by Anna Cheska
‘With the house, of course.’ Marisa deposited the plates on the shelf and rubbed thumb and forefinger together like Shylock.
Had she raised a Shylock, Naomi wondered.
‘With some dosh.’ And at her mother’s shocked expression: ‘That’s what you’ve been getting into a stew over, isn’t it?’
‘No.’ And yes. Mostly she had wondered where he was. Had Edward had enough warmth and comfort in his life?
‘We don’t want to lose the house as well as Edward, do we?’ Marisa demanded. ‘So what d’you think? Will she help? I can’t carry on—’
‘We couldn’t possibly ask her.’ Naomi didn’t want to hear what Marisa couldn’t carry on doing. She focused on her scouring cloth.
‘Oh, yes, we can.’ Marisa blew bubbles from a saucepan and smiled her cat’s smile. ‘I can.’
This thought filled Naomi with horror – house or not. She had not been prepared to like the wife that gave Edward neither comfort nor warmth, but she liked Imogen West. And there were two sides to every story. ‘No,’ she said.
Marisa ignored her. ‘Now that I have Alex…’ She put the pan away in the rack and pushed her hair from her face.
Her eyes behind that sleek strawberry-blonde curtain were surprisingly dreamy. Oh, yes, you’re beautiful, thought Naomi. But did her daughter have Alex? She rather thought not.
‘I have to be careful.’
Of what? Naomi rinsed the roasting pan and let out the water. It gurgled obligingly, small droplets of oil shining yellow on the surface. Naomi had come to know him a little and she liked him. But Alex Armstrong certainly wasn’t Marisa’s usual type. ‘What is it about Alex?’ she asked. She felt reckless tonight. Sad and reckless. Perhaps her daughter was in love for the first time. Perhaps she might even grow a little nicer, develop a little understanding of others.
‘I’m going to make him famous.’ Marisa said it in such a way that Naomi almost believed her. ‘He has potential. He has a great talent.’ She hung the damp tea towel over the oven door handle.
‘But no money,’ Naomi put in, continuing on her reckless path. She cleaned the sink with long sweeps of her cloth.
‘For now.’ Marisa’s eyes narrowed. ‘But Imogen’s money…’
‘What of it? What does it have to do with you?’ They had taken too much from her already, Naomi felt.
Marisa sighed. ‘Sometimes, Mother, I despair of you. What it has to do with me is that it happens to be my father’s money. And I’m his only child.’ She spoke with some pride.
Naomi pulled off her apron. This was dreadful. What on earth was she going to do?
‘If he could afford to pay the mortgage on this place…’ Marisa sniffed to indicate the house’s low status in the general scheme of things ‘… without her even noticing, then there must have been plenty to go around.’
‘Marisa, please.’ But it was hopeless. When had her daughter ever listened to her? Naomi took a step closer, made to touch her arm. ‘We’ll move. We’ll manage.’
Marisa glared at her. ‘We bloody well will not. Our days of managing are over.’
Naomi didn’t reply. But she was terribly afraid that Marisa might be right. She wasn’t sure she felt capable of managing at all.
Chapter 17
Imogen watched Jude sashay back to their table. The flickering lights were making her dizzy and the music pounded in her head before vibrating through her entire body down to the floor.
‘He’s a poet,’ Jude announced loudly. She rested her arms on the table and stuck out her backside.
As far as Imogen could see, one had no choice but to stand up and kind of lean over it as Jude was doing. There were no chairs, only carpeted ledges – some way from the tables – that could be pulled out on a hinge from the wall. Modern, yes, but extremely uncomfortable. In the centre of the room was a small circular dance floor. And a lot of lights – some moving, most flashing.
‘Really?’ Imogen regarded the man at the bar with whom Jude had been dancing. If you could call it dancing … Talk about rubbing people up the wrong way. Would he be brave enough to take on a woman like Jude? Seductive, exhibitionist, straight to the point.
Imogen looked sadly at her pineapple and vodka cocktail which also left a lot (vodka mostly) to be desired. She was getting cynical. The White Rabbit Singles Club, as joyfully proclaimed over the door tonight, was only bringing her down.
‘Yes, really. C’mon, Imo.’ Jude wiggled her hips. ‘Get in the mood.’ She was wearing a startlingly sequined number in black and silver, with a low neckline and a high hem that left about the same – nothing – to the imagination. Her blonde hair was highlighted with fluorescent purple and her eyes were bright, though their colour couldn’t be identified in here. Was the White Rabbit Singles Club ready for Jude? Imo wondered.
In her close-fitting backless grey jersey dress that had seemed elegant before she left tonight, she felt overdressed and about ninety. It wasn’t so easy to get in the mood, especially when you glimpsed the predatory males clustering in safe groups at the bar, lurking at the edge of the dance floor, ready to lunge at the first bar of a slow song.
‘We’re gonna have a ball.’ Jude leaned closer to make herself heard. Was she drunk? Not on these vodka-pineapple cocktails, she wasn’t. Imogen realised she even had sequins on her temple. ‘Look at that…’
Imogen looked. And so did the predators. Female, pin-thin and dressed in crimson with stilettos to match. ‘Hmm.’
‘Where does she put her internal organs, I’d like to know?’
Imogen tried to grin, but her pineapple-coated lips were stuck tight. What was the matter with her? Why was she being such a drag? Why did each and every man here fill her with a primitive kind of terror?
Jude turned her attention back to the one she’d been smooching with. ‘Relax, Imo. He’s got a friend.’
A friend? Relax? Imo tensed as she examined the two men fast approaching their space. Number one, the poet, looked suitably wild and Heathcliff-esque enough to impress even Jude. But number two, though an improvement on most of the men here – at least he was under fifty – was blond. Imogen had always distrusted blonds. And: ‘He’s a midget,’ she muttered into Jude’s shoulder.
‘Vertically challenged.’ Jude giggled. Nothing was going to bring her down tonight. ‘Take off those high heels and you’ll be perfectly matched.’
‘Roll over and die.’
‘Chunky, though,’ Jude shouted in her ear.
‘Sounds like dog food,’ Imo growled.
‘Probably works out.’
‘Or eats like a pig.’ As the two men reached their pit-stop of a ledge, Imo smiled and floated away with a, ‘Time for the ladies, I think.’
In the cloakroom, she re-applied lipstick in the cruel glare of a score of 100-watt naked bulbs and contemplated the fact of the poet. Jude’s lack of romantic success was reaching almost legendary proportions. And this might be THE ONE. Imo blew herself a wistful kiss. On balance – if it would help Jude – she thought she’d better be nice (but not too nice) to the friend.
* * *
He was called Nigel. ‘Imogen,’ he yelled in her ear. ‘That’s an unusual name.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I said, oh, got to … get a drink.’ She smiled. ‘I’m so thirsty.’ And oh-so-fed-up with smiling. She felt as though she had a coat hanger stuck in her mouth.
‘Let me go.’
‘Well…’ She was no good at this. Here she was feeling guilty – guilty, God help her – about accepting a drink from a man who was not going to get anything in return. Help! She was a throwback to the seventies, she had never matured, emancipation had passed her by, she was …
‘How kind,’ she yelled back at him. She could at least accept gracefully. Although it was hard to do anything gracefully over this number of decibels.
Back at the ledge, Jude and the poet had finished grinding and gone on to heavy snogging. Imogen tried not to be shocked
, but she didn’t know where to look. She focused on the poet’s bum – Jude had one hand on it, but apart from that it seemed safe enough.
‘So what do you do?’ she shouted at Nigel when he returned with another vodka-pineapple cocktail.
‘Insurance,’ he shouted back. ‘Are you divorced or what?’
‘What,’ Imogen told him.
‘You’re an unusual woman,’ he informed her.
Imo’s heart sank further. ‘You should meet my mother,’ she shouted.
He seemed to take this for encouragement. ‘Can I take you home?’ He glanced over towards the writhing Jude-and-her-poet. They didn’t seem to need to breathe. ‘Those two are getting on pretty well.’
Imo hesitated. ‘Okay, but I don’t want you to think…’ Had she learnt nothing in thirty-five years? Was she as inept at dealing with the opposite sex as she had been in her pre-Edward days?
‘I don’t think anything.’ His eyes were blank. And for some reason she believed him.
‘Let’s share a taxi,’ she compromised, as the final slow song was announced and the pack hit the remaining single women on the dance floor en masse. She was an independent and capable woman. He was harmless – he was in insurance, for heaven’s sake – and shorter than she. She was safe. ‘And we’ll drop these two off on the way.’
* * *
In the taxi, Jude and her poet were still glued together.
‘I run a beauty salon,’ Jude was telling him. ‘That’s creative too, you know.’
‘All creativity is a precious gift,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘Believe me.’
Precious being the operative word. Imogen couldn’t believe that Jude was taking this seriously.
‘Most people don’t realise that.’ Shamelessly, she fluttered her (fake) eyelashes at him. ‘And some people…’ Was it Imo’s imagination or was this directed at her? ‘Some people think beauty is only skin deep.’
Funny, but Imo had thought that was the point.
‘I create a look,’ Jude told him. ‘It’s not easy.’ She glanced at Imo again. ‘In fact, with some people it’s bloody difficult.’
‘You are absolutely amazing,’ the poet said – with commendable use of alliteration, Imo noted.
‘I am?’ Jude grinned.
Imogen sighed.
‘And intensely imaginative, I bet. A natural, I can tell.’
Imogen shifted in her seat. They were crawling through the one-way system and she wished the driver would get a move on. She couldn’t listen to this drivel much longer. Any minute now he’d start talking in iambic pentameters.
At last she peered out of the cab window. ‘Just here,’ she told the driver, since Jude had apparently forgotten where she lived. ‘By these trees, please.’ Oh, no. Now she’d caught it. Rhyming slang. ‘Jude? Home time.’ After what had happened with Roger the Dodger (there she went again) she half expected her friend to go in alone.
But: ‘Come on in, Mattie,’ she said to her poet.
Mattie?
‘I’ll look after you.’
And Imogen imagined that she probably would. Clearly Jude had lost what little common sense she’d had at her disposal earlier tonight. Look after him? She’d eat him for breakfast, more like.
Chapter 18
‘I thought you might fancy a walk.’
Imogen stared at Alex Armstrong. He was loitering on the doorstep of the cottage as if it were the most natural place in the world to be. And she felt the heat of a blush – remembering the things she’d told him about her marriage. The expectations, the broken dreams, the feelings of … was this all there was?
‘Why should you think that?’ she said.
Alex shrugged. ‘It’s New Year’s Eve.’ He was wearing denim jeans and walking boots, a dark snuggly charcoal fleece jacket only half-zipped.
And she should open up the shop. She was late already. ‘What does New Year’s Eve have to do with it?’ She peered past him. It wasn’t raining for a change. In fact the day was looking rather promising. The sky was clear and a determined sun was doing its best to warm things up a little.
‘Your last chance this year?’
Hmm. Very clever. ‘I hardly know you. We’re not exactly friends…’ She was prevaricating and they both knew it. They could very easily be friends – and more than. ‘You may be Marisa’s boyfriend…’
‘Or I may not.’ Mouth tightened, jaw jutted. A mouth, she thought, that looked better when he was smiling.
‘But I’m not sure I want to have any further connections with Marisa.’ Her almost-step-daughter. Though there was the small question of guilt and responsibility. ‘Or with her mother come to that.’ Imo shivered. It was true that she had instinctively liked Naomi. But it wasn’t done – was it? – to like the other woman? With Edward dead there was no need for jealousy, but once things had been officially arranged there would be little reason for friendship either.
‘I’m relieved to hear that.’ Alex sounded very formal. ‘I feel exactly the same way about them myself.’
‘You do?’ Why had he come here? she wondered. Why was she so drawn to those fierce blue eyes? Why did she want to run a finger along the angular planes of his face? Why did she want to smile when he smiled? It was ridiculous. She didn’t get it. And he almost had a foot in the door already.
‘Look…’ He shifted position. She could slam the door on him now, but she didn’t. She opened it wider. An inch, but an inch was as good as a mile.
‘Yes?’
‘I wanted to see you. I thought we could talk. I’ve been—’
‘Away?’ Imo didn’t want protestations of any kind. Up until this moment she had put her lack of appetite down to Christmas – everyone else was overindulging and she felt contrary right now. It was silly to keep thinking of him – a customer in her flower shop, a Santa in a grotto, a stranger in someone else’s sitting-room. A man whose face might almost be ugly if it weren’t for those eyes, that smile … But she thought of the predatory faces last night at the White Rabbit’s Singles evening, the nothingness of it all, and suddenly was glad he was here.
He nodded. ‘In Nottinghamshire. Family.’
‘A good Christmas?’ Still she hesitated.
‘Bearable.’ He grinned and then he was in the door and Imogen was wondering where she had put her walking boots. Besides, his face wasn’t ugly so much as interesting. She brushed past him, not quite touching, and was assailed by mandarin and sandalwood, the scent that had been haunting her all week.
‘Country, sea or town?’ she asked him. ‘If I agree, that is.’
‘It’ll be pretty windy on the coast. And tramping fields is a hell of a lot better than pavements.’
She thought of Jude and the thinking time she’d promised herself. This wouldn’t exactly be quiet thinking time unless he proved to be a silent walker. And she hoped not – she probably wouldn’t be able to stand the tension. ‘Ever been to Kingley Vale?’ she asked him.
‘Nope. A yew forest, isn’t it?’
He’d heard of the place at least. She nodded. ‘Oldest in Europe. The burial place of ancient kings.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Dwelling in the past?’
‘Not at all,’ she countered. ‘You said it yourself. A new year’s about to begin.’ Heaven help them all.
Her mother had swanned off to London this afternoon to stay with her friend Ralph in Knightsbridge. But they’d had a week of catching up. Imogen had brought her up to date on the revelation that had rocked her life, and Vanessa had regaled her with stories of India – about how she’d claimed a place on the famous ‘toy’ train that climbed 6,000 feet to Darjeeling, for example. Apparently, she had shoved a bedding roll through an open window and simultaneously waved a 20-rupee note at the guard …
Such nice brown eyes. And there we were, shuddering up the Himalayas, darling. Complete with children and goats – half of them incontinent. You should have been there.
Imo smiled. Thanks, but no thanks.
A
nd now she was with Ralph. Imogen had sometimes wondered … Ralph had been one of her father’s oldest friends but that wouldn’t have stopped Vanessa, she felt. Fleeting affairs of the heart had been somewhat of a hobby for her mother in those days.
So … Imogen looked at Alex and he looked back at her. Tiffany wasn’t due in, and they were unlikely to have many customers. The sun was shining and the man was smiling. To hell with it. He was just too tempting. She grinned. The shop could wait.
* * *
‘Black and platinum streaks?’ Jude peered into the mirror at the client sitting in front of her. She tried not to screech. ‘Are you completely bonkers, Ma?’ She was beginning to think the whole world had gone mad.
‘I saw it in one of your magazines.’ Hazel frowned and then immediately smoothed it from her brow with a fingertip. ‘Coal and ash. It looked awfully elegant. And, well, different.’
‘It’ll be different, all right.’ Jude could accept that she might have been wrong about the Snowdrop foundation, but with black and platinum streaks in her grey hair, Hazel would look as if she were rehearsing for Macbeth not The Life of Gershwin.
‘You promised you’d do a tint.’ Hazel put on her stubborn face. ‘And the article said subtle highlights create mystery.’
Mystery was one thing, Jude thought, total incomprehension another. ‘Well, don’t ask me to strip it out again,’ she said. ‘Because it would take forever.’
‘Drama,’ Hazel murmured, half-closing her eyes. ‘That’s what I need.’ She wagged a finger at Jude. ‘And you’re not going to stop me getting it.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Ma.’ What she needed after last night’s disaster was some good sex. And the sooner the better.
As if in answer to her prayer, the phone rang and Jude picked up. ‘Mattie…’ In the background she heard her mother sigh. She knew she had not been forgiven for trying to seduce Mattie in the hall last night. ‘Tongues practically down each other’s throats,’ her mother had muttered at least three times today. What Jude hadn’t told her – since Hazel preferred not to discuss sex, it not being in the Nice Girl rulebook, Jude supposed – was that she had got nowhere with Mattie. Only disappointed.