by Fiona Walker
Legs looked at her reflection again, the dress totally unsuited to her, its corset now so tightly laced that her waist was freakishly pinched above the farthingale and her face was turning red. She looked like a wild poppy drooping in a square jewelled vase.
Yet there was something about wearing a wedding dress that suspended her customary sardonic streak and forced a wellspring of sentiment through her protective shield. Just for a moment she let herself imagine the past year had not happened and that she was getting married after all. The thought made her giddy.
‘I was the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life when I wore this dress.’ Ros had tears in her eyes. ‘It makes you feel ethereal, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s not too late to change your mind about it, you know,’ Legs said kindly, reminding herself that any ethereal, giddy feelings were due to lack of oxygen. She was growing increasingly light-headed because she couldn’t breathe properly.
‘Nonsense! The photographer is waiting and we must press on. I’m needed at the abbey to help arrange the altar flowers. What are you going to do about your hair?’
‘What’s wrong with it?
‘You can’t leave it like that.’ Ros reached into a drawer of her dressing table. ‘It’s hanging all over the ruff – here!’ She scraped her sister’s uncombed blonde hair into a topknot and anchored it so tightly with a jewelled scrunchy that Legs winced at the impromptu Essex facelift. ‘Much better. You can go into the garden for pictures I think. You’ll have to bend your knees so those flip-flops don’t show.’ She turned to march from the room, calling ‘Nicholas! Nicholas! We’re ready for you!’
Lagging behind and still fighting for breath, Legs picked up her new mobile phone to check whether Conrad had texted yet to say whether he’d make it. He hadn’t. Gordon Lapis, meanwhile, had sent several emails very early that morning, complaining about the Portuguese translation of Emerald Falcon and asking her what Julie Ocean’s typical breakfast routine might be.
When Conrad had insisted that the company fund the newest, whizziest iPhone for his PA – quite unprecedented at Fellows Howlett, where one got to take home an office laptop about as often as a school guinea pig and at least one director had yet to go digital at all – Legs had excitedly assumed this meant that he wanted a hotline to her at all times. She now realised that he just wanted to get the agency’s most awkward author, Gordon Lapis, off his back and onto hers.
She tucked it into her sleeve and followed her sister along the landing.
Predictably, there was no answer from the room at the far end of the corridor covered with ‘keep out’ signs.
Ros knocked hard. ‘Nicholas!’ She always pronounced the last two syllables of her son’s name ‘alas’, as though he was something to regret. He’d recently announced that he would answer only to ‘Nico’, a fact his mother chose to completely ignore.
‘I need you to come and take photos of Legs in the garden,’ she insisted.
At the mention of his aunt’s name, Nico unlocked his door and peered out, only one suspicious green eye visible behind a small chink in the heavy brown fringe. Then he reached up to sweep his locks aside and gape at the Ditchley replica.
‘Wow. That’s badass. Is that fancy dress?’
Legs laughed, which was a mistake as her boobs burst up through the lace neckline again, like two lifebuoys bobbing over a wave.
Ros gave the ten-year-old a withering look and gritted her teeth. ‘This is the dress in which I married your father, Nicholas. Aunt Legs is modelling it so we can put it on eBay because the bridegroom now pays a pittance in alimony and I can’t afford your schooling without selling things.’
‘I’m on a full scholarship,’ Nico pointed out flatly, eyes glazing over as they always did when his mother started bad-mouthing his father in front of him.
‘That takes no account for all the extras.’ She waved her hand dismissively and started marching towards the head of the stairs. ‘Now I’ll leave you two at it because I’m already late. Nicholas, you’re needed for choir at ten-thirty; the ceremony’s at quarter to eleven. Jamie’s mother will call for you when they walk past. Be sure to wash your hands.’ She marched off, face set hard as it so often was when she spoke about Will, more so today because of the shock of seeing her wedding dress and remembering the hopes and joy that had surrounded the happiest day of her life.
Nico stood in his doorway watching her retreat, his father’s big fawn eyes blinking from his face, accustomed to his mother’s spikiness, that abrupt, no-nonsense tone she used at all times, and at stressful times most of all. Then he eyed his aunt again.
‘That really is some frock.’
‘You’ve never seen it?’
‘I sort of remember seeing it in a picture once, but Mum threw away all the wedding photographs when Dad left us. I bet she looked amazing.’
‘She did. Granny North still has some pictures I think.’
‘Was it a good day?’
She nodded. ‘I was a bridesmaid; we all got to wear red velvet brocade and funny headdresses like nurses’ hats. It was jolly hot, like today. Take my tip and wear the latest Arsenal strip when you get hitched.’
Nico closed one eye. ‘Nah, I’m never going to get married. I don’t like girls much.’
Legs shot him a sympathetic look and he dived back into his room for his high tech camera.
Aside from singing and football, Nico’s greatest talent was photography, something Legs privately guessed he was far more passionate about than the choral practice his mother encouraged him to do each day.
‘I know it’s not quite Vogue,’ she apologised as they trailed downstairs. ‘But it’s a start.’
‘I want to be a sports photographer,’ he reminded her.
‘Sure.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘Capture the Gunners winning the Treble.’
‘Too right.’ He bounded past and led the way downstairs and out through the open plan kitchen to the pretty walled garden that stretched behind the west London townhouse, currently bursting with its best midsummer finery, the dahlias and zinnias waving vast lollipop heads of red and pink from the borders, buddleia and rambling roses bobbing overhead, lavender and sweetpeas crowding fragrantly around the trunks of the fruit trees.
It might have appeared perfect wedding weather through the window, with the striped green lawns dancing with sunlight, but in fact it was blowing a gale. Stepping onto the decking, Legs almost took off as her skirts inverted, revealing a skeleton farthingale and her bare thighs.
‘DO NOT take a photograph!’ she ordered from inside several layers of silk and damask as she fought the skirts back down, knowing that the temptation for a ten-year-old to capture the moment would probably be too great. The shot could be used as blackmail for years to come, although she supposed at least her face was covered in pearl-studded cream silk. But those legs would be unmistakeable in the family. They were legend.
Being called Allegra was always going to lead to one nickname, particularly fitting given how distinctive her legs actually were. Yet this nickname hadn’t been bestowed on Legs as a result of her possessing long, slender lower limbs up to her armpits; quite the reverse. From toddlerdom on, her legs had always been like tree-trunks, despite her otherwise slim frame. She did her best to hide them at all times, and had learned all means of cunning tactics to emphasise her good points while playing down the sturdy girders that ran from hip to ankle like two ungainly termite mounds. The maxi dress was her best friend, along with boyfriend jeans and wide-legged trousers. Elizabethan petticoats flying around her head revealing nothing but her M&S tanga, however, was not a good look.
Having fought the skirts back down, Legs adjusted the uncomfortable corset, still fighting to breathe and now ducking through flying clematis petals as she panted her way to some dappled shade.
‘That’s great!’ Nico unhooked the camera strap from his neck and framed the shot. ‘The light is perfect on those butterfly wing things.’
‘Ruff, Nico.’
‘Yeah, you do look a bit rough, but it’s OK, I can Photoshop it.’
Legs rolled her eyes and then pouted and posed for a few minutes beneath the apple tree, battling light-headedness and crouching uncomfortably to hide her feet beneath the huge hooped skirt that billowed like a sail. She would never have cut it as an actress in costume dramas, she decided, despite the obvious appeal of being very famous and maybe getting to kiss Orlando Bloom. The corsetry would kill her, as would all the crouching required to appear shorter than her leading men. She was too tall to be a movie star, and liked her breakfast muffins too much. And she was also a lousy actress. To her great regret, Legs shared none of her sister’s musical talent, nor was she gifted with a creative or literary streak, despite a passionate appreciation of the arts. In her dreams, she might once have imagined herself heralded the new Tracey Emin, Zadie Smith or Emily Watson, but in reality, it was her ability to organise, charm and multi-task that earned her wage.
Life as an overworked assistant to a literary agent was perhaps not as glamorous as the stage and screen, although an office two doors away from a Starbucks proved some compensation. And as far as her nephew was concerned, she had access to the Holy Grail by working for Fellows Howlett alongside Conrad Knight, the only man to have ever knowingly met writer Gordon Lapis in person.
‘Is the new Ptolemy Finch book being printed yet?’ Nico asked now.
‘Nearly,’ she assured him.
Nico was crazy about Gordon’s white-haired little hero, with his magical powers and witty irreverence. Ptolemy was wise and brave and sassy. He was also the ultimate outsider; understood by children and adults alike. Through six bestselling adventures, his thick black hair, prematurely streaked with grey, had turned pure white. Yet he never seemed to age.
Such was his success these days, when Gordon delivered a manuscript, it was a high security operation involving bank vaults and confidentiality contracts. It was the one communication that could not be conducted electronically because of the risk of hacking. His agent Conrad Knight would fetch the disk himself and never let it out of his sight until it was delivered. One hard copy would be printed and kept in the agency safe along with the master disk. Then a copy on disk was passed to the publisher. However much Nico begged, Legs would never dream of opening the safe. Just one photocopied page in circulation before the book was published would not only cost her job, but she’d probably be litter picking on community service for weeks to come. Even she was not allowed to read the book until its release into the shops at midnight on publication day, and she was Conrad Knight’s lover.
But she had promised her nephew a signed copy on the stroke of that next long-awaited midnight release, and he asked about it daily. Legs now regretted boasting that she could get it signed. It hadn’t occurred to her at the time that Lapis’s obsession with protecting his identity meant acquiring a signed copy on launch day was close to impossible. Conrad had muttered something vague about seeing what he could do. With a ten-year-old super-fan’s huge, excited eyes on her, Legs felt the weight of expectation heavy on her shoulders.
‘Do you really exchange emails with Gordon Lapis?’
‘I really do.’
‘That must be so amazing. You know, he doesn’t ever answer his fans personally any more. He has a load of secretaries that do it. But he emails you. That’s so cool.’
Legs thought it was very arrogant that Gordon no longer replied to letters himself, but had no desire to shatter the idol worship. ‘Well he does have a lot of fans.’ She knew that, on average, Gordon Lapis received two hundred emails and letters each day.
‘What are his messages like?’
‘Clever.’ Often obstreperous, occasionally flirtatious, she added to herself, fishing in her sleeve to read his most recent message:
Some questions for research: Speaking as a rumpled and feisty west Londoner, do you drink real coffee or instant? What radio station do you listen to? What is your morning routine? GL
A new email had already queued up behind it:
I have now been waiting three hours for a response. Julie hasn’t even got to work yet, and, despite sitting at my desk, neither have I. GL
‘Can I read some of them?’ Nico reeled off a few more shots on his camera.
‘I don’t think you’d be very interested.’ She hedged, imagining star-struck Nico poring over Gordon’s abstruse missives. For a man who wrote such all-consuming, action-packed fiction, he was a very abstract email correspondent, leaving her hanging for days and then expecting a dozen snappy answers on the trot.
Already growing bored of his Mario Testino task, Nico wandered off to snap the family cat, Wenger, who was chasing a bumblebee between chairs on the decking.
Legs perched on a bench and hastily composed a reply.
I am so sorry! I’ve been modelling for a photo shoot (that should inspire him; Julie should be glamorous). Lots of shop coffee. Radio 2. Always running late.
Pulling at her corset again, she half watched as Nico pursued Wenger and the bumblebee back into the house, snapping away. She started composing a text to Conrad, then paused when Gordon immediately fired back more questions:
Is Julie vengeful? Does she harbour grudges? Would you be able to work alongside a man who had once been your lover?
What has Conrad told you? she tapped back in a panic before hastily resuming her text to the man himself, now paranoid that he had told Gordon Lapis that he was going to dump her. Misspelling in her haste, she demanded to know whether they were getting together that weekend or not.
As soon as she sent it off, she stared at the phone face in alarm, already uncertain whether she’d sent the right messages to writer and lover or got them muddled up as she kept doing. Yesterday she’d sent a text intended for her friend Daisy to her sister and vice versa, only realising when Ros asked what LABATYD meant. (She had quickly improvised ‘love all babies and trust your dog’ for ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’.)
Thankfully Gordon was quick to respond with reassuring directness. Why should Conrad say anything?
He doesn’t know Conrad’s my lover, she realised with relief. Be professional, she reminded herself. My mistake. Saturday brain not in gear. Probably couldn’t work alongside my ex, no. Especially not if he’d become grizzled and hard-drinking.
Young, edgy, haunted by the past, he expanded; lives on a house boat, plays the fiddle and has a tame badger. Intense, witty, intelligent.
Not sure about the badger, but I could definitely work with Jimmy so far.
He’s also a gambler, Gordon went on; mildly epileptic, undergoing anger management and unable to commit to any relationship.
I can feel sexual chemistry already.
That will do for now. Thank you for your input. GL
She tucked the phone back into her sleeve with satisfaction, envisaging him cracking his rickety knuckles over a battered PC keyboard ready to commence upon five thousand words of action-packed crime thriller. Somehow she always imagined Gordon working in a dusty, book-lined office akin to an academic’s, although she really had no idea. Conrad never gave anything away about his most reclusive and successful client. For all she knew, Lapis could be their wet-lipped, bald-headed neighbour here in Ealing, working on the other side of the garden wall in the pastel blue summer-house that Ros had complained to the local conservation officer about. She could see its cedar shingles through the wind-buffeted buddleia, and imagined Gordon inside typing a description of Julie at the start of another baffling case for her and Jimmy. She hastily dismissed the notion in favour of the old wizard in an ivory tower.
The garden was full of windblown insect life that had lost grip from flowers and leaves; butterflies whizzed left while ladybirds swirled to the right.
Legs straightened up and batted away a wind-tunnelling wasp with one huge puff sleeve, making her phone fly out from its hiding place and hit her on the nose before dropping into a prickly Japanese Barberry, from which it predictably started to ring.
>
‘Ow … ow … ow!’ She managed to extract it just in time to field the call, heart beating hard because she could see it was Conrad.
‘We’re on!’
‘We are?’
‘Pick you up at eleven forty-five. Wear a dress. It’s smart.’ He rang off, leaving her reeling.
She was thrilled. As phone conversations went, that was long for Conrad. And she was getting to see him on a Saturday, such a rarity these days. She’d given him a hard time only this week about the fact he was neglecting her; he’d obviously listened for once.
When they’d first got together, he’d thought nothing of whisking her away every weekend, wrapped up in the first throes of passion, but now his children took precedence. While Legs didn’t object – she knew how important Nico’s fortnightly visits with his father were to them both, after all – she missed Conrad’s company, and longed for the time when she would get introduced as ‘Daddy’s friend’. But as far as the four Knight teenagers were concerned, she still didn’t exist.