Sugar and Snails

Chapter 2

I first met Simon five months earlier, 17th April 2004 to be precise, the date clear in my mind because it was Venus's forty-fifth birthday.

It was the Saturday after Easter. She phoned at breakfast to thank me for the card. "You're still on for tonight?"

"Of course. Half past six at Pizza Hut."

"Slight change to the programme," said Venus.

I looked down at my plate, butter congealing on the cooling toast. I'd been an integral part of Venus's birthday celebrations since she turned nineteen, except when she'd been doing post-doctoral research at Harvard, and the time Paul whisked her off for a romantic weekend before Josh was born. I didn't relish the word change. "Oh?"

"No need to get so het up, you goose," said Venus. "I just fancied something without the kids hogging the limelight."

The warbling in the background shaped itself into Ellie singing Happy Birthday. "Won't they feel left out?"

"Not so long as they get to blow out the candles on my cake. And we can go to Pizza Hut any time."

I plucked a mouldy grape from the withering bunch in the fruit bowl and set it down on the edge of my plate. "So what's the plan? Is Giles's daughter going to babysit?"

"Nothing so outlandish," said Venus. "A little supper party chez nous. A few close friends: Giles and Fiona, Mohammed and Mumtaz, and you."

My gaze drifted from the unwashed pots by the sink to the heap of dirty laundry on the floor below it, to the stack of marking on the table before me. I'd been planning to pick up something cheap and cheerful for Venus from Acorn Road when I went to do my grocery shopping. But if she were having a dinner party with official guests I'd have to battle the hordes on Northumberland Street for a proper present. "Sounds lovely. What time do you want me?"

"Half-seven for eight. Bring your toothbrush and stay overnight if you can bear to leave that bally cat for once."

I glanced towards the back door, half-expecting Marmaduke to come clattering through the cat flap to take a bow. "I'll think about it."

"Make sure you do," said Venus. "I hate you cycling across the Town Moor in the dark." Her voice tailed off into Just a minute, Munchkin, Mummy's on the phone, before a final: "Got to love you and leave you already. See you tonight . and Di, make sure you wear something nice."

My shopping trip kicked off well. Too well. Within twenty minutes I'd ferreted out an Italian-leather handbag edged with gold filigree: the perfect partner for the pair of knee-high boots Venus seemed particularly fond of. Only while taking out my credit card did it strike me that my confidence stemmed from the fact she'd been toting the exact same bag around since Christmas. Waiting at the till in Waterstones with a chunky celebrity memoir, I suddenly realised I'd had it in mind because Venus despised its author with such passion. After that, I flitted about, picking things up and putting them down again, dashing back to the shop from which I'd fled only minutes before. Just choose, you goose! It's hardly quantum physics. Venus would be content with whatever I gave her, the way she accepted a bunch of dandelions from Ellie or a cheap box of chocolates from Josh, delighted in the giver if not the gift. Yet I couldn't kill the fear I'd disappoint her, or the snip of hope I'd surprise her with the perfect gift.

Couldn't kill my fear of the other guests' disapproval. If I bought the apricot cardigan, would Fiona think I should've gone for the duck-egg blue? If I plumped for the fifty-quid designer vase from Fenwick's, might Mumtaz see a tacky affair picked up in the Grainger Market for under a tenner?

When I found myself in Bainbridge's basement reaching for a pack of chequered tea towels with a trembling hand, I had to concede defeat. Decision-making wasn't my forte; I'd exhausted my capacities in that regard the year I turned fifteen.

Flopping into a vacant seat on the Metro, squeezed in alongside an obese woman with a howling child, I longed to spend the evening curled up on the sofa with Marmaduke, nursing a gin and tonic and watching rubbish on TV. Bolt the front door and not speak to anyone till Monday. I wouldn't, of course. I'd as soon turn down an invitation from Venus as I'd fail to show up for a scheduled lecture or neglect to feed my cat. Venus might be frustrating at times, but our lives had been intertwined since we'd met as fresh-faced undergraduates and I wouldn't be me without her.

That evening, snaking my bike through the wooden gate, I saw Paul standing in the bay window, a fluted glass in his hand. I waved, but he was facing into the lounge, intent on the other guests.

I veered away from the porticoed front door and followed the path round to the back. Parking the cycle against their battered shed, I knocked on the kitchen door and, without waiting for an answer, stepped inside, blinking at the light. I hadn't felt hungry, but the smell of sizzling meat had me salivating like Pavlov's dogs.

Venus crouched at the cooker, a khaki apron and giant oven-mitts clashing in both style and hue with her taffeta dress. Behind her, at the far end of the room, Ellie and Josh sat at the pine table, bedtime-scrubbed and angelic-looking in their Magpie football-strip pyjamas. The little girl noticed me first: "Di, Di, I've got a wobbly tooth."

Venus turned and, shedding her gloves and apron, grabbed me in a mother-bear hug to plant a kiss on my cold cheek. Her dangling earrings brushed my neck and I caught the familiar scent of sandalwood.

Ellie jiggled in her seat. "Look, Di, look!" Pushed from behind with her tongue, her front tooth swung towards the horizontal.

"Well, isn't that something?"

Josh dipped a ginger snap in his milk. "She's trying to force it out herself, when everybody knows the Tooth Fairy won't come unless it drops out natural."

"Is that right?"

Venus clapped her hands. "Hurry-scurry, you two, Di's here, so you can finish off your milk and scoot upstairs to bed."

"Can I have a story?" Ellie asked.

"Only if you promise to go straight to sleep afterwards and let Mummy see to her guests."

"Can I have the one where you rode to school on a camel?"

Josh groaned: "For the zillionth time!"

"We'll see." Venus dipped into the fridge for a bottle of wine.

I shrugged off my Gore-Tex jacket and hung it by its hood on a hook at the back of the door. I took a lavender envelope from the pocket. Before I could hand it to Venus, Ellie had launched herself out of her chair and snatched it from my hand.

"Manners!" snapped Venus, but she smiled indulgently as her daughter ripped open the envelope.

Ellie frowned at the contents. "Another card? But you already sent one."

I followed her gaze to the line of birthday cards on the waxed pine dresser. Mine stood slap in the middle: a pair of dolphins springing from the ocean in one synchronised movement, showering glitter across the surface with their tails.

Venus thrust a glass of fizz into my hand. "Ah, but this is a special kind of card."

Ellie looked unconvinced.

"I thought, you know, with a gift card you could get whatever you wanted."

"Absolutely." Venus's words were as sparkly as the wine, but I sensed a stiffness about her as she leant forward to kiss me once more. "That's marvellous! Thank you so much!"

Perhaps even the tea towels would've been more welcome. Could I redeem myself by complimenting her earrings? They were unusually pretty, with their double helix of metallic blue. But the more I studied them, the less sure I felt. Were they a special birthday gift from Paul, or something she'd been wearing every day for years?

Ellie abandoned the gift card beside the fruit bowl on the dresser. "Di, Di, which pwincess does my mummy look like?"

Venus wore an electric-blue sleeveless dress with an all-round collar. Pinched at the waist with a knee-length flared skirt, on anyone else it would have seemed old-fashioned. Her thick dark hair, which ordinarily hung in a loose cataract to her shoulders, was pinned up above her face and neck, not in any ordered manner, but in dribs and drabs, as if she were determined to have the best of both worlds. Her high-heeled sparkly mules might've been nicked from Ellie's dressing-up box, but princesses could get away with anything.

Venus put an arm around her daughter. "All right, Munchkins. Why don't we go up and do your teeth and let Di join the party? You don't mind introducing yourself, do you, Di?"

"I'm supposed to introduce myself to Giles and Mohammed?"

Venus merely curved her cinnamon-painted lips into a smile, and switched her attention to herding the children up to bed.

Wear something nice, Venus had said that morning and, back home, checking my outfit in the wardrobe mirror, with Marmaduke supervising from the bed, the rosebud-patterned blouse, with its pin-tucks on the bodice and ruffle at the wrists, had seemed so dressy - so girly - I'd toned it down with a pair of stonewashed jeans. Now, as the other guests welcomed me into the lounge, I realised I'd underestimated the formality of the occasion. Giles, dressed as always in chain-store sweatshirt and chinos, didn't worry me. Nor did Mohammed, albeit more dashing in a black shirt and trousers with a slim white tie and two-tone shoes. Yet their wives set a higher standard: Fiona, despite the...