The Look of Love (27 page)

‘When are we going shopping?’ Jules asked, as Daisy and Fliss led them out to the wardrobe wagon. Saul, Dominic and the camera crew weren’t needed at this point while Daisy took them through clothes selection and some essential trying-on. Bella locked the front door after them all, just in case some sneaky burglar saw an opportunity for a quick thieve while she and the others were being zipped into their new looks. As an excuse for the house being open, she didn’t think this would go down well on an insurance claim for theft.

‘We’re not going shopping,’ Daisy told Jules. ‘The viewing audience all know what a shop looks like. The other programmes like this have those pointless scenes of women looking pathetically confused in high street stores, flicking through rails of ghastly cheap things. There’s no need for that. Dominic and I have done the choosing for you – that is what I’m here for
and what I do for a living. And besides,’ she added, ‘much of what we have here isn’t yet high-street available. The viewers will love that.
You’ll
love it.’

‘Sounds like an order,’ Dina whispered to Jules as they boarded the wardrobe wagon. This was a massive truck parked out in the road. Inside, four long rails of clothes were arranged, one for each of them. The interior resembled a theatre dressing room and was surprisingly large, having a pink velvet chaise longue and a bulb-lit mirror the length of one wall, which made it all horribly hot.

‘How did the A-lister go yesterday, by the way?’ Bella asked Daisy as she had a first wary look at the contents of her rail. ‘Did she like what you’d collected for her?’ She pictured the bemused actress, even now wandering London in a skirt made out of long, purple, polyester hair, and wondering if she should comb it, plait it or just stroke it a bit.

Daisy grimaced. ‘Nightmare! The bitch had
put on weight!
Deliberately! It seems it’s not good in the current economic climate to look too thin. Apparently it smacks of not being able to afford food, so well-fed is the new size zero and if the world doesn’t recover sharpish, everyone will be desperately showing off that they can stuff themselves to the size of the residents of Tonga. Nothing fitted her. Selfridges had to courier round a whole repeat batch in a bigger size.’ She closed
her eyes as if to wipe out the memory. ‘Apart from handbags, of course; thank the Lord for extreme handbags. Dominic was in heaven there.’

Daisy turned her attention back to the truck’s clothes stock.

‘OK – bearing in mind the principle of
egg
,’ she said, ‘I’d like you each first of all to pick out one dress, a skirt, two tops and what you consider the perfect trousers. I’m going to see how you all do on your own first.’

Bella, pulling her own jumper off in order to try on a silk top, became aware of a ringing sound somewhere beyond the truck. An alarm, fire or burglar. She was vaguely hoping for the sake of the sound man that it would have been sorted before the afternoon’s session, when Fliss opened the truck’s back door and the noise became a lot louder.

‘Mum?’ she said to Daisy. ‘There’s an alarm going off. I think it might be …’

‘Not “Mum” at work, Fliss!’ Daisy snapped. ‘I’ve told you before.’

‘It’s my alarm, isn’t it?’ Bella dropped the silk top and pushed past them all, running down the steps and across the gravel to her open front door. Bloody hell, how had that happened? Who was in there? But more important – had she heard that right? ‘Mum’.
Daisy
was Fliss’s
mother
? Bella’s heart thumped hard and her brain was a confused whirr. Putting a very obvious two and
two together, she came up with … Saul and Daisy as a couple. As the other marriage. Why
the hell
hadn’t Saul told her?

‘Wait! Bella, we’ll do this together, it could be dangerous!’ Jules caught up with her by the front door. The two of them ran into the hallway and there was James, prodding hopelessly at the burglar-alarm keypad and looking flustered.

‘Bella, you’re only half dressed!’ he said. ‘Have you been out in the street like that in just your bra? That could be a sign of …’

‘No of course I haven’t!’ Bella almost spat the words, more furious with Saul than with James. Damn. Now she was at a disadvantage, facing James in just her jeans and her pale blue polka-dot M&S satin special. ‘But I’m hardly likely to expect a burglar to hang about while I get dressed, now am I?’

‘But I’m not a burglar! And you’ve changed the code! That’s why the alarm went off,’ he told Bella and the collection of hyped-up onlookers who’d gathered behind her. ‘Now the police will come and you’ll have to pay for a false call-out.
Not
360-degree thinking, that, now is it? Oh – hello Dina! How nice to see you again!’ James had spotted Dina and was smiling at her in a disturbingly eager way.

‘James, what the hell are you doing here? And how come you have a key?’ Bella demanded furiously. She
wanted to hit him, clout his stupid, over-pink face with its ‘I’m always right’ expression. Not so much because he was there, invading her territory like this for whatever reasons of his own, but almost entirely because a whole Connect Four-style grid’s worth of puzzle tiles were tumbling uncontrollably into places in her brain that she didn’t want them to reach. They’d started to tumble the second Fliss had so casually called Daisy ‘Mum’.

‘Look, at the end of the day, there’s nothing to stress about. I only popped in to pick up a few documents that need checking over. You know? Those deeds we talked about the other day?’ James had eventually stopped smirking at Dina and confessed readily to Bella, the moment she’d dragged him away so they could talk alone. First she had reset the alarm and cancelled the police. Thank goodness the others had some sense of tact and had gone to check out the lunch menu in the catering truck.

Bella grabbed a hoodie of Molly’s from where it was abandoned over the banister rail. Big and comfortingly baggy on Molly, it fitted Bella fairly snugly. She and James went through the kitchen and out into the garden, where they sat on the bench to talk. Bella felt determinedly inhospitable, as if she were entertaining a
stalker, and was not at all inclined to offer James a drink, even though he’d looked meaningfully at the kettle as they passed through the kitchen. Then she felt bad – he was, after all, the father of her beloved children – and she dashed back inside and quickly made him a cup of his favourite camomile tea.

‘Thanks. I didn’t want to disturb you, Bella, that’s all, that’s why I let myself in. And besides, I thought you weren’t here.’

‘Right. Isn’t that a bit contradictory? Where does “not disturbing” me come in, if you actually thought I was out? How many other times have you sneaked into the house when I’ve been off the premises?’ She had a vision of him skulking behind the privet next to the front gates and felt slightly ill at the thought of being spied on, even by someone she used to know so well. Had he been in her bedroom, apart from that time she’d been there? Surely she’d have sensed if someone had been in, especially as James was so heavy on the aftershave. He probably thought it had disinfecting properties.

‘I haven’t been in before. Honestly.’

‘Apart from sneaking up on me in
my own bedroom
,’ she reminded him.

‘I wasn’t
sneaking
. Just looking for you. You could even see it as a heads-up about locking doors.’

‘Oh, I did. Which is why the front door was locked
just now. Did you wheedle a key out of Molly or Alex?’

‘I wouldn’t say “wheedle”,’ James protested feebly. ‘I simply asked Alex and he found one for me.’

‘That was pretty underhand, wasn’t it? You knew I didn’t want you to have one. And don’t pull the old “this is half my house” number.
You don’t live here
, James. I could probably get a restraining order, you know.’

‘Well that would be overreacting somewhat, don’t you think? Surely common sense can come to the party here, if we’re going to move the issue forward in this space?’ He’d got his pompous face on now. She could almost see his chest puffing out, like a bumptious pigeon. The reversion to jargon matched his stance perfectly.

Bella laughed. ‘You know, if I had a clue what you were talking about, there’s a chance I could agree with you. Look … give me back the key and go away, will you please James? If we’re going to have an “issue” over the house, then I really will need to consult someone about it. All the same, I won’t be obstructive. Just the house deeds, was it?’

‘House deeds, mortgage details, all that. I somehow lost track of it all and I wanted to take a look under the bonnet, so to speak …’ He sounded more hopeful than a few minutes ago, possibly thinking she was caving in.

‘Yes, I’ve got them and believe it or not, I even know
where they are. You know, you could have just asked me – I’m perfectly willing to photocopy them all for you. But I’ve been thinking about this. Remember I’ve been paying the mortgage here for the past ten years, on my own. We only lived here together for three years before that after we left the rented place, and the deposit for this house was entirely from my grandfather’s legacy, if you recall. I have a feeling that if I owe you anything financially, it won’t be an awful lot. Sorry if that’s a bit of a blow, but it can’t be as big a one as being made to think you’re going to be instantly evicted and banished to live in a box, believe me.’

‘Aha! We shall see. And as I said before, it’s mostly you I’m thinking about. This place is going to be far too big for you when you’re on your own.’

Oh, and she
would
be on her own. She could see that looming worst-case scenario so clearly: a chill, lonely, lover-free future, punctuated by hectic, over-optimistic short-term forays with a series of men who were badly acquainted with truth. Grim.
Another
bloody mistake. How many times in her life was she going to have to go through the ‘never again’ disappointment with men? This is
it
, she decided, never again would mean just that. She really could do without people who only gave her half the story.

‘You don’t need to think about me, James, thanks all the same. If you didn’t spare me a thought when I was
running myself ragged looking after two infants and trying to get my career going, then it’s a bit pointless, not to say unconvincing, trying to make up for it now, isn’t it?’

‘OK, OK. Sorry. Look, I’ll leave the document-sourcing with you and we’ll touch base again soon.’ James got up and stretched, his shirt pulling tight across his corpulent middle. Bella suddenly felt rather sorry for him. He used to be very fit, very active when younger. He’d played in a Sunday football team and been quite careful with his health (which was where the over-concern with hygiene had begun). Now he looked as if he’d given up on keeping himself in good physical condition, and was undeniably heart-attack shape. Washing his hands and sponging down every surface he came into contact with wasn’t going to save him from that.

She was about to say something about taking care of himself, wishing him well, but he cut in first. ‘I really don’t like that purple monstrosity you’ve got in there.’ James pointed to the sofa. Bella felt a pang of sadness, thinking back to the so-lovely day when she and Saul had chosen it at the prop store. ‘The sofa isn’t staying long,’ she told him. ‘Just till all this lot go. Which will be very soon, I hope.’

She meant it. Depression washed over her as, looking into the kitchen from the garden, it suddenly felt like a completely false room and nothing to do with her. Just
another empty film set. She could almost wish her manky broken pink tiles were back again. And her creaky old cupboard doors with their dated ironware. The coral wall would have to be repainted – if Saul was just another lying and devious bastard, then she didn’t want any reminders hanging about to taunt her that she’d been taken for a mug by a man. Again. Would she ever learn? Was Saul really another Rick? When had he been intending to come up with the missing information that he was, or had been, married to Daisy?

Over dinner, when she’d told him about the Rick-in-New York episode, even though she’d turned it into very much a funny story, she’d made it pretty clear that the one thing she valued and desired in a relationship was absolute honesty. And here they were: Daisy was Fliss’s mother. Daisy was Saul’s ex-wife. If she
was
actually ex. If this was the case, then why was there any problem about saying so? She felt weary at the thought of having to prise some deep truth out of him. In spite of her accepting that most information about a new partner tended to come out gradually over time, this was one major omission he’d made here. OK, it was early in the relationship and everyone was entitled to privacy about their past … but this particular bombshell was right here in the present, right here on her premises. Best to quit now – might as well get used to that worst-case future she’d briefly foreseen a few minutes before.

‘And look, James, you were asking about Dina the other day. She’s over by the catering truck. Why don’t you go and have a word with her?’

Well, someone else might as well be lucky in love, even if she couldn’t, she thought. Bella walked him out of the door. ‘Just a tip: Dina likes horror films but on DVD on her own sofa, not at the cinema.’

‘Quite right too.’ James looked as eager as a puppy whose owner was teaching it to play fetch. ‘Cinemas are full of filthy fools eating and slurping and spreading their germs … I’ll just go and say hello to her, see how she is.’

‘Good luck!’ Bella genuinely wished him well, pocketing the door key he’d handed over. He was looking very happy now, like a small boy diverted from a tantrum by the promise of a treat.

‘OK, now I’ve got you on your own!’ No sooner had James strode off in pursuit of Dina than Jules seemed to pop out from behind the hibiscus.

‘So? Are you going to tell me any more? Where did you go after the dinner? Did he leap on you suddenly or did you seduce him subtly till he couldn’t resist or …’

‘Ooh Jules! You made me jump!’ In truth Bella had thought for a millisecond it
was
Saul, back and keen to pounce when she was apart from the others. The internal butterflies kicked off again.