‘Oh! You’ve broken the tiles!’ James looked at Bella nervously, his eyes fast-flickering towards her hand and then back to her face as if he was checking she wasn’t preloaded with more dangerous missiles.
‘You weren’t here. How did you know Mum did it?’ Molly asked quickly.
‘Just a lucky guess,’ he shrugged, picking bits of tile out of the sink and stacking them up carefully on the worktop. He was still clutching his flowers and he’d trailed in a suitcase on wheels which stood to attention by the table. Bella wondered if she should introduce it to her unpacked Bric … perhaps they would breed, the way wire hangers seemed to in a wardrobe. She had a fanciful vision of a row of cute handbags, little leather offspring.
‘And hello to you too, James,’ Bella said. ‘How come you’re here?’
‘Oh nice welcome!’ He turned and smiled at her, a glint of sarcasm in his eyes. ‘So glad you’re pleased to see me!’
‘Well, a bit of warning would have been good. I’m not even supposed …’ She stopped. He didn’t need to know about her failed New York trip.
Alex looked slightly puzzled but seemed not quite concerned enough to ask immediate questions. That was Alex all over, bless him. Vague, other-worldly. It would probably be several hours before he finally put two and two together and came out with, ‘So what happened to New York then?’
‘Sorry! You’re right,’ James conceded. ‘Alex warned me you didn’t like surprises. But I brought you these.’ He handed the roses over to Bella and tentatively kissed her quickly on the cheek before backing away, sharpish. He kissed Molly even more nervously, as if scared that all teenage girls snap like terriers. ‘You’d better put the flowers in water before they start shedding petals everywhere.’ James opened a cupboard and peered inside, looking for a vase.
‘Did you know you’ve put a great big three-litre Le Creuset on top of an earthenware dish in here?’ he said, rummaging among cookware. ‘It’ll get all scratched. Shall I move it? This cupboard needs a thorough sort-out.’
Bella bit her lip to stop herself snapping at him. James hadn’t lived here for ten years now, since he’d gone off to live with a dental nurse who’d appealed to his inner clean-freak – what right did he have to rearrange her casserole dishes? She peeled the paper off the flowers and started slicing the ends off the stems. The petals were so tightly furled they didn’t look as if they’d open this side of the twenty-second century, let alone start dropping off at random. She couldn’t help thinking of the so-lush roses that Rick had given her. She hoped the room maid had taken them with her, given them a good home along with the underwear.
James’s back end was now sticking out of the cupboard under the sink, reminding her of the rear half of a pantomime horse. He had rather womanly hips, she noticed. Was this new? It was a good many years since she’d seen him unclothed (an experience she had no desire to repeat), but even so … did men get beamy over the years, like women? As it looked as if she was heading for a rest-of-her-life in celibacy, these were the kind of observations she could make quite dispassionately and with purely writerly interest. Perhaps she could write something about it. If anyone wanted to employ her, of course.
‘James, please just leave it all alone, will you? You’re looking in the wrong place; I keep vases in the cupboard in the sitting room. Alex – would you go and fetch the tall glass one, please?’
Alex ambled away, texting into his phone as he walked. ‘Er … I’ll go with him.’ Molly trailed after her brother, closing the door firmly behind her and leaving James and Bella alone.
‘So! What’s with the surprise visit?’ Bella asked him, making an effort to sound upbeat and cheerful. Apart from the beaminess he was looking good, she’d give him that. He’d never been the kind of man that women turned to gaze at in the street but somehow, in his middle years, he’d managed to keep a sharp jawline and plentiful dark hair, only lightly scattered with recent grey. And it was on his head, a bit Paul McCartneyish in quantity and style – though not that weird aubergine colour – and not sprouting from his ears or meeting over his nose like one big eyebrow.
‘Well – it’s not exactly a visit. Thing is, Bella, I’m moving back to London.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, it’s lunchtime and all they had on the plane were limp sandwiches.’ He shuddered slightly. ‘And you know … So – is that Italian place round the corner still going? That was always reliable. Why don’t I take us all there for a nice family lunch? I’ve got a couple of things to discuss, items to run up the flagpole, give you a helicopter view of my state of play at this moment in time.’
Bella – once she’d roughly construed James’s jargon – managed not to comment that it had been a long, long time since the four of them had constituted A Nice Family. After all, it was a kind offer and there was no need to take her current sourness out on him. It wasn’t James’s fault that she was feeling bad-tempered and miserable. And soon to be a bit on the cash-strapped side to boot. Free lunch. And from her habitually miserly ex, too … Bring it on.
Several miles away in Surrey, Bella’s mother Shirley was deciding between the Nicole Farhi dress and the DKNY one. She didn’t buy a lot of clothes, being a lifelong believer in quality rather than quantity so when she did, it was important to get the purchase just right.
‘Are you looking for anything special today?’ Shirley felt pleased to be approached by this young, eager-looking assistant. The promise of good service was rare and welcome. Usually in this big, impersonal department store the staff preferred to loiter out of range in far corners, chatting to each other behind rails of clothing. This one, she assumed, must be new. Good.
‘One is always looking for something special when it comes to elegant clothing,’ Shirley said, diluting what could have sounded rather harsh with her best smile. At seventy-four she was far more accustomed to being ignored, as if being over twenty-five rendered her invisible. Maybe the attention she had attracted today was something to do with the soft, suede, biscuit-coloured Joseph jacket she was wearing and her stark white, crisply angular haircut (no cauliflower perms for Shirley). And there was the extra-broad Tiffany silver bracelet, the bold silver hoop earrings. Statement jewellery gave even the most average clothes that extra edge. The girl probably scented money and (if they still had such things these days) a good sales commission. She was wrong about the money, as it happened. Shirley was lucky to be comfortable enough financially, but not lavishly so. She was simply a natural at style.
‘I really can’t decide …’ Shirley considered for a long moment, holding the Donna Karan dress against her and looking into the full-length wall-mirror. The lighting was terrible. This colour (slaty deep grey, with almost a bluish sheen to it) was a well-loved one, very much a favourite in her wardrobe, but her skin looked slightly grey against it. That couldn’t be right.
‘Shall I take it to the changing room for you?’ the girl offered. ‘Or …?’ That was something they did a lot of these days, Shirley thought … leaving ‘or’ hovering in the air without supplying the necessary alternative. She’d noticed it on the plane back from Nice after the cruise the week before, when the flight attendant approached each row of seats with ‘Tea, coffee, or?’ Being of a rather literal frame of mind, Shirley half expected ‘ore’ as in a plateful of small gold nuggets, looking like Ferrero Rocher.
‘Er … yes please, dear.’ Shirley handed over the dress. It would be worth trying on, at least. ‘And this one too.’ She gave the girl the Nicole Farhi. It had a bit of a pattern to it, which she didn’t usually go for, but it was a subtle smudgy floral design in perfect shades of taupe and cream, and really quite lovely. ‘Nothing to lose by trying them both, is there?’
The changing area wasn’t busy. In the middle of a warm early September day, few people were in the mood for thinking about buying autumn clothes. The gaudy rejected remnants of the summer sale lingered on a few overcrowded and highly untempting rails, ready to be shipped out as soon as more seasonal stock arrived.
‘I’ll be just out here if you need anything. Just pop your head out and give me a call.’ The salesgirl hung the dresses up carefully and backed out, swishing the curtain closed behind her.
Shirley peeled off her black linen skirt (Jigsaw, a useful wrapover style), her jacket and her white shirt and hung them neatly over the back of the green velvet button-back chair. She tried the Nicole Farhi first. The sleeves were a flattering bracelet length (good slender wrists were one body part that didn’t deteriorate with age), the neckline a fairly low V, but neither so deep that the dress couldn’t be worn without a camisole nor so high that a little cashmere polo top wouldn’t look amiss in winter. Either dress would work for any season, with the right accessories. Pound per wear, they would both be terrific value, excellent quality and eternal style, without being over-quirky or of a definable moment.
‘Are you all right? Do you need any help, or …?’ The assistant was so close to the curtain Shirley could hear her breathing.
‘I’m fine, thank you, though actually …’ Shirley pulled back the curtain and stepped out, almost on top of the girl. ‘I wouldn’t mind a better view. More distance,’ she said, spotting a much bigger mirror at the end of the row of cubicles. She studied her reflection, checking the skirt length, thinking the dress would look as good with boots as with heels.
‘Oh that looks lovely! It really suits you!’ The comment was too spontaneous to be sales-calculated. It had an element of surprise in it, and Shirley understood: the girl had assumed the dress was meant for a much younger market. If she stayed in the job, customers like Shirley would be part of her learning curve. Good style doesn’t stop with the age of thirty. In most cases it didn’t even start till then. Shirley beamed at the girl, pleased. She knew she looked good in the dress; it had that This Is Me quality about it and made her feel quite thrilled, but it was always flattering to have third-party reassurance. Dennis would like it too, assuming he’d meant it about meeting up in the UK. It was one of the first things he’d said to her, that he admired her taste. She could see him now, beside her at the ship’s rail smoking an after-dinner Gitanes and watching Venice slide out of sight in the distance. And the young thought they were the only ones who had holiday romances. If only they knew …
‘Yes … I do love it. But I must try the other one as well. Otherwise, if I take this one, I’ll still be wondering, won’t I?’
Shirley took off the Nicole Farhi and put it back on its hanger. The slate DKNY again had bracelet-length sleeves and a V-neck, but with a broad tie sash that wrapped round more than once, cinching in her middle. Shirley was lucky – she was tall and slim and hadn’t gone apple-shaped with age, and still had a well-defined waist. This dress, too, flattered her body and skimmed to just below knee-length. Again, she could see herself wearing it over many years (should she be lucky enough to have them, you had to think about that at her age), another many-season, versatile staple.
But on balance, no, it had to be the Farhi. She had plenty of slaty clothes already, and there was a slightly off-the-wall feel to the smudged-grey flower pattern that appealed to her. She put her jacket back on and left the changing room, carrying the chosen dress. ‘I’ll take this one,’ she said to the waiting assistant and followed her to the till. ‘You do take American Express, don’t you?’
It was about fifteen minutes later that Shirley left the store. She went by way of the shoe department on the ground floor to have a quick look at the first of the season’s boots that were just coming in. She didn’t really need any – her black Prada sale ones would probably see her out and she’d picked up some perfect brown suede pull-ons in Tesco, of all places, the winter before, breaking her own rule about cheap clothing because they were such a plain, classic, comfortable style. As she walked out of the store and into the town’s mall, she was wondering whether green tights and her necklace of large emerald-coloured stones would go well with the new dress and her mushroom-coloured Gina shoes. An alarm beeped behind her as she went. Probably, she thought vaguely, another customer wanting, as she had, to see what something looked like in better light. They really should do something about that … Or that bunch of teenagers, joshing about and shouting … had they stolen something?
‘Excuse me … would you come this way with me please?’
Shirley, at the top of the escalator, felt as if the man standing too close to her was some kind of octopus. His arms were everywhere, blocking off her escape as she tried to sidestep him. She considered screaming, half guessing she was being mugged by someone with excellent manners, but this was a smart, suited young man in his mid-thirties. He carried a walkie-talkie which crackled and muttered in his hand.
‘OK, fish landed. Coming in,’ he murmured into it now as he put a firm hand under Shirley’s elbow and turned her round, back in the direction of the department store.
‘Will you stop manhandling me?’ she demanded, starting to pull away. Struggling was unseemly, but she shook his arm off her as hard as she could. People were slowing, beginning to scent a scene. She hated that sort of thing and glared around her, embarrassed and furious.
‘We’ll do this the easy way, in private,’ he said quietly. ‘But you’ll have to come to Security with me, right now, please. I have reason to believe that you have removed an item from this store without paying for it.’
Shirley felt relieved. ‘Oh but I did! I have the receipt! Look, it’s right here!’ She opened her bag, pulling out her wallet.
‘Er, yes, I know you paid for the one item,’ he said. ‘It’s the other one we’re concerned about.’
‘Sorry?’ Shirley didn’t understand. All the same, she walked alongside the man, who, thank goodness for her dignity, seemed to have decided she wasn’t about to do a runner (hardly – at her age and in ballet flats) and didn’t continue to hang on to her. She smoothed her skirt down … and suddenly felt sick. This was not her Jigsaw wrapover. It was the DKNY dress. Where, for heaven’s sake, had her mind escaped to for those last minutes in that changing room? Moments surely didn’t come much more senior than this.
‘Ah! Bella, ma bella!’ Luigi kissed Bella effusively, shook James’s hand with full-strength Italian energy and ushered the two of them towards the best table in the restaurant. There was a view of the little street of cute shops and the small square where the winos liked to get together on the benches outside the tapas bar to sing old blues songs on summer evenings.
Bella looked around to see who was in – this was her favourite local eaterie, popular and busy, and she usually knew one or two of the clientele at any given time. It was her default venue to take friends, work colleagues, the occasional date. She’d been there only a couple of weeks before with Rick, and it had been at this table that he’d invited her, seemingly on a spontaneous, romantic whim, to visit him in New York. All in the past now, she told herself briskly, no point looking back. Now instead of her-and-Rick, it was just her and James, Alex and Molly having decided that sudden emergency Facebooking was preferable to the Nice Family Lunch James had offered.
‘Bella! Hi!’ At a table in the corner, half hidden by a large potted orange tree, two women were waving across to her.
‘Who are they?’ James asked as she smiled and waved back.
‘They’re two of our local writers’ group,’ Bella told him. ‘We meet up every fortnight at the River Fox in Richmond, just to chat and grumble, you know. Mutual support, all that.’
‘Ah, a chance for the demon drink. You always did like a drop, didn’t you?’ James smirked.
‘Hardly,’ Bella retorted, ‘And please don’t criticize how I live. I barely drink at all, as it happens – I’ve usually got the car with me. And you can hardly grudge me getting together with other writers – it’s a lonely old job being a freelance.’
What was it about James that always put her on the defensive? Maybe it was that he was always on the attack. He’d been such good fun at the beginning too, in spite of his cleanliness obsession.
‘He’s barking, you know,’ Bella’s mother Shirley had warned her, only a month before the wedding twenty-one years before. ‘He went through my larder and washed all the tops of the jars. Some of them were things we hadn’t used in years. I’d think carefully, darling, before saying “I do” to a man who’s going to see germs on every damn surface. I hate to think what he’s like in bed …’ This last comment had been made very loudly over lunch with a selection of aunts, two of whom came firmly under the heading of ‘maiden’. Bella had only been twenty-two at the time, caught up in the heady whirl of wedding preparations, and had blithely taken no notice – Shirley had a knack of dropping in some sexual reference whenever the opportunity arose, somehow convinced that she had to show off that it was a subject she knew all about, as if nobody else possibly could.
As it happened, that was the one area where James had been content to get down and dirty … or at least at first. Was it after Alex was born? Or was it after Molly when he’d suddenly decided that the warm, slow moments immediately after sex weren’t a time for post-coital snuggling but were just perfect for getting into the hottest bearable shower, lathering vigorously and scrubbing his nails with insulting thoroughness? Their sex life stalled and faltered after that. After all, who wants to make love with a man who would clearly prefer to wear protective gloves rather than risk skin-on-skin contact? In the end, Bella wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d approached her wearing an all-over anti-radiation suit. Borderline obsessive-compulsive, that was James. Unfortunately he was not quite bad enough for anyone to tell him he should consider seeking help with it. He got by OK. Just.
As Bella studied the menu she wondered idly who the man was with the writer women across the room. Another author? Friend? Lover? Those two were younger than Bella, in their thirties. Chloe and Zoe – Bella could never remember which was which because they were very much of A Look, very neat and Boden-mummy, though she knew one wrote for a teenage vampire series and the other was trying to break into the spicier end of the Mills and Boon range. Both were looking summer-chic in strappy little tops beneath toning cardigans with arty jewellery, and both were beaming lip-glossed smiles at their companion. He was older than them, older than Bella too, and the white of his linen shirt fairly zinged against his tanned skin. Good hair too, mid-brown, sun-streaked and attractively overgrown, the ends forming tiny corkscrew curls. If she wasn’t firmly out of the man market (the words Never Again were her first waking thought that morning, and she suspected this wasn’t a conviction that was going away soon), she wouldn’t have ruled him out if he’d chatted her up at a party. Which one of the women was he actually with, she wondered idly as she skimmed a look at the menu; both of them (married as they were) seemed pretty keen, giggling and hair-flicking like a couple of flirty teenagers. Whoever he was, he’d certainly made an impact on the Zoe-Chloe twosome.
‘You’re doing that thing that you always do, Bella,’ James commented, following her gaze to the far table. ‘You’re miles away across the floor with those women, tuning in.’
Bella laughed. ‘I’m just wondering what the score is, that’s all! It’s what all writers do, checking out the what-if and the maybe … you never know when it might come in useful.’
‘Or you could just call it damn rude, poking your nose in. Look, can we just order, fast as possible?’ James snapped his menu shut and glanced around for a waiter. Bella remembered how he’d always been like this when hungry; impatient, bordering on the hostile till the first mouthfuls had made an impact on his stomach. Thank goodness the service in here was reliably swift. James told her sketchy details about his new job (financial services, sorting out the feckless and reckless, with whom she was sure he had very little sympathy), but he didn’t ask about hers. She was rather relieved. On either work or personal front she had nothing but failure to report, and would rather not admit this, not to James, anyway.
‘Is there somewhere you have to be?’ Bella asked, as James bolted his food in record time. ‘You seem very tense.’
James kept looking at his watch and didn’t appear any more relaxed, even with a glass of wine and half a hefty portion of lasagne inside him. ‘Yes, actually. I’ve got an appointment pretty soon. And that’s connected with what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m coming to live in London again. Just over at Kew. I’m meeting the agent to pick up the keys.’
‘You said at the house that you were coming back … so no more Scotland?’ Bella asked. ‘But you’ve been there years now. I thought you were well settled. And what about what’s-her-name?’
‘Fenella. Don’t pretend you don’t know.’ James grinned. ‘Be careful, you might have me thinking you cared.’
‘OK, Fenella. Does she want to move too? Or …’
‘“Or” is it. We’re over, as it happens. As from about three months ago, actually, but I didn’t want to say anything in case, well in case we weren’t, quite. But no, we definitely are. All over. Definitely.’
‘Oh – I’m sorry.’ And she was – Fenella had seemed to keep him happy enough for several years. Bella had only met her once, at the wedding of James’s niece, where Molly had been a bridesmaid. Bella had been impressed by Fenella’s hat – a high toque in purple satin with what looked like a gold sovereign pinned to the front of it. A bold choice among a traditional mix of pastel and straw.
‘Don’t be,’ he said, looking a bit mistily distant, all the same. ‘She’s gone to live with an old hippy weaver in a croft.’ He shuddered. ‘A woman, as it happens. And with no running water!’
Bella hardly knew what to say, either about the woman or the water situation. She wondered which of these appalled James more. Her money was on the water thing.
Across the room came the trilling of girlish ripply laughter from Chloe-Zoe. Good for them, Bella thought. In an hour from now they’d be outside the primary school, back to being someone’s mother, then later someone’s wife. For now, she was glad they were having some time to be themselves.
‘Anyway … about the house,’ James continued.
‘Hmm? The house? What about it?’ Bella said, her attention slowly returning to him.
‘Well, it’s time we sorted it properly, isn’t it? I mean, for me renting is fine for a while, till I find somewhere I like to buy, but prices are higher than Scotland. So the thing is, I could do with releasing some of the equity now I’m going to be living down here. And now the children are grown up …’
Luigi took the plates away and took their order for espressos, which appeared in seconds. James was quiet for a moment, checking the edge of his cup for marks. There wouldn’t be any, Bella knew that, but it didn’t stop him running the edge of his napkin around the cup’s rim before he dropped a couple of chunks of sugar in.
Bella felt confused. ‘Wait a minute … what are you talking about, James? What equity?’
‘The house, Annabelle. That bricks-and-mortar place you and our offspring occupy. The one I still half own, that we never got round to splitting when it came to assets and custody. Remember?’
Her attention had snapped to full alert now. ‘So what do you want to do?’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Sell it?’
He didn’t look as if there was any joke involved. Oh surely, surely not?
James frowned. ‘Well, yes – that’s what I had in mind. Unless you can buy me out? Of course now Alex and Molly …’
‘But Alex and Molly still live in the house! As I do, in case you’d forgotten!’ Bella protested.
‘For now, yes. That’s why I’m mentioning it now. But we’ve got to do some blue-sky thinking here. Alex is already away at university and Molly’s got only months till she leaves school. I mean, you must have known this was coming one day. You’ve had years …’
‘Oh. Right. So that’s it, is it?’ Bella felt weary and defeated. ‘Yes, I’ve had years. I’ve had years of scraping by in a hugely precarious job, raising our children single-handedly with barely any input from you because you claimed that because I’d got the house your contribution stopped right there! And that if I sold it at any point during that time, I’d have only half the cash with which to get something else! So thanks, James, thanks for reminding me how little I actually have to call my own. Thanks a whole bunch!’
The eyes of white-linen man across the room met hers as she looked away from James. He half smiled, raised his glass. Chloe-Zoe grinned at her, both with the same ‘look what we’re having lunch with’ expression. She tried to smile back at them but her mouth got all twisted up somehow, and her vision had gone swimmy.
James’s BlackBerry beeped and he glanced at his watch. ‘Look, I have to go. Got to meet the agent to pick up the keys to the flat. We’ll continue this another time, shall we? Get all the ducks set out in a row? Sorry and that,’ he said, pushing back his chair and looking eager to be out of Bella’s orbit. ‘We’ll touch base again soon: I’ll give you the new address and so on. And er …’
‘Oh just go, James. Just go.’ And he did, scuttling out fast to avoid having to deal with emotion, something else he’d always considered messy and unpleasant. Bella finished her coffee and sat for a moment, trying to feel calm. She still had half a glass of wine and she downed most of it in one go. So … the score so far this week? No boyfriend, no job (well a quarter of one, nothing much to speak of), and soon no home. Just great.
There was chair-scraping and signs of imminent departure from across the room. Chloe and Zoe were on their way out and stopped by Bella’s table on the way. ‘Hi Bella, are you coming to the Fox tomorrow? Hope so!’
‘Er … yes, probably!’ Bella smiled brightly, amazed she still had the power of speech.
‘Great! See you there – got to dash, school-time! Ciao!’ The two women were on their way out, their lunch companion left behind, dealing with the bill and talking to Luigi. Bella finished the rest of her wine, feeling numb and as if she couldn’t move. She put her hands over her face and felt warm tears on her cheeks. Oh, great.
‘Are you all right?’ She opened her eyes and found she was disturbingly close to crotch-level denim, property of the Chloe-Zoe man. She scuffed at her face with the napkin, realizing too late that it was smeared with Amatriciano sauce.
He sat down in James’s seat and leaned across. ‘Here, let me; you’ve got an orange nose,’ he smiled, smudging a thumb down her cheek. His skin felt warm. She wanted to nuzzle her face into his hand the way a cat does, craving maximum comfort from his small, tender gesture.
‘Chloe said you were a journalist, gave me your name. I’m a great admirer of your “Week Moments” pieces, especially the “I Really Don’t Get” ones. Very caustic!’ He then added, ‘I’m Saul Barrett. I was picking their brains for a TV series we’re about to do. Fashion – a different take on the makeover lark. I’m coming to their writers’ group thing tomorrow and they said you’d probably be there. You might be interested in the programme, actually, as a journalist.’
Bella smiled. ‘Yes, I’ll be there. It’s a good group, they’re a fun bunch.’
He stood up. ‘Great … well, I’ll look forward to it. Bye! And … whatever it is that’s upset you … well, I hope …’ His words fizzled out – she didn’t blame him. Sympathy to a crying woman only tends to make things more waterlogged. He must be married, she thought, as he waved goodbye to her through the restaurant window. That much empathy, it takes years of practice. She collected her bag and jacket, went off to the loo and used cool damp paper towel to try to make her face look more presentable.
It was only as she was halfway out of the door that Luigi caught up with her. ‘Bella, sorry – but your bill … is not …’ He looked apologetic.
‘You mean James just left without paying …? I’m so sorry, Luigi.’ She delved into her bag and pulled out her credit cards. Maybe after today she should cut them all up, get used to a new and necessary thrift. Not that she’d been exactly chucking her money around over the years. Bloody James. Bloody everything.