As Good As It Gets? (16 page)

He pulls away and frowns. ‘Can you smell something?’

‘Er, I don’t think so …’

‘Well, I can.’ He sniffs loudly. ‘It’s sort of …
medicinal
. It’s coming from your hair. Have you been using a new product or something?’

‘No,’ I say defensively.

‘You must have. It’s a medicated smell. D’you have dandruff?’

‘I’ve never had dandruff in my life!’ I protest.

‘Well, it smells a bit like it. Or is it that tea tree stuff? D’you have nits?’

‘No!’

‘Let me have a look …’ He clicks on his bedside light and starts raking through my hair.

‘I don’t have nits, Will! Get off—’

‘Hold still. I’m just checking …’

‘Ow!’ I yelp.

He shrinks back. ‘What’s wrong? What have I done?’

‘It’s just … would you leave my hair alone please? It’s a bit … sore.’

‘You have sore
hair
?’ He squints at the top of my head. ‘My God, there’s a cut here. It looks pretty bad. What on earth happened?’

‘I banged it,’ I mutter, feeling like a silly child.

Gently, protectively, Will eases a strand of hair away from my face. ‘How did you do that?’

‘I, er, fell.’ Shivering, I bunch the duvet around my shoulders as Will continues to examine the wound.

‘You’ve put something on it.’

‘Yeah, Sudocrem.’

He sighs. ‘It looks pretty deep. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I …’ I clear my throat. ‘I felt a bit stupid …’

‘Oh, darling.’ He puts his arms around me and pulls me close. It’s so rare for him to do this, my eyes well up with tears. ‘You idiot,’ he murmurs. ‘Bit pissed, were you?’

‘A bit,’ I agree.

‘On a Wednesday night,’ he chastises me gently. ‘In the garden, too. What would Tricia and Gerald say?’

‘Er, hopefully they didn’t see,’ I say with a feeble laugh.

Will’s face turns serious. ‘Did you fall outside?’

‘No, I, er, bumped my head when I was coming in.’

‘What, on the door or something?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

He shakes his head. ‘Did you trip?’

‘Uh-huh.’ As he’s feeding me the lines, it doesn’t count as lying.

‘Maybe we should put a dressing on it,’ he suggests.

‘It’ll be
fine
,’ I say firmly. ‘Better let the air get to it.’ He gives me another concerned look, then switches off the lamp. I expect him to turn away and say goodnight, but instead, he takes me in his arms and holds me close. And it’s just what I need, after my shed trauma: being held as I drift off to sleep. ‘I love you, Charlotte,’ he whispers.

‘I love you too, darling.’

‘I love you, you drunk, crazy woman, and I know I don’t tell you that enough.’ I turn and kiss him again, thinking: this is lovely. This is a million times better than cuddling a rabbit. Will does care, after all, and he’s being all affectionate and sweet because I am injured.

Maybe, I reflect, I should arrange to be whacked on the head by a tin of creosote more often.

Chapter Fifteen

There is no further questioning from Will regarding my wound over breakfast, and Rosie and Ollie are too concerned with the grave injustices inflicted upon their own lives to even notice it. Besides, I have carefully combed my hair over the crusty bit, like a balding man.

‘My agency haven’t phoned yet,’ Rosie announces, with a dramatic sigh, like a seasoned model whose career is experiencing a temporary downturn.

‘You’ve got an agent,’ Ollie muses. ‘I’d love that. I’d love to be able to say, “Speak to my
agent.
”’

Rosie wrinkles her nose at him. ‘I’m sure they will,’ I say, absent-mindedly, wondering if my husband will detect that anything untoward happened in the shed last night. Half past six, I was up this morning, to creep out and mop up the spilt creosote, plus the dark, sticky footprints leading to our back door. I even wiped the grass
where I’d trampled on it,
concealing the gunky rags under black bags in the wheelie bin. I’d felt like someone covering up their tracks after committing a violent crime.

‘Mum?’ Rosie’s voice interrupts my thoughts. ‘I said I thought I’d have some go-sees to go on by now.’

‘D’you
go on
go-sees then?’ Ollie teases. ‘D’you
go-see
people?’

She frowns. ‘That’s why they’re called go-sees, Ollie. But no, I
don’t
go on them ’cause no one wants to see me.’

‘We want to see you,’ he says with a grin. ‘We like you, Ro, even if the model agency doesn’t—’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she snaps.

‘Rosie, there’s no need to be so grumpy or take it out on Ollie …’ I tail off as he examines the sweatshirt I bought him from deepest, darkest Hollister.

‘I can’t wear this for school, Mum,’ he announces.

I stare at it. ‘Why not?’

‘’Cause it’s dark blue, not black.’

‘Oh, Christ. Is it?’

‘Yeah! It’s obvious. Are you colour blind or something?’

‘No, I’m not, Ollie. I told you, it was completely dark in there, like a cave. Next time I’m going to Primark …’

‘Not Primark,’ he groans, catching his father’s eye. Throughout all this, Will has been standing and smirking and drinking his coffee.

‘Can’t you take it back?’ Will suggests.

‘No, I can’t,’ I reply. ‘If he’d said at the time, if he’d actually
looked
at it properly, then I might have had the receipt—’ I tail off and grab my jacket and bag. ‘Anyway, I’d better get off to work.’

‘Head feeling better?’ Will asks, somewhat belatedly, as I kiss him goodbye.

‘Yes, much better, thanks.’ I hug Rosie and Ollie – who don’t even enquire as to what might be wrong with me – and leave.

In contrast, everyone at work not only spots the scab immediately, my comb-over having dislodged somewhat, but lavishes me with concern. Rupert even suggests that I shouldn’t have come in at all. ‘Head injuries can be serious,’ he says gravely, towering over me in the shop. He peers at my wound like a sympathetic GP. ‘Are you sure you were okay to drive?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say firmly, flattered by the attention.

‘It’s just …’ He smiles and his eyes glint playfully. ‘Um … maybe you should be at home …
resting
.’

I laugh, baffled by his concern. ‘I’m okay, honestly. I just bumped it on the door. It’s my age, I think. My spatial awareness isn’t what it was.’

‘It’s not just that,’ Dee says, as she and Rupert follow me upstairs to the office. ‘We were just thinking, with this being such a
special
day …’ I frown, not getting it at all.

‘That’s right,’ Rupert adds, parking his bum on my desk, ‘and I have to say, despite it all, you still look radiant …’

‘I very much doubt that,’ I reply.

‘You do, truthfully.’ He grins at Dee. ‘Think it’s that cream she uses? That stuff with the real gold particles in?’

‘Yeah, probably,’ chuckles Dee.

I blink at them in bewilderment. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Oh, don’t be bashful,’ Rupert cuts in. ‘We all have our little beauty secrets. Me – I use a nasal hair trimmer. Marcelle bought it for me last Christmas … charming, eh? Nice to see romance isn’t dead!’ As he barks with laughter it starts to dawn on me: the only time real gold particle cream –
serum
, actually – has entered my consciousness was at Rosie’s shoot. That ad in
Vogue
, which I’d happened to glance at while being interviewed on the phone … Oh, Christ. ‘Is it out?’ I gasp.

‘Sure is,’ Dee says with a grin, waving a copy of
Front
magazine from her desk.

‘Oh God, let me see.’ I lurch over as she flicks it open to the significant page. Rosie looks lovely, and incredibly relaxed, considering this was her first shoot. I, on the other hand, am perched awkwardly on the Perspex chair as if fearful that someone might march over and snap, ‘Please don’t sit on that.’ But worse than that – because the photo is
fine
really, despite my man make-up and guitar-player-out-of-Queen hair – is the headline.

In huge type, across two whole pages, it reads:

We’re the High-Maintenance Mums Behind

Fashion’s New Faces!

‘Oh my God,’ I croak.

‘We’re obviously paying you too much,’ Rupert sniggers.

I glare at the page. ‘But that’s not what she said when she did the interview. No one mentioned anything about high-maintenance mums. I’ve been totally misrepresented!’ It’s true: I buy a supermarket moisturiser that’s actually a bum cream for babies and haven’t had my eyebrows shaped by anything other than my own unsteady hand and some rusting tweezers since about 2005. I’ve
never
had a massage, unless you count Will grudgingly rubbing my shoulders for about three seconds, before enquiring, ‘Is that enough?’ Guinness is more pampered than I am. At least he has his nails clipped at the vet’s. My head has started to sting again with the stress of it all.

As Rupert and Dee’s laughter subsides I sit down with the magazine at my desk.

Charlotte Bristow, 42, looks amazing for her age …

That’s because I’m thirty-bloody-eight. I don’t remember my age even being mentioned. With Rosie and I being last-minute participants, Joely probably forgot to ask.

…
Fabulous bone structure and a dewy complexion,
it goes on.
And her beauty secret? She swears by super-luxe Belle Visage Beauty Elixir containing real gold micro-particles. At £750 for 50ml, it’s the most expensive serum on the market today …

My wound throbs even harder as I stare at the figure.
£750.
I have owned cars that cost less than that.
‘This is rubbish,’ I mutter. ‘I use the cheapest stuff imaginable. My shampoo’s 99p—’

‘No wonder,’ Dee teases, ‘when you spend that much on your face.’

Still grinning, Rupert peers over my shoulder. ‘They’re saying Rosie’s fifteen …’

‘Yes, they’ve got her age wrong too.’

‘You’re saying they made it
all
up then?’

My cheeks flush. ‘Well, er, I did say I use that serum, but only because I didn’t want to seem like a cheapskate …’

He smiles. ‘Well, you certainly don’t. Anyway, listen – I’ve got just the thing to take your mind off it.’

‘Yes?’ I say eagerly, closing the magazine.

‘Website really needs an update. Would you mind?’

‘Of course not,’ I reply with genuine relief. Anything to stop me fretting about that headline.

‘Great. With the festival coming up, it really needs to look tip-top. Could you cobble together a shoot today? Something lovely and sunny with everyone having a jolly time?’

I nod. ‘D’you have anything in mind?’

‘Erm …’ He rakes a hand through his unruly dark hair. ‘I’ll leave that to you and your creative genius. Just pull together something fun, okay?’

‘Yes, no problem—’

He bounds for the door, pausing to add, ‘Oh, and I meant to say, that magazine thing …’ He beams a fond, big brotherly sort of smile. ‘You do scrub up very well, Charlotte Bristow.’

‘For my age,’ I call after him as he clatters downstairs.

‘For
any
age,’ he shouts back.

Chapter Sixteen

I’m feeling better already about
Front
magazine. When I sneaked another look, I learnt that the other mothers were partial to algae body wraps and enzyme facials. So perhaps I’m small fry, in model-mum circles, where self-maintenance is concerned.

Turning my attention to work, I decide to stage a staff picnic – the sky is perfectly cloudless, it’s an ideal day for it – to photograph for our website. I gather up hampers, blankets and assorted paraphernalia from the shop, then drive to the nearest supermarket and amass enormous quantities of sandwiches and cakes. Finally, I stop off at a gift shop for plastic windmills and Tibetan prayer flags to pin up about the place.

Back at work, in the spud store – the cool, dark shed where cuddly Farmer Mickey’s Maris Pipers are kept – I find the enormous bundle of bunting which I used for a shoot last summer (each time the word ‘shoot’ forms in my mind, I imagine Parker, a
proper
photographer, snorting with derisive laughter). Although it’s a bit dusty, the bunting looks fine once I’ve pinned it up between trees in the garden in front of the visitors’ centre and shop.

In fact, with the sun beating down onto my colourful scene, it’s actually very pleasing. You might even believe we were in the depths of the real countryside, rather than barely beyond the East London sprawl. Even last night’s sorry episode with the waders and hormone rooting powder is fading from my consciousness as I put the finishing touches to the picnic scene. I’m further distracted when it comes to persuading ‘teamsters’ to take part in the shoot, whilst laughing off yet more comments about my outing as a high-maintenance mother (which everyone appears to have examined forensically, despite Parker insisting that ‘no one will see it’).

‘What d’you want us to do?’ Frank asks grumpily, rubbing his hands on the front of his factory apron and blinking in the sunshine as if he’s just emerged from hibernation.

‘Could you just arrange yourselves around the picnic?’ I say, adding, ‘And, er, would you mind taking your overalls off please, folks?’

The teamsters obligingly pull off their uniforms and sling them out of shot. Then Frank pulls out a packet of Silk Cut and lights one up, so then I have to politely ask him to dispose of that too, because no one smokes at an Archie’s picnic. I realise, of course, that he’s winding me up, being the naughty Spanish factory lad whom I suspect his female colleagues all secretly fancy. While he doesn’t quite cut it on the jolly teamster front, I know Rupert values him for being a grafter.

‘Dee, come and join the picnic,’ I say as she emerges from the shop, looking lovely with her blonde hair artfully pinned up, and not just
for her age.
I notice, too, that Frank’s demeanour changes as she arranges herself on a corner of the brightly-striped blanket. ‘Could you sit a bit nearer to Frank, Dee?’ I ask as I start to take pictures. ‘We’re meant to be a family, remember? You look a bit lost, sitting there all by yourself.’