And it’s a massive one.
‘And now, everyone, we come to the improv poetry portion of our evening,’ the goateed host says into the mic. The crowd make an ‘ooooh’ noise. ‘The part of the night when members of our audience come up on stage to recite a little something off the cuff.’
Oh man, there’s more? But we’ve heard so many poems already. I look around at this crowd in disgust, huffing as discreetly as I can. These people are so obsessed with poems. They can’t get enough of poems. There’s no escape. I am in poetry purgatory.
The MC picks a little piece of paper out of a hat.
‘OK, guys, first up to share some improvisation with us is . . . Lucille Darling.’
Because Lucille Darling is not my real name, it takes a second to sink in.
What. The. Fuck?
No.
I spin round to Leo in horror. He’s smiling excitedly. ‘I put your name in when you were using the ladies’ room. You said earlier that if you’d known we were coming here you’d have got up. Well, now’s your chance.’ He looks so pleased with himself. Like he’s done me a favour. What a turd!
Leo Frost. Artist. Thinker. Man. Turd.
What will I do? My eyes flick towards the door. I can hardly leg it, can I? Especially not when it’s taken everything I have to get this far without letting on how unwell I feel. If I run away now it will all have been for nothing. The whole thing. Shit.
Leo stands up and gestures to the audience in much the same way he did at The Beekeeper launch when everyone slow-clapped his disapproval of me.
‘Let’s give Lucille a round of applause!’ he calls out in his smooth, deep baritone.
‘I don’t . . . ’
‘Just close your eyes, Lucille,’ he says earnestly. ‘Let it flow, you’ll be super.’
Balls.
The audience clap and click their fingers heartily.
No one could ever describe me as shy, but my knees have gone proper wibbly. Leo seems really into the idea of me going up there. And Grandma said I must be as enthusiastic as possible . . .
Stop being a sucker, Jess. Just get it done.
I slowly get up from the table and straighten my pencil skirt, trying my best to ignore the acid swishing around in my stomach. Then I totter over to the stage and hold out my hand so that the MC can help me up.
I take the mic, squinting as the spotlight dazzles my eyes.
OK. It’s only a poem. A tiny little poem. I just need to say some random words together and pretend that they make sense to me. Then I can go home to bed where I belong. Right. Random words . . .
I take a deep breath and try to focus.
‘Um . . . Hacky sack,’ I whisper into the mic.
Shit. No. That’s what Freddie Prinze Junior says in She’s All That. I can’t have my poem be about a hacky sack too. The audience think I’m making a hilarious ironic joke and roar with laughter.
‘Ha-ha,’ I agree.
OK. Poem time.
‘Rain-soaked sky,’ I croak out, my throat suddenly dry and flinty. Leo smiles and nods to encourage me, his auburn hair glowing out from the crowd.
‘Oh why . . . Oh why. Why did you have to . . . let her fly?’
What am I even saying? I blink at the audience. They don’t look impressed at all. I don’t blame them. This sucks.
I try to close my eyes like Leo suggested.
Er . . . ‘Empty spaces,’ I go on. ‘Silent places, blurred faces. Stop the weeping. Leave her sleeping.’
I cough.
‘It’s . . . a, um, puzzle, I’ll never know. I can’t reach, I try to grow. Now . . . she’s left me here alone . . . My Rose.’
Rose. Mum. My eyes quickly flicker open. I swallow hard. Where the bloody hell did that come from?
The audience, sensing that I’m finished, start to clap half-heartedly.
I feel sick.
It’s hot in here.
I drank so much last night.
That kebab was uber-greasy.
My head is killing me. The coffee smell is too strong.
I think I have to . . .
‘Puke,’ I whisper.
Knocking the mic stand over, I jump off the stage and race right past a startled-looking Leo Frost and into the ladies’ room. I reach the loo just in time to hurl like I’ve never before hurled in my life. I hurl like a champion.
I hear Leo’s deep voice from outside the cubicle.
‘Lucille?’
Shit!
I grab some loo roll and lightly dab at my mouth, trying not to smudge the pink lipstick Grandma so carefully applied earlier. I feel absolutely rotten. I’m never drinking that much flavoured vodka or eating a dodgy kebab again.
‘I’m OK,’ I say as brightly as I can manage, which isn’t very. ‘Just something I ate!’ My voice is all shaky. I wonder if Leo Frost heard me puking?
I reach up, unlock the door with shaking hands and peek round it. He’s grimacing. Yup. Definitely witness to the vomming.
Fuck. Fuck.
Well now I’ve completely ruined it. I’m pretty fucking certain that a Good Woman must never chuck up in the near vicinity of her intended chap.
It’s over. The project is over. There’s absolutely no way to come back from this.
I yank off Grandma’s ridiculous hat with a sigh and rub my hand over my face.
‘Look . . . Leo, you might as well, you know, leave. I don’t mind,’ I sigh heavily, dropping all pretence of Lucille. What’s the point? I mean, he’s hardly going to want to see me again after I made a right tit of myself on the stage and then extravagantly chundered in front of him.
Man, I feel rough.
Leo Frost steps towards me, his rangy frame filling up the tiny ladies’ room. He crouches down and undoes the tight Liberty-print scarf from around my neck, takes it off, folds it neatly and tucks it into his shirt pocket.
‘Might get in the way,’ he says reasonably.
Before I can respond, my stomach lurches horribly. I turn back to the toilet bowl and throw up again. God, this is the worst fake date in the history of the universe ever.
But then the weirdest thing happens. Leo leans over, gathers up my hair and gently sweeps it back from my face so that it’s away from the toilet. He patiently holds it there until I’m finished.
When the contents of my stomach are flushed away, I flop back against the wall and take long, steady breaths. Without a word, Leo hurries off to get me a glass of cold water. When he returns, he hitches up his fancy suit trousers slightly and sits on the floor beside me.
I rub my stomach and puff the air out through my cheeks, taking the glass of water from him with a mumbled thanks.
‘You can’t possibly have any more left.’ He raises an eyebrow.
Grandma would be horrified if she saw that my grand first date with Leo had ended up on a flipping toilet floor. She would cry, for sure.
‘We ought to get you home,’ Leo says in a low voice. ‘You’re certainly not going to get better in time for our next date by hanging around in a coffee-shop bathroom. Though, as bathrooms go, it’s not a terrible one. A rather good selection of reading material, in fact.’
He points up at the scrawled graffiti on the cubicle wall.
Wait . . . did he just say next date?
Whaaat? He’s still interested after everything that’s just happened?
I don’t understand . . .
Unless . . . God, it must have been all my enthusiasm about the poetry. Grandma must have been right. By pretending to be super interested in what he’s interested in, I’ve totally hooked him in. I’ve hooked him in so well that he’s overlooked the puking. Whoa. Matilda Beam might be magic.
I blink in surprise. So . . . the project isn’t over?
I clear my throat and gaze up at him. ‘Oh, Leo,’ I croon in the slinky Lucille voice. ‘You are soooo thoughtful.’
And we’re back.
Leo arranges for a Woolf Frost town car to take me back to Bonham Square, and when I g
et there Grandma is eagerly awaiting my return.
She jumps up from her chair as soon as I enter the drawing room, Lady Chatterley’s Lover clattering to the floor. Huh. She’s taking her sweet time with that book. I wonder if she’s just rereading the filthy bits like I do.
‘How did it go, dear?’ she asks, super eagerly. ‘What happened? I’ve been waiting for you to get back!’
I flop down onto the sofa and sprawl out, completely drained of all my energy.
‘Frost took me to a coffee house.’
Grandma blinks. ‘Not to dinner? How . . . unusual.’
‘It was a poetry night.’
‘Poetry?’ Grandma pulls a face. ‘Poor you.’
If I wasn’t so ill, I’d laugh.
‘Did he try to kiss you?’ she asks hopefully.
Hmm. I think he might have done if I hadn’t just barfed up. Grandma doesn’t need to know that though, it’ll just bum her out.
‘He did,’ I lie. ‘But I turned so it landed on my cheek, just like the guide said. He’s asked me out again for Thursday night.’
‘Oh, how wonderful!’ Grandma claps her hands together. ‘I am so pleased, Jessica. You’re doing so well. So well. Remember, you must write down what happened for the book. The sooner we have something to show Valentina the better.’
Oh yeah. The first twenty thousand words. I’d forgotten about those. Blerg.
Grandma peers at me worriedly through her big red glasses. ‘Are you all right? You look a little peaky.’ She reaches across and flattens the back of her cold hand against my forehead.
‘I feel a bit sick,’ I say – the understatement of the century. ‘Nowt to worry about though. Just a dicky tummy.’
‘Hmm,’ Grandma murmurs. ‘Peach has been unwell too. Perhaps it’s a bug of some sort.’ She pats my knee. ‘Get yourself to bed, dear. I’m sure the pair of you will feel much better in the morning. Everything looks better in the morning.’
Rose Beam’s Diary
8th June 1985
I can’t remember if I mentioned that Mum and Dad are renewing their marriage vows . . . Anyway, they are, and as the party date draws closer, Mum is in full Good Woman mode. Anyone would think she wasn’t busy enough, what with her official Matilda Beam WI appearances and the endless interfering in MY life. As much as her fussing-about annoys me, I can’t help but feel excited about it. They love each other so, so much and there’s no doubt that it will be the most stylish event anyone in London has seen in a long time. If there’s one thing I can’t deny, it’s that Mum knows how to throw a gorgeous party. They’re holding it in the private gardens opposite our house on a dusky summer’s evening. Dad was fitted for his new suit today and he looked so handsome and excited. I wish I could tell them both about Thom, but it just feels too soon and they’ll probably wig out about the whole thing. I know they can’t forbid me from seeing anyone, I am an adult after all. But I couldn’t stand it if they were unhappy with me in any way. Despite my moaning about them, they dote on me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m underestimating them. Maybe they’ll see how happy Thom makes me and know that it’s the right thing for us to be together.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There are few things that a good night of sleep cannot remedy. Life always looks better in the morning!
Matilda Beam’s Good Mother Guide, 1959
Grandma is so wrong about things being better in the morning. I didn’t believe it was possible to feel any worse than I did last night, but I absolutely do. I’ve been up with bellyache for most of the night and now I’m groaning in bed while Grandma fusses about, taking my temperature and bringing me sachets of dehydration powdery stuff every hour.
Peach is worse too. We’ve been texting each other from our respective sick beds, wishing all sorts of evil things onto the owner of that dodgy kebab house. Namely, that he eats one of his own bastard kebabs.
I really hate being unwell. Being unwell means you have to stay still. And when you stay still there are no distractions, and all the things you don’t want to think about start to seep into your brain and take over. I was never ill, growing up. There’s simply no time to be poorly when you have a poorly mum to look after.
I try to distract myself by going online. I open my Facebook app to see if anyone, anyone at all, is wondering where I am, how I am or what I’m doing. But there are no messages or posts at all for me, just a friend request from Peach Carmichael, which I accept. I look at my news feed. There’s a status from Betty in Didsbury – she’s planning Henry’s birthday party. And, oh, there are a few photos from Amy Keyplass – of her newly painted skirting boards. I scroll down further and see that Summer has posted a number of particularly passive-aggressive status updates.
Summer Spencer
The cheek of particular people is unreal. #fuming
Summer Spencer
You give and you give and some people just take. Have learned my lesson. #movingonup #blessed
Summer Spencer
Thinks that certain people will get what’s coming to them.
Karma’s a bitch, folks. #noregrets #karmachameleon #thekittenismine
With an exasperated eye-roll, I log out of Facebook and swipe onto Google, where I idly type in ‘Leo Frost’. To be honest, I’m a tiny bit freaked out by what happened last night. Leo wasn’t at all what I thought he’d be like. The entire night was pretty unexpected. Yes, he’s a twonk in general – he was snobbish and horrible at The Beekeeper party, and I overheard him being completely sexist at the retro fair – but the whole poetry thing, the fact that he wasn’t a dick when I puked up, his git of a dad and that gorgeous drawing . . . I didn’t, you know, hate him.
Google displays a few articles about Leo Frost the advertising Wunderkind and his rise to the top, under the helm of the powerful and ruthless Rufus Frost, how he’s just been nominated for a London Advertising Association award – one of the youngest people to ever be nominated. I already read those fluff pieces when I first researched him a few days ago, so bypass them and check out the numerous gossip sites, where Leo is regularly spotted at cool bars and events and hanging out with celebrities. I flick onto Google images. There are a few pics of his print adverts – stark, steely artwork for cars, golf clubs, beers, man stuff!, but mostly it’s paparazzi shots of Leo with various modelesque women on his arm. Oh look, there’s one of him with Valentina. They’re leaving a club and she’s kissing him on the cheek while he grins arrogantly into the camera.
The way his lips are curled in this photograph, his Cupid’s bow sneering upwards . . . He didn’t seem at all like that last night.
Maybe he’s got an evil twin.
Maybe not – this isn’t Sunset Beach.
Confused, I press my phone icon and dial Valentina’s number.
After three rings, she answers.
‘Jess? Is that you?’
‘It’s me.’ I sit up in bed, prop a pillow behind my back and take a sip of water.
‘Jess, my sunshine pudding, how are you? How goes my pet project? I’m so excited about it.’
‘Um, all right, I think . . . I was actually calling because I went on my first proper date with Leo Frost last night.’
‘Hold on, I’m at lunch, it’s noisy, let me just head outside.’
I hear her apologizing to whomever she’s with, and then the sound of her heels clip-clopping across a wooden floor.
‘I’m back. Go on. Tell me. How did it go? He’s a fucking terror, isn’t he? So charming. Such a prick.’
‘Well, that’s kind of why I’m ringing, Valentina. Leo Frost is a goon, obviously, no diggity, no doubt, but he wasn’t, well, he wasn’t a total dick. He wasn’t what I was expecting at all . . . ’
‘He schmoozed you with a fancy dinner and expensive wines, I expect? Did he bring you extravagant gifts? Exotic flowers? Artisan chocolates? Tell you your face is sweeter than honeydew? It’s easy to be swayed by those things, believe me, but—’
‘Well, no, that’s the thing. He didn’t
do any of that. He didn’t take me to dinner. He seemed like he was going to, but then he changed his mind and took me to a poetry night instead. At some little coffee house.’
There’s a pause on the other end. ‘Poetry? Jesus.’
‘I know, right?’
‘Hmmm.’ I hear her long nails tapping against the phone. ‘He never mentioned poetry to me when we were seeing each other. He tried to get you into bed, of course?’
‘Um, no. Ew. But I have been putting out the “not that kind of girl” vibes like Grandma’s guides tell me to.’
‘Gosh . . . He must be trying out a new move. It has to be that. Leo is a shark whose only goal where women are concerned is to get them into the sack and then to heartlessly dump them when he’s feeling bored or tied down. Maybe he’s changing up his MO . . . How curious. Keep your wits about you, sweet, naive Jessica. It’s you who must hold on to the upper hand. Stick to Matilda’s tips and remember who you’re dealing with. Keep me updated, OK? I have to go back to lunch now, but let’s speak soon, and Jessica, remember . . . Leo Frost is not to be trusted.’
She speaks as if I’m going off into battle. Wow. Poor Valentina. He really did pull a number on her.
I say bye and press the ‘end call’ button.
Leo Frost. Artist. Thinker. Man. Not to be trusted.
So it’s all an act? He’s being what he thinks I want, just to get me into bed? Kind of like what I’m doing to him . . .
I picture Leo gently taking my scarf from around my neck, holding back my hair. The whole kind and sensitive act. How he told me to close my eyes and ‘let it flow’ when I got on stage. And I blummin’ did.
Oh, he’s good. He’s really fucking good.
At about five p.m., there’s been little improvement in my condition and, according to her texts, it’s the same for Peach. Grandma is dashing from my room to Peach’s and back again to bring us fresh water and soothing platitudes. I’m watching You’ve Been Framed on the iPhone in-between trips to the loo and feeling incredibly sorry for myself.
The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance Page 19