‘What, she wrote a song about her boyfriend cheating on her?’
‘She did. It’s called “Love Rat”. I guess if that gets to number one there’ll be no chance of them getting back together.’
I laughed. ‘No, I guess slagging someone off in song lyrics is a pretty definitive way of telling them to fuck off to the far side of fuck.’
‘And when they get there, fuck off some more. It’s a great track though, really raw. How have things been here?’ he asked, spreading peanut butter on a piece of toast.
‘You should try Tabasco sauce and salt on that,’ I said. ‘Trust me. It’s the future.’
‘Salt and what now?’ Josh sounded incredulous, but he obediently reached for the salt cellar and the sauce bottle, sprinkled cautiously and took a bite. I watched his face go from doubtful to ecstatic.
‘My God. What else haven’t you told me?’
Loads and loads of things, I reflected, feeling suddenly guilty. But I just gave a modest shrug and asked him more about how his week had gone, and he asked me the same.
‘Not too bad,’ I said. ‘Work’s been kind of intense. I’ve been home in bed by ten every night, I’ve been so knackered.’
There was a sudden scrabble at the window that made me jump, but it was only Freezer. He hopped down and scampered over to Josh, every furry white bit of him seeming to say, ‘Thank God! You’re back! You won’t believe what I’ve had to put up with while she’s been in charge!’
‘Hey, little dude! I missed you.’ Josh picked him up and scratched his ears, and the cat writhed blissfully in his arms, purring like a power tool.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ I grumbled, ‘he’s been throwing shade at me the whole time you were away, and now look at him.’
‘Aww, Freezer, have you?’ Josh cooed. ‘Come on! We love Tansy. Tansy’s our mate. Isn’t she?’
Speak for yourself, I thought, annoyed at his presumption. I wasn’t your mate back at school, and I’m not now. Freezer didn’t seem too convinced, either, peering sideways at me out of his green eye, like he didn’t believe a word. But, slighted as I felt at being dissed by a cat, I had another handsome male I needed to focus on winning round – and he was neither Josh nor Freezer.
‘Fancy coming out with me tonight?’ I asked. ‘My colleague Felicity and her sister and some of their mates are going to Home House. It’s swanky as, you’ll like it.’
‘Will I?’
‘You might,’ I conceded. ‘And even if you don’t, apparently the cocktails are off the scale. I got paid yesterday, so it’s my treat.’
‘Go on then,’ Josh said. ‘But if we’re going to have a massive night, I’d better catch up on some sleep today.’
‘Cool, you have a good rest.’ And don’t even think about spoiling my plan by being too knackered to come out tonight, I added silently. An hour later, I was on a bus heading towards Bethnal Green. I’d find Chelsea at her stall in the market, I hoped, and I’d try to talk to her there and check that she was okay. If something had gone wrong in her life, maybe I’d be able to help. And if she’d just decided she’d had enough of being mentored by me, I’d at least know, and I’d have to tell Daria that I’d failed in my attempt to nurture and support a promising young designer.
I stopped on the way and bought two macchiatos, a custard Danish for Chelsea and something that was advertised as a high-protein oat and chia seed muffin (but looked like it had come out of the wrong end of a cow) for myself.
My mentee was at her stall as I’d hoped, arranging garments on a rail. She must have been working harder than ever, I thought; there were at least ten completed dresses that I hadn’t seen before, many of them made from sari silk in dazzling colours.
‘Spring/summer collection’s looking good,’ I said.
Chelsea spun round and glared at me. ‘What are you doing here?’
I held out the coffee and pastry, and she hesitated for a second, then took them. ‘I was worried about you when you didn’t return my calls.’
‘Been busy, innit.’
‘I can see that. These are stunning.’ I picked up one of the dresses and admired the cut.
Chelsea smiled, even though it looked like it took some effort. ‘Thanks.’
‘How are things going at work? And how’s your mum?’ I asked, casting around the little I knew about her life to try and tease out what the problem – if there was one – could be.
‘Work’s shit. Mum’s shittier.’ She took the dress from me and put it back on the rail, then started to fiddle around, smoothing non-existent creases from things.
‘Chelsea? Is your mum okay? She’s not ill, is she?’ If that was the problem, it was way beyond my powers to do anything about it.
‘Nah. She’s fine. Just knackered, like me.’
Cautiously, I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You can talk to me, you know, if something’s bothering you.’
She flinched like I’d burned her. ‘Look, will you just…’
Then she stopped. I could see tears welling in her eyes, and as I watched they spilled down her cheeks, carrying rivers of mascara with them.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘It’s okay. Here, take this.’
I shoved the paper bag with her Danish pastry in it at her.
‘You’re giving me cake? What are you, Marie fucking Antoinette?’
‘There’s a napkin in there,’ I said gently. ‘You look like you might need it.’
‘Oh. Right.’ She looked at me, then at the bag, then started to laugh, but within seconds her laughter turned to sobs.
I knew that a full-on hug would be even less welcome to her than it was to Adam, so I just stood next to her and patted her shoulder a bit while she wept into the paper napkin. After a while I passed her the one from my muffin, too.
‘The fuck is this?’ she said, sniffing. ‘It smells like that compost they use on the allotments.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was going to eat it, but I think I’ve changed my mind.’
Chelsea blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘Don’t do it. Get some proper food down you.’
She tore her Danish in two and handed half to me. I took a bite. I don’t know if she meant to, but she’d given me the bit with most of the custard in it.
‘God, that’s good.’
‘See?’ she said.
‘Okay, fine. I’m eating. Now you can tell me what’s wrong.’
Chelsea looked stricken again, and for a second I thought she might be about to start crying again. Then she squared her shoulders and set her jaw.
* * *
‘It’s just… This. I’m working my arse off, with my day job and sewing every spare bleeding second, and sometimes, like today, I look at it and I think, what the fuck is this all for?’
‘What do you mean? Your work is amazing. Look how happy your customers are. You should be really proud.’
‘Yeah, but being proud isn’t good enough, is it? Do you even know how long it takes me to make a dress? Like, two or three days. Even a week, for the ones with beading and shit. And I sell it for a couple of hundred quid – maybe two fifty, and sure, the customer’s happy and I’m happy, but then I sit down and do the maths and I’m like, I make more money per hour in my day job. And that’s minimum wage.’
She didn’t need to tell me all this, of course – I’d worked it out for myself. So I just nodded sympathetically and kept listening.
‘And I’m like, am I going to be stuck doing this forever? I’ve got no qualifications. All I can do is work a shitty zero-hours contract in retail, and this. And if this doesn’t work, I’ve got nothing.’
I opened my mouth to come up with some kind of reassuring platitude, but I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound hollow. And anyway, Chelsea was in full flood.
‘And then there’s Nathan.’
Nathan? I scratched around desperately in my mind until I remembered. The beloved son who Mrs Johnston had said was ‘a good boy, really’, with all that implied.
‘
Your brother? What’s happened to him?’
‘Nothing,’ she spat. ‘That’s the whole problem. Nothing happens. He smokes weed and he hangs out with his mates, and some of them are dealing, and he hasn’t been to school in ages, and it just feels like he’s got no future, either.’
‘It’s difficult, I know,’ I said, trying to sound sympathetic but wishing I had more of a clue what I was on about. ‘I mean, I know young men like him are disproportionately likely to leave school without—’
‘Young black men,’ Chelsea spat at me. ‘Say it like it is.’
‘Okay, young black men. I’m sorry if I offended you.’
She laughed again, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. ‘It’s more that you tried not to.’
I did a rueful gesture that was part shrug, part smile and part nod, and waited for her to carry on.
‘I just want to make Mum proud,’ she said. ‘Of me and him, both. But she says she can’t show her face in church any more because everyone thinks her boy is a gangster. And I’m a failure.’
‘You are no such thing! You mustn’t even think that way, Chelsea. I mean, Luxeforless wouldn’t have chosen you for the mentoring programme if they – if we – didn’t think you had incredible potential. You weren’t thinking of dropping out, were you? Because of the way you’re feeling? Because I for one would be absolutely gutted if you did.’
Chelsea’s face brightened like the sun coming out. ‘Really?’
‘Of course.’ I could have kicked myself for not realising straight away that that was one of the things worrying her. ‘I’ve got a meeting with the marketing team on Wednesday, so why don’t you join me for that?’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Yes, I will.’
‘And,’ I went on, encouraged by her smile, ‘tell your mum to go to church tomorrow with her head held high. It’s not like she’s done anything wrong, and even if she had, they’re meant to be all about forgiveness, aren’t they?’
‘I guess,’ Chelsea said. ‘I’ll talk to Mum tonight. And I’ll see you next week. Thanks for the coffee and… everything.’
I waved her thanks away and reminded her that she could call me any time she needed to talk. Just as I was leaving, Chelsea pressed one of her plain brown bags into my hand.
‘Take this. It’s a present. It’s your size.’
I opened my mouth to protest and offer payment, then thought better of it.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’re amazing, you know that, right?’
And this time, she did let me give her the very briefest of hugs.
Seventeen
I was tempted to open the bag Chelsea had given me on the bus home, but I resisted and made myself wait until I was in my room. Then I lifted the tissue-paper parcel out and carefully unwrapped it. She’d given me a dress made out of silk scarves, pieced together so that their floral, paisley and geometric prints complemented one another perfectly. It had a draped cowl neckline, spaghetti straps that turned into criss-cross lacing down the open back, and an asymmetrical hanky hemline that came down to mid-calf at its longest and was just above my knees at the shortest bit. The colours were coral and jade and silver, with accents of vivid saffron yellow, and even though none of them was from the same palette, they still worked together like they’d dreamed of meeting in their previous lives.
I put it on straight away, and watched my face in the mirror break into the delighted smile I’d seen on Chelsea’s other customers. I looked like me, only better. Me, without boobs that were either too big or not big enough. Me, without collarbones that made me look like a wire coathanger. Me, without my skin all sallow and tired.
I took a selfie in the mirror and sent it to Chelsea with a whole load of emojis. I didn’t need to add a message – I was pretty sure she’d understand what I meant. She’d intended the gift to be a thank-you, but I felt as if I hadn’t done nearly enough to warrant such a gorgeous present, with all the hours that had gone into making it, and – more importantly – that I still had to earn the trust Chelsea had placed in me.
I’ll find a way, I promised her in my head. Somehow, I’ll make you the famous designer you deserve to be. And if I learn that one person at church has been mean to your mum, I’ll personally hunt them down and twat scones at them until they apologise.
I spent almost three hours getting ready to go out that evening. I showered and shaved and exfoliated every inch of myself, and slathered on fake tan. I put a protein treatment on my hair, wrapped it in cling film, covered it with a towel and left it while I soaked my hands in hot water, oiled and trimmed my cuticles and painted my nails (fingers silver, toes electric blue). I put a radiance-boosting mask on my face and peeled it off (although whoever makes these things and tells you they peel off in one piece is the biggest liar ever – it wasn’t so much peeling as picking the thing away, one tiny piece at a time, until I lost patience and washed the whole lot off with a flannel).
When my nail varnish had dried, I rinsed my hair, dried it, sprayed sea salt spray on it and tonged it. I put one kind of primer on my face and another kind on my eyes and brushed on foundation and concealer until a blank mask looked back at me from the mirror, and then I used contouring powder, highlighter and blusher to sculpt my features back on the way I wanted them to look.
I tightlined my eyes, wincing and trying not to blink as I ran the eyeliner over the inside of my top lids. I put on four different coloured eyeshadows: smoky grey, peacock blue, dark green and sparkly silver. I swished on wings of black liquid eyeliner and held my breath as I stuck on false eyelashes over my mascaraed real ones. I powdered and pencilled my eyebrows, lined my lips in rose pink then filled them in with a matte liquid lipstick.
I inspected my face from all angles and wished I felt beautiful, but I didn’t. I felt like a girl who’d overdone the slap because she was desperate to look prettier than she was.
But it was too late to change anything, and at least I had a killer dress to wear. I spritzed on some of the Miu Miu scent I’d bought at the duty-free shop in the airport on my way home from that last, wonderful holiday with Renzo before stepping into the dress, tying the laces at the back and zipping on my favourite silver shoe boots. I slipped a few silver rings onto my fingers and tucked my keys, phone, credit card and lipstick into the little silver clutch Mum had given me for my eighteenth birthday, remembering with a pang how she’d said, ‘Every woman needs a good bag for best,’ and I’d imagined the hours of overtime she must have worked to pay for it, even though it was only from Next.
And then I went downstairs.
Josh was eating spaghetti at the kitchen table, wearing jeans and a black shirt. When he saw me, he put his fork down and stared.
‘Blimey. You look… different.’ Then he hastily added, ‘You look great, I mean. That’s a nice dress.’
I thanked him, told him how it had been given to me, and explained how the different panels of silk had been cut on the bias and sewn together with the seams in exactly the right places so it would hang properly.
‘You sound like Mum,’ he said. ‘A frock’s never just a frock with her, it’s a piece of art she has to analyse.’
‘Well, she got me started in fashion, remember? So I guess I do sound like her when I wank on about it.’
‘You’re not wanking on, you’re being passionate. Now, you should eat something before we go. There’s loads more of this on the hob.’
I realised I hadn’t eaten since sharing Chelsea’s pastry that morning, and I was starving. Then I looked at the oily red sauce coating the pasta, and imagined it splatting over my cheeks and down my dress.
‘You know what they say,’ I objected. ‘Eating’s cheating.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Josh said. ‘You don’t want to be totally shitfaced after two cocktails. Put a tea towel round your neck and have some food.’
So, feeling like a messy child wearing a bib, I did. It was delicious – I ate a huge bowlful and was about to have a second helping when I remembered that I might be goin
g to see Renzo, and suddenly felt queasy with excitement and apprehension. It was half past nine. In an hour, I might be talking to him.
Before that, he’d see me with Josh, and I knew what I wanted him to think.
‘So do we get the Tube?’ Josh asked. ‘Where is this place we’re going, anyway?’
‘Mayfair,’ I said. ‘But I’m in taxi shoes, so we’ll get an Uber.’
‘Right, then.’ Josh tapped his phone. ‘Give me the address and I’ll order one while you get your coat.’
Felicity, Pru and Phillip were already there when we arrived, seated at a table in a room so designer-fabulous that Josh muttered, ‘Oh my God, it’s like the Battlestar Galactica in here!’ clutching my arm in a way that made me wonder if he was almost as nervous about the evening as me. I spotted Felicity across the room and said, ‘This is it, we’re going in,’ and dragged him over.
I’d never met Pru’s newish boyfriend before and I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it was definitely not the slightly chubby, balding bloke sitting next to her. But when he stood up, flashed an impressive set of veneers in a massive grin like meeting me was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and greeted Josh the same way, adding in a voice so posh it was almost comical how delighted he was to meet us both, and how he couldn’t wait for all of Pru’s friends to be his friends too, I totally got what she saw in him.
Within a few seconds, he and Josh were having a good old natter about golf, which I never even knew Josh could play, and music, which Phil seemed to be both knowledgeable about and mad keen on. Felicity ordered a bottle of Bollinger and one of vodka to celebrate the end of her alcohol-free week, and I seriously hoped she wasn’t planning to sink the lot herself or things would get far messier than I’d bargained for, Renzo or no Renzo.
‘But I need to know,’ Pru gushed, caressing my dress with a fingertip, ‘who this is by? I have to have one. Everyone has to have one. Actually, they don’t. Let’s keep it our little secret.’
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 19