Chapter 10 – Piece Ten – Romance in the Air
Things have worked out well in our new digs. Foggy is easy to get along with and after the last two years I'm used to O's social whirl. Since I'm not actually around on week nights, and Foggy does a great deal of studying in the evening as well, O mostly has our digs to himself and his friends on the weekday evenings, so everyone's happy. O and I do most of the cooking – making meals three or four times a week – and Foggy's not a fussy eater, and doesn't mind clean up, so all in all, we're a pretty happy little clan.
The Sunday evening gathering seems to be working out fine as well. We usually have perhaps a dozen people stopping by each Sunday. At O's insistence, Ali has been named as our official hostess, and our closest friends, Millie, Wil and Dolely are regulars, and most of O's other friends and acquaintances have stopped by once or twice as well. Some only stay for an hour or two to eat, while others stay and talk until we turn them out at 10:00. Everyone brings something to eat or drink, save the odd new friend that O brings around to introduce to the gang. Some of these new friends are invited back, while others we decide don't quite fit. O brings all kinds. As I may have mentioned, he has a steady eye on the future and is leaving no stone unturned in order to make the contacts now that may, someday, in the future prove useful which means some of the people who he brings around are not a very comfortable fit, even in our rather eclectic group.
One aspect of the Sunday gathering that I've been enjoying is studying our version of the eternal triangle, Ali, O and Foggy. Our quiet, oft times fuzzy and old maid-ish Ali seems to be catnip to both O and Foggy. Foggy makes no bones about wooing Ali, though the more I know Foggy, the more I believe he's just teasing her rather than any serious effort. Even Foggy, I think, realizes that dragging her into the river is not the way to woo a girl.
As for O, well, he's teasing too, but perhaps with a more serious purpose. He seems to find something in Ali fascinating. Which is, in a way, rather curious. O never lacks for pretty girls to pal around with, so Ali, who seems indifferent to the need to look pretty, is, as I say, a curious choice for O to expend his charm on. And he does turn the charm on full force when around Ali. He still pals around with a lot of very pretty girls, as he's always done, but unless I've missed something, it's more pals than around, especially considering he has our bachelor pad to himself many evenings.
Of course all that could be simply my imagination. I still have a touch of whatever it was in the air this last summer that brought Selina and me together. And yet, it was O who insisted that Ali be installed as our official hostess, under the pretext that as three inept bachelors, we're not capable of looking after the social niceties of our Sunday evening potluck. Pure B.S., as there aren't many niceties to look after – guests bring food or wine and everyone just settles comfortably in to eat and talk. (Though that might, on examination, perhaps prove O's point, now that I think about it.) At any rate, Ali sees that everything is a bit more organized – we have proper places to eat with silverware and everything.
And our rather shy, fluffy and very serious Ali, who I'm certain would have told me to soak my head if I had asked her to look after us, had readily accepted the role when approached by O and plays it quite well, in her own quiet way. And though I can't say for certain that she dresses differently than she always has, her tweeds and jumpers seem, well, better tailored when she knows she'll be around O. I can't say she goes any further than looking slightly more fashionably spinsterish to please him. And it still takes two glasses of wine to get her sharp wit going on one subject or another, but that, too, may be a game, since, as I mentioned, it doesn't take two glasses of wine. All this could be a product of my imagination, and probably is, but it's making for an interesting term.
I did get in trouble last week with Ali, luckily after all our guests had gone. We were washing up in the kitchen and thinking that we were alone, I asked, kiddingly, if she had time to do the research in her romance collection on my problem. Unfortunately, O happened to have just arrived with more dishes...
'Ah, a fellow romance novel fan!' exclaimed a beaming O. 'Why you have such deep and hidden depths, my dear Ali.'
Ali exploded with an angry 'Gallagher, you promised!' and a deep blush.
'Oops, sorry,' didn't seem to settle her down and by that time, it was too late.
'Not another word out of you Omar Singe,' she shot back at him.
'But my dear, we're kindred spirits,' protested O. 'Why I've read hundreds and hundreds of romances, historical, and modern, every one of Georgette Heyer's and Susan Carroll, Ida Pollock.... (and he went on and on, naming names. He could have been making up them up as he went along, as far as I knew, but a glance at Ali proved she was following him with a rather wide-eyed look.) …. I think my favourite writer of them all is Rosie M Banks... Her “A Red, Red Summer Rose,” and a “A Kiss at Twilight” are my absolute favourites. But here I am going on and on. Who are your favourites, my dear Miss Chambers?'
His dear Miss Chambers turned to me. 'You told him!' she accused. 'You promised.'
'Giz didn't tell me anything. I know them all. Just quiz me on any...' O assured her.
'I don't believe it,' Ali said. 'You're just teasing me again.'
'Well, I can't have you thinking poor Giz here is a poltroon or that I'm a liar, so I'll explain why I happen to be so familiar with that, and indeed, any genre,' O replied. 'I can only say that I've not made anything of this talent of mine because I dislike tooting my own horn...'
At this point, Foggy, who had drifted in, drinking a cup of tea, seemed to choke and spray the contents about and started coughing...
O stopped to glare at him.
'Sorry, sorry. Go on, O, we're dying to know what you haven't tooted your own horn about...' said Foggy when he could get a word out, adding to me, ‘He's such a modest fellow...'
'As I was about to say,' continued O, haughtily, 'I was born with, well, a sort of a savant ability to read. I was reading by the age of three and by six, I was able to read anything and everything, and spent many long hours doing so.
'As you know, my parents are in the diplomatic service, and they took me with them on their various assignments. This often meant that I spent a great deal of my time growing up confined to various embassies and diplomatic compounds. I was privately tutored, but I was often forced by the circumstances of my parent’s deployment to spend most of my day alone, since they were not stationed in countries and cities that I could freely roam about and there were few children that I could associate with in these compounds. The result was that being able to read at an adult level, and having days on end to read, I read constantly, and I read everything. I certainly didn't understand everything I read, indeed, probably very little of it, at least in the way an adult would,' he laughed, adding, ‘I will sometimes come across a book I read in my youth, and reading it now, be amazed at how weirdly different the story reads today.
'Anyway, at my tender age, I was not a discerning reader – the gaudier the cover, the more attractive it was to me back then, so I can't claim to have confined my reading to the immortal classics. Many of the embassies still had paper libraries back then, and my parents subscribed to several eBook lending libraries, so I was never at a loss for something – anything – to read... And so to cut a long story short so as not to bore you...' he paused to glare at Foggy, who seemed, once more, to be having trouble with his tea...
'I continued to read today, every night and whenever I have down time. And I still read anything and everything I can find, good and bad. I haven't lost my fascination with words and how they're put together. So you see, I actually have read all those authors and those books. And I'd be delighted to discuss them with you, my dear Ali. You do believe me, don't you?'
Ali gave him some sort of stare, hard to read through her thick glasses from where I was standing. “Perhaps, with serious reservations.”
O, however, took it as a yes.
'We must start a book club.
A romance book of the week club! Choose a book, old or new, and we'll read or re-read it and we can discuss its finer points each Sunday,' he said with growing excitement, and seeing her with less than growing excitement, added, ‘We can discuss the book before the gang arrives, if you wish to keep your guilty secret, secret... Our lips are sealed, aren't they, mates?'
'Of course,' I said.
'Well...' said Foggy, adding a hasty, ‘Why yes, of course,’ as he leaped backwards to avoid Ali's lunge with outstretched arms in a, hopefully, playful attempt to strangle him.
'I have my studies,' replied Ali as Foggy prudently retreated to the far side of the breakfast bar. 'I don't have time to read in term. It is something I do on holiday to clear my mind...'
'Oh, one small book wouldn't hurt your studies one bit. And as you say, it would clear your mind. We both certainly can fit one romance book in each week, and think of our glorious discussions... Lord Bletchmore's awakening social conscious in “Only a Factory Girl” and so many more wonderful stories of love triumphant.'
She gave him another look. 'I need to be going.'
'Right. Let me get my coat and drive you home,' he said turning for the door.
'That isn't necessary.'
'Yes it is,' he replied, donning his coat. ‘It’s late, and as you'll recall, I always drive you home.'
He drove her home.
This past Sunday, as we got ready for the potluck, they were carrying on a discussion about whether some Lord Reginald deserved the love of sweet Ida... I didn't pay any attention, so I don't know if he did or didn't.
All in all, an interesting term, so far.