‘We don’t still smell of mothballs do we?’ asked Meg.
A week had passed since they rummaged in the trunk for clothes during which there had been a lot of washing, sewing and ironing going on. Now they were standing in the hall waiting to go to Vanessa’s dinner party.
‘No,’ said David. ‘Now you mostly smell of Lizzie’s scent.’
‘Je Reviens,’ she said. ‘But it’s fine. Vanessa smokes like a chimney so soon we’ll all be smelling of Balkan Sobranie.’ Lizzie was keen to get going. This was her first dinner party and she didn’t want to be late. David was taking them in the car and was going to drop them off on the corner of the London square where Vanessa lived.
Once on Vanessa’s doorstep, Lizzie started to giggle. ‘I’m sorry! It’s nerves! It reminds me of a time when I went with my best friend to visit a boy she liked.’
‘I’m a bit nervous too,’ said Meg. ‘I’m only used to mixing with old people really, not people my own age. And certainly not boys my own age.’
‘Oh come on, they’re only people,’ said Alexandra and pressed the doorbell.
Lizzie was half relieved and half disappointed that the door was opened by a girl who was obviously a guest and not by a butler. They were led to an upstairs drawing room and given glasses of wine. Vanessa wasn’t there, which seemed a bit odd to Lizzie, but it was her first dinner party: maybe it was normal.
She looked around to see what everyone else was wearing. She was relieved to see that they all fitted in with regard to their clothes, although she was aware that everyone else probably bought theirs from Harrods or Harvey Nichols or else had them made by their mother’s dressmaker.
A boy came over to her. ‘I like your dress.’
Lizzie took a breath to tell him that she’d made it herself but then realised he wasn’t looking at her dress but at her cleavage. It hadn’t seemed too much on show when she’d made the dress. She’d consulted the other two girls and they had agreed. This man made her feel it was far too low cut. ‘Thank you,’ she said glumly.
‘How do you know Vanessa?’ he asked. Now Lizzie took time to inspect him she realised he wasn’t what she’d expected to find at a societydinner party. Instead of a dinner jacket, he was wearing a corduroy jacket over a polo-necked shirt.
‘We’re at the same cookery school. How about you?’
‘Friend of a friend,’ he said. ‘Cigarette?’
Lizzie shook her head. She’d never got the hang of smoking. She’d tried it once in a friend’s garage and it had made her feel dreadfully sick and dizzy. Her father had been furious when she’d got home, smelling of cigarette smoke, so she’d never persevered.
She took a breath to say something else although she had no idea what, when she noticed the man who had just come into the room. It was the man she’d met when she was looking at the flat in Tufnell Park. She felt shocked and for a moment didn’t want him to see her and then she realised that was ridiculous, they were at a dinner party. But he might not recognise her. She didn’t want him to: he might somehow guess that she’d spent a lot of time thinking about him.
Vanessa came into the room wearing a gown with spaghetti straps, one of which was halfway down her arm. ‘Sorry, sorry!’ she said. ‘Me and Ted got caught up with something.’ Ted was wearing a leather jacket over a shirt with half the buttons undone, the done ones all wrong. She giggled and looked up at Ted. Then she made a gesture to the man Lizzie had seen. ‘This is my brother, Hugo.Can’t be bothered to introduce everyone. Just introduce yourselves.’
The man she was standing by took hold of Lizzie’s hand and looked down into her eyes. ‘I’m Rich – that’s my name not my financial status.’
‘I’m Lizzie.’ She smiled, glad to have someone to talk to. She drank some more wine and began to relax. ‘So, what do you do?’ she asked, hoping she didn’t sound like one of her mother’s friends.
‘I’m a music journalist,’ said Rich. ‘Do you like music?’
‘Yes,’ said Lizzie. No one would ever say they didn’t like music but did she like the same sort of music that Rich did? Probably not. He would mock her musical taste: she could tell just by looking at him.
To her enormous relief, a woman in an apron, obviously one of the caterers, appeared. ‘Dinner is ready,’ she said.
It seemed that they weren’t eating in the formal dining room, but in the basement, probably because of its proximity to the kitchen. As everyone wound their way down the stairs, Lizzie, who’d realised her dress was just a bit too long and hiked it up a bit, heard a voice.
‘Hello! I know you! You were at that ghastly flat!’ It was Vanessa’s brother, Hugo.
Lizzie smiled. He had recognised her, which was embarrassing, but at least she was prepared. ‘Oh yes!’ she said. ‘Did you take it?’
‘No. Better to go on living with my parents than suffer running water down the walls.’ He paused to let another couple go ahead. ‘I’m Hugo Lennox-Stanley.’
‘Lizzie Spencer.’
‘Hello, Lizzie.’ He looked at her with a slightly quizzical look that Lizzie didn’t understand.
Then Lizzie received a shove in the back that nearly made her stumble.
‘Hugo, darling, would you mind getting a move on? You’re holding everyone up.’
