by Jill Mansell
‘Don’t let her boss you around,’ Greg interrupted impatiently. ‘She can’t make you do it. What is she, some kind of slave driver? Just tell her tomorrow isn’t convenient.’
‘Florence isn’t a slave driver, she just wants the job finished. And I promised I’d do it. I don’t want to let her down.’
Greg was frowning, not bothering to conceal his irritation.
‘I wanted us to spend the day together.’
‘But we can!’
‘In bed,’ he said pointedly. ‘Not painting bloody walls.’
There was a horrible silence.
‘Oh God,’ Miranda wailed suddenly. ‘We’re having our first argument. Today of all days!’
Greg’s expression softened at once.
‘No we aren’t.’
‘I’m sorry!’
‘Don’t be.’ He didn’t want to argue either. ‘I’m disappointed, that’s all. I wanted our first day in the flat to be special.’ Taking Miranda’s face between his hands, he slowly kissed her. ‘You don’t know how much I’ve been looking forward to this.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ Miranda murmured against his warm mouth. ‘I don’t want to go out to dinner.’
Greg, who was starving, said, ‘We can order something later.’
‘Do you hate me?’
‘No.’ His lips brushed her neck. ‘I love you.’
It was true. He hadn’t planned to meet someone so soon after Chloe, but it had happened. He had found Miranda and he didn’t want to lose her.
He felt her shudder in his arms.
‘You do?’
‘I do.’
Miranda closed her eyes. This had definitely been worth waiting for. And to think that she had tried to wriggle out of Elizabeth Turnbull’s hideous fund-raising party. She had only gone in the end because Florence had insisted and she’d thought it might turn up a marriage-minded man, with I-love-Mothercare signs in his eyes, for Bev.
‘We don’t have to wait until later, do we?’ Her embarrassingly out-of-practice fingers fumbled with the top button of his jeans. ‘I think I’d like to see the bedroom now.’
‘We’ve waited this long,’ Greg teased. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather leave it until next weekend?’
Miranda unfastened a couple more buttons. They were in the hallway now, and she was easing him in the direction of the closed door that hadn’t yet been opened.
‘Oh, I’m sure.’
Her hand landed on the door handle. The door opened and she began to reel him inside.
Oops.
A lot of clattering ensued.
‘Junk cupboard,’ Greg murmured, pulling her out again. ‘Wrong door.’
‘I bet Mata Hari never had problems like this.’
‘I don’t suppose Mata Hari wore a 34A bra.’
‘She didn’t have Adrian and his friends to deal with.’ Miranda unfastened the final button on his jeans. She leaned on the handle of the last door, nudging it open with her hip. ‘They aren’t in here, are they?’
‘Better not be,’ said Greg.
***
Reeling home at eight o’clock the next morning, light-headed from lack of sleep, Miranda only hoped she didn’t look as bow-legged as she felt.
Oh, what a blissful night.
‘No need to ask if you enjoyed yourself,’ said Florence with her customary lack of discretion. Her eyes bright with laughter, she handed Miranda a mug of strong coffee. ‘Go anywhere nice?’
Miranda tried hard to look demure.
‘Just a quiet evening in.’
‘Not too quiet, I hope. That’s the trouble with these modern flats, the walls are so thin you can’t unscrew a bottle of aspirin without the neighbors asking if your headache’s better.’
Demure clearly wasn’t working. Miranda slurped her coffee and grinned.
‘I didn’t have a headache last night.’
‘You had a couple of phone calls.’ Expertly reversing her chair, Florence reached for the message pad. ‘Your friend Bev rang, wondering what you were up to today. Said she might pop over later and give you a hand.’
Miranda didn’t get her hopes up; Bev’s hands were too perfectly manicured to be of any practical use. Sunday was traditionally her day to be at a bit of a loose end, that was all. Bev’s idea of being helpful would be lounging about gossiping and every so often pointing up at a hard-to-reach corner and saying knowledgeably, ‘Missed a bit.’
‘Okay. Who else rang?’
‘Danny Delancey.’ Florence held the pad at arm’s length in an attempt to bring the scribbled message into some kind of focus. ‘He has to fly to New York tomorrow, so he wondered if you could do the interview this afternoon.’
‘Dangling from a step-ladder, with a paint brush clenched between my teeth? Oh yes, lovely.’ About to roll her eyes, Miranda shot her a suspicious look. ‘I hope you said no.’
‘I did not, I said it would be fine.’ Florence was unrepentant. ‘Today’s the only time they can manage it, and you’ve put them off twice already. Anyway, I told them to come over at five, so you should be finished by then.’
‘Five? But I’ve arranged to meet Greg at six!’ Honestly, this was so unfair. Was it Danny Delancey’s mission in life to spoil all her fun?
‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ Florence shrugged with irritating lack of concern. ‘Ring him, tell him you’ll see him at eight.’
***
‘Missed a bit,’ said Bev, too busy flipping through one of the Sunday supplements to even point an acrylic false nail in the appropriate direction. Instead, she wriggled her eyebrows and nodded at a remote section of wall high above the door frame. ‘See? It’s gone blotchy.’
‘It’s all going blotchy,’ Miranda grumbled. She leaned back on her ladder, rubbing her aching spine. ‘I’m going to have to do two coats.’
‘There’s a piece in here about the best places to go to meet men.’ Bev sat up on the dust-sheet-covered bed, sending half a dozen Sunday Times sections slithering to the floor. ‘It says health farms are good.’ She looked up, interested. ‘I’ve never been to a health farm.’
‘The only men you’d meet there would be overweight, stressed-out businessmen who’ve been warned by their doctors that if they don’t lose six stone they’ll be dead by Christmas.’ Miranda blinked as a spray of crocus-yellow emulsion ricocheted off the roller into her eyes. ‘And they’d all be going cold turkey because they’d had their mobile phones and laptops confiscated.’
‘True,’ sighed Bev. ‘I can’t bear men who twitch.’ She read on down the list. ‘How about evening classes in car maintenance?’
‘Full of women desperate to meet men,’ Miranda said briskly. ‘And no real men would ever go because it would be too unmacho for words.’
‘Kite flying!’ Bev exclaimed, jabbing the page. ‘That’s how you met Thingy! Well, it certainly worked for you.’
Miranda tried to imagine Bev, in her high heels, teetering up Parliament Hill, struggling to keep her hair in place with one hand and clinging for dear life to the handle of a somersaulting kite with the other.
Still, Thingy was a good name for Daniel Delancey.
‘I didn’t so much meet him,’ Miranda protested, ‘as hurl abuse at him.’
‘I could hurl abuse.’ Bev looked indignant. ‘I’m great at that. I haven’t always worked at Fenn’s place, you know. I was once a doctor’s receptionist.’
Splat, a dollop of paint slid off the end of Miranda’s roller and landed on top of her head. This was worse than being dive-bombed by pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
Only yellower.
‘My legs ache, my arms ache, my back aches.’
‘Oh, stop being so neurotic. Take a couple of painkillers and stop moaning. You can�
�t see the doctor until a week on Tuesday and that’s final.’
Amazed, Miranda swung round.
‘What?’
‘That’s me being a doctor’s receptionist.’ Bev was smug. ‘Told you I was good.’
‘But I do ache.’
‘I don’t see why. You’ve only done half a ceiling and one wall.’
And spent most of the night having rampant, muscle-wrenching nonstop sex, thought Miranda semi-guiltily. Still, better not mention that.
‘I thought you came here to help me.’ She tried a spot of wheedling.
‘I am helping you. I’m keeping you company.’
Great.
‘You could keep me company up this ladder.’
‘I get dizzy on ladders. And I’m allergic to paint.’ Cozily, Bev snuggled up with the News of the World. ‘If I got any on me I’d go as blotchy as your wall.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
‘I would. Anyway, I’m doing my bit later, aren’t I? Making you look presentable for the TV cameras.’
As soon as Bev had heard that Danny Delancey was coming round, she had excitedly volunteered to do Miranda’s make-up.
‘Nothing outrageous,’ Miranda warned her now, a terrifying vision of Dame Edna looming into her mind. ‘A bit of eyeshadow, a bit of lipstick, that’s all. Not too much foundation.’
Especially the last; Bev had a tendency to get carried away when it came to foundation.
‘Don’t panic, you’ll look great.’ Leaning over, Bev smugly patted her handbag, bulging with every cosmetic known to Harrods Beauty Hall.
‘Okay, but easy on the foundation.’
‘Believe me,’ Bev’s tone was soothing, ‘right now you need all the help you can get.’
‘You’re not my friend.’
‘I am your friend, I’m just being honest.’
‘If you were really my friend,’ Miranda said sorrowfully, ‘you’d get off your big lazy bum and make me a chocolate spread sandwich and a banana milkshake.’
***
Miranda was jabbing paint into a corner of plaster coving when the door swung open behind her. She heard the satisfying clunk of china against glass.
‘I take it all back, Bev, you don’t have a big lazy bum, and you’re definitely my friend.’
‘That’s really kind,’ said an unfamiliar voice, ‘but actually, I’m not Bev.’
Miranda let out a snort of laughter and swung round. Blonde, pretty, curvy, loose shirt over stretchy trousers…
‘Chloe, right?’
‘Right.’ Chloe grinned and held up a plate. ‘Chocolate spread sandwich, right?’
‘Hooray. Coming right down.’ Miranda dropped the brush messily into the pot of paint and leapt off the ladder. ‘I’m Miranda, by the way.’
‘I guessed.’
‘I’d shake hands, but I’m all painty.’
‘I spoke to Florence on the phone earlier,’ Chloe explained. ‘She told me what you were doing. I’ve come to help.’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t let you do that!’ Miranda gestured vaguely in the direction of her stomach.
‘I’m pregnant, not paralyzed from the chest down. This is a great color.’ Having briefly admired the repainted wall, Chloe began to climb the ladder. ‘Go on, have a rest. Eat your sandwich and drink your milkshake.’
Enchanted by this order and all in favor of a bit of cosseting, Miranda grinned at her.
‘You sound like a mother already.’
Chapter 22
By one o’clock the second wall and the rest of the ceiling were finished and Bev had read aloud an entire two-thousand-word article in the Sunday Express speculating on the likelihood of Miles Harper and Daisy Schofield marrying before Christmas.
‘She’s dead set on it and he’s fending her off.’ Bev held up the color supplement so they could see the accompanying photograph. ‘Miranda met him a few weeks ago,’ she explained slyly to Chloe. ‘Miles asked her out, Miranda turned him down and she’s regretted it from that day to this.’
‘Oh, no.’ Chloe was sympathetic.
‘Ignore her,’ Miranda said loftily. ‘I haven’t regretted it for one minute. I’m perfectly happy with the way things turned out.’
‘Just as well,’ Bev picked up her crossword pen and gave Daisy Schofield a handlebar moustache, ‘seeing as you haven’t heard from Miles Harper since.’ She studied the photograph with a critical eye. ‘I don’t think she’s that stunning, you know. Is it just me, or does she have a lopsided face?’
‘Only because you gave her a lopsided moustache,’ Miranda pointed out.
‘My husband…well, ex-husband, whatever…’ stammered Chloe, ‘thought she was pretty stunning.’
Miranda, thinking of Greg, drawled, ‘Show me a man who doesn’t.’
‘So how long ago did he leave you?’ asked Bev, for whom no situation was too delicate.
‘The day I told him I was pregnant, pretty much. It was April Fools’ Day.’ Chloe’s tone was dry.
‘Can you believe that? What a bastard!’ Bev made vigorous poke-his-eyes-out gestures with her fingers. ‘And what’s he doing now?’
‘Don’t know, don’t care,’ Chloe replied not altogether truthfully. Trawling her roller through the paint tray, she turned her attention to the third wall.
‘But up until the minute you told him about the baby,’ Bev persisted, ‘you were happily married?’
Chloe nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘Is he likely to change his mind and come back?’
‘No.’
‘Has he found someone else?’
‘Bev, shut up.’ This was more than even Miranda could stand.
‘Why? It’s interesting!’
‘Chloe might not want to talk about it. She might find it upsetting. You could be about to make her cry.’
‘Okay,’ Chloe said equably. ‘I think he does have a new girlfriend. But you’re right, I would rather not talk about him any more.’
‘See?’ Delighted with herself for being so sensitive, Miranda flicked her brush at Bev.
‘Not because it would upset me,’ Chloe explained. ‘I just don’t want to be bothered with thinking about him. If he doesn’t want to know, that’s his loss. But this’—she gestured around the half-painted room—‘is going to be my new home, and I’—she pointed to her stomach—‘am going to have a baby. And right now,’ she announced firmly, ‘that is all I care about.’
Heavens, so strong and brave, thought Bev, just like one of those Danielle Steel heroines you secretly longed to punch in the teeth. She gazed at Chloe, impressed.
Miranda, who had never read a Danielle Steel book and was altogether less gullible, said, ‘So how much of that was bullshit? Seventy-five, eighty per cent?’
‘Pretty much,’ Chloe admitted with a grin of relief. ‘Still, getting better. A fortnight ago it was ninety.’
***
Miranda spent the next hour washing and blow-drying her hair into a less spiky and altogether more grown-up style, and getting her make-up done.
‘I’m sorry, we’ve come to the wrong house,’ Danny Delancey apologized when she pulled open the front door.
‘Oh, ha ha.’ Why did he always have to make fun of her? ‘Bev did my face for me. It’s okay, isn’t it?’
‘The face is fine.’ Danny took a step back in order to admire Miranda’s outfit, top to toe. ‘It’s the rest of you that’s taken me by surprise. I’m just trying to think who you remind me of.’
Somebody nice, I hope, thought Miranda.
‘Got it!’
Some gorgeous, bright-eyed perky young actress, preferably. The kind everybody fancied.
‘Margaret Thatcher,’ Danny announced, pleased with himself. He turned
to the man behind him. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Minus about sixty years.’ His companion stepped forward, holding his hand out for Miranda to shake. ‘Hi, anyway. Tony Vale. I’ll be pointing the camera at you this afternoon.’
‘This time I’ve definitely got it! She looks like a teenager going to a fancy-dress party as Margaret Thatcher.’ Danny grinned at her. ‘Is that your going-for-an-interview suit?’
Miranda ran her hands protectively over the navy-blue knee-length gaberdine skirt. However had he guessed?
‘Um…’
‘Have to take it off, I’m afraid.’
She bit her lip.
‘You mean, actually while you’re filming?’
‘That’s entirely up to you.’ Cheerfully Danny lugged a heavy tripod past her into the hall. ‘We wouldn’t force you.’
‘We’re in here.’ Miranda led the way through to Florence’s living room. ‘I’m not sure about this nude stuff, though.’ She sounded doubtful. ‘I mean, is it absolutely essential to the script?’
‘Nude stuff! What the hell’s going on here?’ Bev leapt up, outraged.
‘This is Bev,’ said Miranda, as Florence and Chloe started to laugh. ‘Told you she was gullible.’
***
The filming, once Miranda had changed out of the terrifying navy suit and into her favorite cropped top and white jeans, took less than an hour. Danny’s interviewing style was informal, which helped a lot, and Tony Vale organized the lighting and camera positions and generally made himself as unobtrusive as possible in the unnaturally tidy bedroom. Before Miranda knew it, Danny was saying, ‘That’s great, now let’s shift this stuff downstairs,’ and Tony was scurrying out through her bedroom door with the light reflectors tucked under one arm and the camera cases swinging from the other.
‘Er…why?’ said Miranda.
‘Your landlady. Great character,’ Tony called over his shoulder.
‘Ten minutes, if that,’ Danny explained. ‘She’s just going to say a few nice things about you. Well, that’s the general idea, but I suppose with Florence you never know.’
‘She’d better say nice things.’ Miranda held the door open so he could maneuver the tripod through. ‘Or I’ll twist her arms off.’