West End Girls

by Jenny Colgan

  “Of course she is not trying to poison you,” said Georges, adding something sharp in Portuguese. In response, Maria-Elena merely pointed at Penny, who still had her hands defiantly behind her back.

  Georges looked apologetic. “Penny, please, can you show us the glass? So we can sort this out.”

  “No,” said Penny. “Uh, I mean, what glass?”

  “Don’t be silly, please,” said Georges. His face was imploring. “You know Maria-Elena is a little . . . how should I say, highly strung.”

  The entire room now (except for Sloan, who had vanished) was watching the scene in silence. Penny looked around feeling cornered, and slowly brought the glass around. Sure enough, traces of the herbs were very clear on the rim.

  “See!” shouted Maria-Elena. “See!”

  Penny rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to poison her.”

  “But what is this, Penny?” asked Georges, looking grave.

  Tabitha swooped in on them like a vast purple eagle.

  “Ah, my dears. You tinker in the dark arts at your peril.”

  “What?” said Georges.

  “This is a little potion I made up for Penny . . . you are very naughty, by the way.”

  “It was only a joke,” said Penny sulkily.

  “What kind of a potion?” demanded Maria-Elena.

  “I am gifted by the spirits in many ways,” said Tabitha, “and Penny asked me to do a love potion. It is to see off a rival.”

  “Yes. Poison!” screamed Maria-Elena.

  “It’s not poison,” said Penny. “Plus it could hardly make you any uglier,” she added, not quite quietly enough.

  “I knew you are after him!” Maria-Elena’s face had gone completely puce. Georges just looked bamboozled. Penny looked embarrassedly at Lizzie, who was also looking completely disbelieving.

  “So did I,” said Lizzie. “For Christ’s sake.” And she turned away.

  “But I did it for you, Lizzie,” shouted Penny. “You know I did. I mean, if it really worked. Plus it would only have been a few boils or something. Enough to postpone a wedding, anyway.”

  “You don’t do anything for anyone else,” said Lizzie. “Just yourself.”

  “You’ve got to believe me,” said Penny.

  “You’ve got to get over here while Georges calls the police,” said Maria-Elena. “Call the police, Georges. Now. Now!”

  “Do not speak like that, please,” said Georges. “I will not call the police. This is all very silly.”

  “Call the police, you grande cabrao!”

  Georges looked shocked, and Penny bounded for the door. Bugger them, she thought. Bugger Lizzie, bugger Georges, bugger Chelsea, bugger London, bugger the world. She was getting out.

  She reached the door and pulled it open, not noticing the trembling figure on the other side of the glass.

  Standing there panting, damp, agitated, filthy, and emaciated, with a desperate look in his eye, stood Will.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Penny!” shouted Will. “You have to come with me.”

  He stepped up into the doorway of the gallery.

  “To live with a gold-digger under a bridge?” said Penny. “No I fucking don’t.”

  She tried to push past him, conscious that it absolutely was not beyond Maria-Elena to follow her and grab her by the hair, in preparation for a good slapping.

  “You do. You have to come. It’s your house.”

  “What do you mean, my house?”

  “Your house. In Chelsea.”

  “That’s not my house,” said Penny. “Oh, you haven’t been keeping up, have you?”

  “Shut up!” said Will. “There’s no time for that. It’s on fire!”

  For a second nobody spoke. Then there was a yelp from the back, as Brooke realized that if the twins’ place was going up in smoke, theirs would be too.

  “My Birkin bag!” she yelped. And immediately everyone started to move.

  Lizzie and Penny tore down the streets with Will, who was exhausted, falling behind them. The rest of the gallery stood watching, Maria-Elena spitting blood oaths as Georges immediately shouted that he was phoning for a fire engine.

  “I can explain,” puffed Penny as they rounded Redmond Street.

  “Don’t,” said Lizzie, her face clouded in pain.

  Sure enough, smoke was billowing from the second-floor windows. They halted, inhaling the unfamiliar burning smell.

  “Oh God,” said Penny. “It must have been Stephen.”

  “Those bloody cigarettes,” said Lizzie. “You don’t think . . .”

  They turned to each other, the same thought in their minds. Was he still in there?

  Just as they thought this, Lizzie caught sight of it. At the kitchen window. A white smudge, banging hard. Their father’s hand.

  “Look!” she screamed. “Look! He’s up there!”

  They looked around. The fire engine hadn’t arrived yet. There was nothing else for it.

  “Have you still got the keys?” yelled Lizzie, rushing to the door.

  “Oh God,” said Penny again. “Well, yes. I like to look at them sometimes. Not for sentimental reasons or anything.”

  “Quick, then,” said Lizzie. Penny would rather have waited for the fire engines, but couldn’t help being impressed by Lizzie’s all-action stance.

  Even from outside the front door they could feel the oppressive heat; cautiously they went in.

  “We’ve got to put something over our mouths,” said Lizzie as they inched upward holding the banister, which felt warm to the touch.

  “Why?” said Penny, who was trembling with adrenaline.

  “I don’t know, do I? Saw it in a bloody film.”

  With no small heartbreak, knowing this was likely to be the last of her nice dresses for quite some time, Penny pulled at the neckline of the antique frock until most of the top came away, and tore the paper-thin material in two.

  “Here you go.”

  “Thanks. We’re meant to wet it or something.”

  They were outside the door to their flat now. Although the big thick door was holding the flames back, they immediately had a sense of the terrifying force of the heat that was behind it.

  “Oh God,” said Lizzie. “Oh God, Oh God.”

  “Are you sure you saw him?” said Penny. “Why hasn’t he broken the window?”

  “I don’t know, do I? OK. We should probably push open the door, then run backward.”

  “I like the running backward.”

  “In case the flames jump out or something. Why did I spend the whole of Backdraft thinking about William Baldwin naked?”

  Penny shrugged. “I dunno, I spent it snogging Fingall McStankie because he had a motorbike.”

  “OK,” said Lizzie, fitting the key in the lock. “One, two, three . . .” She turned the lock and they both pushed the door, then jumped back into the stairwell. Immediately the flames burst out with a roar.

  “Shit,” said Penny. There was a sound of sirens, but it was very far away in the distance. Now they could hear, “Help! Help!” very faintly from inside.

  “Bollocks,” said Lizzie. She peered in. Everywhere in the huge apartment, crap was burning: timetables, newspapers. and macramé. The entire place had always been a fire hazard waiting to happen.

  “OK,” she said to Penny.

  Penny looked at her. “We’re going in, aren’t we?” she said, her teeth chattering.

  “We have to,” said Lizzie. “Unless, you know, you still want to kill him and everything?”

  Penny, the choking smoke already getting to her eyes, shook her head.

  “OK,” said Lizzie. “Down low. He’s by the kitchen window. We’ll take an arm each.”

  Penny nodded.

  “Shall we do it on three again?”

  “Yup.”

  They looked into the burning apartment.

  “OK,” said Lizzie.

  “I just want to say . . .” Penny started.

  Lizzie looked at
her. “Don’t be stupid. One . . .” said Lizzie.

  “I know,” said Penny. “But I love you.”

  “I love you, too, you idiot. OK. Two . . . THREE.”

  They burst into the flat on all fours. Lizzie half shut her eyes and relied on her memory to locate the sink, Penny followed on her heels.

  “Dad!” shouted Lizzie. “Dad!”

  “I’m over here,” came the voice, followed by a lot of coughing and choking. Peering upward Lizzie saw him. The kitchen cabinets had caught now, and he was crouching down, underneath the sink. The tap was running, and he’d drenched himself and the ground around him.

  “I’m burned!” he shouted.

  “Follow us!” said Lizzie.

  “I can’t move,” he said. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “Of course you can,” said Lizzie, looking around worriedly. There came a roar from the far side of the room as the old dusty curtains went up.

  “I can’t,” said Stephen. “I’m not brave like you two.”

  “Yes, you are,” said Lizzie, starting to panic. If he didn’t move, they’d all get stuck here and they’d all die.

  “I can’t!”

  “Please!”

  As Lizzie shouted, choking on the smoke, she realized that this was something she’d been screaming to her dad since the day he left, and great heaving sobs threatened to overtake her in the burning room.

  “I can’t,” Stephen repeated.

  Penny scrabbled up next to Lizzie, giving her a push on the knee.

  “Of course you can,” said Penny. “You’re just a complete old prick. Come on. We have to go. We really have to go,” she said, as the smaller panes of glass on the windows started to shatter. She linked her arm under his and Lizzie grabbed the other one, and in a strange, crab-like maneuver, they scrabbled their way out to the door, chests heaving with the effort.

  They cascaded directly into Georges and Will, who’d just reached the top of the stairs.

  “Lizzie!” screeched Georges.

  “Penny!” yelled Will, as Penny went crashing straight into him. Unbalanced, all five of them collapsed down the stairwell. They rolled over, cushioning each other, until they landed with a bump outside Brooke and Minty’s door, where Brooke and Minty had formed a human chain with willing bankers from the gallery and were passing out a line of expensive shoeboxes.

  Penny disentangled herself and leapt to her feet, the adrenaline causing her to ignore the bumps and bruises all over her body, and screamed to be heard over the deafening sirens.

  “Is it just me, or is this building on fire!” she hollered. “Get out of here.”

  Minty looked at her. “You know water damage is the worst, don’t you?”

  As if on cue, the sirens ceased, and the first, huge, tumbling deluge of water came piling through the windows, dripping down on top of their heads.

  “Out! Everyone out!” bellowed Georges, and those who could, ran, and those who couldn’t were helped out of the building and onto the street below, which was now filled with rubberneckers and hundreds of hunky-looking firemen. Minty’s face brightened immediately.

  Lizzie couldn’t quite piece together what happened next. She had a vague impression of her dad being whisked to hospital, of lots of people talking to her—but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Or, they were saying something, but she didn’t understand what they were talking about, or what language it was in. She had no idea how much time had passed, as the water was trained on the building, which took on the appearance of a bedraggled and ruined wedding cake left out in the rain. It wasn’t falling down, though. The firemen were smiling, and kept giving her thumbs-up, so she guessed that maybe it wasn’t going to burn down to the ground. In fact, there weren’t even any flames anymore. A friendly policeman gave her a cup of tea, and a neighbor came up with a small tot of brandy and a foil blanket to go around her shoulders.

  “There, there,” they seemed to be saying, but their voices didn’t quite match their words. Suddenly she noticed Georges was kneeling beside her, holding her hand, which seemed nice enough, so she didn’t move a muscle, just watched Penny and Will, who seemed to be silently yelling at one another.

  “I’m not yelling,” said Penny, who was still coasting on adrenaline and felt massively, hugely invigorated by what had just happened.

  “That’s good,” said Will. “Could you whisper with a little less volume, then? And really, please, will you sit down, have a drink of something.”

  “No,” said Penny. “And I don’t want a silver blanket either, thank you.”

  “It’s very you,” opined someone from the crowd.

  “And your bra is showing,” said Will. Penny remembered she’d had to rip up her dress, and accepted the blanket—and, while she was at it, the brandy.

  “I just want to know . . . what were you doing lurking outside my house?”

  “I wasn’t lurking,” said Will. “I didn’t know you’d moved.”

  “So what were you doing? Stalking?”

  “No,” said Will. He looked around, then, from behind one of the trees, picked up his art materials.

  “Actually,” he said, “I was doing this. It was for you. To say sorry.”

  He pulled out the canvas. It showed a beautiful, exquisite watercolor of their building. Every elegant window, every curlicue of the builder’s art was there, every shade of the trees on the road. At the front door was a figure, small, but recognizable. With the blond hair and the combative stance, it was Penny, clearly, slipping out of the building and into the autumn light, a huge bunch of cornflowers in her arms. She wasn’t naked, or on a sinking ship. But it was beautiful.

  “I was going to give it to you. But not in a stalking kind of way. Just to say I was sorry. I knew you wanted to pose for me. Then I was going to be a very good, tortured-artist type and disappear forever, I promise.”

  “But, instead, you set my house on fire.”

  “No!” said Will, looking shocked. “That wasn’t me.”

  “Looks like a cigarette, love,” said a passing policeman. “Usually is. Did anyone in the house smoke?”

  “Uh, just a bit,” said Penny.

  “Just as well you two were here, eh?”

  “Do you know,” said Penny, “I think that’s the first time that would ever have occurred to him. Is he going to be OK?”

  “Should be,” said the ambulance man. “Bit of smoke inhalation, third-degree burn to the leg. Made a hell of a fuss. I’m a bit worried about your sister, though. I think she might be in shock.”

  Penny looked over to where Georges was kneeling on the ground, oblivious of the water cascading over his expensive trousers and shoes.

  “She’s in good hands,” she said.

  “Oh, my gawd,” Minty was saying. “Look at this painting! It’s our house! It’s fab. I want one! I’ll buy it with the insurance money! Quick, Brooke, hide those shoes! Insurance! Is that me, Will?”

  “No,” said Will.

  “Are you sure?” Minty’s bottom lip was pushed out in time-honored fashion.

  “I can do you one, if you like,” said Will. “With you in it.”

  “It’ll be very, very expensive, though,” said Penny.

  Will looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know. When I become your business manager.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Penny rolled her eyes. “Well, you may want to live in that garret forever, but I certainly don’t.”

  She watched him carefully, gauging his reaction.

  “Do you . . . uh, what do you mean?” said Will, trying to disguise the wobble in his voice.

  “Look,” said Penny. “There wasn’t any baby. It was a mistake. Not a trick, or blackmail, or a test. Just a mistake.”

  “I know,” said Will. “Lizzie told me.”

  Penny’s eyes went wide. “You knew? And you still didn’t bother coming to see me or anything?”

  “I thought it was too late,” s
aid Will. “Even though there wasn’t a baby, I’d still behaved so badly . . . You looked so angry at me at the damn restaurant.”

  “I was . . . I was confused,” said Penny. “Then you started yelling and . . .”

  Will was gazing at her. “Could you bear it?” he said. “Never being rich, I mean?”

  Penny stared at him, her heart in her throat.

  “You know, about twenty minutes ago,” she said, “I wasn’t entirely sure I was even going to be alive. So I don’t know how bothered I am really. As long as I’m with you, I mean.”

  “Are you sure, Penny? Are you sure?”

  Penny looked at Will’s gorgeous open, honest face and thought of the stupid ideas she was leaving behind, the scheming, and the jostling and maneuvering into position. Life could go up in a puff of smoke.

  “God, yes,” she said, and rushed into his arms, kissing him passionately, even though they both tasted of charcoal.

  Lizzie stirred. Someone was speaking to her, she could hear it now. It was a lovely voice, a kind, sweet, gentle voice, one she loved very much. Was it her mother? No, it was a man, definitely. She let it tinkle on, like a wandering stream, and felt herself come back into herself, back together. She remembered why she was here, and what had happened, and that everyone was all right, and that the person talking to her was—Georges.

  “. . . and so,” finished Georges, an intense look on his face. “After all that, that is why I am asking you, will you marry me?”

  Lizzie shook her head and blinked hard. “Sorry?” she said. Georges was kneeling on the wet road in front of her. “What did you just say?”

  “Ah, well, it was a long speech, you know, Lizzie. I do not think I can repeat it again. Especially, you know, now, with all this weight on my knees.”

  He looked at her face. “But for you, of course, I will repeat. To say, this: I do not love Maria-Elena. That was a mistake to please my family. Sometimes you cannot always please your parents, huh, Lizzie? Well, what would you know about this?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Lizzie. Her heart was going pitter-patter. Fortunately she could not see the dirt and soot covering her face. Even though he was facing her, and gazing deeply into her eyes, Georges couldn’t see it either.