Learning curves (14 page)

“He helps me, darling. I talk to him. I . . .”

“And how much do you pay him to listen, Mum? How much money do you pay him to tell you that you’ve done the right thing, that it’s okay to lie to your daughter? That it’s perfectly okay to convince me that not only does my own father not care about me, but that he’s also tied up in some corruption scandal. And it’s all utter bollocks!”

Harriet’s eyes widened. “That’s unfair, Jennifer,” she said, her voice faltering. “This has got nothing to do with Paul. And I think I know a little bit more about your father than you do. He’s a selfish, self-serving man, and I hoped I could show you that. . . .”

“Selfish and self-serving? What, unlike you?”

“I’ve only ever done my best,” Harriet said quietly. “You don’t know what it’s like to be lonely, Jennifer. Don’t know what it’s like to have to start from scratch.”

“Lonely? Mum, you took my father away. I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“I wanted what was best for you, that’s all.”

“What was best for
you,
you mean,” Jen said angrily. “You just can’t help it, can you? You have to control everything, have to run the show. Well I’ve had enough of you trying to run my life.”

Harriet looked at her with surprise on her face. “Run your life? I barely get a look in. I never know what you’re doing, where you’re going, anything.”

“That’s just not true!” Jen said exasperatedly. “And I’ve had enough. I’m not going to be your pawn anymore.”

“I sense tension.” Jen looked up, shocked to see Paul emerge through the door. How long had he been there? Had he heard everything, she wondered? “Perhaps some herbal tea would be a good idea? This kitchen has a difficult space—it encourages conflict.”

Harriet took his hand. “Oh, Paul, that’s a wonderful idea. Jen, why don’t we have some herbal tea?”

She looked at Jen hopefully and Jen stared at her. “Herbal tea? Are you serious?”

“It’s very calming,” Harriet said, her voice quavering. “Please, Jen . . .”

Paul put his hand on Harriet’s shoulder. “Jennifer is upset, and that is okay,” he said quietly. “She is finding her place in the world, and it’s a difficult time for her.”

Jen frowned, then felt an enormous rush of energy cascade through her. It was all suddenly very simple. She looked her mother straight in the eye, then pushed her chair back and stood up.

“Actually, it’s not as difficult as I thought it would be,” she said calmly. “Paul’s right that I’m finding my place in the world—and one thing I’m sure of is that it isn’t here. So if it’s all right with you, I’m going home.” Slowly, she made her way into the sitting room, pulled on her coat, picked up her bag, and headed for the door.

“Darling, don’t go,” Harriet said weakly, getting up and following Jen toward the front door. “It’s Christmas. . . .”

“Right now I don’t really care,” Jen said tightly, not noticing that everyone had wandered out into the hall to stare at her. She couldn’t stay here another minute. Opening the door, she took one last look at her mother and walked out, closing the door behind her and finding herself outside on the deserted winter street.

It was one of those cold, bitter nights where every little bit of exposed skin burns against the wind.
This has to go down as the worst Christmas ever,
she thought to herself sadly. She suddenly remembered a bar of chocolate she had in her pocket and opened it, wolfing it down hungrily. She sat down on her mother’s stoop and contemplated her position. Christmas Day, on her own, freezing cold, and a good half an hour’s walk from home.

Still, she knew where she was now. The truth was out.

She walked over to her mother’s bin to deposit her chocolate wrapper and frowned slightly when she opened the lid. There, hidden under a Marks and Spencer’s bag, were several takeaway boxes with THE TIBETAN KITCHEN written on them.
Surely Paul hadn’t cheated,
she wondered with a smile. Perhaps he wasn’t all he’d made himself out to be either.

She shrugged—in that case, they truly deserved each other. Still, that didn’t mean he had to get away with it completely. Smiling to herself, she took out one of the boxes and carefully placed it just outside her mother’s front door.

Then she turned, buried her hands deep inside her coat pockets, and started the long walk home. Her mobile phone was in one of her pockets and, pulling her collar up against the wind, she took it out to transfer it to her bag. As she did so, she saw that she had a text message. Moving under a lamppost, she hit VIEW.

HPPY XMS. FNCY A DRNK SMTM WHN I GT BCK? DANIEL X

She stared at the message. Daniel “x”? He was kissing her by text? He wanted to know if she fancied a drink sometime?

Jen looked around. Suddenly she wasn’t a total saddo who was on her own at Christmas—she was a romantic heroine walking through a winter wonderland. Nothing seemed quite so bad anymore.

Do I fancy a drink sometime?
she thought to herself happily.
Ooh, I think I could be persuaded.

16

“Dum, dum, dum, dum, gonna use my style, gonna use my sidestep, gonna use my, my, my imagination, yeah . . .”

Jen hummed along to Chrissie Hynde blaring out of her stereo as she lay in the hot, steaming bath, watching her skin gradually go wrinkled and pink.
It’s just a drink,
she told herself.
Just a drink with Daniel. Nothing worth getting steamed up about.

But even as she thought the words she knew she didn’t believe them. As far as she was concerned, this was their first proper date. The first date that definitely had nothing to do with work, MBAs, or anything else. No one would be waiting outside her flat at the end of this date, and there would be no walking around bookshops. No, this was absolutely worth getting steamed up about.

Jen lifted one of her legs out of the water and started to shave it. She’d have had them waxed but getting an appointment at short notice had proved to be completely impossible—all the salons were either closed over Christmas or booked up. Of course, shaving would mean that next time she had them waxed her beautician would tut at Jen and give her that reproachful look that made her feel like she’d admitted to running a small slave-trade operation rather than simply whipping out her razor in an emergency. But that was nothing that couldn’t be sorted out with an extra-large tip.

When she finished, she reluctantly heaved herself out of the water and immediately felt a cold draft hit her. That was the problem with “character” apartments like hers. They looked lovely, but the windows were always centuries old and you could never get properly warm. Like country houses—Jen had learned many years ago that if you ever got invited to someone’s country house (or rather, someone’s parents’ country house), you had to bring not just jumpers, but blankets, thick socks, thermal underwear, and woolly hats
and
you’d still be cold.
Maybe that’s why the English have stiff upper lips,
she thought to herself as she dried herself quickly and slathered on body lotion.
Maybe they were frozen that way.

Quickly, Jen wrapped her old, battered, but much-loved terry towling bathrobe around herself and stuck her feet in her trusty Ugg boots. It wasn’t a look that screamed “sex goddess,” but it was warm, and right now, that was what really mattered.

Did she even know how to scream “sex goddess” anymore, she wondered, taking out some tweezers to pluck her eyebrows. It had been, what . . . she counted on her fingers . . . quite a few months since she’d last had sex. And the last time had been a not particularly fulfilling post-Gavin fling with Jim, a friend of a friend, who had been very drunk (as had Jen), and which had led to an excruciating morning after, in which both she and Jim had been keen to get him out of her flat as quickly as was humanly possible.

Not that she’d necessarily be having sex tonight or anything. Not definitely.

She peered at her reflection in the mirror, trying to ascertain what makeup to wear. Her skin was pale, with red blotchy bits around the nose and chin—the result of Christmas drinks and the bitterly cold weather. So, foundation then. Lots of concealer.

She wandered over to her stereo and put on Style Council at full volume. There was nothing like the prospect of a love affair to make everything seem a bit more shiny and new. It was the same feeling (although, you know, a lot better) that she used to get in September when she was starting a new year at junior school with a neatly pressed uniform that hadn’t yet been covered with ink or bits of lunch; her pencil case would be full of bright new pens; and her new classroom would signal loud and clear that she’d moved up in the world. There was so much expectation, so much hope that this time things would be better—that she’d suddenly be in with the in-crowd and know all the pop songs her schoolmates sang in the playground, and wouldn’t get a single red mark in her exercise book or, worse, the ominous “Please see me.”

Of course, it usually only lasted a week or so before she realized that a new desk and clean uniform didn’t make her any different. Her mother still refused to let her listen to pop music on the radio or even to watch
Top of the Pops,
which led to a significant disadvantage in the playground; she still daydreamed too much, mobilizing her teacher’s red pen every time she sat down to write something. And it was usually the same with love affairs—all too quickly the sheeny, shiny, new love interest turned out to be a man like any other, “forgetting” to call, refusing to plan more than a week ahead, insisting on going to a pub that was showing “the game,” whether it was football, rugby, or cricket.

She sighed, then shook herself. Now was not the time to think about such matters. She was getting ready for a date, and who knows, maybe this time
would
be different.

“You look . . . gorgeous.”

Daniel was smiling, and Jen felt herself go a bit wobbly inside. “Th . . . thank you,” she said, shivering. A cold December night was not the time to wear a skirt and high heels, she knew, but practicality wasn’t everything. Earlier that evening Jen had peered outside at the snow gathering on her windowsill and had spent a few minutes trying to convince herself that sheepskin boots were, in fact, pretty attractive and would demonstrate just how relaxed she felt in Daniel’s company. Particularly when she’d opened her front door to an icy cold gust of wind. But she knew that legs did not look their best in flat, chunky boots, so eventually she had compromised with a fairly substantial yet still quite delicate pair of highish black pumps. And she was absolutely bloody freezing.

“Shall we get you inside?” Daniel suggested, and held open the door. They were at Ketners, a bar in Cambridge Circus, just down from Oxford Street and a stone’s throw from Soho.

Jen nodded gratefully and found herself walking into a small, cozy room with waiters in black suits and groups of people sitting around tables drinking champagne.

“I guess people are in a celebratory mood,” she said to Daniel, and he grinned.

“Actually it’s a champagne bar,” he whispered. “I heard that girls like champagne. Sorry, women. Um . . .”

He looked perplexed and Jen smiled. “
Girl
is fine,” she said. “It’s usually only when you’re a teenager that you want to be called a woman. Once you’re the wrong side of twenty-five,
girl
is always welcome. Although not if you say it in a patronizing tone. Oh, and never say
lady.
That’s the worst.”

Daniel nodded seriously as they were shown to a small table in the corner of the room. “I’ll try and remember that,” he said. “But in the meantime, what shall we order?”

Jen frowned. “We have a choice?”

“Absolutely. Straight champagne, champagne cocktail, vintage champagne, new champagne, pink, white . . .”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture. Just straight champagne for me.”

Daniel nodded and a waiter appeared out of nowhere. “A bottle of champagne,” he said. “And some nibbles. Olives, bread, that sort of thing.”

The waiter disappeared, and the two of them were left alone. Jen found her stomach doing flip-flops.

“So, good Christmas?” Daniel asked.

Jen rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t call it good, exactly. Interesting, maybe.”

Daniel grinned. “Don’t tell me you come from a dysfunctional family, too?”

Jen nodded. “There’s no way yours can be as bad as mine,” she said with a little smile.

Daniel’s eyes glinted slightly. “Oh, so we’re competing, are we? Well, okay, mine aren’t exactly dysfunctional, but they do live in the middle of nowhere and they like trifle on Christmas Day, not Christmas pudding. And they take the Queen’s speech very seriously indeed. Why do you think I was texting you on Christmas Day? I was desperate!”

Jen pretended to look hurt. “Oh, so it was just because you were desperate, was it?”

“No, no, God no, I didn’t mean . . .” Daniel realized too late that Jen was joking and went red. “Oh piss off,” he said jovially. “So go on then, what makes your family the crown bearers of dysfunctionality?”

Jen shrugged uncomfortably. She was still raw after the argument with her mother.

“That bad?” Daniel asked sympathetically and Jen found herself softening.

“Oh, nothing too serious. I’ve just got parents who lie, cheat, and hate each other, that’s all,” she said. And as she spoke, it suddenly didn’t seem quite so terrible anymore. It was actually kind of funny. Well, nearly. The thing was, she felt so natural with Daniel, like she could say anything to him, tease him, open up to him. Was this what people meant when they talked about love at first sight?

“You must have had a very interesting childhood!” Daniel grinned. “So do they get on well? In spite of the lying and cheating, I mean . . .”

“They’re divorced, actually.”

“Ah. Sorry.” Daniel looked slightly uncomfortable.

“It’s okay. It happened years ago.”

He nodded. “Maybe they were just too similar.”

Jen frowned. “Similar? They are in some ways. And at the same time they’re nothing like each other. Mum’s into crystals and healers and ridiculous spiritual gurus who are nothing of the sort, and Dad . . . well, Dad is a workaholic. He’s . . .” She trailed off, not knowing what to say, not wanting to admit that she didn’t really know her father. She knew what she thought he was like, and she knew what he’d been like recently, but the two were so different that now she realized that she had no real idea what he was like at all, apart from her childhood memories when her parents argued most of the time and he always seemed to be at the office.

“He’s competitive,” she concluded. “And actually, you probably know him. He’s . . . well, he’s George Bell.”

Jen watched closely as Daniel’s eyes widened. “Crikey. Okay, you win. So, seriously, you’re George Bell’s daughter?”

Jen nodded. “No one at Bell knows,” she said seriously. “It’s kind of . . . complicated.” She thought of Angel as she spoke and smiled to herself slightly.

“So you’re actually Jennifer Bell, not Jennifer Bellman?”

Jen cringed slightly. “Yeah. I . . . well, I kind of ran out of inspiration on that one. And I was terrified I’d forget what I was supposed to be called.”

“I prefer Bell. It suits you. So do you take after him? Or are you more like your mother? Only I think I should be warned, don’t you?”

He was grinning and looking right into her eyes, and Jen felt herself sinking, losing the ability to think straight, to think about anything except him, how close he was, how wonderful it felt.

“Neither of them,” she said softly as Daniel reached forward and kissed her. “Both of them. Some of them. The . . . just the good bits . . .”

Five hours later, Jen was in the back of a taxi with Daniel, her head spinning with excitement. She was sitting, head nestled on Daniel’s shoulder, with his arm wrapped around her. She was holding his hand, and he was stroking her hair with his other hand. She’d be ready to die and go to heaven right now if she wasn’t so excited about what was to come.

Jen closed her eyes briefly, trying to commit the entire evening to memory, every last detail. There had been the kiss, of course. That had really been the start, the moment that she’d stopped feeling nervous. With that one kiss—or, actually, quite a few if anyone was counting— Jen had felt something stir inside her, something that made her feel like laughing and crying at the same time.

Which, she recognized, was a little over the top as reactions go, and at first she blamed the champagne. But then, at dinner, they’d talked like they’d known each other for ages. She talked and talked about her parents, telling Daniel things that she hadn’t even admitted to herself. And every so often he would squeeze her hand or lean over and kiss her—and when she was done, which was about the time pudding arrived, he took over the talking. He talked gently about himself, his childhood in Scotland then Northumberland, his decision to go to university—which crossed the family tradition of working in farming—his early successes, and his current existentialist angst about what the point of everything was.

And when they’d finally finished, neither of them had wanted to go home, so he’d taken her to Ronnie Scott’s, spirited her upstairs to a little dance floor where they played salsa music and the two of them danced together, alone, cheek to cheek, and Jen truly thought that if they carried on dancing, the night would never have to end.

Finally, when Jen found herself with her head on Daniel’s shoulder with her eyes closed, he whispered that perhaps it was time to go home now, and she nodded sleepily, knowing that tonight wherever Daniel went, she would go, too.

“Come on sleepyhead, we’re nearly home,” Daniel said, ruffling Jen’s hair and waking her from her little dream.

“Whose home?” she asked sleepily.

“Yours, of course.” Daniel grinned. “I thought it might be a little presumptuous to take you back to mine.”

Jen shot Daniel a sideways look. “My flat’s a mess,” she said sheepishly. “You’ll have to keep your eyes shut.”

“What if I promise not to remember anything I see?”

“No,” said Jen. “I don’t want you forgetting tonight, if it’s okay with you.”

As they pulled up outside her building, Daniel peered at the front door. “Just checking,” he explained as Jen hit him playfully. “You’re not expecting any other ex-boyfriends, are you?”

Jen got out of the cab and made her way to the front door, suddenly terrified that maybe Gavin was there, that in some hideous twist of fate he’d found himself stranded in London for a second time. But to her relief, her doorstep was empty. As she turned the key, Daniel came up behind her and started to kiss her neck. She turned to kiss him and they fell against the door, pushing it open. Then, silently, they made their way to her first-floor flat, where she unlocked the door and held it open for him.

“Nice high ceilings,” he said appraisingly. “It’s lovely.” Daniel walked over to her and put his arms around her, and as he leaned down to kiss her, Jen wrapped her arms tightly round his neck.

Daniel slowly took off her coat, and she unbuttoned his jacket, and then he was kissing her neck, pulling off her sweater.