My Secret Lover

notice.
     
    ‘This is mv sister Lydia!’
    ‘Hello!’
    ‘Drink?’ Joanna’s husband Vladimir
asks.
    Vladimir sounds Russian, but is in fact American. It’s
the sort of exotic but eminently sensible combination that Joanna goes for.
They honeymooned in India, ferried from luxury hotel to Maharaja’s palace in a
white convertible Bentley. In the movie, Vladimir would be a younger Michael
Douglas because of the Slav cheekbones and the sheer wealth. Even though I can
see that Vladimir is perfect for Joanna, I don’t really like him. He thinks I
drink too much, which he wouldn’t if he were a real Russian.
    ‘Water, please. Sparkling, if you
have it.’
    It’s worth it just to see the
surprise in his slightly dangerous eyes.
    ‘Lydia’s simply brilliant with the
boys,’ Joanna says, as the guests look at me, waiting for my presence to be
explained. ‘I won’t bore you all with our au pair nightmare...’
    Cue three other couples relating
their staff horror stories, which includes one couple who recently found their
fourteen-year-old son giving cunnilingus to the French art student who does the
ironing.
    ‘While she was ironing?’ I ask,
trying to picture it. The assembled company stares at me.
     
    London dinner-party conversation is more like
conjugating verbs than actually talking. It goes something like this:
    My Croatian au pair has such
hangovers she can’t get the children up for school,
    Your French ironing lady has sex with
your son, His Macedonian gardener digs up a rare camellia, Her Jamaican cleaner
polishes a stripped oak table, Our Irish nanny expects us to pay for her
abortion, Your gay interior designers import the wrong stone flagging,
    Their extraordinarily plain sister
makes embarrassing social gaffes.
     
    ‘Greg Andrews.’ The very tall and
very bald man who I am seated next to at dinner offers me his hand to shake.
‘What do you do?’
    ‘I’m a belly dancer.’
    ‘Where do you dance?’
    ‘Actually I’m a teacher, but when you say you’re a teacher
people say how interesting and then turn away.’
    He’s looking at me as if waiting for
a clue.
    ‘Wait a minute. You teach belly
dancing?’
    ‘I have signed up for an Egyptian
dancing course ‘In Cairo?’
    ‘Sudbury Hill.’
    I wonder when his hair fell out. Did
he just wake up one morning and there it was on the pillow, or did it thin gradually?
When he got to the last strand or two, did he just pull them out decisively, or
did he let them linger like a fond memory?
    I should ask him what he does, but
he’s clearly Canadian with his soft accent and his name. I once went out with a
Canadian called Bernard, but half his ice hockey team were called Greg.
    ‘What do you do, Lydia?’ says the anorexic woman across the table.
    ‘I’m a teacher.’
    ‘How interesting.’
    ‘We’re very lucky in British Columbia—’ Greg begins.
    ‘Oh,’ I hold up my hand, as if I’ve
heard a noise. ‘That sounds like one of the boys. Excuse me.’
    My napkin falls to the floor of
course. Greg is all solicitousness replacing it by my plate.
     
    I am the subject of loud, fond
conversation for the length of the first flight of stairs.
    ‘Aren’t you lucky, Joanna?’
    ‘We are SO lucky.’
    ‘She’s marvellous.’
    ‘I bet she’s wonderful with
children.’
    ‘Oh, she is...’
     
    *
     
    Of course, neither Cy nor Ry has
stirred. When seven-year-old boys finally go to sleep, they really do go to
sleep, not that Joanna or Vladimir would know that. They’re breathing so
quietly I test their foreheads to check that they’re still warm, and pull up
their duvets. Then I resume my position on the toilet with the glossies until I
hear the guests taking their leave.
    ‘Do say goodbye to Linda for us.’
    ‘I will!’
    Sound of door closing.
    I can’t hear Joanna and Vlad sigh
with satisfaction as they stand for a moment with their backs pressed against
the front door surveying their immaculately minimalist hall, now empty of
people as well as furniture and coat hooks, but I do get the beginning of the
post mortem.
    ‘Did he say anything about the second
tranche to you?’
    ‘No, but I did wonder about
“technical glitches”
    They both laugh with a mean abandon
that sounds quite different from the murmurings of civilized amusement which
have drifted up the stairs accompanying the aroma of ground coffee.
    I wonder if Baldy realizes that his
finances are about to be frozen while Vladimir renegotiates the deal. Is he