Perfect Timing

by Jill Mansell

  ‘I’ll tell them.’ Caspar shrugged. ‘No worries. I’m sorry if they gave you a hard time, swee—Poppy, but I’ll put them straight. You know I will.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ she howled. ‘What you need to do is get your act together, stop mucking everyone around and… and… grow up.’

  She shivered suddenly, hating the way Caspar was looking at her, half amused and half taken aback. In his eyes, she was good old Poppy, someone he could have a bit of a laugh with, someone who would always listen to his mild grumblings when the endless stream of girlfriends made too many demands on his time. Oh, every now and then she might have put up token resistance, Poppy thought with fresh bitterness, but basically, as far as Caspar was concerned, she was on his side.

  She was okay. A good sort. A pal.

  Every time she had studied the photographs in today’s papers, Poppy had been struck, painfully, by the differences between the two of them. There was Caspar, blond and godlike, and herself, bedraggled and hoglike. And even though she knew she didn’t normally look like that, it still hurt. Like hell.

  No wonder Caspar had never made a pass at her.

  Shocked that she could even think it—good grief, what was the matter with her today?—Poppy launched into the next wave of attack.

  ‘You know what you are, don’t you?’ she demanded. ‘You are just so damn selfish. You don’t give a shit about anyone else. As long as you’re all right, nothing else matters. What do you care about other people’s feelings? Sod all, that’s what.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like Eleanor Brent,’ said Caspar. ‘Good job we don’t have a swear box.’

  ‘Oh ha-bloody-ha.’

  The doorbell rang. Since Poppy was too busy seething and thinking up fresh home truths, Caspar answered it.

  He came back into the sitting room with a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of orange roses and a bottle of Stolichnaya. They weren’t for her.

  Caspar tore open the envelope and read the accompanying letter aloud.

  ‘Dear boy.

  Having sobered up, I now have to thank you for coming to my aid yesterday. I did a foolish thing. Mercifully I have lived to regret it. I can assure you I was—headache apart—extremely glad this morning not to wake up dead.

  Once more, my heartfelt thanks. Please enjoy the vodka on my behalf, as my doctor informs me I am now on the wagon. He’s a bloody old fool—still, this time I can see his point. There shall certainly be no repeat of yesterday’s performance. How depressing to think a bellyful of putrid pond water might have been the last drink of my life.

  Thank you again. Eleanor.’

  ‘How moving,’ Poppy sneered because saying anything nice was by this time completely beyond her. ‘What a total hero you are.’

  ‘What a total grump you’re in,’ countered Caspar. ‘Jesus, next time I see some raddled old actress drowning I’ll leave her to it.’ He frowned. ‘Anyway, I still don’t understand. Why are you like this?’

  ‘I’m like this because Eleanor Brent thinks you’re the bee’s knees, and you aren’t. You’re a complete shit. What’s more, I bet you deliberately sloped off this morning,’ Poppy accused him, ‘just to avoid all the phone calls you knew you’d be getting. You left me to take the flak instead. And some bloody flak it was too. Come on, admit it,’ she snarled, ‘you weren’t really seeing a collector from Hong Kong.’

  ‘Okay, I wasn’t. It was someone else. But it was still a meeting I couldn’t break.’ Caspar looked uncomfortable. He had actually been invited to Kensington Palace to discuss the possibility of a royal commission, but he had been warned not to broadcast this news.

  ‘What kind of meeting? Horizontal, I suppose.’

  ‘Now you’re being childish.’ He began to lose patience. Poppy was standing with her hands on her hips like a fishwife. ‘Look at you—’

  ‘Yes, look at me!’ Poppy had spent most of the day peering into a mirror. Every time she did, it seemed she had slid up the ugly-scale another notch. ‘Just look at me, fright-night on legs. One more example—as if we bloody needed it—of how self-centered you are.’

  ‘What?’

  She grabbed one of the newspapers and shoved it at him. Her grotesque, swollen face gazed up from the page.

  ‘How could you have done it? Whatever possessed you?’ Poppy demanded furiously. ‘You knew how awful I looked, but you had to drag me into the picture anyway—never mind the blood on my chin and my hair being a mess and the fact that I looked as if I’d been chewing a brick. Do you have any idea how humiliating that is? Can you even begin to understand how ashamed I am? No, obviously you can’t.’ Since all Caspar was doing was looking bemused, she jabbed at the photograph again, so hard her finger went through his face. ‘As long as you’re looking great, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter how much of a fool you make me look. That’s why you’re selfish.’

  So much, thought Caspar, for his spur-of-the-moment plan. If the ploy had worked, if Tom had spotted Poppy’s picture in the paper and managed to track her down as a result, presumably Poppy would have been thrilled. As it was, she was all but unrecognizable and even if Tom did recognize her, she looked such a sight he would be more likely to emigrate.

  But this was something else he couldn’t tell her because as Jake had pointed out, it would be unfair to raise Poppy’s hopes until they had a result.

  Not that she was being exactly fair, thought Caspar. Talk about ungrateful. It was positively the last time he tried to play Cupid.

  In all honesty, he hadn’t thought twice about how Poppy was looking when the guy had shown up with the camera. Poppy was Poppy, with her big eyes and her mad hair and the irresistible broad smile that lit up her face.

  Not that her face was in much danger of lighting up just now.

  ‘Have you finished?’ Beginning to feel hard done by, he wondered briefly if Poppy expected him to apologize. Sod it, why should he? What, after all, had he done that was so wrong?

  Poppy glimpsed the flicker of boredom in his eyes. There was resentment there too, resentment no doubt that she had dared to speak her mind. Caspar clearly had no intention of saying sorry.

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped. Then, as he turned towards the door, ‘No! No, I bloody haven’t.’

  Caspar suppressed a yawn. ‘Okay, but try and fit it into the next two hours. I’m supposed to be going out tonight.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you,’ Poppy shot back. ‘I’m just saying it’s about time you grew up. Sorted yourself out. Why don’t you do the decent thing for once, and put your fan club out of their misery? It’s not fair on any of them, buggering them around like this. What you need to do is choose one. Go eeny meeny miney mo. Then get married.’

  Caspar stared at her. He could still hardly believe they were having this row. He’d had no idea Poppy felt this way about him. She was positively oozing disdain from every pore.

  ‘Right.’ His tone was level. ‘So. Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it.’ Poppy’s smile was saccharine-sweet. ‘There, never mind two hours, I managed to fit it into two minutes. Rather like your sex life.’

  Bewilderingly, Poppy realized she was on the verge of tears. She had no idea why, just as she couldn’t imagine where all this pent-up fury had come from. God, she thought, appalled, I sound like some screeching fishwife.

  But whatever happened, Poppy knew she mustn’t let Caspar see her cry.

  Chapter 36

  Claudia wasn’t nearly as sympathetic as Poppy would have liked her to be. Arriving home shortly after Caspar had left the house—without a word to Poppy—she was far more interested in rummaging through her wardrobe and swivelling in front of mirrors to see if last summer’s bikinis made her bottom look big. Marilyn, one of the girls from the office, had split up with her boyfriend forty-eight hours before they were due to fly out to the Canaries. Marilyn wasn’t heartbroken—‘Ah, he wasn’t up to much; what can you say about a man who wears socks in bed?’—and Claudia, desperate for some
sun, had offered to take his place.

  ‘By this time tomorrow, I’ll be stretched out on a beach.’ She heaved a blissful sigh and held up a parrot-green swimsuit. ‘Does this look as if it’s shrunk?’

  ‘You’re no help,’ Poppy grumbled. ‘I’ve had the biggest fall-out since Chernobyl, Caspar’s never going to speak to me again, and you aren’t even listening.’

  ‘I am, I am.’ There was a hole in the side seam of the green swimsuit. Claudia kicked it under the bed, rummaged in the wardrobe some more, and unearthed a burnt-orange bikini. ‘Now this one’s good for sunbathing. But if you try and swim your boobs fall out—’

  ‘We may as well say good-bye now,’ said Poppy. ‘He’s bound to have kicked me out by the time you get back.’

  ‘D’you really think he will?’ Claudia let out a shriek of delight as she spotted her favorite white espadrilles. ‘You little darlings… I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’

  ‘Not that you care.’ Poppy was beginning to feel distinctly unloved. Claudia was hugging her espadrilles like puppies. Any minute now, Poppy thought, she’d give them a couple of biscuits.

  ‘Look,’ said Claudia, because Poppy’s thunderous expression was putting her off her packing, ‘I hate to say I told you so. But be honest: the reason you’re upset is because you’ve only just realized what a shit Caspar is. I mean, isn’t it what I’ve been saying all along?’

  Claudia was lying; she loved being able to say I told you so. Poppy gritted her teeth and nodded. Under the circumstances, she didn’t have much choice.

  ‘You always used to think it was funny,’ Claudia went on, ‘the way he got so muddled up about who he was supposed to be seeing. I felt sorry for them but you just thought it was hysterical.’

  ‘I felt sorry for them too.’ Poppy was stung. ‘Well, Kate anyway.’ She decided she might as well confess. ‘I thought you were jealous because you fancied Caspar yourself.’

  Claudia didn’t howl with laughter; that would have been overdoing it. She just looked suitably amused, as if a small child had told a knock-knock joke.

  ‘I’ve never fancied Caspar. Oh, I know he has the looks and the charm, but don’t forget I’ve lived here longer than you. I’ve always known what he’s like. Anyway,’ she added with a genuine shudder, ‘he had an affair with my mother. If that isn’t enough to put you off someone, I don’t know what is.’

  Poppy had forgotten about that. Caspar and Angie Slade-Welch. He had laughingly denied it at the time, but of course he had slept with her. As Claudia pointed out, it was pretty yucky. Angie might be glamorous but she was old enough to be Caspar’s mother too.

  Belatedly, Poppy remembered that Claudia wasn’t supposed to know about Angie’s visits to the house.

  ‘Your mum?’ She raised a tentative eyebrow. ‘And Caspar?’ Surely Caspar hadn’t been indiscreet enough to spill the beans.

  Claudia carried on packing. Her expression was matter-of-fact.

  ‘My mother told me. She’s on some kind of mission, if you ask me, to prove how attractive she still is to the opposite sex. I think she expected me to be impressed,’ Claudia went on dryly. ‘The trouble is, having your portrait painted and getting slept with by Caspar isn’t an achievement. It’s par for the course.’

  Arriving home from work the next day, Poppy found a note with her name on the front propped up against the biscuit tin.

  The house was empty. Poppy’s fingers shook as she unfolded the sheet of paper. She hadn’t meant all those terrible things she’d said—well, maybe meant them a bit, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be banished from Cornwallis Crescent for good.

  But all the note said was: Poppy. Have gone away for the week with Babette. As Claudia is away too, this leaves you in charge of the house (i.e. don’t leave front door wide open when you go off to work). I have bought an answering machine and set it up, so no need for you to take messages. C.

  Having vented her spleen yesterday, Poppy had pretty much got her exasperation with Caspar out of her system. Now, re-reading the terse little note, she felt a lump expand in her throat. No Dear Poppy, no jokes, no lighthearted warnings about wild all-night parties. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to sign off with his full name; all she now merited was a chilly initial.

  He was still angry with her.

  She might not be out on her ear—yet, anyway—but they definitely weren’t friends.

  TOM: Are you the Tom who visited a Bristol nightclub last June and met a girl, out at her bachelorette party, called Poppy?

  If you are Tom or you think you may know him, please phone this number, any evening…

  Studying the advert in the personal column of the Evening Standard, Jake experienced a rush of something that was a mixture of excitement and pride. He felt quite private detectivish, maybe even a bit James Bondy. It had taken him hours to perfect the wording of the advertisement. He had been tempted, at first, to put Desperately Seeking Tom. Then he had toyed—quite daringly for him—with Did You Ever Meet A Girl Who Wore Durex On Her Head?

  In the end, he kept it simple. He had bought a mobile phone—okay, so the world and his dog carried mobiles around these days, but it still secretly gave Jake a thrill—and arranged for the ad to run every night for a week. He’d had two calls already, from a girl offering exotic personal services and from a man called James who would be more than happy to change his name to Tom. So long as the money was good, he explained matter-of-factly, he’d answer to any name Jake liked.

  ‘Fancy a trip to the cinema?’ asked Poppy, who was missing Caspar and Claudia dreadfully. The big house felt strange without them, and the weekend loomed emptily ahead. She sat on a George III giltwood armchair with her feet tucked under her and prodded Jake’s copy of the Standard. ‘Whenever you like, tonight or tomorrow night. Go on, have a look and see what’s on. You can choose.’

  ‘Can’t make it,’ said Jake, imagining his mobile phone ringing in the middle of the film. He had already decided he had to stay at home in order to take the calls that were bound to flood in. ‘Sorry, I’m… er… pretty busy just now.’

  Jake never went anywhere in the evenings. Poppy wondered if he was cinemaphobic.

  ‘Okay, never mind seeing a film. How about coming round to my place and letting me cook dinner? Nothing too glamorous, just chili or something, but we could play Boggle, open a bottle of wine…’

  Jake had compiled a series of questions to ask the potential Toms who phoned up, in order to weed out the cranks. The questionnaire was his version of Cinderella’s glass slipper and he could hardly put it to each caller with Poppy there, her ears out on stalks.

  ‘Sorry. I really am busy. Maybe another time.’

  Poppy nodded without speaking. She tried not to feel hurt. Jake’s manner had become almost abrupt; he clearly had better things to do these days than socialize with her.

  I smartened him up, she thought with a twinge of resentment, and now I’m paying the price. Jake isn’t busy; he’s just seeing someone else.

  As if on cue, two women who were regulars at the market approached Jake’s stall. Hunched low in her chair pretending to read next week’s Bonham’s catalogue, Poppy watched them flirt gently with Jake. In the old days he would have blushed, stammered out some lame excuse, and disappeared before you could say white rabbit.

  To look at him now you wouldn’t believe it. He was coping beautifully, taking their attentions in his stride, and well on his way to making a sale. He wasn’t flirting back at them, Poppy noticed, but he was certainly letting them think he might.

  And all thanks to a new image.

  Jake had discovered self-confidence and it suited him.

  Poppy, whose weekend was looking emptier and more gloomy by the minute, thought: Fat lot of good it’s done me.

  Feeling faintly guilty, even though all she was doing was phoning a friend for a chat, Poppy rang Dina in Bristol.

  ‘…it’s so weird, I’m never usually like this. Six o’clock on a Friday evening
and I’m already bored out of my skull. You wouldn’t believe how quiet the house is. Every room is so empty.’

  ‘What do you look like?’ Dina, ever practical, thought it best to check.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Your face. D’you still look like a gargoyle?’

  ‘Oh! No, that’s all gone down.’

  ‘So you can be seen out in public?’ In Bristol, Dina fluffed her hair up in front of the mirror and gave her reflection a knowing grin.

  Poppy pretended not to understand. ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Come on! I can be there by nine. And if Claudia’s not there I can’t upset her, can I? While the cat’s away and all that. We’ll have a ball!’

  Poppy felt guilty again.

  ‘What about Ben? And the baby?’

  ‘They’ll manage,’ Dina breezily dismissed that problem. ‘You know Ben. If I’m happy, he’s happy. He won’t mind. And as for Daniel, he won’t even notice! Tell you what, hang on a sec and I’ll just square it…’

  She was back on the line moments later.

  ‘Get your kit on, girl. And do yourself up. This weekend is going to be wild!’

  Chapter 37

  Deciding to go for it was easy enough; actually going through with going for it was another thing altogether.

  Hopelessly out of practice, Poppy took a leaf out of Dina’s book and tripled her usual amount of make-up. Heaps of black around the eyes, more blusher, and gallons more mascara. Rifling Claudia’s dressing-table drawers in search of big earrings, she came across a nice bronzy-looking lipstick and put it on. Bronze was good; it went with her hair and wouldn’t make her look a complete tart.