What was Shirley up to? The thought had crossed Bella’s mind the night before, during dinner at Jules’s house. As Shirley was giving them the benefit of her widow-position wisdom, it had vaguely occurred to Bella that her mother was finding it very comfortable and convenient living away from her own home. It felt a bit mean, well very mean really, but Bella had had one of those detached moments and had thought, ‘How come you’re still here?’ Now she had woken up trying to work out why Shirley had not only not yet gone home, she hadn’t even mentioned that she ever intended to.
She got up quickly and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, took it upstairs and pulled the curtains back (another stunning day; was a drab, miserable winter on its way to punish them for such glorious late-summer luck?) She climbed back into bed to think while gazing out into the avenue’s chestnut trees, which were starting to change colour. They were late turning: fat conker cases were already dropping the first of their fruit, but the leaves had clung to their green as if unwilling to let the autumn begin. Now the edges of the leaves were becoming multi-toned, through the subtle yellows and heading for the scarlet and bone-dry browns.
Twice now, in the time she’d been staying at Bella’s, Shirley had slipped back to her own flat to bring over some essential wardrobe item. Why hadn’t she moved back home? When the shoplifting story hadn’t been in her local paper she could easily have returned to Walton, but instead, in spite of the chaos in Bella’s house, she was happily settled in and showed no sign of returning. Hmm. It was working all right so far … but was Shirley secretly planning to move in permanently with Bella, infiltrating by the subtle means of not going home? But oh … was there something wrong with her mother that meant she preferred not to be living alone right now, but to be enjoying the company of her family while she could?
She didn’t look ill, that was for sure. In fact Shirley was looking pretty radiant these days. Her hair – a sleek, silver bob – was always perfectly styled, her clothes were enviably well put together (eat your heart out, Daisy) and she was forever … going out. Ah, maybe that was it. Bella’s proximity to a Tube station – that must be the attraction. It was so easy for Shirley to get into town from here, to go to the endless exhibitions and galleries that she so enjoyed. Meeting friends, she’d said the other day. You didn’t do that if you were ill … or did you?
Bella finished her tea, went into the bathroom and switched on the shower. In one way James had a point, she thought. In a few years, with both Alex and Molly grown up, she would be more or less living alone; unless of course they both finished university and came back to the nest, unable to afford to buy somewhere to live. But if they didn’t … did she really want to spend the potential years of freedom (even at risk of loneliness) with her mother? It would be like being sent back to childhood. Her childhood hadn’t been too bad, once her alcoholic father was off the scene. All the same, she didn’t want to have to do it all again. She let the water cascade over her hair and decided: Shirley would have to be tackled, if only to see what was going on.
‘Panic, panic, PANIC!’ Daisy squealed as she raced into Bella’s house, followed by Dominic. Fliss trailed behind, looking sulky. ‘We really do need one more victim! I mean, subject. Obviously. Yes. Subject. Three just won’t work! Saul! One more!’ Saul was in the garden, directing the placement of some last-minute tubs of Japanese anemones. He took his time coming into the house, possibly, Bella thought, building up some inner strength to face Daisy in full wrath mode. She wondered if he’d mentioned their forthcoming dinner date to Daisy. Something told her he probably hadn’t. Anyway, it wasn’t anyone else’s business but hers and Saul’s, so why would he?
Daisy was ranting to whoever was within range, not really focusing on anyone in particular. Today she was wearing open-toed cream canvas boots and a dress made from vintage teal and indigo Hermès horse-head scarves. Over this she had a little aubergine bolero of what looked like long, overstraightened hair. Bella tried not to think it might be human. Whatever it was, it made her think of shrunken heads in museums and the stuffed animals in the prop house she’d visited the other day. Please, she thought, don’t let this be a look Daisy might insist they all went for. Dominic was looking alarmed, keeping his distance and loitering by the doorway. This certainly wasn’t a moment when any adoration for Daisy was apparent in him.
‘Ideally, yes, four would have been perfect, but we’ve talked about this and we decided it would work far better than bringing in someone who is unconnected with the others.’ Saul was talking to Daisy quietly, as if hoping she too would lower her volume. A lost cause – if anything, Daisy got louder.
‘But I’ve changed my mind! It’s just not symmetrical! And besides, it’s supposed to be a group of supportive friends – that was the whole point. Three is never supportive! Everyone knows that. With three, ganging up happens. Threesomes never work!’
‘This one might …’ Dominic dared to venture. Daisy glared at him. He put his hands up in surrender and backed away.
‘But couldn’t having just three make it dramatically tense?’ Bella suggested, wishing immediately that she hadn’t said anything, and half looking for something to hide behind in case of flung missiles from Daisy.
‘Dramatically tense? I don’t need dramatically tense!’ Daisy hissed. ‘I need bodies to dress! I’ve got a truckful of clothes on their way from designers and stores who are lending me all their top tat on the understanding that it will get highly valuable airtime! I’m short of that skinny cute one and I need another!’
Saul laughed. ‘Ah – I get it!’ he said. ‘You didn’t cancel the Zoe factor from the wardrobe angle, did you? You’d ordered it all in even before you met her and then when she quit, you forgot! And now you’ve got a whopping great rail of size 8s coming, haven’t you?’
Daisy flung herself on to a chair, put her arms out along the table and her head down on them. Silver bracelets clanked as she drummed her small fists up and down in frustration. Her blue-black hair, with today’s weavings of peony-pink silk threads, spread across her shoulders like a magpie wing, mingling slightly horrifically with the shiny tresses of the bolero. Dominic, meanwhile, had sloped off into the garden. Bella could see him at the far end, keeping well away from the furore and having a sly cigarette break under the plum tree.
‘Have you got her number? The Zoe one?’ Daisy’s head came up again and her startlingly wide blue eyes were fixed on Bella.
‘Sorry – she’s gone to stay with her mother,’ Bella told her. ‘She’s feeling terribly morning-sicknessy all the time.’
‘Oh God. Terrific,’ Daisy sighed. ‘OK – we’ll work with what there is. It’ll be fine. After all,’ she rallied and her frightening vampire smile appeared, ‘those suppliers need me more than I need them. I mustn’t lose sight of that. Mustn’t.’
‘Mum?’ Molly walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. ‘Mum, are there any like, bananas? I’m hungry?’
‘I shoved them into the bread bin in the utility room,’ Bella told her, ‘and aren’t you supposed to be at school till lunchtime? Saul says you can come and watch this afternoon if you like, but you’re …’
‘Oh! You must be Molly! Bella’s talked about you!’ Daisy leapt across the room to Molly and started tweaking at her hair, which clearly hadn’t yet seen a brush this morning. ‘And aren’t you pretty! You’ll do perfectly! And you have a lovely youthful shape too!’ Daisy went on, pulling Molly’s floppy T-shirt back so she could see the contours of her body better.
‘Gerroff!’ Molly pushed Daisy’s hands away and shrank back, cornered against the fridge, ‘Do for what?’ But Bella could see, then, the mists of Molly’s morning brain clearing. ‘Oh you’re Daisy, aren’t you!’ she suddenly squealed. ‘I’ve seen stuff about you in heat. I loved what you made Colleen wear for the Grammies!’
‘Molly – how divine to meet you! So darling, how would you like to be on my programme?’ Daisy sounded as if she were illicitly offering sweets to a child. Then she turned to Saul. ‘Perfect for Fashion Victim number four. Oh thank you God.’
‘Oh wow, can I really? Like, makeover clothes and hair and stuff? Thanks!’ Molly flicked her hair back and pouted, instantly in model mode, ‘I thought I was only going to watch. Wait till I tell Carly. And Giles, wow!’ Out came her phone, the banana quest all forgotten.
‘Er, no. No, Molly, you can’t!’ Bella stepped in, feeling she was going to have to physically pull her daughter away from this madwoman. She turned to Daisy. ‘She’s got A levels soon and too much schoolwork to get through. And right now she’s got to get to school.’
‘Oh but Mum! That’s soo not fair! No school this morning, so nerrrr, because French is cancelled. Got a text. I’ve got ages till the exams and this won’t take long …’ She looked at Daisy and Saul anxiously. ‘Will it?’
‘No! Hardly any time at all! I promise.’ Daisy was almost purring at Bella. ‘Really, we can just do the minimum with her, and besides, it’s educational, surely? Don’t you agree, Dominic, darling?’
Dominic smiled at her, looking delighted to be consulted but saying nothing, just nodding.
‘Taking clothes on and off and having your hair ponced up isn’t what I’d call educational.’ Bella felt like a prim old party-pooper, but Molly’s university chances were surely too important to jeopardize.
‘Well, there I disagree,’ Daisy said, holding Molly’s hand and stroking it. Bella felt cross, as if Daisy were claiming her daughter and putting a spell on her. From the rapt look on Molly’s face, that was exactly the case.
‘Learning what looks good on you, how to apply make-up so you don’t look like a clown, slut or idiot, these are life skills. In the end, what Molly learns at these sessions could have a huge effect on her future. Imagine.’ Daisy now took hold of Bella’s hand too, standing between mother and daughter as if she were about to join them in holy matrimony, ‘Imagine, a few years down the line. Molly’s at an interview for a job she really, really wants. Say it’s between several applicants who have almost identical qualifications. How she presents herself, armed with what Dominic and I can teach her and the confidence she’ll get from looking good, could make all the difference in beating the competition. It’s a tough, dog-eat-cat world out there when it comes to work; a girl needs all the weapons available to get where she wants to be.’
‘OK Daisy, lecture over. This is between Bella and Molly, nothing to do with us.’ Saul intervened.
‘But Daisy’s right, Mum!’ Molly seemed to have decided for herself. ‘And I can put doing this programme on my personal statement for university. Everything helps.’
‘I’m beaten.’ Bella felt exhausted, worn down by both Molly and Daisy. She felt Saul squeeze her shoulder, sensed his sympathy in the face of this unstoppable Daisy/Molly juggernaut. And she could, in spite of her objections, see that Daisy had a point – she just wished this could all be done for Molly over a few hours on a weekend instead of intruding into school time. And if this was a hint of what was to come, she could see herself in a week from now: her toffee-coloured hair hacked off to an inch short and hennaed scarlet, killer heels she constantly fell from, ankle-length pencil skirts that she couldn’t walk in, cinched-in patent leather belts that stopped her breathing, satin, black, everything she didn’t want. And worse, she saw herself staring into a full-length mirror, brainwashed into smiling at her absurd reflection and really believing she loved what she saw. Aaaaagh! Perhaps having Molly onside could even help.
‘Thanks Mum! I’m way up with the schoolwork so please don’t worry! It’ll be ace!’
‘Darling, I know today is going to be difficult … but …’ Shirley found Bella outside the kitchen, watching Nick and the burly one plus two rather feeble-looking boys manhandling the huge lavender sofa in through the garden doors. It wouldn’t fit through the front door, and she and Saul had had one of those mutual ‘Oh no!’ moments when they saw it being unloaded from the truck. It really was one big piece of furniture. Luckily it had fitted through the double gates at the side of the house, and the men had huffed and puffed their way round to the back garden with it.
‘Too big, do you think?’ she asked Saul as it was plonked on to the walnut floor.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he assured her. ‘Just wait till the protective wrapping is off it. It’ll look fantastic, trust me. We made a good choice together here.’
‘Bella, I really do want to ask you …’ Shirley persisted.
‘OK, OK, I’m all yours. Difficult day, you said? Understatement. So what’s with the “but”?’ They were surrounded by men. Bella moved her mother further down the garden, away from flapping ears. ‘What is it? Are you all right?’
Shirley was looking anxious. Ah, this is it, Bella thought, her heart sinking fast, she’s had terrible health news and is about to tell me. But Shirley shook her off and started walking back towards the house where Saul was talking to Nick.
‘I just need a lift, late this afternoon, that’s all,’ she said. ‘But I can see it’s not the best time. No, in fact, don’t worry at all – I’ll go on the bus. On my own. I’ll be fine. Honestly.’
Bella followed her and sighed, recognizing a certain amount of subtle emotional blackmail. Every mother’s speciality, she thought ruefully. She’d done it to Molly, one day Molly would certainly do it to her children. If Shirley was being devious enough to resort to this, she must be pretty much all right. If it was something serious, she’d be more straightforward.
‘Now Bella,’ her mother lowered her voice, ‘I just had a call from the police. Later today would, it seems, be a good time for me to go and get my little piece of trouble dealt with.’
‘Your caution? I was going to ask you about that. I was surprised you hadn’t heard anything about it by now.’
‘Shh! I realize Nick knows, but I don’t want the whole crew calling me ASBO Gran or something, thank you.’
‘Telling you today is a bit short notice, isn’t it? I thought they’d send you an appointment.’
‘Um … they did,’ Shirley admitted. ‘They sent a letter to Walton. Lois has redirected my mail and it’s only just arrived. I have to go later this afternoon or early evening, and I’d quite like you to come with me. If it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Yes, of course I’ll take you,’ Bella said. ‘Saul said we should be done for today before five, if that’s not too late. Are you feeling a bit wobbly about this police thing?’
Shirley hesitated. ‘Er … no, I don’t think so. It all seems relatively straightforward, though I have to say …’
‘Are you changing your mind about saying you’re guilty? Because you can, you know, I’m sure. No one could blame you for deciding you don’t want a criminal record after all.’
‘No, it’s not that. I’ll live with it. No, I was just going to say it’ll be nice to have you there with me. I mean, apart from at Jules’s last night, we don’t really see a lot of each other at the moment, do we?’
Bella looked at her, wondering what on earth to say to that. ‘Um, well actually, isn’t it mostly you who is always on the way out of the house?’
‘Ah yes, but …’ Shirley smiled in a disconcertingly dreamy way. ‘Yes, OK you’re right, I am. But later, we’ll have a proper catch-up, all right? There are one or two things I need to talk to you about.’
‘You don’t sound very pleased for me. I thought you’d be really excited about it, like I am. What’s wrong with you?’
Giles was being a disappointment. Molly sat on the bench under the plum tree, talking to him on her mobile. She’d thought he’d be really happy for her, really up for seeing her on telly all kitted up with gorgeous make-up and amazing hair and shoes to kill for, but he was being all grunty and moody.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. She waited. Nothing else. No reason why he couldn’t communicate more than one word at a time to her. So far there’d been about three: ‘Hello’, ‘Great’ and now ‘Sorry’. The ‘Great’ hadn’t sounded genuine, either, when she’d babbled on about the programme.
‘Are you jealous – is that it? Because I’ll be getting lots of attention?’ Molly suggested. She could see the silent Dominic man watching her. For someone who was supposed to be a style guru, she was surprised he didn’t do something with his own hair. It wasn’t quite a comb-over, but it looked like he backcombed it to boost volume. In a high wind it would all move sideways like a dislodged bird’s nest. He was sitting on the doorstep up by the kitchen, staring down the garden at her and making her want to go and hide behind the camellia. But that would look obvious and rude. And she didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the man who was going to restyle her hair and who’d be organizing her make-up and all the pretty accessories for whatever mad stuff Daisy dressed her up in. Ooh, she couldn’t wait! All she needed was someone to tell who’d be almost as excited as she was.
‘Are you still there?’ Molly said to Giles. ‘You’re all quiet. What’s wrong with you?’ What had changed since lunchtime yesterday? He’d been all over her when they’d been lying on the school field over by the trees and he’d been pinning her to the grass, tickling her. She’d loved that, all the closeness and the sexiness of it. If they’d only been alone and not surrounded by half the stupid school and a rounders match just yards away. He’d gone home soon after though, having a free study afternoon.
‘Hey – did you hear about Aimee?’ she asked him. Maybe some gossip-sharing would change his mood.
‘Yep,’ he grunted. Nothing more.
‘Look – are you like really busy or something? Am I interrupting some essential Wii game or wha’ever? Because you’re so totally not into talking to me right now, are you?’
‘Sorry,’ he said again, sounding even more distant. ‘Laters, maybe, yeah?’
And he’d gone. It wasn’t a lot by way of a goodbye. None of the usual ‘love you babe’, no down-the-phone kisses or reluctance to end the call. Molly looked at her mobile as if expecting it to tell her what the real problem was. She got up and went back to the house. As she walked through the kitchen, heading for the stairs and her own room, she looked back. Dominic had got up and was still watching her as he, too, went towards the kitchen. Get used to it, she told herself. Millions are going to be watching you. Millions minus, if his mood was anything to go by, Giles.
If this was supposed to be a way of easing them all into the whole makeover thing, it was pretty unnerving. The four fashion victims sat in a row on the lavender sofa facing Daisy. Fliss skipped around somewhere in the background, making notes on a clipboard with a lilac Barbie pen. The guest colour consultant was a bony woman in her mid-fifties called Esme. She wore a startlingly vivid azure and black wrapover dress which could find very few curves to cling to, and her hip bones, when she walked, seemed to travel several inches ahead of the rest of her.
By contrast with Esme and the ever-spectacular Daisy, Bella felt that she and her three co-victims were at a terrible disadvantage, having had their faces scrubbed of all hint of colour by Simone the make-up artist. Psychologically, if they wanted the victims to be in a position of useful vulnerability for maximum acquiescence, the plan was highly effective. Bella’s plea to Simone for some Clarins Flash Balm to tighten up her skin had met with the incomprehension she’d have expected from someone too young to know how useful it could be. Bella had had to slide up to her room and sneak down a tube of it, which she, Jules and Dina had applied secretly and hastily in the downstairs loo, in the hope it would give them an instant magical facelift effect.
In addition to the starkly naked skin, they were now wearing white hairdresser-style gowns from neck to knee and had their hair hidden under white towelling bands. ‘I’m trying to think this moment has to be the nadir,’ Dina muttered to Bella, as Simone raced across the room to give Daisy’s already perfect maquillage a brisk brush-over.
‘Oh please, let’s hope so. Surely it can only get better?’ Bella murmured back.
‘It’s OK to talk; in fact we really want you to, to make it natural,’ Saul reassured them as he moved the young cameraman sideways a foot or two. ‘Preferably not all at once, if you can manage that for the sake of sound clarity, but we can always edit.’
And then, suddenly, they were under way. Daisy did a confident and word-perfect short introduction, explaining how colour was going to be the starting point rather than the usual makeover-show finishing one.
‘It’s the difference between someone saying, “Oh I like your dress,” and them saying, “Oh you’re looking great!”’ she concluded. ‘With the first, it isn’t the wearer they’re noticing, but the clothes. However stunning they may be, your clothes are there to reflect you, not the other way round. Esme is our colour expert – she’ll explain what she’s doing as she goes along. Esme?’
‘Thank you, Daisy! Now, here we have our four blank canvases … I can see we have our work cut out here, ladies. Daisy showed me some “before” shots of you in your usual clothing choices.’ Her tinkly little laugh struck a snidely patronizing note.
Bella immediately felt aggrieved. She glanced sideways at Jules and realized she was feeling exactly the same. Not, surely, the most tactful start.
‘What I’d like to do,’ Esme continued brightly, ‘is begin by asking you all to say which colours you already think really suit each other, and which you think don’t do you any favours. Bella, would you like to start? As Molly’s mother, you must have an opinion on what looks good on her.’
Molly’s huge eyes were challenging her mother to dare criticize her clothes choices.
‘Well, she’s seventeen,’ Bella said. ‘What doesn’t look good?’ Molly beamed at her. ‘But … well, I always think she does look very washed out in grey. It’s a very old colour for her. And baby pink too, actually – she almost vanishes in it …’
‘Thanks Mum!’ Molly glowered. ‘I’ve got like loads of grey?’
‘And what about Dina? Is there a colour you’ve ever thought you’d like to see her in more often?’ Esme asked.
Bella thought of Dina in the restaurant the other night. It seemed like months ago but was barely a week. James had twice since asked after ‘your beautiful friend’.
‘Dark green,’ she said immediately. ‘She looks wonderful in it. It does something to her eyes.’
Bella glanced across at Saul. He was leaning against the worktop by the sink, smiling at her. Laughing, she assumed. Now he’d seen her face stripped back to nature and her hair wrapped away out of sight, would he still want to have dinner with her? Even waking up first thing in the morning, she could look better than this. Not that he was ever likely to see her in that context. Definitely not.
It was hot under the lights. Simone kept coming over with tissues to wipe dewy beads from foreheads, as Esme explained about the colours being coded down to four ‘seasons’. She draped metre-square silky swatches of subtly shaded colour across their shoulders, and while watching each other by way of a big mirror, they were supposed to discover which tones made them look alive and bright and which made their skin tones look muddy and unwell.
‘And when Esme has finished with you, you’ll all get your personal colour swatches,’ Daisy said, dancing around with a heap of scarves, and then producing a little folder of fabric scraps to show the camera. ‘We all need to carry them whenever we go clothes shopping, isn’t that right, Esme? I never go anywhere without mine!’ she gushed. ‘I’m a summer.’
‘Exactly.’ Esme simpered at Daisy. ‘You are such a summer; always cool, soft and light!’
‘Yeah, right,’ Saul whispered in Bella’s direction, giving her a terrible urge to giggle.
‘This is really a load of bollocks, isn’t it?’ Dina, her shoulders heaped to chin-level with shiny fabric squares, suddenly said to Esme by way of the mirror. Then she turned to Saul. ‘Am I allowed to say “bollocks”? I’m not, am I? Sorry.’
‘Could you maybe do that bit again but say “rubbish”, this time?’ he suggested, nodding to the cameraman to keep going.
Esme stood wide-eyed and shocked by the sudden rebellion, holding up a piece of maroon cloth like a flag and glaring at Dina’s reflection. Daisy smirked in the background, looking delighted. Bella, Molly and Jules sat silent, waiting for Esme to fire some verbal shrapnel.
‘But it is mad,’ Dina persisted. ‘I mean, honestly, I’m sitting here pretending I can see that petrol blue looks better on Bella than the royal blue and really, it’s not so different. And no, I’m not colour-blind.’
‘And we’ve got no make-up on. And we’re under all these mad lights,’ Jules joined in. ‘No one sees us like this, not in real life. So this could be all wrong.’
‘And I feel really happy wearing grey,’ Molly chipped in moodily, chewing a nail.
‘You’re far too young for grey. Try purple,’ Esme snapped. She looked furious, as if she’d like to slap them all.
‘Purple’s goths,’ Molly scoffed.
‘And if Jules keeps buying blue like she said she usually does, maybe it’s because she’s old enough to know which colours suit her by now?’ Bella added to the fray.
‘Don’t you want to improve your colour sense? You’re being terribly negative!’
Bella caught sight of Esme’s left foot, slightly raised. She was clearly that close to having a stampy tantrum.
‘That dress doesn’t actually suit you, you know.’ Dina looked Esme up and down. ‘That vivid blue is far too harsh. Something softer would work much better.’
‘But I’m a winter,’ Esme hissed. ‘Always have been. This shade is in my spectrum.’
‘Children! Please, can we get back to why we’re here?’ Daisy clapped her hands together like a teacher rounding up infants from the sand table.
‘Children? Children?’ Jules glared at her, pulled off both her white gown and her hairband and flung them on the sofa. ‘You see, that’s the thing with all this! Being told this is right, this is wrong. We aren’t children, Daisy!’
Jules was looking frankly menacing. Saul stepped forward, nervous that she would strangle Daisy with one of Esme’s fabric samples.
‘We’ll take a break there, I think. OK, everybody? Back in ten …’
‘So apparently I’m a “spring”.’ Bella was keeping the chat level light and bright as she drove Shirley to the police station. Her mother seemed not quite herself, and Bella assumed this was because she felt apprehensive about the coming interview.
‘Yes. I could have told you that,’ Shirley commented sharply.
‘Yes – I’m sure you could,.’ Bella agreed. ‘We weren’t very kind to poor Esme. She was only doing her job but we gave her a hard time. Saul and Daisy decided that us being stroppy made better footage than having us all meekly accepting our colour lot, so Esme had to cut quickly to the chase and leave us bickering about whether cerise was possible on anyone at all, ever. And I can’t ever see me in the shade of mustard that she raved about. How can you trust a woman in orange eyeshadow?’
‘Hmm.’ Shirley seemed miles away. As well she might, thought Bella, realizing she’d overdone the distracting technique.
‘Look … are you feeling nervous about this? If they’ll allow it, do you want me to come in with you?’
‘No, no, I’ll be all right.’ Shirley was breezy again. ‘I mean, what can they say? That I’ve been a naughty girl and not to do it again? I’ll just agree with everything they say and get it over with as fast as possible.’
‘You didn’t do it though, did you. That’s what’s bugging you.’
‘I did it. But not on purpose,’ Shirley said. ‘I’m not changing my mind about admitting it, so please don’t try to make me.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Bella muttered to herself, making a turn into the town’s car park.
The duty sergeant looked from one to the other of them when Bella told him they’d turned up for a caution, then went off to find someone to deal with them.
‘He can’t decide which of us looks guilty,’ Bella giggled.
‘It’s obviously me,’ Shirley whispered back. ‘You’re in old jeans and I’m dressed up for the occasion.’
A uniformed girl who looked barely older than Molly led Shirley away. Shirley glanced back and smiled at Bella, who then sat down to wait in the reception area, wishing the place was supplied, like a dentist’s waiting room, with magazines. Once they were out of here, she planned to take her mother to a tea room or to a pub and get her to talk about her future plans. Just possibly she was simply waiting till this little ordeal was over before getting on with her life as normal. However blasé Shirley seemed to be, having this near-conviction hanging over her must have been a worry.
Shirley was back in under ten minutes, smiling broadly as if she’d been told the root-canal work she’d dreaded wasn’t going to be necessary after all.
‘So it was OK then, was it? No horrible surprises?’ Bella asked as they left the police station. She felt glad to be out in the open. Being in that place with its posters picturing wanted suspects and warnings about gun crime, knife amnesties and the dangers of drugs was enough to unnerve even the most innocent visitor.
‘It was fine. They didn’t treat me like a demented idiot, which was a plus, but of course they had to underline how serious my crime was. I’ve promised I’ll never do it again. I just hope I don’t.’
Shirley was striding back towards the car park at a furious pace, impressing Bella with her balance on what must have been four-inch heels. Shirley’s mid-blue footless tights impressed her too. Not many women past seventy could get away with that look, but combined with a simple slate-grey shift dress (not egg-shaped) and a lot of chunky silver bangles, on Shirley it was a sheer head-turner.
‘Look – shall we go and have a quick early drink somewhere?’ Bella suggested, starting to feel breathless at the pace. ‘We could talk …’
‘Oh no, darling. I haven’t got time! I have to meet someone and I don’t want to be late! We can talk in the car though, now I’ve got that over.’
They’d reached the car park and Bella quickly glanced at the Mini’s windscreen, half-expecting a parking fine even though she knew she had time left on her ticket. It would be Sod’s Law that it had fallen off the dashboard or that she’d put it there upside down. Once inside the car, with her mother suitably captive and willing to chat, she began with, ‘You seem very settled at our place.’
‘Oh, it’s very comfortable,’ Shirley agreed. ‘It’s lovely to see so much of Molly and with all this television hoo-ha going on, we aren’t short of entertainment, are we?’
‘But … I just wondered, is there anything … er … wrong? I mean, have you decided you don’t want to live at your flat any more? Are you … I mean are you well?’
Shirley looked at her, amazed. ‘Of course I’m well! Why ever would you think I wasn’t? I wouldn’t be going out so much if I wasn’t, would I?’
‘Ah. Good point. Yes, you are forever sliding out to “meet friends”. Anyone in particular?’ It had briefly crossed Bella’s mind that Shirley might be consulting doctors, but her mother did have a glow and energy that illness would surely have wiped out. Maybe the most stylish woman in Walton was simply having a lot more fun strutting her Betty Jackson and DKNY stuff in a more central arena.
‘Has anyone ever told you, Bella, that you’re something of a control freak? You should be pleased I’m having a busy social life. I’m a long way from being ready for a slow existence of slippers and cats.’
‘Oh I am happy for you, honestly. It’s just that you’re not being very communicative about it, that’s all.’
‘You really want to ask me when I’m going home, don’t you?’ Shirley was way ahead. She could easily have pleaded not guilty in court, Bella thought, there’d have been no danger of a medical report finding anything blunt about her faculties.
‘Well I did wonder if you’d gone off living in your flat, if you maybe didn’t want to go back there for some reason. If you feel like moving, I can help you organize it all.’
‘When I move out of there it won’t be to live with you, Bella, don’t worry. Being a house guest is fine, but if we lived together permanently we’d be like two cats in a box,’ Shirley said. ‘And yes, in answer to your earlier question, there is someone special I’ve been meeting, and I’m afraid I must confess I’ve been using your premises simply because getting to where this friend is based when in London is far easier from there. I probably should have told you sooner but … well a woman likes a bit of privacy, even from her own family. There’s a lot I don’t know about you too, isn’t there? Such as you no longer mention that married chap you were seeing, the “mistake” you mentioned over supper. I take it he’s now off the scene.’
‘All over, a while back. Nothing to tell. He ended up not worth talking about, trust me. But don’t change the subject; what about this friend? Is it a man?’
‘Of course it’s a man! He’s called Dennis and we met on the cruise back in July. We’re seeing a lot of each other and having a wonderful time.’
Bella suddenly realized that since she’d got back in the car she hadn’t been breathing properly. Oh the relief that her mother wasn’t hiding some deep, dark illness that she’d been struggling to deal with by herself but had simply been having fun, swanning around with a man friend.
‘Oh now this is exciting!’ She couldn’t have been more delighted for her mother – Shirley had been solitary for many years now, since she too had given up on ‘mistakes’. ‘So you two have been seeing each other for months? How lovely for you! Do we get to meet him? Where does he live? Does he have a family as well? What’s he like?’
‘Slow down! He lives in Dorset, he has grown-up children and a couple of grandchildren and I’d love you to meet him very soon. We just wanted some non-family time for a while, just as a couple with no ties – the way you can be when you’re young and free. And then last week over tea at the Ritz, he asked me to marry him.’
Shirley had come out with that one as casually as if Dennis had asked her for the next dance, and it took a second or two for the words to sink into Bella’s brain as she pulled out abruptly into the roundabout traffic and almost collided with a BMW. She was aware of waving fists and several blasts from more than one car horn.
‘Holy f—! Er … good grief! What did you tell him?’
‘I said yes, of course!’