The Look of Love (33 page)

‘I know. Stupid of me. Fliss told me off about that later, said if Daisy knew she’d kill me. And I would have told you all this stuff after the show was finished. Of course I would – I really thought it could wait two more days. Honestly, I just went along with Daisy because that’s what she and I had agreed before the start. It was stupid of me, but if I make a promise I keep it. And Daisy’s not usually so communicative. By last night she was loosened up enough with everyone – and there were no crew around.’

‘She was as loosened up as a newt by the time she left. And I assumed she was warning me off you. It certainly felt like it, the way she sort of
claimed
you to take her home.’

Bella watched a mother trying to restrain a pair of small boys from leaning too far over the boat’s side. She and James had once spent a fraught couple of hours on a channel ferry during a rough crossing, trying to keep the overexcited Alex and Molly under control. James, ever-squeamish, had refused to go on the deck where the seasick hordes had gathered.

‘So you and Daisy … you must have been incredibly young?’ The cement block that had seemed to be lodged just above Bella’s heart was now dissolving fast.
Maybe, just maybe, this could be all right. She’d see …

Saul took hold of her hand, twining his fingers through hers.

‘Daisy and I were at school together, just friends, never dated or anything. Her background isn’t anything like you’d imagine. Her mother brought her up alone after her father left. Very impoverished, devoutly Catholic and proudly keen to be seen as “respectable”. A generation or two earlier, she’d have been one of those women who scrub the front steps every day so the neighbours don’t accuse her of letting herself go.’

‘So Daisy wasn’t born to the high life of style and top-end fashion then?’ Wow, Bella thought, how very much you can’t tell about people. Daisy came across as pure Sloane Square, born and bred.

‘Daisy? God no! She’s a complete self-invention. She was always mad about clothes, always making really original ones for herself because she had no money to buy them, looking that bit different and edgy with charity-shop things she’d altered and weird furnishing fabrics off the market.’

A vision of Daisy dressed in a frock made from maroon Dralon and faded floral chintz crossed Bella’s mind. She’d bet even that would have been enviably chic, damn her. A couple wearing matching cagoules, and with maps round their necks as if they were walking the Pennines, came out on to the deck and
hesitated, looking at Bella and Saul. The man nodded apologetically at Bella and turned away, heading for a seat out of earshot.

‘After school,’ Saul continued, ‘we didn’t see each other for a few years. But then when I was in Los Angeles on a rock video, Daisy was there on the next lot, working as a stylist.’

‘So you fell in love with the girl from back home and got married. Sweet,’ Bella cut in, feeling slightly queasy, and not from the boat’s movement.

‘No, no, Bella.’ Saul shifted so he could face her properly. ‘It was nothing like that. She’d already had Fliss by then, but had split with the father after only a few months. She was about to fly back to the UK because her mother was dying. Her mother hadn’t even seen the baby and she wanted to take her home, let her mum meet Fliss. But there was something else … her mother wasn’t about to die happy if Daisy came home as a single mother. It would count as a disgrace and a huge disappointment. An on-the-spot husband wasn’t really needed – the absence could be explained away somehow, but Daisy really wanted to be able to assure her she was married, give her the comfort of thinking her daughter hadn’t gone completely to the bad.’

‘Ah. Oh that’s so sad. But why
you?
Didn’t she have a boyfriend she could …’ What was the right word here?
‘Use’ had been what she’d wanted to say. ‘… Persuade?’

‘No – Fliss and work took all her time. It was because I was there, at the time; old friends, no emotional ties and complications – I wasn’t seeing anyone. We did the ceremony a bit drunkenly at a wedding-chapel shack thing in Vegas, couple of the crew from the video were witnesses. Wham bam, certificate in hand. Job done and off she goes, back home.’

‘That’s one hell of a favour for a friend.’ And it was. It was kind, spur-of-the-moment generous. You’d didn’t, Bella reckoned, get many men like that to the kilo.

Saul said simply, ‘I felt sorry for her. She was very young, very alone out there with her baby, trying to get her career off the ground in a horrible cat-eat-dog business. And besides,’ he smiled rather ruefully and looked at Bella, ‘Daisy has a knack of getting what she wants. It was only after the deed was done I realized how cleverly she’d let me think the solution to her dilemma was actually my idea.’

‘Ha! I’ve noticed that. She made me try on a skirt with something called a
paper-bag waist
. And very nearly convinced me that not only did it look great but that I’d picked it out myself.’

‘There is one thing she’s making no headway with, though …’

‘Dominic?’ Bella guessed.

‘That’s the one. They’ve been circling each other for
months. Somehow they just can’t quite cross that gap.’

‘Maybe …’ Bella began tentatively, ‘maybe it’s to do with Dominic knowing she keeps work separate from the personal?’

‘Partly. But I also think that besotted as he is, he’s also pretty damn scared of her.’

‘Wise man,’ Bella agreed, as the boat pulled up at the O2 arena and all passengers except the two of them queued to get off. ‘We
Victims
know exactly how he feels.’

‘So where’ve
you
been?’ Back at the salon Jules was waiting to grab Bella the moment Saul left her side to talk to the director. ‘Daisy’s not here either, just Dominic. He and Henri the hair man are going
mad
!’

‘Were we that long?’ Bella asked, running her fingers through the still-wet ends of her hair. She must look a complete fright. If Charlotte had seen her right now there was no way she’d have given her any kind of job where she’d have to go out in public. ‘Surely not everyone’s been done yet, have they?’

‘No they haven’t, just Molly and me so far. You didn’t even notice my new look, did you? World of your own …’ Jules shook her newly cut hair, which had been given an even wilder array of scarlet and pink streaks. ‘Don’t you think I look like Zandra Rhodes?’

‘It looks fantastic, Jules – love the pink bits. I hope I
get something that’s as good. If Henri’s cross, he might take it out on me.’

‘Ha!’ Jules snorted. ‘By the look of you, you won’t care if he shaves off every last bit. I take it,’ her voice went down to loud-whisper level, ‘
all is well
?’

‘All is
very
well, thanks.’ Bella’s smile was uncontrollable. She was going to look manic on camera, all teeth and wildly glittery eyes.

‘Ugh!’ Jules wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘There’s nothing worse than being shut in a room with the newly loved-up. Come on, you can tell me all later – let’s see what they’re doing with Dina. I hear
raised voices
.’

Dina was putting up resistance. The words ‘crowning glory’ were uttered (by her), countered by ‘frizzy horror-show bird’s nest’ from Henri the stylist. Dominic glared silently at the pair of them and the camera rolled.

‘Really long hair is a symbol of clinging to your youthful glory days,’ Henri was saying. ‘The youth and the glory are long gone and frankly, past the age of thirty-five, hair this long simply smacks of desperation and immaturity.’

‘I like Dina’s hair long,’ Bella challenged him, feeling Dina was being unfairly picked on here. ‘It’s part of who she is. She’s not representing “a woman of her age”, she’s just
her
. That’s her style.’

A salon junior approached Bella with a gown,
wrapped her in it and led her away to the basins. Bella hung back, wanting to hear the argument, but was pushed firmly down into a squashy leather chair and her head was painfully rammed against the sink’s edge.

‘Something feathered, short, almost
gamine
…’ was being said as Henri ignored Dina’s opinion and, out of the corner of her eye, Bella could see him running a finger and thumb over Dina’s tresses, checking the texture.

‘
Gamine
?’ Dina’s voice covered at least two octaves. ‘I’m pushing fifty, for heaven’s sake! I thought you said I wasn’t to cling to my youth? Just chop a few inches off the stuff and stop thinking Audrey Hepburn!’

Henri gave in, but on one condition. ‘In that case we’ll be giving you an up-do,’ he told her in a tone that made it clear he would stand for no argument on this. ‘I want you to see how you look with the bulk of your hair above your shoulders rather than below. Deal?’

‘Deal.’ Dina grinned at him through the mirror. ‘I win!’ she called across to Bella, then her eyes in the mirror widened with horror. ‘Sheesh, will you look at Daisy!’

Daisy crept into the salon, sliding through the barely open door like a cat that had been missing for days. She looked … well, the word
scarecrow
came to mind. How many chunky beaded bangles, Bella wondered, as the girl vigorously scrubbed shampoo into her scalp, could
a pair of skinny arms take? How many multicoloured, beaded, gilded and feathered layers could even a thin little waif like Daisy pile on before looking as if they were forced to wear their entire wardrobe because they were about to go and live on the streets? She had the big sunglasses on again and the high, cream open-toed boots over turquoise tights. Bella, craning her head as far as she could, saw Dominic take one look at her and actually step back till he crashed into the wall mirror and knocked over a banana plant. Saul halted the filming and told Fliss to get Daisy some strong coffee.

‘He looks terrified.’ Molly tiptoed up and sat beside her mother.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Bella whispered. ‘She looks awful. All wild. Ill, even.’ The girl slip-slapped conditioner over her head and started the slow scalp massage she’d been taught. ‘So, have you got any plans for Christmas?’ she asked.

‘What’s wrong with you? You look like shit.’ Possibly only someone who’d once been your husband, however brief and unconsummated the marriage, could have got away with talking to a woman like that.

Saul and Bella – her wet hair wrapped in a towel – took Daisy and her coffee outside to a little palm-planted courtyard at the back of the salon, so that filming could continue with her well out of sight.

‘Hangover,’ Daisy muttered. Her eyes were still hidden behind the glasses. Bella guessed that the words ‘piss-holes’ and ‘snow’ wouldn’t have been inappropriate if they were on view.

‘But you didn’t have that much, did you? You weren’t
that
bad,’ Saul said.

‘Not then. Later – at home. My life’s
crap
.’ From under the sunglasses, fat crystal tears ran down Daisy’s pale face and dropped on to her furry orange shrug.

‘Er … shall I, um, more coffee …’ Saul was getting up, making an escape.

‘Coward!’ Bella whispered to him; Daisy, after all, was
his
friend, not really hers.

‘It’s just … she might talk to you. Woman stuff?’ he murmured back, his mouth tinglingly close to her ear. She watched him walk away, back to work, looking back at her from the doorway, smiling.

Bella unwrapped the towel from her head and handed it to Daisy. ‘Sorry, I haven’t got any tissues. This will have to do,’ she said, smoothing down her damp, mussed-up hair and feeling thankful the warm sun was shining on her. A cold winter day, and Daisy would have been out here alone, no question.

‘Thanks,’ Daisy said, dabbing at her face and poking the towel ends under her glasses to mop new tears. ‘You should go inside; your hair’s all wet – you’ll catch your death.’

‘My mum used to say that.’ Shirley probably still did, now she thought about it.

‘Mine too,’ Daisy sobbed into the towel. ‘Oh I’m sorry Bella, I’m not really like this.’

‘I know. What started it off?’

The door opened and Molly brought two more cups of coffee and some ginger biscuits, then swiftly went back inside. She had the distinctly nervy look of someone who’d picked the short straw for this little mission.

Daisy gave a big sniff and took off her sunglasses, fixing Bella with a watery stare through eyes that had been too thoroughly made up with shades of green and purple shadow, most of which was now halfway down her face. She looked like an advert designed to shock, offering refuge from domestic violence.

‘
You
started it off, actually,’ Daisy said. ‘You and bloody Saul. So obviously so
bloody
… happy.’

Bella thought back to the day before, most of which had been taken up with the two of them
not
being happy.

‘But … we … weren’t. Then.’ She couldn’t deny it about
now
, though.

‘Oh I knew, the moment I got to your place in the morning.’

‘Right. And you mind that … because?’

‘Because I’m
not
!’ Daisy’s voice was a childlike, petulant squeak.

‘You’re in love with
Saul
?’ Bella was confused now.

‘No! Don’t be ridiculous. With … someone else. Who doesn’t give a flying one about me.’

‘Dominic,’ Bella said.

‘Did I say Dominic?’ Daisy was defensive. ‘I did
not
say that name.’ Her huge eyes started overflowing again. ‘He wouldn’t take me to the launch last night. I think he thought I’d look all out of place or something. I mean,
me
! I
am
style!’

‘Hmm, sometimes you are. But maybe sometimes you’re just a bit too …’ Bella struggled for words.

‘Too
what
? Too distracting? Too stunning? Too …’

‘Theatrical?’ Bella supplied for her.

‘And what’s wrong with that? How else does someone of five foot three and a small frame get themselves
noticed
?’

‘Nothing’s wrong … except, well do you need to be centre stage the
whole time
? But hey, what do I know. You’re the stylist, you tell me.’ Bella looked at her, taking in the strange collection of flung-on clothing that Daisy was wearing.

‘Yes … I think I do need to be central.’ Daisy sounded subdued now. ‘I know he likes me. Usually we do everything together. It’s just … we never get any
further
. And now I think we never will. It’s like he just can’t let himself get nearer. It’s like, however obvious I am, he doesn’t seem to
see
me.’