by Maeve Haran
But while Jesse was happy to escape, his mother took a different view. Emma arrived an hour later, clearly on the warpath.
‘Mum!’ she berated. ‘How could you be so irresponsible? You know how important these exams are!’
‘I’m sure he’ll study better after a break,’ Stella replied, trying not to feel guilty. Maybe she had been a bit cavalier. ‘Now you’re here, why don’t you lend a hand? You’re incredibly creative at this sort of thing. We’re trying to make everything look irresistible for tomorrow.’
It soon became clear that Emma had a subtext to her visit. As soon as Debora and Jesse had left to hang another banner, she started up. ‘I don’t know what’s got into Jesse – well, no, I do know what’s got into Jesse. It’s that girl Dora.’
‘What’s the matter with her?’ Stella could imagine how mad Emma would be if she knew about the studio incident.
‘The family’s nothing like ours. The father’s a headmaster and the mother works in the City and they’re completely obsessed with her getting into Oxford. Everything she does is for her CV – including Mandarin and Grade Eight cello. They seem to think Jesse – Jesse! – is a bad influence. Something about long hair and weird tastes in music. And anyway,’ Emma grumbled on seamlessly, ‘what kind of a name is Isadora?’
‘I imagine it’s after Isadora Duncan,’ Suze supplied helpfully. ‘You know, the woman who danced with all the scarves?’
‘Do you remember the Ken Russell film?’ Stella reminisced. ‘The one with Vanessa Redgrave when she gets strangled by her scarf getting stuck in the wheel of her lover’s car?’
‘I know who Isadora Duncan is, thank you,’ snapped Emma. ‘I studied English literature, which is more than either of you did.’
‘But I thought she was a dancer, not a writer?’ Suze enquired innocently.
‘Maybe she wrote as well,’ Stella replied.
‘Oh for God’s sake, it’s just a very affected name, that’s all.’
‘I expect she thinks so too, that’s why she calls herself Dora.’
‘Anyway, she’s far too sophisticated for Jesse. I’m sure she’s stringing him along. I bet you she’ll drop him just before his exams start. That’s exactly what happened to my friend Liz’s son. When I told him he’d have to stop seeing her unless he did some work, he just said, “Mum, you don’t understand, I love Dora”. It’s so completely ridiculous.’
Stella was tempted to point out that it was neither as ridiculous nor as potentially harmful as falling in love with your old boyfriend when you were married with three children, but knew it wouldn’t help anyone.
Debora had joined them and was listening quietly.
As soon as Emma had gone, she made a suggestion. ‘Maybe Duncan could get Jesse interested in playing in bands. About the only thing teenage boys like more than girls is bands.’
They stood and surveyed their sign. ‘Good for Jesse. He’s got it straight.’
‘Right.’ Stella put an arm round each of her friends. ‘Tomorrow it finally happens. Let’s hope after all our hard work a few people turn up!’
Ten
————
Six o’clock in the morning, Stella discovered, was very, very cold. They had organized a team of volunteers to put out the stalls ready for the onslaught. Fortunately, she had remembered to pick up croissants and the electric kettle was on in the studio ready for the coffees and teas. She had even remembered real milk.
By six-thirty, the stallholders were starting to arrive. Some of them were old hands who travelled from car-boot sale to antique market. They soon chose the best pitches near the entrance and enthusiastically threw old lengths of chenille over the pasting tables to give their stock a more dramatic background. Instantly they covered the space with interesting objects – old pharmacists’ bottles, pretty china, painted vases, art deco ladies, saucy playing cards, old-fashioned champagne glasses and in the case of one stall, a car horn that would have delighted Toad of Toad Hall.
Besides the bric-a-brac there were clothes stalls featuring rows of wonderful silks and velvets. There were embroidered handbags, hats made of feathers, silk chemises and gorgeous vintage sandals. Stella felt herself drawn like a magnet to a fox tippet just like the one she’d worn herself forty years ago but then remembered the old fox in her garden and decided against it. It might be some distant ancestor.
She was delighted when Matthew appeared and sent him off to dispense the teas and coffees to the grateful stallholders, one of whom had actually erected a tiny changing room, complete with floor-length mirror. At nine she heard from a startled Les at the King’s Arms. Half a cow had arrived and twice its weight in sausages and blood pudding!
‘What time’s the official opening?’ Suze enquired, taking in the long queue already snaking round the block. ‘I see the jumble-sale vultures are already gathering at the gates of Rome.’ She indicated three ladies who were rolling up their sleeves preparing for action. ‘They can empty a church bazaar faster than you can say piranha fish.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s the idea, though I think some of this stuff will be too expensive for them. Opening is ten o’clock. Still an hour before Roxy’s due.’
Izzy might have tried to explain it to them, but like Richard Dawkins and God, they had underestimated the impact of a real divinity.
It started with posses of pubescent girls, some dropped off by their parents, others arriving by bus. Hundreds of them, so that the queue began to resemble less a charity jumble sale and more a One Direction concert. Next, the older ones appeared, by tube or train, mostly female with the odd snake-hipped male, each one clutching a phone or iPad at the ready to capture the moment of the goddess’s arrival.
A sudden frisson in the queue told them the moment was at hand. Fabia, never one to miss an entrance, had purloined a gorgeous drop-top sports car, with an equally gorgeous driver. She opened the door and placed one high-heeled sandal on the pavement then paused for effect only to find herself almost knocked to the ground by the tidal wave of teenagers who wanted to see not her but Roxy.
‘Well, really,’ she protested, catching sight of Stella, who had stepped forward diplomatically, ‘I call that downright rude!’
‘Come on, Fabia.’ Debora held out a hand to steady her. ‘The grown-ups will be much more impressed by you.’
As if on cue, Matthew appeared out of the crowd. ‘Wow, Fabia, you look amazing!’
She fished about in the huge bag that accompanied her everywhere and proudly produced an apron which she proceeded to put on. ‘Before the dancing, let us see what is happening to my parillada!’
He led her off reverently towards the relative peace of the bunting-festooned pub garden, which the smokers had grudgingly vacated for the day.
‘Since when did Matthew become Mr Tactful?’ Suze shouted from behind her stall.
‘It’s not tact. He means it.’ Stella watched her husband retreat in Fabia’s wake. ‘I fear Matthew’s been tangoed.’ She looked round to see a huge crowd of pre-teens engulfing Roxy. ‘We’d better rescue Roxy from her fan base or she’ll never get out alive.’
Debora and Stella politely pushed their way through the shrieking crowd and grabbed her.
‘I must admit,’ she smiled as they led her towards the red ribbon, ‘you two make very good bouncers.’
They even had a small step ladder for Roxy to climb as she declared the event open. ‘Hello, everyone. Thank you all so much for coming. I suspect that you, like me, love shopping.’ A cheer went out from the crowd. ‘And, like me, you think it’s really sad what’s been happening to our town centres. So today I hope you are going to spend lots of money to help bring Camley High Street back to life!’
There was no more time for thinking as the stampede had started. It was shopping bags at dawn as about a hundred seasoned jumble salers took on four times their number, who might have had the handicap of youth, but were prepared to shell out more cash, much to the disgust of their elders.
‘Yo
u can’t be asking five pounds for that,’ a Dot Cotton lookalike insisted to Suze, eyeing up a stretchy leopard-skin top. ‘It isn’t even real polyester!’
Meanwhile, a gorgeous young girl, dressed entirely in black, handed over the fiver, removed her blouse to reveal perfect black-bra-encased breasts, and slipped on the leopard-skin top right there and then to the sound of delighted applause from her friends.
‘Well, I never,’ commented Dot Cotton, outraged. ‘The bloody cheek of it. She’ll get what she deserves if she goes round taking her clothes off like that.’ But her adversary had already moved on to another stall where, with impressive decisiveness, she chose a pair of retro sunglasses and a battered pork-pie hat, both of which she immediately put on to create a vision of such instant stylishness that no further argument was possible.
By lunchtime, almost every stall had sold out and people were still arriving. ‘Bloody hell,’ Suze whispered to Stella, ‘what are we going to offer them? If we’re not careful, there’ll be a riot!’
Stella climbed up the step ladder Roxy had used earlier. ‘Ladies and, err . . . ladies.’ This was a good start because it got a laugh. ‘Our event has been such a runaway success that we have almost sold out, but – and I think I can promise this – it’s been so successful that we will make it a weekly event from now on. But, for the moment, our local pub, the King’s Arms, invites you to sample a real Argentinian barbecue and to listen to a steel band in its glorious garden!’ Right on cue the band struck up with Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’. ‘And later on there will be tango lessons for all those Strictly addicts among you!’
Even the sun obliged by coming out, possibly ordered by Fabia, along with the half-cow and the ton of sausages.
Les, the landlord, was all smiles as Fabia instructed him and his minions in the art of parillada.
‘How’s it been going, Mum?’ Emma and Izzy had appeared, Izzy looking very down in the mouth. ‘She has her entrance-exam coaching on Saturday mornings,’ Emma explained.
Roxy, wonderful Roxy, made up for it by beckoning Izzy over to join her and showing her all the silly things she’d bought at the market. Together they looked at the brooch, bag and elegant art deco watch Roxy had found among the stalls.
A thought occurred to Roxy. ‘Why don’t you have it?’ She pressed the watch into Izzy’s hand. ‘Make sure you get to your exams on time!’
Izzy looked as if she could hardly believe her luck, especially when Roxy took a photo of them together, with Izzy wearing the watch, and Instagrammed it.
‘Freya and Bianca are going to be so jealous!’ Izzy announced, thrilled. This was clearly a result.
‘I bet the watch doesn’t even bloody work, and she’ll end up missing her entrance exam,’ grumbled Emma.
Before Stella had time to wonder if she should let this pass, Debora jumped in. ‘Lighten up, Emma, did you never have a pash at school?’
Emma thought about it. ‘Susan Warren,’ she replied, her voice suddenly dreamy. ‘She was captain of the netball team and had legs that went on forever.’
‘There you are. Izzy’s much less in love than you were.’
Emma laughed and hid her head in her hands at her own mean-spiritedness.
Watching them, Stella marvelled at Debora’s amazingly sure touch. How had Cameron ever dumped Debora for Hallelujah and, even more extraordinary, ended up marrying Roxy? Her only possible rationale was that rock gods might behave differently to lesser mortals.
In the pub garden, the steel band stopped and the insistent, pulsating strains of the tango took over. ‘Come on, Em,’ Debora linked arms with her, ‘let’s go and see someone make a fool of themselves.’
The area in the centre of the floor was clear and Fabia, now without the apron, stood centre stage with Matthew, his hand in the small of her back.
‘Oh my God, it’s Dad. I hope she’s going to be gentle with him!’
To their complete amazement, as the music began again it was Matthew who seemed to be in control. Fabia, her eyes wide with surprise, found herself propelled across the dance floor, his arms tightly around her, his feet sliding in a silent glissando. As the audience stood, hypnotized, Matthew and Fabia twirled and kicked, locked together as if joined by Superglue, in a display that was as intense as it was surprising, climaxing in a final move where Fabia was made to lean so far back that if Matthew hadn’t held her fast she would surely have fallen over.
Everyone in the garden roared their applause.
‘Wow. Whatever’s happened to Dad?’ asked Emma, seeking out her mother in the crowd.
Wasn’t it obvious? Stella thought, a distant warning bell going off in her head. Fabia had happened to Matthew.
When the applause finally died down, Matthew uncoupled from Fabia and came to join them, looking faintly embarrassed. ‘I sat up watching how to tango on YouTube,’ he confessed as a line of KA regulars queued to take his place. ‘It shows you how to do it, step by step.’
‘You were amazing, Pappy.’ Izzy ran into his arms.
Matthew seemed to light up in the warmth of all this female admiration. ‘Was I? Maybe there’s life in the old dog yet!’
Before the crowds began to disperse, Stella sent Roxy and Izzy round with labelled buckets to collect for the campaign. Roxy laughed uproariously. ‘Of course we’ll do it, but this is a bit old school, you know, Stella. I’m sure we can do better than this! We’ll do you a Facebook page; you’ll get far more money that way.’
As the crowds finally began to disperse, Stella realized how exhausted she felt but there was no doubt the day had been a success. ‘Do you know, even without the Roxy factor, I think we could make a go of this. The pub’s delighted too. If Fabia’s serious about opening a retro clothes shop, all we need now is to get takers for those two empty shops in the parade and this place will start taking on a life of its own. What do you think, Matthew? This was your idea in the first place.’
She suspected he would still feel it was all too frivolous and quite probably unsustainable.
But nothing was going to dent Matthew’s new-found enthusiasm. ‘If we could keep it up and fill those empty shops, I think we could convince the council to drop their plan to redevelop, but we have to keep reminding them how well we’re doing.’
‘Why don’t we put Izzy in charge of all this social media malarkey,’ Stella suggested. ‘She’s the only one of us young enough to really understand it.’
‘Izzy is doing her eleven plus,’ Emma reminded them.
‘Think how good it would look on her university entrance,’ coaxed Suze temptingly. ‘I bet no one else will claim they’ve run a PR campaign to save a high street at eleven.’
Emma was giving this serious consideration when she saw her husband Stuart striding through the crowds towards them, holding Ruby in one arm and her pale-blue Prada bag in the other.
‘Oh dear,’ breathed Suze to Stella, ‘something tells me he hasn’t just bought that in the vintage market.’
‘Emma, what the hell has been going on?’ he demanded, angrier than any of them had ever seen him. ‘I found this bag . . .’
‘Stuart, I’ve had that bag for ages.’ Emma tried to keep cool in the face of his onslaught.
‘And what about this phone? Have you had that for ages?’ He produced a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile. ‘Since you started working for Hal, for instance?’
Emma seemed to be desperately trying to think of some defence. But Stuart wasn’t a lawyer for nothing. ‘Are you going to try and deny it? Or would you like me to read out some of the messages?’
Eleven
————
Stella caught sight of Izzy running towards them clutching her collecting bucket, her eyes alight with happiness at spending a whole day with her idol, and tried to head her off but it was too late. ‘Hi, Mum, hello, Dad, I didn’t know you were coming.’
With an instinct borne of experience, Izzy knew things were wrong between her parents even before she heard them speak. There was s
omething about the way they were standing, her dad towering over her mum in a way he never did, his face rigid with anger, tightly holding on to Ruby yet not even looking at her.
‘You’re going to call him now on your private hotline,’ Stuart demanded, holding out a phone to her mother, ‘and tell him that you resign. Now.’
Emma hesitated, furious at being told what to do so publicly. ‘Why the hell should I?’
‘Because if you don’t,’ Stuart insisted, refusing to budge an inch, ‘you can pack your stuff and move in with him right now.’
Izzy clung on to Stella’s arm, terrified and powerless.
Stella removed the collecting bucket and found herself wondering what Debora would do in this situation. Her years with Cameron and his dramas hadn’t even wrinkled her calm. Distraction rather than confrontation, she suspected.
Before he even registered what she was doing, Stella reached over and took the baby from Stuart’s arms. ‘We’re all just going to see if there’s any food left and leave you two to sort things out.’ Stella smiled at them with Debora’s smile. ‘Maybe you should go home and talk this through in private. Jesse and Izzy can come back with me.’
Bereft of their audience they seemed to come to their senses a little. ‘You’re right, Stu,’ she heard Emma say in a chastened voice, ‘I’ll give up the job. It was probably a mistake anyway.’ She looked at the offending Prada handbag, in all its expensive pale-blue beauty. ‘I’ll give the bag to charity.’
It would probably have been all right, Stella decided later, if Hal hadn’t chosen that moment to stake his claim in person.
Stella’s heart began to race as she spotted his tall frame pushing its way through the departing crowds just as Emma made her declaration.
Emma and Stuart looked on horrified as he grabbed the bag. ‘We chose that together,’ he shouted at Emma. ‘It was a symbol of what we feel for each other.’
Stella thought Stuart was going to punch him when Roxy suddenly appeared from the crowd and grabbed the bag out of Hal’s hands. ‘Pretty damn stupid, then. If Prada bags are a symbol of anything, it’s of silly women with too much money and no self-worth.’ Before he could protest she grabbed him firmly by the hand. ‘We need more volunteers for the tango and you’ve got just the right body for it.’ She gave him her most devastating smile. ‘Besides, if you stay here and cause more trouble, I might have to clock you one.’