Elinor had been what was known as a ‘stunner’ in the sixties and seventies, very reminiscent of Catherine Deneuve, and of course Phil had chased her until he’d eventually caught her. She was different from his usual ladies: independent, sassy, had her own blossoming career at Debenhams at a time when women didn’t fly all over the world on buying trips, making use of expense accounts. They married when she was twenty-two; naturally Phil had expected her to squeeze out a few babies and become a stay-at-home mum. She didn’t. She knew he hated it, but she didn’t want to give up her hard-won rung on the career ladder.
Phil took up with his ladies again (had he ever really stopped?) and started commenting on Karen’s appearance as she grew up. ‘She’s a bit chubby, isn’t she?’ he would say within earshot. ‘She needs to grow her hair long, it looks better.’ Meanwhile their sons, Jamie and Michael, never got reprimanded for clothes and hair choices. It was no wonder Karen had developed anorexia. She shrank to gain his approval, and he paid her compliments, telling her she looked beautiful, praising her rapidly disappearing frame. Phil realised too late that he had stepped over the line when Karen passed out at school and they found out she hadn’t eaten for four days.
‘I don’t understand why she’s like this,’ he’d said to the head teacher, genuinely perplexed. ‘I constantly tell her she looks lovely.’
Elinor wished she had left him earlier, and used to blame herself for Karen’s illness. But it had been different then, and three children were a lot to cope with on your own and work at a time when it wasn’t the norm. So she turned a blind eye, slept in the spare room most weeks, and carried on carrying on. Things would always plateau when he finished his latest affair. Then he was all smiles and attentive, and Elinor would let her guard down slightly for the sake of the children, but it wouldn’t be long before the absences began again.
Karen only recovered once she went away to university, no longer under such scrutiny. She’d taken it upon herself to get some help (she wouldn’t talk about it) and when she returned home at Christmas, she looked so much better. She had also joined a women’s group and challenged everything her father said. That Christmas, home had been a war zone and it wasn’t long after that Elinor left Phil. Elinor since discovered from all the articles in the papers and online that Phil had been emotionally abusing her for years, gaslighting her about the other women, instilling feelings of worthlessness. That was why she clung to work like she did – she felt like she counted there.
A few years later the children told her Phil had got some thirty-year-old pregnant and was up to his ears in nappies again. She wondered if his other ladies were still on the scene… Meanwhile Elinor was living how she wanted to in the Mews, dinner parties galore, never short of someone to talk to and enough disposable income to travel when she fancied it. Karen lived in nearby Sydenham with her husband and daughters, so she saw them regularly, and the boys both lived in Surrey with their wives and families. She’d recently guessed Michael and Sarah were going through a rough patch but she’d kept quiet. On a few occasions she had noticed some familiar behaviour patterns emerging from her son that made her feel sick to her stomach.
‘He’s turning into Dad,’ Karen had mentioned after a family birthday party. ‘And what’s so awful is that he can’t see it. Someone should say something.’
‘Someone’ being Elinor, but how do you tackle your eldest child and tell them something they don’t want to hear? She hoped they would work it out between them; it wasn’t her place any more. He was a grown up.
She had got to the stage where she felt she’d done her bit for her offspring. Was it wrong for her to want to have her own time now without the constant worry about grown-up children? Maybe she was being rather optimistic. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was just seventeen and her childhood had abruptly ended. Growing up overnight had been terrifying. When each of her children had reached seventeen she had wondered how on earth she had coped at the time. They still seemed so young to her, not yet fully formed or capable of supporting themselves. They couldn’t even vote. Yet she had been cast out into the world and had to make decisions about her future in a cramped lawyer’s office in Croydon mired in a grief so all-consuming she’d felt numb. All she’d been able to think about had been the wretched row she’d had with her mum about the two inches she’d chopped off the length of her staid school skirt. It was their parting conversation as her mum climbed in the car to attend Conservative Club drinks with Father that evening. She never saw either of them again. Robert had identified the bodies.
Elinor had inherited her parents’ money and house with her older brother. Split down the middle, it had been enough to sustain herself through a year at business college and buy a small top-floor flat in Putney two roads away from the river. In hindsight, the most likely reason she had married Phil was because she’d never really got used to being an orphan. She craved security. Funnily enough, she found living at the Mews gave her a similar feeling of safety in numbers. If only it had existed when her parents had died – she would have moved straight in and maybe escaped the need to fill her empty chest with a rotten marriage. Though she wouldn’t swap anything for the children. They were the best thing to come out of all of this. Even if they still caused a few sleepless nights…
Elinor’s phone beeped in the kitchen, snapping her back to matters in hand – an email had arrived. Wasn’t technology wonderful, she always thought. To think that twenty years ago she’d been given her first mobile phone brick for work. She’d been convinced it wouldn’t catch on; now she organised her life on one.
Dear Elinor
I’ll see you at the Crown and Greyhound at 5.30. Looking forward to meeting you.
Paul
The email was via a dating website, Guardian Soulmates. Elinor had dated on and off now for a few years. It had taken her a while to dredge up the courage to join the site. Samantha had encouraged her, saying if she signed up, she would too, but Elinor knew she still hadn’t done it. Elinor had begun to feel like she was missing out by not having some male company in her life. Just because Phil had been a total bastard it didn’t mean she was a man hater. She’d worked alongside men for years and she enjoyed their company, the way a lot of them could be so phlegmatic about things and get on with the job in hand without making a fuss. And she missed sex. That was the one thing she could say about Phil, he knew his way around the bedroom, which was also why she’d probably stuck it out for as long as she had – that and the children.
She’d had sex with people during and after her divorce: a few men through work and one in Hong Kong on a buying trip. That had been daring. He had been a pilot with Cathay Pacific, probably married – she didn’t ask at the time – and they’d met in the hotel bar. The sex had been amazing, a real eye-opener. They kept up a light-hearted postcard correspondence for a few years, until email was mainstream, and whenever he was in London, or if she was in Hong Kong with work, they would meet up. It ended once he mentioned his real life, something she had avoided, so she was knocked sideways when he said he was married and about to have his third child. Elinor took a long hard look at herself in the hotel bathroom mirror: she was as bad as one of Phil’s ladies. She returned to the bedroom and broke it off with him. He had shrugged, and that’s when she suspected he probably had a woman in every port. Not that she cared – she didn’t need him – but she shied away from casual affairs after that and threw herself into building up her nest egg and preparing for early retirement.
This date today was the first for a while. The trouble with dating in her late sixties was the men were so institutionalised, they didn’t know how to be on their own. She wasn’t a babysitter. Anyway, this Paul sounded promising, and he looked handsome too, with a neat beard. She checked his profile again, just to make sure. Yes, he had sexy eyes. She tried to remember the last time she’d had sex – about five years ago. Maybe this date would end the famine.
30
A Star Is Born
I
shuffled along the aisle in the slow-moving queue at the zombie apocalypse shop, eyeing the ever-changing display of merchandise. It was a busy evening in here; everyone had been caught short by the unexpected heatwave after a lengthy wet spell. I looked at what people were buying – rosé wine (or paint-stripper substitute), bags of charcoal and ice cream. I, on the other hand, was buying wine of the week (Portuguese red with used teabag on the nose), Rizlas, a lighter and cigarette filters all from behind the counter. I checked my phone to see how long we had before Nick got back: maybe an hour and a half. Long enough. I thought of Linda, still decked out in all her finery, sitting at the kitchen table waiting patiently.
‘Don’t move until I get back!’ I’d instructed her. ‘I will get in so much trouble if you injure yourself even more.’ She’d saluted me with her good arm as I’d rushed out of the door.
We’d had a lot of fun earlier, filming her for Clothes My Daughter Steals. ‘Or rather, I should say Clothes My Granddaughter Steals!’ Lila had announced to camera after school a few hours ago. Nick’s sister had refused to appear with her mum, but Lottie, her fifteen-year-old daughter, had been only too happy to step in…
Lottie was initially very quiet, obviously underwhelmed by the whole experience. I don’t know what she was expecting, but from the face drop when she walked in the cluttered living room/studio with Nick and Linda, I could only imagine the inflated fairy tale she’d told herself. She was probably wondering where all the other people were, the free make-up, the racks of glamorous clothes and spangly shoes and the minions running around after her, offering bespoke Krispy Kreme donuts and frothy hot chocolate. The make-up artist I had begged to help us out had let me down at the last minute so we were left with mine and Lila’s not-so-polished skills and depleted make-up bags, which were fine, but didn’t bring that special touch to the proceedings.
‘Please don’t make me wear that,’ Lottie begged at one point in front of the camera, after two other try-ons were kiboshed. ‘If my friends see me in it, it’ll be social suicide.’ She was referring to an M&S pleated peach skirt, the same one as Linda was wearing.
I had created Linda’s look using inspiration from forties glamour photos. We had managed to find a lovely black cashmere shrug cardie that draped perfectly over her sling and shoulders, working with a plain black top I’d instructed her to wear. I jazzed it up with costume jewellery and Lila had deftly tonged Linda’s hair into flattering waves, the light bouncing off her head giving the illusion of volume. Linda managed to get her feet into some delicate sparkly black sling-backs, but was under instructions not to walk in them – we couldn’t have a twisted ankle.
‘I love it!’ Linda had chimed, her voice turning girlish as she carefully swung around to admire herself in the mirror. ‘I feel young, glamorous.’
‘You look it, Nana!’ Lottie smiled for the first time since she’d arrived.
‘We promise not to kill your reputation,’ Lila said solemnly to Lottie, who’d returned to biting her nails, looking suspiciously at her version of the same outfit.
‘I’ll look hideous,’ was all she offered up as a further protest. ‘You won’t be able to make me look good.’
‘Oh, I can’t wait for you to have to eat your words, young lady!’ Linda had laughed gleefully. ‘There’s nowt wrong with M&S!’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘challenge accepted!’ Samantha hovered in the background, observing, making us the occasional cup of tea, and taking calls in the kitchen.
‘I think that’s it!’ Lila cried cheerfully after we’d flitted round Lottie like mother hens brandishing the tools of transformation. ‘What do you think, Nana?’
‘Ooh, Lottie, you look a picture!’ Lottie rolled her cynical teenage eyes and pouted her lips. I suddenly had a stab of doubt that I’d lost my touch, terrified she would hate it. I don’t know why it mattered so much, but it did. I wanted it all to be perfect for Linda.
‘Come and look in the mirror.’ I chewed my lip as Lottie shuffled in front of the mirror set sideways on so the viewers could simultaneously scrutinise her reaction.
Lila had found the coolest fitted cropped black T-shirt with the faded cover of a Stones album printed on it, paired with a battered flying jacket that had a soft sheepskin lining (hot for today, but worked for the shoot), the offending skirt and, on Lottie’s feet, stylish grey Ash buckle-up leather baseball boots. I had teased her hair into that just-got-out-of-bed tousled style with the curling tongs, terrified I was going to burn it, and given her smoky eyes and pale lips, the only look I could reliably do for myself. She looked absolutely stunning, quirky, and effortlessly chic, like she was supposed to be famous but you couldn’t quite work out why.
As she stood silently in front of the mirror, my heart was pounding in my mouth.
‘Well?’ Linda asked eventually. No one moved. I could hear the humming of the fridge from the kitchen. We needed a bloody professional make-up artist – I hated the pressure of winging it when I didn’t really know what I was doing.
‘It’s peng,’ she squeaked. ‘I look like one of the cool people!’ Relief flooded through me as I gathered ‘peng’ was good. God, I felt ancient.
‘Thanks for today,’ Linda said after Nick had left the Mews to drop Lottie home. ‘I needed to do that. It’s made me feel twenty years younger in here,’ and she tapped her head. ‘Sadly not in body.’ She winced.
‘Is it your shoulder? Can I do anything?’
‘It’s everything. My hands are tingling so much, the one in the sling particularly badly, like burning.’
‘Maybe Nick can make you a mowie wowie snack when he gets back?’
‘Apparently I am banned in case I fall over.’
‘But if you stay sitting down you’ll be OK. Surely it’s up to you? Why are you letting both the men in your life tell you what to do? It’s your illness…’
‘I guess because Nick has put himself out there growing all the marijuana for me. I feel so guilty.’
‘Well, he isn’t here, is he?’ I said looking round his kitchen meaningfully.
*
‘Hello! I’m back. I have a visitor.’
Linda was still at the kitchen table with two wine glasses waiting to be filled next to the white saucer full of dried cannabis florets.
‘Oh, hello!’ Linda said clearly surprised. ‘Elinor, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry for barging in. I hope I’m not ruining your cosy evening.’
‘You’re not,’ I reassured her. ‘Linda, we can trust Elinor.’ I winked at Linda.
I’d bumped into Elinor outside our house as I steamed up the Mews back to Nick’s, trying not to waste precious time. She hadn’t seemed her usual self and I felt bad abandoning her, so invited her on one condition: ‘You blab in a Mewsflash and I’ll have to kill you.’ She’d understood completely and had drawn an imaginary zip across her lips…
‘Are you going out somewhere nice later?’ Linda asked, eyeing up Elinor’s professionally blow-dried hair, lovely pale blue silk shirt and skinny black trousers with beaded sandals.
I handed her a glass of wine, getting out a third glass from the cupboard and pouring some for Linda and me. She sat at the table as I pulled out my illicit purchases from the shop.
‘I’ve already been on a date.’ She picked up her glass and took a delicate sip.
‘Oh, how exciting!’ Linda cried. ‘How did you meet him?’
‘On Guardian Soulmates.’ My wine went down the wrong way and I tried to choke it out of my lungs. Elinor slapped me ineffectively on the back. I had visions of Wattle Chin from Guardian Soulmates and his grateful drooping Deputy Dog face as I sat astride him, shit-faced in Amanda’s attic all those years ago, giving him the pity shag of his life. It was hard to imagine Elinor falling at the same hurdle on date one.
‘Sorry,’ I spluttered. ‘It just brought back terrible memories of a hideous Soulmates date of my own. Carry on.’
‘Is this your first date for a while?’ Linda enquired, c
learly enthralled.
‘Gosh, no! I have been dating on and off now for years.’
‘Have you been keeping it a secret?’ I asked, opening the Rizlas.
‘No! The others know; I’ve just not met anyone I like yet. I haven’t been on a date for about three months because no one has taken my fancy.’
‘So, how was it?’ I asked, pulling the white saucer towards me, picking up the dried cannabis that I had foraged from the airing cupboard earlier.
Elinor stared at me. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
I nodded.
‘I couldn’t help notice the smell when I walked in and spotted it on the table. It’s very distinctive, isn’t it? Is it Nick’s?’
‘Technically, yes, he grew it,’ Linda explained. ‘But it is for me to help with my MS symptoms.’
‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. That must be dreadful. You poor thing.’ Elinor paused. ‘I’ve read that it’s also supposed to be amazing for arthritis. I suffer from that in my knees and fingers…’
‘Yes, it helps relieve pain and it helps me relax,’ Linda agreed. ‘But I’ve never smoked it before. Because of the broken shoulder I’ve not been able to get over here, but Ali kindly arranged it all. Nick would have a fit if he knew we were about to make a roll-up.’
‘Oh, I see. Why would he go mad if he’s grown it?’
‘I think because smoking it can be misconstrued as taking it recreationally, but also, he’s terrified of me having another fall. He said all bets are off until this has healed.’
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