Chapter Six #2
‘We are.’ Renzo’s voice is scratchy with an emotion I don’t recognise. ‘And by “green”, we mean throwing a really great party minimising waste as far as possible, and paying event staff a living wage.’
‘The theme is “aurora”,’ I add. ‘For that reason, it will start pre-dawn. We want it to be an awakening.’
Emilia opens her laptop. ‘Have you any ideas about decor, food, music…?’
Renzo shakes his head, his mouth curving infinitesimally at the corners, and I know that smile will shimmer inside me for a long time—maybe for ever. ‘I’m just the backing singer. Hennessy has all the ideas.’
The meeting goes incredibly well. Emilia and Oshana work intuitively from my suggestions. Through a combination of willpower and connections, Renzo obtains a special licence for the party. Everything is coming together.
The next day passes in a blur.
We go to the closing show of the week, and it is by far my favourite.
The clothes are beautiful and ethereally romantic, future heirlooms for those lucky enough to end up owning anything from the collection.
But my mind is elsewhere, ticking off lists and double-checking all the various moving parts.
Finally at ten o’clock we are alone, sitting in the elegant dining room and eating some incredible pasta olio e aglio.
Or, rather, Renzo is eating, forking up his spaghetti with impressive speed and accuracy.
I am pushing mine around my plate. We’ve had a few of these meals now, but none alone without Simonetta discreetly gliding in and out of the room, so this is making me edgy.
Maybe it is having the same effect on Renzo because when he looks up from his plate his eyes roam across the room away from me.
But I don’t mind because it’s giving me a chance to study his face.
Unlike most people, he is better looking up close.
Everything about him is so definite and flawless.
If I could draw him, it would only take three or four lines to capture his essence.
He is a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. A Michelangelo sculpture.
‘I don’t want to add to my reputation as a tyrant, but I think it would be a good idea for you to eat something.’ He picks up his water glass and takes a sip. We are both drinking water and I wonder if that is for my benefit.
‘I want to. Only I don’t know if I can. I feel so wired.’ The words slip out before I have a chance to edit them, and his eyes stop roaming to find my face.
I said ‘wired’, but I mean terrified. I haven’t been to anything like a party for over three years.
I stay away for obvious reasons, but I know the party is the best way to distract everyone from Charlie.
My fingers tighten around my glass as I picture the guests milling in the stunning space we’ve created.
The pulsing baseline of the playlist. The crush of people on the dance floor.
It’s a true magnet for me, both pulling and repelling, because, even though I know there will be no alcohol or substances, there will be triggers everywhere, like IED devices just waiting to be stepped on.
‘Trust the process. Everything’s in place.’ He hesitates. ‘What are you worried about?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing. Everything.’
‘We have a great venue, great food, great mocktails and DJs who are going to play us into the new dawn.’
I nod.
‘So, what is it? Are you worried people are going to bail?’
‘No one will bail.’ I can’t keep the bitterness or the panic from my voice. ‘Having me at a party is like the circus coming to town. Everyone loves the circus.’
He leans back a fraction. ‘I thought they love merry-go-rounds.’
I shrug, then push my hands under the table to hide their trembling. ‘They do. But they also slow down to look at the crash on the other side of the carriageway.’
‘You’re not a car crash.’
I waggle my fork at him. ‘Ignore me. I always get like this when I’ve got to go out and mingle. And I haven’t done it in a while, so…’
He is silent, meditative, as though he was looking at a picture of a duck but now sees a rabbit.
‘You don’t like partying.’
I curl some spaghetti around my fork and force myself to take a bite. ‘Not really.’
‘So why go to so many parties?’
‘Well, when I was a kid, it was just what happened. My opinion wasn’t required. The nearest Charlie got to that was when he asked me if I wanted to go to school and get bullied or go to a party. When you’re seven, that isn’t a hard choice.’
His eyebrows dip into a V above his nose. ‘Perhaps a better one would have been for Charlie to talk to the school about the bullying.’
‘Probably.’ I make myself eat another mouthful.
That would be the normal response of a parent.
But Charlie is allergic to schools. He hates any reminder that he is old enough to be a father.
It’s one of his contradictions, that he can be so sentimental about birthdays but hate any other reminder of the ageing process.
Renzo is staring past me in silence. There is a stillness to him that almost makes him look like a photograph, and I remember that photo Antony had by his bed at school: the one of his family.
He had others of Renzo and him, but just that one photo of his family, and I know why he chose to put that one in a frame.
His parents gaze down at their children with such open love and adoration.
Neither of my parents has ever looked at me like that.
Probably because they don’t like what is reflected back at them.
‘What about when you were older?’
‘By then I was drinking, and alcohol is good at dulling things so that they’re bearable. Only then I stopped drinking, and the people in my life don’t do things sober. So, I don’t go out much. Garrison’s birthday was a knee-jerk reflex. But I couldn’t even get out of the taxi.’
My body tenses at the memory. Or maybe that’s down to Renzo, because now it’s my turn to be scrutinised.
Studied. I feel a featherlight, silvery shiver dance over my skin as he shifts back in his seat, stretches his arm along the back of the neighbouring chair and tilts up his chin a fraction, just as if he is posing for a photographic shoot. Or beginning an inquisition.
‘And yet you’ve arranged this party.’
‘I told you. If the building is on fire…’
‘Set off fireworks.’ He nods. ‘I know.’
Another silence.
‘And I wasn’t a cheerleader back in New York, but I think you were right.
This is going to send out all the right signals.
We’re in the front row because we matter.
You matter,’ he adds, and I feel it again, that searing, expansive ripple of heat I want to pretend isn’t happening. Because we are past this. Aren’t we?
For a moment I hold my breath and then he takes another bite of spaghetti. ‘You know I still don’t understand how you used to get into those places—hotel bars, nightclubs—there are laws.’
I shrug. ‘Private parties have different rules. And Charlie was, is, so brazen. He doesn’t think the rules apply to him. If he gets into trouble, he just leaves the country.’
There is a brief silence before he says quietly, ‘But you didn’t. You knew what Charlie had done before everyone, even David. You could have upped and left, but you stayed.’
‘I’m not my father, Renzo.’
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘You’re not, you’re…’
The sentence teeters mid-air. I feel the thread between us pull tight like the string of a crossbow and I know that I’m magnifying this shimmering, unyielding tension between us.
That it’s just tiredness, adrenaline and this weird situation with both of us living under the same roof.
That if I pulled on the thread, it would break…
break the spell. But I can’t stop myself from wondering what would happen if I reached out and touched his face.
My heart stops as his eyes abruptly meet mine. ‘Go up to bed, Hennessy. I’ll deal with this,’ he says and there is a trace of impatience in his voice.
As I make my way upstairs, I’m relieved that I didn’t make a fool of myself ahead of such a big day. Except, oddly, it doesn’t feel like relief as much as regret.
Renzo
It’s the morning of the party. To be accurate, it is five forty-five in the morning. In less than forty minutes the guests will start arriving, refreshed after their first night of sleep since fashion week started, and in about an hour and a half the sun will rise over the city.
Everything is ready to go. I am ready, wearing a surprisingly conservative but beautifully cut suit and a shirt that Hennessy gave me. They were hanging in my wardrobe. A note was pinned to the sleeve of the shirt:
So you don’t look too dorky. No tie required.
H
X
I can’t remember the last time a woman gave me a present. Maybe that’s why I don’t throw the note away but fold it up and put it in my pocket, where it joins the sobriety chips I’ve been carrying around with me for reasons that are less clear to me.
But there is no time to think about that now. I glance at my watch. I am waiting for Hennessy to join me, and she’s not late, so I don’t know why I feel on edge.
My mouth twists. That’s a lie: I do know why. It’s because I know she’s nervous. Even before we spoke last night, I could tell she was anxious. I thought she was worried about making everything happen, but she has no doubts, no fears, about the party failing.
Incredibly, I am still coming to terms with the fact—and it is a fact—Hennessy dislikes parties. And yet here she is, hosting one for the fashion elite.
When she suggested coming out here to Milan for fashion week, I assumed her motivation for doing so was driven by self-interest. I thought she wanted an excuse to let her hair down.
But she has worked as hard as, if not harder than, anyone this week.
And now, despite her anxiety, she is hosting this party—not because she doesn’t care about the business, but because she does.