The Look of Love (12 page)

Molly could sense she was being watched. She and Giles were sitting, as they did on many a school afternoon, on the low wall outside the Cross Man’s house, waiting for the bus. The Cross Man was there – a blurry dark shape behind his net curtains, waiting to find something to complain about so that he could rap hard on the window with his walking stick and glare at those who dared to pluck so much as a leaf from his privet, or carelessly drop a cigarette end or sweet wrapper on the pavement. Giles put his arm round Molly and pulled her close, kissing her. Rap rap went the stick, as they’d known it would. Laughing, they turned round and waved to the Cross Man, who had moved his curtain to glare at them through pale, glittery eyes.

‘We’ve made him happy now,’ Molly said. ‘Something to grumble about makes his day.’

‘He’s not the only one watching us,’ Giles murmured into her ear. ‘Across the road, outside the shop. Aimee alert.’

‘No surprise there – she’s everywhere I look. It’s like having a stalker.’

Aimee Lewiston was leaning against the window of the newsagents, drinking from a Coke can and staring across the road at Molly and Giles. Her skirt was a tiny frill of part-faded denim. Her bare legs vanished into black Uggs, even though the weather was still scorching.

‘Do you fancy her? She’s looking pretty hot.’ When Aimee was about, Molly felt around twelve years old. Aimee practically shimmered with sexual experience and carnal knowledge.

‘Well she would be hot, in those boots,’ Giles teased. ‘I’m thinking sweaty toes. Not good.’

Molly play-punched him. ‘You know what I meant! She’s been following us round like a hungry dog. And dog’s a word I chose
on purpose
.’

Aimee’s persistent staring was making Molly nervous. She had a way of pursuing boys she fancied, so ruthlessly that they were worn down by her fixation. She was living proof that you could get anyone you wanted by just sticking close and making sure that you were forever in their field of vision. Oh, plus by blatant sexual availability. Not many teenage boys had built-in resistance to that, not even when they were very happily going out with someone else. That her quarry was someone else’s boyfriend always sharpened Aimee’s competitive edge, and it was as clear as vodka that Giles was next on the
trophy list. Molly glared across the road at her, wishing a plague of livid scarlet spots on her chubby yet pretty smooth-skinned moonface.

‘I don’t fancy her. God, I’d have to be desperate,’ Giles said. His bus was coming. ‘Gotta go, babes. Facebook later, text you, call you.’ The bus pulled up and the doors shooshed open. A crowd of schoolkids surged forward and Giles waited till they had shoved each other past the driver before swiftly kissing Molly and leaping on. As the door began to close, Aimee suddenly hurtled on to the bus, falling against Giles as it lurched away from the pavement. Molly was on the receiving end of a hugely triumphant smirk as Aimee turned and rudely gave her the finger before pushing ahead of Giles up the bus stairs. He followed – he always sat upstairs. Molly looked away, wishing that for once he’d decided that the lower deck would be a good enough travelling place so he wouldn’t be going up the stairs, copping a look up Aimee’s skirt at an undersized thong that you could guarantee didn’t even cover the basics. ‘I’d have to be desperate,’ he’d said. He was seventeen – so he probably was.

It wasn’t at all a dignified position. Although this didn’t quite rate with having no knickers on and her legs splayed in gynaecologists’ stirrups, Bella could think of few other situations where she’d have absolutely hated anyone she knew to walk in and watch. She lay almost horizontally with her hands clutching the arms of the chair in white-knuckle apprehension, her lips held wide open and away from gum contact by a hideous oversized plastic contraption that looked as if it had been designed for someone with a mouth as large as Mick Jagger’s. Little rolls of cotton wool were wedged, hamster style, between her cheeks and her gums, and the inside of her mouth was agonizingly dry and uncomfortable.

A good twenty minutes in and Mr Ruben, the dentist, hadn’t even started on the whitening process yet. Radio
Two was twittering in the background and the dental nurse was speculating across her as to whether Cyprus would be more fun than Ibiza, club-wise. Mr Ruben, who Bella would have guessed knew only about the kind of clubs that went into a golf bag, grunted un-interestedly. He didn’t seem very interested in Bella either and, having agreed to fit her in at short notice for state-of-the-art instant tooth-brightening, appeared reluctant to have further verbal contact, though Bella would have put folding money on the likelihood that he’d jack up the charm when it came to bill-paying time.

As she’d walked into the surgery, he’d handed her a new shrink-wrapped toothbrush and ordered her brusquely to scrub her teeth right there and then at the rather scruffy and chipped sink, but once she was in the chair he wasn’t going to waste energy with inevitably one-sided chat. ‘Good morning’ would have been nice. Still, Zoe had assured her he was
the
man for the job, so here she was; and it was too late to request that he explain each stage of what he was going to do … she could no longer speak. At all.

She couldn’t see a lot, either, because there were big and not at all comfortable plastic safety glasses across her eyes, fixed to her face with elastic round the back of her head. The screens could do with a wipe; everything was blurry and distorted. The nurse applied cream to
Bella’s lips and murmured ‘Sunscreen’ at her, for which communication Bella felt almost tearfully grateful. Next, she could just make out Mr Ruben approaching with equipment. He too was wearing a plastic visor and she could only hope he could see through his better than she could through hers. But then something was painted on all her front teeth with reassuring care – this man possibly had a sideline hobby in painting miniatures. Next, what felt like an entire harmonica was crammed inside her mouth, the room lights went out, and Bella was suddenly in the dark with a beam of ultraviolet aimed at her teeth.

She so wished she’d asked how long this would go on and if she should prepare for pain. It could mean hours of agony. But Radio Two jangled on, DJs joshed and babbled and the nurse, with nothing to do, flicked the pages of a magazine. The minutes staggered past, slow and lumbering, and Bella relaxed a little. Nothing was hurting, so far. She could safely (cross fingers) drift away and dream a bit. Then … zing! A weird tingle of something mildly electric coursed through one of her incisors.

‘Was that pain?’ Mr Ruben switched off the ultraviolet and removed the harmonica from Bella’s mouth. She nodded – it had hurt in the same way that an unexpected piece of silver paper against a filling did. He smiled, which was unnerving.

‘First phase is done now. And yes, you might get a few twinges, occasional trills of discomfort. And there’ll be occasional darts of it now and then for a few days. It’ll settle. Now – we do this all over again; twice. And another twenty minutes each time under the light.’

Now he tells me, Bella thought, still unable to speak. I’d have gone for a pee before we began, if I’d known.

‘Look at this! They’ve put a run-over poodle on the front page!’ Shirley complained, frowning into Bella’s Mac on the kitchen table while Bella loaded Molly’s abandoned breakfast plate and mug into the dishwasher. ‘I’ve gone through the whole of the local paper online and there’s nothing about me being arrested!’

‘Maybe it was a busy week for hot news? Was Walton overwhelmed with parking wars and planning battles?’ Bella asked.

‘A
poodle
!’ Shirley pushed the computer away in disgust. ‘It wasn’t even a hit-and-run. Dog ran into the road, van ran into it, everyone very upset but it’s hardly
news
. And it’s funny how there’s always someone with their camera, ready to take a shot rather than being any use. This wouldn’t have even made page seven if it hadn’t been for some amateur snapper with a blurry camera; their phone presumably – I mean look!’ She turned the computer for Bella to see. ‘I can imagine getting to the pearly gates and having to wait around
while the idiot ahead of me gets a shot of St Peter on his iPhone to email back to his family.’

‘Was it dead?’ Bella needed to know about the poodle. She briefly pictured it at a doggy version of heaven’s entrance, surrounded by canine photographers. This shot of the dog showed it in its owner’s arms, lying flat out and looking confused by all the fuss.

‘No! Not even dead! “In shock” it says here. How on earth can they tell?’

‘They tremble. And their ears and noses go all hot, like cats when they’ve got a fever.’ This comment came from Nick, a young and amazingly quiet scenery carpenter Saul had sent to the house to measure up the kitchen for its on-screen look. He’d arrived just as Molly left for school and had slid noiselessly into the house and shimmied round the kitchen like a ghost while Bella had her porridge and a glass of milk, the only possible breakfast combination allowable for forty-eight hours following yesterday’s tooth treatment. That was another little piece of information Mr Ruben had left till the whitening deal was a done one.

‘Rubbish.’ Shirley was dismissive. ‘It’s a poodle – they’re just drama queens.’

‘But Mum,’ Bella interrupted, ‘I thought the last thing you wanted was to have your crimes written up in the local paper. Isn’t that why you’re holed up here? Escaping the press and the paparazzi of Surrey? What
happened to worrying about what Lois across the hall would think?’

‘Crime. Not
crimes
,’ Shirley corrected Bella. ‘Only the one. I don’t make a habit of it, you know.’

‘My mum nearly got done for assault once,’ Nick contributed as he lined up his tape against the back wall. ‘Last year she walloped this big lad who’d chucked a chocolate wrapper on the ground. Told him to pick it up and when he wouldn’t, she clouted him. Someone got the police but the kid said it was OK, he deserved it. So
his
mum hit my mum instead but not very hard, so they called it quits.’

‘I assure you I haven’t been
hitting
anyone,’ Shirley told him firmly. ‘There was simply a silly mistake over an item of clothing in a department store. They’ve offered me a caution. I’ve told them I’ll think about it.’

Bella wanted to laugh. How had her mother turned the whole thing round so that it seemed the police were now doing their best to please her? She could imagine her surrounded by detectives who were pleading, ‘Look, this is our best offer,’ with Shirley wrapping herself protectively into her summer-weight, duck-egg-blue pashmina, wincing at gravy stains on shiny ties and despising their unpolished shoes.

Nick looked at her with what seemed like sympathy, and scratched his ear with his pencil. ‘A caution? Really? Shame. Maybe you could tell them you’d
like to upgrade to an ASBO …’ He smiled broadly.

Shirley gave him a look. Bella held her breath. The mood her mother was in after trawling fruitlessly through the
Walton and Weybridge Herald
this morning, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Shirley ended up doing something to Nick that would get her remanded for months in custody, all bail out of the question. But, to her surprise, Shirley was decidedly cheerful. ‘You and your mother seem to have an excellent grasp of human foibles, young man. You see, it’s a perfectly reasonable aim in life: if you can’t be a good woman – be a
notorious
one.’

‘Oh Mum!’ Bella laughed. ‘You
are
a good woman! It was only a lapse!’

Shirley smiled in a disconcertingly secretive way. ‘A
good woman
! How much you don’t know about me, Bella my darling! I do hope that your own life will perk up a bit soon. Perhaps this makeover thing will help and you’ll meet someone lovely, who’ll give you a happier, no, a
broader
outlook. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get ready. I’m meeting a
friend
.’

‘Are you? That’s nice. Anyone I know? And where are you going?’

‘No – er, no one you’ve met. We’re just venturing into town for a bit of lunch, possibly. A little light shopping, you know.’ Shirley was already moving towards the door. Escaping, Bella thought, a bit like Alex when
he was being evasive about his plans for the evening.

‘If you’re going towards Piccadilly, we could take the train together,’ she suggested. ‘If you can wait half an hour?’

‘No, no it’s fine darling, honestly! I’m … er … being met!’

Nick turned and grinned at Bella as Shirley left the room fast in a haze of Arpège. ‘She’s OK, your mother, isn’t she? She
knows
stuff.’

‘She does, doesn’t she? She always did,’ Bella agreed, considering. Shirley was being … what was it? Got it, Bella decided, she was being
triumphantly mysterious
. She was up to something and it was just to be hoped it wouldn’t lead to more trouble. But for now, any major mother discoveries would have to wait. Bella was going to meet Saul at the production office and be introduced to these Daisy and Dominic people. It was kind of him – the rest of the group were having to wait a few more days, till almost the start of the filming, but he’d told her that the fact that they were turning part of her house upside down meant she deserved a bit of privilege. She just hoped going out in the breeze wouldn’t set her newly sensitive teeth jangling. Oh, and there was the small question about what to wear to meet a couple who spent their entire working lives putting together celebrity wardrobes. Presumably (if she took that Carole’s advice) anything but black.

‘So where’s she gone this time?’ James asked Alex. Alex shrugged and wandered ahead of his father through the kitchen and out to the garden. ‘Dunno, give her a bell, Dad. Or text. Ask her?’ he suggested, returning to the lounger under the cherry tree where he’d left Henry James’s
The Turn of the Screw
.

James hovered around, looking twitchy and overheated in a suit and tie. The day had turned into yet another blazing one. ‘And who are those people in the kitchen? Is this something to do with that film thing she mentioned? She hasn’t been touching base as to what’s going on.’