It's Got To Be Perfect

Chapter 5

‘GOOD AFTERNOON, MRS RIGBY.’ The coiffed estate agent held out his hand.

I fixed my gaze on his tie. I couldn’t stand to look at the house in its entirety.

‘It’s Miss,’ I said, staring at yellow stripes on baby-blue silk and trying to ignore the bay windows that seemed to be taunting me in my peripheral vision.

‘Yes, of course. Shall we take a look around then?’

My stomach tightened and I wondered if this wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever had. Matthew had diagnosed me as ‘borderline psychotic’ once I’d told him that I’d made an appointment to view the house Robert and I were once going to buy. He said that it was tantamount to kissing the cold corpse of a loved one as a means to say goodbye.

‘The front door is all original. Beautiful detail in the stained glass,’ the estate agent said, stroking the frame.

I followed him into the hallway and took a sharp breath.

‘Magnificent entrance, don’t you think, Mrs Rigby? Ten-foot ceilings. Original panelling. Simply stunning.’

I nodded, swallowing hard.

‘Expansive lateral space. Great for entertaining.’ The estate agent wandered off towards the kitchen.

I looked around at the oak floors and marble fireplaces and I felt a weight pressing on my chest. I thought back to the last time I was in this house: skipping over the threshold with Robert at my side and a three-carat diamond on my finger. Back when my head was buzzing, a confetti-coloured future dancing around my mind. But now, as I stood in the hallway, staring up the grand staircase, I realised that the life I had planned to live in this house—the dinner parties, the children, the love, the laughter, the miniature schnauzer—would never be mine.

‘Mrs Rigby,’ the estate agent called. ‘Come through to the kitchen.’

I walked down the passage, towards the back of the house and into the open-plan kitchen. It was flooded with light and exactly as I remembered: a white gloss handleless heaven. I stared at the granite surfaces, where I’d imagined being creative with the contents of an organic produce box, then at the walls, where I’d envisaged hanging thoughtfully collected paintings from upcoming artists, then finally at the breakfast table where I’d foreseen bustling family mealtimes with cheeky yet cherubic children.

The bi-folding doors were open onto the garden, where mature trees erupted from a lush green lawn. A rope swing was swaying in the breeze, as though the spirits of my imagined offspring had refused to leave. No one could blame them.

‘You won’t get a better family home in London,’ he said, opening the kitchen drawers so he could then demonstrate the self-closing mechanism. ‘Do you and your partner have children, Mrs Rigby?’

Suddenly, I felt flushed, my heart rate quickened. ‘Er, not yet,’ I stammered, waving the question away.

The agent winked as though somehow he’d mistakenly gleaned that I were about to bear a litter of ankle-biters.

‘Wait until you see the nursery,’ he said, beaming.

I looked around the room. The sunlight bounced off the white gloss units and into my eyes. Bounce. I rubbed my temples. Bounce. My skin felt hot. Bounce. The light seemed to grow brighter and whiter. Bounce. Bounce. My vision blurred and suddenly sharp pain shot through my head.

‘Mrs Rigby? Mrs Rigby? Are you okay?’

I regained consciousness to find the estate agent fanning me with the property pamphlet.

‘Mrs Rigby?’

The image on the front moved closer then further away, then closer. I could feel the dizziness returning. Closer, then further away, then closer.

‘Can I get you a glass of water, Mrs Rigby?’

I snatched the pamphlet from him and threw it to the ground.

He looked startled. Then he smoothed down his tie and pretended to check his watch. ‘Perhaps we should resume the viewing when you’re feeling better, Mrs Rigby?’

I glared at him. ‘It’s Miss,’ I said, clambering to my feet. ‘Not Mrs.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Let’s chat next week, Miss Rigby.’

I had one last look around, kissing the cold corpse on the head, then the agent closed the door behind us. He was right. It would make someone else the perfect family home.

‘What do you mean there aren’t enough champagne glasses?’ raged Cordelia, throwing up her arms, as though she were initiating an angry version of the Mexican wave. ‘This is outrageous!’

Steve took a step back and blinked. ‘I was told that one hundred and fifty people were coming,’ he answered in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘So there are one hundred and fifty glasses.’

He pointed to the table where they stood, looking all polished and proud.

I raised my hand tentatively. ‘There are more people coming than I—’

Cordelia interrupted, still glaring at Steve. ‘We have three hundred guests arriving in—’ she checked her watch ‘—oh, fifteen minutes. They’re each expecting champagne on arrival so you’d better have this resolved.’

With a hair flick that signalled the conversation was over, she flounced off, the length of her stride impaired by the tightness of her pencil skirt. In repose, she looked like a forties screen siren in her skin-tight black-and-white monochrome outfit, but when she walked, particularly at any speed, she assumed the gait of an elongated penguin.

Kat jumped up and down on the spot, her dark bob lifting and falling like a jellyfish on a mission.

‘Champagne cocktails,’ she declared on the final bounce, but our vacant expressions clearly signalled a need for further explanation. ‘In cocktail glasses?’ She peered over the bar. ‘Looks like you’ve got enough of those. We’ll need to name it something in theme, like …’ She paused and put her finger on her chin ‘Cupid’s Crush or Sexy Slush.’

Steve smirked. ‘Sexy Slush?’

‘I don’t think Cupid has a crush,’ I added, immediately aware that it was in no way constructive.

‘Have you got any rose petals?’ Kat suggested ‘Or lychees? I’ll call Mario at Zuma. He knows exactly what to do with a lychee.’

Steve scrunched up his face. ‘One hundred and fifty cocktails in fifty minutes—they’ll get what they get.’

‘Let me help.’ Kat jumped up onto the bar, flipped her legs over and landed, quite acrobatically, on the other side. Brigitte popped up as though she had been hiding there all along.

‘I weel ‘elp Steve,’ Brigitte said, lunging towards him, boobs bursting out of a flimsy halter-necked top.

When I suggested to Brigitte that, given she was the receptionist, she might be best placed greeting the guests at reception, she spun around, rising on her heels. Her green eyes narrowed to slits and she hissed something in French that Cordelia later translated to ‘stupid pouting horse’.

By eight p.m., aside from three hundred luminous pink cocktails lined up like a Texan beauty pageant, the bar was a vision of understated elegance. Cushions lay strewn across the sofas, while freshly plucked flowers leant against crystal vases like models draped over yachts. To the haunting sounds of Bar Grooves as it echoed through the vaults, shadows moved across the walls like the ghosts of parties past.

In the bronze gilt mirror suspended on the wall, a girl looked back at me, the optimism of her orange dress almost enough to distract from the apprehension in her eyes.

‘You look gorgeous,’ Steve said after I’d caught him watching me.

My shoes pinched, my bra was too tight and it was an effort to hold in my tummy. Funny how looking good means feeling bad, I thought as I picked up one of the overdressed cocktails. Only after I’d fought my way through the tacky paraphernalia, and mastered the curly straw, did I feel the warmth of the alcohol burn in my stomach and spread through my veins.

By the time my muscles had started to relax and my breathing had slowed, excited voices began to trickle down the staircase and groups of girls flooded into the bar like migrating salmon. Modelling this season’s Gucci and Dior, they strode into the room with the veneer of a Miss World procession. Pilates-sculpted muscles were vacuum-packed in spa-fresh skin, and finished with St Tropez tans. Hair shone the L’Oreal spectrum of shades from deep chestnut to champagne blonde. Nature’s flaws were concealed by MAC, nature’s blessings were enhanced by shimmer.

A girl with a Heidi Klum body walked down the staircase and straight towards me. ‘Where are the men?’ she asked, scanning the room like an assassin.

I checked my watch. It was eight-ten p.m. ‘They’ll be here soon,’ I said.

She glared at me as though she expected me to produce one from my pocket. I ushered her towards the cocktails.

‘Would you like one?’ I asked.

She took a glass, holding it away from her as though it might explode at any moment.

‘It’s a Cherry Plucker,’ I said, trying to match the enthusiasm with which Kat and Steve had christened it.

Using the umbrella as a probe, she examined the contents with the precision of a pathologist, eventually retrieving a freakishly large cherry, which she held aloft, as though she had located the tumour that had turned an otherwise good cocktail bad. She handed me the glass, but retained the cherry presumably to send it for further testing. With a cocktail in each hand, I took a large gulp of each and then smiled, feeling like a politician at a press conference, making a point out of eating a GM vegetable. As the sugary syrup lined my throat, I looked up to see two men strutting down the staircase side by side, all cheekbones and jawlines. It was Mike and Stephen whom we’d met at the champagne bar.

Throwing the cherry to the ground, Heidi Klum, along with what Steve had described as the ‘Stepford-Wives-in-waiting’, moved towards them like starved piranhas. I took another sip from each cocktail and wondered when it was that the hunters had become the hunted.

Next down the staircase was a pair of pneumatic blondes, teetering and tottering with almost contrived instability. Their bottoms were lifted by five-inch heels and their pretty faces were eclipsed by giant yellow hair. Almond-shaped nipples poked through white vests, and mahogany-stained legs protruded from bottom-skimming skirts. At a glance, they could have been twins. Like dogs and their owners, I thought as I walked towards them, it’s funny how friends grow to look the same.

‘Hiya. I’m Stacey.’ The prettiest one introduced herself. ‘And this is Lacey.’ She pointed at her friend.

‘Where are the men?’ Lacey asked, scouring the room, her pupils constricted like those of a lioness.

‘There are two in there,’ I said, pointing to the crowd that I suspected contained Mike and Stephen. Stacey laughed, but Lacey just looked confused. I checked my watch again: it was eight-twenty p.m. ‘They’ll be here soon,’ I said, before walking away.

I found Kat at the bar, laughing and leaning towards Steve. His attentions were alternating between the cocktail production line and her cleavage, which had a cherry wedged in it.

‘Do they require a garnish now?’ I asked, pulling the cherry out.

She laughed. ‘Lighten up, stresshead.’

I pulled myself onto a bar stool. ‘Where are the men?’

We both turned to Steve as though he were the spokesperson for the entire male species.

‘Men don’t arrive to parties on time,’ he said, pushing another cherry into Kat’s cleavage.

‘But the girls have made the effort to be here,’ I said, pulling the cherry out and lobbing it towards the bin. I missed.

Steve frowned and then picked another one from the overfilled jar in front of him. ‘Desperate,’ he said, handing it to Kat.

‘It’s a singles party. There’s no need to play hard to get,’ she said before popping it in her mouth.

‘That’s the only way to play,’ he replied, screwing the lid on the jar.

It was just before nine p.m. when the rest of the men started to arrive. The beat of the music quickened as Omega watches, Dunhill cufflinks, Church’s shoes and Dax-waxed hair piled into the bar. Musky cologne overpowered the fading vanilla notes and the air grew thick and heady.

While the women had claimed the sofas, the men commandeered the bar, jostling for position and ordering rounds as though their spend was directly proportional to their self-worth. Once the pecking order had been established, the dominant males leant back expansively while the girls eyed up the contents of their ice buckets.

Last into the pit were two men wearing Diesel jeans and Paul Smith jackets, their hair styled as though they’d arrived via a wind tunnel. Cordelia informed me they were entrepreneurs, the co-founders of a well-known online business, which had recently floated on the Stock Exchange. Stacey and Lacey tottered over at their fastest speed, but two brunettes got there first, targeting the men with what looked like a well-rehearsed pincer movement. Their smiles were demure, but their eyes betrayed an excited recognition.

‘Do they already know each other?’ I asked Cordelia.

She let out a dramatic sigh. ‘They were listed as The Times’ most eligible bachelors last week. Everyone knows them. Ellie, you have to sharpen up.’

As the night progressed, the assets stretched: American Express pre-authorised inflated bar bills and the girls hammed up their sexiness. While the men with the biggest budgets gained territory around the bar, it was the girls wearing the least clothes who secured the most champagne, only to be usurped by those who were grinding against pillars or pretending to be lesbians.