Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [8]
Patrick and Lucy
They hadn’t eaten the strawberries. Too many late nights and too much champagne. Patrick couldn’t remember how they had arrived on the sofa, or whose idea it had been to switch on the ubiquitous New Year’s Eve shindig, but they were both sprawled across it now, half listening to the enforced gaiety of some daemonic Scotswoman screeching to make herself heard above the roar of a crowd and some even more screechy bagpipes. He thought Lucy might be asleep, but when they started the crescendo of the count-down she shucked herself out from under his arm and nudged him. ‘We should stand up or something.’
‘Why?’
‘You know. See the New Year in.’
‘You’re bonkers.’ She did it for the National Anthem, too.
‘Get up.’ She was on her feet now, dragging at his arm.
‘Three, two, one. HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ Lucy threw up her arms and whisper-shouted. It would be a disaster to wake Ed now. He’d be up for the duration. With her arms still above her head, she added, ‘Feeling a bit daft now.’
Patrick sighed. ‘Luce?’
‘What?’
The phone rang. It was, as she had known it would be, her best friend Marianne, calling from a party. ‘Happy New Year, Luce,’ she roared.
Lucy felt a stab of envy, as she listened to the revelry. Patrick hadn’t wanted to go. ‘And to you. Are you having fun?’
‘So much fun!’ She was drunk. ‘Talk to Alec.’ For a moment Lucy thought the line had gone dead or that Marianne had dropped the phone. Then she heard Alec’s voice.
‘Hello, you.’
‘Happy New Year.’
‘I wish you were here.’
Did she blush? She stepped back from the receiver as though it were on fire, and shouted into it. ‘Yes, Patrick’s right here. Here he is.’
Patrick wasn’t right here at all, but she waited while he stood up and came over, the earpiece clasped to her chest. When he took the phone she went into the kitchen.
She was busy at the sink when he came in behind her. She didn’t turn round. ‘Sounds pretty wild, hey?’
‘Lucy?’ His tone was strained. ‘I’ve lost my job.’
Anna
They’d only had four courses by the time the grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight. Anna wouldn’t have the television on. Immediately, they heard fireworks in the street outside, booming over their own soundtrack of Mozart. It seemed inappropriate to get up, sing and embrace, although Brian blew a kiss at Margaret, and Nicholas saw Clive take Vicky’s hand across the table.
Anna excused herself to get dessert, and Nicholas busied himself pouring champagne into eight flutes.
‘We can’t make a toast until Anna gets back,’ Lindsay protested, when he raised his glass. ‘What’s she up to out there? Shall I go?’
‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ll go. And drink up. It’s sacrilege, you know, to let the bubbles disappear. We’ll have another toast in a minute…’ He opened the door to the kitchen and saw Anna, leaning against the back door, watching next door’s fireworks. ‘You all right, Anna?’ Her shoulders gave one heave, and she made a strange little strangled noise.
He went to her, and she leant into him, crying openly now. ‘What is it, Anna? What on earth is it?’
He was so very rarely allowed to touch her these days, and he so badly wanted to comfort her. For months and months she had been unapproachable, unrecognisable, unassailable. He knew she cried, but she never let him see. He tried to look at her face, pulling her chin up with his finger, but she pulled it away roughly and buried it in his sleeve. They stood still long enough for him to worry that one of the others would come in and find them like this. She’d hate that. And those people were supposed to be their friends… ‘You have to talk to me, darling. We cannot go on like this.’ He felt her nod, and cling to him.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’ He did. ‘I just want to help you.’
‘You can’t help me.’
‘I want to try.’
For a moment she didn’t say anything at all, and then what she said made his blood run cold: ‘Why? I’m nothing.’
Natalie
At the pub, Natalie was finding it hard to cross her arms for ‘Auld