Can't Live Without (3 page)

Not that she blamed them, oh no. The blame for the fire – the
devastating
fire – lay firmly at the feet of one person. Her bloody mother. She may not have set it herself deliberately, but Lipsy had no doubt that it would turn out to have been caused by some failing on her part. As for the other thing, Lipsy understood enough about insurance to know that not having any was just about the worst thing a person could do. It meant that whereas a normal family would simply go out and start again with new things, Lipsy couldn’t. And that in itself was unforgivable.

She placed the pen carefully against the clean white surface of the paper and began to write:

Monday 4
th
June 4.30 pm

Lipsy Hill’s Diary – How I Survived Disaster

She wrote with her head bent low to the child’s desk, her sleek dark hair falling across her face as she mouthed the words silently, unconsciously. When she’d finished three pages she sat back, stretching her narrow body like a dancer. And then, furiously, she began writing again, this time a list, in no particular order, with the heading:
Things I Can’t Possibly Live Without
...

***

At lunchtime I go shopping. Strangely enough I don’t enjoy this experience, probably because I’m spending money I don’t have on things that give me absolutely no pleasure to buy. Functional knickers and bras, a pair of jeans and a pair of wear-everywhere shoes. A few plain T-shirts. Some socks. Boring! This is a capsule-sized capsule wardrobe. In Monsoon I splash out on a chiffon blouse in cheerful citrus colours. I just need something to brighten up my day.

There’s no point buying anything for Lipsy. She thinks I have less than no taste and would no doubt roll her eyes disgustedly at any offering I might make. Besides, she is OK in the clothes department for the moment. When I dragged her round to Bonnie’s yesterday she spent a peaceful hour going through my best friend’s wardrobe, oohing and ahhing over her collection of designer clothes, shoes and handbags. Pocket-sized Bonnie and Lipsy are roughly the same size, and Bonnie, generous as ever, allowed my daughter to put together her own capsule wardrobe, drawing the line only at a designer handbag, as worn by Mischa Barton. I tried on one or two items myself but ended up looking as though I’d just been through the hot-wash cycle, much to Lipsy’s disgust.

I guess I’m going to have to get used to Lipsy’s disgust.

Paul has given me an advance on my wages, something he’s been doing a lot lately, and I can’t see how I’m going to stop needing this gesture anytime soon. I’ve known Paul Smart since I was fourteen; we went to the same high school. He was a real heart-throb back then, you know the sort: leather jacket even when it’s thirty degrees outside, girls standing in clusters giving him sly smiles, other boys trying to impress him by picking on the skinny girl with the buck teeth from two years below. Who, believe it or not, was me. I know, you’ve got a picture in your head that I’m drop-dead gorgeous. Well I am, now. (Modesty requires me to say that I’m joking.) But back then, in the dark days, I had legs like sticks and teeth that wouldn’t look out of place on Bugs Bunny. Thank goodness for wealthy parents and good dentistry.

Paul never participated in the bullying. He was my hero, uber cool, always made a point of saying hello to me, causing my little group of misfit friends to swoon. For a while I thought I was in love with him – until I was eighteen, in fact. He treated me like the younger sister he didn’t have. My love was definitely unrequited, and that hurt.

One weekend, during the only year I managed to complete at university, I was visiting home and I saw him around town. I was in a bar with a group of crazy friends, showing off and being annoying, you know how you do. One of the girls started making faces at some guys sitting at a table nearby, and then she was laughing and calling them boring old farts. Apparently they’d been giving us the evil eye for being too loud. I looked over with my who-do-you-think-you-are
killer stare and realised one of them was Paul.

I was gobsmacked. I mean, he was so normal. And I realised there and then that he was just a guy. Special, but nobody special. Which was how he’d always thought of me, I guess.

We stayed in touch after that, and when I’d had Lipsy, and loved and lost the bastard who broke my heart, he gave me a job in his fledgling estate agency. I love my job.
Really
love it. Sure, it’s a bit boring and repetitive – isn’t every job? – and yes, I’d have liked to have done something a bit more dynamic, but for over ten years it’s been my lifeline. And Paul is my lifeguard, watching over me, always there to pick up the pieces when yet another disaster strikes. Which, unfortunately, it has a habit of doing quite often around me.

I finish off my shopping trip with a visit to Boots for basic toiletries and then rush back to the office before my hour is up. No time for a sandwich but then my figure probably needs to miss more than just one meal anyway. What my mind needs is work, work and more work, to keep it from thinking about the fact that when it’s time to go home tonight I have no home to go to.

My regular job, since the office expanded last year, is to handle the rentals. This mainly involves dealing with complaints from tenants, anything from ‘My tap is dripping’ to ‘Part of an aeroplane has fallen through the roof’. (It happens, believe me.) Every phone call I get today has me biting my tongue. ‘Oh really,’ I want to say. ‘Well, at least you haven’t lost all your possessions in a house fire! How would you feel about that?’

I hold it together, just. Loretta stays out of my way for the rest of the day. At quarter to five Joe appears at the side of my desk looking sheepish.

‘Hey, Stella,’ he says, swinging his arms like a naughty school boy. ‘If you’re staying here a while I could do with having these details typed up. They need to go out tomorrow, I’ve been a bit busy.’ He holds out his Dictaphone and fixes me with puppy dog eyes – what can I say?

‘Give it here. And don’t say I never do anything for you.’

Fitting my earpiece to the machine I press play and begin to type, albeit with only two fingers. Joe’s a bit work-shy but his euphemisms and descriptions always make me laugh.

Like this one: “The garden is deceptively small and would appeal to an agoraphobic midget.” Not very PC, but Joe, short for Giuseppe (unfortunate phrase, as he is very short indeed), never understands why some of his comments are offensive. This just makes him even funnier, to me at least. If I ever wanted to drop him in it, all I’d have to do would be to play some of this stuff to Paul.

“The bathroom is large and green. Like a swamp.”

Classic. I type:
Compact easy maintenance garden. Unusually spacious bathroom with avocado suite and scope for further improvement
. It doesn’t take long to pick up the spiel in this business.

Estate-agent-speak gets a bad press, and some of it is deserved. But most of the homes we sell wouldn’t get anywhere near their true value, or sell this side of the next millennium, without a bit of creative marketing.

Judging by Joe’s comments, this house is going to need a lot of creative marketing. In one of Milton Keynes’ less desirable areas – what we like to call “up and coming” – it has been rented and systematically run down by a succession of tenants from hell. The landlord has obviously given up doing repairs and decided to cut his losses instead.

I look at the pictures and my heart goes out to the poor house – it doesn’t look so very different from mine in its current state. Two of the windows are boarded up, the garden’s full of rubbish and the front door hangs off its hinges as though kicked in. All it needs is a bit of TLC, but it will probably be bought by another developer who’ll pay for basic repairs only and then let it out again to more tenants from hell. If only I had the money …

I pull myself back to reality. No point in thinking that way. I don’t even have the money to do up my own wreck of a house, let alone invest in someone else’s. I feel a knot of dread in my stomach when I think about my house again. It keeps coming back to me like a bad dream – everything I owned disappearing in a cloud of smoke and a torrent of grubby water. If there’s a silver lining here I really can’t see it.

Just before seven, Paul returns to the office with a huge smile and a spring in his step. I am staring blankly into space and I jump as though shot when he bursts through the door.

‘What are you still doing here? Aren’t you going home?’ he asks.

‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ I snap back. Now where did that come from? It’s not Paul’s fault. Win friends, Stella, don’t alienate them. ‘Sorry,’ I tell him, glad to see the hurt look on his face disappear as quickly as it arrived.

‘I sold Shenley Church End,’ he tells me happily.

‘What, the whole estate? That’s impressive!’

‘No, silly.’ He gives me a light punch on the arm and I pretend to fall off my chair; an old routine of ours.

‘I’ve sold that house in Shenley Church End. I was starting to despair, this is only the second person I’ve shown it to and we’ve had it on for eight months. But he loved it, made an offer there and then. Cash buyer.’

‘The best kind.’

‘You know it. I called the vendors and that was it. Job done.’ He does a little dance across the carpet as I pull up the details on my computer.

‘Six bed executive with outbuildings and paddock. Very nice. Although I’m assuming his wife hasn’t seen it yet? She may put the kybosh on it, say the feng shui is all wrong. Or the grass in the paddock isn’t right for their darling little pony.’

‘Stella is a grump, Stella is a grump,’ Paul sings, spinning me round in my chair.

I regain my balance and say, somewhat huffily, ‘Might I remind you that as I have just lost my own humble abode I’m hardly likely to take great pleasure in the purchase of Holly Bush Heights by Mr and Mrs Rich-and-Important.’

‘The business really needs this, Stella.’ Paul flops down into Joe’s empty chair. ‘A sold sign on a house like that, well, you can’t buy that kind of advertising.’

‘I’m really happy for you, boss. You’re very
smart
, Mr Smart.’

He looks at me, tilting his head down to meet my eyes, suddenly serious. ‘I know it’s been tough for you today, Stella, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But I want you to know that I’m really proud of you. I think you’re handling it all brilliantly. I just know you’ll think of something and work it all out. You always do.’

I give him a weak smile. Wish I had his faith. Wish Lipsy had his faith.

Paul is studying me again. ‘You look nice.’

‘Thanks.’ I’ve changed into the jeans and chiffon top, and it is a definite improvement on too-tight gym clothes.

‘Hey, why don’t we go out for dinner? I can drop you back here to pick up your car after.’

‘Ah, well. My car’s not here actually. I got a lift in from my mum.’ I’m starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. I don’t know why.

‘Well, that’s ok. I’ll drop you back at your mum’s.’

‘The thing is, I’ve kind of got a date. Sort of. Not really a date, though.’ I avoid meeting his eyes, which are maddeningly intense right now. ‘It’s just my next door neighbour. He feels sorry for me, is all. I’m not really that bothered but I said I’d go. It’s no big deal.’

‘Clearly,’ he says, giving me a look that I can’t interpret. ‘Is this the neighbour who drives a red Mazda and wears his hair slicked back like an Italian football player?’

‘That’s him! Do you know him?’

‘No. He’s outside. You’d better go, he’s been waiting for five minutes and he doesn’t look the type who likes to be kept waiting.’

I throw Paul a sheepish smile as I dash out, but he doesn’t see the smile, has already turned away. I turn on my best “date” smile for Mr Waitrose – sorry,
Joshua
is his name, as I found out only yesterday – who leans across the seat to fling open the passenger door. With a backward glance towards the office window I wonder what I am letting myself in for. And I wonder whether a meal with Paul – comfortable, safe, reliable Paul – would not have been a better prospect.

Chapter 3

Paul pushed the door closed with his foot, hung his jacket on the single hook and threw the mail on the coffee table. His briefcase followed, landing on the sofa. He remembered Stella ribbing him mercilessly when he’d first come into work carrying that briefcase – soft leather, canvas handle, what she had called a “man bag”.

‘If anything it’s an attaché case,’ Paul had countered, slightly bemused at the giggling and sly nods that were coming from his staff.

‘Of course it is, Paul,’ Stella had said, trying to keep a straight face.

‘But everyone’s got one now. They’re in all the shops and besides, it’s really useful. Why should it only be women who get to use a bag?’ Paul looked to Joe for support. If anyone knew about blokes’ fashions, Joe did.

‘You’re right, boss,’ said Joe in a tone of voice that suspiciously matched Stella’s. ‘And very macho it is too.’

Paul had given his new briefcase a few searching looks for the rest of the day but carried on using it regardless. What did he care what people thought?

Especially Stella. He shook his head and smiled to himself as he walked through to the kitchen. If anyone’s house was going to burn down it was hers. Calamity followed her around like a stalker. Still, Paul felt genuinely sorry for her this time. There was no way the fire could be her fault – she didn’t deserve a blow like this. Although the insurance lapse was bad news ... Paul couldn’t imagine forgetting something as important as that.

But Stella was a fighter and he knew she’d be OK, somehow. Look how she’d brought Lipsy up on her own after that loser had dumped her so badly – she was one of the strongest women he’d ever met.

On the other hand, what kind of person arranged a date with a stranger within hours of their house burning down? Nobody normal, that was for sure. Paul shook his head again, turned on the radio, and pulled a beer from the fridge. Monday nights he usually caught up on paperwork – a meal with Stella would have been a welcome distraction.