by Fiona Gibson
‘Nearly here,’ Cam announces. ‘Next on the left, Mum …’
The narrow lane, which looks as if it doesn’t actually lead anywhere, takes us right to the front of Little Cambersham village hall.
Mum gazes out, seemingly not registering Hamish’s gleaming racing green Daimler parked on the weed- punctured gravel, or indeed her husband-to-be standing beside it, hands clasped behind his back. She unclips her seatbelt. ‘This can’t be it, surely? This shabby little place? Your phone must be wrong, Cameron.’
‘Phones are never wrong,’ he chuckles as we all climb out of the car and greet Hamish, who is dressed in his customarily formal attire of pale blue shirt, a tie with some kind of emblem on it, and beige slacks.
‘Hello, darling,’ he says, kissing Mum’s cheek.
‘Hello, sweetheart.’ She musters a weak smile.
‘This is exciting, isn’t it?’ he enthuses. ‘Well done, Lorrie, for sorting it out!’
‘Oh, it was nothing …’
Mum pulls a face as if trying to dislodge a morsel of food embedded in her back teeth. ‘Is this it?’
‘Yes, Marion – look.’ Hamish slips a kindly arm around her shoulders and indicates the peeling wooden sign which hangs between two rotting windows.
‘I think we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board,’ Mum mutters. ‘Are you sure there’s no chance of reopening that quarry, Haimie?’
‘Not in time for the wedding, no, darling.’ He smiles reassuringly and catches my eye.
The four of us step into the hall, where Walter Fadgett greets us amidst what appears to be quite a lively gathering. His face is almost entirely covered in abundant white beard, reminiscent of Captain Birdseye, and he grasps my hands warmly. ‘Hello, hello, welcome to our humble abode!’
‘Thank you,’ I say, sensing Mum bristling beside me. ‘Sorry we’re a bit late. Hope we’re not getting in the way …’
‘Not at all,’ he says jovially. ‘It’s just the Evergreen Club having a birthday gathering …’
‘The Evergreen Club?’ Mum exclaims, as if it were code for the Spanking Society. She narrows her eyes at the dozen or so rather boisterous elderly ladies who are all seated around a long trestle table strewn with the remains of sandwiches and cake. The room is filled with shrieks of laughter, and someone has just popped a cork on a bottle of champagne.
‘Yes, the place is well used,’ he explains. ‘It’s a real hub of the community. So, this, as you can see, is our main social area …’ He waves an arm grandly, and Mum’s lips seem to wither as she surveys the plainly decorated room. The walls are beige, the lighting of the fluorescent strip variety, and a large cork pinboard is covered in splodgy paintings created, a stuck-on note reveals, by the children of the Sunday School. Another note, taped to the door of a wall cupboard, warns, MUGS FOR MUMS AND TODDLERS GROUP ONLY.
‘Well, I think it’s very jolly, Marion,’ Hamish declares.
‘It’s great, Mum,’ I offer, willing her to agree. ‘Plenty of room for everyone …’
‘Let me show you around,’ Walter says, guiding us around the facilities – the tiny Formica kitchen, the bathroom with a single washbasin and cracked cistern, ‘but still in good working order,’ he adds proudly.
‘The loos aren’t up to much,’ Mum hisses as we make our way back into the main hall.
‘Mum, they’re fine. No one’s going to notice. It’s not as if they’ll expect Molton Brown toiletries …’
She turns to whisper something in Hamish’s rather hairy ear, and he frowns and squeezes her hand.
‘They’re having a perfectly lovely time,’ he murmurs, ‘and they’re not going to be here at our wedding, are they?’
The Evergreen ladies clink glasses. ‘Like to join us?’ calls out a woman with an immaculate helmet of lilac hair.
‘Thanks, but we’re just looking around,’ I reply pleasantly.
‘This lovely couple are having their wedding reception here,’ Walter announces with a note of pride.
‘How wonderful!’ the woman exclaims. ‘Sure you can’t manage a glass of champagne?’
‘No, really—’ I start.
‘Ooh, are you the husband-to-be?’ a lady in a loudly- patterned dress exclaims. ‘Look, Jessie – a toy boy. Maybe there’s hope for us yet!’ There’s a ripple of laughter as Mum scuttles towards the door.
‘Well,’ she mutters, stepping outside, ‘it might be fine for the Evergreen Club …’
‘Grandma, listen.’ Cam takes her arm. ‘It might look a bit … y’know. But I can sort the lighting. I do it all the time for gigs …’
‘This isn’t one of your gigs, Cameron …’
‘No, but I can borrow all the gear, make it more, uh, weddingy …’
‘You can do whatever you like,’ Walter says, having followed us out, ‘as long as it’s all cleared away afterwards, of course.’
‘We have to clear up after our own wedding?’ Mum turns to Hamish in alarm.
‘Me and the kids will take care of that,’ I say quickly.
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Hamish announces with uncustomary force. ‘We have a wonderful cleaner at Lovington Hall. She’ll see to everything. I think you’ve done marvellously, Lorrie, finding this place so quickly. Now we just have to let everyone know about the new venue.’ Before Mum can protest anymore, Hamish is murmuring that they really should go now, so I hand Mum her Karen Millen bag from my car. Mum is staying at Hamish’s cottage for a few days in a rather nondescript village a short drive away. The plan is that they’ll live there when they’re married. Although I worry about how Mum will handle living in the country, I can’t quite see Hamish in Mum’s 1960s East London maisonette.
Mum tilts her head and throws me a pitying look, then turns to Hamish. ‘Oh, I do wish Lorrie had someone to bring with her. My own daughter, coming to our wedding alone …’
Not this again …
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ Hamish says kindly. ‘Lorrie’s a very capable girl …’ Girl, God love him.
‘Are you sure Stu can’t make it?’ she asks, frowning.
‘Mum, he’ll be away in Venice at his sister’s fortieth, you know that. Just relax, okay? All that matters is that you and Hamish have a wonderful day.’
*
The atmosphere is lighter as Cam and I drive home. First the dress, and now the hall; everything seems to be coming together. And now I have a date to get ready for. My stomach swills with nerves and anticipation as we crawl back through the suburbs.
Antoine Rousseau is in London. And I’m meeting him in – Christ – two hours’ time. I let us into the empty house – Amy has been out holiday shopping again with Bella and Cecily, and I assume Stu is on deliveries.
‘I might stay over at Mo’s tonight,’ Cam remarks.
‘Okay, love. I’m out tonight too. Remember that French guy I met when I was sixteen?’
He nods, clearly not remembering; understandably, things I got up to as a teenager hold little interest for my kids.
‘I’m meeting him for a drink in Covent Garden,’ I add, at which he chuckles.
‘Don’t get offended if he says you like cake,’ is his parting shot as he hurries out of the door.
I snigger and head upstairs where I undress quickly, flinging my clothes onto my bed and glimpsing my ‘generous’, unexercised body in the dressing table mirror. Should I force myself back to the gym at some point? In the normal scheme of things, I don’t dwell on how my body might be ‘improved’, preferring to focus instead on the superficial (hurrah for make-up!). However, in the aftermath of spending time with Mum, I tend to view myself through her eyes, as someone who really should acquaint herself with a stairmaster – if such instruments of torture still exist – which reminds me that I am in fact ravenous, having not eaten since breakfast.
I text Antoine: Should I eat first or shall we have dinner?
Let’s have dinner, he replies. I’ll reserve a table at the hotel if that’s okay. Do y
ou have any dietary restrictions?
I smile at his query and tap out a reply: No, I eat everything. A knot of anxiety tightens in my chest. Now I sound like a heifer.
Under the hot blast of the shower, I rake at my legs and underarms with a razor in the manner of scraping ice off a windscreen – not that he’ll see, but that’s not the point. I dry off and, still wrapped in a towel, I stare at the dresses hanging in my wardrobe. There aren’t many, but still, after expressing an opinion on dress after dress with Mum, I am incapable of making a decision. All I know is that the pink one I bought today is, whilst lovely, far too posh for a casual drink.
As I try on a selection, I discover that a couple are, depressingly, too tight around the middle. The black-and-white spotty frock I wore on my Ralph date – which does fit – evokes unsettling memories, and my simple red shift looks far too ‘ta-daaahhh, I’m so excited to be seeing you!’ So, jeans it is, with a stripy top; hell, I hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to look French. Since when did it become the law that all middle-aged women must dress like Breton fishermen?
I curl my lashes and apply my make-up, aiming for a natural look to show that tonight isn’t a big deal at all: just a touch of primer, base, concealer, three shades of eyeshadow, eyeliner, brow pencil, blusher and ample mascara, plus La Beauté’s famous all-day lipstick which, I realise now, is actually quite a lot of make-up, and I really do look terribly-excited-to-see-you-Antoine, entirely by accident. Still, no time to tone it down now, and at least I’ve managed to hold back from dabbing on some glittery highlighter on my brow bones. I gather up my make-up and stuff it into its pouch, cramming it into my shoulder bag as I scamper downstairs.
The front door opens and Stu walks in. ‘Hey, you look good! Where are you off to?’
‘I’m meeting Antoine, remember?’
His brows shoot up. ‘Oh, God, yeah! It’s the big night. I’d forgotten.’ He pulls off his helmet and tries, unsuccessfully, to un-flatten his hair with his hand.
I frown. ‘Not too much, is it? The make-up, I mean?’
‘Not at all. You look amazing. Really lovely. So, um … how did it go with your mum?’
‘Really well,’ I say, tugging on my jacket. ‘We found her a dress and bullied her into giving her seal of approval on the village hall …’
‘Get you, pulling it all together …’
I laugh stiffly. There’s a sort of forced jollity between us, and now I’m aware of Stu giving me a curious look. ‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘Nothing. So, um, I hope you have a good night …’
‘Thanks.’ I peer at him, trying to read his guarded expression. ‘I’m quite nervous actually.’
‘What is there to be nervous about?’
I throw him a baffled look. ‘What he’ll think, obviously …’
He shrugs. ‘What d’you think he’ll think? “Wow, Lorrie Foster’s grown up into a beautiful woman!”’
I reach for his hand and squeeze it. ‘Thanks. You’re making me feel so much better.’
He shrugs. ‘Anyway, he knows what you’re like now, doesn’t he? Don’t tell me he hasn’t pored over your Facebook photos …’
‘Well, yes, I suppose he might have.’
‘He will have,’ Stu says firmly.
I smile at the thought of Antoine scrolling through my pictures, the way I have with his. ‘Oh, I know I’m being silly. It’s just a drink, no big deal at all. And at least I don’t have those awful yellow highlights anymore …’
‘You looked cute with those yellow highlights,’ Stu calls after me as I step out into the night.
*
And that’s what I tell myself as I stride, already running late, towards the tube station: that our teenage thing was no big deal, and that Antoine Rousseau was merely a brief amusement sent to rescue me from spending my entire trip scribbling down the words to pop songs. He saved me from bottom-of-the-barrel lyric transcribing, that’s all.
On the tube, I pull my compact mirror from my make-up bag and check my face. I brush my hair and powder my nose like an elderly lady might, and touch up my red lipstick. As long as it doesn’t involve spraying clouds of perfume, or sawing at toenails or plucking hairs from the chin, I have no problem with engaging in beautification on public transport. In fact, I think there’s something quite elegant about seeing a woman fixing her face in a cafe or on a train. Tonight, though, the make-up isn’t working. I am emitting an aura of abject terror; if my face were an exhibit in a gallery, it would be called something like ‘urban decay’.
I snap my compact shut and plunge it back into my bag, conscious of hotness radiating from my face throughout the carriage. I’d assumed it was a gradual thing, this age-related dwindling of oestrogen, but it seems to rear up in waves and right now I am in the throes of a full-on perimenopausal sweat. I snatch a crumpled copy of Metro from the next seat and flick through it. An entire page is filled with photos of ‘beach-ready’ bikini-clad celebrities. I discard the paper and try to soothe myself with non-Antoine-related thoughts, such as: my successful day out with Mum and Cam, and how lovely it’ll be to see Mum and Hamish get married – as long as she goes easy on the booze and lets me just get on with doing her make-up instead of hectoring me (‘is a bit more bronzer too much to ask?’). Then, as I try to dredge up more soothing thoughts, I somehow spin backwards in time to a hot July day in ’86, the day Valérie had been snide about me using ‘her’ shampoo and called me ‘ma grosse’ with a smirk as if we were genuine friends and this was her pet name for me: ‘Fatty.’
That’s what I was like at sixteen: forever worrying about how others viewed me. My own daughter breezes through a life filled with friends and sporting successes. She thinks of her body in terms of strength and speed – of what it can do – rather than a perpetual source of humiliation. I wouldn’t be feeling like this if I was the kind of woman who strides into Karen Millen and thinks, ‘Ooh, gorgeous, sexy clothes!’ rather than, ‘Bra issues.’
The evening is warm and muggy as I emerge from Covent Garden tube station, the pavements thronging with people all heading out for the evening. I speed-walk down Long Acre, turn left into a narrow street and spot the hotel. It’s a discreet boutique affair in stark contrast to the bland, faceless place where Dennis Clatterbrock ranted on about his tomato fertilisers. The hotel’s name gleams in gold above the doorway. I stop outside and peer in, realising I am still boiling hot. I pull off my jacket but the prospect of carrying it elegantly – tossed nonchalantly over my shoulder, or bundled under one arm like a tantrumming toddler? – seems far too tricky a prospect so I shrug it back on.
A group of guests emerge from the hotel, all chatting and looking happy about the night ahead. I step into the wood-panelled foyer. The polished floors are strewn with faded rugs, and antique tapestries hang on the walls; everything is ageing perfectly. I glimpse my reflection in a tarnished gilt-framed mirror and see myself as a rather tired-looking woman of forty-six, whose last date resulted in listening to a man masturbating while I bought fabric conditioner in a supermarket. It’s just not how I’d imagined my adult life would pan out.
I pause, trying to steady myself as I eye the entrance to the bar. And there he is, sitting waiting for me in a stripy armchair in the far corner. Antoine Rousseau, so handsome with his dark eyes and chiselled features, my breath catches in my throat. He’s just as I remember him; older, of course, but all the lovelier for it. He hasn’t spotted me yet. It’s just a drink, I tell myself. He just happened to be coming to London on business and, in an idle moment, thought, ‘Why not?’ He had a quick search on Facebook and there I was.
He turns and sees me and stands up: not the boy of eighteen just back from le camping, but a man – a tall and utterly gorgeous man, more striking than his gangly teenage self, with a smile that sends me spinning back to that summer.
The summer I came alive too.
He strides towards me. ‘Lorrie! It’s good to see you!’ He hugs me and kisses my cheeks.
‘Hello, Antoine,’ I say over my clattering heart. I smile awkwardly and try to smooth down my hair.
He steps back and surveys my face as if he can’t believe I’m standing there. ‘Lorrie Foster, after all these years. And don’t you look beautiful? You really haven’t changed at all.’
Chapter Twenty
I laugh because I don’t know what else to do. ‘Thank you,’ I manage, ‘but I’m sure that’s not true. Still, at least no mullet these days!’
‘Mullet?’
‘Oh, erm, that hairstyle, you know – long at the back, bit spiky on top like a pineapple.’ He blinks at me. ‘George Michael, Duran Duran, Kajagoogoo …’ Hell what am I on about?
‘Kajagoogoo?’ Antoine looks baffled.
‘Eighties band. I probably wrote out the lyrics to some of their songs …’
He breaks into a smile at the recollection. ‘I remember that. All that writing! Poor girl, I thought. I’ll have to take her away from all of this.’ He touches my arm and a spark shoots through me. ‘Shall we sit down?’
‘Yes, of course …’ Ohh, that accent, I reflect as we make our way to the two velvety armchairs at the small table in the corner of the bar. The lighting is flatteringly dim, the room filled with the hubbub of chatter and laughter and unobtrusive jazz. An aproned waiter strides over.
‘A white wine, please,’ I say.
‘Sancerre?’ he suggests.
‘Oh, yes. That would be lovely.’
‘A glass of Merlot for me,’ Antoine says, then turns to me. ‘So, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it has. I couldn’t believe it when you popped up on Facebook …’
‘Well, I came across those old pictures of us and decided to take a look. You weren’t hard to find. There were a few Lorrie Fosters, and I knew you might be married and no longer a Foster at all … have you been married?’