West End Girls

by Jenny Colgan

  Georges nodded. “Excellent. Me too. I am an artiste of Parmigiana. Here, try it.”

  And he passed over two warm plates.

  Wow, thought Penny, looking over at Maria-Elena, that woman really is evil. She suddenly had a flash of inspiration. She saw it clearly. Georges was a good bloke and Lizzie really liked him. But he had an evil fiancée standing in her way. She could handle her, make out that her and Georges were a big thing, piss the fiancée off all the way back to Portugal, and then Lizzie would be free to settle down with Georges. And they would be so grateful they would buy Penny lots and lots of pairs of shoes, and Penny wouldn’t mind a bit that she didn’t have any boyfriends at all and Lizzie had a rich one. Penny felt so noble at her potential self-sacrifice she sniffed into her aubergine Parmigiana.

  Tabitha reached out and placed a manicured hand, festooned with large rings, gently on Penny’s arm.

  “I see you too become emotional over a beautiful meal, breaking bread with kindred spirits,” she said. Penny noticed she’d nearly cleared her plate already.

  “I really think we are kindred spirits, you know,” Tabitha continued, picking up some bread to wipe up the leftovers. “Me and the spirit world . . . we’re very entwined.” Penny picked at some lettuce—Georges placed salad on the side of everyone’s plate as a garnish, but usually ended up throwing it out.

  “Me, too,” said Penny.

  Tabitha took a huge intake of breath, then looked dramatically around the room to make sure they were not being overheard.

  “Penny, my dear,” she said in a near whisper. “Can I trust you?”

  “Of course,” said Penny, looking as serious as she could.

  “Very well. Then I shall share with you . . . I have certain . . . certain gifts.”

  Penny waited for her to continue.

  “They are a burden,” said Tabitha, looking very sincere and sad. “They bring great power and yet great responsibility.”

  Penny was sure someone had said this in a movie, but didn’t want to mention it.

  “I have been told often by famous psychics and those who know of the spirit world that I must be very careful how I use my skills.”

  Penny nodded respectfully.

  “So, my dear, do you have a problem? Is it a matter of the heart? A love spell? Or revenge?”

  Tabitha was so excited at talking about her magic powers that a little bit of spittle came out and landed on her plate.

  Penny rolled her eyes. “Do you know how to make a potion to see off a love rival?” she asked, glancing at Lizzie, who was watching her sourly while pretending to dry up.

  “All love is beautiful,” said Tabitha gravely.

  Penny sashayed up to the counter, feeling strangely calm and in control. Georges was still passing over Parmigiana to grateful customers. Maria-Elena was watching her with a beady eye, as was Lizzie (while manfully pretending not to). Penny knew what she had to do. She stroked down her eyebrows and slipped behind the display of sandwiches and cakes.

  “Georges,” she purred, staring straight into his eyes—and, on the periphery, noticing Maria-Elena’s eyebrows drawing together in a suspicious frown.

  She placed a hand on his large forearm. “That was the most delicious lunch I think I’ve ever had in my life.”

  Georges looked at her hand with a slightly puzzled expression on his face. “I make good food for everyone,” he said.

  Penny gave a little flirtatious giggle, and gently touched the side of his face.

  “I think you make it specially for me,” she said. She could swear she could feel the steam coming off Lizzie behind her. Ah, Lizzie. She didn’t realize the self-sacrifice involved here. This was about Maria-Elena, not her. Once the Portuguese monstrosity was out of the way, she’d quietly withdraw. After all, all was fair in love and war.

  Slowly, aware that the whole café was watching her, she leaned over and carefully placed an extremely deliberate kiss on Georges’s slightly sweaty cheek. There was a tchok as Lizzie sliced her knife hard into the chopping board. Maria-Elena was looking absolutely furious. Georges couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d slapped him in the face with a wet halibut.

  “I’ll see you,” Penny murmured suggestively, “later . . .”

  She turned to go, then suddenly stopped in her tracks. For the first time, above the clock on the wall, she noticed Will’s picture. She stared at it, open-mouthed.

  “You . . . you’re . . .”

  This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. What the hell was Georges doing putting that up?

  “You’ve hung Will’s painting.”

  She could sense Lizzie behind her, concentrating intensely.

  “Well, yes,” said Georges. “I like it.”

  “But I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think you . . . I mean, I assumed you would burn it.”

  Georges looked slightly discomfited. “But I thought . . .”

  “You thought what? That I wouldn’t mind? That I would like having to look at the fucking thing every time I came in here?”

  “You do not often come in here,” said Georges, shrugging. “And . . . well . . .”

  A horrifying thought struck Penny.

  “Does he?”

  She spun around to look at Lizzie, whose face instantly gave her away.

  “Oh, he does, does he? What, pops in from time to time, so all of you are lovely friends having a smashing time?”

  “It’s not like that,” said Lizzie. “He just came in . . .”

  “Really? What’s it like then? Do you all just sit around having a good laugh at me?”

  To Penny’s horror, Maria-Elena had sensed the tide had turned, and had a mild smile playing about her lips.

  “No,” said Lizzie.

  “So, what? Is this some kind of crazy revenge thing? You’re trying to seduce him?”

  “No!”

  “Just to make me miserable, is it?” Appallingly, Penny couldn’t help but feel the tears well up. “You’ve all ganged up on me,” she said. Then, blinded, she pushed past Georges and Tabitha and headed out of the door.

  Lizzie looked around. What the hell had just happened? One moment her sister had been playing some mad game of “Who’s the biggest bitch on the block?” and all but unzipping Georges’s trousers, then next she was dribbling and mewling like a Big Brother contestant deprived of cake.

  Georges shook his head.

  “Ah, your sister. She suffers terribly in love.” He looked at Lizzie, with a sad expression on his face. “You are running to her, yes?”

  Oh, crap. Five seconds after Lizzie decides to let Penny stand on her own two feet, she immediately has a public nervous breakdown. How very convenient for her.

  “Uh, yes,” she said.

  Maria-Elena was looking disapproving as Lizzie undid her apron. “You will have to look at your staff,” she said to Georges, very deliberately in English. “They are hysterical girls in England, no?”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes as she headed for the door.

  Penny was half walking, half running toward home when Lizzie caught up with her. She glanced at Lizzie but didn’t speak to her.

  “So what was that little scene about?” Lizzie said finally.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Penny, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.

  “Well, let’s see. First you try to have sex with Georges behind the counter and the next you have a complete shit fit because of a picture of some trees.”

  “I didn’t . . .”

  Penny searched desperately for a way of denying this version of events, but couldn’t think of one.

  “Oh, what’s it got to do with you, anyway?”

  “Quite a lot actually,” said Lizzie. “Seeing as Georges is my friend and is getting married and doesn’t exactly need to be mixed up with the likes of you.”

  “The likes of me?” said Penny, sounding furious. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘the likes of me?’”

  “Nothing,” sai
d Lizzie, worried that she might have gone too far.

  “And what the fuck do you mean, Georges is my friend. Georges isn’t your friend. He’s the guy you’d like to get it on with. Don’t pretend you wish him well with his wedding, you hypocrite.”

  “I’m a hypocrite. That’s fucking rich given that you rubbed yourself up against him like a dog in heat, then caved like a fucking paper bag because of your ex-boyfriend’s little drawing.”

  “It’s not a ‘little drawing,’” said Penny. “Like you know anything about art. Like you know anything about anything, you complete mouse.”

  “I’m not a mouse.”

  “You’re a pathetic cowardly mouse that can’t even chat up a bloke she stands next to for like nine hours a day.”

  “And you’re a gold-digging slut.”

  “Mouse!”

  “Slut!”

  “Mouse!”

  Without realizing, they’d arrived in front of their building. Sitting on the step was a man. He was middle-aged and shabbily dressed, reclining against one of the white pillars reading a tabloid. He watched them with some interest, but for a short time Penny and Lizzie were too engrossed in shouting at each other to notice.

  Finally, his attention made them turn around. He had a keen eye on both of them.

  “Who the hell are you?” said Penny, who was in no mood for tramps, salesmen, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or anything else except getting upstairs and slamming the door on her fucking annoying sister.

  The man smiled enigmatically and rather annoyingly.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “The little twins.”

  Lizzie drew in a breath and stepped forward. The last time she’d heard them called that . . . “Who are you?” she asked, echoing Penny, but with a strange beating of her heart and a funny dry feeling in her mouth.

  The man stood up, folded his paper carefully, and put it in his pocket.

  “Little twins,” he said, straightening and opening his arms wide. “Don’t you recognize your old dad?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They found a third chair buried under some newspapers and drew it up to the old kitchen table. They managed this without speaking to each other at all, except when Lizzie went to put the kettle on.

  The man took off his coat, which was old and worn. While Lizzie waited for the kettle to boil she studied his face. He was clearly attempting to look relaxed and unconcerned, stretching out in his chair, but he couldn’t help his eyes flicking around nervously, taking the whole place in. This was, Lizzie supposed, where he’d grown up. He had fair hair, like Penny, now turned mostly to gray, and his eyes were blue like hers. But the wide mouth was Lizzie’s, undoubtedly. She could see he’d probably been handsome once, but now he looked slight and nervous and pushed down by life.

  They knew so little about him. Yes, a few stories they’d pestered out of their mum and grandmother, but mostly Lizzie remembered her mother saying, “Girls, if you get pregnant in your teens, I will cut my throat with this knife here. Now, who wants cake?”

  And Lizzie would say yes, and Penny would say no.

  Lizzie dished up tea, along with some grapes she’d bought.

  “So,” said the man finally. Lizzie wondered what to call him. Dad was . . . unlikely. Out of the question. His name was Stephen, but that seemed peculiar too. Mr. Willis? Maybe she’d stick to not calling him anything at all.

  He looked very happy to be given a cup of tea. Maybe he’d been maligned, she allowed herself to think for a moment. Maybe despite everything it was her mother who’d caused all the trouble, made things impossible for him to stay so he’d had to go out and fend for himself, but he’d loved them all along . . .

  Then she got a sudden mental image of her mother’s dishwater hands, her swollen ankles as she rolled in from yet another day serving mush to ungrateful brats who gave her backchat and lip, and felt terrible. Her mother had held the whole thing together and she hadn’t had a word of thanks nor an iota of help from this man.

  Penny had already reached this conclusion and was eyeing him unfavorably. Why, she wondered, would he have come to find them now—a few months after they’d moved into his mother’s flat? She folded her arms and waited to hear what he had to say.

  “Girls,” said the man finally, after taking a long gulp of tea and looking suspiciously at the grapes. “I never thought you’d grow up to be so beautiful.”

  Penny rolled her eyes. “I’m amazed you know we grew up at all,” she said. “We could have been thrown into the river in a bag without you noticing.”

  The man laughed in a forced kind of a way.

  “Not at all,” he said. Then he put his hands on his knees, as if he was about to come clean with them.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ve been a terrible father.”

  Penny made a snorting noise. Lizzie shot her a look. Please, please, could Penny just hear him out? Of course he’d been a terrible father, but he was the only one she was ever going to get and, maybe, just maybe, he was here to make amends.

  “But I’ve learned my lesson,” he said, looking at his hands. The nails were bitten almost down to the quick. It seemed a strange habit in a grown man.

  “I’ve messed up so badly,” he said. “You know, when me and your mother were together, I was so young . . . twins, you know. It was a lot to take on.”

  “Which is why you didn’t,” said Penny. “Thanks for the birthday cards, by the way. Oh, no, hang on, we never got one.”

  The man shifted uncomfortably. Lizzie noticed, though, that Penny hadn’t asked him to leave or shoved him out. Penny wanted to hear what he had to say as much as she did.

  “I had to move away,” said Stephen, looking bitter. “My mother was crazy, I was trying to make it as an artist . . .”

  “You were what?” said Penny quickly. Her face looked shocked. Neither of them had known that.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter,” said Stephen. “Thought I’d make it, didn’t I? Be the biggest thing since Andy Warhol. But life doesn’t always work out like that.”

  Penny’s eyes were wide. Lizzie could see exactly what she was thinking. Her face was stricken and, without being able to help herself, all her rancor gone, Lizzie reached out and gently put her hand on Penny’s shoulder.

  “What kind of work did you do?” asked Penny.

  “Conceptual,” said Stephen, still with the last dregs of arrogance in his voice. “Installations, you know? Birds, shouting, and broken glass everywhere.”

  He paused for a bit.

  “Not enough people really want to buy an experience like that. Fucking cretins.”

  “I work for an art gallery now,” said Penny.

  Stephen smiled. “Really? See, there you go. Runs in the family. Whereabouts?”

  “Sloan’s,” said Penny.

  Stephen’s face darkened immediately.

  “That bastard,” he said. “He would never exhibit me.” Nervously, he tapped his jacket until he found a crumpled packet of cheap cigarettes. Without asking their permission, he lit one up and drew on it deeply, screwing up his eyes.

  “You don’t smoke, do you, kids?” he said. “Good,” he said as they shook their heads. “Your mum didn’t half do a good job. Much better than I’d have managed.”

  “Sloan is a bastard,” said Penny, eyeing Stephen with distaste. “But he’d probably have made a better job bringing us up than you.”

  “No need to get nasty, sweetheart,” said Stephen, and there was an awkward silence.

  “So, uh, what else have you been up to?” said Lizzie, trying to lighten matters up. Penny and her dad were glaring at each other, and looked ridiculously alike all of a sudden. Stephen broke his gaze first.

  “Oh, this and that,” he said. “Worked in, er, retail for a bit. Went to America. Tough place, America.” His short-stubbed nails rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. “Then I worked on a few ventures with, uh, an acquaintance. Selling personalized plates for weddings. Door to door. Should have been
a great hit, but, you know . . . people let us down and the, uh, production lines didn’t function correctly. Anyway, after a short period of time as company director I’ve, er, recently resigned to look into other options. Back here, you know. Good old London town. City of my birth and all that.”

  Penny and Lizzie watched him, waiting to hear what he was going to say. Lizzie just wished it would be something like, “And I came in to say I love you. And would you like me to take you out for ice cream?” But somehow, she knew that wasn’t about to be forthcoming.

  Penny, though, was beginning to guess where this was heading.

  “So, anyway, I thought, Wow, I have to look up my gorgeous girls. I wonder if they’re as beautiful as I’d always dreamed. And you are.”

  Penny still didn’t say anything.

  “And I called in on me old mum, you know. Still bonkers, of course.”

  “She’s not that bonkers,” said Lizzie. “She’s just eccentric. I like her.”

  “So do I, of course, of course,” said Stephen. “So I got talking to her, and I was saying, well, here I am, back in London for the first time in, ooh, twenty years or so.” He didn’t sound like his mum. His voice was more aggressive mockney, like he thought he was in an old British gangster movie.

  “Uh-huh,” said Penny.

  “And, my Christ, hasn’t the old town got expensive? Eh? Eh? Can you believe the cost of things in old London town these days?”

  A line of sweat had popped out on Stephen’s brow, and he looked around for something to stub his cigarette out on. As neither girl moved, he used his saucer.

  “So, of course, she says, ‘Stephen, you’re my only boy and I love you . . .’”

  That didn’t sound like Gran, thought Lizzie.

  “Course you’ve got to go and stay in the flat, haven’t you? After all, it’s practically yours.”

  He rubbed his eyebrow and attempted a grin that didn’t succeed particularly well.

  “I mean, she’s not long for this world, is she?”

  “I think she is,” said Lizzie. “She just likes having a bit of a lie-down, that’s all.”

  She was aware how feeble this sounded.