by Page, Sophie
‘Like what?’
‘One …’ She ticked them off on her fingers. Or, at least, she started to tick them off on her fingers, but that made her glass tilt alarmingly, nearly spilling champagne. So she stopped. ‘See what I mean?’ she said, side-tracked. ‘Clumsy.’ Champagne had slopped on to the back of her hand and she licked it up. ‘Waste not, want not.’
‘Mmm.’ He sounded a bit distracted. He cleared his throat. ‘You were going to tell me what you learned?’
‘Oh, that. Well, lots of things. The nutritional value of red seaweed. That wind in the palm trees sounds like rain on a corrugated-iron roof and it breaks your heart when it isn’t. That counting fish is really boring when you do it every day. That people tell you something is adventurous when it’s really just hot and dirty.’
‘Ah.’
‘And also,’ said Bella loudly, ‘that I’m not very brave. So here’s to the stars and equatorial fish stocks! I hope they’re very happy, but I’m not going back.’
And then, to her own surprise, she began to cry.
Silk Shirt coped surprisingly well. He didn’t say everything would look better in the morning like Lottie would have, or that she’d change her mind when she thought about the importance of the work, like Francis Don had, in their last, vituperative exchange. He took her glass away from her – Bella resisted but he pointed out that it was empty, so in the end she let it go – and put an arm round her, and drew her against his shoulder, and let her weep it out. He would probably even have produced a handkerchief, but she had one tucked into her watch strap under one long blue sleeve, so she was spared that indignity, at least.
‘I thought it’d be all right when I got home. But it isn’t. I’m cold. The magazines are full of people I don’t know. My mother’s much too busy running a Charity Ball to have me home …’ She ran out of voice and blew her nose hard.
‘Bummer,’ was all he said.
But she had the feeling that he knew what she was talking about. It steadied her.
She drew a long sigh. ‘Yes, but I didn’t belong on the island, either. I’ll miss the children in the village. Some of the people. But that awful knowing I’d been a gullible idiot … and everyone else knowing it, too … that was the pits.’
He sat very still. She sniffed, and straightened the handkerchief that she could barely see, folding it and folding it, corner to corner, in her absorption. She had a huge urge to tell someone the whole sorry story.
‘The trouble was, a man I respected basically did a con job on me. It took me too long to recognise it and a whole lot longer to admit it. But that’s the truth. And that hurts, you know?’
He hugged her a bit closer. ‘Yes, I know. Been there.’
‘I mean, if he’d said, “Come and help out; we’ve got no money, so we live on rich kids doing work experience,” that would have been fair. That would have been the truth. But he spun me this big line about what a valuable researcher I was, and how I could make all the difference, and he said he would make sure I got a real job at the end of it. When all he wanted was someone to count bloody fish.’ Her voice rose. ‘I don’t even like fish.’
‘I can see that one would go off them.’
Bella’s head reared up. ‘Are you laughing at me again?’ she said suspiciously.
‘Maybe a little.’ He tucked a tumbling strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
She relaxed back against his shoulder again. ‘You know, I don’t feel quite real. Not here. Not there. It’s like I’m a character walking through other people’s dreams. When they wake up, I’ll disappear. Pffft!’ She clicked her fingers. She had to have three goes at it but she managed it in the end. ‘Pffft!’ she said again, pleased. She peered up at him in the darkness. ‘Does that sound weird?’
‘It sounds as if it’s time I got you home.’
But Bella was on another tack entirely. ‘Are you an actor?’
‘Good heavens, where did that come from?’
‘The voice … Wonderful warm voice.’
‘You know, I’d be really flattered if you weren’t slurring your words,’ he said, shifting her. ‘Come along, Dream Girl.’
‘I know. You’re a psychiatrist.’
‘Why on earth …?’
‘You ask really good questions and then you listen.’
‘Oh, yes, I listen all right,’ he said. ‘It’s about the only thing I do.’
‘Well, you’re very good at it,’ Bella told him. ‘Very, very, very good.’ She snuggled into his shoulder.
‘Oh, no. You can’t go to sleep here. On your feet, Dream Girl. You’ve got a home to go to, and it’s time I took you there.’
He hauled her upright and got her across the courtyard. But as soon as he opened the door into the house, the lights switched her brain into gear again, and she looked at her watch in horror.
‘The minicab! They’ll be here any minute, asking for Hendred Associates. I said I’d be waiting for them. Where did I leave my coat?’
‘Ah, the car. It is for you,’ said one of the passing waiters. ‘They are waiting outside. Your coat, it is on the rack in the breakfast room. I show you.’
Bella dashed off to get it but when she shot back to retrieve Lottie’s borrowed bag from the courtyard, there was no sign of Silk Shirt. She did look, but the cab was waiting and she could not see anyone the right height or wearing a pearl-white silk shirt. So she had to go without saying goodbye to him.
Just as well, she thought grimly. Panic banished the effects of the champagne. Now Bella was remembering, rather too vividly, how she had curled up against his shoulder and told him the story of her life.
She said a distracted goodbye to her hostess and fell gratefully into the back of the minicab. She told herself she was just tired. She told herself she was over-reacting.
But there was a cold voice in the back of her head, like a headmistress giving an end-of-term report. Change everyone around her … change time zones … change continents … Isabella Greenwood still makes an utter fool of herself.
AAAAARGH!
3
‘When is a Date not a Date?’ – Tube Talk
Bella woke the next morning with a mouth like the inside of a sandpit. She groaned and rolled over, muttering. But the taste wouldn’t go away.
Eventually she hauled herself up on one elbow and peered at the bedside clock. But even closing one eye, she couldn’t stop the figures dancing in and out of focus. She fell back with a thump – and something scratched her ear.
‘Eeeugh!’ she yelled, forgetting she was no longer on the island.
She leaped out of bed and looked round wildly for something to hit the bug with. If it was a bug. She had horrid images of scorpions and poisonous centipedes …
It was only when she was looming over the pillow, with a copy of the heaviest Harry Potter she could grab from the bookcase raised high above her head, that all the bits of her brain clicked back into place. Of course. She was not on the island: no tent, no cooking pots, no wonky table with sheets of data stacked high on it. And this was a real bed, too. She was in Lottie’s spare room and the most lethal thing in it was the dodgy hair dryer.
Bella lowered Harry, feeling a fool.
Still, even if Pimlico was scorpion-free, something had bitten her. With well-practised caution, she pulled back the covers.
And stopped, appalled.
It looked as if someone had emptied the contents of one of Granny Georgia’s pot-pourri jars over it, exactly where Bella had been sleeping. There were bits of powder-dry leaves, mixed in with twigs and, frankly, earth. A green stain across the bottom sheet ended in a half-crushed bay leaf. Where her head had lain, the pillow was peppered with a brownish-grey dust. It was all made worse by unmistakable smears of last night’s lippy and a sad bit of sparkle.
‘Yuck,’ said Bella from the heart.
The bedroom door opened and Lottie wandered in, yawning. She was wearing an oversized teddy bear tee-shirt that reached down to her knees, and pink socks. ‘You screa
med, miss?’ she said amiably.
Bella shuffled a bit. ‘Er – I thought a scorpion had got into bed with me. I was half-asleep.’
Lottie narrowed her eyes at her. ‘Have you been reading science fiction again?’
Bella shook her head. ‘No. Worse than that.’ There was no help for it. She would have to come clean. ‘I – er – sort of fell into bed last night without taking my make-up off and …’ She stood aside, letting the state of the sheets speak for her.
Lottie stared and her mouth fell open. ‘That’s not all you didn’t take off, from the look of it. Is that mud?’
‘No. Or rather, well, yes, I suppose it is.’
Lottie closed her mouth, opened it again, shook her head, closed her mouth and sat down rather hard on the end of the bed.
‘Why?’
‘Um – you could say I had an accident.’
‘I can see that. If Carlos saw your hair now, he would slit his throat. Or possibly yours.’
Conscience-stricken, Bella put up a hand to her hair. A couple of pins fell out. So did a withered ivy leaf and rather a lot of dust. She turned to look in her predecessor’s mirror and recoiled. She had gone to bed in her underwear. She had a wide smear of dirt on her right cheek. Nothing at all survived of Carlos’s work of art. Where there had been an artless cascade of feathery blonde locks, there was now a lopsided mess of pins, garden detritus and, possibly, wildlife.
She prodded it, cautiously. ‘Do you think there could be a centipede in there?’
Lottie moaned.
‘I know. I know. I go to the ball dressed up like a million dollars and come home looking like Fungus the Bogeyman. I didn’t do it on purpose. These things just happen to me.’
Lottie closed her eyes. ‘It’s too early for this,’ she said. ‘I need coffee. And water. Lots of water. You can tell me what happened, but not until I’ve rehydrated.’
She padded out of the door.
‘Mud,’ Bella heard her complain as she stomped off towards the kitchen. ‘I take her to the smartest party ever and she finds mud.’
Bella showered and washed her hair. And when she saw the silt in the bottom of the shower tray, she got right back in and washed her hair again. Emerging pink and a bit soapy-eyed, she pulled on her new underwear, drainpipe jeans, crisp cotton shirt and a cashmere jumper which she had picked up from the Oxfam shop the day before. Then she went into the kitchen, still rubbing her hair with the towel.
Lottie was slumped over a carton of orange juice at the breakfast bar, flipping through texts on her telephone.
Bella thought: I used to do that too, every morning. And when I was shopping, and when I was waiting for Lottie to meet me at a club. Why does it feel so strange now?
Aloud she said, ‘Anything interesting?’
Lottie huffed. ‘No. Dammit.’
Bella poured herself some juice but pulled a face as soon as she tasted it.
‘Water,’ said Lottie, recognising the signs. ‘Your tastebuds will be all over the place until you’ve rebalanced your water table.’
‘You make me sound like farmland.’
‘And you’re surprised? After the stunt you pulled last night? Mud! I ask you!’
Bella flung up her hands. ‘OK. OK. I’m sorry. I’ll change the sheets.’
Lottie shrugged. ‘You’re sleeping in them. Up to you.’
Lottie was not usually grumpy, not even the morning after a heavy night. Bella reached a glass off the shelf above the counter top and filled it from the cold tap. Then she pulled out one of the high stools and sat down at the bar next to her.
‘What’s wrong, Lotts?’
Lottie pushed back her hair and gave a watery sniff. ‘I thought I’d nailed a contract last night. But not a peep out of the bastard this morning.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Make that this afternoon. And I really worked at that pitch.’
‘Maybe he’s saving it up for working hours,’ suggested Bella. ‘He’ll call you on Monday.’
Lottie gave her a pitying look. ‘Billionaires’ working hours are twenty-four seven. They don’t wait till Monday. If he was interested, he would have called. No, I’ve blown it.’
She got up and opened the fridge, staring at its contents moodily. ‘No milk. No fresh coffee. Oh, well, it will have to be fizz.’
She hauled out a bottle of Cava and clawed ineffectually at the black foil over the cork.
‘Let me.’
Bella took it away from her and removed the foil and restraining wire from the cork. Texting might feel strange but opening champagne came back to her as naturally as breathing. She tilted the bottle at forty-five degrees, held the cork firmly and turned the bottle until the cork gave a little. Bella applied pressure to ease the transition and eventually removed it with no more than a ladylike hiss from the wine.
Lottie silently held out two glasses. ‘You’ve always been good at that. No bangs, no spills. It’s super-cool. I suppose Georgia taught you how to do it?’
‘Nope. My grandmother doesn’t think a lady should open her own wine bottles. A lady ought to sit prettily while a Big Strong Man makes a prat of himself spraying champagne everywhere.’
‘There’s a very nasty side to your grandmother,’ said Lottie, with admiration. ‘Seems a waste though.’
Bella thought about it. ‘Actually, Georgia once told me when she was pissed that men were only good for two things: opening wine bottles and emptying mouse traps. And then she said cats were more rewarding and alcohol was overrated.’
Lottie gave a snort of laughter. ‘She was wrong.’ She waved her glass. ‘Come on, start pouring.’
Bella did, but shook her head at the other glass that Lottie pushed towards her.
‘Not for me, thank you. You’re right, I need to acclimatise, I think. I only had a couple of glasses last night and it made me really weird.’
Lottie flumped back on to her high stool. ‘Ah-ha! This is where you tell all about the mud. Come on then, give.’
Bella leaned against the door and gave her an edited version of the Great Ivy Disaster, dwelling on the unreasonable number of plants in the courtyard and skirting lightly round the rescue activities of Silk Shirt.
But Lottie was no fool. ‘You’re looking shifty. There was a man, wasn’t there?’
Bella shook her head. ‘No, there wasn’t. I fell into the ivy all on my own.’ Well, it was the truth, she told herself. Silk Shirt had not appeared until she was already on the floor.
Lottie stared at her for a moment like a Junior Inquisitor with something to prove. Then she seemed to get bored. ‘If you say so. So – apart from attacking the ornamental plants, did you have a good time?’
‘Yeah, it was great. Good music, great dance space. Fabulous art. It was lovely to dance again. I talked to some nice people, too.’
‘But …?’
Bella shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just sort of overdosed on people, somehow. All of a sudden I felt I couldn’t hear for everyone talking, could hardly breathe for all the bodies. So that’s when I went out into that courtyard place.’
Lottie was picking at a ‘3 for the Price of 2’ sticker on the juice carton. She did not look at Bella. ‘And you didn’t enjoy that?’
‘Apart from making a spectacle of myself, you mean?’ said Bella bitterly.
Lottie glanced up then. Her eyes gleamed with triumph. ‘See? I knew there was a man. You can’t hide anything from me.’
‘Oh, rats.’
Lottie waited.
Eventually Bella sighed. ‘OK. Somebody came along and dug me out of the compost heap. He was very nice and I was – well, a bit drunk and soppy, to be honest.’
‘Did you make a pass at him?’
‘No, I did not,’ said Bella, outraged.
‘Then you didn’t make a spectacle of yourself,’ said Lottie cheerfully.
Bella shook her head in disbelief. ‘You know, you have a very black-and-white view of life.’
‘Just being pra
ctical.’
‘Huh?’
‘I know you. If you’d made a pass at him, you’d want to avoid seeing him again. Depending on who else he knows, that could be very limiting. You’ve got a social life to revive prontissimo. The Christmas party season is coming. What’s his name?’
Bella glared. ‘We didn’t exchange business cards.’
Lottie pursed her lips. ‘He didn’t tell you his name? Not a good sign. Did he ask yours?’
‘Look,’ said Bella crisply, ‘he got me up, dusted me down, waved me goodbye. No big deal.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I say so. Now – are you going to climb into that fizz until it meets over the top of your head, or can I take you out for a burger?’
Lottie said she couldn’t face a burger and she didn’t really want to go out. She wanted to slob around in sweatpants and read the papers. But if Bella was offering to cook her famous Eggs Benedict, she, Lottie, wouldn’t say no.
Bella recognised an olive branch when she saw it. ‘I’ll go and get the necessary.’
Lottie pushed off to shower and Bella slid the end of a spoon into the neck of the Cava bottle and put it back in the fridge. Then she made a careful list of all the things she would need for Eggs Benedict plus the other essentials that Lottie had somehow let get away from her, like milk and coffee, grabbed her friend’s coat again and went out.
It was a bright golden day and the low sun hit Bella straight between the eyes. Dazzled, she raced to the corner shop, promising herself that she would unearth her sunglasses before she came out into this light again. She came back with a stripy plastic bag full of food and a copy of every newspaper that the shop sold. By that time, Lottie was dressed and in a much better temper.
Bella cooked and they had a companionable afternoon brunch in the kitchen, before tucking themselves up in front of the fire and dividing the newspapers between them, sharing the good bits. From time to time Lottie would also read out some snippet about the current scene that she thought Bella ought to catch up with. Eventually daylight disappeared, leaving only the firelight and the glow of a table lamp in the corner of the room.