Summer Soirées

We’re a sociable lot in our village. And no-one ever turns up emptyhanded . . .

IT’S the same every year in the village, come the start of summer and the longer days. We call it the village, though now it’s really a suburb of the expanded town.

It still has a smallcommunity feel to it and is very sociable. Especially in the summer – most weeks there’s something going on.

Tonight, for example, I’ve been invited to a barbecue at Alison’s. But as I’ve told my sister, who’s popped in unexpectedly, her arrival isn’t a problem because I’m minded to skip this one.

“Michael, you know, who moved in down the road at the start of the year? Alison’s invited him, too,” I explain. “You know what she’s like. I’m sure she’s trying to get us together.”

“All the more reason for you to go!” my sister says. “I met Michael briefly last time I was here, when he came and told me I’d left my car lights on. He seemed pleasant enough. A lot better than some you’ve taken up with!”

She pulls a face.

It is true that that aspect of my life has not gone smoothly. Unlike hers. She met my wonderful brotherin-law straight after school.

“What’s wrong with Michael?” she persists. I have to think. “Well, it’s like an interrogation every time we talk,” I eventually say. That is true.

“You meet him when you’re just putting your rubbish out at the same time,” I tell her, “and it’s like twenty questions.”

Hearing a noise outside, I glance out the window. My neighbours are coming down their path.

I know they, too, have been invited to Alison’s and that’s doubtless where they’re going.

I wave and they wave back, but I see them exchange a look. Are they wondering if I’m not going because I’ve fallen out with Alison?

Not wanting it to get round the neighbourhood that there is trouble between us, I decide I had better go.

“But I haven’t got anything to take,” I say.

“Hold on!” My sister goes out to her car and returns with a bottle of wine. “One of my new stock,” she says.

She runs a speciality food shop. If you want something different, obscure even, that’s the place to go.

Some of these so carefully sourced items are delicious. But some are most definitely not, though obviously they have their fans because she manages to keep going. Today, though, I’m grateful to her.

“Thanks,” I say, taking the proffered bottle.

Alison is busy when I get there so I just put the bottle with the other refreshments. It’s the first time I look at it properly.

It stands out, as might be expected from my sister’s emporium. The bottle itself is a slightly odd shape, for a start.

As for the label, whereas those on the other bottles all show a château or pretty village street or something, this one has a picture of . . . well, I’m not entirely sure what it is.

I take a closer look. Some kind of creature with beady brown eyes, a crooked nose and a funny hat. Fairy-like, in a way, but not pretty enough. Gnome-like? Not quite that, either.

An imp, I decide, for want of something better.

During the evening Alison does rather push me and Michael together. But as conversation between us becomes easier, the endless questions cease.

You could argue that’s because he’s found out everything he wanted to, but my feeling is it’s more that he’s not terribly confident socially; perhaps shy and private, really.

Asking questions is something to say without offering too many of your own opinions. You can sound someone out and reduce the risk of putting your foot in it.

As I’m leaving, I notice the wine I brought is still there, unopened.

Its neighbours – from memory, a Rioja and a Chablis – they’ve gone. But the Imp, as in my mind I’ve named the wine after the creature on the label, is still there, waiting to be chosen.

I look at him again and I’m nearly sure he smiles at me!

During the summer there’s something on nearly every week. The following Saturday I’m invited to what Lucy and Francesco refer to as

a “soirée”.

I think they feel this is more sophisticated than a barbie and I guess it probably is. They have a lovely garden and we sit under trees decorated with little lights.

Apparently they once had a couple of violinists out there, too, providing music.

I take a “proper” bottle of wine – Chianti. As I’m giving it to Lucy, Alison turns up clutching my old friend, the Imp!

She sees me looking at the bottle, I imagine with a wryly knowing expression on my face, for in turn I see her face has “Oh, no!” written all over it.

Since this is the first time I’ve been invited to Lucy and Francesco’s gathering, probably Alison thought she was safe in passing the Imp on.

But she recovers quickly. And whilst she doesn’t actually try to pretend she got the Imp from there, I later hear her chattering on about the selection of “unusual wines they have at that big new supermarket.”

Michael turns up. I surprise myself by how pleased I feel to see him.

They have a pond and we sit by that, both fascinated by the considerable activity among the rushes, if you really look.

Before I leave I have a look to see if anyone has risked the Imp this time. No-one has – the bottle again remains unopened.

I give him a sympathetic smile. And once again I have the crazy notion he grins back at me.

****

The next summer social event is a more conventional dinner party, inside. Frederick, the host, apparently doesn’t like eating outside and is particularly scathing about barbecues.

“Sausages burnt on the outside and raw inside!”

So this is on the formal side. But still the Imp turns up! I espy it under Lucy’s arm as she and Francesco arrive.

They proffer it under the pretence of being “one of the interesting new wines in the new supermarket that Alison mentioned.”

I’m seated next to Michael. For someone relatively new to the locality, he seems popular. And it strikes me that this time, yes, I am definitely pleased to see him.

On this occasion, our roles swap. I find I’m asking him all about himself.

I learn that he’s a mechanic with his own small garage.

“Nothing exciting, I’m afraid!” he says with a rueful smile.

I ask myself if I’d trust him to repair my car – you know, not to rip me off. And I decide that absolutely I would.

He’s a nice bloke. Not exciting, and that doesn’t just apply to the job he does. He hasn’t got looks that send your pulse racing, like the man I was engaged to had.

His name was Crispin. We were engaged for several years, But then he went off and married a woman, significantly younger than I was by then, whom he’d known for about four months!

Maybe that’s why Alison and my sister feel the need to play Cupid for me – because after that I wasn’t going looking for romance myself!

The pleasant evening comes to an end. Everyone’s going but I feel I have to find out something.

I look among the bottles arranged on a trolley.

The Imp’s still there, rejected again.

Even as I’m looking, I overhear someone putting forward the theory that it’s the picture of him on the label that’s putting people off!

But he doesn’t seem bothered. This time, I could swear he winks at me!

****

Having enjoyed everyone else’s hospitality, I decide the time has come for me to arrange something. I haven’t got a big house, but I have got a quite large corner-plot garden.

So I go for a barbecue. If Frederick doesn’t want to come – the burnt sausages aspect – he needn’t.

I invite him, though, along with the rest of them, including Michael, though tonight I don’t get much chance to talk to him, as I’m too busy seeing to everyone.

I’m in the kitchen, getting a bag for the accumulating litter, when I notice that, yes, someone’s brought the Imp!

There it is, the familiar bottle, on my table. The way things have been going, I’m not surprised to see it. And Frederick, on whose drinks trolley I last saw it, is here.

If nothing else, I think with a smile, the Imp gets around, and here he is now, back where he started!

Suddenly I hear my gran’s voice in my head.

“If something keeps turning up in your life, Faye, it’s meant for you.”

She often said that. Being the hostess tonight and rushing about, I haven’t had a drink yet. And only half a hot dog to eat, too, as it happens.

“So you’re meant for me, are you?” I say to the bottle as I reach for a corkscrew.

Remembering it came from my sister, my first sip is definitely wary. But . . . “It’s lovely!”

I’m talking to the Imp, or at least, to the label on the bottle.

So I nearly jump out of my skin when a voice says, “You certainly sound as though you’re enjoying that!”

I turn round to see Michael standing there, smiling.

Does that apply to someone, too?

In this case, I realise, that’s what I would very much like. Crispin took some getting over, but I got over him. And now I’m ready to get beyond him.

Michael stays a while after the others have left.

We have a coffee, chat about the night, and then he helps me clear up.

“Is this the recycling box for bottles and jars?” Michael asks.

“Yes,” I start saying. Then I see what he’s got in his hand.

“No, don’t put that one in!” He looks a bit mystified, then nods.

“It is rather a distinctive bottle.” He frowns. “What’s that on the label?”

“An imp, I think,” I say, smiling as I stow the bottle safely away on a shelf.

I’ll use it perhaps to put a flower in, or maybe make into a lamp-base. Something . . . Whatever, I’m holding on to it. I’d miss my funny little friend. It’s fair to say that, in the same way as Michael has, he’s rather grown on me! n