The Look of Love (19 page)

Molly gripped the car door handle hard as Carly stood on the brakes to let a Volvo out of a side turning. It was great to have the occasional lift home like this, and the heavy school-run traffic meant it was bordering on comfortable to be stuck in a traffic jam, so Carly couldn’t whizz along chatting and half oblivious, giggling ‘whoops’ every time she missed a gear change. All the same, Carly still managed to do a lot of sudden things. Like tell her Aimee was pregnant, confirmed by
a wee-on-stick test that very morning, in school and between, apparently, Maths and Design Tech. This was the first Molly had heard of it, even though everyone else seemed to be in on the news. But then she had been in the library for hours working on
Hamlet
(a very tedious and self-obsessed bloke, in her opinion).

‘Maybe she thinks it makes her some kind of big deal,’ Molly speculated. ‘You know what she’s like for being a drama queen. She’s keeping the baby, then? Is she going to be pram-pushing like Lisa Page? Shame really, because although Aimee’s a pain and a really mean slapper, she’s pretty clever. She was supposed to be applying for Cambridge.’ There was a sneaky bit of pleasure to be had from this news, Molly worked out. If Aimee really was pregnant, it might make her feel sick enough to be put off chasing other people’s boyfriends. It could, as her grandmother would say, clip her wings a bit. Also, did boys fancy pregnant girls? Or would they think that they might cop for the blame – or at least the responsibility if they started sleeping with her, even after the event? And what about if she got clingy with one and asked him to be her birth partner, or something? No – they’d mostly keep a safe distance now. Ha!

‘Um … don’t think she’s said about keeping it. It’s anyone’s guess. I’d have thought that if she
wasn’t
, then she’d have kept quiet and just slid off to some, like, clinic place, wouldn’t you?’

‘I think it’s a bit lame that she’s told the whole school before she tells her folks. Or maybe she sent her mum a text, soon as she got the result. Can you imagine that? “Hey mum am PG. L8ers”. Mine would have an epi.’

‘Mine too. Ballistic isn’t the word.’

‘So. Who’s the daddy, you think?’ Molly giggled. ‘Or is there a list?’

‘That’s another thing that’s anyone’s guess.’ Carly grinned. ‘I can’t imagine there are many who
aren’t
in the frame for this one, can you?’

‘Well, apart from Giles, no. I suppose not. But it’s probably not someone from school. Isn’t Aimee always showing off that she’s out clubbing at places up town where she can pull something a bit more sophisticated than teenage boys? I think she was just practising on the boys at school, like learning on the nursery slopes in skiing.’

‘Maybe it’s one of those older ones, then. Perhaps she’s got some rich old git on the go.’ Carly slammed on the brakes at the lights, having decided quite late that amber was very close to red and not really good for a gamble.

‘Rich, yes. But rich and careless!’ Molly laughed. ‘Pregnant! Wow, what an idiot!’

There seemed to be people everywhere. Saul dropped Bella off at her gate and left to go to a meeting at the
Soho office. Bella had plans to go out later to do some much-needed food-shopping, but she’d have to get the two trucks blocking in her Mini to move out of the way first. The front door was wide open and cables trailed through the house. As she went into the kitchen she could see a couple of hefty young men manhandling a huge palm tree into place halfway along the side flower bed, supervised by Keith the cat, sitting on the fence looking furious at his territory being so invaded. Bella sympathized. The kitchen worktop was covered in coffee mugs and scattered with sugar, and she had a heart-sinking certainty that when she looked in the fridge there might still be a bottle of milk but it wouldn’t contain enough even for that one cup of tea that she craved.

Of Shirley and Molly there was no sign at all, which meant the house could have been open for hours for this crew of total strangers. Much as she liked Saul, just at this moment she could cheerfully have abandoned this whole mad project, thrown the lot of them out and slammed the door after them. So this was Saul’s idea of minimal disruption, was it? They’d be able to carry on living in the house, no problem? Right. Who was in charge here? Nick must be somewhere about – she wanted a word with him.

‘Sorry love, could you just move to your left a bit? I need to get to the kettle.’ A big bearded man in a
sweat-stained T-shirt was suddenly blocking her view of the garden work.

‘“
Love?
”’ she snapped at him. ‘And who are you, if you don’t mind me asking, to be making free with my kitchen appliances?’

Ugh … she so wished she hadn’t said that. How snooty she sounded. She could imagine them all later, down at the riverside pub with pints of Wifebeater beer, laughing about her and her ‘eew lah-di-dah
kitchen appliances
!’ She wouldn’t blame them. For now, though, this poor man simply looked puzzled. ‘Um … I’m from
Green Piece Garden Company
… dressing in some plant life for the shoot? And you are …?’

‘I’m Bella. I live here. It’s my house. What happened to film catering? I didn’t expect to be feeding the five thousand.’

Nick came in from the hallway carrying a saw and a big screwdriver. ‘Hi Bella – sorry about this. It’ll all be clear in an hour, I promise. The catering only turns up for the actual shoot. But … we’ve come equipped!’

With a
ta-da
flourish, he opened the fridge and there were several bottles of milk, from full cream to organic skimmed. He then showed her new boxes of tea, bags of coffee and a tin of biscuits near the kettle.

‘All tastes catered for, from Dominic’s camomile tea to the sparks’s Nescafé,’ he said.

For the second time that day, Bella felt a bit tearful.

What’s the matter with me, she wondered. Maybe it was just about the way the house was being taken over. The upheaval was giving her a taste of how it would feel to be moving out. Half her kitchen furniture had gone, there were packing cases and strangers everywhere and she no longer felt there was a place in it – certainly not downstairs – for her. All she needed now was for James to come swanning in, hand her a cheque for a very slender amount and demand the house keys from her, and her day would be complete.

The burly garden bloke had, while she’d been pondering this, rinsed out half a dozen mugs and made tea.

‘I did one for you too, love,’ he said kindly. ‘You look like you need it.’

‘Thanks, I definitely do,’ she said, accepting a cup so strong that it looked as if, as James’s late mother used to say, you could ‘trot a mouse over it’. She accepted his offer of a couple of chocolate HobNobs too, feeling the need for the comfort of something sweet.

She took the tea upstairs to her study, shut the door and switched on her computer to look at emails and play a bit of Spider. Peace. At least up here all was as normal, even if she could still hear some shouts and bangs from below. What on earth were they still finding to do? Presumably something madly technical, though this morning it had all looked like a perfectly normal
house to her and she’d thought they’d seemed happy enough with that. And why were they forever in and out of the downstairs loo? It was almost constantly flushing (which, given they were all men, was something, she supposed). She’d have to buy an industrial-size pack of loo roll at this rate, and charge it to the shoot.

Ideally she’d now go and have a calming bath and then lie on her bed, clothed in only body lotion and her silky robe, and watch something soothing like
Escape to the Country
, ogling beautiful houses in remote areas she would never want to live in, though she’d find herself a teeny bit tempted. But somehow, she would feel peculiarly vulnerable – shy, even – about indulging in such intimate pampering with a horde of unknown blokes crashing about downstairs. How could she possibly relax? Any second one of them could trail up the stairs and knock apologetically on the door to ask about the location of a fuse box or the garden tap.

‘Bella? Are you in there? They said you were up here somewhere.’

Well, at least this was a familiar and welcome voice. Jules tapped on the door and opened it a few cautious inches.

‘Hi Jules – come on in. Are you OK? Please don’t tell me you’re giving up on this as well. I couldn’t bear it to be just me and Dina. And Daisy would go into orbit.’

‘No, no it’s fine, I’m still resigned to crushing
victimhood. I just came to see if you fancied coming over to mine for supper. My menfolk are all out at a footie match and I’ll be on my lonesome otherwise. And bring Shirley and Molly as well, of course. It would get you out of all this. It must be hell; though I have to admit I quite like that wifebeater vest and toolbelt look on those tech boys, myself.’

Jules came in and sat on the old wicker chair beside Bella’s desk and started making a tiny paper aeroplane out of a Post-it note.

‘You’re right, it’s not wonderful, not right now,’ Bella told her. ‘But I’ve only just got home and I’m feeling grouchy and tired. They say they’ll be gone soon, but the thought of cooking … and I haven’t been to the shops for any food, either. Oh God, I’m so chaotic. So, thanks, Jules – I’d love to take you up on that.’

‘Seems to me,’ Jules said, ‘that you’ve taken on a bit too much here. But hey, look, I’ll go now, leave you in peace. I only popped in to invite you – I was just on my way back from walking the dog. So – have a shower or something and then …’

‘Aaagh! Are you saying I’m all smelly and vile?’ She thought about Saul, how she’d been sharing his intimate car space less than an hour ago. He’d leaned across and kissed her goodbye, just briefly. How terrific to have had deodorant failure even before their date. How off-putting must that be? Not that she was
thinking of it as a date. Definitely not – she’d said as much when he’d asked her. But all the same …

‘No of course not – I only meant it would de-stress you!’

‘Oh, right. OK – as soon as I hear that front door slam and the last of them going, I’ll get in the bath for a lovely soak. I don’t know where Molly or my mother are, but I expect they’ll turn up when they’re getting hungry. Family – they’re just like cats, aren’t they?’ She yawned and ran her hands through her hair. It felt slightly sticky and in need of a thorough wash. She wondered what Dominic had in mind for it, makeover-wise. She quite liked it as it was – floppy mid-blonde, a bit layered and hanging soft against her neck. The worst-case possibility was that he’d decide she needed a cute little urchin cut. Unless you had a neck as skinny as Audrey Hepburn’s and a face as elfin as Mia Farrow in her heyday (and who, past forty, did?), that was absolutely
not
a great look. She only hoped she’d have the strength to put up a fight if he got over-insistent.

‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Jules got up, flying her little paper plane down to the gardeners below. ‘See you later. It’s only chilli and stuff, nothing fancy, so come whenever you like.’

‘OK, thanks so much Jules, I will. And I’ll bring wine.’

It was amazing what twenty minutes lying in warm, scented water could do. Bella felt so much better as she towel-dried her hair and pulled some of her best underwear (Elle Macpherson, black lace on blue satin) out of the drawer. Then, only half conscious of what she was doing, she put it away again and pulled out some rather plainer – though still pretty (cream with pink dots) – Marks & Spencer kit.

‘Oh God, what am I thinking?’ She sat down abruptly on the bed, feeling shocked at herself. Whizzing uninvited through her head had been the idea of keeping the Elle Macpherson for the date with Saul. No! She didn’t
do
dates any more, and certainly not the sort where her underwear was likely to be on view. Going out with Saul didn’t mean she was
going out
with Saul. I must, she told herself, keep control over my inner slut. All the same, she decided that the cream and pink would work better under her pale blue and white spotty Banana Republic dress. If you were thinking slutty, she reasoned as she fastened her bra, there was nothing more tarty than having dark underwear showing through pale fabric, now was there?

‘Oh the peace and the bliss of a normal household!’ Bella said as Jules poured glasses of cold Pinot Grigio for the four of them. ‘I must have been mad to let them take over the house. There are cables and lighting stuff
and big silver box things everywhere. The things we do for money.’

‘Well, if you call my place normal …’ Jules commented, stirring a huge vat of chilli con carne on the stove. Her glance swept across the big family kitchen-dining room. ‘This part seems to be a holding area for everything the male contingent lose interest in but might just want to pick up again when passing through.’ A guitar leaned against a sofa. A heap of scuffed trainers lay in hazard-formation by the doorway. On the dresser were computer cables, a Wii, a pile of CDs. But just in front of the table the doors to the garden were open and the sweet rich scent of night phlox out on the terrace was wafting in. At that end of the room all was order and the table was prettily laid with candles and pink napkins.

Jules’s husband and her teenage sons were out – gone to watch Chelsea play Manchester United at home, and not expected back till much later. Some early scoring looked promising for Chelsea’s victory, and a victory meant post-match celebration and a slow homecoming.

‘I thought we’d have it with jacket potatoes and sour cream – or crème fraiche if we’re supposed to be thinking about how the camera puts on ten pounds,’ Jules said, pulling a big bowl of salad out of the fridge and handing it to Bella to put on the table.

‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble,’ Shirley said.

‘No I haven’t. I made at least treble what we need, so I can freeze some for another night. So really, it’s nothing, honestly. Anyway I’m glad to see you all. I’d have had a lonely old evening, trawling the channels for makeover programmes and getting all nervous about how we’re going to be treated. I swear, if that Daisy woman insists that citrus brights really work with my red hair, I will walk out. I hope she isn’t going to turn us all into clones of her. We’ll look like a cageful of mad parrots.’