Liar Liar

84

Buzz, buzz, buzz. The phone was on silent mode and appeared aggrieved to be neutered in this way, buzzing its irritation angrily over and over again. It lay in a Marc Jacobs bag underneath the small table, temporarily forgotten by its owner.

Jacqueline Harris drained her glass and reached over towards the bottle. She pulled it out of the ice bucket, a few drops of icy water spilling on to the white tablecloth, and was aggrieved to find that it was empty. She cast a suspicious glance at her husband, Michael. He had been in ebullient mood, telling stories, joking and refilling his companions’ glasses at every opportunity. Wouldn’t it be like him to finish the bottle without ordering another – he wouldn’t want to break the flow of his delivery, now that he had a captive audience.

Signalling to the waiter, Jacqueline sat back in her chair and let out a heavy sigh. It had been a pig of a day – a day when every one of her pet projects had taken a step backwards. She had lost the pitch for the new building at Solent University, a client had complained about rising costs on another project and, to top it all off, she’d run into more planning problems on her luxury flats overlooking Ocean Village. She’d get over them, of course, it was too big a development to be stymied and she was a big enough name locally to cut through the red tape, but still it was irritating. Sometimes it seemed to her as if the world delighted in throwing small-minded pettifogging bureaucrats into her path just to see how she would react. By now it should have known – she reacted badly.

The waiter was on his way over now and Jacqueline relaxed a little. Her eye wandered to Michael, who was building to the end of another of his stories – adventures from the front line of psychiatry. He would never tell stories of current patients of course, but when it came to serving up the gory details of past fruitcakes he’d treated he was utterly shameless. He was currently dissecting the neuroses of a former patient – Katie B – who’d suffered from a condition called Objectum Sexuality, in which the victim became sexually obsessed with inanimate objects. Washing machines, car bonnets and the like were common, but Katie seemed to have a particular flair for her condition, having developed an unhealthy and somewhat unnerving obsession with Ferris wheels. She had been arrested in various states of undress at funfairs up and down the land and seemed to have no desire or ability to combat her addiction, despite the best efforts of her family and Michael too.

Jacqueline regarded her husband – he was expanding his theme now to bring in the real-life cases of two other female sufferers who’d married the Eiffel Tower and Berlin Wall, respectively. Despite her mild irritation with him and her high stress level, she couldn’t help smiling. When he was in this mood he was kind of irresistible – he would happily entertain their large party deep into the small hours if given the chance.

Jacqueline ordered another bottle of Sancerre and gave in to the flow of the evening. As the crisp white wine hit the back of her throat, she felt her whole body relax. She’d only had a couple of glasses and they hadn’t done much, but this one landed. It was late and they should probably be getting home, as they both had hectic days tomorrow, but somehow she knew they wouldn’t. They were night birds and didn’t really do sleep – they were never happier than when entertaining together. So she refilled her glass, launched herself into the conversation and forgot all about the woes of her day.

All the while, her phone buzzed violently underneath the table, out of sight and out of mind.