Beneath the two words ‘YOGHURT – IDEAS??’ on her notepad, a sketch of Bella’s new boss was taking shape nicely. The gap between her neck and her shirt collar, the glasses propped on top of her head apparently watching the ceiling. As if it were a thing apart, Bella watched the line of her pencil recreate the angle where Seline’s chin jutted forward in eagerness, a chicken heading for corn.
‘Bella?’ Seline raised her eyebrows at her.
Bella clunked her coffee mug down on top of the sketch and tried to look thoughtful, as if weighing up all the various options before giving her opinion. Could they possibly still be talking about the yoghurt campaign or had they moved on to the corporate design deal for the country-house hotel? She felt like a schoolkid, about to be told off for not paying attention. Bella Kreuzer! Are you daydreaming again?
‘Erm …’ she volunteered, trying to peer sideways at Anthony’s pad to read the note he was scribbling for her.
‘Lifestyle Yoghurt?’ Seline prompted. ‘Any more thoughts on the redesign? The focus groups research suggests it looks too healthy. The client wants a new look.’
‘Yes, I’ve been thinking.’ Bella nodded wisely, every inch the creative director, keen to consider yoghurt-carton design very seriously indeed. ‘I certainly think we could strengthen the idea that these yoghurts are fun and sensual, too. The customer – consumer – wants to feel that she can be healthy yet self-indulgent and just a bit sinful at the same time. I’ll do some roughs tomorrow, with a sexier typeface.’
‘Great!’ Seline clicked her pen against her teeth, pleased. ‘Anyone else?’
The inside of Bella’s lower lip was sore where she had been biting it. She had only been in the job for a fortnight and already she was finding it hard to keep a straight face; it was as bad as when she’d been in advertising or women’s magazines. How was she supposed to maintain a sensible, grown-up expression when people started talking about yoghurt or detergent or a new paint range as if it were a cure for cancer or a way to bring about world peace?
Seline, who ran Scotton Design (or Scrotum Design as Anthony liked to call it), was in many respects a perfectly sane human being and, as she frequently claimed, ‘as fond of a joke as the next person’ – which would be true if the next person were also a stranger to the concept of irony. But she often acted as if the sky would fall in if the lettering on a packet of panty-liners didn’t convey dryness, freshness, a carefree attitude, a healthy sex life, and a busy, affluent lifestyle. And that was just the lettering. Who needed panty-liners anyway? That’s what knickers were for. Soon they’d be marketing liners to keep your panty-liners fresh and dry.
Bella told herself she shouldn’t knock it. On a good day, she prided herself on her ability to know exactly which typeface looked more carefree than any other. Besides, it kept her off the streets, and someone had to pay for all that damp treatment – and the extractor fan, and replacing those two sash-cords, and the buggery doorbell, and she could do with a freezer, too … On cue, The List of Things to be Done appeared in her head, winding itself around her, binding her like an Egyptian mummy. She closed her eyes at the thought and comforted herself with the knowledge that she could go and see Viv soon if she could escape without Seline heading her off at the pass.
‘Bella! What a surprise.’ Nick came into the kitchen and started filling the kettle. ‘It seems like only yesterday that we saw you. Ah. It was yesterday. So, how’ve you been in the last twenty-four hours?’
‘I’m going, I’m going. It’s her fault. She made me come.’ Bella pointed at Viv.
‘I did. It was me.’ Viv held Nick around his waist. ‘But she’s doing it for you. She’s showing me how to make her posh fish pie so I can do it for your parents at the weekend.’
‘Correction. I am in fact making the fish pie for the freezer while Viv stands there and nods and says “Oh, I think I see. Show me how to peel just one more potato and then I’ll have a go”.’
‘Cup of tea, anyone? No? You found the wine then?’ Nick topped up their glasses.
‘Then you take the olives …’
Nick’s hand shot out and grabbed one.
‘And you give them to Nick because Dad doesn’t like them.’
‘… And lay them on one side to pass to Nick.’
Nick went and stretched out on the sofa.
‘I’m out of earshot now if you two want to talk about men and sex and girlie stuff.’
‘Shoes, Nick!’ called Viv from the kitchen.
There was a discreet rustling, as of the sound of a newspaper being tucked under feet.
‘Nick, imagine you’re a proper man for a minute.’
‘Cheers, Bella.’
‘Oh, shush. You know what I mean. Viv says I should ask you how to attract a bloke.’
‘Since when did you start taking Viv’s advice? I didn’t think you wanted one.’
‘That’s just what I said. Viv doesn’t believe me. I wouldn’t mind some sex though before I forget how to do it.’
Viv joined in.
‘Come on. She’s lovely. She should have queues of chaps banging on her door.’
‘No. People always say they want your honest advice and then they get pissed off with you.’
‘I promise not to, Nick. Scout’s honour.’ Bella held up her hand in a three-fingered salute.
‘When were you ever a scout?’ hissed Viv. Bella waved her away.
He shook his head and kept on reading a magazine while he nibbled gerbil-like on a mint Matchmaker.
Viv made little kissing noises at him. Bella joined in on the other side. Nick sighed.
‘At your own risk then. Of course, it’s only my opinion and I realize I’m not a proper man or anything, but if you really just want a fling, then get your legs out, woman. Wear a short skirt and laugh at our jokes. That should do it.’
‘Is that the best you can do?’ Viv flicked his magazine.
‘What? What? I’ve read this bloody sentence twelve times now. Kindly bugger off.’ He rested his magazine over his face.
‘Nick, we promise to bugger off in a minute.’ Bella slowly lifted one corner of his magazine-tent and peered underneath. ‘And we’ll make you a coffee and be sure to laugh at your jokes – when you make one – but do I, you know, look all right?’
‘Jeez. What are you like? As I said, skirts are good. Aside from that –’ Nick started counting off on his fingers ‘– one, you wear too many dark things. It’s depressing. Two, do something about your hair – it’s great but half the time no-one can see your face, which seems a bit of a waste. Can’t you pin it back or up or something? Three, you want to burn that terrible jacket. Don’t you own anything else? It’s miles too big – you look like you’re hoping no-one will notice you.’
‘Nick!’ Viv warned.
‘What? What? What have I done now?’
‘Nothing. It’s fine.’ Bella reached across him for a Matchmaker. ‘It’s Patrick’s.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
‘’s no biggie. Carry on.’
‘Plus you could try smiling from time to time. Men like that. It makes us feel wanted.’
‘Like this?’ Bella adopted an enormous toothy grin and skipped energetically around the room. ‘Isn’t life fab! Pollyanna was a chronic depressive compared to me!’
‘So, I suppose it wouldn’t be a waste to cover my face with hair then?’ said Viv.
‘I knew this would happen. I hate both of you.’ Nick heaved himself up from the sofa. ‘If anyone wants me, I’ll be pretending to be a proper man, reading my car magazine in the bog.’
There were two messages on her answerphone when she got home: one from the damp man, saying he couldn’t do the damp until the weather was better – perhaps he was hoping that every extra day of rain would make it worse and he’d be able to hack off another foot of plaster and whack up the bill; and one from her father, Gerald: ‘Just calling to say hello. See how it’s all going. Well, I dare say you’re managing fine. Give us a ring sometime. Lots of love, Dads.’ He always finished like that on the answerphone, as if he were writing a letter.
She wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone, there was nothing on TV, and – having lugged her folio with her notes and sketches in back home – she didn’t feel inspired by the prospect of trying to make yoghurt sexy, so she ran herself a deep bath with lavender oil instead. Her candles were reduced to sad stubs, having dripped down their twiddly fake verdigris holders into a Gothic encrustation, and there were spatters of wax on the tiles at one end of the bath. She sat on the edge of the bath while the water was running in, idly picking off bits of wax and flicking them into the loo, then spent fifteen minutes looking in boxes for more candles. She ran her fingers through her hair as if she were posing for a shampoo ad until her fingers got tangled, then she wafted slowly around the room hunting for a hair clip.
‘I’m too sensitive to expose myself to the glare of artificial light,’ she said out loud. ‘Where are the rose petals for my bathwater? My trained eunuchs to paint my toenails and squeeze my spots?’
The candlelit bathing had started with Patrick, but then it was the sort of thing you fell into quite legitimately when you were a couple – along with soaping each other’s backs, mounding soapsuds into exaggerated body parts, and volunteering to have the end with the taps. Right on cue, the image of Patrick as she had last seen him appeared in her mind.
She grabbed her loofah mitt and started scrubbing over-vigorously at her skin. Was this really supposed to have an effect on cellulite? Or did it just make you red and sore so that the cellulite was less noticeable? She peered at her thighs in the flickering light. As well as making it hard to see her cellulite, reason enough surely, the candles were in fact highly functional. Once activated by turning on the light, the extractor fan would continue its deranged mosquito whine for almost an hour even after the light had been turned off. Bella planned to get it fixed at some point, any day now almost certainly, once the damp had been done, but The List had reached such epic proportions that she felt unequal to the task of tackling even a single item on it, so for now she left the door open and the landing light on when she went to the loo – and she had baths by candlelight.
She lay in the bath, lapped by the clean scent of lavender and the flicker of the candles. The events of the day whizzed around her mind, prosaic yet insistent. Was Seline annoyed with her? She should have asked Anthony about next week’s presentation. How long would the damp treatment take? And how messy would it be? She might even have to move out for a few days. If only someone else would come along and solve everything. Bella sank lower in the bath, soaked her flannel and draped it over her face. She closed her eyes and imagined she could see herself from above, wondering what it would be like to float up from her body, feel her mind, her thoughts detaching themselves, pulling at her flesh as they dragged away like a sticking plaster. Rain pattered hard against the window, fingers tapping a tattoo against the glass.
She willed herself to hear his tread, the twisting of the doorknob.
Behind her closed eyelids, she could see the candles in her mind, their flames sending skittering shadows on the walls, dancing patterns of light over her glistening thighs, her breasts. The door swings open and he looks at her questioningly. She smiles her assent and he comes towards her and kneels down next to the bath. His flop of hair falls forward and he runs his hand through it to push it back. Silence. He does not need to speak, but his eyes gleam with longing. At first, he just looks at her, his gaze tracing her shape, then he pushes back his sleeves and reaches down to her—
Downstairs, the phone rang and her answerphone clicked in.
‘Hello. Dad again. Do you fancy coming for a visit at the weekend? Be lovely to see you. Mum says you’re welcome to bring anyone, you know. If you want to. If there’s someone. Well. Or just your good self of course. More than enough. Lots of love. Oh, and we’ve still got your house-warming present.’
Bella rolled her eyes at an invisible audience. Still, she hadn’t visited the House of Fun for quite a while. She couldn’t fend it off for ever. The water was getting too cold, hovering at the same temperature as her skin so that she was hardly aware of it as water around her. Another minute or two and it would start to feel cool; she’d have to top up or get out. Out, Bella decided, or she’d look as alluring as a pickled walnut. It wasn’t too late to ring Dad back. Perhaps she would go; it might be fine. She could do with a change of scene anyway, have a walk with Dad and the dog, a break from staring at the still-packed boxes. She shivered and shook herself, automatically tapping each foot against the side to shed excess water, a relic from childhood baths and protecting the carpet. Do try not to drip absolutely everywhere, Bella-darling. If it gets wet, it’ll start to shrink.