by Lisa Jewell
The past week had been an ongoing frenzy of dresses, rings and flowers. Every time she told someone the news they immediately started asking a million questions about the minutiae of her upcoming nuptials, and in spite of the fact that Joy had never really been a particularly wedding-y girl, hadn’t spent her teenage years fantasizing about tulle and tiaras, and even now was hoping for something low-key and simple, she couldn’t help but get carried away by the force of other people’s enthusiasm.
Having blended into the background at ColourPro for more than a year, Joy had suddenly achieved celebrity status. Jacquie and Roz had made it their business to tell everyone her news: clients, the girls at the sandwich shop, couriers, the managing director – even the managing director’s wife was in the know. Joy would never have guessed how strongly people felt about weddings, how much pleasure such a simple piece of news could bring to people who barely knew her and how much interest virtual strangers would suddenly take in what seemed to her mere frippery.
People had started foisting things on her, too – bridal magazines, lists of venues, offers to organize hen nights, anecdotes, advice and congratulations. People smiled at her more and the atmosphere was enhanced wherever she went. Her mother had smiled for the first time in four weeks when she went home to tell her the news. Everyone at work seemed to have an extra spring in their step. Even the acidic Bella was sweetening slightly at the prospect of having some input into the design of her dress.
‘Oh, let me make it. Please, let me make it.’
Joy had never seen Bella so excited before – he was almost smiling.
I’m really good, aren’t I?’ he turned to Julia. ‘Tell her how good I am. Show her that bustier I made you for that slags party. Go on.’
Julia heaved herself and her bosom from the sofa and trundled off to her bedroom in fluffy socks.
‘Honestly. I’m really good. I mean I’ve not been to fashion college or anything, but my mum taught me to sew and she was a proper seamstress and look –’ He grabbed the bustier from Julia’s hands. ‘Look at the detail in that.’
She examined the voluminous piece of red satin in awe. It really was quite beautifully made, covered in tiny red sequins and squiggles of black lace.
‘That’s real whalebone, that is,’ he said, turning the bustier inside out and showing her the seams, ‘like they used to make them, in the old days. Properly. You know.’
‘Bella,’ said Joy, fingering the tiny hook-and-eye fastenings, ‘I don’t understand. Why are you working as an usher when you’ve got this talent? This is just amazing.’
Bella shrugged and rolled his plastic gloves back on. ‘Don’t know, really. Just like hanging around in theatres, I s’pose. The smell of the crowd. The roar of the greasepaint. You know’
‘Well, you could have been a costume designer, then. God, just think. You could be running up tutus for the Royal Ballet. Imagine that.’
He shrugged again, and pulled the transparent cap off Julia’s head. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘I dunno. Just not really very me. Anyway,’ he changed the subject, ‘can I or can’t I? Make your dress?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘why not? I can’t afford much, though.’
‘Well, then, I won’t charge you much. How does £200 sound? Plus materials and stuff.’
‘Sounds amazing. Are you sure?’
‘Positive,’ he said. ‘Now, Miss Julia, it’s time to get you to the bathroom, before your hair turns Day-Glo.’ With that he ferried Julia out of the living room, leaving Joy alone to contemplate the commissioning of her wedding dress and the taking of her first faltering steps on the wide, open road to her wedding day.
In bed that night, Joy thought about what Bella said, about her being mad getting married to someone she barely knew. Maybe he was right, she mused. Maybe she was insane. She had no idea. Joy had lost the ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and the whole ‘engagement’ scenario was now so plump with positive energy that Joy found it impossible to give any thought to the negative aspects. Like the notion of leaving her lovely warm bedroom in Wilberforce Road and taking up permanent residence in George’s ugly, chilly flat. Like the fact that she hadn’t met any of his friends and he hadn’t met any of hers. Like the shadowy sense of dislocation that she still hadn’t managed to shake off. All she knew was that, at a time in her life when everything had felt grey, empty and bleak, George had come along and made it colourful again.
And now she found herself in a position where the light emanating from her state of betrothal was so bright that it had somehow blinded her to everything – including her own incipient, dazzling folly.
Twenty-Seven
One day, thought Vince, there d be an awards ceremony for this sort of thing and, if there were any justice in the world, he would get the top prize. The Heinous Tat Marketeer of the Year Award or something.
No one could quite believe their eyes when they’d come into Melanie’s office on Monday morning and seen Tiffany Rose sitting on the boardroom table, her cotton poplin skirt hitched up to her thighs, a sag of jersey knicker around one ankle, perched over a tiny plastic potty with a shiny ‘puddle’ to the side – thankfully not in lifelike yellow, but discreetly transparent. On pulling up her skirt they ascertained that the designers had indeed given her a proper bare, dimply bottom and even the faint suggestion of a fanny at the front.
‘Urgh, Jesus, that’s disgusting,’ had been the general consensus.
‘Surely that’s illegal,’ had been another observation.
Vince, meanwhile, sat her on his desk, his tiny porcelain muse, and waited for the words to come.
‘Vince,’ came a voice from the other side of the office, ‘phone for you. It’s Cass.’
Vince picked up the phone, thankful for the diversion. ‘Cass.’
‘I’ve found her.’
‘Who?’
‘The woman. The Obsession woman.’
‘Oh. Right. And?’
‘And, she lives on Wilberforce Road and she’s very fat and she’s got an ugly little boyfriend who looks like a girl.’
‘And what did you say to them?’
‘Nothing. I lost my nerve. Just watched them from the other side of the road. They call her Mou-Shou.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Madeleine – I heard them talking to her and they were calling her Mou-Shou.’
‘As in pork?’
‘Yes,’ she hissed, ‘as in pork. I mean, they’ve named her after meat, for fuck’s sake. Why didn’t they just go the whole hog and call her Sirloin? Or… or, you know – Rump. I’m so furious I could… I could… Jesus. I’m furious.’
‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to go back tonight. Have it out with them. But I want you to come with me.’
‘Me? But why?’
‘Because they’re weird-looking and I don’t want to go on my own.’
And what exactly do you think might happen to you?’
‘Christ, I don’t know. I mean I read this book once about this girl who was given a lift by this really normal-looking couple who ended up keeping her in a box under their bed for ten years. The world is full of scary fuckers. Why take a chance?’
‘OΚ,’ he said, ‘but I’m not very good with confrontation. Promise me you won’t go ballistic’
‘Of course I’m going to go ballistic. They’ve kidnapped my fucking cat.’
‘Cass, aren’t you supposed to be a hippy?’
‘Yes. And?’
‘Well, what happened to good karma and being mellow and all that.’
‘Fuck that,’ she said. ‘This is war.’
Cass and Vince didn’t make it to 44 Wilberforce Road that night. A howling gale arrived in Finsbury Park at around seven o’clock, accompanied by horizontal rain and a wind-chill factor of minus two degrees.
‘We’ll go tomorrow night,’ said Cass, wearing a scarf and hat, and stirring
a steaming pan of something green and pungent on the hob.
‘Can’t tomorrow night. I’m busy. And Friday night.’
‘Well, then, we’ll go at the weekend. Saturday afternoon?’
‘Why don’t you just write her a note instead? That way you don’t have to come into contact with her?’
‘No,’ said Cass. ‘That’s too easy I want to see the whites of her eyes. I want her to feel the full force of my fury.’
‘Fine,’ said Vince defeatedly. ‘Fine. Saturday afternoon. We’ll go on Saturday afternoon.’
Twenty-Eight
Joy glanced down at her left hand and fiddled with a small silver ring on the third finger. It was embedded with a dozen small diamonds clustered around a larger diamond, and had originally belonged to the wife of the man who wrote Charley’s Aunt, according to the man with the handlebar moustache from whose antique jewellery shop on the New King’s Road they’d bought it.
‘Don’t even think about the cost,’ George had said. ‘Just choose the one you love the most.’
As it happened, the one she’d loved the most had cost exactly a quarter of the amount of £50 notes George had folded up into his wallet, and he’d proclaimed her a cheap date.
The ring had been the centre of attention all week long.
‘Let’s see it, then.’ She would dutifully hold out her left hand, in a faintly regal manner, while some overexcited girl or other oohed and aahed and turned the ring this way and that to catch the light.
‘It’s a bit puny,’ had been Bella’s response. ‘Thought you said he was rich.’
So the ring had been chosen and paid for in cash, the dress was a work in progress, the banns had been posted at Chelsea Town Hall, a classified had been placed in the announcements section of the Daily Telegraph (her mother’s idea), the last few remaining boxes of her possessions were squashed into the boot of her mother’s car and she was an hour away from leaving her single life behind for ever.
Joy felt curiously numb as she emptied her lovely room, took pictures off the walls, pulled photos from the mirror frame, hoovered away the detritus of ten weeks of her life. If she thought too much about what she was doing she’d have to stop to think about everything else, and if she did that, then… well, it was too late to do anything about anything now, so there was no point.
She watched her mother trundling down the path towards the Volvo estate carrying a box of shoes – she looked about ten years younger than she did the day those same shoes had arrived at Wilberforce Road more than two months earlier. Barbara had barely had the puff to perform a three-point turn then, but now here she was marching briskly back and forth between the car and the flat with all manner of boxes and bags, barely breaking out into a sweat.
She’d lost a few pounds since Dad left. She’d taken to walking the half a kilometre to the local shops and back every day, to pick up a paper or a lottery ticket – just to get her out of the house, just for something to do. And she couldn’t be bothered to cook properly, not for herself, so she tended to graze her way through the day on Rich Teas, Cuppa Soups and Golden Delicious.
She’d changed her hair, too – decided to try a new salon, just for a change. It was still old-lady hair, but softer, warmer, less sausagey old-lady hair. It hadn’t taken her long to recover from the shock of Alan’s departure and, now that Alan and Toni had moved into a new house three miles away and she no longer had to watch their silhouetted forms disrobing at night through their bedroom window or watch Alan gallantly helping Toni into the passenger seat of his Jag or see him happily pushing a shopping trolley around Asda in a way he’d always resolutely refused to do for her, she finally felt as if she could get on with her life.
‘Well,’ said Joy, letting herself fall into Julia’s marsh-mallow embrace, ‘it’s been fantastic. Short but very sweet.’
Julia pulled back and regarded her fondly. ‘You’re a very special girl,’ she said, ‘and George is a very lucky boy’
‘See you next week, for your second fitting,’ Bella swooped towards her and hammered a birdlike peck on to each cheek before swooping briskly away again. ‘And don’t forget to invite us to your hen night.’
‘I won’t,’ she said.
She got into the passenger seat of her mother’s car, belted herself in and waved goodbye to Julia and Bella, feeling strangely as if she’d forgotten something.
She racked her brain for the full forty minutes of the journey from Finsbury Park to Stockwell, but couldn’t think what it was.
And it wasn’t until they pulled into the access road behind George’s mansion block, and saw him beaming at them from the kitchen window on the third floor, that she realized – it was herself she’d left behind.
Twenty-Nine
‘This is it.’ Cass forced her hands into the pockets of her Afghan coat and came to a halt outside one of the fat red-brick houses on Wilberforce Road.
‘Very nice,’ said Vince appreciatively.
Cass threw him a withering look and walked forcefully towards the front steps. ‘Come on,’ she said as she turned to him impatiently, ‘let’s get this over with.’
Vince whistled nervously under his breath while they waited for the door to be answered. A few seconds later a large woman in a not-quite-long-enough T-shirt and pink angora socks appeared at the door. She had bright orange hair tied up in a ponytail and was smoking a green cigarette.
‘Hello,’ she said, smiling at them widely.
‘Hello,’ said Cass, whose hands were bunched up into fists at her sides. ‘I’m Cass and this is Vince. We live over there – ’ she said, indicating behind the woman. ‘On Blackstock Road. We’ve come to talk to you about my cat.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes. Madeleine. The big Persian tabby. My cat.’
‘Oh, well, how utterly hysterical – he’s a girl! Bella! Bella!’ the woman shouted into the hallway behind her. ‘Guess what! Mou-Shou’s a girl!’ She turned back to them. ‘We thought he was a boy,’ she said, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘Would you like to come in?’
The woman’s flat was high-ceilinged and cluttered. Wine glasses and unemptied ashtrays littered every surface. A large duvet was folded on top of a red sofa, and a very thin man was curled into the corner of a very large leather armchair on the other side of the room, wrapped in a blanket and halfway through a chocolate Hobnob.
‘Told you it was a girl,’ he said to Julia, unfurling a thin leg and eyeing up Vince and Cass with undisguised disdain.
‘This is Vince and Cass. They live on Blackstock Road. Mou-Shou – sorry, Madeleine — is their cat.’ She turned to smile at them, and Vince smiled back at her extra hard to make up for Cass’s deadpan belligerence. ‘This is my friend Bella.’
Vince and Cass both turned as one to reassess the thin man in the armchair. He had long hair and thin eyebrows, but was indubitably a man.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ asked Julia, jamming her green cigarette into a tray of multicoloured stubs.
‘Actually,’ said Cass, ‘this isn’t a social visit.’
‘Oh,’ Julia looked disappointed.
‘No. I’ve come here to tell you to stop feeding my cat. I mean, it’s just not on. I’ve had her for five years. I’ve paid all her vet’s bills, taken time off work to take her there, fed her, loved her, been there for her when she needed me. I mean, me and Madeleine – we’ve got this connection’ She tapped her temple with her finger. ‘Do you see? She’s not just some cat – she’s, like, my best friend. And ever since you started feeding her whatever the fuck it is that you’re feeding her, I hardly ever see her and, even when she does come home to me, there’s this… distance. It’s not the same as it was. And anyone who knows about cats knows that you just don’t feed other people’s cats. It’s rude and it’s cruel and I want you to stop!’
Cass was a livid shade of red by the time she drew breath at the end of her tirade. Her hands were shaking and she’d started crying.
Vince held his breath and lis
tened to the ringing silence. The thin man called Bella had retreated even deeper into his blanket, with a Hobnob suspended halfway between the packet and his mouth.
‘Oh, you poor, poor darling.’ Julia steamed towards Cass with her arms outstretched. ‘I had no idea.’ And then she buried Cass between her bosoms and squeezed her tightly. ‘If I’d thought for a moment… oh, God, I feel dreadful, so utterly dreadful.’
Cass started sobbing properly then, and buried her face deeper into Julia’s T-shirt. ‘Bella,’ said Julia, ‘coffee, please, darling – and make it strong.’
She ferried Cass towards the sofa and sat her down. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you must tell me what we can do to sort this out.’
‘I told you,’ gulped Cass, ‘stop feeding her.’
‘But, sweetness, we don’t feed him – her. I would never do such a thing. From the moment she appeared at the door, I said to her, “You’re very pretty, but we’re not bloody well feeding you.” But she kept coming back. She’s in love, you see, in love with my lodger.’
Cass turned to look at Bella in bewilderment.
‘No, not with him. With Joy’
‘Joy?’
‘Yes. Lovely Joy. My ex-lodger,’ she sighed.
Cass and Vince exchanged a glance.
‘She just moved out this morning, actually. We’re feeling very sad.’
‘Weird,’ said Cass. ‘We’ve been looking for a girl called Joy’
‘Have you, really?’
‘Yes. I don’t suppose… ‘ She looked at Vince. ‘It couldn’t be the same one?’
‘Of course it’s not the same one,’ muttered Vince.
‘What did she look like, your Joy?’
‘Slim,’ said Julia, ‘dark. Very pretty, very pale.’
Cass threw Vince a questioning look. He shrugged and nodded.
‘How old?’
‘Mid twenties. Thereabouts.’