Dinner Party- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013

Taken from the book- Our Lives as Fiction ©Robert Fullarton 2013

Dinner Party

A great pantheon of learned debaters, that’s what’s needed to fill the air with some excitement. Yes we need a good talk on the greatest of topics, such untimely questions on God, human destiny and love.

All I can see around me are the sights and sounds of dull and frivolous discourses from dry witted, politically correct, socially redundant creatures that have gathered around me for dinner. I hear comments on the economy, chattering on about doctor’s bills, college fees and the ownership of snazzy new BMW’s. All of this seems to collectively constitute these people and their lives.

Ah! Out come freshly cooked cottage pies, little brown battered fishcakes, Spanish omelette, paella with lumps of cod adorning it, cocktail sausages and a garnish of salad to the side of each main dish. The dishes were laid out in single file on the main table in the centre of the living room. Evening had set in and each guest began to whet their appetites in the vast array of fancy dishes, soon left half empty with little crusts and crumbs. Several bottles of merlot were opened and big pint bottles of cider were handed out to many of the younger men. After dinner, the guests could help themselves to an order of lemon cheesecake with cream. The food was good but certainly not a gastronomic delight at all.

I did not know many of the guests, most of them were strangers to me. They gave out a glow of health and prosperity but also bore the transparent signs of their over indulgent ways in life. Some of the men gathered before me seemed somewhat prestigious and showed an unseen vibe of their academic past behind them, yet they were guilty of intellectual snobbery and they only discussed their affluence, their idealism and the drab affairs of the economy. Why for goodness sake did I go? I knew very few of these people. My friend had simply asked me at the last minute to go and attend his cousin’s birthday party. So I followed him to this mansion off Grosnevor Road.

“Aren’t you having any cake son?”

 Inquired an elderly man sitting right beside me. “No thanks, I’m allergic to wheat and I’m afraid to say that goes for cake as well. It gives me terrible stomach pains and nausea, but thanks anyway.”

The man looked like an old army colonel, with his big grey fury whiskers and his loud posh anglicised accent. He reminded me of General Kitchener and one of the last of the dying breed of old school aristocracy.

Many of the people were advanced in their years and I myself had quickly taken into account that I had nothing in common with these people. So I fidgeted around with my watch strap and made coughing noises stupidly to try and get someone’s attention, but to no avail could I even distract a single soul from their stories. Across the great golden mahogany table where I sat, I could distinctly spot a middle aged woman, about mid forties carrying around a large black tray with little servings of strawberry jelly and small dollops of vanilla ice cream. She bended forward towards me, to offer some dessert and gave a smile that came off as being pleasant and friendly. “Yes, please, but just the one, I’m bursting at  the seams here, any more food after this and my buttons will be popping off. I’m inflated with cottage pie and chicken curry”, I said trying to find some applause and attention for my simple joke. The woman giggled briefly and then lost interest in the conversation before withdrawing her company to care for the other guests.

Just outside the living room at the foot of the stairwell I spotted my friend, who stood grinning with a glass of bourbon in his hand and a young attractive lady beside him, totally in a state of complacency to my feelings of unhappiness and boredom. I waved my right arm to try and signal his attention, but he still stood looking lovingly into the eyes of this mystery lady.

Even when I had first arrived, two hours ago I knew that I would not get on with the others like a house on fire, since I never had such an extroverted ability to apply my charms on these strangers. I came to a swift conclusion that these people can never show any real affection or affiliation, instead they leave little subtleties, without apathy and no genuine interest for those who cannot permeate their social circle. The candle lights flickered and the soft melody of an overture could be heard by one of the guests who mastered the tune so brilliantly on the piano out in the conservatory. The sight of guests arriving heralded interest among a few of the guests. In came two men in their mid twenties, all spruced up in their regalia, handing two thick furry brown coats to my friend’s cousin whom they both greeted graciously for a few minutes. When they walked through the living room the strong pungent scent of a man’s aftershave could be smelt strongly.

Trailing behind the men I spotted a young woman of similar age to myself. The dim lights of the porch lit up and illuminated her face in a halo that could be seen from a distance away. Her coat was caught in the door and she pulled and tugged for a brief moment to yank it free. She walked into the living room; I could immediately see the gregarious and beautiful design of a siren that drew me to a never-ending gaze, a sequence of flutters from my heart and a couple of butterflies emerged in my stomach, like an old ole seaman’s sickness. Her appearance went without blemish and her smooth brown hair dropped with wavy curls on either side, like some fine fabric embroidered by the cherubim themselves. Her ruby red dress, her glossy lips and glowing emerald eyes with big brown boots all gave off a sumptuous image of a sultry beauty that can intoxicate a sober man such as me. She greeted guests as she walked forward, shaking their hands while giving off that stunning smile of hers. This gathering till now had seemed to be so artificial, ceremonial and too boring to be enjoyed, but her arrival had brought the ennoblement of my happiness and self confidence.

“She’s my granddaughter and she’s studying to become a doctor. She’s just passed her second year exams and I’m so proud of her”, boasted the old man beside me who seemed to have literally popped up out of the blue.

“Oh congratulations, she’s obviously the sharpest tool in the box if she’s studying medicine. It takes years to become a doctor, with much exercise on the intellect and with huge patience to endure”, I said speaking some half winded nonsense to simply respond to his remarks.

She approached the old man and stood close to me, face to face. “Hi Jim, are you keeping well, Mom will call tomorrow, she told me to tell you that she wont be cancelling your plans for the day.”

“Oh don’t worry she left a message on my answering machine, I know all about it. Thanks for telling me though.”

The two conversed for over ten minutes while I ruffled my feathers, stuck out my chest and made preparations to go and break the ice. To me courtship was a stupid game of human chemistry and attitude but I confess that I felt excited with anticipation on what would happen next. She had not yet received my stray glances in her direction and I kept turning round to try and catch a gleam within her eye, to possibly show any signs of affection.

“So you’re grandfather tells me you’re studying medicine, hoping to become a doctor some day”, I said trying feeling intrigued to speak to her.

“Yes, I hope to pass my final exams next year and begin my work experience….by the way what exactly do you do yourself, I don’t think we’ve been introduced”, she spoke to me as though she intentionally wanted to seduce me and as if she had expected my arrival.

“I’m David, Dave McClure, I decided to come here with a friend of mine to visit his cousin, I don’t know any of these people and my friend has disappeared into the unknown with a mystery of a woman.”

“What do you mean mystery of a woman?”

“I mean to say it’s beyond me, to say where she came from or who she is, but she’s very attractive and in her dark set eyes I find myself seduced and intimated, slightly scared you could say as a matter of fact.”

“Are you afraid of all women?”

“No, only women with sex appeal, or those naturally beautiful who are sumptuous to the sight of men, who leave an emotional hook in the hearts of men and then reel in a man like a hapless fish to flirt with and then destroy what dignity and integrity that remain. The women I desire carouse in groups of handsome men and women of similar beauty which I desire also. It’s a dilemma that drives 
the sane man insane”.

“You are rather melodramatic and you come off as being neurotic and over sensitive”, as she said this she laughed with a delightful giggle that gave me a lease of life, or perhaps a signal to my bamboozling behaviour.

“Yes, but what I said is true……..oh by the way I forgot to tell you what I do. Well I’m working for the civil service, as an auditor, basically working on accounts and other trivial matters that will bore you to tears.”

I grabbed a tall pint glass of beer for myself and poured a glass of wine for her, while she spoke my concentration would lapse occasionally and I would examine the meticulous efforts of the pianist, whose hands moved faster and faster as the night progressed and the rhythm changed and the melody moved every so often.

“You seem, somewhat distracted are you alright? She said as if she could examine with a magnifying glass my every thought and instinct.

“Sorry, I got distracted looking at the master of the morose and his miserable concerto that makes the room feel like a dungeon of depression,” said I seemingly weird, but with method to my strange behaviour. I consciously decided to try and leave this consortium of strangers and catch a bus to head home as soon as possible.

I tire with talking to her and I’m fed up playing mind games.

I immediately heard her laughter and that broke the silence.

“You’re right he’s killing the atmosphere playing that deep melodic rubbish.

I know this house well, one of my friends resides here, it’s his birthday party and at the right hand side to the porch there’s a study room with a telly and a player, if you want to go for some fun.”

Even my cynical dry witted self couldn’t overcome her charms.

“I can stay for ten minutes, but then I must catch the last bus home, otherwise I could find myself stranded so far from home.”

“Do as you please”, uttered the girl as if in amusement.

We entered a small but attractive study room, filled with books left, right and centre and with a large stereo at the right hand side of the room. She turned the telly on but adjusted the sound almost to mute. She stuck a CD in the player and sat close to me on the couch. Her eyes have the power of hypnosis, if one glances for to long.

“Emma, that’s you’re name isn’t it.”

“Yes”

“Who are the other men that you came with?”

“Friends of mine from way back, from my old school, why do you ask?”

“Just inquiring, it’s in my inquisitive nature to do so, to try and sum up strange seductive, over friendly, unfathomable sirens such as yourself”, said I, not choosing my words carefully and stupidly blurting out my attraction to her.

“I guess us sirens have games to play with male centaurs, working magic and perfecting that most perfect art of seduction. You make me laugh, I don’t understand why women don’t find you irresistible.”

“You paint a picture of some pretentiously important stranger, some other person that I’m sure I’ve met from time to time.”

“Oh no, I’m talking about you, no confusion with anyone else.”

While she faced me, she talked almost on a constant basis, and I became distracted, and disorientated, thinking about where my friend went to, what the others were up to in the living room and now I felt worried that I would miss the bus.  

She offered me a bottle of beer and left it on the top of the cupboard even after I had flatly refused yet again.

“I organised this little get together for my friend, so now I want to have some fun with you. Let’s play a little game.”

“It’s too late in the night to be playing games. I’ve got to be getting home anyway”, I said rather rudely to her in a hope to pry myself away from her. Anyway I didn’t want to play some childish game with this strange woman.

“Oh don’t worry, I promise you’ll enjoy this game. Don’t panic my friend James will give you a lift he’s probably heading in your direction anyway.”

“Alright I’ll stay, but I need a lift. I hope he’s heading towards Tempelogue direction.”

“Relax, he lives right outside Templeogue.

Now were going to play a game of hide and go seek upstairs. I play this game at all the parties I go to; it’s a sort of privilege to play it.”

What did she mean by a privilege? It seemed so strange to me why she wanted to play hide and go seek with me a stranger in this big house filled with guests whom I did not even know.

“You go upstairs, I’ll count to a hundred, and you go find a good spot to hide.”

“How many other people are playing?”

“Just the two of us,” she said.

“I’m a stranger here I don’t want anyone seeing me creeping about upstairs around someone else’s house, somebody may get the wrong impression”.

“If you don’t go now I’ll never let you leave the premises, nor will I permit James to give you a lift at all. Don’t worry, the guests wont care, come on lets have some fun”, she seemed to be bullying me into submission but then she let out a big burst of laughter as if to cajole me to her bizarre madcap antics.

“All right I’ll go and hide then”, said I surrendering myself to her charm and beauty, but still reluctant to even stay.

Out of the room I went and up the blue carpeted stairwell onto the landing where I struggled to think on where I could hide. I looked around spotting a large brown linen basket and a pile of old clothes on the landing. I thought of going into one of the bedrooms to hide myself behind the shower door, but then I decided to hide behind the door of the main front bedroom, I felt stubborn to move. I didn’t care where I hid myself, it was all pointless. I closed the door and squatted behind the bed. The room was pitch black, I could not hear a single sole stirring downstairs. I could not see in this black morass and I began to wonder whether or not the guests had actually all left and whether or not this was a cruel prank deliberated by a weird and rather annoying woman. Silence filled the air and resonated through the room. I lay my body flat down on the ground to cover myself completely. Still no sound emerged, I heard nothing.

Suddenly to my surprise I heard her opening the door in a whirlwind rush, she laughed almost non stop as she walked through the bedroom while I tried to hold my breath in hope that she would leave me be.

“Found you!” She said as she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up and there I stood face to face with her and her sparkling emerald eyes throwing her a forged smile of happiness. She grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me while she ran her hands through my hair up and down. She kept kissing me. I could feel her smooth lips against mine and they felt like silk to my lips, so soft and tempting. I opened my eyes for a split second to see her eyes closed. She grabbed me and threw me to the bed and continued to kiss me from my neck up to my lips over and over.

“I knew you were shy and awkward, I knew you wanted me, ever since I arrived you never stopped staring at me. So I found you irresistible and I knew that I had to have some fun with you. I knew you’d like this game; you’re good at hide and go seek. But now we can have even more fun, in the dark just the two of us and the moonlight beaming through the window.”

“I have to go now, I must leave to catch my bus”, Said I rather pathetically trying to squirm and release myself from her tight grip on me.

“Nonsense, stop making excuses, just lie down and kiss me, let’s roll around under the sheets. Come on! Hold me and kiss me!

A fear like static shocked my body; she began to overpower what remaining reserve of strength and contempt I had for her.

“Just relax and close you’re eyes” she said as she laid herself on top of me and began to undue the buttons on her ruby red top.

“No that’s enough!”

I shouted at her pushing her away from me, and as she lost her grip from my waist I stood up and darted as quick as I could out of the semi dark environs, belting down the stairs and out to the main corridor as fast as I could, in a mad panic. At the door I spotted the old man with the whiskers once again “Are you leaving so soon sir, why don’t you stay and have some fun, it’s a long night?”

A cold shudder ran down my spine as I ran forward past his creepy grin and out the door sprinting like a racehorse down the cold dark and damp streets out onto the main road in Rathmines. I stuck my hand out to catch a taxi, nearly having a coronary in the process too.

A taxi pulled over and in I went post haste.

“Take me home, home to Templeogue as fast as you can.”

Off we went down the road through Rathgar and up to Terenure, the streetlights glowed and the rain pelted right beside me.

“Did you have a good night tonight?”

 Asked the driver inquiring innocently.

 “Don’t talk to me about it, I haven’t recovered yet.

Just as Odysseus had to fight the tempting song of the siren so had I to fight the strangest of creatures trying to forget the worst of nights.