The Valentine's Card

by Juliet Ashton

  Chapter Ten

  ‘That’s a unique problem. I don’t know what to say. And I always know what to say.’

  ‘I can vouch for that, Ju. Remember that flasher by the swings? You said to him—’

  ‘I won’t scream because I don’t want to make a fuss over nothing. I have fond memories of him and his little purple Hoover attachment.’

  ‘I don’t want a unique problem. I want nice obvious problems. But there’s no agony aunt in the world who’s had a letter that starts, Please help me. There is a twenty foot high picture of my dead not-quite-fiancé staring in at my window.’

  ‘Ha! We shouldn’t laugh.’

  ‘Yes, we should. Please let’s laugh.’

  ‘Tell me about college.’

  ‘It’s good. Great, really. I have a lovely Russian girl and a fabbo African girl, Abena, who I’m just in love with. I have no idea why the Japanese guy is in my class. He speaks better English than what I do.’

  ‘Teach him to say feck and eejit. God, Orla, if Sim was alive, I’d kill him.’

  ‘I was so glad,’ said Orla, interrupting herself to kiss Reece on the cheek, ‘to get your text. It’s been a horrible morning. You’re just what the doctor would order if he had any sense.’ She settled into a plush Regency-style chair; stained and frayed, it seemed faintly surprised to find itself furnishing a tatty wine bar in Hammersmith. ‘But what brings you to this neck of the woods? I thought you could only breathe the rarefied air of Belgravia or Soho or … ooh, my knowledge of posh London has let me down.’

  ‘Meeting. Money men. Just up the road in a re-purposed brewery.’ Reece, his overcoat a tribute to the worsening weather, pushed a bowl of nuts towards her. ‘Tell me about this horrible day, then.’

  ‘Abena, she’s one of my students, from Ghana, is having problems with her visa. I’ve been on the phone to various bastards who don’t give a you-know-what, and I’m speeding on the adrenaline.’ She crossed her fingers. ‘Abena is not going home. Not while I’m here. I’ll lie down in front of the aeroplane if I have to.’

  ‘Arguing with officialdom has brought colour to your cheeks.’

  Orla smiled, blushed. Was he flirting? She peeked at him over her glass. No, he wasn’t. He was being gallant. He was being protective to his dead friend’s almost-fiancé. She was relieved: she liked Reece in that role.

  ‘Ooh, for me?’ She took the stiff, creamy envelope he proffered.

  ‘For you and a plus one. It’s an invite to the Reece Dodds Artists annual party.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Orla read the invitation, felt the bumpy embossing of the logo, savoured the quality, went cold with dread. ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘No excuses accepted. It’s the end of October, three weeks away, so plenty of time to get used to the idea. It’s always enormous fun, if I do say so myself. All my clients, the great and the good, will be there. Sim fell in the pool last year.’

  ‘He rang me when he got home, blind drunk, hooting. He’d wanted me to fly over for it.’ A poignant tune reprised; something else she’d do too late to please him. ‘Yes, of course I’ll come.’

  ‘Good.’ Reece’s shoulders dropped. ‘Mission accomplished.’

  ‘Is it dressy?’

  ‘Yes, country mouse, it’s dressy.’ Reece was amused. ‘It’s posh, as you would say. My place in Sussex. Flunkeys everywhere. Teddibly teddibly lovely little nibbles to eat. Champagne flowing like, well, champagne. And when you finally collapse I put you up at the hotel up the road.’

  ‘I’d better buy something new to wear.’

  ‘You’d look lovely in a sack, but yes, do buy something new and wear your highest heels. And use your plus one. Why not?’ Reece rebelled at the face she pulled. ‘Sim would want you to.’

  ‘Not you too.’ Orla shook her head. ‘Everybody says Sim would want you to be happy. Ma. Maude. Even Juno, my mate. But you and I know better. He’d rather I jump in the grave after him, sobbing and rending my garments. He’d like me in a black veil and matching chastity belt for the rest of my life.’

  Early on in their relationship, Orla had detailed her few love affairs; the non-starter, the stately plodder, the out of character but kind of nice one-night stand in Ibiza – her entire love life dealt with in half an hour. I was waiting for you, she’d said. How he’d loved that.

  She’d never found the right moment to ask about Sim’s past and now he was gone, her imagination filled in the gaps, peopling his past with lithe-limbed actresses, older women, slutty fans, friends’ sisters, foreign exchange students, cheeky-eyed waitresses, bendy teenagers, every female in his year at drama school plus his mother’s friends.

  ‘If Sim had his way I’d be in a convent.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’ Reece spread his hands, palm up, as if she were a lost cause.

  ‘I’ll fly solo.’

  ‘In that case, here’s a thought.’ Reece leaned in, thighs wide, leaning towards her over the low table. ‘Bring the valentine.’

  ‘As my plus one?’

  ‘No,’ said Reece with mock patience. ‘Bring it and we’ll … deal with it.’

  ‘Read it?’

  ‘We could do that. Read it together.’

  ‘Well …’ That felt exposing. Orla squirmed.

  ‘It might be cleansing. You needn’t show it to me but I could be there to support you while you read it, and then we get back to the party, have another glass of shampoo, maybe push each other in the pool.’

  Such flippancy. The valentine was precious, not a boil to be lanced.

  ‘Or,’ Reece clattered on, ‘we could burn it. Ritually. Let the ashes float into the sky. Take some of your sadness with them.’

  ‘Will Anthea be there?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Reece frowned. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘No. Why would it be?’ Orla frowned back.

  ‘No reason, just the way you asked.’

  ‘To be honest, I was trying to steer you away from the card, Reece. I don’t need another lecture.’

  ‘But you do. You obviously do. Because you’re a woman in the prime of her life whose primary relationship is with a pink envelope.’

  ‘Were you this bolshy with Sim?’

  ‘At all times.’

  They both grinned. There was a sibling aspect to her relationship with Reece that was missing from Orla’s relationship with her actual brothers. They were alike, Orla and Reece, on some level; they got each other. She understood why he found her devotion to the valentine unsettling and why he periodically tried to cure her of it. Flattered that he found time and energy to care, she was gentle with her rebuttal.

  ‘I’ll work through it in my own way and shush!’ She leaned over, placed a finger on his lips. ‘I won’t necessarily read it. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, that card is Sim. So indulge me.’

  The movie was famously complex. When Orla slid the disc into the DVD player she’d thought she was in the mood for time shifts and dystopian futures but half an hour in and she wished she’d opted for something starring Jennifer Aniston and an animal.

  On the adjacent armchair, Maude had given up all pretence of following the plot and was emitting dainty snores, her eye-lids shut and fluttering slightly as she dreamed old lady dreams.

  Turning off the television, Orla fast-forwarded to Reece’s party. She’d agreed to go, she was going, but the scene playing out in her head was terrifying: a glittering do worthy of Jay Gatsby, every bejewelled guest beautiful, coiffed and sneering at the newcomer with no conversation and a high-street frock.

  With Sim, parties had been easy. That lighthouse charm of his drew people to him, while she’d stayed slightly behind, clasping his hand, feeling cool and safe in his shadow.

  Mundane girliness of the sort that manifests as yabbering about hair and nails and Brazilians bored Orla, yet she was presently hostage to a shrill voice that squealed at her daily. It said, What’ll I wear? She missed Juno keenly: her friend had an eye for what worked, and could gently steer Orla aw
ay from the sudden enthusiasms that assailed her in Top Shop.

  She thought that if she knew Anthea better, she could call her up and ask her advice. It would give the actress an opportunity to overcome her awkwardness about Sim’s death. Orla glanced at the curtains that shut out Sim’s coquettish smile. She stood and pulled them apart, unable to wreak even this petty disloyalty. ‘Why can’t you be my plus one?’ she asked him, and promptly tumbled down a rabbit hole of memory.

  He would always pick up on the third ring.

  Orla’s own voice, sugary with sleep. ‘Ah, sweetie, there you are at last!’ After several unanswered calls, this one from deep beneath her duvet would have been her last attempt before giving in to sleep.

  ‘Yup.’ Sim was tired, and taut. ‘Here I am.’ There’d been an abrupt noise, like a door banging shut.

  ‘You just getting in?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Laughably wide of the mark, she’d imagined his London flat all teal and taupe, with lacquered surfaces and the purr of central heating. ‘Are you worn out, poor thing?’

  ‘Very.’ A strained grunt told Orla he was tugging off his shoes. Trainers, probably.

  ‘Put your dressing gown on. That’s why I bought it. So you’d be cosy when you were tired and far from home.’

  A loud yawn, like a lion after a three-course meal, had forced Orla to hold the mobile away from her ear. ‘You are tired!’

  ‘Sorry, Fairy. You calling to say goodnight? Too knackered for cybersex tonight, naughty knickers.’

  ‘Darn it. Never mind.’

  ‘Nothing to eat in this bloody kitchen,’ grumbled Sim over the thud thud thud of cupboard doors opening and slamming.

  ‘It’s too late to get in,’ sympathised Orla, switching off her bedside light, relishing his voice in the dark. ‘How come they kept you so late?’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. No no no.’

  Confused, Orla assumed Sim was talking to somebody else. But no, he was addressing her and his voice didn’t sound tired any more.

  ‘Don’t start, Orla.’

  ‘Eh?’ She laughed uncertainly. She could tell he was serious. ‘Start what?’ She wasn’t riled. She was too puzzled to be riled.

  ‘I know that tone. How come they kept you so late?’ His impersonation was high pitched.

  ‘I don’t sound like that.’ Orla clung on to her good humour. ‘Look, sweetheart, you’re worn out. Let’s say goodnight and—’

  ‘No way.’ Sim was fired up, as if they were already deep in a bitter altercation. ‘We sort this out here and now.’

  ‘Sort what out?’ All ambrosial snooziness dissolved, Orla sat up.

  ‘You know how long I’ve worked for this, waited for it. This is my big break.’

  ‘Yes. Absolutely. We agree. So far so good. Now could you tell me what the feck we’re arguing about?’

  ‘We’re arguing about the fact that I do not need to hear that bloody tone in your voice.’

  They were getting somewhere. Kind of.

  ‘What tone?’ Orla switched the lamp back on; this was shaping up to be a long one.

  ‘You know.’ Sim was rudely impatient. ‘The sarcastic one. Suspicious. Like you’re laying traps to catch me out.’

  ‘There was no tone. I asked why you were late. I was being sympathetic.’ Orla slapped the bedclothes for emphasis.

  ‘I know you better than that. I haven’t forgotten the face you pulled when I told you who was playing the female lead.’

  Opening her mouth to protest, Orla clamped it shut again. He was right about that. She turned her horse and trotted down from the moral high ground. ‘Well, in my defence, Anthea whatsername has a bit of a reputation. And it was just a face. It was a joke, really. Remember jokes?’

  ‘I bet you skimmed the script to see if I had a sex scene with her.’

  Orla’s conscience – diligent, puritanical little pest that it was – wouldn’t let her say Ha! That’s where you’re wrong!

  ‘Most women would do that.’

  ‘I don’t go out with most women.’

  There was a pause. Orla willed herself to hold back, not to share with him how hard it was to read stage directions for her boyfriend and a famous femme fatale to lie naked together on a fur rug.

  The heat had burned itself out when Sim spoke again. ‘I’m pining, Orla,’ he said. ‘I’m far from home. And I miss my fairy.’ He sighed. There was a squeak as he sank on to the bed. ‘Plus I’m a prat, which doesn’t help.’

  ‘I’m pining too.’ Orla welcomed the ceasefire. ‘So much. But while we’re on the subject …’ Time to risk a joke? ‘Why were you so late, you filthy philanderer?’

  Sim laughed wearily.

  ‘Seriously, though, O, I have picked up on something when you ask about Ant. As if you suspect something’s going on.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Orla was vehement: this was not a fair cop. ‘I know how bad you are, and I know how bad you aren’t. I have nothing to fear from Anthea.’

  ‘We have to nip this in the bud.’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘But I told you—’

  ‘No. Hear me out. When I make the leap to movies, and that’s soon now, I’ll be acting alongside world-famous sexy women. It comes with the territory. We can’t have this kind of row every time I get my kecks off on camera.’

  Useless now to point out that ‘this kind of row’ was entirely of his own making.

  ‘Orla, you’re either with me or against me.’

  ‘Can you hear yourself? You’re an actor, not a rebel leader rallying the troops.’ The silence scared her. ‘Say something!’ she bleated eventually.

  ‘Are we cool? Can I get on with my job without worrying about you?’

  This was, apparently, all about her. Orla swallowed. This dish could be served later, cold.

  ‘We’re cool, darling.’

  The dish was never served.

  Some west London wag had drawn a moustache under Sim’s nose.

  Chapter Eleven

  Orla took in Bogna’s laddered black tights and denim short-shorts.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bogna looked down at her legs, turned an ankle. ‘But is worth it to be gorgeous.’

  Bogna was gorgeous, in a hard-edged, flick-knife way that found expression in her Doc Martens and her eyeliner. ‘We need women like you,’ Orla told the sullen teen, ‘to balance out the WAGs.’

  ‘What’s a WAG?’ Maude looked up from where she knelt by the cookery corner.

  Bogna explained. ‘Silicone boobies, hair extensions, stripper shoes and rich boyfriend.’

  ‘I believe my learned friend has covered the basics,’ said Orla.

  ‘Sounds ghastly,’ said Maude with feeling, pressing a hand on one wobbling knee to raise herself.

  Putting down her book, Orla rushed to Maude’s side but was beaten to it by Bogna, who helped her to her feet.

  ‘Thank you, dear.’ Maude smiled sweetly at her newest, most unlikely slave. ‘Gather up that pile of food titles, will you? Arrange them in the window. You’re so good at that. Try and tempt all the huddled masses hurrying by in this horrid rainstorm to come in and plan a hearty meal for their poor little selves.’ She turned to Orla. ‘How’s Abena? Any progress with her visa woes?’

  Typical of her to remember the name. ‘Not really. The UK Border Agency is slow, and the process is very complicated. She’s working so hard in my class, not knowing if she’ll still be here at Christmas. I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘Do.’ Maude put a hand on Orla’s arm for a moment, then was off again, rearranging, titivating, stroking a book here and there as if they were pets.

  ‘Bogna,’ asked Orla tentatively as Bogna slammed down a Delia. ‘Is bright blue still “in”?’

  ‘In?’ Bogna sounded contemptuous.

  Oh Jaysus, I don’t even know the trendy word for ‘trendy’.

  ‘I mean, um, fashionable?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Now Bogna sounded amused, which was far wors
e than contemptuous.

  ‘I’m going to a party and I need a new dress and that electric blue colour was all over the place a while ago and so …’

  ‘Black,’ said Bogna emphatically. ‘Black. Short. Big hair.’ She shrugged. ‘Always.’

  ‘Hmm.’ There would no doubt be plenty of black at the party, much of it Armani. ‘Maude …’

  ‘Yes?’ Maude gave her her full attention, face angled like a flower leaning towards the sun.

  ‘Would you pop round the corner with me later?’

  ‘Why?’ Maude looked suspicious; the flower drooped a little.

  ‘To check out a blue dress in a shop that I pass on the way to the tube. It’s sort of like this,’ Orla drew a line across her pectorals, ‘and down to here.’ She tapped her thigh above her knee. ‘I want to try it on, but there’s nobody I can trust for an opinion.’

  ‘I’m ancient, dear. My opinion is no use to you.’ Maude pressed a button on the till and a drawer shot out. She peered into it, and sighed.

  ‘You’re not ancient, you’re ageless. And you have style.’

  The elders in Tobercree favoured manmade fabrics and elasticated waists but there was something poetic about Maude’s outfits.

  ‘I’m not the right person to ask. Bogna will help.’

  ‘I don’t have time,’ said Bogna hurriedly, positioning a wooden spoon in the window display.

  ‘I don’t have anybody else to ask,’ said Orla. In a world where even the village idiot has a hundred Facebook friends, this felt a shameful thing to admit. ‘It’s two minutes’ walk, tops.’ She shadowed Maude as she crossed the shop. ‘Please?’

  ‘No!’ Maude wheeled and they almost bumped noses. ‘If you like the dress, buy it. If you don’t, don’t.’ Speeding towards the back room, she threw a belated ‘dear’ over her shoulder, too late to soften the impact of her tone.

  ‘Who blew raspberry up her fanny?’ asked Bogna.

  ‘Bogna, that’s not a real expression.’

  ‘Is now,’ said Bogna.

  ‘It is now.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Today should be my turn to have raspberry up my fanny, thought Orla, borrowing Bogna’s sulkiness. Nobody had grasped the significance of the date.