambitions no longer.  So looks like we’re both moving onwards and ever upwards in our lives.’

‘Totally.’  Heidi slammed her drink down her throat.  She was finished here now, with this daft ruse, with Warwick, with these people.  ‘Let’s get going, eh, Ro?’

Rowan looked quizzical.  ‘We’ve only just arrived.’

‘I know, but this party’s boring and – ’ Heidi flickered her hand around his bum and whispered an entreaty in which the words ‘horny’ and ‘shag’ were pointedly audible – what she actually said was ‘This is backfiring.  I wanna get out of here – pretend we’re horny and sneaking off for a shag!’

‘Wicked girl,’ Rowan sniggered, acting his socks off now.  He annihilated his lager shandy in apparent lusty haste.  ‘Gotta go mate, sorry, bye.  Good to meet you, though.’

‘Yeah – ta-ra Warwick.’

Heidi and Rowan bustled out, giggling like schoolchildren, leaving Warwick nonplussed at the bar.