The Love of Her Life (16 page)

Kate blinked back fatigue and hangover. The Allans’ sitting room was hot and crowded, and the exertions of the morning – getting back from Clapham, running around trying to get everything ready by the time the mourners returned from the crematorium, chatting, pouring drinks, soothing, handing things round: she hadn’t stopped rushing and moving since she’d left Francesca’s, four hours before, and now she was ready to drop, heartsick, champagne-soaked and miserable. Especially now, when she’d seen darling Mr Allan enter the room, back from the crematorium, pulling his black trilby off his head, pushing his fluffy white hair back from his face, which was crumpled with grief. Pain, screaming, horrible pain was etched into every line, it filled his eyes, and he suddenly looked much, much older than Kate had ever realized him to be. He had smiled at her, just a little smile, and said,

‘Dear Kate. Ah. Here we are back again then.’

She’d poured him a glass of wine, as his family started streaming through the door, followed by the Allans’ friends, his old jazz buddies, creaky-looking musicians in checked shirts and cords, neighbours from the building – Kate
realized with a start how few people she’d ever known here, how she and Sean had never really bothered to get to know anyone apart from the Allans.

Now, an hour later, the room was full, stuffy and throbbing slowly with the buzz of good conversation and emotion hanging over the assembled throng. Kate was feeling worse and worse. Why had she put on a woolly top? She swayed slightly, trying to focus on those around her, and turned to find a serious, rather elongated man staring at her. She blinked and looked again. She knew him – how did she know him?

‘Ow!’ Fred Michaels, singer with the Chappell Quartet, and Mr Allan’s oldest mucker, was wailing in the kitchen. ‘Oh! Look, my finger’s burnt!’

‘Oh, Mr M, I’m sorry,’ Kate cried, squeezing past the throng and rushing into the kitchen. ‘You should use
oven gloves
,’ she said loudly to him.

‘I’m not bloody deaf,’ said Fred Michaels. ‘Keep your voice down. It’s a wake for the deceased, not an Iron Maiden concert,’ he added, as the old man next to him sniggered.

‘Good one, Fred,’ he said.

‘Thanks Frank,’ Fred replied. ‘Ho, ho.’

‘Leave her alone,’ said Mr Allan, coming into the kitchen. He put his arm around Kate. ‘She’s doing a brilliant job, absolutely brilliant.’

‘Er, thanks,’ said Kate. She tugged her straggly ponytail tighter, rather distractedly.

‘Where are the plastic cups?’ Mr Allan said.

Kate handed them to him. ‘Are you OK?’ she said.

‘No. But I will be,’ Mr Allan said. He blew air out of his cheeks, in a low, whistling sound. ‘Oh. My sister’s just asked me to go on holiday with her.’

‘She mentioned it to me,’ said Kate, nonchalantly flicking at the kitchen surface with a tea towel. ‘So – are you going to go, do you think?’

He waved his hand towards the window, where it was grey outside. ‘Think I might, you know. Just for a couple of weeks. The only question is,’ he said, his arm tightening around her, ‘Are
you
going to be OK without
me
?’

She could feel his comforting, bony arm around her, his fingers pressing into her shoulder, and the kindness of the gesture took her by surprise.

‘Well,’ Kate said, looking at the ground so he couldn’t see how close to tears she was, ‘if that’s your only question, then you should definitely go, don’t you think?’

‘Hm. Maybe.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Thanks, sweetheart.’ He nodded, and then poked Fred. ‘Are you ready to do some singing?’

Fred nodded, ‘Absolutely,’ as Frank said,

‘I’ll just go and get the sax.’

‘Ssh please,’ Fred said, five minutes later, and the crowd packed into the room was silent, and the only noise was the faint roar of traffic from outside, where the windows were still open.

‘This is for Eileen,’ he continued. ‘Gram, do you want to say anything?’

But Mr Allan simply shook his head.

‘I want to say,’ said Fred, and his voice was very quiet, Kate had to strain to hear, ‘I want to say that I was there when they met, I was there by their side when they got married, I was there to see them through years of happiness together and Gram –’ he turned to his friend, who had his head bowed, holding his trumpet tightly to his chest, ‘I’m glad we’re all here now with you. Here’s to Eileen. This is her favourite song. This was her favourite song.’

He nodded to the rest of the group. Kate leant against the kitchen door, her hands in the pockets of her apron, resting
her tired head against the wooden frame, and he started to sing, in a husky voice, the old standard, ‘That’s All’.

When Kate went back downstairs at about six o’clock, her face was swollen and aching with the effort of not crying, of smiling kindly, of soothing, patting arms, clearing up. Suddenly her sitting room looked huge with just her in it, where his had been packed to the rafters with people, friends and ghosts, and memories. Here all was white and safe and clean and it was different, weird. She looked around the room, undoing her apron tiredly. She sniffed, loudly.

‘Hello?’ came a voice from close by, and Kate jumped. It was from the other side of her front door.

‘Hello?’ it said again. ‘Kate, are you in there?’

It was a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice she knew.

‘Hi. Kate?’ said the voice again.

‘Who is it?’ she said cautiously.

‘Kate, it’s Sue. Sue Jordan.’

Sue Jordan – of course. How could she have forgotten. Kate flung the door open as fast as she could.

Sue’s face broke into a smile at the sight of her but she didn’t move. She simply nodded.

‘Here’s the reason the circulation of my magazine’s a disaster.’

‘Why?’ Kate said, stepping forward and hugging her.

‘Went downhill after my star girl left, didn’t it?’ Sue said, squeezing her briefly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Kate said.

‘For what?’

It really was Sue Jordan standing in front of her, like a package from the past. She hadn’t changed much since the day she’d interviewed Kate for the job, seven and a half years ago. She had a neat sandy bob, was dressed in a sensible grey suit, with a large, stiff black handbag over her shoulder.
She had smile lines at the corners of her eyes, Kate had always noticed that, because Sue never smiled at work, well hardly ever. She used to think it must mean Sue smiled a lot at home.

Sue was smiling at Kate now. ‘You’d forgotten all about me, hadn’t you,’ she said.

‘No –’ said Kate. ‘Of course not, it’s just –’

‘The context. I know,’ said Sue. ‘Completely out of context. I knocked on your door on Monday after we’d been to see Graham, but there was no answer.’

‘I must have been with Dad,’ said Kate. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry, silly girl,’ said Sue, and she stepped forward, breaking an invisible wall of some kind, reached out and gave Kate a hug. Just a quick one, but a hug nonetheless, and the unexpected physical contact from her, from Sue, brought a lump to Kate’s throat. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t see you in there –’ Sue jabbed a finger upwards ‘– I was late, had to stay at the crematorium to sort a couple of things out. I could see you, talking to people, and handing that lovely food round, you are wonderful. But I kept missing you, and it was so crowded – I thought I’d do best to come down after it quietened down and catch you then.’

‘Come in, come in!’ Kate said.

‘I won’t, actually,’ said Sue. ‘Alec’s in the car with Graham, we’re taking him off for a meal in town. At the French House. It was his and Eileen’s favourite. His idea, you know.’

‘Aaah,’ Kate said. ‘Well – it was –’

‘Kate.’ Sue stepped back, and looked at her shrewdly. ‘You’re back now, aren’t you?’

‘What?’

‘For good, I mean. You are staying this time, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ Kate said, shaking her head. ‘Just a couple of weeks, till my father’s better, I’ve got to get back to New York after that.’

‘Hm,’ said Sue. ‘So you’re not interested in getting back into magazines, then.’

Kate looked up from paint-flicking, carelessly. ‘What?’

‘Well, you remember Sophie?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Sophie, of course.’

‘Well, she was writing a column for
Venus
. “Girl About Town”. Intrepid girl struggling through the concrete jungle, kind of thing.’ Sophie was a hearty, walking-boots kind of person. ‘But she’s just announced she’s fallen in love with some bloody Moroccan geezer from Essaouira, and she’s moving there to live on the beach and sell sea shells, or something ridiculous.’

‘Sophie?’ said Kate, pleased. How unexpected people’s lives were, especially those you hadn’t thought about for so long.

‘Kate,’ said Sue. She cleared her throat and faced up to Kate. ‘Listen. Write me five hundred words. About what you love about London. Say you’ve just come back to live here.’ Her eyes shone. ‘That’s even better. Girl returns to the big smoke after two years living in New York. Her impressions, all that. What she likes about London. Yes. And come in for a chat with me about it. Tomorrow. No, not tomorrow. Um, let me think. Tuesday.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Look, I want you to do it.’

‘Her column?’ Kate was being slow; her brain, she realized, was dehydrated, exhausted. She could follow Sue’s ideas, but she was about a minute behind them; she’d forgotten how fast she thought.

‘Yes. Her column. Like I say –’ Sue repeated herself, slowly. ‘Write me five hundred words, email them over on Monday. It’s a sign, all of this –’ she waved her arms, briskly, and cleared her throat again. ‘I always thought you were the best. You are the best. I want you back, Kate.’

Kate swallowed; the lump in her throat was giving way
to a feeling of tightness in her chest. ‘But I’ve got a job,’ she said, smiling at her old boss, politely. ‘Sue, that’s – wow, that’s amazing, but I’ve got a job.’

She hoped this would knock it on the head. But Sue fixed her gaze on her, and plunged her tongue into her cheek. There was silence between them.

‘No you haven’t,’ Sue said eventually. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing out there, but don’t call it a job.’

‘Actually, it’s –’

‘You’re the assistant, Kate.’

It had been a long day – a longer night and day. Kate hugged the doorframe, tapping the wood with her fingers. ‘What’s wrong with being an assistant, Sue! That’s a dreadful thing to say!’

A car horn sounded outside. Sue wrapped her scarf around her neck. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You’re my girl. You’ve been my girl since you were that baby giraffe with long legs and big brown eyes looking terrified at your interview, what was it – eight years ago? Now, I know what happened to you was shit, it was awful, and it must be awful being back here. But you belong here, Kate. You just have to get used to it. Can’t you see that?’

‘I don’t belong here,’ Kate said. ‘And I certainly don’t belong in magazines.’

‘That is the biggest rubbish of all,’ said Sue. ‘Look at you, your life is straight out of a magazine! You’ve got enough material from your life to be still writing copy fifty years from now! Don’t you understand, Kate, every girl is basically like you. Every
Venus
reader, especially.’

Kate laughed. ‘I bloody well hope not, for their sakes.’

‘Not that,’ Sue shook her head, impatient that Kate didn’t get it. ‘They all think they’re useless, or they’ve screwed their life up, or their relationship with their parents is awful, when are they going to have children, they don’t know what
they want to do with their lives. They should have married X. They let Y get away. They don’t have enough money for Z. We’re all the same, you know, it’s just different versions of being the same.’ She looked Kate up and down. ‘Except you’ve always been skinny. I kind of hate you for that.’ She buttoned up her coat. ‘Right. You’ll have a go at it, then?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Yes, I will. I’ll email it on Monday.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘Thanks, Sue.’

‘Thank me next week, dollface,’ came the reply. ‘Now I’m going. But thanks for today, you’re a star.’

Kate shut the door behind her and, irresistibly, started to laugh. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t stop. And then she stopped laughing, and stood up to her full height, thoughtfully. Squaring her shoulders, she went into her bedroom to unearth her old stack of
Venus
copies. They were there, underneath her beloved telescope, fifteen or so of them and at the top, the first issue, with its classic, Fifties-style type, its pretty and stylish shades, the girl on the front running to catch a bus on Piccadilly, wearing TopShop’s newest spring bell-shaped raincoat, in apple green linen. She had loved that cover, loved everything about what they were trying to do … Kate gingerly moved the telescope out of the way and crouched down, thumbing through the slippery, shiny covers, marvelling at them, what
Venus
represented to her. Where had that Kate gone?

May 2003

‘But I mean come on, he’s
gorgeous
!’ said Juliet, the Fashion Editor, stroking the silk of a top she’d brought in to show the meeting that polka dots were on their way back in. ‘He’s like an older Marco Pierre White. Except not mad. God, I love him.’

‘Did you see him comforting that shit flute player girl from Italy last night?’ said Jo, the Art Director.

‘I know!’

‘Who is he?’ demanded Sue Jordan and Priscilla, the super-sucky News Editor and Deputy Editor said, immediately,

‘Daniel Miller. He’s on that TV show,
Maestro!
It’s like Pop Stars. He’s gorgeous, Sue.’

‘Daniel Miller?’ said Sue. From her lofty position at the head of the table she called down to Kate. ‘Hold on. Let me just ask our lovely Features Editor something – Kate, isn’t he your father?’

Kate, who had been staring out of the great glass windows across the river at the South Bank during this conversation, turned back to the group. She smoothed a fleck of imaginary lint off her grey Joseph suit, her most expensive clothing purchase ever.

‘Um, yes.’ She scratched her hair with a pencil, and hummed nonchalantly. ‘I suppose he is.’

‘What?’ said Tom Price, the publisher of the magazine. ‘Daniel Miller’s your father? My god!’

‘Are you shitting me?’ said Juliet. ‘Kate Miller. Daniel Miller. Oh my god!’

‘Wow!’ said Priscilla, trying and failing to look pleased for Kate at her genetic heritage, which had given her these inadvertent brownie points.

‘He’s your
dad
?’ said Nicola, the deputy features editor. ‘Why didn’t you
say so
!?’

Kate thought back to eighteen months ago, before the show had been commissioned, and how close Daniel had come to having to sell his house and move into a flat in Acton. ‘It didn’t exactly come up.’

‘Why doesn’t he like being sent chocolates?’ Nicola demanded. ‘There was an interview with him in
Good Housekeeping
and he said he hated being sent chocolates. That’s so weird! But sexy of him!’

‘He’s diabetic,’ said Kate in quelling tones. ‘He can’t eat sugar. It’s really bad for him. People are always sending him presents after recitals, and so forth. Right. Shall we move on?’

And so forth
? When was the last time she’d said ‘and so forth’?

‘Wow,’ said Priscilla. She drummed her square nails loudly on the glass surface. ‘This is great, Kate. Can you get us an interview with him? And tell him not to go with anyone else? Oh my god!’ Her eyes lit up. ‘He’s divorced, isn’t he? I read it in
Hello!
last week,’ she told the assembled faces around the table, who were gaping with interest. ‘His wife ran off with someone. Isn’t that true?’

‘She’s my mum,’ Kate said sharply. ‘And she didn’t
run
off
with someone. She –’ She was extremely thankful when Nicola interrupted.

‘Well, I know he was devastated! Is he looking for love? Perhaps that’s the angle! We could fix him up with someone!’

‘Hm,’ ‘Mmm,’ ‘Ooh, that’s a good idea,’ various people murmured, not without bitterness, as if Kate had organized all of this merely to advance her career.

Kate clutched her big, square notebook, hugging it to her. It was quite funny, really, to think how the fortunes of the Miller family ebbed and flowed, resulting in this completely ridiculous conversation. She was almost laughing; she wished Charly or Zoe was here to hear it. Sean wouldn’t get it, she thought to herself, bless him. He’d be outraged on all their behalfs. ‘Right,’ she said, feeling sympathy for the very first time with celebrities who complain about how misrepresented they are. ‘First, that’s my mother you’re talking about and she didn’t run off with someone else. She left Dad because it wasn’t working.’

‘Why?’ said Priscilla, fascinated.

‘Oh.’ Kate was flummoxed. ‘Well, I don’t know why, actually. It just wasn’t working.’ They looked blankly at her. ‘I was fourteen,’ she offered. She didn’t say,
it was the day after
my birthday, and I didn’t see her for over a year afterwards
.

‘Mmm.’

‘Plus, it was thirteen years ago,’ Kate pointed out. ‘It’s long-passed water under the bridge. They’re the best of friends, now.’

Since last week her father had referred to her mother’s request for him to send her their wedding album (she’d just got into scrapbooking) as ‘another demand from Satan’s bitch minion’ and then roared loudly ‘GOD! I hate her!!’ This was not at all true but, for now, here at this meeting, it would have to suffice, because she certainly wasn’t going into the whole long drama with them.

‘And what about your poor dad?’ Juliet’s eyes were like saucers. ‘That’s sad for him, though. Is he still on his own?’

Kate thought of the sopranos, the violin students and fans who’d littered his bedroom and the rest of the house after Venetia left, whom Kate had had to fight past on her way to school in the morning. It was like running the gauntlet every day – one never knew if Natalia from Moscow, or Briony from Colorado, might be trying to be domestic in the kitchen, making coffee for their hero, and catch her on the way out, plying her with insincere compliments, pumping her for information, how best to snare her father. Kate had to be polite to them, but it made her uncomfortable. She much preferred the constant stream of good friends, old compadres, who filled the house, always had done, filling it with music and laughter and expensive red wine, late into the night. The question was ridiculous, in any case. Her father, on his own! It was almost laughable.

Then she thought of his life since he’d met Lisa, how all of that had gone, how her home, the spindly house in Kentish Town, had been sold, how order and beige colours had entered his life. Someone had written of Daniel Miller in the
Observer
a couple of weeks ago that he was a marketing exercise now, not a musician, and Kate couldn’t help but agree, secretly. It had taken Lisa six months to move in, a couple of months after that to get pregnant, ten months to get her old friends from GMTV where she’d worked to meet him, and a year later he was back in the studio, recording
Daniel Miller plays Glen Miller
. And now he could afford a wedding where his wife wore Temperley couture and the guests were each given a small silver violin charm engraved with Lisa and Daniel’s initials and the date as a memento. Kate shook her head.

‘He’s not on his own, no,’ she told the assembled meeting. She coughed. ‘It’s his second wedding tomorrow, actually.’

There was astonishment around the table. This was news.
‘Wow,’ said Tom, still unnaturally fascinated. ‘Is someone taking the photos? Have they got a magazine deal?’

‘No,’ said Kate, holding her pencil. ‘At least, I really really hope not. Otherwise I’ll have to wear a yashmak.’

‘Don’t you mean a burqa?’ asked Priscilla, faux-kindly.

‘No.’ Kate put her pencil back down on the table.

‘Sure you do, Kate.’

‘A burqa’s a whole garment thing. A yashmak is just a veil, er – it’s mainly worn by Muslim women, usually Turkish,’ Kate heard herself say, and then she groaned inwardly.

‘How
do
you know this stuff!’ Priscilla trilled. ‘You’re like a fat old man in a pub quiz! Oh Kate. You are funny.’

‘What, because she knows something else beyond how much combined weight the Spice Girls have lost this week?’ said Juliet, unexpectedly and Kate looked at her in surprise and smiled.

‘Right, right.’ Sue patted the glass desk with a gesture of finality. She nodded kindly at Kate. ‘That’s all for now, then,’ she said. ‘Let’s meet on Monday as usual and Kate – enjoy the wedding.’

As Kate gathered up her things, her Filofax, her ideas book, the latest issues of the magazine, Sue followed her out, towards her office.

‘You OK about tomorrow?’ she said, as Kate reached her desk. ‘Just wondering.’

Sue was not given to sentiment or overt displays of affection, and Kate turned back to look at her, smiling with gratitude. She was Features Editor, only because of Sue, and it was the most unimaginable, thrilling, exciting thing.

After the weeks and weeks of interviews, the secrecy surrounding the whole thing, she had finally left
Woman’s
World
to be Deputy Features Editor in time for the launch of
Venus
in early 2002. But the original Features Editor, Alice
– who was more of the Fashionista school and believed in claiming every single cab, and once even her own husband’s birthday dinner, on expenses – had not lasted until the launch and so, just before Christmas 2001, Kate had been promoted to Features Editor.

Thinking of this now, Kate patted Sue’s arm, lightly – the two of them were rare in the
Venus
offices for not going in for displays of affection. There was a lot of surplus airkissing; Sue didn’t like it much. Nor did she like anorexic models, hugely expensive photoshoots in Miami to get a shot of a model against a white wall, overpaid, irrelevant columnists, or fashion itself, really. It was why Broadgate had hired her to head up the magazine. They wanted someone with a fresh eye, someone who could keep costs down, and someone who could assemble a team of young people who
did
know all of that.

‘It’s going to be great,’ she told Sue. ‘It’s not like I can’t wait and it’s the best day of my life, but you know … I’m really happy for Dad. Lisa’s turned his life around.’

‘I’m so glad,’ Sue said. She looked around Kate’s small glass office. ‘It must be weird, that’s all.’

‘Yeah, it is a bit.’ Kate was always honest with Sue. ‘But Sean’s coming. And Zoe and Steve – our best friends, you know. They got married last year, you remember you got that wedding company to provide the free sugared almonds?’

‘Little Zoe, with the black hair.’ Sue was pleased. ‘Ah, lovely. How is she?’

‘She’s very well,’ said Kate. ‘She’s pregnant, in fact, so she’s really well.’

‘Well, it’ll be good for you to have a gang of your own there.’

‘And Charly’s coming,’ Kate added, mischievously.

Sue looked mock-horrified. ‘Right. A gang indeed.’

‘She’s wearing black, and she told my mother on the
phone last night that she’d scream “No!” during the speeches if she wants her to.’

Sue genuinely looked horrified this time. ‘Oh dear god, she is something, isn’t she. What did your poor mother say?’

‘History doesn’t relate,’ said Kate, laughing. ‘But I expect, knowing Mum, she’d love it if it was all about her instead.’

She could tell Sue didn’t know whether to laugh or not at this and she waved goodbye and scurried, relieved, back to her own office. Kate turned back to her desk and picked up the phone. Sean was staying at hers tonight before the wedding, and she wanted to make sure he’d remember to bring everything. He hated staying over, much preferred it if she came to his, and would doubtless forget something. On her desk were the layouts for the next issue’s Quiz: W
HO’S
I
N
C
HARGE OF
Y
OUR
R
ELATIONSHIP
? Y
OU
O
R
H
IM
?

‘Hah,’ said Kate, putting her heels up on the desk as Sean’s phone rang. She swung herself round to look out of the window again, and caught her reflection in the glass. That was her, that girl in the grey suit with the smooth hair and the office. How weird. She sighed with something like happiness, waiting for Sean to pick up the phone, and gazed out across the river. The spring view of the city from her office window really was lovely.