Marianne Macdonald
From The Lotus Eaters, published by William
Heinemann, 1 March 2007
Heads turned and a bus driver honked as Patty hustled over Oxford Street. ‘The thing about underwear,’ she observed, as we queued for the changing rooms, ‘is the minute you turn thirty you get a craving for it. Like coke. Except I hate cokeheads. They’re so unimaginative. At least smackies are poetic.’
She wandered into a cubicle and began undressing, not bothering to draw the curtain. ‘When I’m married,’ she said, ‘I’m going to cook. I’ll going to have a big country kitchen. And a study. And a grandfather clock.’
‘Well, there’s no rush.’
‘There is! I’m getting wrinkles! I’m running out of time! Oh, this one’s sexy.’
She materialised topless in front of me, in a pair of shocking pink lace knickers.
‘Patty!’
‘What? It’s only titties.’ But she stepped into her cubicle. ‘Ramzi says he might get married if he meets the right girl,’ she went on, muffled. ‘But he doesn’t like to be pinned down – he hates people telling him what to do. Oh, I like this one.’
She re-emerged, this time clothed. ‘And he’s unbelievable in bed. Better than anyone.’
‘Where did you meet?’
‘At LAX.’ She walked to the till, dangling a yellow bra. ‘I’m going to get this. It reminds me of buttercups: we had a field of them behind our house. Yeah, so it was really weird. I was at LAX, drinking a glass of Moët, because I was kind of sad, in a way, to be leaving. I’d had a bunch of fun
there, and I hadn’t got anywhere: I wasn’t this great big star. And I was thinking I was getting old, and about Ed, because we used to drink there, and wishing someone would rescue me, like a white knight on a charger, when he came up and said “hi”.’
Her face lit with remembered joy; the woman at the checkout, matronly, with grey hair, gave a startled smile.
‘And he put down his beer and said, “There are only three reasons a beautiful woman looks sad at an airport. The first is that her husband is having an affair. The second is she is leaving her lover. And the third’ – she frowned. ‘I can’t remember the third.’ She took the bag. ‘Thank you. Then he bought a whole bottle of Moët, and we got talking, and he was just really, really nice. He said the same as you, by the way, about Ed – that I was better off without him.’
‘I bet he did.’
‘And he was really sweet about me leaving LA. He said I was bound to get better parts in England, because there was less competition. Not in a bad way. He could see how serious I was about acting.’
She stepped onto the escalator, laying her bitten hand on the rail. ‘And then we slept together and it was brilliant. We had this instant connection.’
‘Wow. Straightaway?’
‘In the disabled toilet. It was pretty big. And we sat together on the flight. He had a first class ticket, but he came to sit in economy. He’s English. He lives in London.’
‘God. That’s – that’s fast.’
‘How do you mean?’ Patty’s face pinched and darkened; she folded her arms.
‘Well: nothing. Just that it was – fast.’
She walked to the next escalator. Every part of her seemed to droop: I felt terrible. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
She hugged herself, frowning. ‘I’m not.’
But she was. ‘What about a glass of champagne?’ I coaxed. ‘To say sorry?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Go on. You haven’t told me about his star sign yet.’
‘That’s true,’ she said. She shot me a look and she giggled.
