That Certain Something

by Clare Ashton

  Her mother crossed her arms and glared. Pia skulked under the vegetation.

  ‘You didn’t have time to send your mama a message? Couldn’t tell her that you wouldn’t be back for your favourite home-cooked dinner?’

  ‘I’m so sorry Mama. I completely forgot.’

  ‘Hmm. What made you forget your old mama, heh?

  Pia blushed and stuttered, ‘I. Kind of. Met someone.’

  ‘Oooo, mija.’ Her mother’s change in mood was instant. ‘Come tell me,’ she said and she patted the bench beside her ample bottom.

  Pia slumped down, not reluctant to talk to her, but perplexed about what had happened.

  ‘I met the most amazing woman, Mama.’ Pia stared into the garden, not focussing on anything. ‘She was beautiful, elegant, kind, funny.’ An image flashed into Pia’s head of Cate sitting on the bed, her legs apart. She flushed at the thought and sighed. ‘Oh God she was amazing. Perfect.’

  ‘I am so pleased,’ her mother said, drawing out the words. ‘So, when you going to meet this chica again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pia shook her head.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t have her phone number.’

  ‘You meet the perfect woman and you don’t get her phone number,’ her mother said with disbelief.

  ‘I know. It’s all a bit odd. I’ve even seen where she lives. But I know that she doesn’t want me to contact her. She wasn’t once interested in calling me. It’s so confusing.’

  Her mother drew in air between her teeth. ‘Be careful mija. She sounds trouble.’

  ‘No. She wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Mmm hmph.’ Her mother’s scepticism hummed through her lips and whistled out of her nose.

  ‘Really. She was bright and generous. She’s a very kind person.’

  ‘Beautiful too, heh?’ Her mother sounded suspicious.

  ‘Oh God yes. Damn it. There was something so special about her.’

  Her mother put her hand on Pia’s knee and gave her a gentle squeeze with her plump fingers. ‘Pretty girls will do that to you.’

  Pia felt dejected. She peeked up at her mother who gave her a naughty grin in return, perhaps wanting to cheer her. ‘Come on,’ her mother said nudging her. ‘What was so special about this chica?’

  ‘Oh, where to begin?’ Pia sighed.

  ‘Did she have great titties?’

  ‘Mama!’

  ‘Like melons? Big water melons?’ She held two armfuls of air in front of her already generous bosom.

  ‘No, no, no, no.’ Pia covered her face.

  ‘Or just a nice handful, like a pair of oranges?’ Her fingers squeezed the air with gusto.

  ‘Mum! No.’ Pia stuck her fingers in her ears. ‘La la la la la.’

  Her mother laughed and pushed her shoulder. ‘Mija. I’ll stop. I know when you call me Mum I push you too far.’ She fell quiet but left a consoling hand on Pia’s shoulder. ‘So what was it? What’s got you all gazing at the stars?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was just... She had...’

  ‘That certain something.’

  ‘Yes.’ Pia nodded with enthusiasm and exasperation.

  ‘Oh, I know that one. I know it well little one.’ She squeezed her shoulder. ‘She must have had her reasons mija.’

  ‘But it felt so right. In my dreams right. I thought she felt the same way.’

  Her mother tilted her head. ‘Sometimes real life has a habit of getting in the way of dreams. Perhaps it does for her. It does for almost everyone.’

  Pia implored her mother. ‘It didn’t for you.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Pia’s phone beeped. She snatched it out of her pocket in the impossible hope that it would be Cate. She was disappointed to find another message from her agent, but news of the sale of her photograph to the daily newspapers began to warm her belly.

  ‘I sold a photo Mama,’ she said smiling.

  ‘That’s good. How much did you get?’

  ‘Three thousand pounds so far.’ Her grin broadened.

  ‘So much money for one picture?’

  Pia blushed not wanting to admit that she had taken it not altogether legitimately. ‘It was a good picture Mama and, if I can top up my wages like this, I can take that staff job at the magazine.’

  Her mother frowned.

  ‘Please Mama. I’m trying to make a living from this.’

  Her mother gave her a sad smile. ‘I know. I prefer you had a good normal job. I just want to keep my little girl’s feet on the ground, so she doesn’t fall with a bump. And it’s better you concentrate on this than on some woman who doesn’t have the good sense to give my little Pia her phone number.’

  -

  And Pia did try to follow her advice, with varying degrees of success. She accepted the post as staff photographer on a new magazine, and spent the week readying herself for the dream job. She bought a secondhand Vespa for travelling to assignments and, at the insistence of her mother, a brand new helmet. She took to the streets after rush hour to familiarise herself with the scooter’s handling while the London traffic wasn’t quite its most belligerent self. And more than once her practice route took her close to Kensington. And it wasn’t unknown for her to take a sheepish ride through Kensington Square, keeping her gaze straight so she didn’t take an impertinent peek into Cate’s flat.

  After two days, she tapped ‘Catherine Gillespie’ into a search engine. The hundreds of results showed women of all shapes, sizes and ages, but none who resembled Cate. Another search for ‘Bennet’ yielded hundreds of websites devoted to Pride and Prejudice, insurers, bars, but nothing resembling the silhouette logo.

  Every night, she kissed her mother who gave her a look of sympathy and squeezed her cheeks. She smiled a little, unable to hold cheerful eye contact, and moped up the stairs.

  In bed, she took out the torn business card and stroked the worn surface where Cate’s hands would have touched. She lifted the paper to her cheek and was transported back to the hotel room. She could feel Cate’s touch. Her body remembered how her fingers had caressed and it tingled at the memory. She could recall Cate’s smell and the way she sounded; the way she said Pia’s name with that fond mischievousness. It played over and over in her head. She stroked the card one last time, staring at Cate’s name spelled out in full, and tucked the treasure back in her wallet.

  In the mornings she greeted her mother with a cheery ‘good morning’ and pretended she wasn’t preoccupied. She assumed it was successful. But by the end of the week, one dinnertime, she was still distracted.

  She leaned on her elbow, staring down at her mother’s comfort soup, Sopa de Ajo. Even that was unappetising, and she prodded the poached egg around the bowl.

  ‘Mija. Enough.’ Her mother frowned at her across the tiny Formica table. ‘I don’t mind you sulking around the house for days, but when you waste my food something has to be done.’

  Pia looked up with her mouth and clueless eyes wide open.

  ‘Go call on her. For god’s sake knock on her door. Leave her a note. Something.’ She threw up her hands.

  ‘Do you think I should?’ Pia started to grin and rise out of her chair.

  ‘No, but I think you have to.’

  ‘Oh,’ Pia said, and she sat down again.

  Her mother reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘I don’t think she wants to see my lovely Pia again, crazy woman. But I think you need to hear it from her.’

  Pia deflated a little more.

  ‘Go Pia. Put your mind at rest. For better or for worse. I’ll be here when you get back.’

  Pia beamed. That tiny grain of hope, the fraction of a possibility that Cate might want to see her, was enough to fill her with energy and joy.

  ‘Go. Shoo.’ Her mother waved her arms at her. ‘I don’t want to see you again until you’ve talked with her.’

  Pia sprinted from the house, leapt on her Vespa and spluttered into the night. She felt high as she weaved through
the traffic, giddy with excitement at doing the thing she’d avoided all week but wanted most in the world to do. As she turned into Kensington Square, her heart pounded so hard that she could feel it in her throat.

  She locked the scooter to the railings around the garden, the chain clinking in her trembling hands. For a moment she peeked up at the residence of the immigration minister. Or to be more accurate, the ex-residence of the ex-immigration minister, after both his wife and political party had washed their hands of him. Her agent had bungled her name, but the photographer ‘P. Smith’ was now well-known in news circles.

  But, as they had been all week, Pia’s thoughts of Cate were uppermost. She followed the same path Cate had taken from the garden and stopped at the corner where the road exited the square. She stared at the small art gallery, its windows dark after closing time. Its door and one to the side were the only ones Cate could have entered. Pia scanned the residences above. All but one of the five floors were dark.

  Pia’s nerves and anticipation threatened to overwhelm her. There was still a chance that Cate’s was the apartment that was occupied. Numb with fear of rejection and burning inside with hope, Pia stepped up to the doorway. She ran her fingers along the name tags, deciding which button to try first. The lowest two floors belonged to the art gallery. The next label, which corresponded to the lit floor, showed a Mr and Mrs Adamczyk. And there at the top, the last possibility, was a blank label.

  Pia stood frozen, her finger hovering over the doorbell. With an involuntary action she pressed it. She thought she could hear an echoing ring from above. Nervous, like a naughty child, she stepped back and stared fearful at the top room.

  No lights came on. No-one pressed the intercom to invite her in. She stepped back further and further across the road, and when she stood on the pavement opposite she spied the To Let sign plastered inside the window.

  The disappointment sank cold into her belly, and she looked away feeling more than a little foolish.

  ‘OK Cate. I get the message. I’ll stop now.’ Pia drew out the tattered business card one last time. She rubbed its smooth surface with her fingertips and then stretched out her hand over a black litter bin. She turned away not wanting to watch and tried to drop the card.

  She stared down at her hand that was reluctant to let go, unable to throw Cate away. She snatched it back, and held the card to her chest.

  ‘Just a memento,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all.’

  Chapter 9.

  With her tummy in her mouth and legs like a gelatinous dessert, Pia walked with awe along Fleet Street. It was difficult not to be impressed by the old law courts, countless monuments, buildings that survived the Great Fire of London and modern monoliths with preserved mediaeval pubs hidden in their basements. The giant dome of St Paul’s loomed over all.

  Pia grinned with excitement as she climbed the stairs to her dream job on the top floor of an old press building. When she pushed open the smart double doors into reception it wasn’t quite the slick office she’d imagined. Cardboard boxes, half unpacked, lay on the floor. An electrician was having words with the wiring and a light that flickered. And all she could see behind the reception desk was a large round bottom, covered in stretched black material and sticking up in the air.

  ‘Err...good morning?’ Pia said.

  A whole person flipped up from the bottom, with a red face and mass of streaked curls.

  ‘Oh hello my darling.’ The receptionist pinched her frizz back into place. ‘What can I do for you?’ She shuffled into a seat and adjusted her large breasts so the bottom half settled into her bra. Pia politely lifted her gaze away from the other half that threatened to explode out of her top.

  ‘I think I have a job here,’ Pia said.

  ‘What’s your name love?’ She chewed the words over a piece of gum and stretched it across her tongue. She started to flick through a list on the reception desk.

  ‘Pia!’ A confident male voice boomed across the reception area. Pia recognised the proprietor from her interview. She had supposed him to be in his forties when he’d worn his pin-striped suit, but he looked younger today. He flicked back hair that had flopped across his face and jogged across reception in slim red jeans, a polo shirt and cardigan. He stuck out his hand, and she noticed the new deep tan on his arms.

  ‘Rafe. Just call me Rafe.’ He spoke with same East End accent as the receptionist, which seemed at odds with his image.

  ‘Hi,’ Pia said. She grinned while Rafe squeezed and shook her hand with vigour.

  ‘Great to see you. This is so exciting,’ he enthused. ‘Ton of things to do this morning, as you can see, but we’ll have a kick-off meeting and presentation in a bit.’ He squeezed her shoulders with his hands, and Pia felt like she’d been captured by a well-meaning vice. ‘I was so impressed with your portfolio. It’s magic you can join us.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to be here.’ Pia beamed. ‘I can’t wait to start.’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear. Lots of enthusiasm. The whole thing’s going to be pukka. You’ll see.’ And he ruffled her hair. ‘Right, I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of Denise. But you must catch up with Edith ASAP.’

  He left as quickly as he’d arrived and Pia and Denise stared at the whirlwind of energy that disappeared down the corridor.

  ‘Dreamy isn’t he?’ Denise stared longingly at the space that Rafe had occupied. ‘So nice as well. Do you know he’s royalty? In line to the throne, one hundred times removed. Something like that. But you wouldn’t know it from the way he talks with everyone.’

  Pia nodded, having found him very pleasant in the interview, but her admiration not extending much further than that.

  ‘Married, of course.’ Denise sighed. ‘Just back from his honeymoon.’ And she tutted, descending back to planet Earth, ‘Anyway my darling. You’re quite early. There’s only you and Edith so far. You’d better go and talk to her I suppose. She’s down that way.’ Denise stretched out her arm and squashed her breasts over the reception desk. ‘Follow the gnashing and snarling noises.’

  Pia glanced at Denise perplexed, but the receptionist rolled her eyes, slipped off her chair and stuck her bum in the air to continue unpacking.

  Pia crept in the direction Denise had indicated, listening out for the tell-tale sounds. She wound around tables, chairs, computer screens in bubble wrap, all strewn in the corridor. All she could hear was the sound of a vacuum cleaner. The offices were open and empty except one with a scrawled note taped to its door proclaiming ‘Ed’. It was from behind this door that the vacuum cleaner noise growled.

  Pia knocked on the door. She tried louder with her knuckles. Then she pounded it with her fists. The vacuum cleaner wheezed into silence.

  ‘Christ, just open the door. Don’t break it down,’ a voice shouted from the other side. It was one of those authoritative and well-spoken voices that could have commanded hell to freeze over.

  Pia peeked inside in time to see the woman stub out a cigarette. The dying smoke lingered in a trail up the tube of a vacuum cleaner wedged in the window.

  ‘Oh lord. Which one are you?’ The woman raised her eyebrows above the straight black lines of her glasses. She was tall when she stood up, six feet at least. The wild grey flicks of her hair added another inch. ‘Well. Which pint-sized journo are you then?’ She placed her hands on her hips.

  ‘Pia. I’m a photographer.’

  ‘I’d forgotten the silly tit hired a staff photographer. Well you’re here now,’ she said, extending a hand and business-like shake. ‘Name’s Edith, but don’t ever call me that. God awful name. Call me Ed.’

  Pia was shaken by another forceful personality.

  ‘Right then shortarse. You’d better tell me a bit about yourself.’

  Pia bristled. ‘I’m not that small.’

  Ed replaced her hands on her hips. ‘When we both stand, all I can see is the top of your head. You’re short. Now sit down. It’ll make you more comfortable if you can look me in th
e eye rather than the bust.’

  Pia complied, piqued but secretly amused by the exchange.

  ‘Right, in case you don’t know, I’m the editor of this new rag. As such, it would have been nice if Mr Just Call Me Rafe had let me interview the handful of permanent staff that I’m going to torture.’

  Pia couldn’t help but smile.

  Ed continued. ‘I mean really “Just Call Me Rafe”. What the bloody hell else does he expect us to call him? Lord Rafe of Faux East End?’

  ‘I thought he was a distant relative of the royals or something?’

  Ed rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, a very distant relative of the old girl. Bet you don’t hear her saying “Just call me Liz”.’

  ‘He doesn’t speak as if he’s posh,’ Pia said.

  ‘That fake East End accent? Pathetic isn’t it? He wants to appear like the common man. Your average geezer. But the man’s worth a fortune. He would have to be to set up something as cretinous as a new magazine in this climate.’

  ‘I thought he owned several magazines and was doing well?’

  ‘Yes he does darling. He’s very ambitious, and to his credit he’s done well spotting gaps in the market.’ Ed puffed out, exasperated. ‘I heard the twit say he wants to be the new Rupert Murdoch. Only someone obscenely power hungry or irredeemably stupid would have an ambition like that. I’m tempted to say the latter. Well at least he hired a nice little baby dyke for me.’

  Pia took a moment to realise that Ed meant her. She pouted and snapped, ‘I’m not that young.’

  ‘How old are you dear?’ Ed peered over her glasses.

  ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘That’s neonatal to an old dinosaur like me.’

  ‘Well you don’t seem that old to me,’ Pia spat.

  Ed opened her mouth for a riposte, but closed it again and smiled. ‘Nothing so disarming and charming as honest flattery. Well done shortarse. Well done.’ She considered Pia further. ‘Perhaps Just Call Me Rafe knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘I quite liked him,’ Pia admitted.

  Ed inhaled and gazed out of the window. ‘Well,’ she drew out. ‘I’ve got to say he must be a little bit of a romantic, basing his offices in Fleet Street. It’s been a bloody long time since I’ve worked here. Couldn’t move for hacks back then. Those were the days.’ She had a distant look in her eye. ‘Yes, maybe he has the one redeeming feature. That and his gorgeous wife.’