Danny asked, ‘Is it too much?’
She shook her head.
‘You look dashing – like the tennis coach in a country mansion murder mystery.’
Danny imagined the character, not the owner of the estate but the man teaching the aristocrats. By contrast Emma’s clothes captured the essence of summer joy without being anything as tacky as a costume, such as this dress by Alice Temperley, the pattern so vivid it was as though real meadow flowers had been snatched from the field and stitched directly onto the fabric.
‘Please tell me I’m not the only one in fancy dress?’
Ducking the question she said, ‘Let’s fix you a drink.’
They entered a glass conservatory with the doors thrown open, leading to a stone-walled garden where some fifty guests were gathered, their children playing on a padded plaid blanket spread on the lawn. At the back of the garden evening sunlight broke through the branches of a chestnut tree. An unseen neighbour was hosting a barbecue, their grill throwing up wisps of charcoal smoke which, at most parties, wouldhave been an irritation but tonight swirled above the heads of the guests, catching the rays of sun as if there was nothing in this world which couldn’t be corralled to Emma’s advantage.
A buffet was spread across several tables, bowls of green pea salad, plates of buttered asparagus and a whole poached salmon. There were pitchers of summer punch with cubes of melon and sprigs of fresh mint. If it wasn’t for the presence of waiters in crisp white shirts and beige canvas aprons circulating with champagne it would have been difficult to guess that the party had been catered. Emma set Danny’s cake on the dessert table among bowls of quartered strawberries. As he feared, the frosting had slipped, losing some of its firmness. Noticing his disappointment Emma picked up a serving knife and extracted the disfigured portion of the cake, a small but perfectly formed act of kindness.
‘Why don’t you help yourself and head outside?’
With that, Danny was on his own.
Deciding against taking any food he toyed with the idea of abandoning the tennis racket. In the end he kept it. Without the prop people might wonder if these were his regular clothes. He stepped into the garden, racket in one hand, a glass of punch in the other. The men were dressed in cotton suits with blue shirts, a few with Panama hats trimmed with a traditional grosgrain ribbon. The women were wearing white dresses with oversized belts – a collection of clothes curated for a summer catalogue.
Unable to spy an inroad to any of the conversations, Danny found himself at the end of the garden examining the vegetable patch and herb garden. Sipping the punch, a blend of spiced rum, pineapple pulp and fresh ginger, he crouched down to attend to the rosemary as though he were the genial gardener who had been asked to join the party and didn’t feel comfortable talking to the other guests. It was at this point that he heard his name being called and turned to see John approaching, guessing that Emma had dispatched her husband to interrupt his self-imposed exile. They shook hands with the grip of men concluding negotiations for an oilfield deal and Danny congratulated him on twenty years of marriage.
‘Thank you, yes, hard to believe. I’ve no idea where the time has gone.’
Danny thought about the townhouse, the garden, the three children, the lauded career and the country cottage in the Cotswolds. Instead, he observed, ‘You know that Luis and me—’
He corrected himself.
‘Luis and I, we’ve been together for twenty years.’
John adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses, considering this fact as if not entirely sure of it.
‘We have known you two for a long time.’
More than that, Danny thought.
‘Luis brought me to your wedding.’
Belatedly warming to the subject, John nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. I remember now. Three years I’d worked with the fellow and no one in the office had a clue about his personal life. He was a handsome Spanish enigma. When we invited him to the wedding, we insisted that he bring a guest. To flush him out. We all wondered what kind of girl he’d bring.’
Luis’s invitation to Danny had been his way of coming out to his colleagues.
‘I’m his kind of girl.’
John laughed uncertainly.
‘Yes, I suppose you are. None of us had guessed that he was gay. You broke a lot of girls’ hearts, I can tell you.’
Sensing that he’d said something clumsy he hastily added, ‘Anyway, twenty years, huh?’
Danny reformulated the point.
‘For as long as you’ve been married.’
John mused, ‘It was on off for a while, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
