Miranda's Big Mistake (4 page)

Chloe, flicking without much enthusiasm through a magazine in the doctor's waiting room at ten to nine on Monday morning, came across an article detailing the break-up of some minor celebrity's marriage.

In the accompanying photograph the woman—an actress in her late thirties—was looking suitably devastated in full make-up and a short clinging dress that showed off…well, practically everything.

The article was headlined: EVERY NIGHT I CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP.

Lucky you, thought Chloe, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion. I cry every night but I still can't sleep.

How much could she seriously be expected to sympathize, anyway, with a woman who clearly didn't cry much at all? She was wearing mascara, wasn't she? Her eyes weren't permanently swollen like a frog's. Furthermore, she had a teeny-weeny waist.

Hating her, Chloe threw the magazine back on to the pile. She shifted on her uncomfortable molded plastic chair—moulded for someone with a far smaller bottom than hers, by the feel of it—and eased a finger under the safety pin straining to hold together the waistband of her loosest skirt.

There was a poster tacked up on the wall opposite her. It said:
Postnatal Depression?

I've got pre-natal depression, thought Chloe. Ha, beat that.

‘Chloe Malone,' the tinny voice of the doctor announced over the intercom, ‘to room six.'

In the space of the next five minutes, everything became astonishingly real. Armed with the date of Chloe's last period, the doctor twiddled a circular chart contraption, consulted a calendar, then pronounced, ‘Your baby is due to arrive on Tuesday the third of December.'

Chloe gazed at him. He spoke with such absolute certainty.

Heavens. Move over, Mystic Meg.

‘Call it an early Christmas present.' The doctor smiled at her stunned expression. ‘So, everything okay? Husband happy about it?'

Uh oh, here we go.

‘He left me five days ago,' Chloe said, and waited to burst into tears.

The doctor looked as if he were waiting for her to burst into tears too.

Chloe wondered why it wasn't happening.

Instead, the doctor's words,
Your baby is due to arrive on Tuesday the third of December
, kept dancing through her mind.

Somehow, miraculously, they seemed more important than the brutal ones Greg had flung at her last week.

‘He's never wanted children,' Chloe told the doctor, marveling at the steadiness of her own voice. ‘But it's okay, I'll cope.'

Well, cope might be putting it a bit strongly. Somehow muddle through was probably nearer the mark.

‘In that case, let's pop you on the scales,' said the doctor.

Oh dear, how dainty. That was what you did in the supermarket with a bag of seedless grapes.

‘I'm only seven weeks and I've put on loads of weight already.' Chloe kicked off her shoes, embarrassed, and shuffled over to the scales. ‘I can't stop eating, I just feel so hungry all the time.'

‘Don't worry about it. Just try and eat healthily.'

How healthy was pecan toffee ice cream? And bags of licorice allsorts? Not to mention strawberry Angel Delight.

‘Morning sickness, that's what I need.' Chloe sounded rueful. ‘I keep waiting for it to happen and it just won't.'

Amused, the doctor tut-tutted.

‘My wife's pregnant. If she could hear you now, she'd hit you round the head with her sick bag. You stay as you are,' he advised Chloe good-naturedly. ‘You're a lucky girl.'

Was he a real doctor?

Or, Chloe wondered, an escaped lunatic masquerading as one?

Me, a
lucky girl
?

***

‘You're late,' said Fenn.

‘I know, I'm sorry.' As she swung round to face him, Miranda caught a glimpse of her frazzled reflection in one of the salon mirrors. Well, was it any wonder she was looking frazzled? ‘Oh, but Fenn, you'll never believe what happened!'

Excuses? Fenn had heard them all.

‘Don't tell me. You were seized by a gang of kidnappers and held hostage,' he guessed, ‘until they found out nobody was going to pay to get you back, so they let you go.'

‘Oh ha ha.' Miranda was clearly miffed. ‘I'm being serious.'

‘The tube was held up. Body on the line.'

Always a trusty standby. It was a wonder London still had a population, the number of times Fenn had heard this one.

He got glared at.

‘No.'

‘Okay, a puppy ran out into the road and you had to rescue it.'

Fenn was grinning. Miranda could have hit him. The puppy excuse was a standing joke in the salon. The really frustrating thing was, it had once actually happened. It was one of her few genuine excuses and nobody—
nobody
—had ever believed her.

‘If you must know, I've been looking for that beggar,' she announced. Fenn might be a pig, but she was bursting to tell someone. ‘You know, the one who sits outside the shoe shop?'

‘You mean the beggar you gave Alice Tavistock's money to?' Entertained, Fenn raised an eyebrow. ‘The one you keep insisting isn't a beggar because he never begs?'

‘Okay, okay, don't rub it in.' Impatiently Miranda waved the interruption aside. ‘Anyway, it turns out he isn't a real beggar at all. He's not hungry and he isn't homeless—he's a total
fake.
I saw him yesterday on Hampstead Heath wearing normal clothes. He was with his son, flying a kite. And you'll never guess what kind of car he drives.' Her dark eyes flashed with renewed outrage as the words tumbled out. ‘Only a BMW.'

Fenn tried not to smile. Poor Miranda, she was positively fizzing with indignation. All her illusions, so brutally shattered.

‘Well, it happens.' His tone was mild.

‘I gave him a scarf and that pair of gl—' in the nick of time she stopped herself, ‘er…glasses, an old pair of sunglasses.'

Nodding slowly, Fenn said, ‘I see, sunglasses. Always useful.'

‘I can't believe I was so stupid. The whole time he must have been laughing at me. Can you believe it?' Miranda seethed. ‘A bloody BMW.'

‘So did you say anything to him yesterday?'

‘Well, a bit, but his little boy was there. Anyway, I've thought of a whole
load
more things to yell at him today.' In fact she had lain awake half the night coming up with bigger and better insults. In the end there were so many she'd had to write them down. ‘Look, here's my list.'

It was a big list. Fenn could just imagine her standing over the poor fellow in the street, bawling, ‘Wait, wait, I haven't
nearly
finished yet!'

‘Well, good,' he told Miranda mildly, ‘but I'd prefer it if you confronted him in your own time, not mine.'

***

He wasn't there at lunchtime.

‘Look on the bright side,' said Bev, whom Miranda had dragged along for moral—and physical—support. ‘At least you won't have to share your lunch anymore.'

This didn't console Miranda. There was a nasty feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. She was beginning to suspect she'd blown the whole operation.

‘I bet he's moved to another pitch.' Gloomily she shoved her hands into her pockets. ‘Damn, I should have kept my mouth shut yesterday.'

There again, keeping quiet had never been her forte.

Bev was just relieved that she'd be getting back to the salon with her expensive false nails intact. She wrapped a consoling arm around Miranda's shoulders.

‘Hey, cheer up. Maybe you've frightened him into going straight.'

***

By ten to six the last client had left. Miranda was in the back room unloading the tumble dryer and folding a mountain of violet towels—the Fenn Lomax signature color—into neat piles.

Well, neatish.

When Bev put her head around the door there was an odd expression on her face.

‘Someone's here to see you.'

Miranda looked at her. It was actually a really weird expression; Bev seemed half enthralled, half perplexed.

‘Who?'

‘He didn't say. And he doesn't know your name either, he just asked to speak to the girl with the magpie hair.'

Hastily, because Fenn would only give her grief if she didn't, Miranda semi-folded the last of the towels before bundling them up on to the shelf. She hadn't mentioned it to Fenn—well, you don't, do you?—but one of his clients this morning had come into the salon with her son, who had shown definite signs of interest in her. He'd been good fun. Good-looking, too. And—Miranda had discovered—he was a policeman!

She'd always had a bit of a weakness for men in uniform.

And now he's off duty, she thought with a rush of excitement, he's come to find me again.

Whisked away from your workplace, hmm, very
An Officer and a Gentleman
, daydreamed Miranda. And how apt, seeing as he actually
was
a police officer!

Although maybe not a terribly bright one if he hadn't even remembered her name.

Hup
, the last of the towels flew through the air, landing—more or less—on the top shelf.

‘It's okay, I think I know who it is.' Eyes shining, Miranda pushed her magpie hair behind her ears and presented herself to Bev for inspection. ‘Do I look all right?'

‘Fine,' Bev was still bemused, ‘but—'

‘Don't be surprised if he picks me up and carries me out of here,' Miranda fantasized happily. ‘You can all clap and cheer if you like. Oh, but don't say: Is that a truncheon in your pocket or are you just pleased to see her? because it might be a truncheon and that would be really embarr—'

‘Will you stop wittering on and get out there?' Exasperated, Bev gave her a hefty shove in the direction of the door. ‘He can't wait for ever, he's parked outside on double yellows.'

Hang on, something not quite right here, thought Miranda.

Policemen were honest, law-abiding citizens, weren't they?

Surely they wouldn't park on yellow lines?

‘Here she is,' said Fenn, who was pulling on his jacket and preparing to lock up. ‘What happened, Miranda? We were beginning to think you'd fallen into the tumble dryer.'

Miranda didn't even hear him. She was too busy looking at Hungry and Homeless.

With his shiny clean hair.

And his red crewneck sweater worn over a dark green shirt.

And his black trousers and highly polished black shoes.

Slowly, very slowly, she breathed in.

And his Christian Dior
aftershave
…

‘Time for that explanation now?' His dark eyebrows lifted slightly as he spoke. ‘I could take you out to dinner if you're hungry. Or if you'd prefer, just a drink.'

Miranda had a small but interested audience. Bev, Corinne, and Lucy, all with their coats on, were loitering at the desk, clearly dying to know what she'd been getting up to in her spare time.

He's spent the last month sitting outside the shoe shop up the road, she marveled. Between them, they must have walked past him at least fifty times.

And none of them had the slightest idea who he was.

‘Why would I want to have dinner with you?' Miranda squealed, outraged by his colossal nerve. ‘I mean, seriously, how gullible do you think I am?'

‘So,' he grinned at her, ‘just a drink then.'

‘
No
.' Miranda backed away as he reached into his back pocket. ‘No dinner, no drink, no nothing. How do I know you're not a raving psychopath?'

Having pulled his wallet out of his pocket, he said in a reassuring voice, ‘Actually, that's a good sign. If you really thought I was a psychopath, you'd keep it to yourself, you wouldn't accuse me of being one. I'm not, anyway,' he went on, sliding a card out of the wallet and holding it towards Miranda. ‘I'm a journalist.'

Miranda looked at the NUJ card. It belonged to someone called Daniel Delancey.

There wasn't a photograph on it. ‘All this tells me is that you mugged a journalist and stole his wallet.'

Her expression truculent, she shrugged and passed the card back.

Fenn intercepted it.

‘Miranda, come on, lighten up. The guy's a journalist. He was researching a piece about how it feels to be out on the streets. You blew his cover and called him some terrible names, but
still
he's forgiven you.' Fenn reached for the door; it was time to lock up and go home. ‘For heaven's sake, let him buy you dinner.'

Miranda hesitated. Behind Fenn, Bev was saucer-eyed and nodding so fast her eyelashes were in danger of flying off.

Nothing about Bev was real.

‘Just something simple, a pizza maybe.' Daniel Delancey—
if
that was his name—gave her a nod of encouragement.

Sod that, Miranda thought indignantly, he owes me more than a lousy pizza.

If he's taking me out to dinner, we're going to go somewhere expensive.

***

They went to Langan's Brasserie, on Stratton Street. It wasn't a restaurant Miranda had ever been to before, but she'd heard enough about the place from clients at the salon to know it probably cost a bomb.

Well, good.

As far as Miranda was concerned, the bigger the bomb the better.

And she was going to order the priciest things on the menu.

‘I'm glad you changed your mind about coming out,' said Daniel Delancey when the waiter had taken their order.

‘I didn't have a lot of choice.'

Miranda fiddled with her cutlery. She still had a terrible urge to punch him. He had humiliated her and she couldn't forgive him just like that.

‘I've got your wine glasses in the car, by the way. You left them behind yesterday.'

His eyes were friendly. He was willing her to smile back at him.

‘Look, what do you expect me to do?' Miranda demanded grumpily. ‘Say thank you and apologize for yelling at you? Because I don't see why I should. You made a fool of me, you let me give you sandwiches…and chocolate…and a crappy old scarf…Do you have any idea how
stupid
that makes me feel?'

‘Okay, let me explain.' His voice was soothing, as if he were dealing with a toddler on the verge of a tantrum. ‘I couldn't give your food to a genuine homeless person, but I made a donation to the Salvation Army so someone else could have a meal on your behalf. And any money I was given went to them too. You don't have to worry,' he assured her, ‘nobody missed out.'

Except me, thought Miranda, all the times I shared my lunch with you when I could have eaten the whole lot myself.

Depriving oneself of chocolate wasn't the easiest thing to do. Heavens, it was practically an unnatural act.

Miranda sighed, silently mourning the loss of all those Mars bars.

‘So how long d'you have to keep this up?' Curiosity finally overcame belligerence. ‘Seems like a lot of work for one article.'

‘I've finished. Friday was my last day.' His dark eyes registered amusement. ‘You can have your scarf back as well, if you like.'

Their first course arrived. Miranda dived greedily into her scallops.

‘Bet you were glad to be able to wash your hair.'

‘I washed it every night,' said Daniel Delancey. With a shrug he added, ‘And rubbed Mazola into it every morning.'

Ugh, imagine.

‘Still seems like a lot of work for one magazine article.'

He laid down his fork and smiled slightly at Miranda.

‘What?' She wondered why he was looking at her like that. ‘Do I have cream on my chin?'

‘No. This wasn't for a magazine article. It's for TV.'

‘Don't be daft,' Miranda scoffed, ‘you need cameras for TV. You need lights, and those clapperboard things, and directors with megaphones shouting
Action
.'

‘For
Lethal Weapon
, maybe,' said Daniel Delancey, ‘but not for a documentary. Not this kind, anyway.'

‘You still need a camera.'

He nodded.

‘I know that.'

‘And you definitely didn't have one.'

‘Actually, we did. In the shoe shop.'

Oh, good grief. Miranda almost choked on a scallop. If the camera had been strategically positioned behind him, that meant…

‘Are you telling me I'm going to be
in
this documentary?'

‘Oh yes. The producer's crazy about you. If he has his way,' Daniel Delancey looked as if he were enjoying himself, ‘you'll end up a star.'

Miranda was appalled. Terrible mental images spiraled through her brain, of all the times she had raced up the road to see him in her scruffy black jacket with the wind and the rain splattering her hair in all directions. And in next to no make-up.

Oh God, and when it was cold her nose always went bright red, like a Comic Relief one.

‘That is
so
unfair,' she blurted out, loudly enough to startle the couple at the next table. ‘Why couldn't you have warned me? What am I going to
look
like?'

Amused, Daniel Delancey said, ‘According to Tony, everyone's going to fall in love with you.'

‘Oh yes, and by this time next year I'll be a supermodel, all five foot two of me.' It wasn't funny. Miranda quailed, imagining the hideous footage they must have of her on their beastly hidden camera. ‘Couldn't you just do some of the filming again?' she pleaded desperately. ‘Give me a chance to comb my hair and put on a bit of make-up?'

Not to mention a Wonderbra.

‘You shared your lunch with me. How you look isn't important.'

Ha, thought Miranda, only a total
man
could think that.

‘You could blur me out,' she had a brainwave, ‘have one of those splodgy things covering my face, like they do with criminals who aren't allowed to be identified.'

‘Look, if you're really against this,' said Daniel Delancey, ‘you can always say no.'

She gazed at him, startled.

‘I can?'

‘Obviously we need your permission to use you. If it bothers you that much,' he said simply, ‘refuse to give it.'

‘Oh!'

Miranda was taken aback. She hadn't expected him to say this.

She wasn't completely anti the thought of being on television. In fact, secretly, she was quite taken with the idea.

If only she could appear on it looking…well, a bit
better
.

More of a human being, basically. And less of a dog.

Yuck, dilemma.

Daniel Delancey had finished his first course. ‘You're dithering. Maybe you should just say no.' Nodding at her plate, he added, ‘I won't get pissy and march you out of here, if that's what you're worried about. You can finish your meal. Although…'

Miranda hurriedly forked the last scallop into her mouth before he could change his mind.

‘Although what?'

‘No, I was just thinking it could be nice publicity for the salon.' He shrugged, indicating the Fenn Lomax logo on the front of her violet T-shirt. ‘But that wouldn't benefit you, would it? Only your boss.'

Only her boss?

Miranda's brain leapt to attention. Daniel Delancey might have dismissed the idea already, but that was because he didn't know her.

It was actually a powerful incentive.

The prospect of massive Brownie points wasn't to be sneezed at. Particularly by a humble employee who couldn't help feeling sometimes that she was only hanging on to her job by the skin of her teeth.

For instance, thought Miranda, someone like me.

Actually, quite a lot like me.

‘Publicity for the salon would be good,' she agreed cautiously as their next course arrived. ‘I'd be happy with that.' Her lamb cutlets glistened in the candlelight, weakening her resolve. ‘Oh, I don't know…it's just the thought of all those people seeing me on TV and yelling, “God, look at the state of her, what a
loser
.” They'd probably think I fancied you.' She winced at the idea. ‘That I'm so sad, ugly, and desperate that chatting up beggars and bribing them with sandwiches is my only hope.'

It would have been nice if, at this point, Daniel Delancey could have protested, ‘Oh now, come along, you're not ugly!'

But he didn't. Chivalry clearly wasn't his thing. He just smiled that irritating half-smile of his again and said, ‘Okay, they might think that.'

Thanks a lot, thought Miranda, deeply miffed.

‘Then again, when they see you being interviewed in the second half of the program…well, that's when they'll realize they were wrong, won't they?'

Interviewed?

Miranda's glass of wine was halfway to her mouth. It stopped dead.

‘Hang on, what interview?'

‘It's a fifty-minute program. In the first half,' Daniel Delancey explained, ‘we use the hidden camera footage. The viewers get the chance to make up their own minds about the people they see. People like you, who try to help, as well as the other kind,' he said evenly, ‘the ones who yelled at me to get a job. Not to mention the bunch of kids who stole my money and gave me a kicking.'

Miranda's eyes widened in horror.

‘They didn't! Were you hurt?'

‘Pretty bruised.' Briefly he pushed up the sleeve of his sweater, revealing a boot-shaped mark on his forearm. ‘I won't show you the rest.'

‘Bastards!'

Miranda had forgotten all about dinner. The lamb cutlets were growing cold on her plate.

‘Goes with the territory.' With a shrug, Daniel rolled his sleeve down again. ‘Anyway, so that's the first half. In the second, we run a series of interviews with the people our audience have come to know. Most of them good, some bad. You'd be one of the good guys, of course.' He paused for a second. ‘That is, if you agreed to appear.'

Oh well, this changed
everything
.

‘Where would I be interviewed?'

Miranda was by this time quite breathless with excitement.

‘That's up to you. The plan is to interweave different strands. Walking along the street…at work…in your own home, if you'd be happy with that. You're a young girl, a salon junior,' he explained with enthusiasm, ‘without much money yourself. If the viewers see you living in a crappy bedsitter, they'll warm to you even more.'

Crappy bedsitter?

‘If my landlady heard you saying that,' Miranda told him, ‘she'd run you over with her wheelchair.'

‘That was your landlady, was it? I thought she must be your grandmother.'

‘Oh dear, now she's going to run over you twice.'

Daniel shook his head.

‘I'm sorry, I'm a journalist, I can't help asking questions. What were you doing out with your landlady yesterday, drinking wine on Parliament Hill?'

‘She has arthritis. I look after her a bit, do stuff for her, in exchange for paying not much rent.' Forking up asparagus, Miranda moved swiftly on to more interesting matters. ‘So in these interviews I'd be able to wear nice clothes?'

‘Of course.'

‘And tons of make-up?'

‘Well, ounces maybe. No need to go too mad.'

Was he laughing at her?

‘And I could have my hair looking nice?'

Solemnly Daniel Delancey nodded.

‘So they'd definitely know I wasn't ugly and desperate.' Miranda heaved a sigh of relief. ‘That's fine then, I'll do it.'

‘Great.'

Belatedly, a horrid thought struck her.

‘Oh! Except there's one bit you mustn't show.'

‘Don't tell me,' Daniel Delancey intercepted her with a grin, ‘the stolen gloves.'

Miranda was indignant. ‘How did you know?'

‘Tony and I ran through a few of the tapes this morning. That was his favorite bit.'

‘Well, he can't use it,' Miranda said firmly.

‘I did warn him.' Another broad grin. ‘I had a feeling you might say that.'