It was bizarre in the extreme, but it didn’t seem like the time to ask questions, so I just looked around and made mental notes.
She certainly hadn’t been kidding about the art collection. Every room had paintings covering the walls – all of them crooked – and in the drawing room alone there were several Lesley Pinecliffs, and loads of work by other major Australian artists which I recognized from the gallery. Creeping Jesus would be foaming at the mouth if he could see them, I thought.
The dining room was another war zone. The beautiful old French table was covered in heaps of what appeared to be bank statements and other financial papers, with a great many unopened envelopes among them, all mixed up.
The kitchen smelled terrible, and it didn’t take long to work out that the fetid odour was emanating from the piles of ominously full black bin-liners propped around a large, overflowing pedal bin. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I saw something moving in one of the bags. I shuddered. There was no way I was touching those.
The bathroom was relatively civilized, I was relieved to find. The loo was clean, at least, and the towels looked fresh – in fact, they looked brand new; they still had Conran Shop tags hanging from them. The shower rail was bedecked with exquisite underwear, giving it a rather festive air.
The first bedroom we looked in was like a Tracey Emin installation, full of clothes dumped on the floor and the bed, as though the contents of twenty-five jumble sales – or designer sample sales – had been forklifted in through the window. But like an island in the chaos, there was a professional-looking ironing board set up and ready to use in the corner.
The beautiful black and white tweed Chanel suit Kiki had been wearing at lunch was lying in a heap on the floor, where she had clearly just stepped out of it. I picked it up and put it on the bed.
Kiki’s own bedroom was dominated by a very large – very unmade – bed, covered in more books, and the floor was strewn with treacherous sliding piles of magazines and catalogues, making it difficult to walk. Definitely not the place for gentlemen callers.
In the corner there was a lovely old-fashioned kidney-shaped dressing table with a floral chintz skirt and a matching stool, but the glass top was littered with make-up and cosmetics, all mixed up and lidless.
I pictured my own make-up drawer, everything filed in separate Perspex boxes according to use, caps all on. Maybe I could help Kiki, I thought.
‘What do you reckon?’ she asked, in a small voice. ‘Is it worse than you thought?’
‘Thinking is what I need to do,’ I said. ‘Can we sit in the garden?’
It was getting dark, but I knew if I didn’t get outside soon I would run screaming from the premises as her prospective cleaners had done. My head was starting to feel itchy from the sheer scale of the chaos in there.
The garden was overgrown, but a haven compared to inside. I perched on a dirty white metal chair and took some deep breaths.
‘Do you think we can clear it up?’ said Kiki.
‘Nothing is impossible,’ I said, diplomatically, although I was actually starting to think that her idea of throwing away the keys wasn’t such a bad one. ‘But it’s such a big job, we’re going to need to take some radical measures. A superficial tidy-up is not going to sort this out.’ Her eyes were filling with tears again. I took her hand. ‘Don’t panic, Kiki, we’ll take it slowly, step by step, but I’ve got to ask you: how did it get like this?’
‘I just can’t get organized,’ she said, sounding wretched. ‘I’ve got some kind of block about it. We always had maids when I was growing up, and my dad’s accountants did all the financial admin, and now I just don’t know where to start, so I don’t do anything. I’m not a naturally tidy person, so I didn’t really notice at first, but over time it’s just spiralled out of control and even I can see I can’t go on like this.’ She paused and took a few deep breaths, which seemed to pull her together a bit.
‘The thing is, Amelia, I’ve never lived anywhere this long before. I’ve never stayed in any flat longer than eighteen months since I left home. My chaos is the reason I keep moving. I always use one of those unpacking services, which sort it all out for you, so it’s fine for a while, then, when it gets too bad, I move again. But I love this flat and I love London and I’ve been here three years now and that’s the result in there. Armageddon.’
I looked at her. It was really hard to take in, because Kiki was always beautifully dressed and perfectly groomed. That evening her short black hair was neatly pulled back with a narrow Alice band, and she was wearing a pea-green cashmere cardigan with a pair of dark denim jeans, a vintage silk scarf as a belt and zebra-print ballerinas on her dainty feet. Kiki always looked immaculate and she smelled lovely too, of tuberose.
I thought about that room full of tangled-up clothes and I just couldn’t put it together.
‘But what I don’t understand is how you always look so chic, Kiki,’ I said. ‘How do you emerge from all that cack looking like Holly Golightly’s sexier little sister?’
She managed a smile. ‘I always have my ironing board up,’ she said. ‘You can put anything on once it’s had a press and a spritz of Fracas. That was one useful thing I did learn from my mum. And I always use shoe trees.’
We looked at each other and laughed until our stomachs hurt.
6
Ed was highly amused to hear about Kiki’s domestic arrangements when I met him for dinner that night at Scott’s, one of our regular spots, not far along Mount Street from our flat.
‘So she’s a fully paid-up filth packet, is she?’ he said, chuckling, swilling the brandy in his glass, holding it up to admire the colour and then sticking his nose inside. ‘ That is surprising,’ he continued, when he lifted his head again, a beam of satisfaction on his elegant face. ‘She’s always so chic, and I’ve never heard of an Australian filth packet before. I thought it was a uniquely British species, the well-bred slattern. That bizarre inverted snobbery about not appearing to care how you live, as though the dirtier you are the grander you must be. I’ve never understood it.’
‘I don’t think it’s like that with Kiki,’ I said, cutting a chocolate in half. ‘I think the grooming uses up all her organizational energy and she’s just chronically untidy and chaotic in every other regard. There’s not a surface in the whole place that isn’t covered in crap – it’s hard even to find somewhere to put your feet down on the floor – so she can’t even start to get sorted out, and it’s just got worse and worse over time.’
‘That is a shame,’ he said. ‘Poor Kiki. What a horrid pickle to get yourself into. I do feel sorry for her – but what has it got to do with you, exactly?’
‘Well, she’s asked me to help her sort it out, and I’ve said I would.’
He put his head on one side and studied my face. ‘But why does she think you’re qualified to sort out her mess?’
‘Because she’s been to the flat and the cottage and seen that we live like civilized adults,’ I said, starting to feel a little defensive.
‘That’s true – we do, and I’m very grateful for it,’ he smiled and raised his glass to me, before draining it. ‘Because it is all thanks to you, my beautiful, capable Amelia. But I just wonder if sorting out someone else’s chaos is really what you want to do with your spare time. I thought you wanted to spend all these spring weekends working on your garden down at the cottage.’
‘I do – but I feel so sorry for Kiki, and it just comes naturally to me to be organized, it’s no effort, so I feel I should help her. And I think it might be fun, Ed…’
He leaned across the table and took my hand. ‘You’re just too nice, Amelia,’ he said, shaking his head and looking at me lovingly. ‘Do it if you think it will be a hoot, but I just don’t want you to be used by some spoilt little rich girl. Kiki is great fun, but I work with these people, remember. I know what they’re like. They exist on a different plane from we normal folk and they get awfully used to other people doing their dirty work,
you know.’
I nodded. ‘ Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘CJ wants me to ask you to get him some Krug for the next private view, with a “family” discount, that was how he put it.’
Ed laughed heartily and, catching the waiter’s eye, he pointed at his brandy glass.
*
Whatever Ed’s misgivings, I really enjoyed planning how I was going to sort Kiki’s place out. I’d been thinking about it every morning as I jogged round the park – which was when I always had my best ideas – and had come up with what I thought was an excellent action strategy.
I arranged to meet Kiki early on Saturday morning at Julie’s Café to go through it, without the chaos of her place to muddle our heads, and she was already waiting when I got there. That was a good start. Kiki was usually at least forty-five minutes late for everything.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, shaking her head, when I walked in. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘What’s up with you?’ I asked. ‘We haven’t even started and you’re already freaking out.’
‘But look!’ she said, gesturing at me.
‘What?’ I said, looking around me for the cause of her distress.
‘That thing you’re carrying – it’s making me feel ill.’
‘This?’ I said, holding it up. ‘It’s only a clipboard, Kiki.’
She shuddered and backed away in her chair, making a crucifix shape with her fingers.
I sat down and waved it in her face.
‘Now stop it,’ I said. ‘I could be digging manure into my garden in Winchelsea, but I’ve stayed in town just to help you, so you’d better start co-operating. I’ve brought this stupid clipboard for a very good reason – there’s not a single flat surface in your place that we could write on. OK?’
Kiki nodded like a guilty child and took a sip of her cappuccino.
‘Right,’ I continued. ‘Before we go over there I need to ask you some questions.’
‘OK,’ she said, in a tiny little voice.
‘First of all – what are all those newspapers in your hall?’
She shrugged. ‘They’re just the daily papers and the Saturday papers and the, er, Sunday papers.’
‘Right,’ I said, nodding. ‘Do you mean all the papers? As in the Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Independent and the Observer?’
She nodded. ‘And the Mail and the News of the World,’ she added.
‘OK,’ I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. ‘And do you actually read them?’
She shook her head, looking absolutely terrified. I tried not to look incredulous.
‘So why on earth do you get them all?’ I asked, tentatively.
‘Because my father says you have to look at the papers every day, or you’ll get left behind…’
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘And I imagine he has a very large desk and a very efficient secretary who lays them all out ready for him and clears them away again each night?’
I knew about that, because I had to do it every day for Creeping Jesus.
She nodded.
‘OK,’ I said firmly, but warmly – or at least that was the effect I was trying to achieve – ‘we are going to go to your newsagent on the way to the flat and we are going to cancel them all. From now on you can buy one paper a day – one, OK? – but before you do that, you will put the old one into the paper recycling basket we are going to get you, whether you have read it or not. Unless you’re planning on doing a lot of papier mâché, no one needs a hall full of old newspaper. Got it?’
She nodded again. ‘I think I need another coffee,’ she said, in a pathetic little voice.
That was when it really sank in that clearing and organizing Kiki’s flat was going to take a lot more than my clipboard, a couple of rolls of bin-bags and a man with a van out of the Yellow Pages. A degree in counselling would have been handy.
She was visibly empowered when I stopped and cancelled her newspapers on our way over to her flat, which was encouraging – although the newsagent didn’t look so happy, I’d probably wrecked his early retirement plans – but when I started hauling the cardboard boxes containing all the old papers out of her hall and on to her front path, Kiki got quite panicky.
‘Hang on,’ she said, trying to snatch something out of the box I was heaving along. ‘ That’s a Telegraph magazine. I must keep that.’
‘No-you-mustn’t,’ I said, holding my hand up in front of her face in the sign language signal for ‘no’.
‘But…’
‘There is a new one out today, Kiki. A lovely new Telegraph magazine. You can have that as a reward when we’ve done this. This is an old one. It’s over, yesterday’s papers, let it go.’
She looked so distressed I thought she might have an anxiety attack, but I had to carry on.
‘Right then,’ I said, after we’d hauled all the boxes outside. ‘Now the bin-bags. What is all this?’
Kiki looked nervous and said nothing, so I tipped one out on to the floor. I picked a few things up, and it quickly became clear they were clothes – serious designer clothes – tangled up like old rags, with some damp towels mixed in with them. There were eight bags, I counted.
I looked enquiringly at Kiki.
‘They’re, um, clothes, I don’t, er, want any more,’ she said, haltingly.
‘OK, that’s fine – so why are they still in the house?’
‘In case I do want them?’ she asked tentatively.
‘This is really good stuff, Kiki,’ I said, sifting through and finding a Malo cashmere sweater, a YSL top and two pairs of Chloé trousers. ‘Wow. You could get serious money for these on eBay.’
She shook her head, looking anxious again. ‘I don’t want any money for them.’
‘Well, a charity shop would love them then. Would you be happy for a charity to have them?’ She nodded. ‘OK, help me carry them to my car,’ I said.
She got that distressed look on her face again.
‘We have to get them out of the house now, Kiki,’ I said. ‘Or we never will.’
That left just the fold-up bike and the pieces of vacuum cleaner. ‘Ever going to use that? Or get that mended?’ She shook her head. ‘OK, out they go,’ I said.
I’d already arranged for a recycling service to come later that afternoon, so I stacked them up against the wall next to the old newspapers and went back into the house – making Kiki wait outside.
I gathered up all the post that was behind the door and quickly sorted it into two carrier bags, one for real mail and one for junk. I nipped along the hall to put the proper letters on the dining table, then I went back outside, closing the door behind me, and chucked the bag of junkmail on top of the newspapers for recycling.
I saw a flash of anxiety cross Kiki’s face as the bag flew past, but I distracted her by taking her hand and leading her over to the front door.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Go back in.’
The door swung open when she pushed it, like a front door should, and Kiki stepped inside. She gasped, then turned round and grabbed my hand.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said. ‘It’s all gone!’ She started jumping up and down with excitement. ‘It’s all gone! All the crap! I’ve got a hallway! Yippee!’
She skipped up and down it, flailing her arms with glee, and then hugged me. ‘Oh, thank you, so much,’ she said.
‘It’s only the hall, Kiki,’ I said. ‘But it has made a big difference, and that took us exactly seventeen minutes; I timed it. That’s how easy it is, once you start. It’s just the starting that’s hard.’
She nodded enthusiastically. ‘OK, what’s next?’
‘Your clothes,’ I said firmly.
Her face fell. ‘Oh, can’t we leave them until later? Look at me – I can get dressed fine, the way things are. Let’s do the kitchen instead, shall we?’
‘No,’ I said, firmly, still with no intention of touching those sinister rubbish bags. ‘You do dress beautifully, that’s true, but I don’t think you really want to have your lo
vely clothes lying around in heaps like that, do you? And you might not be late all the time if you could get dressed without having to iron everything first…’
She hung her head and sighed deeply, the energizing triumph of the transformed hall already evaporated.
I took her hand and made her come into the bedroom with me.
‘OK,’ I said, bending down and scooping up armfuls of clothes. ‘First we are going to put them all on the bed. Actually, you can do that. I need to get some things from the car.’
I came back to find her posing in front of the mirror, holding various dresses up to herself, all the other clothes still on the floor.
‘Kiki?’ I said, irritated and remembering what Ed had said about spoilt rich girls. ‘You’ve got to help me here. This is my weekend, remember? I’m not going to do it all for you, I’m just showing you how.’
‘Sorry, miss,’ she said, throwing them on the bed. ‘What’s that thing you’re holding?’
‘It’s a temporary folding surface,’ I said, in a deliberately officious voice, erecting the wallpaper table I had brought with me. ‘You carry on putting things on the bed and I’ll start folding. If you find anything too dirty, put it in this carrier bag and we’ll drop it at your drycleaner’s later. Where do you go?’
‘I don’t really have a drycleaner,’ she said sheepishly.
I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘Is that why those bags of clothes were out in the hall?’ I asked. ‘Were they just dirty?’
She nodded, looking very guilty. ‘I’ve got a washing machine, but I don’t really know how to use it. I wash all my undies by hand anyway, and I’ve never been very good at picking clothes up from drycleaner’s…’
‘Don’t tell me that’s why there were towels in there as well,’ I said.
She made a guilty face.
I put my head in my hands and shook it. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s keep going. Once you’ve got it all on the bed, start sorting it into categories – trousers, skirts, dresses, jackets, tops, knits, etc. And I’ll show you how to work the washing machine later.’
How to Break Your Own Heart Page 6