One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [26]
Letty had heard the car and come to open the door. She was wearing cropped jeans and an oversized man’s blue shirt and her feet were bare. Without the heels she’d worn at the graduation I realized she was tiny. Her long blonde hair was slightly tangled, and her huge, luminous grey eyes beautiful. I seemed to be catching my breath a lot today. She welcomed us warmly, ushering me in, kissing Dominic, who held her tight and kissed her hard on the lips, which surprised me.
‘We don’t usually snog when we see each other,’ she assured me, seeing my face, ‘but I’ve been down here all week.’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘Normally I come up to town, but I’ve been as sick as a dog. Thought I’d rather lie in a shady garden and puke than puke in London.’
I was about to enquire, sympathize, when I realized her tummy was slightly swollen. I was too young to know what to say to pregnant women. Finally I managed, ‘Congratulations.’
She grimaced. ‘Thanks. Come on, come through. Even I’m allowed one glass of wine. We’ll crack open a bottle.’
We did; a very cold white one, which she grabbed from the fridge as she padded around the kitchen in bare feet, Dire Straits blaring, chatting away, hair swinging: an easy grace. And then out of the French doors we went to a terrace at the back, where a table sat under a wooden pergola dripping with ancient pink clematis. The sun was still low and unseasonably warm in the sky, and there was a view of the hills, sheep in the meadow, a brook at the bottom, the lot.
‘So you slipped through Katya’s radar? I can’t imagine how she let that happen; you’re far too pretty!’ she grinned at me, as Dominic brought out the glasses. ‘Crisps, darling?’ She glanced at him.
‘Have we got any?’
‘In the larder.’
He turned back, and I thought, all week I’ve seen this godlike figure telling everyone else what to do, and now here he was, obediently trotting back to the larder.
‘In a bowl!’ Letty called after him, just as he reappeared with a huge packet. He stopped and went back to get one from under the island.
‘Hattie rather cunningly became indispensable,’ he explained as he rejoined us. ‘So Katya was effectively kiboshed. Didn’t have a leg to stand on.’
‘I think she’s happy enough now, though,’ I said loyally. Katya had actually been very kind to me.
‘I doubt it. But I should think she’s relieved you’re not Estelle Butcher!’ Letty giggled and sipped her wine. ‘Ooh, that’s good. First of the day.’
‘Estelle Butcher?’
‘Mike Katz’s private PA,’ she explained as Dominic rolled his eyes to heaven. ‘Big tits, short skirts, French too – hot. She’s deeply in love with Dom, pantingly so, and has been itching to join the department, which would have sent Katya reeling. The other day she asked if he played squash, and when he said no, she said, “Shame.” ’ Letty affected a husky French accent. ‘ “I want to do something sportif wiz you.” ’ She snorted. ‘Katya nearly had to be given brandy.’
As she giggled into her wine, I regarded this merry, lively girl: clearly aware that half of Westminster fancied her husband, certainly aware that at least two women were in love with him, and not just the repressed Katya, but Estelle too, whose description I now recognized, and who was indeed one very saucy, clever babe. Yet there she was, laughing and confident, in the country all week, not batting an eyelid. And I could see why. Why would he want more? Why, when he came home to this beautiful creature who looked no older than me, but must have been a good eight years, who was having his baby, in this deeply settled domestic scene, in this perfect house, with its creepers round the door, basking in a secret fold of the Buckinghamshire hills? Why would she be even faintly worried?
As the sun sank, rosy and glowing in the sky, settling almost in benediction on the pair of them, on their shiny blond heads, a deep sigh unfolded from the soles of my trainers. I tucked them under my chair, aware how vast they looked beside her tiny bare toes, and reached for the crisps. I’d been starving myself