Valentine (5 page)

If she hadn't been so in love with him Valentine might
have seen that actually Finn was selfish, narcissistic and
always sought out people who would give him an easy
life, even if he didn't especially like them. He had chosen
many of his friends purely on the basis that they were
wealthy and had second homes in the country or in Italy
or wherever. Deep down Valentine knew that one of the
reasons Finn couldn't bring himself to leave Eva was
because she came from a wealthy family. Finally, with
her head swimming with images of Finn's lovely life
without her, she texted him. She always made herself
wait as long as she could, a tactic which she hoped said
My life is so full, I've hardly given you a moment's thought
. And
her message would be casual, cool and sexy. This time
she went for:
That was delicious; I can't wait to taste you
again . . . Vx
But sending the text brought no relief because
now followed the agony of waiting for a reply, which
sometimes came and sometimes didn't. Often Valentine
wondered whether it would be better not to send the
message in the first place, but she always did. She was
truly Pavlov's dog.

* * *

She was still in her PJs an hour later, hunched over the
screen, when Lauren stormed back from her modelling
job, bitching about the photographer who had made her
pose endlessly.

'And why aren't you dressed?' Lauren exclaimed. 'You
got the part, so what's the problem?'

'I know, I know,' Valentine replied guiltily, switching
off the laptop. There was no way she wanted Lauren to
know about Finn. Usually she explained these blue periods
as anxieties about work, but this time she had work. She'd
have to lie, something she hated doing to Lauren of all
people. 'It's just that I'll do the play and nothing will come
of it.'

'You don't know that. It might lead to something else,
but it won't lead to anything if you carry on lying in bed
and filling your face with peanut butter.' Lauren, although
not unsympathetic, believed in tough love and pulling
yourself together. Her dad had run off with her mum's
best friend when Lauren was seven, hence her core-of-steel
mantra. 'Anyway, aren't we supposed to be meeting
your mum and Lottie for cocktails?'

'Yes,' Valentine muttered.

'Well hurry up and get dressed; I'm desperate for a
drink.'

Lottie, Valentine's bohemian and eccentric aunt, was easy
to spot in the bar, as in the sea of little black dresses and
suits she was wearing a bright-green velvet dress, purple
suede boots, and her hair was a vibrant red, matching her
red lips. As soon as she saw them she waved frantically,
causing her many gold bangles to jingle loudly on her arm.
Valentine's mum Sarah was already at the table, chalk to
Lottie's cheese in a navy wrap dress, her curly chestnut
hair uncoloured, subtle make-up on. Lottie, a former actress,
was flamboyant in both the clothes she wore and in her
personality. Sarah was calm and laid back. After the happy
birthdays and exchange of gifts (Lottie had bought her a
set of gold jangly bracelets like her own that Valentine was
unlikely ever to wear and her mum had played it safe with
Valentine's favourite perfume, Coco Mademoiselle) Lottie
proceeded to bombard her with questions about her new
role. Lottie had been the one who had encouraged her to
go to drama school in the first place. She'd acted until ten
years ago, when she'd finally abandoned her dream and
had become a drama teacher at a sixth-form college in
Barnet.

'I should warn you that I might have to wear nipple
tassels,' Valentine said grimly, the comment mainly
directed at her mum.

Lottie laughed uproariously. 'She's hardly going to be
bothered by that, is she darling! She probably had her
hand up someone's vaginal passage most of the morning!'

Valentine rolled her eyes and said in a loud voice in
case anyone had overheard, 'She's a midwife! Honestly,
Lottie!'

'So do you think anything will come of the play?' her
mum asked when she could finally get a word in. There
it was: the reality check, the icy bucket of water on her
dreams. Much as she loved her mum, it was a real bone
of contention between them that Sarah had never seemed
to take Valentine's acting career seriously. Valentine
couldn't help thinking that her mum would have been so
much happier if she had followed her into nursing. She'd
lost count of the times she'd tried to explain that an acting
career was not like nursing – it did not follow a single
trajectory upwards. It was up and down – mostly down
in her experience to date – erratic and uncertain. She
shrugged. 'I don't know.'

Sarah sighed. 'I see all these actresses on the TV and
I think, why isn't it you? You're just as talented. More
so, I think. You as well, Lauren.'

'You just have to accept it,' Lauren replied, used to
Sarah's comments.

Valentine hated having this conversation with her
mum; they'd had variations on it for the last twelve years.
From the moment Valentine had decided, aged fifteen,
that she wanted to be an actress it had been like hitting
a wall of resistance from her parents. They just didn't
get it; in their world you got a job, followed a steady
career path and ended up with a pension. The arts were
for other people, not them. Thank God for Lottie, who
had always been her champion and encouraged her in
her dream.

Valentine rolled her eyes, while her mum continued
on the topic most likely to wind everyone up.

'And why hasn't your agent lined you up with anything
else, V?' She hesitated. 'You've had her for nearly five
years, haven't you?'

Valentine knew that her mum was only saying these
things because she cared and because she worried about
her not having a proper job and not having any money
or security, but right now she wanted her to button it.

'And offers of work haven't exactly been flooding in,'
Valentine said bitterly, finishing the sentence for her. 'Isn't
that what you were going to say?'

'Not exactly,' her mum tried to pacify her. Valentine
took a very large sip of her cocktail.

'Now, this is not a helpful conversation, is it?' Lottie put
in, 'Sarah, I have tried to explain to you about how the
acting world works. You simply can't apply the same principles
to it as you can to nursing!' Lottie was getting quite
heated now. She hated it when Sarah appeared to have a
go at Valentine and she always came to Valentine's defence,
as if re-enacting scenes from her own life. She had also
been hitting the cocktails, judging by the blast of pure
alcohol she emitted every time she opened her mouth.

'Well, at least with nursing you get a regular salary,' Sarah
replied, also getting defensive now Lottie was involved.

'Money isn't everything,' Lottie shot back.

'You know how hard the acting world is, don't you! I just
don't want Valentine to end up bitter and frustrated—'

'Like me, you mean!' Lottie cut across her.

Oh Jesus, not the full sister-on-sister row!
Valentine looked
around the bar and saw that they were attracting the
attention of the other drinkers.

'No, of course I didn't mean that! But can you seriously
say that if you had your time again you would go
into acting? You were so bright, Lottie, you could have
done anything.'

Lottie seemed to be turning pale with anger; her nostrils
flared, she shook back her long red hair and slammed
her fist on the table, causing her many gold bracelets to
jangle furiously. 'Acting is what I was meant to do! I have
no regrets about following that star, even if I didn't get
to appear in
Holby
Fucking
City
or
Pride
and Bollocking
Prejudice
on the BBC, which seems to be your only measure
of success. I loved it! And I was good at it. And yes, I
wish I'd had the career of Kristen Scott Thomas, but I
didn't! And now I teach and I probably do have a bit of
an alcohol dependency problem, but I am not bitter and
frustrated.
Je ne regret rien!
' Another slam of her fist on the
table and a frenetic jingle of bracelets. She was formidable
in anger, and Valentine suddenly remembered seeing
her play Martha in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?
She
really had been mesmerising.

'And I would take this from anyone but you! You who
have it in your power to set your daughter on the path
to success.'

Valentine stared at her aunt, wondering what on earth
she was talking about. While her mum had never been
exactly enthusiastic about her acting she had never stood
in her way.

'Don't you even go there!' Sarah hissed at Lottie, her
eyes blazing, her normally calm – I'm a midwife you can
trust me, and this won't hurt that much – expression
replaced by one of pure rage. 'We're supposed to be celebrating
V's birthday; this is not the time.'

'Shall I get some more drinks in?' Valentine attempted
to cut across the two women, but nothing was going to
stop them now.

'It's about time she knew the truth! It could make all
the difference to her, and you know it!'

'I said don't go there!' Sarah repeated. Valentine had
never seen her mum look so impassioned.

'Oh don't worry, I won't tell her now, but if you don't
tell her soon, I will, because Valentine has a right to know.'
Lottie took a deep breath as if trying to calm herself. 'V,
I'm really sorry. We shouldn't have behaved like this; it
was your night. I'm going now, but I'll see you soon,' and
before Valentine could say anything else her aunt blew
her and Lauren a kiss and swept out of the bar without
a backward glance, her green velvet dress billowing out
behind her.

'What the hell was that all about?' Valentine turned
to ask her mum, but Sarah was putting on her jacket and
doing up her buttons with trembling fingers. 'I've got to
go too,' she said, opening her purse and counting out the
money for the drinks. 'This should cover the bill.'

'
Mum!
Tell me.'

'I'm sorry love, I've got to go. I'll call you tomorrow,
sorry.' And with that Sarah got up and practically ran
out of the bar.

'Am I in a Mike Leigh film?' Valentine asked Lauren.
'Do you have any idea what the hell they were on about?
Do you think Lottie has early onset dementia from all the
drinking?'

Lauren considered. 'Maybe you're fantastically rich
and your mum has been keeping it from you all this time
so you don't turn into Paris Hilton.' They drank another
round of cocktails, continuing to speculate wildly.
The events of the evening had one good effect though, as
Valentine realised when she got home: she'd barely given
a thought to Finn and she hadn't even checked to see if
he had texted. It was a good feeling. Though inevitably
it didn't last and like an addict craving her fix she logged
on to Facebook. The SGF had uploaded more pictures,
nauseatingly entitled
The Day After Valentine's Day with my
love
, of the two of them on Hampstead Health – looking
spectacularly loved up and photogenic and, Valentine was
glad to see, cold. But wouldn't you like to know what he
was up to the night before? Valentine thought. For a
fleeting second she thought of emailing her, but no, that
really wasn't Valentine's style. She couldn't blame the SGF.
She was just in love with Finn as Valentine was. And
Valentine was the other woman. She was in the wrong.

She woke up suddenly the following morning to the sound
of Lauren knocking on her door and informing her that
her mum was there. She got up and found Lauren making
a cafetiere of coffee in the kitchen while Sarah sat at the
table, looking uncharacteristically tense. Valentine gave
her a quick kiss on the cheek and sat down. Her mum
looked terrible, as if she hadn't slept at all; there were
dark shadows under her eyes and she didn't appear to
have brushed her hair before coming out. It was most
unlike her.

'So is this about what Lottie said last night?' Valentine
asked.

'Lauren, could you spare a cigarette?' Sarah asked,
stunning both Lauren and Valentine.

'
Mum!
You don't bloody smoke!' Valentine exclaimed
in outrage. She couldn't have been more surprised if her
mum had demanded a line of coke, she was so fervently
anti-smoking. It had been the only bone of contention
between her mum and Chris, who couldn't do without
his roll-ups.

'I need something and it's too early to have a drink.'

Lauren expertly made a roll-up for Sarah and lit the
cigarette for her, while Valentine looked on, thinking that
she was having some kind of hallucination. Sarah inhaled
and spent the next few minutes choking.

'See, it's not big or clever, is it?' Valentine said sarcastically,
while Sarah shot her a filthy look and carried on
trying to inhale.

'I could quite enjoy this,' Sarah spluttered.

'Well you're not going to get the chance; this is your
first and last cigarette, young lady!' Valentine declared,
mimicking her mum's exact words when she had caught
her having a fag while leaning precariously out of her
bedroom window, aged fourteen.

Sarah made a few more attempts to smoke, then reluctantly
handed the cigarette back to Lauren, who tactfully
said, 'Right, I'll leave you guys to it. I've got a casting.'

Suddenly Valentine felt apprehensive, she clasped her
cup of coffee for comfort. What if it was something really
awful, like her mum had cancer? She could even feel her
eyes filling with tears at the prospect. 'So what's this big
thing you have to tell me, Mum?' she asked tentatively.
'You're not ill, are you?'

Sarah shook her head, 'No, no! It's nothing like that.
I'm sorry, Valentine, maybe Lottie is right and I should
have told you before. I honestly thought I was doing this
for the best.'

'Mum, please just tell me!'

Sarah took a deep breath and said quickly, 'OK then,
there is no easy way of breaking this to you. This is going
to be a real shock.'