Chapter One The Wedding Anniversary
With the cake on a porcelain stand under a glass cloche, Danny sat alone on a cedar gazebo under an oak tree in Pembridge Square in Notting Hill.
Protected by a high privet hedge he was hidden from the other guests arriving at the house.
Strictly speaking he was trespassing – this was one of London’s exclusive gardens for residents only, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence and requiring a key to access it.
He had slipped in as an older woman entered on her early-evening stroll, catching the gate before it closed.
She had assessed him, sceptical that he was a resident of such a prestigious address.
However, observing the coconut cake and tennis attire, she had refrained from saying anything.
After all, how dangerous could such a man be?
Once inside the square Danny toured the flower beds before discovering the gazebo where he now sat, waiting for Luis to show up and save him from the embarrassment of making an entrance to this high society garden party on his own, knowing almost no one and most likely the only man in fancy dress.
Even though it was a Saturday Luis was working.
He was now at the prestigious Allen & Overy, one of London’s top law firms. He often worked late and occasionally at weekends, intent on becoming a partner by the age of fifty.
So far Danny had already spent an hour waiting in a Turkish coffee shop near Notting Hill Gate tube station, sipping an iced cardamom coffee and reading various newspapers’ gloomy predictions about the upcoming London Olympics.
Grown restless with caffeine and pessimism, Danny had sent Luis a text message as a gentle nudge, saying that the frosting on his cake was starting to slip and he couldn’t wait any longer.
He was heading to the party, hoping to jolt a reply.
But as he approached the white stucco house on the corner, more embassy than family home, he lost his nerve, continuing past the front door, orbiting the square until he seized his chance to sneak into the private gardens.
None of this explained why Danny was feeling sad.
He wasn’t upset that Luis was late, the cake wasn’t ruined, and he was in no rush to join the party.
To cheer himself up he decided to vape. After quitting smoking, Danny became an early adopter of vaping.
Today’s selection was Sunshine Watermelon, an appropriate antidote to a bout of the summertime blues.
Carefully refilling the device, Danny took a hit and exhaled a plume of fruity vapour.
Barely a minute later the woman appeared by his side.
If the cake had won him a sliver of credibility the vape cost him every shred of it.
‘You’re not a resident, are you?’
He shook his head.
‘No. I’m going to Emma and John’s wedding anniversary. They’re throwing a garden party. They live on this square.’
At the mention of their names, her tone recalibrated.
‘A wonderful couple. But they’re not hosting the party here. They have a garden of their own.’
He knew this, of course.
‘I’m waiting for my partner to arrive.’
The woman suggested, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if she met you at the party?’
Danny took another hit on his vape, exhaling and wondering if he should bother to correct the mistake.
‘My partner is a man.’
She nodded, as if with that admission his clothes, his cake and his failure to understand the rules of this place now made sense.
‘Let me show you to the house.’
Danny stood up and followed her to the gate.
No doubt this woman, the Sheriff of Pembridge Square, would watch him until the moment he rang the doorbell.
Holding the tennis racket in one hand and the cake stand in the other, he climbed the stone steps to the front door, accepting that he would now have to enter the party by himself.
Opening the door Emma said his name as though there were no one else in the world she would rather see, before asking, ‘Where’s Luis?’
Danny attended these parties by way of a guest pass rather than full membership. If you wanted Luis, the deal was some guy called Danny would tag along. He explained that Luis was running late. Emma expressed her admiration that Danny had come alone.
‘I didn’t want to miss the speeches.’
She placed her hand on his arm, letting him into a secret.
‘I have no idea what I’m going to say.’
‘You always know what to say.’
Perhaps it was an inappropriate observation, too direct and personal, but Danny often misjudged conversational cues. Emma reminded herself of precisely that fact before changing the subject.
‘You baked this?’
Bashful, he nodded.
‘The stand is for you as well.’
It was Wedgwood china with an herbarium print found in a Bermondsey flea market, priced at five pounds, bought for five pounds. Danny hated to haggle.
‘I read somewhere that you’re supposed to give a gift of china on a twentieth wedding anniversary.’
Emma seemed impressed, claiming that Danny knew far more about wedding anniversaries than she did. Accepting the stand, she studied the cake under the cloche.
‘I see roses, but I smell watermelon?’
Danny made a mental note never to vape around his cakes again.
‘You don’t have to serve it.’
Emma dismissed the suggestion.
‘You’re the only person who bothered to make us something.’
Emma’s father had been the British ambassador to Nepal, and she had grown up mingling with dignitaries and politicians, cultivating an effortless manner around people of power.
Partly for this reason Danny always felt childish around her – she was so profoundly adult, not merely in terms of age.
She was forty-nine, only four years older than him.
Yet their lives were solar systems apart.
As they walked through her family house she discreetly inspected his outfit.
Danny asked, ‘Is it too much?’
She shook her head.
‘You look dashing – like the tennis coach in a country mansion murder mystery.’
Danny imagined the character, not the owner of the estate but the man teaching the aristocrats.
By contrast Emma’s clothes captured the essence of summer joy without being anything as tacky as a costume, such as this dress by Alice Temperley, the pattern so vivid it was as though real meadow flowers had been snatched from the field and stitched directly onto the fabric.
‘Please tell me I’m not the only one in fancy dress?’
Ducking the question she said, ‘Let’s fix you a drink.’
They entered a glass conservatory with the doors thrown open, leading to a stone-walled garden where some fifty guests were gathered, their children playing on a padded plaid blanket spread on the lawn.
At the back of the garden evening sunlight broke through the branches of a chestnut tree.
An unseen neighbour was hosting a barbecue, their grill throwing up wisps of charcoal smoke which, at most parties, would have been an irritation but tonight swirled above the heads of the guests, catching the rays of sun as if there was nothing in this world which couldn’t be corralled to Emma’s advantage.
A buffet was spread across several tables, bowls of green pea salad, plates of buttered asparagus and a whole poached salmon.
There were pitchers of summer punch with cubes of melon and sprigs of fresh mint.
If it wasn’t for the presence of waiters in crisp white shirts and beige canvas aprons circulating with champagne it would have been difficult to guess that the party had been catered.
Emma set Danny’s cake on the dessert table among bowls of quartered strawberries.
As he feared, the frosting had slipped, losing some of its firmness.
Noticing his disappointment Emma picked up a serving knife and extracted the disfigured portion of the cake, a small but perfectly formed act of kindness.
‘Why don’t you help yourself and head outside?’
With that, Danny was on his own.
Deciding against taking any food he toyed with the idea of abandoning the tennis racket.
In the end he kept it. Without the prop people might wonder if these were his regular clothes.
He stepped into the garden, racket in one hand, a glass of punch in the other.
The men were dressed in cotton suits with blue shirts, a few with Panama hats trimmed with a traditional grosgrain ribbon.
The women were wearing white dresses with oversized belts – a collection of clothes curated for a summer catalogue.
Unable to spy an inroad to any of the conversations, Danny found himself at the end of the garden examining the vegetable patch and herb garden.
Sipping the punch, a blend of spiced rum, pineapple pulp and fresh ginger, he crouched down to attend to the rosemary as though he were the genial gardener who had been asked to join the party and didn’t feel comfortable talking to the other guests.
It was at this point that he heard his name being called and turned to see John approaching, guessing that Emma had dispatched her husband to interrupt his self-imposed exile.
They shook hands with the grip of men concluding negotiations for an oilfield deal and Danny congratulated him on twenty years of marriage.
‘Thank you, yes, hard to believe. I’ve no idea where the time has gone.’
Danny thought about the townhouse, the garden, the three children, the lauded career and the country cottage in the Cotswolds. Instead, he observed, ‘You know that Luis and me—’
He corrected himself.
‘Luis and I, we’ve been together for twenty years.’
John adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses, considering this fact as if not entirely sure of it.
‘We have known you two for a long time.’
More than that, Danny thought.
‘Luis brought me to your wedding.’
Belatedly warming to the subject, John nodded.
‘Yes, that’s right. I remember now. Three years I’d worked with the fellow and no one in the office had a clue about his personal life.
He was a handsome Spanish enigma. When we invited him to the wedding, we insisted that he bring a guest. To flush him out.
We all wondered what kind of girl he’d bring. ’
Luis’s invitation to Danny had been his way of coming out to his colleagues.
‘I’m his kind of girl.’
John laughed uncertainly.
‘Yes, I suppose you are. None of us had guessed that he was gay. You broke a lot of girls’ hearts, I can tell you.’
Sensing that he’d said something clumsy he hastily added, ‘Anyway, twenty years, huh?’
Danny reformulated the point.
‘For as long as you’ve been married.’
John mused, ‘It was on off for a while, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Well, here’s to your twenty years.’
Danny worried that he was forcing an inappropriate parallel between their relationships, an imposter crassly elbowing his way into someone’s celebrations. After their glasses clinked, they both fell silent, saved only by the arrival of Luis.