A Perfect Life by Raffaella Barker Page A

unconscious recognition of another drinker was, for Nick, like a Masonic handshake. Or like he imagined one to be. Lionel was overpowering, confident, a king among men, his chest a puffed-up pillow in front of the rest of him, his chin imperious, his nose an angle to look down. He was already ill with the first stages of emphysema when Nick met him, but it did not show then in anything save the gusts of command that were his conversation.
    â€˜So you’re a chef, are you? Well, that will have to stop. No call for that here.’
    â€˜Nick wants to open a restaurant, Daddy.’
    Nick had never seen Angel so meek as she was in the presence of her father. He rather liked it, though he didn’t like Lionel. But his breathless bullying made Nick all the more grateful for Dawn’s acceptance when he met Angel. That was a long time ago, a million light years from now and jet lag and Angel’s bloody lunch party. Nick has drunk four cans of Coke and feels that his eyes may pop out of his head at any moment. Too bad, Dawn needs his attention. She walks across the lawn to the shade of the lunch table and the nearby arrangement of deck chairs and rugs, moving slowly, reminding Nick that she is widowed and arthritic. Her face is still beautiful, but her eyes are opaque with gin and bitterness. Nick hasn’t seen her smile for ten years.
    Angel says she is sure her mother must have smiled since Lionel died. ‘But now you come to mention it, I haven’t any proof,’ she said last time Dawn came to lunch, adding after a moment’s thought, ‘I have begun to notice that the only events Mum likes to go to now are funerals and she’ll travel a long way for one.’
    This thought, along with a determined effort not to grind his teeth, is uppermost in Nick’s mind when he rises to greet Dawn in the garden this hot summer afternoon. He takes her to a chair in the shade and pours her a glass of Pimms. Angel hasn’t even noticed that her mother has arrived, her bottom in a red skirt visible behind a low rose hedge, her head out of sight.
    â€˜I suppose she’s picking flowers or weeding or something,’ says Dawn, looking for a second towards her daughter before turning back to her drink.
    Ruby appears at her side, waving a silver fan. ‘Hello, Granny, shall I cool you? Mummy’s making nasturtium salad. It’s disgusting, you have to eat flowers.’
    Dawn lifts her face, presenting her cheek for Ruby to kiss, but gives no other sign that she has seen her.
    She continues to address Nick. ‘It’s almost August. I wonder what will happen this year? Through the years I have noticed that August is full of endings.’
    â€˜Really?’ Nick wishes he had placed a bet on how long it would take her to start talking about death, and scans the gate eagerly. He never thought he would be glad to see Peter Gildoff because he is giddyingly boring, but the sight of him and Jeannie, she in a bright yellow dress with a pink hat as if she is attending a garden party, is very cheering.
    â€˜Nick, hello.’ Jeannie kisses him, and he shoots her a glance to see if she is in the mood for any suggestive gesture. There has been the odd occasion over the past five years when they have slept together. Nothing serious, though the emptiness Nick felt afterwards did not stop him doing it again. Jeannie is not available today. She switches on and off a smile of greeting, but she is more interested in who is coming to lunch and what Angel has cooked. Close up her skin is browned by a thousand freckles joining up to create a colour, and she reminds Nick of a lizard – a beautiful, cold creature, narrow-limbed and white-bellied. He has to stop an enjoyable scaly fantasy about her to greet Nat Rosstein, the company accountant. This ends when Jake arrives in his open-top car wearing shorts, and lopes across the lawn to where Angel isemerging from the kitchen with a tray laden with