‘Just a moment, let me check my schedule.’ I press secrecy on the phone again.
‘He’s bootie-calling me,’ I hiss to Grandma and Peach.
‘Bootie calling?’ Grandma squints. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
Hmmm. How do you explain a bootie call to a seventy-seven-year-old woman who still watches her movies on VHS tapes?
‘Er . . . he’s not quite offering to take me on a date. I reckon he wants me to go to his place for . . . you know . . . ’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Um, well, let’s just say that he wants to do to me what Oliver the gamekeeper does to Lady Chatterley.’
Grandma’s mouth drops open. She snatches the phone from my grasp and presses her bony finger onto the ‘end call’ icon.
‘What did you just do!’ I yell, grabbing my phone off her. ‘You hung up on him!’
‘He’s a cad, dear,’ Grandma declares, calmly pushing her big red glasses up her nose. ‘A very handsome, very wealthy and charming cad. Women don’t hang up on him – the very fact that you just did will intrigue him, trust me. When he calls back, tell him that you would love to meet him for an early dinner tomorrow evening – he won’t correct you about his original dishonourable intentions, his manners are far too polished for that.’
‘He won’t blummin’ call back!’ I roll my eyes. ‘This isn’t the olden days, G. It isn’t cute or intriguing or flirty when you hang up. It just pisses people off.’
The phone rings again.
It’s him.
I blink at my mobile and eye Grandma with astonishment. She casually examines her perfectly painted fingernails as if this is no big deal.
‘Whoa.’ Peach gawps at the phone.
I pick it up.
‘Hello?’
‘Ah, Lucille, we must have got cut off,’ Leo says in his deep plummy tones.
‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry about that. I got distracted and completely forgot you were on the telephone!’ I giggle warmly. Grandma beams.
‘Oh,’ he coughs lightly. ‘Right.’
‘Now, about dinner. I’m available early evening tomorrow, I hope that suits? I’m sure a gentleman like you knows the most wonderful places to take a girl.’
I wait for him to explain that he wasn’t exactly asking me out on a date. But he doesn’t. Grandma was right. She was completely right! He’s too well brought up to overtly correct my ‘mistake’, especially since I just referred to him as a gentleman.
‘Um . . . yes, well. I wasn’t . . . Yes, OK. I suppose early evening . . . could work?’
‘Divine,’ I purr down the phone. ‘I’m already looking forward to it.’
Like. A. Boss.
Completely oblivious to the cunning trickery that has just been performed upon him, one Leo Frost agrees to take one Lucille Darling for an early dinner date tomorrow evening.
I click off the phone and hold my hand out to Grandma for a high-five. She thinks I’m waving at her and waves back, a confused expression on her bespectacled face. Thankfully, Peach dives over, slaps my hand and saves the high-five. Phew.
It’s on. It’s on like donkey kong.
Chapter Nineteen
It is not a lady’s place to trouble herself with the financial matters of her family, but the man’s. Trust your husband’s judgement, always.
Matilda Beam’s Good Housewife Guide, 1957
The buoyant mood of the call with Leo Frost is dampened shortly afterwards when the door buzzer goes.
‘I’ll get it!’ I yell, weaving my way down the hallway of doom and narrowly avoiding death via a precariously wobbling block of Japanese chopping knives balanced on a stack of retro board games. I tut and, carefully placing the knife block on the floor beside the other junk, answer the intercom.
‘Yo.’
‘Morning. Y’got a letter needs signing for.’
I buzz the postie up and open the front door. I see him – a stocky fella in shorts and a postman’s cap – racing up the stairs. When he spots me, his young, tanned, smiling face drops in stark disappointment. Jeez. I know I look a bit manky in the mornings, but he could at least try to hide his distaste.
‘Where’s Peach?’ he asks, handing me a letter addressed to Matilda. ‘Has . . . has she left her job? Are you her replacement?’
‘Oh no, Peach is in the kitchen, I think. Would you like to speak to her?’
He pulls the lip of his cap down. ‘N-no. Unless . . . do you think she wants to talk to me?’
‘I don’t know. We can ask her?’ I turn around to call Peach from the kitchen.
‘No! No, don’t.’ He wipes a bit of sweat from his brow. ‘It’s cool. Just sign this, please.’ He hands me a little machine and an electronic pen. I do a squiggle and take the letter from him.
‘You want me to tell Peach you said hello?’ I raise an eyebrow.
‘Um, no. I’ll see her tomorrow,’ he mumbles, hurrying back off down the stairs.
‘Bye then!’ I call after him cheerily, but he’s already gone.
Odd.
Moseying back to the drawing room, I peek down at Matilda’s letter. Beneath the transparent part of the envelope I see the words:
Possession Action: Bonham Square.
Fuck. That sounds serious! And scary. Even the bold font they’ve used looks grumpy. I hand the letter to Grandma, who’s sitting in her blue chair with her sewing box out, taking in the grey pencil skirt she wants me to wear for tomorrow’s date with Leo.
‘This letter just came for you!’
She barely glances up. ‘Thank you, dear. Put it on the hall table, please. I’ll get to it later.’
I picture the stack of unopened final reminder letters I saw last night.
‘Er . . . maybe you should open this one. I think it’s important.’
‘Yes, I shall . . . later,’ she answers vaguely.
‘But . . . ’
Grandma looks up sharply, her face displaying the same frowny expression Mum used to give me when I asked her why I didn’t have a dad, or if I’d spent my week’s pocket money in one day. I stop talking and rub my neck. Why am I even getting involved? It’s not my problem. It’s not my business. In two to four weeks I’ll be out of here, hopefully in another country.
But . . . when you don’t deal with letters like this, nasty people start turning up at your door. And that’s not something that should happen to any old person, regardless of whether or not they’re a blood relative. My stomach lurches just imagining the horrible scenario.
I rip open the letter.
Grandma’s head darts up from her sewing, her mouth dropping open. ‘W-what on earth are you doing? That’s private! It’s illegal to open someone else’s post! Stop!’
‘You haven’t been opening your post for ages and you have to deal with this.’ I unfold the bright red letter and read it, taking in the threateningly passive-aggressive tone, the phrases ‘Notice of Possession’, ‘significant arrears’, ‘proposed payment plan’. Grandma casts the skirt aside and stands up, reaching to grab the letter off me.
I let her take it and watch sadly as she reads.
‘Oh dear. I . . . I . . . ’ she starts, before plopping back down onto her chair and hanging her head.
Oh dear indeed.
‘Hey, we can sort this, OK,’ I say, swallowing hard. ‘Don’t get upset. It, um, it says that they need you to agree to a minimum payment plan. If you can keep up with it then they won’t take you to court.’
Grandma removes her glasses and sighs, her eyes filling with tears.
‘How on earth has it come to this?’ she mutters to herself before meeting my gaze. ‘I can’t bear to think about it, Jessica. I . . . I was hoping that if I didn’t think about it, it would go away. I told myself that I would deal with it all once my books were republished, but these people – ’ she waves the letter about with trembling hands – ‘are terribly impatient. And very rude.’
‘Maybe if you just phone them up—’
�
��But Jack always handled the finances! It’s the job of a Good Husband to deal with these things. I don’t know what to do. Whatever will I do?’
Shit. I’m not exactly money-savvy, but my old-fashioned grandma has no clue at all how to handle this. How can she have been so successful with her books and not have a grip on how to handle money and debt issues?
‘I could get a part-time job?’ I suggest.
I did bar work when I was travelling. There are probably loads of bar jobs in London.
‘No,’ Grandma sobs. ‘We have to focus on our project with Valentina. That’s the best chance of a decent income we have. And I can’t ask you to pay for your grandfather’s mistakes. I simply cannot. Not when it’s our fault that—’
There’s a noisy crash from the hallway as Peach trips over one of the many pieces of junk out there.
‘I’m all right!’ she calls out. ‘I just tripped over a whisk!’
A whisk? Why the hell is there a . . . Then I get a brainwave. A magnificent brainwave.
‘Grandma,’ I say, sitting down on the sofa opposite her. ‘I’ve got an idea. I think maybe we’re going to have to sell some of your stuff.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘All that junk in the hall and in the attic. We could sell it, you know? I mean, you don’t use any of it.’
‘Those are my belongings! They have . . . sentimental value.’ She frowns at me as if I’ve just suggested she remove her own leg and sell that.
I roll my eyes. ‘It won’t mean anything to have eight different candelabras if you’re living in a park.’
‘Oh, good grief!’ Grandma dissolves into another round of tears. Shit. I reach across and pat her shoulder.
‘I’m kidding.’ Kind of. ‘But sentimentality is for suckers. You’ve got to be ruthless in these situations. Are you honestly telling me that you need all that stuff out there? There are two bowling balls by the front door. When was the last time you went bowling?’
Grandma looks at her knees. ‘I believe it was 1978. But . . . I might decide to go again. One day.’
‘You won’t! And what about the old record player? Some muso geek would probably pay a fortune for that.’
‘I have a record player?’ Grandma says in astonishment. ‘I didn’t notice that!’
‘See! You don’t even know half the junk you’ve got. We could even sell all those porcelain dolls in my room too. They’re really cree—’
‘No!’ Grandma interrupts fiercely. ‘No. Not those. They stay put. Under no circumstances must those dolls be—’
‘OK, OK, jeez! Not the dolls. You choose what we sell and we’ll put it on eBay. I’m awesome at eBay. Last year I wrote such a good eBay description for a pair of platform boots that there was this major bidding war and they ended up selling for sixty quid. I only paid fifteen quid for them at the inside market and that was in 2003.’
‘The Eebay?’ Grandma sniffs. ‘Is that a jumble sale? Where is it situated? Is it in Zone One?’
‘Oh, you have such a lot to learn, dear,’ I say in a hammily imperious impression of her. ‘Seriously, though. I’ll show you how to do it. It’s super easy, and it could maybe ward off the bailiffs, at least until we finish the project.’
Grandma takes a deep, quivering breath, her chin sinking to her chest. ‘I have rather been burying my head in the sand.’
I shrug. ‘Don’t worry, shit happens – sorry – rubbish happens. But we’ve opened the letter now and that was the worst bit. We’ll get it sorted, all right? It’s going to be OK.’
In response, Grandma leans across, puts her liver-spotted hand on my cheek and gives me a small smile. ‘Precious Jessica. Thank the heavens for you.’
The day whistles by in a series of archaic behavioural lessons from Grandma. Because of the date with Leo tomorrow, and the likelihood that he’ll take me somewhere mega fancy (see: pretentious), Grandma insists that I ‘learn how to conduct myself at the table’. According to her, I ‘eat like a rabid caveman’. Which is just not true. I eat like an adult human being. Who sometimes accidentally spills a bit of food on her boobs. But apparently I’m supposed to take tiny, delicate bites, like I’m some kind of fragile sad-act bird or a French woman. It’s ridiculous. When we move onto ‘correct use of cutlery’, I tell Grandma that I’ve seen Pretty Woman a gazillion times and know all about the ‘knives and forks from the outside in’ rule. But she is insistent that we work from her guides which, of course, also instruct that ‘cutlery should be taken from the outside, working inwards’.
Some of the more absurd tips we go through include:
Preserve a Good Man’s pride by allowing him to pay the bill.
Wait to be seated by your dinner companion or the waiter. A Good Woman never seats herself.
Never engage with the waiter. Keep your eyes on your date and allow him to order on your behalf.
All of which make me laugh out loud and snort with rage in equal measure. At about five p.m., and satisfied that she has filled my head with more than enough useless information on how to make Leo Frost fall in love with me at dinner (because obviously it’ll be boner city once I reveal to him my extensive knowledge of fucking spoon etiquette), Grandma glides off to finish her skirt sewing, and I set my laptop up at the big kitchen table.
Opening up a new Word doc, I type out ‘How to Catch a Man Like It’s 1955’ and underline it.
And then I stare at it.
For quite a while.
I haven’t written anything other than Summer in the City blog posts in two years. When I was travelling I wrote rambling journals and essays and short stories at the drop of a hat. But writing about nothing but cocktail recipes and boutique hotels and Summer’s Top 5 Skirts . . . Ever! has left me woefully out of practice at anything more, well, meaningful.
Twenty thousand words in less than four weeks is quite a massive commitment when you think about it. Do I even know twenty thousand words? What if by some outlandish miracle I actually have to write the rest of the book? That’s at least another sixty thousand words. How long will that take? Will I have to stay here? Wearing the corset every day until my ribcage gets smaller and smaller, until it eventually disappears and I die? Living with my watery-eyed grandma and all of her many feels? Being reminded of my mum? My stomach churns nervously and I push the questions away into the farthest corners of my mind.
I change the font on the document title five times, eventually settling on good old Times New Roman.
Then I make a pot of tea really slowly.
Then I do my singing impression of Shakira just for my own amusement.
Then I look out of the window for a bit and think about Summer’s TV show and if she will become the new Lena Dunham.
As I’m pondering this, Peach clomps into the kitchen, Mr Belding clasped to her chest. His tiny head is nestled cosily against her large T-shirt-clad bosom. She gazes down at him with a doting smile. They’ve bonded. He’s going to be well peeved when he has to go back to Manchester and all that dressing-up for the Internet. Maybe I’ll hold off telling Summer I nicked him for just a teeny bit longer . . .
‘Hey, Jess,’ Peach squeaks.
I practically fall on her in an effort not to have to return to the computer screen just yet.
‘Hey, Lady P. What’s occurring? Tell me all your gossip. All of it. Do you want a brew? A jammy dodger? What did you get up to last night?’ I pour out another cup of tea.
Peach sits down at the table and arranges Mr Belding in her lap. ‘I, um, I watched a movie. It was a shame you didn’t get back home in time. I was really looking forward to watching it with you.’
Huh? Oh. I said I would watch a DVD with her last night! That was why I smelled popcorn when I got home. I bet she got us face masks as well. Crap, I completely forgot! Should have written it on my hand.
‘Shit, I’m sorry Peach.’
She turns red, waving away my apology. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I know how busy you are with the project . . . I was hoping you might be free
this evening?’
I side-eye the Word document on my laptop. ‘Hmm . . . What did you have in mind?’
‘I don’t know, maybe we could go out for a coffee? Like they did in the popular TV show Friends. They drank a lot of coffee together and always seemed to have a whole lot of fun and hijinks.’
I shrug. ‘Hmm, how about we take it up a notch? We could go out for a few drinks? Maybe a boogie?’ I shake my shoulders to demonstrate the boogie.
Peach’s pale grey eyes light up at the idea, but then she shakes her head. ‘Sounds expensive.’
‘My cheque from Valentina cleared today . . . ’
‘I can’t let you do that. You need that money.’
‘I do . . . but I’m sure a few quid or so won’t matter that much. It’ll be my way of saying sorry for missing your movie night. And I’m kind of an expert when it comes to having a top night out on basically no dosh.’
‘When would we go?’
I squint at the laptop for a moment longer. Then I gently snap down the lid with the tip of my forefinger.
‘How’s about right now?’
Grandma must be feeling generous because she doesn’t seem to mind at all that Peach and I are going out dancing.
‘You have worked hard today and every Good Woman deserves a little fun from time to time.’ She gives me a benevolent look. ‘Dancing is a truly wonderful way to keep one fit in an elegant and ladylike fashion.’
I wonder what kind of dancing she thinks we’re going out to do? Probably the bossa nova or something. I don’t correct her. While Grandma is cool about us going out, she absolutely insists on two conditions: one, that we pull a Cinderella and return by midnight so that I’ll get a full beauty sleep ready for my date with Leo tomorrow, and two, that I wear my vintage underwear in order to learn how to ‘move around more gracefully’ in it.
Peach helps me into the waspie, the girdle and the bullet bra, and though it hurts like a motherfucker, when I put on my skinny jeans and tight red Ramones T-shirt, the curvy effect is kind of epically sexy. Peach changes into a cute green tunic, black leggings and a gauzy black pashmina and, together, we leave the house.
The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance Page 16