Three precisely two-second rings on the doorbell made Bella feel instantly irritated. Absolutely classic James. Always three rings. What made him think one wasn’t nearly enough?
‘I thought you might like to give some of these a bit of perusal,’ James announced, thrusting a pile of documents into Bella’s hand and striding past her into the house the moment she opened the door. A blast of too much aftershave filled the air, as if he had learned over the years that women like something ‘tangy’, but he was still experimenting with how much was likely to make them swoon at his feet. Bella wondered if it would be a kindness to let him know that appealing as the scent was, he’d gone way past the optimum amount. Newly attuned to current style, by way of more than usually close scrutiny of all the weekend papers’ fashion features along with a sinfully expensive selection of the glossies (tax-deductible, thank goodness, in the interests of research), Bella also privately thought he was mistaken to be wearing a yellow and pink Pringle-diamond cardigan. On a skinny twenty-something, floppy-haired catwalk boy it looked edgily louche and cutely ironic. On portly James it gave the impression of a huge Battenberg cake. He couldn’t even claim golf-playing as an excuse.
‘“Hello Bella and how are you?” might be a good way to start a visit if there’s something you want me to do for you, James,’ Bella told him, giving the top one of the bundle of papers a quick shufti to make sure it wasn’t an eviction order. Estate-agent bumf. Well, he didn’t waste any time, did he? She didn’t close the door but waited to see if he’d notice that she was holding her handbag and keys and was clearly about to go out. He didn’t and was now halfway across the hallway, so reluctantly she pushed the door shut and followed him into the kitchen, where he was already switching on the kettle and searching through the tea-bag selection in the cupboard. She dumped the pile of papers on the table.
‘James, look I’m sorry but I’ve got to be somewhere. This really isn’t a good time.’ She was going to be late. She was off for lunch with Charlotte to talk about exactly how much of her freelance work was likely to be acceptable to the Sunday Review in future. After more than three years at this, and with such short notice of the cut in her column, Bella felt entitled to some degree of clarification as to where she stood. If she were to be phased out completely, she’d have to make serious new career plans, and fast.
‘But I’ve brought you a heap of house details! I’ve been checking out a few local estate agents for you,’ James declared cheerfully, spooning sugar into a mug, utterly oblivious to Bella’s impatience. ‘Because, you see, I completely understand that you’re rather reluctant to initiate proceedings, so I’ve been doing some pre-searching into downsizing the peripherals for you, like we talked about!’ He looked so pleased with himself, so sure she wouldn’t be anything less than delighted.
‘No, you talked about it, James. It came as a huge surprise to me, remember? Look, think about it; how can I inflict a house move on Molly while she’s in the middle of her A levels? Be reasonable, for heaven’s sake! And, please, don’t get settled,’ she added as he opened the fridge and took out a new bottle of milk. ‘I really do have to leave, right now.’
Feeling angry that James was treating her kitchen as familiarly as if he actually still lived in the house, she swiped the mug from beside him and poured the unbrewed tea down the sink. He stared at her and then at the empty mug, as if he didn’t quite understand what she’d done.
‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be hostile but you have to go – now. OK?’ she insisted. ‘I’m meeting someone and I really can’t be late. I’m having lunch with the Sunday Review features editor in Soho.’
He looked puzzled. ‘But you can go, I don’t mind. I can just stay here and have my tea. I mean, it is …’
‘Yes I know, half your house.’ How infuriating he was. ‘But only on paper, not in reality for years and years. And besides, I’ll be double-locking the door, which would mean you couldn’t get out. I want to set the burglar alarm too.’
‘I think you’ll find that on paper still counts for something in law, Bella my darling. I can lock up for you if you give me the alarm code. Why don’t you just tell me where the spare keys are? Better still, why don’t you let me have one, now I’m back?’
Bella could feel her blood pressure soaring. If she wasn’t in such a hurry she’d pick a full-sized argument about this. ‘Because you might be “back” in the area but you’re not “back” in my life or my house. You don’t live here, James. You haven’t since the day you packed your belongings, left me and the children and took off with Miss Dental Hygiene all those years ago. You can’t just invade my space like this. What would you call it in your corporate-speak? Try to think of this as negative territory.’ James seemed confused; she must have used the term wrongly, not that it really meant a lot whichever way you used it.
‘I tell you what: if you really want to talk to me about this,’ she conceded, ‘you can give me a lift down to the station and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll think about looking at your house-detail selection.’ Well, it was true – she would. But only because it was always fun to see who was selling what and to look at pictures of other people’s domestic interiors.
Like a small boy promised an ice cream, James looked visibly cheered, and Bella managed to whoosh him out of the house, lock up swiftly and get him into his shiny new company Lexus.
‘You’d find it much easier to manage, being in a smaller place,’ James began as soon as the car pulled out of the driveway. ‘Lower bills, less space to heat, minimal upkeep.’ He turned to face her at the traffic lights and actually wagged an admonishing finger, telling her with deep seriousness as if discussing imminent death, ‘Because we’re not getting any younger, are we? Forward planning is the thing. You need to be considering a downstairs shower, a staircase broad enough for a stairlift, that kind of arrangement. It all needs some 360-degree thinking. Get the right choice and you might never have to move again.’
Bella couldn’t help laughing. ‘James, stop it! I haven’t even got to my mid-forties yet. Give me a break, will you? Next thing you’ll be herding me off to a south-coast retirement bungalow.’ James looked so serious, so pleased with himself for having all the answers to questions she hadn’t even thought of asking. ‘And don’t you think all this forward planning – which incidentally is a mad term, because what other sort is there? – all this planning is like wishing time away? I don’t intend to think about stairlifts and walk-in baths for years and years yet, please God. When I leave this house I might want to live in a loft apartment in Soho till I hit my dotage – or even during it – or over a funky shop on the Portobello Road.’
James carefully made a right turn into the station forecourt, tucking the car in neatly behind a convertible Golf in which a young and pretty couple were kissing frantically. Bella looked away; what she had seen of the boy looked a bit like Alex, whose love life was so closely guarded a mystery that she only assumed he had one from the swift goodbyes as he left the house at night muttering something like ‘seeing Manda/Ellie/Caro’. A recent spate of Henri/Charlie/George had had her wondering if he’d gone gay till Molly had put her right about their full – female – names.
‘You’d find both those options would be terribly noisy, you know.’
Bella didn’t respond to that but counted to ten, out loud. He seemed to get the message.
‘OK.’ James gave in, switching off the engine. ‘I’m not asking for instant decisions. But we need to take an ideas shower about who owns what. No need to involve solicitors, I’d have thought; don’t you agree?’
‘Yes James, I do agree. For several reasons: first, I’d have thought you’d know that the months before Christmas aren’t a good time to sell. For another thing, I’ve got a TV show being filmed in the house over the next few weeks, and for another, I’m not planning to go anywhere just yet. Apart from lunch with Charlotte, right now.’ She leaned over and gave him a brief kiss on his overscented cheek. ‘But, hey, thanks for the lift.’
‘Bella darling! Lovely to see you!’ Charlotte hugged Bella and airkissed a loud ‘mwah’ alongside her left ear. Bella inhaled a delicious scent of Chanel 19 mixed with expensive hair products.
‘Charlotte – you’re looking fantastic, as ever.’ And it couldn’t be denied, however much Bella would have loved it if this woman who was responsible for scything her income had turned up looking like a dowdy crone. Charlotte always looked wonderful, and her shoes became ever more eccentric as she got older. Today’s were lavender faux snakeskin with pink and purple straps twining halfway up her calves. Bella also guessed she was carrying the kind of handbag that was more expensive than a pedigree show dog and probably involved a two-year waiting list. Bella thought she’d keep her own Top Shop bag (stylish in its way) well out of Charlotte’s line of vision.
Both women had a swift look round the restaurant as they were shown to their seats. The clientele at the Quo Vadis looked very media: women had haircuts that were either expensively mussed up or sleekly angled. Far more men than the national average for their pre-fifties age group were bald. Style-wise, Bella’s newly sharpened radar for clothes noted a typically London-safe preponderance of black, even though the September day was scorching, but that set off the abstract art selection on the walls rather well. Thorough observation was a bit thwarted here, as diners were obviously sitting down and you couldn’t get much clue about a look when it was only from the waist up. Beneath the heavy white tablecloths, the otherwise black-clad could be almost to a woman (and possibly to a man) wearing tartan, or floor-length citrus brights, or glistening satin in sugared-almond shades.
Dotted about were faces that Bella thought she almost recognized but couldn’t quite name. They were probably not famous, but as with any place that you’d read about in the chic magazines, you couldn’t help feeling that they should be. Bella could see that all the women sitting nearest to her had perfect make-up and very sleek and well-tamed eyebrows that were clearly accustomed to professional attention. On the pretext of moving her fringe out of her eyes, Bella ran a finger over her left one. When had she last plucked hers? When did she last really look at them for spikes and stragglers? She couldn’t remember. And did it really matter that much, or would anyone with any style take one look at her and recognize a woman whose personal grooming could – at the most generous – be described as slightly chaotic?
They ordered food and relaxed with a glass of champagne each (Bella crossing her fingers that Charlotte was going to pick up the bill on behalf of the Sunday Review), and after a few minutes asking after each other’s families and with Charlotte rather pointedly not asking about Rick, the serious business of the meeting had to be faced.
‘I’m so sorry, Bella,’ Charlotte began when she was comfortably a third of the way down her champagne glass. ‘It absolutely wasn’t my idea to change the “Week Moment” page. Not at all. There are editorial changes all round, honestly. You should see what they’re doing to the garden section: in line with straitened times, there’s a movement against the purely decorative and it’s to be all guest vegetable experts from now on. The only flowers are going to be something called “companion planting”.’ She giggled. ‘It makes me think of organizing a shallow grave after a big row with your partner! But,’ and she turned serious as their food arrived, ‘there have been other changes too … at management level, I mean.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘You know Rick has gone as well, I assume? I mean, of course I knew you and he were … um … friends.’
Bella wished Charlotte hadn’t mentioned him; the remembered vision of his sneering wife Carole looking her up and down in that hotel doorway was in danger of putting her off her crab tagliatelle.
‘I didn’t know that, actually,’ Bella told her. ‘So has he quit? That was sudden.’ She wondered if it had involved a degree of foot-stamping from Carole’s dainty size 4s.
‘Ooh, well he’s gone over to the US side of things, apparently. For good,’ Charlotte went on. ‘No further contact with the UK sector as from this week. Didn’t he say anything to you?’
Charlotte was looking at her expectantly, a forkful of sea bass halfway to her mouth.
Bella smiled. ‘I’m not seeing him any more. Bastard turned out to be still married and … well, it just wasn’t going to work.’ Work? Ha! Understatement. Three months they’d been together and he hadn’t even, after the final debacle, had the manners to be in touch to apologize. Not so much as an email. Even ‘Sorry’ on Twitter would have been something (an insultingly small something, but still …) but he’d vanished from the site.
‘Really? I assumed he was divorced! Strange, he was kind of half based over here for two years and he’d never mentioned a wife. I mean, as far as I know, not to anybody. But what if he hadn’t been married? Would you two have …’
‘Even if he hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have lasted. There were clues we were never going to be long-term – I should have listened to my own head. God knows it’s old enough by now to know a thing or two about men.’
Rick wasn’t the first mistake since James had left, she reflected. There’d been the literary agent who constantly (and sometimes wrongly) corrected her grammar; the accountant who still lived with his mum and who had brought his laundry round to Bella’s when his mother went away for a week. When she’d asked him why, exactly, he expected her to deal with it, he’d seemed not to understand the question. And then there was the rather sweet burly one who was evasive about the nature of his job but assured Bella he had friends who’d ‘look after’ her if she ever felt unsafe. But Rick had been a real wine-and-dine grown-up; the one she’d least expected to be a mistake. Just shows, she thought now.
‘Oh, I’m not sure we ever learn,’ Charlotte laughed. ‘Look at me, divorced and child-free, yet still I assume there’s a soulmate out there with my name on him. I’d blush to tell you how many frogs I’ve kissed in the past two years. And when I say “kissed”, I – well I don’t have to spell it out. Let’s have more wine.’ She smiled at the nearest waiter, who came over immediately. ‘We’ll toast all men to hell! And, do tell me what you’re doing, work-wise. You know we’re still going to be able to use bigger freelance pieces from you. This revamp might even be a good thing for you, in some ways. Of course there won’t be that comforting regular cheque, but …’
‘Well – I’ve still got the teen books. That’s a regular, two a year, though not madly profitable income. But … er, while I’m here, there’s one thing I’d like to pitch here and now.’ Bella sipped her wine, then took a deep breath, feeling this was the important moment of the meeting. ‘Don’t know if you’ll like the sound of it though.’ She heard herself laughing nervously and wished she wasn’t such a wuss.
‘Now let me stop you right there,’ Charlotte interrupted, her perfectly manicured Rouge Noir nails on Bella’s wrist. Oh no, Bella thought, all remaining confidence sliding away; she really doesn’t want to hear.
‘Always pitch positive!’ Charlotte laughed. ‘You’ve just told me I’m not going to like it – chances are I’ll agree if you can’t be 100 per cent go, go, go! OK, now start again! Sell to me!’
‘Makeovers. TV. Programme called Fashion Victims.’
‘Old hat, darling,’ Charlotte cut in, frowning. ‘In fact, old hat, old shoes, old dress. Done to death.’
‘What happened to positive?’ Bella felt cross at being so immediately slapped down. ‘I know there’ve been years of What Not to Wear and Ten Years Younger, but it’s me who’s one of the Victims. I can do the personal angle. The production company are using my house too, and there are some people called Daisy and …’
‘Not Daisy and Dominic?’ Charlotte squealed.
‘Well yes, as it happens. Why? Who are they?’ Bella was mystified by Charlotte’s reaction.
‘Oh-my-god, Bella! Have you never heard of them? They are major fashion players!’ Charlotte had gone quite shrieky and people were looking – most were sending condemnatory uncool judgement vibes, but three pouty young women on the next table swivelled round to do some brazen listening in.
‘Well … er, no. Who are they? I look at Vogue in the hairdressers, for the pictures only and to go “wow” at things I can’t afford. And I generally keep up with celeb gossip, obviously, because of work, but whoever these two are they’ve missed my radar.’
‘Well no, maybe you wouldn’t know of them. Fashion isn’t really your thing, is it?’
Bella smiled, but inside experienced a distinct ouchy nettle-sting moment and wondered if Charlotte had intended it to be one.
‘They are just so amazing,’ Charlotte gushed. ‘I’d heard they were going to do something – there was a press release a while back, but we were to put it on hold so nothing’s been announced yet. Daisy and Dominic are personal stylists who dress everybody who’s anybody, but nobody really knows all about the who-and-what because they’re sworn to discretion. After all, celebrities don’t want it widely known that they can barely match their bra to their knickers. Without proper guidance they’d have Primark and Prada all mixed up – most of them not being what you’d call pedigree. Anyway, according to the press statement, this is their first go at a TV thing, something about sharing the star-treatment secrets, filtering down to the plebs. Though it’ll be all Daisy, believe me. Dominic is well known for hardly saying a word. He’s a tad spooky with the silence thing but the perfect foil for her. So – how on earth did you get this? And why you?’
Another sting – closer to wasp than nettle this time. Bella could feel Charlotte’s eyes taking in her appearance, as if she hadn’t really noticed her before. She felt conscious of her too-low neckline showcasing her unevenly sun-scorched cleavage on which perched the wrong necklace (years-old Tiffany heart on a chain), because she couldn’t find the red and cream beads that would have gone with her slightly too girlish floral dress. She also wore a lacy cream linen cardigan that was a bit twee for anyone over thirty, and would have looked far better on Molly. Charlotte even glanced down to the side of the table, quickly taking in Bella’s three-year-old heeled scarlet espadrilles with the age-bent flower on the front, shoes chosen for Tube-travel comfort rather than style. At least her toenail polish was perfect, although Charlotte’s expression suggested the shade might be last year’s pink.
‘Probably because I need it? I think I just got lucky – if that’s the word. Right place, right time. Anyway, if I write about it, are you likely to be able to use it? Because otherwise …’
‘Sweetie, of course we can!’ Charlotte assured her. ‘Just make it funny and in-depth and go as all out on the unfilmed side as any contract will let you. Gossip is all. Like how much improvement is down to starving their victims for the duration, whether they let you have any say at all in the clothes or if there’s a product-placement deal. You’ll probably have to sign something, but the production will be desperate for the publicity. They’ll give you carte blanche, I just know. Daisy and Dominic! Wow!’
‘Maybe …’ Bella said hesitantly. ‘I was thinking … If I’m going to make a total tit of myself on national TV, I was wondering about getting ahead slightly, so that not every single bit of me gets ritual humiliation. I’ve already decided I’ll absolutely refuse to be seen in my knickers, but I’ll get myself a good haircut before the off, and I’ll have my teeth brightened up.’
‘Oh absolutely; good plan, darling – do everything you can not to look a total duffer. I’m completely amazed you haven’t before,’ Charlotte agreed with less than flattering alacrity. ‘Now, shall we risk pudding?’
‘It would help if the mirror was upright,’ Jules complained, pouring a big shot of wine into her glass. She put the bottle (half empty already, how did that happen?) back on the chest of drawers. They were in Bella’s bedroom, having decided over an early-evening drink in the kitchen that in order to prepare themselves for the inevitable scorn of these hyper-chic Dominic and Daisy people, they would give each other an honest once-over so they were already armed with proper knowledge of their problem body areas. They would be positive, be supportive and be ready to face the worst that any perfectly dressed, perfectly proportioned sadist could throw at them.
‘I wouldn’t want to be one of those poor women who cry when they get a good look at themselves,’ Bella had mentioned nervously, wondering how stoic she would really feel when faced with herself in a 360-degree mirror and far too many cameras for comfort. Saul had promised it wouldn’t be like that, but suppose they’d changed their minds? Suppose Daisy was a stroppy foot-stamper and got whatever she wanted? Were you allowed to say no?
‘And think of someone hiking up your drooping tits. In their horrible critical hands,’ Jules had added. Almost as one, they had raced up the stairs for the big-mirror moment.
‘Sorry, the mirror’s too heavy to move and it’s kind of grown into the carpet. James managed to wangle it into place years ago with the help of two mates but even when the room was repainted, the decorator leaned it forward against a chair. He said he had a bad back and gave me that “I’ll sue you” look, so I didn’t dare push it.’
‘Hmm. Well I suppose it will do. And anyway,’ Jules smiled at Bella’s reflection, ‘we’ve got each other – for absolute truth! No holds barred! I’ll go first.’
Bella looked at her reflection, seeing nothing but teeth that weren’t quite white enough. Damn that foxy little Fliss – till her so-kind ‘advice’ she’d never given them a thought. Kept clean with a six-monthly scrub from the hygienist, they’d always looked OK. Now all she saw when she smiled in the mirror was middle-age beige.
Jules pulled her dress over her head and faced the mirror in her bra and knickers. The bra was pink and white girly gingham and her breasts seemed to be struggling to escape from it; her knickers were black and so plain, big and sensible they reminded Bella of games lessons at school.
‘Oh Lord,’ Jules said, closing her eyes against the sight of her own flesh, ‘I’m so not doing this. Pass my dress back, quick. I don’t have a spare tyre, I’ve got a whole new set of wheels. For a tractor.’
‘No you haven’t – you’re not at all bad.’
‘For a short, circular beachball. Thanks.’
‘Look, stand up straight and it mostly flattens out. Don’t you make your yoga class do that?’
Jules readjusted her posture.
‘You see? Now you’ve got fabulous tits and there’s a definable waist.’
‘Only bloody just … I only get away with keeping my job because I’m still so bendy. Besides, they like a fat teacher – makes them feel better from the start.’ Jules pushed her hands into the flesh each side of her body, inhaled hard and held her breath.
‘You’re fine. If you were wearing matching underwear it would help the overall look. It’s just …’ There was no other word for it, Bella had to come out with it. They’d promised each other honesty, hadn’t they? A thirty-two-year friendship surely couldn’t be killed stone dead by a bit of invited body-honesty?
‘Go on, what? We did say honesty.’ Jules’s head nodded encouragingly, her spiky red hair flicking up and down.
‘It’s the saddlebags.’
‘What saddlebags?’ Jules leaned forward, peering at herself. ‘That’s not saddlebags, it’s just … hip bones!’ She prodded her thighs. ‘See? Solid!’
‘Then your pelvis has slipped!’ Bella giggled. ‘And hey, they’re perfectly normal, just a bit … er … obvious. So whatever you wear on day one for the Big Appraisal, if that’s what happens first, they’ll need … well, to be accommodated. As will your tits. That bra is at least two cup sizes too small. If we invest in good underpinnings before we become victims, we’ll be halfway there. OK, my turn.’
Jules topped up their glasses again. Bella peeled her skirt and top off, keeping her shoes on. A bit of heel elongated the calf, her mother had always said. Jules was small to start with and had kicked her shoes off, which, with the leaned-back mirror, had given an exaggerated impression of dumpiness. Maybe that was another ‘before’ trick they should watch out for. Bella was taller and leaner, but definitely pear-shaped. Both women, standing side by side, had a bit of stomach overhang, so Bella pulled in her muscles, which helped, and said, ‘If we do this kind of contracting thing properly, we should end up well toned.’
Jules looked disbelieving. ‘So how long do we have to keep it up for to get a result?’
‘Er … for life, I think,’ Bella laughed. ‘Got a feeling it’s the only way to make it work.’
‘Chrissake, I’ve had two Caesareans, and one baby was a ten-pounder! No one can expect me to look like Kate Moss! So OK, smart-arse – any ideas how I can disguise the saddlebags and you can make your bum look like a neat little Cox’s apple instead of a whopping great Bramley – all in a matter of days?’
Bella sat on the bed, took a big slug of wine and pulled her top back on, feeling suddenly dispirited. It wasn’t just the teeth thing, it was the all-round exposure. What was she letting herself in for? Well, she’d seen similar programmes; she had some idea. She quite liked her privacy, contrary as that might seem in a journalist, but it was too late to pull out now – in her head she’d half spent the location fee.
‘You know, I so wish I hadn’t got us into this!’ she confessed. ‘I don’t even like those programmes; they’re just ritual humiliation. I’ve thought that ever since I saw one where Gok Wan held a woman’s hand and ran her round a department store, showing her what would suit her. The camera followed, from behind and just below her.’
From the depths of her dress, which she was pulling on over her head, Jules said, ‘Sounds all right; what was to object to? I like Gok, except when he rummages his face in women’s tits. If he tried that on me, I’d slap him.’
‘Oh, I like him too. But this victim hadn’t got a skirt on. Boots, jacket, yes. And then just these big beige knickers and big white cellulite thighs. It just seemed so cruel. I was thinking, when she sees this later, she’ll sob into the sofa cushions. Perfectly nice-looking woman, why couldn’t she have been allowed a skirt? How did she let herself be cajoled into it? That’s why we need to promise to back each other up, so we don’t get persuaded to look like complete prats, however much they bleat on about what makes good television. We’ll get classy underwear, Jules. Bras that fit, matching knickers that hold us in a bit. That’s definitely all you need, all we both need. And me, I need to get my teeth whitened. If we’re sorted with the basics, they can then do their worst. With luck, no one will be watching anyway.’
Molly could sense she was being watched. She and Giles were sitting, as they did on many a school afternoon, on the low wall outside the Cross Man’s house, waiting for the bus. The Cross Man was there – a blurry dark shape behind his net curtains, waiting to find something to complain about so that he could rap hard on the window with his walking stick and glare at those who dared to pluck so much as a leaf from his privet, or carelessly drop a cigarette end or sweet wrapper on the pavement. Giles put his arm round Molly and pulled her close, kissing her. Rap rap went the stick, as they’d known it would. Laughing, they turned round and waved to the Cross Man, who had moved his curtain to glare at them through pale, glittery eyes.
‘We’ve made him happy now,’ Molly said. ‘Something to grumble about makes his day.’
‘He’s not the only one watching us,’ Giles murmured into her ear. ‘Across the road, outside the shop. Aimee alert.’
‘No surprise there – she’s everywhere I look. It’s like having a stalker.’
Aimee Lewiston was leaning against the window of the newsagents, drinking from a Coke can and staring across the road at Molly and Giles. Her skirt was a tiny frill of part-faded denim. Her bare legs vanished into black Uggs, even though the weather was still scorching.
‘Do you fancy her? She’s looking pretty hot.’ When Aimee was about, Molly felt around twelve years old. Aimee practically shimmered with sexual experience and carnal knowledge.
‘Well she would be hot, in those boots,’ Giles teased. ‘I’m thinking sweaty toes. Not good.’
Molly play-punched him. ‘You know what I meant! She’s been following us round like a hungry dog. And dog’s a word I chose on purpose.’
Aimee’s persistent staring was making Molly nervous. She had a way of pursuing boys she fancied, so ruthlessly that they were worn down by her fixation. She was living proof that you could get anyone you wanted by just sticking close and making sure that you were forever in their field of vision. Oh, plus by blatant sexual availability. Not many teenage boys had built-in resistance to that, not even when they were very happily going out with someone else. That her quarry was someone else’s boyfriend always sharpened Aimee’s competitive edge, and it was as clear as vodka that Giles was next on the trophy list. Molly glared across the road at her, wishing a plague of livid scarlet spots on her chubby yet pretty smooth-skinned moonface.
‘I don’t fancy her. God, I’d have to be desperate,’ Giles said. His bus was coming. ‘Gotta go, babes. Facebook later, text you, call you.’ The bus pulled up and the doors shooshed open. A crowd of schoolkids surged forward and Giles waited till they had shoved each other past the driver before swiftly kissing Molly and leaping on. As the door began to close, Aimee suddenly hurtled on to the bus, falling against Giles as it lurched away from the pavement. Molly was on the receiving end of a hugely triumphant smirk as Aimee turned and rudely gave her the finger before pushing ahead of Giles up the bus stairs. He followed – he always sat upstairs. Molly looked away, wishing that for once he’d decided that the lower deck would be a good enough travelling place so he wouldn’t be going up the stairs, copping a look up Aimee’s skirt at an undersized thong that you could guarantee didn’t even cover the basics. ‘I’d have to be desperate,’ he’d said. He was seventeen – so he probably was.