As Good As It Gets? (40 page)

‘Yeah,’ he sniggers, edging towards me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

I look down at the pale grey fluffy rug. I am no longer picturing myself throwing off my clothes and landing in a passionate tumble on Fraser’s bed. I am imagining Will roaming about in the Scottish countryside and spotting that mushroom, and carefully picking it. He was excited about his find and wanted to share it with me.

This means he no longer thinks of me as a condiment-squirting maniac. It also means I
have
to see him. I stand up, pushing back my dishevelled hair. ‘Fraser,’ I say, meeting his quizzical gaze, ‘would you mind calling me a cab?’

Chapter Forty

I am woken by rain battering at my bedroom window. As Rosie has yet to return from Delph’s, I haven’t been able to fill her in on my day out with Fraser. Not that I plan to tell her everything. Just that he’s a decent man, who cares about her very much, and that we both agree that it would be good for them to get to know each other. We were both a bit sheepish and embarrassed as I left last night, apologising unnecessarily and parting with a slightly awkward hug. ‘We just got a bit carried away,’ Fraser said with a rueful smile, and I decided then that I
do
like him, and that I’m happy for Rosie to have him in her life. However, I’m not wildly impressed that he can’t tell the difference between a shaggy inkcap and a human penis.

A couple of hours later she appears with Delph in tow, both of them giggling and muttering unintelligibly, as if communicating in some mysterious language spoken only by young, beautiful people with modelling contracts. They fail to acknowledge Ollie as he strides in, full of all the great things that have been happening at Saul’s house – ‘He’s got his own TV now! Everyone has. Can I have one?’

‘We can maybe think about it for Christmas,’ I say vaguely, but Ollie isn’t listening. He is watching the girls as they slather thick slices of bread with jam.

‘We normally have home-made bread,’ he announces, ‘but Dad’s away and Mum can’t make it so we’ve just got the normal stuff …’

‘I don’t think Delph needs to know that, Ollie,’ Rosie retorts, breaking off to take a call on her mobile. She frowns and mutters before tossing her phone onto the table. ‘That was Laurie,’ she adds.

‘Oh, d’you have a casting?’ I ask. ‘Or a job?’

She shrugs. ‘Dunno. She just said could I pop into the agency.’

‘Well,’ I say, ‘I suppose next time you’re in town …’

‘She said today,’ Rosie adds, ‘if it’s convenient.’

‘You need a better agency,’ Delph declares. ‘They’re not pushing you enough, Ro. I’m booked all next week. I’m off to Tuscany with
Vogue
…’

Rosie musters a bright smile. ‘Yeah, well, maybe she wants to talk about the direction she wants me to go in or something.’ Actually, I think, the direction I’d suggest is the one you seemed to be following before modelling, before Delph, when you read a book now and again instead of flicking listlessly through fashion magazines, and deigned to have the occasional pleasant conversation with me.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ I say ineffectually.

‘Yeah, well, I might as well go now.’

‘I’ll come into town with you,’ Delph announces. ‘I’m getting a rose-petal facial at two o’clock. Have you ever had one?’

‘Er, no,’ Rosie says, as if she’s considered it but hasn’t got around to it yet.

‘Oh, you should!’ Delph asserts. ‘They lay these pink petals all over your face and the goodness – y’know, the
essence
of flowers – seeps into your skin and then they exfoliate it all off.’

‘Skin does that naturally anyway,’ Ollie retorts. ‘It falls off all the time. There are flakes of it all over this house.’

Delph winces. ‘Well, that’s charming.’ With that, the girls gather themselves together and swish off in a cloud of heady perfume. Perfectly timed, I must say, for the first step of my plan.

*

‘Right,’ I tell Ollie, ‘we’re going on a trip.’

‘What kind of trip?’ he asks, all excited.

‘We’re going camping.’

‘Great!’ Thankfully, Ollie still regards sleeping in our leaky old tent as a fantastic treat. ‘Where are we going?’ he wants to know.

‘Well, the plan is, the first night we’ll stay in Northumberland, that’s in the north-east of—’

‘I know where Northumberland is,’ he retorts.

‘And then,’ I continue, ‘we’ll carry on up to Scotland—’

‘To see Dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cool, what did he say? Is he looking forward to seeing us?’

I hesitate, wondering how to put this. ‘He doesn’t know, sweetheart. I want it to be a surprise …’

‘He’s been gone for three days now. He hasn’t phoned for ages! We haven’t even told him about finding Guinness.’

‘I know, darling,’ I say briskly, ‘but his mind’ll be full of this job and he’s probably getting to know the area …’

‘If he’s that busy,’ Ollie says, looking wary now, ‘d’you think he’ll want us just turning up?’

I smile at my boy, who’s turning browner by the day. ‘Of course he will,’ I say firmly, hoping to God that I’m right. ‘So, can you get some clothes together? Enough for three or four days?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, scampering off. I have yet to tell Ollie and Rosie about being made redundant from Archie’s; I don’t want to spring it upon them yet, until we know what’s happening with Will’s job. However, this is why we are driving and camping, rather than flying and staying in a hotel. It’s a budget trip, which I’m hoping they will view as an adventure.

I call Gloria to ask if she’ll look after Guinness. ‘I’ll bring him over,’ I explain. ‘You won’t need to do anything apart from feed him …’

‘I
suppose
that’s okay,’ she replies warily, as if our small furred mammal is prone to launching vicious attacks.

The presence of a giant, navy blue people carrier outside Gloria’s pebble-dashed home signals the presence of Sally, Will’s younger sister. Despite living in the Cotswolds – a mere couple of hours away – she and her family deign to visit Gloria around three times a year.

‘You’re looking so well,’ Sally exclaims, attempting to hug me while I grip Guinness’s open-topped box. ‘Oh, isn’t he cute? I do admire you, Charlotte, letting the kids have pets. I won’t allow it. The smell! Ew!’ She wrinkles her nose, then quickly corrects herself, as if remembering that she owns several ponies. ‘Not that this little chap smells
at all
.’ She sniffs the air above him. ‘Mm, all I can smell is hay, actually. Lovely and sweet and countryish.’ Gloria emerges from the kitchen and quickly peers into Guinness’s box, then teeters back as if he were an unexploded bomb. I leave our pet in the porch as we all head into the chintzy living room.

‘You’re growing into such a handsome man,’ Sally gushes, giving Ollie’s hair an enthusiastic ruffle. ‘And where’s Rosie today? And my dashing big brother?’

‘Will’s away for an interview,’ I start, deciding not to go into the whole story.

‘An interview?’ Gloria repeats. ‘Thank heavens for that!’ She turns to her daughter. ‘I’ve told you, Sally, how worried I’ve been about Will, stuck at home, tied to the kitchen …’

‘… And Rosie’s gone into town,’ I cut in. ‘Her model agency have asked to see her.’

‘Oh yes, Mum’s filled us in on all of that,’ Sally remarks as Ollie and I say our hellos to Marty, Sally’s husband who, in his brown cardigan and slacks, almost merges with Gloria’s chocolate velour sofa. Also present is Bruno, their scowling seven-year-old son, who is, according to Sally’s previous reports, in the top one percentile of something or other, although I’m not quite sure what that means.

‘Hi Bruno, how’s things?’ I look down at the small, chubby-cheeked boy who is sprawled belly-down on his grandma’s cream rug, prodding at his iPad.

‘All right,’ he replies dully, picking at his ear and failing to shift his gaze from the screen.

‘What’s that you’re playing, Bruno?’ Ollie asks gamely, for which I could hug him.

‘Just a thing,’ he replies.

‘Oh,’ Ollie says with a smirk. ‘It looks good.’

‘It’s only for one player,’ Bruno snaps, gathering himself up from the floor and relocating to a shadowy corner behind the sofa.

Sally beams in an
isn’t he adorable?
sort of way. ‘So, about Rosie modelling,’ she says, motioning for us to sit with Marty on the sofa. ‘D’you feel okay about it? I mean, thrusting her into the public eye with the dangers of horrible predatory photographers and all that?’ Although she’s still smiling, rather manically, a little furrow has appeared between her meticulously pencilled brows. I’m itching to remind Sally that her own mother paraded about in nothing more than heels, a sash and swimsuit at beauty contests, but Gloria’s hovering about, and I don’t want to bring up that thing about the poky-fingered
Sorrington Bugle
man.

‘We thought about it carefully,’ I say firmly, wondering how soon we can get the hell out of here without appearing rude. ‘But, you know, her exams had finished and we thought, if she’s going to give it a try, then the summer break’s probably the best time.’

Sally gives me a pained look. ‘It just seems a bit … shallow, I suppose. I mean there’s more to Rosie than that. She’s
quite
bright, isn’t she?’
Although not on a par with the genius currently mouth-breathing loudly behind the sofa …

‘Yes, but it’s just a sideline, like a summer job. She wants to be a vet …’

‘A summer job where you’re not allowed to eat!’ Sally chuckles, shaking her head in wonderment.

‘Well, it was a family decision. Anyway, we really should get back. Lots of packing to do … um, Gloria, I’ve left Guinness in his box in the porch, but I thought maybe I could put him in your shed? Would that be okay? I’ve brought his dry food and his water bottle so he’ll be fine—’

‘And his run,’ Ollie adds.

Gloria frowns. ‘His
run
?’

‘The big wire mesh thing Dad made,’ Ollie explains. ‘I’ll drag it out onto your lawn. As long as it’s not raining, Guinness likes to spend most of his day in it.’

Gloria looks nonplussed. ‘His run will be
on
my lawn? Will the grass be harmed?’

‘Not at all,’ I say firmly.

‘Well, he’ll poo, obviously,’ Ollie says cheerfully, ‘but it’s like fertiliser, it’s
good
for grass, it puts nutrients in and nitrates and stuff, and he’ll keep it nice and short …’

Gloria frowns. ‘So where are you going on holiday?’ Sally asks, tailing us to the back garden as we sort out Guinness’s temporary accommodation.

‘Just camping,’ I reply.

‘Oh, aren’t you brave! You are a one, Charlotte. I couldn’t spend one night in a tent. We’re going to Florida again. But camping sounds so much more, er,
earthy.
I take my hat off to you.’

Ollie keeps quoting Sally the whole drive home. ‘You are a one, Charlotte!’ he pipes up, making me crease up with laughter every time.

We arrive home to find Rosie slumped on the sofa, flipping channels between something about crop circles – ‘an area of high incidences of paranormal activity,’ the narrator says gravely – and a low-budget cookery show on which several people are cooing over a plate bearing a very plain-looking slab of cod. ‘Didn’t expect you back so soon,’ I say, kissing the top of her head.

‘It was a quick meeting,’ she mutters, settling now on a show about the perils of online relationships.

‘This programme’s so stupid,’ Ollie announces. ‘They meet people online who look like models or dancers or whatever, and surprise surprise, the person can never manage to meet up face to face … like, wouldn’t you be suspicious?’

Rosie throws him an icy look.

‘And then,’ Ollie continues, ‘they
do
meet, ’cause the presenters arrange it, and the guy she thought was a male model turns out to be really old – like,
forty-two
or something, with a massive beer gut and some kind of horrible skin disease—’

With a groan, Rosie turns off the TV. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.

She shrugs and picks at a fingernail.

‘Did Laurie suggest how you might get more jobs?’

‘No she didn’t, okay?’ I step back, startled, as Rosie leaps up from the sofa. ‘She didn’t suggest anything, Mum. Well she did, but it wasn’t
that
…’ With a strangled sob, she runs out of the room and thunders upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

Ollie and I stare at each other. ‘Wait down here,’ I murmur.

I find her hunched on her bed, tapping away at her phone and refusing to look up at me. ‘Sweetheart,’ I say, perching beside her, ‘what happened today?’

‘Nothing,’ she mumbles, face half-covered by hair.

I look at her, wondering how to coax her to tell me what happened without making things worse. It never used to be like this. Rosie would tell me everything. ‘Did you have a nice time at Nina’s?’ I’d ask, and she’d reply, ‘Yeah, we made a sponge cake and then we had an idea to make it look like a bed with an icing duvet, so we did that, and guess what! Nina’s got a trampoline …’

And now? She’s a closed book. I lick my dry lips and glance around her room. There’s a clutter of scented candles and bottles of perfume and books and pens on her dressing table. A white ceramic hand, its elongated fingers draped with jewellery, is perched on a small plate bearing a half-eaten Maryland cookie.

‘They dropped me,’ she announces suddenly.

‘You mean the agency?’

‘Yup.’

‘Really? Why?’

She shrugs, casting her phone aside on the rumpled duvet.

‘Was it because you didn’t turn up for that job?’

‘No, of course not,’ she exclaims. ‘It’s just, she – Laurie, I mean – started going on about my homely face. That’s what she said, Mum – that I’m homely! What does that even mean?’

I look at my lovely daughter whose eyes are brimming with tears. ‘Oh, darling, I have no idea …’

‘Well,’ she charges on, ‘that’s why the mitten people liked me, she said, and she thinks I’m not really right for fashion – that I’d be better modelling for home catalogues, like standing in kitchens and conservatories and all that, being the teenage daughter perched at the breakfast bar, she said, that’s how
homely
I am—’