‘No, I bloody can’t. Get Polly here to sign as they’re all for her.’
‘For me?’
‘Yes. This place, deary me, I mean I’ve seen some things in my time but never fifty bouquets of roses.’
‘Who the hell from?’
‘You tell me. You must have a secret admirer.’
Fifty bouquets. An unhinged number of flowers. I mean that’s like… I tried to do the sums in my head… thousands of pounds’ worth of roses. I reached out for the delivery man’s clipboard. It could only be Jasper. What a nutter, I thought, shaking my head and smiling as I handed back the clipboard. But I was ecstatic, obviously. It was the most romantic, most fairy-tale thing anyone had ever done for me.
‘Sorry, Alan. Chaos, I know, but I think it’s just a friend of mine. Making a grand gesture.’
He grunted. ‘Some friends you have.’
‘Mmm,’ I murmured back, crouching down to look at one of them. ‘Is there a card?’ I said, looking up at the delivery man.
‘Dunno, love, I just drive the van.’
‘Polly, you know how fond of you I am,’ Alan went on, ‘but this lot is a fire hazard and it all needs to be cleared.’
‘Sure, fifty bunches of flowers in water, a fire hazard,’ I said, inspecting another bunch. No card. And another. No card. And another five. Nope, no cards on them either.
‘Shall I ring up to your office and get someone to come down and help remove them?’ Alan asked.
‘Er. Yes. Do you mind?’ I said, crossing the reception like a frog, crouching down, inspecting one bunch for a card, standing up again and trying another bunch.
Moments later the lift pinged open and Lala and Legs appeared. ‘Mon dieu,’ said Legs.
‘Are they from Jaz?’ said Lala.
‘I think so,’ I said, still crouching down. ‘Do you guys mind helping me shift them upstairs?’
It took five trips between us to shuffle them all into the office.
‘Here’s a card, Pols,’ said Lala, on the last run. I tore it off the cellophane and opened it.
Polly,
Thank you for all your advices on the Queen and I look forward to reading your interview.
My best respects,
HRH Sheikh Khaled
‘Oh. They’re from the Sheikh!’ I said, feeling deflated. I mean, very kind of him, but I still wished they were from Jasper. I’d assumed that he must be serious about this, about ‘us’, if he’d not only taken me away for a weekend but then sent me fifty bunches of roses.
‘Is he in love with you?’ asked Lala.
‘The Sheikh? No, definitely not,’ I said. ‘He probably just thinks it’s what he should do. Like buying ten Labradors.’
‘Non. Eet’s the Rigby & Peller bra,’ said Legs. ‘I told you, they are magic.’
The flowers weren’t the only thing that arrived for me that day. So did a cardboard box from the House of Fraser: my maid of honour dress. I opened the box at my desk, watched by Lala and Legs.
‘Oh non!’ said Legs, clapping her hand over her mouth as soon as she saw the colour. It wasn’t really pink at all. It was purple and made from crêpe-like material, which fell to the floor, with a big maroon sash that tied in the front with a diamanté clip.
I held it up in front of me and looked at them for support.
‘You know in American high school movies, there’s always some sort of tragic loser who gets it wrong when she goes to the prom?’ said Lala. ‘That is the sort of dress she would wear. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ I replied.
‘Eet ees so uncool,’ added Legs.
‘Well, guys, I’ve got to wear it because Lex has picked it.’
They looked at me in stupefied silence. ‘Maybe I can make it better with some accessories, or my hair or something,’ I ventured, looking at Legs. ‘Or with some nice shoes?’
‘Polly, nothing will make thees dress better. Eet ees the worst thing my eyes have ever heard.’
‘Seen,’ I corrected, folding the bad dress and putting it back in the box.
‘Is Jaz your plus one for the wedding?’ said Lala.
‘I’m not sure yet,’ I said, looking up at her. I still hadn’t been brave enough to ask him, although maybe I could, after the weekend. Since we’d now been away together. But the thought of him seeing me dressed like the aubergine emoji made me cringe.
‘Ee should not see you in that,’ said Legs. ‘Ee will never make sex with you again.’
I had another, more pressing invitation for Jasper anyway: lunch with Mum. She wanted to have a big Sunday lunch at her flat the following weekend, the day before her first chemo session.
‘I want to be surrounded by youth. Beautiful youthful faces,’ she told me. ‘And Sidney of course. And I want to meet Jasper before I lose all my hair. What will he think if he meets me looking like a bald eagle?’
So, I said I’d text everyone and see who was free. Jasper was invited, as were Joe and Bill. Lex and Hamish couldn’t come because they were staying with her parents in the country – ‘wed-min,’ she explained via email that week. When I am a duchess, I thought, tapping out a reply to her, I will ban that word.
I’d been nervous about asking Jasper. Meeting the family. Well, Mum and Bertie. But also hanging out properly with my friends. A big step. But turns out I didn’t have to be nervous. Jasper said he would be delighted and what wine should he bring.
I was distracted from his question, however, by a different question from Bill.
Can I bring Willow? X
It annoyed me a bit. I wasn’t sure I wanted Willow there, flicking her hair about the place like a human unicorn. I texted back anyway.
Course! X
When Jasper, Joe and I arrived in Battersea that Sunday, the flat smelled of beef and there was a discussion going on over potatoes. Bill was already there, as was Willow, sitting on the floor, legs crossed, talking to Mum, who was lying on the sofa in her yellow dressing gown.
‘You’re here early,’ I said, kissing Bill hello. He had a tea towel flung over one shoulder. I waved at Willow on the floor. ‘Hi, hi,’ I said. ‘Don’t get up. Honestly.’ She didn’t.
‘I thought your mum might need some help,’ said Bill, ‘although Sidney here seems to have it covered.’
Sidney, wearing a pink apron, was holding up a bag of potatoes by the oven. ‘We’ll boil them first,’ he said, looking at Bill. ‘That is how I’ve been doing potatoes for forty years.’
‘Honestly if we peel them and just lob them in the oven I don’t think it makes any difference,’ replied Bill.
‘They’re undoubtedly crispier my way,’ said Sidney.
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever cooked a potato,’ said Jasper, as he came into the kitchen, followed by Joe. He placed two bottles of red wine on the table, then immediately turned to Mum on the sofa.
‘You must be Susan,’ he said, leaning down to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘I can tell because you are just as ravishing as your daughter.’
‘Tosh,’ said Mum, blushing.
‘And what a magnificent flat,’ Jasper added. I thought he was laying it on a bit thick here and I saw Joe smirk out of the corner of my eye. There were spider webs in the corners and clouds of condensation clogged the windows. But Mum beamed again. ‘Oh, you sweetheart.’
‘Hi, I’m Willow,’ said Willow, who managed to get up to kiss Jasper hello, I noticed.
‘What kind of man hasn’t cooked a potato?’ said Bill.
‘Not one of my strong points, cooking,’ said Jasper. ‘I’m Jasper, by the way.’ He held his hand out for Bill to shake.
Bill removed the tea towel from his shoulder slowly, wiped his hands on it, threw the tea towel back over his shoulder and shook Jasper’s hand. I felt like Attenborough, watching two gorillas square up to one another in the jungle.
‘Good to meet you,’ Bill said, looking at Jasper. And I might have imagined it but I think his nostrils flared briefly.
‘Do you mind if I take
my hand back, old chap?’ Jasper replied, pulling it away from Bill and rubbing it with his other hand. ‘It’s like shaking hands with Goliath.’
‘That’s enough,’ I interrupted. ‘The testosterone in this house is enough to make someone pregnant. Who wants a drink?’
‘Who’s pregnant?’ asked Mums from the sofa.
Sidney turned back to the oven. ‘I’m going to get on with the potatoes.’
An hour or so later, two bottles were already in the recycling bin and the kitchen was calmer. I was stirring the peas, watching Willow and Jasper chatting together in the corner of the sitting room. It was as I feared, she was flicking her hair all over the place. She could win a gold medal at the Olympics for hair flicking, I thought, narrowing my eyes at her.
‘I think we need another twenty minutes or so,’ said Sidney, crouching down and peering into the oven at his potatoes.
‘I’ll take the beef out,’ said Bill. ‘Pols, where would I find tinfoil?’
‘In here.’ I opened a drawer and handed Bill a roll of it, then lowered my voice. ‘How are things with… ?’ I nodded my head in Willow’s direction.
‘Oh good, good. Great, actually. She’s sort of living with me at the moment.’
‘What? What does “sort of living with me” mean?’ Bill had never lived with a girl, as far as I could remember.
‘She’s technically between flats, so she’s staying with me. It’s nice, I like it.’
‘Wow. Will it… I mean… do you think it’ll be permanent?’
‘Dunno. It’s just quite nice to come home to someone and eat something warm instead of a cold bed and a wank.’
I hit him on the arm.
‘I’m joking! Kind of.’
We both looked over at the sofa, Willow and Jasper ensconced deep in some conversation. She’d curled her knees underneath her and was leaning in towards him, but Bertie had wedged himself between them. Good boy.
‘Can I just say,’ said Mums, after we’d all finished eating, ‘That was the most delicious lunch with all my favourite people. And I don’t know how I’ll be feeling over the next couple of months, but I’m very grateful that you’re here now.’ She raised her glass from the end of the table.
‘Hear, hear,’ said Joe, who, at a conservative estimate, had polished off two bottles of red wine by himself.
‘Excellent potatoes,’ said Jasper, raising his glass in Sidney’s direction.
Sidney blushed. ‘Oh well, thank you, Jasper. And very good beef,’ he added quickly, looking at Bill.
‘Team effort,’ said Bill. ‘Important that a man knows how to cook, I feel.’
I tried to kick him under the table.
‘Ouch,’ said Willow, opposite me.
‘Sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘Cramp.’
‘I think you should all go for a walk,’ announced Susan, ‘take Bertie.’
‘I’m up for that,’ said Jasper.
‘What about the washing up?’ I said.
‘Leave it,’ said Sidney. ‘Your mother and I will do the crossword and then I’ll sort it out later.’
‘Love’s young dream,’ said Joe.
‘Outside,’ Mum repeated.
At the scraping back of chairs, Bertie started barking. ‘His lead is on the banister,’ Mum shouted as we traipsed down the stairs and out into the hazy April afternoon. At the gates of Battersea Park, Joe started singing ‘Jerusalem’.
I fell into step next to Willow, feeling like I should make some sort of effort conversationally rather than just physically assaulting her. ‘So… how’s work?’ I asked.
‘Fine, fine,’ said Willow. ‘Well, actually, you know. Bit boring. But it pays the bills and, well, I don’t suppose I’ll be doing it for ever.’
‘How come?’
She looked at me in surprise. ‘Well, I’ll work for a bit, obviously, but then I’ll have children. I mean, I’m not saying it’ll happen tomorrow. But, at some point. I’ve never been much of a career girl.’ She made little quotation marks with her fingers around ‘career girl’.
‘I know that’s not very modern or feminist of me,’ she added, doing quotation marks around ‘modern’ and ‘feminist’ in the air with her fingers, too.
‘Mmm,’ I murmured back. She sounded like Lala, who said she was only working at Posh! until she met her husband. Then she wanted to move to the country, buy a few dogs and have babies. Every now and then I tried to remonstrate, gently, and suggest she think about her career. But Lala would generally ignore this and ask what I thought of the name Algernon for a boy. I looked towards Jasper and Bill walking in front of us, Joe ahead, still rumbling through ‘Jerusalem’. ‘So have you guys talked about it?’
‘About having children? Not really,’ said Willow.
‘Mmm,’ I murmured again, noncommittally. Bill, I knew, wanted to have his business up and running before even thinking about a family. I wondered if I should warn him: ‘Hey, pal, just a heads up. I know you’ve only been dating for a few months but Willow’s already thinking about babies.’ Men could be quite thick about this kind of thing.
‘What about you and Jasper?’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think you’ll marry him?’
I burst out laughing. ‘No idea.’ I wasn’t about to admit to having thought about it to Willow.
‘So you haven’t talked about it?’
‘No! We’ve only been seeing each other for, like, two months.’ The question reminded me I still needed to pluck up the courage to ask him about coming to Lex’s wedding. ‘He would freak and run a million miles,’ I told her.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure given our conversation before lunch.’
‘Why? What did he say?’
‘Oh, just that he liked you a lot and how different you were to anyone else he’s dated.’
‘Did he?’ I grinned and felt a wave of relief. Like the weekend away to Sheikh Khaled’s, the fact that he’d actually said something like that felt an indication that Jasper was serious about this. Well, perhaps serious was too strong a word. But it reassured me that this was – hopefully – more than one of his flings.
‘Yes!’ said Willow. ‘So you don’t have to pretend.’
‘Pretend what?’
‘That you’re so breezy and relaxed about it.’
‘I am relaxed and breezy!’
‘Sure,’ she said, rolling her eyes at me. ‘Oh, can I ask you something?’
‘’Course.’
‘I want to throw Bill a surprise birthday party. In a few weeks. His birthday’s on a Friday so I thought we should definitely do something but he keeps saying he hates his birthday.’
‘Yeah, he’s not a massive fan of it. Childhood thing,’ I said vaguely.
I knew the real reason. Bill told me years ago. He’d been bullied at school as a nerdy kid, long before we met. And one year in particular, his eighth birthday, he was all excited because his mum had made him a robot cake. But only one person showed up at his party, the other class nerd. And so they’d played Pass the Parcel just the two of them, sitting there, opposite one another on the floor, handing the parcel to the other one and then back again. Bill had never thrown a birthday party since. But I didn’t know if he wanted Willow to know all this, so I kept quiet.
‘I just really want to do something proper to celebrate,’ she went on. ‘But it’s a secret. So can you send me a list of names to invite? Just in case I miss people off?’
‘Sure,’ I said, wondering if I should warn Bill about this too. It was the kind of thing he’d hate.
Up ahead, Joe stopped and shouted back towards us: ‘Pols, have you got a plastic bag? Bertie’s done a shit.’
Jasper drove home to Yorkshire after our walk, so Joe and I went back to the flat in Shepherd’s Bush, sat on the sofa and sang along to Songs of Praise while sharing a family-sized bar of Dairy Milk. Mum sent me a text message with her verdict later that evening.
Jasper lovely. V. good with Bertie. Excell
ent sign. Do you think Bill’s OK? X
Strange question. I texted back.
Fine, why wouldn’t he be? X
She didn’t reply. Rinsed by my own mother. Probably playing Scrabble or something with Sidney.
Enid was filing her nails at her desk when I arrived at the office the next day. Rasp, rasp, rasp. I could see little clouds of nail filings floating on to the carpet.
‘Morning, Enid, everything all right?’
‘Just broke a nail.’
‘Oh, right. I hope it’s not serious?’
‘Nah, I’ll live,’ said Enid, not looking up. ‘He wants to have a meeting with everyone though.’ She nodded her head towards Peregrine’s office.
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. Muttering something about a cover shoot.’ Rasp, rasp, rasp.
‘When?’
‘Ten.’
‘So I’ve got time for a coffee?’
‘Yes, if you’re quick.’ She looked up and frowned. ‘You all right?’
‘Me? Yes, never better. Why?’
‘You look awful.’ She paused and scrutinized my face. ‘Have you ever tried anything for those dark circles?’ She waggled one of her scarlet fingers in front of her own eyes.
‘Oh thanks very much.’
‘Just saying, my love. Don’t go exhausting yourself.’
‘I’m going to get a coffee. Back in five.’
‘All right, my darling.’
The meeting, it turned out, was to discuss a new cover shoot and to discuss it the following assembled around Peregrine’s desk:
1)Legs, in a pair of black jeans and a minute black vest top. No discernible bra.
2)Lala, quite the revolutionary today in a skin-tight pair of leather trousers and a Che Guevara t-shirt with her hair piled up on her head and secured by a thick strip of red ribbon.
3)Jeffrey, the magazine’s art director, a 45-year-old moustachioed man who always dressed in a three-piece suit, paired with a pocket watch, and brought his French bulldog called Bertrand to work every day.
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