The Look of Love (4 page)

‘Fuck!’ Furiously, Bella threw her empty mug very hard at the wall behind the sink. There was a delicious shattering sound and pieces of pottery tumbled into the sink. ‘Bugger, bollocks and crap!’ She cursed on. Well, whatever else did she expect? When bad luck turns up at your personal party, it rarely comes on its own.

‘Mum? Like why are you throwing things around?’ Molly, sleepy-eyed and hair like blonde candyfloss, was in the doorway.

‘Been pretty much bloody
fired
. Bloody
Rick
!’ Bella seethed, still staring at the email, checking that she hadn’t read it all wrong. No, she hadn’t.

‘What’s Rick got to do with it?’ Molly asked, scratching her tangled hair with one hand and rummaging in the bread bin with the other.

‘He’s on the board of that group of newspapers,’
Bella told her. ‘Bloody quick work. I bet his wife …’

‘
Wife
?’ Molly suddenly became wide awake, staring at her mother in horror. ‘You were going out with someone
married
? And you were furious with
me
just for sleeping with
Giles
? At least he’s … God, you’re
gross. Married
. That’s … like …’

‘I know what it is, thank you Moll. At least I do now. Why do you think I came home two days early? Please don’t give me a morality lecture. I’ve lost, in the past twenty-four hours, a conveniently comfortable boyfriend, most of my job and …’

Although Bella hadn’t thrown anything else, there was a follow-up sound of ceramic clattering from the sink area and Molly laughed suddenly. Oh, the mysteries, Bella thought, of changeable teenage moods. ‘I know what else you’ve lost,’ Molly said, picking up some pieces of pottery from the sink. She held them out to Bella. ‘Wall tiles.’

Bella looked at the wall behind the tap. Molly was right. Three of the large hand-glazed pink tiles, in a shade specially mixed to complement the hint of raspberry tone in the worktop, lay in shards in the sink – loosened, presumably, by the mug’s impact.

Oh sod it, Bella thought, what else can go wrong today? Anything else that’s All My Fault? She heard a key turn in the front door, heavy male footsteps approaching.

‘Hi Mum, I’m home!’ Alex came into the kitchen, looking a bit shifty.

Alex
? God, what now? Bella thought. He (like her) wasn’t due home for another two days. He hadn’t said anything about an early arrival when she’d texted him to say she’d returned last night. Had he been arrested? Could you get deported from Scotland? There was someone with him. Please, she thought, don’t let it be the police. But oh Lordy … There was that shuffling sound, the old familiar one – James taking off his shoes by the front door in the interests of a pristine carpet. He padded into the kitchen, clutching a bunch of clench-budded roadside roses.

Oh terrific. Her ex-husband. Well, no real surprise there – didn’t they say bad luck always came in threes?

‘Oh! You’ve broken the tiles!’ James looked at Bella nervously, his eyes fast-flickering towards her hand and then back to her face as if he was checking she wasn’t preloaded with more dangerous missiles.

‘You weren’t here. How did you know Mum did it?’ Molly asked quickly.

‘Just a lucky guess,’ he shrugged, picking bits of tile out of the sink and stacking them up carefully on the worktop. He was still clutching his flowers and he’d trailed in a suitcase on wheels which stood to attention by the table. Bella wondered if she should introduce it to her unpacked Bric … perhaps they would breed, the way wire hangers seemed to in a wardrobe. She had a fanciful vision of a row of cute handbags, little leather offspring.

‘And hello to you too, James,’ Bella said. ‘How come you’re here?’

‘Oh nice welcome!’ He turned and smiled at her, a glint of sarcasm in his eyes. ‘So glad you’re pleased to see me!’

‘Well, a bit of warning would have been good. I’m not even supposed …’ She stopped. He didn’t need to know about her failed New York trip.

Alex looked slightly puzzled but seemed not quite concerned enough to ask immediate questions. That was Alex all over, bless him. Vague, other-worldly. It would probably be several hours before he finally put two and two together and came out with, ‘So what happened to New York then?’

‘Sorry! You’re right,’ James conceded. ‘Alex warned me you didn’t like surprises. But I brought you these.’ He handed the roses over to Bella and tentatively kissed her quickly on the cheek before backing away, sharpish. He kissed Molly even more nervously, as if scared that all teenage girls snap like terriers. ‘You’d better put the flowers in water before they start shedding petals everywhere.’ James opened a cupboard and peered inside, looking for a vase.

‘Did you know you’ve put a great big three-litre Le Creuset on top of an earthenware dish in here?’ he said, rummaging among cookware. ‘It’ll get all scratched. Shall I move it? This cupboard needs a thorough sort-out.’

Bella bit her lip to stop herself snapping at him.
James hadn’t lived here for ten years now, since he’d gone off to live with a dental nurse who’d appealed to his inner clean-freak – what right did he have to rearrange her casserole dishes? She peeled the paper off the flowers and started slicing the ends off the stems. The petals were so tightly furled they didn’t look as if they’d open this side of the twenty-second century, let alone start dropping off at random. She couldn’t help thinking of the so-lush roses that Rick had given her. She hoped the room maid had taken them with her, given them a good home along with the underwear.

James’s back end was now sticking out of the cupboard under the sink, reminding her of the rear half of a pantomime horse. He had rather womanly hips, she noticed. Was this new? It was a good many years since she’d seen him unclothed (an experience she had no desire to repeat), but even so … did men get beamy over the years, like women? As it looked as if she was heading for a rest-of-her-life in celibacy, these were the kind of observations she could make quite dispassionately and with purely writerly interest. Perhaps she could write something about it. If anyone wanted to employ her, of course.

‘James, please just leave it all alone, will you? You’re looking in the wrong place; I keep vases in the cupboard in the sitting room. Alex – would you go and fetch the tall glass one, please?’

Alex ambled away, texting into his phone as he walked. ‘Er … I’ll go with him.’ Molly trailed after her brother, closing the door firmly behind her and leaving James and Bella alone.

‘So! What’s with the surprise visit?’ Bella asked him, making an effort to sound upbeat and cheerful. Apart from the beaminess he was looking good, she’d give him that. He’d never been the kind of man that women turned to gaze at in the street but somehow, in his middle years, he’d managed to keep a sharp jawline and plentiful dark hair, only lightly scattered with recent grey. And it was on his head, a bit Paul McCartneyish in quantity and style – though not that weird aubergine colour – and not sprouting from his ears or meeting over his nose like one big eyebrow.

‘Well – it’s not exactly a visit. Thing is, Bella, I’m moving back to London.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, it’s lunchtime and all they had on the plane were limp sandwiches.’ He shuddered slightly. ‘And you know … So – is that Italian place round the corner still going? That was always reliable. Why don’t I take us all there for a nice family lunch? I’ve got a couple of things to discuss, items to run up the flagpole, give you a helicopter view of my state of play at this moment in time.’

Bella – once she’d roughly construed James’s jargon – managed not to comment that it had been a long, long
time since the four of them had constituted A Nice Family. After all, it was a kind offer and there was no need to take her current sourness out on him. It wasn’t James’s fault that she was feeling bad-tempered and miserable. And soon to be a bit on the cash-strapped side to boot. Free lunch. And from her habitually miserly ex, too … Bring it on.

Several miles away in Surrey, Bella’s mother Shirley was deciding between the Nicole Farhi dress and the DKNY one. She didn’t buy a lot of clothes, being a lifelong believer in quality rather than quantity so when she did, it was important to get the purchase just right.

‘Are you looking for anything special today?’ Shirley felt pleased to be approached by this young, eager-looking assistant. The promise of good service was rare and welcome. Usually in this big, impersonal department store the staff preferred to loiter out of range in far corners, chatting to each other behind rails of clothing. This one, she assumed, must be new. Good.

‘One is always looking for something special when it comes to elegant clothing,’ Shirley said, diluting what could have sounded rather harsh with her best smile. At seventy-four she was far more accustomed to being ignored, as if being over twenty-five rendered her invisible. Maybe the attention she had attracted today was something to do with the soft, suede, biscuit-coloured
Joseph jacket she was wearing and her stark white, crisply angular haircut (no cauliflower perms for Shirley). And there was the extra-broad Tiffany silver bracelet, the bold silver hoop earrings. Statement jewellery gave even the most average clothes that extra edge. The girl probably scented money and (if they still had such things these days) a good sales commission. She was wrong about the money, as it happened. Shirley was lucky to be comfortable enough financially, but not lavishly so. She was simply a natural at style.

‘I really can’t decide …’ Shirley considered for a long moment, holding the Donna Karan dress against her and looking into the full-length wall-mirror. The lighting was terrible. This colour (slaty deep grey, with almost a bluish sheen to it) was a well-loved one, very much a favourite in her wardrobe, but her skin looked slightly grey against it. That couldn’t be right.

‘Shall I take it to the changing room for you?’ the girl offered. ‘Or …?’ That was something they did a lot of these days, Shirley thought … leaving ‘or’ hovering in the air without supplying the necessary alternative. She’d noticed it on the plane back from Nice after the cruise the week before, when the flight attendant approached each row of seats with ‘Tea, coffee, or?’ Being of a rather literal frame of mind, Shirley half expected ‘ore’ as in a plateful of small gold nuggets, looking like Ferrero Rocher.

‘Er … yes please, dear.’ Shirley handed over the dress. It would be worth trying on, at least. ‘And this one too.’ She gave the girl the Nicole Farhi. It had a bit of a pattern to it, which she didn’t usually go for, but it was a subtle smudgy floral design in perfect shades of taupe and cream, and really quite lovely. ‘Nothing to lose by trying them both, is there?’

The changing area wasn’t busy. In the middle of a warm early September day, few people were in the mood for thinking about buying autumn clothes. The gaudy rejected remnants of the summer sale lingered on a few overcrowded and highly untempting rails, ready to be shipped out as soon as more seasonal stock arrived.

‘I’ll be just out here if you need anything. Just pop your head out and give me a call.’ The salesgirl hung the dresses up carefully and backed out, swishing the curtain closed behind her.

Shirley peeled off her black linen skirt (Jigsaw, a useful wrapover style), her jacket and her white shirt and hung them neatly over the back of the green velvet button-back chair. She tried the Nicole Farhi first. The sleeves were a flattering bracelet length (good slender wrists were one body part that didn’t deteriorate with age), the neckline a fairly low V, but neither so deep that the dress couldn’t be worn without a camisole nor so high that a little cashmere polo top wouldn’t look amiss
in winter. Either dress would work for any season, with the right accessories. Pound per wear, they would both be terrific value, excellent quality and eternal style, without being over-quirky or of a definable moment.

‘Are you all right? Do you need any help, or …?’ The assistant was so close to the curtain Shirley could hear her breathing.

‘I’m fine, thank you, though actually …’ Shirley pulled back the curtain and stepped out, almost on top of the girl. ‘I wouldn’t mind a better view. More distance,’ she said, spotting a much bigger mirror at the end of the row of cubicles. She studied her reflection, checking the skirt length, thinking the dress would look as good with boots as with heels.

‘Oh that looks lovely! It really suits you!’ The comment was too spontaneous to be sales-calculated. It had an element of surprise in it, and Shirley understood: the girl had assumed the dress was meant for a much younger market. If she stayed in the job, customers like Shirley would be part of her learning curve. Good style doesn’t stop with the age of thirty. In most cases it didn’t even start till then. Shirley beamed at the girl, pleased. She knew she looked good in the dress; it had that This Is Me quality about it and made her feel quite thrilled, but it was always flattering to have third-party reassurance. Dennis would like it too, assuming he’d meant it about meeting up in the UK. It
was one of the first things he’d said to her, that he admired her taste. She could see him now, beside her at the ship’s rail smoking an after-dinner Gitanes and watching Venice slide out of sight in the distance. And the young thought they were the only ones who had holiday romances. If only they knew …

‘Yes … I do love it. But I must try the other one as well. Otherwise, if I take this one, I’ll still be wondering, won’t I?’

Shirley took off the Nicole Farhi and put it back on its hanger. The slate DKNY again had bracelet-length sleeves and a V-neck, but with a broad tie sash that wrapped round more than once, cinching in her middle. Shirley was lucky – she was tall and slim and hadn’t gone apple-shaped with age, and still had a well-defined waist. This dress, too, flattered her body and skimmed to just below knee-length. Again, she could see herself wearing it over many years (should she be lucky enough to have them, you had to think about that at her age), another many-season, versatile staple.

But on balance, no, it had to be the Farhi. She had plenty of slaty clothes already, and there was a slightly off-the-wall feel to the smudged-grey flower pattern that appealed to her. She put her jacket back on and left the changing room, carrying the chosen dress. ‘I’ll take this one,’ she said to the waiting assistant and followed her
to the till. ‘You do take American Express, don’t you?’