But now she felt a nip of jealousy. She was willing to admit to that. For so long, she’d been looking for something more. And, yes, she may occasionally have toyed with the idea of David Carter.
Nothing serious, of course. She hadn’t made a fool of herself over it. No one else would ever have known. It was only that he’d begun to feature quite prominently in her private afternoon fantasies.
For over a year now, the combination of her anti-depressant – a very mild dose – and her lunchtime glass of wine meant that, most afternoons, she found it necessary to take herself off for a little lie-down. She’d pull the curtains and tell Leonora that she mustn’t be disturbed and then she’d be perfectly free to abandon herself to a kind of half-dream in which the ordinary world receded for a while and she became her younger, more carefree self.
Lately, she’d found herself looking forward to this time when she had nothing to do but sink into a mound of soft pillows and let her mind roam untethered. Sometimes it seemed as if this afternoon dream world was more real to her than any other. It was certainly much more enjoyable.
And lately, especially since her last consultation with David Carter, she’d particularly liked running a certain scenario in her mind where she would perch on the edge of his desk, which she’d noted was large and sturdy and covered in embossed leather, and begin to unbutton her dress.
And David Carter - ‘Please, call me Dave,’ he’d purr - would bury his face between her breasts and inhale the expensive scent that she always applied at the base of her throat and begin to kiss her neck.
Just thinking about this now made her heart beat faster and she felt a hot flush – part pleasure, part embarrassment – or maybe it was just her hormones. Perhaps she really did need to make another appointment, after all. Get herself checked out properly.
She moved restlessly on the pillows, trying to find a more comfortable position, but she couldn’t get the image of Fabbia Moreno out of her mind.
She’d been shocked when Katrina arrived home, full of the news. Katrina had been quite bursting with it, almost desperate to tell her, with such a particular look on her face that Jean even wondered for a moment if her daughter could know what she was thinking.
She’d made out, of course, that she wasn’t the least bit interested in schoolgirl’s gossip but she’d felt as if a hand had gripped her insides and was twisting slowly.
No, Fabbia Moreno didn’t waste much time. Jean Cushworth had met her type before. Ambitious, determined, used to getting what she wanted. It was all really quite irritating.
And so imagine how she’d felt today, visiting the shop for a fitting, to discover that the woman had this new haircut – short, very short – and which, there was no denying it, made her look even more ravishing.
What annoyed Jean Cushworth more than anything about this was that both Vincent and James had been trying to persuade her to cut her hair shorter for the last year or so. Long hair can be terribly aging, Mrs C. Maybe it’s time for a change. It will lift your face. You’d love it. And so much easier to look after… On and on, until she was forced to get quite snappy with them.
Her hair was her thing, her crowning glory. All her life, everyone had said so. She couldn’t imagine – really, could she? – what it would feel like not to be able to put up her hand and feel it there, silky and reassuring, or move her head at the right moment and feel it swing around her shoulders like the women in the shampoo adverts.
But Vincent had said those words and now they couldn’t be unsaid. Beyond a certain age… She didn’t like that at all. The idea of doing something bold and dramatic, something new, had its appeal. She’d been turning the idea over in her mind for some time now. When she brushed her hair at night, she’d gather it in a handful at the nape of her neck, letting it loop below her cheekbones, trying to imagine what it would look like.
But the Moreno woman had got there first. If Jean decided to go shorter now, it would only ever look like imitation.
Maybe it really was true, what Graham had told her, just the other day.
‘The thing is, darling,’ he’d drawled, slurping at a glass of his precious Chateau Neuf with that maddening expression on his face, ‘you never do know what you want, do you? You always want what you didn’t choose. You always think you should have done, could have done X, Y, Z , instead of focusing on what you do have, right in front of your pretty little nose and what you can make happen, if you only put your mind to it. You’re scared, that’s all, and you don’t know how to be happy and you can’t bloody admit it, so you make everyone else, Katrina and I included, bloody miserable. And you never want anything until the minute that someone else tells you that you can’t have it. If I were to take up with some young nubile thing, you’d suddenly want me again, not because you love me – I’m completely aware that you don’t – but just because you wouldn’t want anyone else to have me… The thing is, darling, why don’t you just start being honest with yourself?’
Now she hoisted herself up on the bed, taking the sheaf of menus from the bedside table, noticing crossly that her new gel manicure was already beginning to peel away at the cuticles.
She tried to think of the party, casting her eye down the catering company’s suggestions. There wasn’t a thing she could find fault with, really. Canapes, buffet, drinks. It was all perfect.
She regretted now that she’d asked Fabbia Moreno to design her dress. She’d already invited her, of course, and now she and David were almost certain to come together. She’d have to watch them making eyes at one other whilst Graham strutted around in his jeans and trainers – because she could never persuade him to dress up for anything – boring the pants off everyone with his corny jokes and endless chatter about his toys and gadgets and investments.
There’d be Pike, of course, but he didn’t really count. She should have put an end to that, long ago. She didn’t really know why she hadn’t. He followed her around like a little yapping dog. It was embarrassing. It made her despise him. And although he was very attentive, in a way that Graham could never seem to be bothered with any more, he wasn’t exactly what she’d call interesting or exciting.
Jean let her mind drift back then, as she’d developed the habit of doing. She saw herself as a girl of eighteen, in a pale pink dress, standing on the terrace of her family home, Dunston Park, waiting for the guests to arrive. It had been such a warm evening. She could still remember how the air felt, fragrant with jasmine and roses and the way that new dress had felt, the silk clinging at her breasts and swirling around her ankles. She could almost imagine that it was made of rose petals.
Everyone had admired her that night. She’d danced and danced and drunk too much champagne and handsome Bobby Phelps had walked her out to the tennis courts and kissed her, a long lingering kiss. Her first. What had happened to Bobby? Married? Divorced? She couldn’t remember.
And suddenly it seemed that she couldn’t remember what had happened to anything. Thirty years or more. Gone. Just like that evening, it had all slipped through her fingers. And Laurence, her beloved boy. She could see him now, his hair wet from the shower after football, the dark curls stuck to his scalp making his green eyes appear even more luminous, and his body just beginning to fill out. It wasn’t fair, that he’d been taken away from her. None of it was fair.
Here she was, with hair that wasn’t even a real colour any more and a body that was starting to sag, lying on a bed with the curtains drawn in the middle of the day. A solitary tear ran down her cheek. She pulled the quilt up around her. She felt ice-cold, almost numb. She couldn’t even cry properly.
Finally, she flung the quilt off and fished in the back of the bedside cabinet. Her fingers touched the smooth glass of the bottle.
Hurriedly now, her hand trembling, she unscrewed the top, pressed the bottle to her lips and gulped.
The liquid warmed her instantly. She could feel it spreading through her insides. She took another gulp and then another.
14.
/> Beach kaftan. Original Pucci. 1967. Small repair at left-side seam.
‘Hey, Ella, can you do this, then?’
She was pressing her thumbnail into the stem of a daisy, slowly, carefully so as not to split it right through. She squinted upwards, shielding her eyes from the sun. Billy was dangling above her, head first over the river, the rope twisted deftly around his foot.
‘Look, no hands!’ He shimmied his arms up and down like clumsy wings.
‘Alright. My turn.’ She stood up and began unbuttoning her skirt, easing her blouse over her head. She had her swimming costume on underneath but now, feeling Billy’s eyes on her, she felt awkward, suddenly shy.
She busied herself making a neat bundle of her clothes, weighting them with a clean stone, resisting the urge to fiddle with the straps on her costume.
Billy had swung the rope back in and stood holding it for her above the swimming platform. Her toes sank in the warm mud and then gripped the slippery boards.
‘Put one hand here, like this,’ Billy said, placing her left hand on the rope, ‘Then, once you’ve got some swing on it, pull down hard and aim your feet above your head. That way, you can flip yourself upside down.’
Ella looked at the river. It would be cool, clear and cool, down there under the water. She put the rope between her legs and swung it back across the platform, bracing her toes against the edge. Then she flew.
She let the pull of the rope take her out over the water, higher, higher. She felt the braided strands stretch and pull against one other, the creaking sound as the rope took and held her weight for a moment. She held her breath, feeling for the moment of stillness where her body, she knew, would hang perfectly in balance before beginning the return and, in this gap, she aimed her feet for the sky, slipping her foot easily into the loop, letting her head hang down.
For that one moment, she felt herself suspended there, her face inches from the surface. The river opened to her like a dimly lit room. She could just make out the shapes down there moving.
She let go of the rope, she let her foot slip from the loop. Just time to stretch out her arms and enter the water like an arrow, feeling the cold break over her body in a long green gasp.
She let the water take her deeper, gradually opening her eyes. There was a second sky down here, mud and silt, drifting like clouds. She tucked in her knees and crouched for a moment, looking up at the rectangles of light wobbling above her head, feeling the cool enter her bones. Only then, with her heart throbbing in her head, she pushed up and burst through the surface, re-entering the world.
The first thing she saw was Billy’s white toes gripping the edge of the platform, his stricken face peering down into the water.
‘For God’s sake, Ella. What did you do that for? I thought for a minute you weren’t coming back up…’
He grabbed her arms and hauled her up onto the platform where she lay on her back, looking up through the canopy of leaves, panting and laughing.
‘Well, I’m glad you think it’s funny, you mad loon,’ said Billy, starting to pull his clothes back on. She could see that he was furious. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack…’
She arched her back against the slippery planks, felt the tautness in her legs and arms, ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth, tasting the river again.
‘Sorry,‘ she said, but she couldn’t stop herself. The word burst out of her mouth in a big shudder of laughter. It was as if the water had opened her up and the sound was pouring out of her, taking hold of her ribs, her chest, her stomach. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth on the boards, wheezing and laughing.
*
‘Forgiven me yet?’ Ella watched Billy’s back as he strode along the river path, slashing at the tall grass with a stick as he went.
He turned and stuck the stick in the ground, folding his arms across his chest.
‘Depends,’ he said, grinning. ‘But you’d better watch it. I’m gonna get you back. Honestly, Ella, I thought that was it. I was thinking about what I was going to tell your poor mum…’
Ella adjusted the towel she’d rolled in the crook of her elbow. Her limbs were still crackling with excitement but underneath the fizz of orange and blue there was a warm glow spreading through her legs and arms, the way that she always felt when she’d been in the water, as if the edges of her body were dissolving.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘No, you’re not.’ Billy ran his hand through his hair, scattering water droplets.
Below them, on the river, a shiny white motorboat sent waves slapping against the bank. The man at the wheel saluted them, whilst a woman in large black sunglasses draped herself over the rail, squinting into the sunlight.
‘Tourists,’ said Billy. ‘They get earlier every year. You’ll see, El. By June, you won’t be able to move down here. The whole place’ll be full of picnickers and screaming kids and boats cruising up and down, churning everything up, making a racket.’
Ella frowned. It was hard to imagine that right now, with the shadows dappling the surface of the water. They’d seen noone else all afternoon.
‘Yeah, and of course there’s the new Boat Club. We’ve got your mate Katrina’s mum to thank for that. Load of toffee-nosed idiots paddling around, pretending they know what they’re doing, scaring away all the wildlife.’
As they rounded a bend in the path he gestured to a newly painted sign: York Boat Club. Private Members Only.
‘There was a petition, of course. People have beeen coming here for the last hundred years or more, swimming in the river, not bothering anyone. It’s not private land. It’s supposed to belong to everyone. But look how they’ve fenced it off. And there’s all kinds of birds here – kingfishers, I even saw a heron once, out on the mud there – but that won’t last long. Thousands of signatures, they got. But that Pike was in on it. Made sure Mrs Jean Cushworth had her way.’
He shook his head and slapped the sign with the end of his stick, leaving a spatter of wet soil on the glossy white and blue paintwork. ‘They’ll ruin everything that’s good about the place and then they’ll move on. Idiots, the lot of ‘em.’
‘Well, who do we have here?’
The voice was a low menacing purr, drifting over to them from the other side of the new fence. Ella froze. Even without his black raincoat, she’d have recognised the man anywhere, the way that he thrust his chin forward as he walked, the way that, even now, he was looking at her, his eyes travelling up and down her body, taking her all in.
‘Billy, lad. What’re you up to, then?’ Pike stood with his arms folded, his feet in their shiny black lace-up shoes planted wide apart.
‘Taking a walk, Councillor. You know. Just enjoying the scenery…’ Billy smiled his most charming smile but Ella could see the faint pulsing at his throat, the tension in the set of his shoulders.
‘Well, as long as that’s all that you’re doing…’ Pike smirked, then chuckled softly to himself. He turned to Ella. ’You want to watch him, my dear. He can be trouble, so I’ve heard, him and his brothers.’
His eyes travelled up and down her body again. ‘Been swimming, have you?’ he said, nodding at her wet hair, the towel under her arm. ‘I imagine you’re a strong swimmer too…’ He smiled at her again, the tip of his tongue darting over his thin lips.
Billy made a grab for her hand. ‘C’mon, El. It’s getting late. We’d better make a move.’
Pike nodded at them and turned away from the fence, smoothing his shirt against his chest, still smiling.
But even as she followed Billy, who was walking faster now, his stick slashing more fiercely at the grass, his towel trailing in the dirt behind him, she could feel Pike’s eyes following her, burrowing between her shoulder blades. She could see in her mind’s eye the way that he’d looked at her legs, that hungry look, his mouth parting slightly, the way that he didn’t bother to try to hide the fact that he was looking, or the smile that quivered on his lips.
‘Bloo
dy pervert.’ Billy jabbed at the ground with his stick then flung it as hard as he could away from him.
Ella walked faster until she was level with him and could loop her arm through his.
‘You’re right. He’s an idiot,’ she said. ‘So don’t let him get to you. I certainly won’t. Come on. Let’s go and get a drink. My treat. I owe you.’
The Story of the River
‘You know, they used to say, in the town where Madaar-Bozorg was born,’ said Fabbia, threading her needle with silver embroidery cotton, ‘which is a place where the corn is watered each year by a wide river and where tall flowers grow all over the grassy banks, that there was once a very beautiful young woman.
‘They said that her face was like an open flower and her waist was as supple as a green stem. She could dance like the fast-flowing river and she could sing like the birds on the banks. Any man who set eyes on her wanted to have her as his wife, but she couldn’t marry because her father couldn’t afford a dowry.
‘A rich man, passing through the town, decided to seduce her anyway. He told her that he’d no interest in cattle and cornfields. He’d enough gold of his own, enough to make more bracelets than she could ever wear on both arms. And the young woman, who knew nothing at all of the word outside the village, gave herself to him with a trusting heart. She lived with him in a house by the river, with windows that shone with reflections of the water. With the next harvest moon, her belly grew round and tight as a drum and she gave birth to twin daughters.
‘A few years passed and the young woman was happy. She sat on the riverbank and played with her daughters. The first words they learned were the names of the flowers that grew there in the long grasses and the songs of the birds that swooped low over the water.
The Dress (Everyday Magic Trilogy: Book 1) Page 14