‘Lot what?’ said Jake, his dark eyebrows drawing ominously close together. ‘Eighty-nine? I didn’t want lot eighty-nine.’
‘Yes you did.’ Poppy felt the first stirrings of panic. She nodded, to prove herself right. ‘King prawns and mushrooms with egg fried rice.’
‘What?’
‘Jake, you definitely marked eighty-nine. I know you marked eighty-nine…’ Her voice began to falter. Numbers were funny things; they played tricks on your brain. She could visualize the menu as plain as day now. King prawns and mushrooms were ninety-eight. Eighty-nine was beef chow mein.
‘Poppy, you wrote four hundred pounds next to it.’ Jake was sounding less amused by the second. He pointed to her hastily scribbled figures. ‘Then you crossed it out and put three hundred pounds for a box of the tattiest and possibly the most terrible paintings I’ve ever seen in my life.’
‘I—I didn’t.’ Poppy began to stammer. Oh help, now she was feeling really sick. ‘Look, I’ll p-pay you back…’
‘You mean you went over three hundred? How much,’ Jake thundered, ‘did you bid?’
It was no good, he was going to find out in a matter of minutes anyway. Poppy braced herself.
‘Five fifty.’
The explosion didn’t happen. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t going to lose his temper with her after all.
‘Right, that’s it,’ hissed Jake. He was white with rage. ‘That is it. I’ve had enough. I can’t afford you anymore, Poppy. You’ll have to go.’
Poppy waded through the churned-up field blinking rain out of her eyes. She no longer even cared that she was plastered with mud up to her knees. She was trying to do as Jake had instructed and dump the box of paintings in the back of the van but Jake hadn’t told her where he’d parked the van and she couldn’t find it.
She barely noticed as a loaded-up lorry trundled past, missing her by inches. All Poppy could think about was Jake, in front of an audience of fifty or so auction-goers, picking through the contents of the box, flaunting her stupidity for all to see. He couldn’t have looked more disgusted if they’d been crawling with maggots. Each painting he picked up was worse than the last.
‘All I can say about these,’ he’d declared icily, ‘is the best thing about them is the frames.’
The rickety frames were mainly ex-Woolworth, circa thirty years ago. They were made of grimy off-white plastic.
A couple of dealers sniggered.
‘I mean, for Christ’s sake,’ Jake raged, ‘how could you even think I’d be interested in garbage like this?’
‘I didn’t see them.’ Poppy’s voice was small. She felt terrible and Jake wasn’t even letting her apologize.
‘Then you’re even more stupid than I thought.’
‘I’ll pay for them.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. Only this morning you had to borrow fifty pence for a sandwich.’ He glared at one of the larger pictures, a chocolate-boxy painting of two spaniel puppies peeping out of a flowerpot. Then he dropped it disdainfully back into the box. ‘What I don’t understand is how you managed to get up to five fifty. Was someone else really interested in this rubbish or was the auctioneer bidding off the wall?’
To suggest that she had been bidding against a nonexistent buyer was the ultimate insult.
Poppy whispered, ‘There was someone else.’ She saw the auctioneer walking past. No, mincing past. He glanced at Poppy and glanced away again. Up close she saw his eyes were mean and his hair dyed. Bidding-fever had a lot to answer for. She wondered how she could possibly have found him attractive.
Now, out in the rainswept field, Poppy realized she was going round in circles.
The van was nowhere to be seen. She didn’t have the nerve to go back inside and tell Jake she couldn’t find it. He would only go even more berserk.
She had reached the main gate leading out onto the road. Without stopping to wonder if it was sensible, Poppy hoisted the box of paintings onto her hip and turned left. Left for London. He didn’t want to see her again, let alone employ her. Well, Poppy decided, she couldn’t face seeing Jake either. She’d been on the receiving end of quite enough fury for one day. All she wanted to do was go home.
‘Eeyuch, look at you!’
Claudia, fresh from her bath, looked suitably horrified when she opened the front door.
‘Sorry. My key’s in my pocket.’
‘You’re all wet.’
‘I’m not, am I?’
Wearily, Poppy hauled the box of paintings into the house. What she really longed for was a hot bath but knowing Claudia, she’d just emptied the hot water tank.
Claudia, rosy-cheeked and bundled up in a fluffy white robe, padded after her into the sitting room.
‘I say, is something wrong?’
‘Jake sacked me. I owe him five hundred and fifty pounds.’ Poppy collapsed on the floor, pulling off her sodden shoes and socks. ‘And I’ve probably got trench foot. Otherwise, everything’s fine.’
Poppy was looking sad and bedraggled. To make up for pinching all the hot water, Claudia made her a coffee with brandy in it. She listened to Poppy’s sorry story while she was doing her makeup. She gave her nails an unnecessary manicure and a final coat of pink polish. She ran upstairs and came down again wearing a new sage green shift dress with expensive looking shoes to match. She squirted herself with heaps of Dior’s Eau Svelte.
‘Oh,’ said Poppy at last. She had been enjoying having someone to moan to. ‘Are you going out?’
‘Wait until you see him,’ Claudia confided gleefully, ‘you won’t believe it! He’s heavenly, completely gorgeous. His name’s Will.’
Poppy was astonished. She’d had no idea Claudia could be so enthusiastic.
‘When did all this happen?’
‘At lunchtime. A few of us from the office went to Rossini’s for lunch.’ Claudia was practically hugging herself at the blissful memory. ‘And he was there with a crowd of friends. The girls kept saying he was looking over but I didn’t believe them. Then, just as we were about to leave, he waited until I glanced across… and pretended to take one of his eyes out!’ Poppy’s face was a picture. To show her how he’d done it, Claudia mimed the action. ‘He held it in his hand, bent down on one knee and rolled the pretend eyeball across the floor towards me.’
‘What did you do?’
Claudia giggled. ‘I rolled it back to him.’
‘And then he came over,’ prompted Poppy.
‘And then he came over—’
‘And said: “I was hoping you’d catch my eye.”’
‘Oh bum,’ wailed Claudia. ‘You’ve heard it before! I thought it was really original.’
‘Sorry.’ Poppy felt mean. She began pulling the paintings out of their box. Since she didn’t have anything else to do she might as well polish up the few frames that weren’t plastic.
‘Anyway, his name’s Will and he’s a broker,’ Claudia went on compulsively. ‘He lives in Fulham and drives a red Lotus.’
Won’t go with your nail polish, thought Poppy.
Claudia smiled a blissful smile. ‘And he’s taking me to Tatsuso.’
Poppy assumed this was good news. To make up for just now, she said, ‘That’s terrific.’
The doorbell rang. Claudia let out a squeal of excitement. ‘That’ll be for me! You get it!’
Before Poppy could lever herself to her feet, they heard Caspar making his way downstairs and the sound of the front door being opened.
Poppy said, ‘It’s been got.’