Salley Vickers - The Other Side of You

Chris was still in the kitchen when we arrived and Denis let us in with his usual exaggerated compliments over Olivia’s appearance. This had once worried me, for Chris’s sake, since she is one of the ugliest women I know. But she is also one of the most likeable and I had come to the conclusion that Denis was genuinely unaffected by physical charms. Or maybe he was just sensible enough to recognise that with Chris he had a gem and to hell with appearances. I admired him for this and it made me obscurely ashamed. Olivia’s glamour had an undoubted appeal, though the appeal had more to do, I think, with how I wanted to be perceived than with a more personal response. Denis’s gallantry was pure good manners: as a skilled diagnostician he recognised Olivia’s need for adoration.

The Buirskis were already drinking wine in the Powells’ untidily hospitable sitting room. Olivia was incapable of getting anywhere on time. I suspected that this was because she liked to make a conspicuous entrance but also because while she was keen on her own shoes she was not much of a one for putting herself in other people’s.

In general Olivia’s self-centredness was indulged. Dan, however, was an exception. He found my wife exasperating and didn’t conceal the fact. And this meant there was often an edginess between them which I would have to smooth down. He made a comment now as we entered the sitting room.

‘Sound the trumpets! The McBrides have graced us with their presence.’

‘Belt up, Buirski,’ I said, ‘and budge up. I want to hold hands with your wife.’

Dan got up and went to poke the fire burning in the grate, which had been ripped out during a renovation of St Christopher’s and would have been dumped for rubbish had not Chris, who had no eye for herself but a magpie’s eye for useful household treasures, rescued it. Barbara Buirski moved along the chesterfield, bought by Chris for thirty quid in an auction, patting the place beside her for me to sit down. Bar was an ex of mine, someone I took up with during one of the ‘off’ periods with Olivia. She was characteristically good-tempered when I explained that Olivia was back and Dan, when I told him, said, ‘You’re mad! Bar Blake is terrific. I’ll have her if you don’t want her.’ And so far as I could tell they’d been happy together. He was right about Bar, she was terrific, but she never got into my bloodstream the way Olivia had.

None of which prevented me from keeping up a flirtatious friendship with Bar. Dan seemed not to mind. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. As for Olivia, I wondered sometimes if she would care if I slept with another woman. I couldn’t say as I’d not tested it, but certainly she was too secure in her own attractions to bother her head about my harmless flirting.

Bar was a dermatologist, a very able one, Denis was a consultant in geriatric psychiatry and Chris, before she had the kids, had been a midwife. So when the six of us got together the conversation was often work-centred, which meant that Olivia, as the only one of us not medically qualified, sometimes played up. She’d been PA to, and mistress of, a high-powered MP when I met her. He’d dropped her like a hot brick when the press got wind of his extra-curricular activities and rapidly returned to the arms of his plain and uncomplicated Southampton wife. I imagine it was this jolt to her self-esteem which propelled Olivia into my unembarrassed arms.

We met over a medical delegation she’d organised to the House of Commons, where I sat beside her at lunch. The button on the sleeve of my jacket got caught in the lace of her blouse. I’m deft-fingered, and I disentangled it with the occasional flamboyance which can visit me when I am not trying too hard. The episode, conducted across the table from the treacherous MP, acted as a tonic to Olivia’s wounded feelings. Looking back, I can see that her animated responses were designed to put the MP in his place, rather than to encourage me to take it. But she was attracted by my doctor’s status, and maybe, too, by my patina of cultural sophistication, though as is often the way, she liked the idea of this more than its manifestations. When we got to know each other better, and she discovered that my flash of extroversion was atypical, I suspect she was shrewd enough to recognise that this had compensations: I was unlikely either to dump her or gainsay her.

Nowadays, Olivia ran a boutique in the smarter part of Brighton. It was a waste of her intelligence but I’d long abandoned my earlier efforts to steer her career and the job seemed to suit her, mainly because much of the stock found its way on to her person.

‘Livy, that’s a fabulous frock. I’m green with envy.’ Bar, the least envious woman alive, was generous with compliments. Privately, I preferred her outfit, which was a pair of well-cut black trousers and a silk shirt. Besides being good-tempered Bar had a good behind.

‘Like it? It’s Gina Frattini.’ Olivia pirouetted, showing off the dress’s elaborately ruffled skirt.

‘I haven’t a clue who Gina Frattini is,’ said Chris, coming out of the kitchen in a pair of filthy trousers, ‘but she’s obviously posh. I’m afraid I’m as you see me, covered in dog hair as usual.’ The Powells had four children and three rowdy dogs. It was debatable which they spoiled more.

‘You’ve worried Dr McB about his trousers now!’ Dan had observed me covertly brushing at them. It was a subject for badinage among the assembled company that I’m fussy about such things.

The dogs had been shut in the kitchen, but after a good deal of barking they were let out, until Cassius, an excitable Labrador, leapt at Olivia’s dress and threatened to rip it, so, to my relief, they were banished again.

Dan, who showed an easy disregard for his clothes but disliked pets, remarked that ‘Olivia’s narcissism’ had ‘its uses’, which I was afraid might lead to one of their scratchy dialogues. I could see Olivia had gone the pink of her dress and fearing she was preparing a retort I lobbed a comment at Dan as a diversion. ‘I saw someone unusual today at Kit’s.’

‘Man or woman?’ asked Dan, who could be readily distracted by an interesting case.

‘Woman. A suicide but not one of your run-of-the-mill sort.’

‘Darling,’ said Olivia, ‘you sound so blasé, poor creatures.’ She hadn’t a grain of true sympathy for anyone misguided enough to land up in a psychiatric hospital.

‘Method?’ asked Dan. ‘D’you mind if I smoke, Chris?’ Dan, who never ate much at the best of times, had left half his first course untouched. Chris wasn’t the greatest cook, but sometimes I wished he would try harder.

‘I mind,’ interjected Denis.

‘That’s why I asked Chris and not you,’ said Dan, lighting up. ‘This is an inter-course break.’ He always made that joke and I was surprised to hear Olivia laugh. We had all long ago given up laughing at it.

‘She seems to have acquired some Soneryl from somewhere, so either she’s a darned poor sleeper or she’s clever.’

‘Darling, no one says “darned” any more,’ said Olivia.

‘Insomniacs are often clever,’ Denis interposed swiftly. ‘There’s nothing to say insomnia addles the wits. Mostly the sign of the sharp ones, in my experience. If you must smoke, Daniel, use an ashtray.’ He removed the plate on to which Dan had been flicking his cigarette and fetched a Stella Artois ashtray, which one of their kids must have taken from the pub.

‘Well, no, I mean, she must have talked someone into giving them to her with a view to bumping herself off. Soneryl’s a barbiturate. Not easy to get,’ I explained for Olivia’s sake. She couldn’t have cared less but I always felt this need to include her in these conversations.

‘She give any reason?’