The last time Dina had visited London had been on a school trip to the Science Museum which had bored her stupid. The highlight of that outing had involved eyeing up another busload of schoolboys from Birmingham, one of whom had thrown a doughnut at her in the Museum coffee shop. The lowlight had been getting a love bite on her neck from spotty Stuart Anderson on the journey home.
But that had been yonks ago, when she was just a kid. This is far more like it, Dina thought gleefully. No more stupid school uniform. No bossy Miss Wildbore, head of physics, barking at her to pay attention. No Mr Killjoy-Carter telling her to wipe off that lipstick or else.
Best of all, no baby.
‘You jammy thing, have you fallen on your feet here or what?’ Dina crowed with delight. She threw herself down on the sofa and gazed rapturously around the room.
Poppy knew she had to find herself another job fast if she wanted to stay here. At this rate, she was going to end up a pub stripper after all.
‘Never mind my feet.’ She’d turn her attention to the job dilemma later. ‘What did Tom say to you when you saw him?’
‘Talk about uncool,’ mocked Dina. ‘Anyway, who said he said anything?’
‘But he did.’ Poppy knew Dina too well. She wouldn’t have been able to resist talking to him.
‘We-ell maybe. Good-looking, isn’t he? All that curly hair. And those brilliant eyes…’
‘I could always pull out your toenails one by one.’
Poppy was too shattered to play games. She had only managed three hours’ sleep. She’d been hokey-pokeying and singing bawdy songs until five in the morning, in an haute couture dress.
Dina gave in. ‘Okay. Well, I was there with Maggie and I spotted him right away. He was wearing a red and white striped shirt and white jeans. Brilliant bum, too. Well, I said “Hi” when we went past him to get to the bar and he didn’t twig at first, what with me being a bit of a different shape.’ Smugly, Dina patted her flat-as-a-pancake stomach. ‘So I reminded him who I was and he kind of lit up and got interested. Asked me what I’d had and how the baby was getting on. Then he kind of took a deep breath and asked how you were.’
‘And?’
‘I told him nobody had heard from you for yonks. I said you’d called off the wedding and done a bunk. I’m telling you, you should have seen the look on his face…’
‘What kind of look?’ Poppy tried not to shriek. Dina was spinning this out on purpose.
‘Oh, kind of…’ Dina mimed it. ‘No, hang on, maybe a bit more like…’ She tried again, then shrugged. ‘Well, pretty much gobsmacked. So I told him, then, all about you turning up at Rob’s house the next morning, and how Rob wouldn’t believe you when you said it was all off, and how Margaret was flying off the handle and trying everything to make you change your mind because she’d never be able to live down the shame.’
‘What did he say when you’d finished telling him all that? Or,’ said Poppy evenly, ‘was it kicking-out time by then?’
Dina looked offended. ‘He said if I ever heard from you, to give you his phone number and address.’
‘He gave them to you?’
Yes, yes! This was better than Poppy had even dared to expect. She had to control herself, sit on her hands. The temptation to frisk Dina, to rifle through her pockets for the precious information, was strong.
‘He gave them to me.’ Dina blinked. Nobody, thought Poppy, wore quite as much navy-blue eyeshadow as Dina.
‘Well? You’re here now, you can give them to me.’
‘Except I kind of lost the piece of paper. Well, the beer coaster,’ gabbled Dina. ‘You see, he wrote it down on the back of a beer coaster and I put it in the side bit of my white handbag, the one with the chain strap. So it wasn’t my fault,’ she went on defensively. ‘It’s not as if I chucked it in a bin or something, like on purpose. It just… fell out of its own accord.’
‘You’ve lost it,’ Poppy echoed. Trust Dina to raise her hopes and then dash them. Anyone with a grain of compassion would never have done it like that. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, for heaven’s sake, would have left out the whole bit about the beer coaster.
Poppy wasn’t yelling at her, but Dina could tell she was upset.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking perplexed. ‘I didn’t think it was that important. I mean, it wasn’t as if you called off the wedding so you could run away with this chap instead, was it? You said you were never going to see him again. I didn’t realize getting his number was such a big deal. You should have said.’
I hadn’t realized it either, Poppy thought glumly. Until now.
When she had said good-bye to Tom that night, she had still been intending to marry Rob the next day. The subject of phone numbers had deliberately not been raised because that would definitely have been tempting fate. When you felt that strongly about someone and you were marrying someone else, their phone number was a dangerous thing to know.
But she hadn’t married Rob. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Tom either.
‘It’s okay,’ said Poppy wearily. ‘You’re right, it wasn’t your fault. I should have said.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘Just, if you ever bump into him again, could you take his number and not lose it?’
‘Oh, I won’t.’ Dina shook her head vigorously. ‘Bump into him again, I mean. He told me the brother he was staying with in Bristol was on the verge of emigrating to Australia.’
‘Terrific.’
‘I did kind of glance at the beer mat,’ Dina was trying to be helpful, ‘before I put it in my bag.’
‘And?’ Poppy hardly dared to hope.
‘It said Notty something. Maybe Nottingham. Or Notting Hill.’
‘In other words,’ said Poppy, ‘not a clue.’
A hyperactive six-year-old would have been easier to handle than Dina. By Sunday afternoon, Poppy was on her last legs and down to her last fiver in the world. On Saturday, they had shopped. On Saturday night, they had visited more bars and clubs than she had known existed. On Sunday morning, Dina had dragged her out again, to Camden Lock market. From there they had moved on to Covent Garden. At four o’clock, they arrived back at Cornwallis Crescent. Dina had to leave at six to catch the coach home.
The trouble with Dina, Poppy decided, was she looked as if she were giving every man she met a lascivious once-over. She was giving every man she met a lascivious once-over. The drawback was letting them know it.
But Dina was unstoppable. She had been let off her leash for the weekend and was making the most of it. London was terrific; London was glamorous. It was also teeming with men.
And she hadn’t had to change a nappy once.
***
‘That girl is so brazen,’ Claudia said scornfully when Poppy had dragged Dina downstairs to pack.
‘I know, isn’t it great?’
Caspar loved it, of course.
‘It is not. She hasn’t stopped flirting with you since she got here. And all you’re doing is encouraging her.’
He grinned. ‘Is that against the law?’
‘She’s married,’ Claudia reminded him. ‘And she’s got a baby.’ Acidly she added, ‘Somewhere.’
‘So, okay, chances are she isn’t a virgin.’ Caspar loved teasing Claudia. It was the perfect pastime for a Sunday afternoon. Well, maybe the second most perfect.
‘All this promiscuity. Don’t you get tired of it?’
‘I’m getting tired of being lectured to about it.’ First Poppy, now Claudia. Caspar was tempted to boast about turning Angie down but sensed her daughter might not appreciate it, seeing as she didn’t know about Angie’s clandestine visits to the house in the first place.
Claudia was jealous. She knew this was because she’d been going through a bit of an arid patch recently, man-wise, but it only made Caspar’s lack of interest in her more hurtful. Not to mention the shaming debacle with Jake…
Things just weren’t going her way right now. Claudia wished she knew what she was doing wrong. She flipped shut the copy of Cosmopolitan on her lap and gazed moodily at the model on the cover.
‘So who’s your ideal woman?’
‘Someone who doesn’t lecture me, who doesn’t go on and on and on about boring morals—’
‘Seriously.’
‘Someone who doesn’t take me seriously.’ Caspar stretched. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t met her yet.’
‘But what’s your ideal type?’ Claudia was frustrated; she wasn’t going to give in. ‘I mean, short or tall, blonde or dark?’
No mention, Caspar couldn’t help noticing, of medium-sized redheads.
‘I like all kinds,’ he said with unaccustomed tact. ‘Anyway, personality’s more important than looks.’
‘Oh sure, as if you’d ever go out with some old boiler just because she told great jokes.’
Claudia abandoned Cosmo and started giving her nails their second coat of plum polish. Caspar couldn’t figure out for the life of him why women wore the stuff.
‘Depends how great the jokes are,’ he said, ‘and whether she laughs. Laughter’s sexy. Men like girls who laugh.’
Right on cue, the sound of Dina gurgling like a drain drifted up the stairs.
‘Okay,’ Caspar amended, ‘men like most girls who laugh.’
‘Are you trying to tell me I’ve been a miserable old cow lately?’
‘Well, the odd smile now and again might help.’
Claudia looked doubtful. She tried one.
‘You mean like this?’
‘Ravishing.’
She broke into a grin, blew on her wet nails, and chucked over a pen.
‘Go on then, get some paper. Write down all your best jokes.’