It wasn’t at all a dignified position. Although this didn’t quite rate with having no knickers on and her legs splayed in gynaecologists’ stirrups, Bella could think of few other situations where she’d have absolutely hated anyone she knew to walk in and watch. She lay almost horizontally with her hands clutching the arms of the chair in white-knuckle apprehension, her lips held wide open and away from gum contact by a hideous oversized plastic contraption that looked as if it had been designed for someone with a mouth as large as Mick Jagger’s. Little rolls of cotton wool were wedged, hamster style, between her cheeks and her gums, and the inside of her mouth was agonizingly dry and uncomfortable.
A good twenty minutes in and Mr Ruben, the dentist, hadn’t even started on the whitening process yet. Radio Two was twittering in the background and the dental nurse was speculating across her as to whether Cyprus would be more fun than Ibiza, club-wise. Mr Ruben, who Bella would have guessed knew only about the kind of clubs that went into a golf bag, grunted un-interestedly. He didn’t seem very interested in Bella either and, having agreed to fit her in at short notice for state-of-the-art instant tooth-brightening, appeared reluctant to have further verbal contact, though Bella would have put folding money on the likelihood that he’d jack up the charm when it came to bill-paying time.
As she’d walked into the surgery, he’d handed her a new shrink-wrapped toothbrush and ordered her brusquely to scrub her teeth right there and then at the rather scruffy and chipped sink, but once she was in the chair he wasn’t going to waste energy with inevitably one-sided chat. ‘Good morning’ would have been nice. Still, Zoe had assured her he was the man for the job, so here she was; and it was too late to request that he explain each stage of what he was going to do … she could no longer speak. At all.
She couldn’t see a lot, either, because there were big and not at all comfortable plastic safety glasses across her eyes, fixed to her face with elastic round the back of her head. The screens could do with a wipe; everything was blurry and distorted. The nurse applied cream to Bella’s lips and murmured ‘Sunscreen’ at her, for which communication Bella felt almost tearfully grateful. Next, she could just make out Mr Ruben approaching with equipment. He too was wearing a plastic visor and she could only hope he could see through his better than she could through hers. But then something was painted on all her front teeth with reassuring care – this man possibly had a sideline hobby in painting miniatures. Next, what felt like an entire harmonica was crammed inside her mouth, the room lights went out, and Bella was suddenly in the dark with a beam of ultraviolet aimed at her teeth.
She so wished she’d asked how long this would go on and if she should prepare for pain. It could mean hours of agony. But Radio Two jangled on, DJs joshed and babbled and the nurse, with nothing to do, flicked the pages of a magazine. The minutes staggered past, slow and lumbering, and Bella relaxed a little. Nothing was hurting, so far. She could safely (cross fingers) drift away and dream a bit. Then … zing! A weird tingle of something mildly electric coursed through one of her incisors.
‘Was that pain?’ Mr Ruben switched off the ultraviolet and removed the harmonica from Bella’s mouth. She nodded – it had hurt in the same way that an unexpected piece of silver paper against a filling did. He smiled, which was unnerving.
‘First phase is done now. And yes, you might get a few twinges, occasional trills of discomfort. And there’ll be occasional darts of it now and then for a few days. It’ll settle. Now – we do this all over again; twice. And another twenty minutes each time under the light.’
Now he tells me, Bella thought, still unable to speak. I’d have gone for a pee before we began, if I’d known.
‘Look at this! They’ve put a run-over poodle on the front page!’ Shirley complained, frowning into Bella’s Mac on the kitchen table while Bella loaded Molly’s abandoned breakfast plate and mug into the dishwasher. ‘I’ve gone through the whole of the local paper online and there’s nothing about me being arrested!’
‘Maybe it was a busy week for hot news? Was Walton overwhelmed with parking wars and planning battles?’ Bella asked.
‘A poodle!’ Shirley pushed the computer away in disgust. ‘It wasn’t even a hit-and-run. Dog ran into the road, van ran into it, everyone very upset but it’s hardly news. And it’s funny how there’s always someone with their camera, ready to take a shot rather than being any use. This wouldn’t have even made page seven if it hadn’t been for some amateur snapper with a blurry camera; their phone presumably – I mean look!’ She turned the computer for Bella to see. ‘I can imagine getting to the pearly gates and having to wait around while the idiot ahead of me gets a shot of St Peter on his iPhone to email back to his family.’
‘Was it dead?’ Bella needed to know about the poodle. She briefly pictured it at a doggy version of heaven’s entrance, surrounded by canine photographers. This shot of the dog showed it in its owner’s arms, lying flat out and looking confused by all the fuss.
‘No! Not even dead! “In shock” it says here. How on earth can they tell?’
‘They tremble. And their ears and noses go all hot, like cats when they’ve got a fever.’ This comment came from Nick, a young and amazingly quiet scenery carpenter Saul had sent to the house to measure up the kitchen for its on-screen look. He’d arrived just as Molly left for school and had slid noiselessly into the house and shimmied round the kitchen like a ghost while Bella had her porridge and a glass of milk, the only possible breakfast combination allowable for forty-eight hours following yesterday’s tooth treatment. That was another little piece of information Mr Ruben had left till the whitening deal was a done one.
‘Rubbish.’ Shirley was dismissive. ‘It’s a poodle – they’re just drama queens.’
‘But Mum,’ Bella interrupted, ‘I thought the last thing you wanted was to have your crimes written up in the local paper. Isn’t that why you’re holed up here? Escaping the press and the paparazzi of Surrey? What happened to worrying about what Lois across the hall would think?’
‘Crime. Not crimes,’ Shirley corrected Bella. ‘Only the one. I don’t make a habit of it, you know.’
‘My mum nearly got done for assault once,’ Nick contributed as he lined up his tape against the back wall. ‘Last year she walloped this big lad who’d chucked a chocolate wrapper on the ground. Told him to pick it up and when he wouldn’t, she clouted him. Someone got the police but the kid said it was OK, he deserved it. So his mum hit my mum instead but not very hard, so they called it quits.’
‘I assure you I haven’t been hitting anyone,’ Shirley told him firmly. ‘There was simply a silly mistake over an item of clothing in a department store. They’ve offered me a caution. I’ve told them I’ll think about it.’
Bella wanted to laugh. How had her mother turned the whole thing round so that it seemed the police were now doing their best to please her? She could imagine her surrounded by detectives who were pleading, ‘Look, this is our best offer,’ with Shirley wrapping herself protectively into her summer-weight, duck-egg-blue pashmina, wincing at gravy stains on shiny ties and despising their unpolished shoes.
Nick looked at her with what seemed like sympathy, and scratched his ear with his pencil. ‘A caution? Really? Shame. Maybe you could tell them you’d like to upgrade to an ASBO …’ He smiled broadly.
Shirley gave him a look. Bella held her breath. The mood her mother was in after trawling fruitlessly through the Walton and Weybridge Herald this morning, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Shirley ended up doing something to Nick that would get her remanded for months in custody, all bail out of the question. But, to her surprise, Shirley was decidedly cheerful. ‘You and your mother seem to have an excellent grasp of human foibles, young man. You see, it’s a perfectly reasonable aim in life: if you can’t be a good woman – be a notorious one.’
‘Oh Mum!’ Bella laughed. ‘You are a good woman! It was only a lapse!’
Shirley smiled in a disconcertingly secretive way. ‘A good woman! How much you don’t know about me, Bella my darling! I do hope that your own life will perk up a bit soon. Perhaps this makeover thing will help and you’ll meet someone lovely, who’ll give you a happier, no, a broader outlook. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get ready. I’m meeting a friend.’
‘Are you? That’s nice. Anyone I know? And where are you going?’
‘No – er, no one you’ve met. We’re just venturing into town for a bit of lunch, possibly. A little light shopping, you know.’ Shirley was already moving towards the door. Escaping, Bella thought, a bit like Alex when he was being evasive about his plans for the evening.
‘If you’re going towards Piccadilly, we could take the train together,’ she suggested. ‘If you can wait half an hour?’
‘No, no it’s fine darling, honestly! I’m … er … being met!’
Nick turned and grinned at Bella as Shirley left the room fast in a haze of Arpège. ‘She’s OK, your mother, isn’t she? She knows stuff.’
‘She does, doesn’t she? She always did,’ Bella agreed, considering. Shirley was being … what was it? Got it, Bella decided, she was being triumphantly mysterious. She was up to something and it was just to be hoped it wouldn’t lead to more trouble. But for now, any major mother discoveries would have to wait. Bella was going to meet Saul at the production office and be introduced to these Daisy and Dominic people. It was kind of him – the rest of the group were having to wait a few more days, till almost the start of the filming, but he’d told her that the fact that they were turning part of her house upside down meant she deserved a bit of privilege. She just hoped going out in the breeze wouldn’t set her newly sensitive teeth jangling. Oh, and there was the small question about what to wear to meet a couple who spent their entire working lives putting together celebrity wardrobes. Presumably (if she took that Carole’s advice) anything but black.
‘So where’s she gone this time?’ James asked Alex. Alex shrugged and wandered ahead of his father through the kitchen and out to the garden. ‘Dunno, give her a bell, Dad. Or text. Ask her?’ he suggested, returning to the lounger under the cherry tree where he’d left Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.
James hovered around, looking twitchy and overheated in a suit and tie. The day had turned into yet another blazing one. ‘And who are those people in the kitchen? Is this something to do with that film thing she mentioned? She hasn’t been touching base as to what’s going on.’
He perched on the edge of Alex’s lounger and Alex sighed and moved his bare feet out of the way.
‘Like I said, ask her,’ Alex repeated. ‘She’s gone to a meeting. Work, maybe? I don’t know. She goes out. Gran’s out too. Moll’s at school. I’m …’ he indicated the book. ‘I was just reading. Do you want some tea or something?’
‘Oh … right, sorry. Getting ahead for next term, are you? Good, good. OK, you just carry on. I’ll, er …’ He stood up and started to back towards the house, deadheading a couple of antirrhinums on the way.
‘Oh, are you going? Why don’t you stay for a bit?’ Alex called. ‘You sure you don’t want a drink or something?’
‘No, no, don’t disturb yourself. I know you’re not yet used to me being back in your life in this face-to-face way. I’ll see myself out. I just had something to talk to Bella about, that’s all. I’ll see you in a day or two, next week maybe.’
Alex got up and followed him back in. ‘Well actually no, you won’t. I’m off to France in a couple of days, with Ben and Mick. Surfing for a while, then back to Oxford.’
‘Ah – are you? You see,’ James clicked his fingers, ‘I told Bella you’d practically left home!’
Alex looked puzzled. ‘Not quite. Uni’s only thirty weeks in the year. And this’ll only be my second year.’
‘Yes, but it’s not for long, in the scheme of things,’ James argued. ‘So who’ll be here while you’re away, keeping an eye on this lot?’ He indicated the crew, who had joined Nick and were now taking the doors off the cupboards. ‘Do you think I should move back in? They could do any amount of damage.’
Carpenter Nick frowned at him. ‘We are here, you know,’ he muttered.
James glared. ‘I can see that. I can see very untidy evidence of your presence. There’s dust everywhere. This is my …’
‘Dad! Leave it, please. Mum’s got it covered.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ James told him. ‘All this malarkey. It’s just all disruption and mess. Now come on Alex, be honest, wouldn’t you rather move to somewhere a bit less rambling? Somewhere smart and clean and fresh?’
‘Not really.’ Alex looked vague. ‘Hadn’t thought about it. Why?’
‘Bella hasn’t said anything?’
‘About?’
‘Selling the house? Downsizing? Freeing up capital?’
‘No. Should she’ve?’
‘She could have raised the matter with you, yes. We’ve talked about it.’ He ran his hands through his hair and sighed.
Alex shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. ‘Hasn’t said a word not to me, anyway. Sorry.’
‘OK, OK, I can’t say I’m surprised, but I did hope she might have run it up the family flagpole by now. Never mind. Look, tell her I was here. And tell her … Actually, no don’t. I’ll connect ear to ear with her later. Enjoy the surf, Alex, and be careful.’ He went to leave but having opened the front door, changed his mind and came back. ‘Alex, while I’m here, do you know where there’s a spare front-door key for here? I seem to have mislaid mine – left it in Scotland I expect.’
Alex hesitated. ‘Er, well I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to be funny, Dad, but you haven’t had a key for here for years.’
‘I know,’ James laughed. ‘But that’s only because I wasn’t in the area. It would save a lot of hassle, now I’m back.’
‘Oh don’t worry about Bella, it won’t be a problem. We’ve got a few loose legal ends to tie up and it would be very handy. Most of the relevant paperwork is here, that’s all. I know what she’s like … it’ll still be in the desk in the sitting room, where it’s always been.’
Alex opened one of the few remaining kitchen drawers. ‘OK, here you are, then. Don’t lose this one or she’ll blame me.’
James pocketed the key and made a swift exit, leaving Alex with the scenery crew. Nick looked at him and grinned. ‘Connect ear to ear?’ he commented.
Soho again. Twice in one week. Bella swung along the hot and dusty pavement feeling cheerful and cosmopolitan. Her hair was freshly washed and glossy and it tickled warm and soft against her neck. Better yet, her seven-shades-whiter teeth gleamed their full money’s worth and seemed to have stopped being attacked by random jangling electric sparks. She managed to get past the fabric shops of Berwick Street without going inside to drool over magically coloured silks and, sidestepping cabbage leaves blown down from the market stalls, turned up a cool shady alleyway to find the address Saul had given her.
The apprehension was mounting, as if this was an interview for a job she desperately needed. This was not the case at all – at the worst she could simply say, oh well that could have been fun, but didn’t look like it was going to be, and walk away. But then there was Saul; she didn’t want to let him down. Wasn’t that always the way? When you thought you had all the choices on your side and that opting out was a real possibility, you ended up feeling responsible for someone else’s project going right. She tried telling herself it was nothing to do with her, that if she didn’t do it or lend them her house (though it was a bit late on that score – by tonight half her kitchen infrastructure would be on its way to a storage lock-up somewhere, not to mention that in her head the location fee had become an essential income component), then they’d find someone else. Never mind that Saul had such a friendly manner and such appealing grey-blue eyes. So, if you thought like that, did Jules’s spaniel.
She found the pink door Saul had told her to look for, almost hidden under a thick tangle of honeysuckle that seemed far too rampant to be growing in a pot, and rang the bell.
‘Come on up, Bella!’ Saul called to her from an open window above. She was conscious for a second only of the scent of honeysuckle, lush and heady between his smile and hers; she quickly pushed the door open and climbed a broad wooden staircase that had been painted to look like a floral carpet runner, with the kind of design that you saw in unmodernized pubs. The practical side of her wondered why anyone would go to so much trouble when it would have been so much easier simply to put down real carpet, but she decided it must be an ironic design statement, the sort to be expected among visual media folk. Even with magazines she’d worked for, the art department had been very separate from where the copy was produced – a remote enclave with specialized computers and an exclusive and mysterious vocabulary. Those who worked in there dressed more wackily too: engagingly art-school.
‘Bella! It’s so good to see you.’ Saul greeted her at his office door and kissed her lightly. The scent of the honeysuckle was still all around him. The room was the full depth of the building, very light with big windows and painted deep pink. The walls were hung with framed black and white photos of half-built structures. Some were famous – Brunel’s Tamar bridge was there; so were Canary Wharf and the Empire State Building, but many were identifiably film sets – all works in progress. He must have a thing for scaffolding.
‘Let me introduce you to Daisy and Dominic,’ Saul said, indicating a couple across the room sitting at a blue glass circular table. ‘This is Bella – one of your victims and in a way, our hostess – in terms of the set, anyway.’
Dominic stood up to greet her. He nodded at her in a friendly enough way but didn’t actually speak. He was forty-something, tall and skinny to the point of possibly questionable health, wearing black from head to foot (apart from a silver leather belt), which set off hair that must have been modelled on Nicky Clarke’s, being long, lion-blond and perfectly blow-dried to give an impression of far more volume than was actual. Bella could see little shines of pink scalp here and there, and found it endearing. His smile, which was so crooked you could almost call it diagonal, dazzled – more tooth-whitening, for sure – but his face was crazed with smoker’s lines, which unfairly managed to make him look rugged rather than ragged.
‘And this is Daisy.’ Daisy remained seated but put out a thin, fragile-looking hand with perfectly oval nails painted deep dark red, just as Charlotte’s had been a few days before.
Daisy was a dramatic and slightly alarming sight. She was wearing purple-framed sunglasses, the biggest Bella had ever seen, and her mid-length blue-black hair was scraped back into a ponytail and secured with a circlet of pink feathers and purple ribbons. But it was what she was wearing that confused Bella. It seemed to be an oversized orange towelling bathrobe, in which Daisy looked tiny and terribly frail for a woman who might not (and it was hard to tell when you couldn’t see someone’s eyes) be any more than late thirties. Bella smiled and said hello in the kind of softly sympathetic voice suitable for invalids, then looked at Saul, half expecting him to explain that Daisy wasn’t feeling terribly well, perhaps had been staying overnight … where? Possibly an apartment upstairs? And that she hadn’t got dressed because she was feeling a bit feverish and certain she was coming down with flu, so would be going straight back to bed after putting in a few aspirin-fuelled minutes at this meeting. But then if you had flu, you probably wouldn’t wear that much near-black lipstick. It certainly wouldn’t make you feel better if you accidentally looked in the mirror.
‘Hello Bella, nice to meet you,’ Daisy said in a rather flat voice. Only half a smile. Bella felt immediately that she’d disappointed, somewhat. Was it to do with her last-minute Jigsaw-sale dress? Was mauvey-grey silk (sprinkled with blue and cream flowers) all wrong? And the taupe gladiator-type sandals – they must be unforgivably last-summer to a woman who dressed the nation’s style icons and probably possessed enough inside knowledge to predict exactly what the world would be wearing four years from now.
‘OK, well now you’re here, Bella, and it’s so close to lunchtime,’ Saul was saying, looking at his watch, ‘I thought we might go out and have something to eat. There’s a little bistro just round the corner, very relaxed. We could get to know each other over some wine and a bit of lunch. Is that all right with you?’
Bella gulped. Ah … she hadn’t thought of that. This could be tricky. But his smile looked almost boyishly hopeful and she wasn’t going to be impolite by refusing. She would just have to do her best with whatever the menu offered and besides, she was quite hungry.
To her surprise, the wan-looking Daisy was coming too. Bella almost asked her if she wouldn’t rather be going back to bed instead, feeling concerned for her as you would for a listless, over-pale child, but Daisy got up, briskly tightened her orange tie-belt and gathered up her huge floppy handbag, which, combined with the robe, only added to the impression that she was a little girl playing dressing-up in her mother’s clothes.
‘Oh great, let’s go. I’m starving!’ Daisy announced, trip-trapping swiftly towards the doorway on the highest heels Bella had ever seen. Bella wasn’t a shoe expert, but even she recognized the signature scarlet sole of Louboutin. Daisy was quite a small woman – how she had feet long enough to cope with a six-inch heel was one of those questions that could keep a woman awake at night. Bella, following her down the clanky wooden stairs, could feel one of her ‘I Really Don’t Get …’ columns coming on. More than that, she was also curious about the big orange coat-thing. From her vantage point close behind Daisy, she could now see it wasn’t actually made of towelling but of something cleverly woven to look like it. It was presumably one of fashion’s deep mysteries, to which she hoped soon to become privy.
The restaurant wasn’t busy. The waiter led them through to a courtyard at the back where there were several sun-speckled tables under a vine-swathed pergola. Fat bunches of blue-black grapes hung over them, giving an impression of somewhere far more exotic than dusty central London. In a sunny corner, wide-open blue trumpets of morning glory twined up a trellis, and maroon nasturtiums tumbled from boxes halfway up the walls.
‘Oh this is pretty! We could be in Italy,’ Bella said. Saul looked pleased at her approval. ‘Exactly – that’s why I love it here,’ he told her. ‘It’s like a tiny escape from London without the hassle of travel. No airports, no queues, no screamy children.’
‘I know – by the time you get on the plane you wonder why you bothered,’ Bella agreed. ‘And … not really related to children, where’s Fliss? Has she got a day off?’
‘Having a duvet day,’ Daisy snarled. ‘Lazy infant. Says she’s got a migraine but my money’s on a hangover.’
‘Come on now Daisy, she’s put in the hours. Don’t begrudge her a sickie for once,’ Saul told her.
The waiter brought menus and offered drinks. Bella asked for a spritzer, feeling the need for something long and cool for the hot day.
‘White wine for me,’ Daisy requested. ‘With a separate glass of ice, please.’ She still hadn’t taken off her sunglasses, and Bella was very curious about what lay behind them. It was hard to feel she could even begin to get to know someone who was resolutely hidden. And wasn’t it rather rude, too, to be so determinedly keeping the eye contact this one-sided?
‘Interesting coat,’ Bella ventured. Well, it was a start.
‘Oh, you like it? Dries. Next season’s. This was a runway model, from the show.’
‘She’d like you to think they practically paid her to wear it.’ These were the first words Bella had heard from Dominic. She’d begun to wonder if he had a voice at all. ‘Truth was,’ he leaned closer, his sardonic smile reminding her of a pleased cat, ‘a model threw up on it – God knows how, it’s not as if the poor darlings eat anything, but only Daisy here wasn’t too squeamish to take it off their hands and give it a wash.’
‘Enough, Dom; it’s worth thousands. What’s a bit of puke at that price?’ Daisy’s smile was even more alarming than Dominic’s. Pretty, Bella thought, admiring more gleaming teeth, but frightening in the same way as a vampire in a movie in the first revelation of fangs.
‘Personally I think it looks like a bathrobe,’ he sniffed. ‘Don’t you, Bella?’
Bella wasn’t sure what to say. The honest answer would be yes, but she didn’t yet know these people well enough to say so.
‘But a Dries Van Noten bathrobe, darlings!’ Daisy put him right. ‘You’ll see Cheryl in one before Christmas, trust me. But after that, it’ll filter down.’ She went back to studying the menu, leaving Bella with the certain knowledge that ‘filtering down’ spelled the end of all interest for any item of clothing.
The waiter approached and Bella studied the menu. Difficult. The others ordered but still Bella dithered.
‘Tricky, this,’ she began, ‘The thing is …’ She hesitated, then admitted, feeling utterly foolish, ‘I know this sounds completely mad but right now I can only eat white food, so if you could just tell me …’
The young waiter, who was black, snapped in an intensely Caribbean accent, ‘So it won’t be rice and peas or goatwater stew for you then, honey. You want spaghetti bolognese or a pie? Safe and European?’
Dominic snickered. She caught Saul giving her a look of horrified disbelief. Oh God, Bella thought, they’ve all totally misunderstood.
‘No, I mean … yes. It could be rice. White rice. But not the peas. I meant literally white food. As in chicken, or white bread or plain potatoes, pasta – though not wholemeal. Sorry.’ Bella felt flustered and more than a bit idiotic.
The waiter shrugged, bored now, indicating that food-fad-wise, he’d just about seen it all. Now in an accent more Bermondsey than Barbados, he said ‘Look, I can get you plain grilled chicken, a risotto …’
‘Actually, that would be lovely, a plain, simple risotto.’ She checked the menu. ‘This one with chicken will be fine but no mushrooms in it, please.’ She felt hot and bothered, knowing she’d have to explain herself and wondering why she hadn’t earlier. Too silly of her, really, but then who didn’t hope to keep their personal vanities private?
When the waiter went, Daisy suddenly removed her sunglasses and touched Bella’s hand. ‘Sensitivity?’ she asked, surprisingly gently. And goodness, what huge blue eyes – why ever did she hide them? She realized Daisy was older than she’d originally thought too, possibly a similar age to herself. The quirkiness of her look had blurred that issue.
‘Yes. In a way.’ Ah – Daisy got it. Of course she did – even fresh snow would look a bit tawdry against her teeth.
‘I understand, totally,’ she sympathized, ‘I only do wheat and dairy on alternate days. Tomatoes never. And every third week, no carbs for five days. Have you had the Kaz tests? Do you know your Bimelow Reaction Rating? It makes all the difference once you know about that.’
‘Er … no, sorry, I’ve never heard of those.’ Bella glanced at Saul. He was looking at her in a strange way, as if he’d just discovered something about her that was a long, long way from pleasing. What had she done?
‘I don’t have any allergies or food sensitivities at all. It’s just my teeth,’ she explained, feeling she’d been caught out here. ‘I had them whitened by this mad laser treatment a couple of days ago and the dentist warned me not to eat food with any colour in it for three days, because the laser has removed a protective layer and it needs that time to grow back. That’s all. I did it because of this programme.’
Oh why did it sound like an idiotic confession? It was nothing, really, but she felt silly, vain and … caught out.
‘Oh God, is that all?’ Daisy looked disappointed. ‘I thought you had some really interesting food issues! Of course, looking at you properly, I can see you probably haven’t.’
‘Daisy!’ Saul warned. ‘Back off now!’ To Bella’s surprise his hand quickly squeezed hers under the table. It was a very welcome reassurance and made her feel much better.
‘OK, sorry, sweetie!’ Daisy sighed. ‘I’m just feeling a tad mid-season today. September is a difficult time in this business. You can’t move anyone on to autumn/winter while the sun’s still blazing, and yet linen, for example, is so over once the August bank holiday has gone. Do you see?’ This was aimed at Bella. It felt like a test. But in fact Bella did see, sort of. Her ever-stylish mother would see even better, she thought.
‘I think so. Though surely it doesn’t matter that much?’ Daisy took a sharp intake of breath, as if Bella had committed some deep heresy. Perhaps she had. She tried to make amends. ‘I suppose it’s similar to how my mother always swears you absolutely cannot wear velvet after New Year, even though the winter has barely set in.’
‘Oh she’s absolutely right!’ Daisy smiled. ‘Gosh, what a star she must be. You don’t take after her, then?’ Bella experienced the same kind of nettle-sting moment that she’d had with Charlotte only days before. This one wasn’t so uncomfortable though, for how could she take seriously any clothes-sniping from a woman in a coat that she could wear to a fancy-dress party as the Honey Monster? Oh, the curse of being habitually polite. If only she was the manners-free kind of bitch who could come right out and say it.
‘So what are our other victims like?’ Daisy asked as the food arrived. ‘Because frankly you’re a bit of a let-down, I don’t mind telling you, Bella.’
‘Daisy!’ Saul protested. ‘Play nicely, please.’
‘I do quite mind being told it, actually,’ Bella retorted.
‘Good for you,’ Saul muttered. ‘Don’t take any crap.’
Dominic leaned back against his chair, saying nothing. His silence was a bit unnerving, but maybe he knew better than to cross Daisy. Bella now felt thoroughly unfazed – no way did she any longer intend to go through this ridiculous charade. They could, she decided, use her house and the rest of the writers’ group in it, but she wasn’t going to be sneered at by bloody Daisy.
‘Look – I’m sure you can do this without me … there are others …’
‘No, really, don’t go dropping out now.’ Saul squeezed her hand again beneath the table.
‘Hell no, don’t do that!’ Daisy smiled sweetly. ‘It’s just that this is the problem, isn’t it? You don’t look too bad as you are. I only meant, what’s to change? We can tweak at the basics – your hair is desperate, frankly, but otherwise you already seem to have a teeny clue how to put an outfit together.’ Bella softened, feeling slightly wrong-footed. Then Daisy got back on form with, ‘For an amateur, that is, obviously! It’s just that there won’t be quite that oh wow factor at the end of the show that a really extreme change would make. Still, we can work on something, I’m sure. Frump you up a bit at the start, maybe. And sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference. A good handbag would pull you together – and colour counselling. I mean, we’re working on the whole person here, and realistic solutions. We’re not doing a Ten Years Younger scenario.’ She shuddered. ‘Ugh – all those frizzy-haired people who’ve never looked after their teeth or even exfoliated. Imagine.’
‘So what are the others like?’ Saul asked. ‘I know we get to meet them soon, but you could give Daisy and Dominic some handling tips. Do any of them bite?’
Bella pulled flat-leafed parsley out of her risotto, feeling like a picky child eater. She loved it normally, but worried about how rigidly she had to stick to Mr Ruben’s instructions. If she accidentally ate it, would her teeth be stained dark green?
‘Well …’ Bella thought of Dina with her long, straggly, greying hair. Dina didn’t approve of hair colourants, couldn’t be bothered with make-up. And Phyl, whose skin was as smoke-ravaged as Dominic’s. And Jules’s saddlebags. But then there was Zoe, who was so Boden-cute and fresh-faced that it would be hard even to want to tweak her look.
‘Er … I think one or two could be a challenge!’ she assured them.
‘Oh good! That’s what I like to hear.’ Daisy grinned. ‘Something to get my teeth into.’
‘Now that,’ Saul leaned close and murmured to Bella, ‘is exactly what I’m slightly afraid of.’