‘Let’s go through. Away from the madness,’ she says in a conspiratorial murmur. ‘I’m dying to show you some new paintings I’ve bought.’
The paintings are hung in the corridor and turn out to be pink blobby close-ups of female anatomy: navel here, earlobe there, a tongue entwined with an orchid bloom and so on.
‘Very nice,’ I lie.
She opens the door into the drawing room. The Jarvises are already installed on one of the sage-green sofas.
‘Martin,’ Jarvis says, groaning slightly as he pushes his heft upright. ‘I heard you were here. What an unexpected surprise.’
‘I suppose surprises are, by their nature, unexpected,’ I say.
He shakes my hand, drops it and turns to Serena.
‘Serena. Looking lovely as always.’
He kisses her on both cheeks. His wife stands next to him in a brown and yellow patterned skirt which resembles a pair of grandmotherly curtains.
Bitsy Jarvis is exactly as I remember her, which is to say hardly at all. Her defining characteristic is that she is thoroughly unmemorable, as if someone has inexpertly sketched her silhouette, blurring her features with uncertain pencil lines in case it was all a mistake and had to be rubbed out and started again.
‘Bitsy, isn’t it?’ I say.
She is taken aback I know her name.
‘What? Oh. Yes. Yes.’ She proffers a hand, limp as freshly washed lettuce. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t recall our having met …?’
‘Martin,’ I say, silently listing every single occasion I’ve been forced to make painful small talk with her in corners at Fitzmaurice dinners and parties and fundraisers. Ponies and school fees and the difficulties of finding parking in the centre of town.
‘Martin Gilmour.’
‘Of course.’ Her face remains blank. ‘And what brings you to this … this …’ She waves her hand around the room.
‘Part of the world? Ben invited me. We’ve recently reconnected.’
Across the room, Serena catches my eye and gives a little moue of sympathy. Behind her is a tall walnut bookshelf, the wood polished to a slippery sheen. Books occupy a lower shelf. The higher ones arepunctuated with artful trinkets and silver-framed photographs: Serena and Ben on their wedding day; the two of them windswept on a beach in the sunshine with their children; Ben arm in arm with Jarvis in black tie; Ben standing outside the Houses of Parliament with his parents; Fliss, Ben and their long-dead sibling Magnus.
None of me, naturally. I’ve been airbrushed out.
‘Ben, we forgot logs for the fire,’ Serena says.
‘A fire?’ he says. ‘In this weather?’
‘It’s for atmosphere,’ she says, signalling for him to follow her out of the room.
They leave and I am trapped by Bitsy.
‘But how do you fit in with the Fitzmaurices?’ she asks me now.
‘We were best friends at Burtonbury.’
‘Burtonbury!’ she exclaims. ‘That can’t be so.’
I wait.
‘My husband was at Burtonbury,’ she says.
‘Yes.’
She pushes her head back, so that her chin is almost entirely swallowed by her neck.
