There was just enough broadband signal for Molly to use the Internet on her laptop in the garden, so long as she stayed close to the kitchen and didn’t go to the bench at the far end under the trees – her favourite sunny outdoor spot. Nick was in the kitchen, screwing handles shaped like big silver starfish on to the new kitchen units.
She scrolled through her Facebook updates and seethed (yet again) about Aimee’s from the day before, which crowed: I know something that you don’t know. The timing was all she needed to know exactly what Aimee was talking about. She’d made a play for Giles and was winding Molly up. Aimee must have raced up Station Road straight from pressing her fat dimply thighs against Giles on the bus and Molly could just see her hurtling into the house, straight to the computer to drop just enough of a clue that would be guaranteed to rile a rival. And it was working. Was it ever. Cow. Giles was away on a two-day field trip but she’d text him, see if he was contactable out there in the Welsh hills, and try very, very hard not to ask what foul suggestions Aimee had made to him. Oh, but they wouldn’t be suggestions, would they? Nothing so subtle from a girl who’d been caught on camera giving a blow job to Carly’s boyfriend (ex now, obviously) by the bins at the back of Pizza Express.
Molly felt depressed, as if she were the one who was all wrong and acting difficult. Giles might well casually add himself to Aimee’s other-people’s-boyfriends total, just because of her simple lack of complication. Aimee wouldn’t be picky about a venue for sex. She wouldn’t be holding out for a warm, romantic atmosphere and peace and low lights and the right music and only a little bit of alcohol and someone who’d say they loved her and make it something special. She just wanted another notch on her broomstick, and to be able to look at you with that sneering, smirking, ‘OK follow that’ expression.
‘Oh isn’t it lovely and quiet at the end of the day! Those men, I thought they’d never stop bashing the kitchen around.’ Shirley came out and sat beside Molly, putting two mugs of tea on the table.
‘Here you are darling, I thought you might like a drink. Nick’s moved the kettle into the utility room while he paints the walls, bless him, so we can still be human.’
‘Thanks Gran, good thinking. Looking amazing in there, isn’t it?’
‘It is. And it all works. I thought we’d be left with pretend taps, no sink and a cardboard worktop painted to look like granite. But no, it’s all genuine – they surely can’t be expecting to break it down after and take it all away again. Bella would be mad to let them, whatever the cost. Why can’t real workmen get it done that fast? You’d be talking about weeks normally. This is like those shops that get an entire refit over a Sunday. I did think your mother was a bit crazy, going in for all this just so someone can tell her a lot of rubbish about what to wear. I mean, if she doesn’t know by now … but the house is getting the benefit, at least. So, Moll darling, what are you doing? Homework?’ Shirley sneaked a quick look at the screen. ‘Or socializing?’
Molly smiled. ‘Bit of both! Just about to work on a Jane Austen essay but I thought I’d see who’s on Facebook first.’
‘Ah – Facebook. I’m going to give that a go some time soon. I’ve got so many people I’ve met when I’m travelling and I’m sure it would be easier to keep up with them this way. The whole world seems to be in there.’
‘Not quite everyone does it,’ Molly told her. ‘We’ve got this girl at school, Olivia. Her parents don’t approve of computers and they don’t even have a television. Half the time Liv hasn’t a clue what we’re talking about.’
‘Parents can be so thoughtless,’ Shirley said. ‘I can see they might not want to be slaves to the media, but it’s terribly unfair to inflict your prejudices on your children if the result is social isolation.’
‘Oh, Liv goes online at school. But she has to do all her homework in the library cos she can’t do it on a computer at home. I think her folks would really like her to write with a quill pen and ink that you dunk into.’
‘Well, so long as she knows how the technology works, I suppose she’ll be all right. So are you Facebook friends with absolutely everyone you see every day anyway? Is there any point when you see them all the time?’
‘You sort of have to be, really,’ Molly laughed. ‘If someone from school asks you to be their Facemate you don’t say no. It’s manners. Even if later you hate them, you still leave them on the list because unfriending them is too drama-queen and … what’s that lovely word you used to say I did?’
‘You used to flounce,’ Shirley reminded her. ‘When you were about fourteen you made a point of being quarrelsome during meals. Rather than lose an argument you’d scrape your chair back and flounce out of the room. I remember worrying you were anorexic and were making an excuse to go and make yourself sick.’
‘Yuck no!’ Molly giggled. ‘I was just being teenage.’
‘You’re still teenage!’
‘Not like that.’ It made her smile now to think about it, as if the fourteen-year-old Molly were half a lifetime away from the nearly-eighteen one. How much more would she have changed by the time she was twenty? Would she look back on this being possessive about Giles stage as something completely infantile? She tried the thought that they might still be together, then the possibility of them not being. So much could happen between now and then. So much could happen between now and Saturday, come to that.
‘So who is he?’ Shirley suddenly asked. ‘This boy you’re thinking about. Are you sleeping with him?’
Molly squealed. ‘Gran, aaaagh! Mum was so right – she said you used to be really embarrassing when she was young.’
‘Ah, but am I embarrassing you?’
‘No. Um … yeah! Just a bit.’
‘In that case I apologize. And it’s all right, Molly darling, of course you don’t have to answer the other question. That’s your privilege and choice.’
‘No, no it’s OK.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell you. He’s Giles and I love him madly, we’ve been going out together for a few months but been schoolmates for, like, ever? I haven’t slept with him yet but I want to.’ It all came rushing out in a near-garbled blast – she didn’t particularly want to tell Shirley about the Mum-interrupted near miss.
‘If you want to, what’s stopping you? So long as you’re careful …’
Molly laughed. ‘That’s what Mum said!’
‘She did? Good heavens! She always used to close her eyes and put her hands over her ears if I ever mentioned the subject when she was your age! So what’s the problem with Giles?’
Molly watched Keith the cat sliding down from the top of the fence. He’d got his eye on a bird – she could tell by the extra-slinky way he was moving. Even descending from eight feet high he managed to look as if he was being ultra-careful about being seen and heard. She could just see him now under the camellia, long low body tensed, head forward, eyes keen on his quarry. Then one more tiny move and the camellia leaves rustled. The bird flew off.
‘It’s just …’ Molly put her hands over her face and giggled. ‘I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you! You’re my gran! But OK, it’s just, like, Giles and me? I haven’t … before, though we got close to it. So I want it to be special, you know? Somewhere nice, lovely music, no interruptions, just, you know … special.’
‘Oh it will be,’ Shirley assured her. ‘It will be. But if it’s going to be special, it can be at any time and anywhere. Making love isn’t about decor and music. And it’ll be special with the next one as well, don’t forget that.’ She smiled and patted Molly’s hand. ‘There’s a first time with each of them, all through your life. But trust me, it’s never as special as the second time with any of them. That’s when you find out if it’s really going to work. The first time is just the two of you saying, “I really want to do this with you” and bumbling your way through it. Trust me, darling. If you really, really like him, don’t hold out for the right scenery – that way you might miss the moment.’
While Molly was still figuring this out, Shirley got up. ‘I’ll go and see if there’s anything in the fridge for supper. I told your mother that if we still had anything to cook on then I’d organize something, but I’ve been out most of the day and only just got back.’
‘Oh, no, it’s OK – Mum texted,’ Molly told her. ‘She says we’re all going out for supper as a farewell for Alex – he’s off to France tomorrow. There’s no need to cook anything. Even Dad’s coming – I think Mum’s hoping he’ll pay.’
‘Ha! James?’ Shirley almost spluttered the words. ‘I doubt it! He’ll be totting up the bill, working out who’s eaten what and then demanding an exact whip-round accordingly! Sorry, darling, I know he’s your father but he could always be a bit careful when it came to cash.’
‘Oh it’s all right, I know what he’s like! He offered to take us all out the other week, when he came back from Scotland. Perhaps he’s different now he’s on his own.’
‘Leopards and spots … We’ll see, shall we?’ Shirley stood up and picked up their empty mugs. ‘You and me, we could have a little bet if you like’ she said. ‘I’ll put a pound on him not picking up the bill. And as I’m not cooking, maybe I’ll have a little gin and tonic instead. Can I get one for you, darling?’
Molly looked up at her grandmother’s face. It wasn’t just the sun making it more than usually radiant. There was something about the expression, the gleam in her eyes.
‘No, I’m fine thanks but, Gran? You asked me so can I ask you?’
‘Hmm? What’s that, sweetie?’
Shirley, halfway into the kitchen, looked back at her with eyes widened to an expression of exaggerated innocence, as if she could already guess the question.
‘This man you’re seeing – and don’t say you’re not because I know you are: you keep going out all the time and looking all glam. Who is he?’ Molly asked. ‘And …’ Was she bold enough? Yes – it worked both ways. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’ Molly immediately wished she hadn’t said anything. How rude was she? And what a ridiculous question. Just because Gran had a sparkly look about her, it didn’t mean she was seeing someone. And even if she was, surely old people didn’t do things like that, however wild they’d been in the past. If you were a grandmother, like Shirley, it must have all stopped years ago.
‘He’s called Dennis. And yes, since you’re brave enough to ask, as a matter of fact I am!’
Bella, halfway down the stairs, could have sworn she heard a key rattling about in the lock just before the doorbell rang (the usual James three-ring speciality). She ran down to the hallway, opened the door and there he was on the step, looking late-summer elegant in a beige linen suit and a pale blue shirt. His face was very pink, plump and smooth, like a freshly bathed baby.
‘Isn’t Alex with you?’ she asked him as he came in. ‘I thought I heard a key.’ James gave her a light hello kiss and she was slightly surprised he didn’t smell of baby lotion.
‘Er, no he’s not … Isn’t he here? I thought he was the point of us going out tonight.’
‘Oh I expect he’s upstairs somewhere, or maybe in the garden. He was around earlier. Funny about the key sound but it must have been something else.’
‘You look nice!’ James remarked brightly. ‘Different, somehow. That light turquoise shade really suits you.’
‘Heavens, thank you! Very sweet of you to say so!’ Bella was taken aback for a moment; James had never been much of a one for positive personal comments during their years together. She could honestly only recall him being complimentary on occasions such as when she’d got the bath clean enough to meet his exacting hygiene standards, or when he could see his face perfectly reflected in the smear-free oven door. A newly cleaned fridge, all contents perfectly ordered and every shelf wiped with Borax, could be guaranteed to make him feel more thrilled to the point of potential sexual arousal than if she’d paraded around modelling the rudest items from the Agent Provocateur catalogue. And, as their marriage trailed to its inevitable messy end, only the scent of Country Pine Flash could raise so much as a smile. Maybe it was her brighter teeth he’d noticed, though he wouldn’t realize that was the difference. The dress itself wasn’t that special, but it was one she’d describe as a reliable old friend and which she’d three times consigned to the charity-shop heap and then rescued a day later. Daisy would probably suggest she tore it up for dusters.
‘Before we go out, come and have a drink and look at all the work that’s been done,’ she said, leading James to the kitchen, where Shirley was assembling another gin and tonic.
‘Hello James – it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? How are you?’ she said, flinching slightly as he went to kiss her.
‘Fine – or I was till I saw this!’ he said, gazing round the room in what looked like near panic. ‘I thought it was you getting the makeover, Bella, not the house!’ He ran a finger over the sparkly blue-speckled granite worktop, checking it was real. ‘God! What have they done? Are you mad? It’s not staying like this, is it? Please tell me it isn’t. The walls are orange!’
Bella laughed. ‘James, don’t exaggerate! They are not orange. That’s a very delicate coral and I love it.’ She took a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge and poured a generous glassful for James. Perhaps he would loosen up a bit after a few sips of wine.
‘And all that turquoise glass on the wall behind the units … hardly in keeping with the house, is it? Where are the tiles?’
‘The tiles are in a skip somewhere, and this whole room isn’t in keeping with the house, James. It never has been. We knew that all those years ago when we had it extended. If we’d wanted it to stay all Edwardian, we could have stuck with the small gloomy rooms and put in some stained glass and fringed velvet curtains. In brown. Don’t you even like the new cupboard doors?’
‘Not bad, I suppose,’ He admitted grudgingly. ‘I mean you can’t really go wrong with oak, can you, though that burr pattern is a bit fancy. And I’m glad to see they’ve made use of the same carcasses, because the original doors were perfectly good and they can go back on after these shenanigans are all finished.’
‘Hmm. Well … I haven’t decided yet, but probably not, actually.’
‘Decided? What’s to decide? This is just all props, isn’t it? They have to take everything back at the end, surely?’
Funny how wound up James was about a kitchen he’d walked out on ten years before. Bella almost wished Nick and Co. had taken up half the floor and installed a plunge pool and feature fountain as well.
‘Not necessarily. I can opt to pay for it apparently – they’ll just take it off my location fee. It’ll be rock-bottom price because not only do I get it all at cost, it also saves them the dismantling time and restoring the paint colour. Sounds like a deal to me. Instant house upgrade for minimal outlay.’ Outlay she shouldn’t really be spending, given the shaky work situation, but when would a chance like this come again?
‘Gran and Alex and me all like it too.’ Molly wafted into the room, catching the end of her mother’s sentence. ‘But Gran said you wouldn’t.’
‘Your gran doesn’t live here.’
‘Neither do you,’ Shirley swiftly reminded him.
‘I just think that it’s not necessarily the best time to spend money on doing up this place.’ James sounded near to defeat.
Bella hoped he wouldn’t start on about selling the house – this just wasn’t the right moment – not till she’d talked it through with Molly and Alex. She tried her one potential trump card: ‘Oh I don’t know, I’d have thought a bit of sprucing up could only increase the value, wouldn’t you?’
Ah, that got him. Bella could almost see the cogs of calculation turning in James’s head.
‘Hmm … maybe, maybe.’ He was looking brighter already. ‘So. Are we going to this restaurant, or what? Where’s Alex? Is he upstairs making himself presentable?’
‘’m here. ’Lo Pa.’ Alex ambled in, wearing faded blue board shorts and an old grey hoodie that might once have been black. Much of his long hair was still wet from the shower. He was wearing flip-flops. ‘Ready when you are, dude.’
James, leaning back against the worktop, looked him up and down. ‘Are you sure? Is that what you’re wearing? I understand this is a restaurant that has tablecloths, not wipe-clean vinyl.’
‘Yes he’s sure. He looks scrubbed up enough to me. Come on, let’s just go, shall we?’ Bella said, feeling as if she was herding sheep. Oh, didn’t it promise to be such a jolly evening?
‘All right, all right – I just hope our venue of choice doesn’t have a dress code. They’d need to lend you a lot more than just a tie,’ James grouched.
‘A tie! Who wears ties!’ Alex laughed.
‘Grown-ups do,’ James sniffed. He moved away from the worktop and there was a loud ripping sound. The back pocket of his trousers had caught on the new starfish door handle.
‘You see, Bella?’ He turned to check the extent of the damage. ‘I told you! This is not practical! Surely now you’ll agree you have to change it all back to how it was?’
‘Sorry – can’t oblige! But I might rethink the starfish handles,’ Bella replied, searching in her handbag for a safety pin. ‘Here you are,’ she said as she handed him a pin. ‘Really, it’s only a tiny rip, nothing serious.’
It was an Italian restaurant again, because it had the menu options where everyone could find something to like, but not the one just up the road this time. All the same, Bella was happy that this too was only a few minutes’ walking distance from home. Her Mini wouldn’t have been big enough for all five of them, and James would have fussed for ages over where to park his Lexus and told Alex off before he’d even been close to accidentally scuffing the leather seatback with his shoes.
How, Bella thought as they sorted out who was sitting where at the circular table, would she ever be able to afford another home this close to the centre of the town on only half the money from the house sale, if James ended up getting his own way? She tried not to think about it, using an old technique that Shirley had suggested to her when she’d been awake half the night in the middle of a teen crisis many years ago. This was to tell herself there was nothing she could do about it right now, so nothing could be achieved by worrying. Instead she concentrated on the menu. She could, she thought, safely introduce some non-white food to her newly sparkling teeth but she decided she’d give it one more day, to be safe. That meant no red wine, hard as that was going to be when having pasta. Pasta and red wine just went. How on earth did manic dieters find the discipline to forgo all their favourite foods for months on end, when she was finding it hard to do without a few inessentials for a mere three days?
‘So – some idle weeks on a French beach, Alex,’ James said as soon as they’d ordered. ‘Can’t be bad, can it? I hope you’ve found a decent place to stay.’
‘Nah – we’re sleeping in Ben’s van,’ Alex told him. ‘Can’t waste cash on accommodation.’
‘In a van? With no facilities?’ James shuddered.
‘Well it’s only like camping. I mean, it like is camping,’ Molly said.
‘But after August, low season, surely a clean little pension wouldn’t be ruinous, cash-flow-wise?’
‘Dad. It’s sorted, OK? We’ll be fine. Anyway, you don’t want me to end up as the student with the biggest-ever debt, do you? Thought you’d approve of my 360-degree thinking.’
‘Alex …’ Bella warned. Shirley was now grinning rather wildly into yet another gin and tonic, Molly had her head down and was quietly texting one of her mates, while Alex and James seemed to be spoiling for a full-scale battle. And all this still only at the antipasto stage. She looked at the couple on the next table. He was silent, tucking lustily into a huge mound of red-sauced pasta, while his date sat with her simple salad untouched, quietly (too quietly, alas) talking non-stop and intently at him. Relationships, she thought – who could fathom them? Had those two always been that way, she wondered, and did this conversational one-sidedness trouble either one or both?
‘Well, I suppose if it saves money …’ James was obviously torn on this one. ‘Talking of which, how long is this TV fiasco going to take, Bella? Have you done a per-hour breakdown as to whether the fee is worth the aggro? And where will you stay while it’s happening? Do you think it’ll be safe to have the house empty overnight? You won’t be giving these people house keys, will you?’
‘Whoa – slow down! In order of asking – about a week, maybe ten days. Yes, it’s worth it. And it turns out we don’t have to move out after all,’ Bella told him. ‘Saul said that as they only really need to use the kitchen and the garden then we might as well stay put if we don’t mind tripping over cables and lights a bit. The kitchen all works perfectly well and it’s part of the show to have us doing usual stuff, making tea or toast or something and maybe having some lunch and so on. Anyway, at the end of each day we get it back to ourselves. There’ll be a catering truck, so we won’t starve.’
She glanced at the next table again. The man was still stolidly eating. The woman was still talking, but half her salad had gone. How had she managed that? She hadn’t even picked up a fork last time Bella looked. Bella was almost tempted to drop her napkin so she could see if the food had been scooped under the table.
‘Damage. You must watch for damage,’ James warned. ‘They’re notoriously careless, film crews.’
‘Carly’s mum says it’s anti-feminist to have people tell you what you should and shouldn’t wear,’ Molly chipped in as the food arrived. ‘She says it’s all a big plot by woman-hating fashion designers who make clothes that only look good on flat boy-shapes. Then they can laugh at the ridiculous dieting lengths that perfectly normal women go to trying to make themselves that shape too, so the clothes will look right.’
‘When I look at some of the so-called “clothes” that turn up over the seasons, I can see Carly’s mum might have a point,’ Shirley agreed. ‘Remember those veil things that completely obliterated the faces but left the models otherwise naked? I’m not sure pubic hair has any place on a fashion catwalk. How, exactly, was that supposed to be translated for the high street market?’
Molly giggled. ‘Gran, you’re like so upfront?’
‘Appropriate choice of word there, Moll!’ Alex laughed.
‘Oh Molly, darling, don’t go all prissy now!’ Shirley poured some wine into Molly’s glass.
‘I’m not! But I think Carly’s mum’s right too.’
‘Maybe she is … and at a very bizarre level,’ Alex said, ‘the extreme demands of high-end fashion could undermine the nature of the universe because instead of evolving by way of the survival of the fittest, you get survival of the flattest, thinnest and least likely to be able to breed. Converse of Darwin. Not so much evolution of the species but the potential end of it. Just for a size zero.’
‘Good grief Alex, no wonder you got into Oxford. That’s convoluted but so clever.’ Shirley was admiring, but then turned to Bella. ‘Darling, really, I know you’re doing this so that you can write about it, but have you considered the danger of them making you look a bit of a fool? Isn’t that how so-called reality TV works, by bullying perfectly nice people a little too much? Because really, there’s nothing wrong with the way you put yourself together. Apart from under-accessorizing, of course. Statement jewellery – you can dramatize any plain outfit with that.’ She looked around the restaurant for an example, finding a useful one two tables away, and pointed out her quarry to the others, raising her voice. ‘You see? Like that outfit over there.’ She was being loud, heads were turning. ‘Dull in its own way, colour-wise, but look how she’s added …’
The woman Shirley was indicating turned, sensing she was the one being discussed; she got up and immediately came over to their table. Shirley looked alarmed, as if afraid the woman had come to slap her and tell her to keep her opinions to herself.
‘Bella! Gosh! Fancy running into you here!’ Bella was thrown for a second, barely recognizing Dina, who had always expressed complete scorn for fancy clothes and make-up. Her long hair, a patchwork of greys and rust shades, was piled up in a tumbledown sexy way and clamped into place with a big tortoishell clip. She wore a simple dark emerald dress with a lacy jacket in the same colour – Ghost, Bella guessed. She had silver hoop earrings and a silver necklace set with big chunks of bronzy stone. She still wore no make-up but somehow this was fine. Her eyes were the colour of the necklace stones.
‘Dina – you look fantastic! How are you?’ Bella hoped she didn’t sound too amazed – how insulting would that be? But it was a shock – Dina was normally a voluminous skirt and baggy top sort of woman, covering a substantial body mass with as much fabric as possible while claiming she really was above caring. Now she was looking positively glamorous and potentially another disappointment for Daisy and Dominic – Dina, of all people, seemed to have the what-to-wear thing sussed perfectly well, thank you.
‘I’m fine!’ Dina told her. ‘Looking forward to our TV style-trial. I’ve quite come round to thinking it’s a good thing. Are all of you going to be in it too?’ she said to the table at large.
‘Sorry Dina – no, this is the family. Son Alex, daughter Molly and my mother, Shirley, who was just pointing you out as an example of top accessorizing. And … er, this is James.’ How to describe him? ‘He is Molly and Alex’s father.’ Well, he was. ‘And this is Dina – one of my writer friends. She’s going to be one of the Fashion Victims with me next week.’
James was looking at Dina in quite an odd way, Bella thought. His eyes were wide and staring and his mouth was unattractively half open. Any moment now, he’d be dribbling. Was he all right?
‘The wind will change and you’ll be stuck like that,’ she heard Shirley murmur to him.
‘Hmm? What?’ He jumped, startled back to earth.
‘Well, it’s really good to meet you all,’ Dina said. ‘I’m over there, with my brother, so I’d better get back to him. I’ll see you next week, Bella. Oh, and …’ She leaned close to James and picked up a fork. ‘Couldn’t help noticing, there’s a small mark on that. You might want to send it back.’
‘Thank you so much!’ James beamed, taking the fork from her, using his napkin rather than touching it.
‘Now that,’ he said, when Dina had gone back to her seat, ‘is what I call a woman.’ He sighed, looking quite flushed. ‘Does anyone want pudding? Molly? Don’t hold back anyone, this is all on me.’
‘Good grief,’ Shirley whispered to Molly, ‘to my enormous surprise, it looks like I owe you a pound.’