FIFTEEN
It could be the first day of winter, rather than the progression of quite a benign autumn. It was chill and it was dull and Zoe Brown was coming to the shop without Douglas after all. So much for the Ferelli crêpe dress in a colour called ginger-snap on which Pamela had spent a fortune (I need one for important clients, went the litany), and so much for the hairdresser’s bill which, alone, she told Jenny, had probably accounted for any profit they might make from the poisonous snake’s visit.
‘Oh, in forgiving mode, then, are we?’ said Jenny. And went on with her diagrams.
Vanity, all is vanity, thought Pamela. The diagrams were for yet another solicitor and his wife. She was beginning to feel even more bored with shoring up the domestic lifestyle of professionals.
So, come the day, she wore a very ordinary shirt, waistcoat and black jeans. She wore the ensemble defiantly. Jenny could not quite hide a smile. ‘I see you’re pushing the boat out for her, then,’ she said.
Pamela considered the conundrum. Was it better to dress up and acknowledge the reality of her feelings of insecurity, or was it better to dress down and feel insecure? Sometimes she felt her head would explode. And that was only in the matter of what she looked like.
It was thoughts like that which led to her private understanding with herself that she was borderline sane, only borderline.
She was serving a customer with several yards of blue tassel rope when she looked up to see Lionel staring in at the window. Her first thought was that perhaps she was no longer borderline but a fully fledged hallucinatory nutter; her second was, It’s real and I’m off.
Just what she needed. What on earth was he doing here?
She turned back to the tasselling on the basis that if she did not look, he could not exist. Out of the corner of her mouth she whispered to Jenny, ‘Don’t look now but it’s the Barbecue Date.’ She indicated the peering Lionel with her eyes. And noticed that the blue tasselling was jiggling up and down, apparently of its own accord.
‘Oh,’ said Jenny, with a sickeningly indulgent smile. ‘Well, then. Off You Go.’ And she took over the blue tassel rope like reins. For a moment they both stood there holding on, with the puzzled customer attached at the other end. Then, resisting a sudden desire to say Gee-up, she conceded defeat, let the rope drop, said, ‘Thank you, Jennifer,’ in a knowing way, and looked up to smile through the window at him.
She beckoned. He came to the door, which made its customary ping, and stood very close to the exit. Some men did find the place a bit daunting. Peter always said they had taken the notion of the feminine a little too far. Well, he would. If he’d had a shop, you wouldn’t have been able to find it. As Pamela pointed out, usually it was the women who made these choices. The men had other preoccupations. Like whether the Springboks played fair.
The curious gaze of both Jenny and the customer met his. He remained waiting, just inside the door, fingering a lemon-coloured chintz and generally gazing about him as if he were in a museum.
This was my date, she mused. Oh, please let me feel something. Passion, lust, the solar-plexus punch, even the tiny frisson that says, Maybe. She waited, like St Ursula, for the touch. Nothing. Today of all days she could have done with a quickening heart.
‘Well, hallo,’ she said.
‘Just thought I’d drop by.’
He was nervous, eager.
She had the poisonous snake Zoe arriving at any moment. She had planned to be so cool. The last time she saw Zoe she was not cool. She was quite out of control – had not slept for several nights, was in pain, still wore the same leggings and T-shirt she was wearing when she and Douglas said their final, simple goodbye at the front gate. When he said his quiet ‘Sorry.’ And she watched him, unbelieving because she had brought it upon herself, getting into his car. Her pink umbrella was still on the back seat. She hoped it would stay there for ever.
She asked – no, sent – Daniel to stay with his father for a few days. The T-shirt, in her madness, she thought held a trace of Douglas’s scent. So she kept it on. And then Zoe came to the door, pristine as a Vogue shoot, asking for his few things. They were in the bedroom, scattered about, touched and cried over. And when she relinquished them, she cried again. Dribbling, lank-haired, wild-eyed. Zoe raised an eyebrow.
‘Sorry,’ she said. Quite coldly. As if showing emotion was a crime. She put the pink umbrella on the hall stand and went.
Well, not today. Today she, Pamela Pryor, would be in control.
And now Lionel.
He smiled shyly. ‘You said,’ he offered hesitantly, ‘that I could come to the shop first.’
‘Of course. I’m glad you did. Summer seems such a long way off. I had such a hangover after those lethal drinks.’
That was better. He smiled.
‘And I fell asleep,’ he said.
‘Ah, well.’ If she had learned anything from years of using Ani Patel’s shop, it was her application of appropriate nothings.
‘I thought we might have lunch afterwards,’ he said shyly. ‘If you can.’
She was supposed to have lunch with Zoe.
Not Douglas.
She only said yes to lunch with Zoe because of Douglas.
He wasn’t coming.
Now it would be her and the viper alone.
She thought hard.
She did not want to have lunch with the viper.
And if she could not have lunch with Douglas?
‘I’d love to, Lionel,’ she said happily. She encouraged him to browse further into the shop.
‘I like this yellow stuff,’ he said, going back to the chintz.
And so they began the simple steering procedure that she applied to all new customers. Jenny, she could feel, relaxed. More customers came in. Any minute now, she thought, and venom fangs will appear. She felt quite detached, even a little bored. Lemon chintz had its limits of excitement.
She took Lionel over to the new Italian paper samples. He glanced at them, unimpressed. Perhaps they were a little bright. And then, in that way that Sod is supposed to arrange his Law, he noticed the book of tapestries.
Jenny had placed them artfully in the window, with rolls of disgustingly expensive fringing cascading in a welter of autumn colour all over the place.
‘Oh, I do like these,’ he said.
Not wanting to destroy the display, she picked up a sample of one of the richly coloured Italian papers to divert him, and moved with it firmly towards the window so that he could see better.
‘This would be lovely on the walls if you’re starting from scratch and the light is good,’ she said. ‘And if you like colour.’ Since Peter, that was always something she noticed about men.
He made a face, as if blinded by the brightness. She laughed. He was all right really. They held the sample between them at the window. And then she looked up. The Italian paper fell from her hand and Peaches’ father caught it. She was a sceptical human being, on the whole, but at that precise moment she wondered if she had not seen a fata Morgana flitting through the cars and buses.
She could have sworn she saw Douglas driving by. Righting herself, she looked again. It was gone.
She laughed up at Lionel flirtatiously to cover her racing heartbeat. Everything she felt for Zoe welled up. She’d show Miss High and Mighty.
‘Lunch,’ she repeated, ‘would be lovely. I’ve got a client coming in but I can soon cancel her . . .’ She added another flirtatious laugh. God knows how she would extricate herself if he suggested over the Beaume de Venise that they book themselves into an hotel for the afternoon. He would be more than justified on this performance. Revenge might be a dish that is best eaten cold, but you can’t help it if the heat stays in. Zoe was expecting to be taken out to lunch, was she? Well, fuck that.
It was almost half-past twelve, the appointed hour. In very little time Pamela and Lionel had done well. She had steered him away from the tapestries and other possibilities had been chosen. If they were conservative, men were decisive. Easier by far to deal with, though perhaps not so interesting.
‘It’s a brand new development, isn’t it? The Battersea Waterside? Do you know any of your neighbours?’ she asked, making notes, trying to sound nonchalant.
‘I’ve only been there a month,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I forgot . . . I think another of my clients lives there too.’
‘We might get together,’ he said.
‘You might,’ said Pam, thinking, It is likelier than you think.
She would be lofty and superior with Zoe, and then pass her on to Jenny. Or even the Amazon if she got back from the leather suppliers in time. She would say, ‘Here is our work experience graduate to help you . . .’ That would really get up her dainty little powdered nose. Then she would tuck her arm into Lionel’s and swan off.
‘Where shall we go?’ asked Lionel.
She was about to make a suggestion when she noticed that Jenny was staring hard at the door.
It went ping. And her partner, still transfixed, said, ‘Crumbs.’
‘What?’
Jenny looked aghast.
Pamela turned.
Illusion? Delusion? Was she the victim of her own madness and simply inventing everything? For here, looking a little like a stand-in for Oscar Wilde on The Riviera, was Peter.
Peter?
He bore a large bunch of white roses and looked horribly pleased with himself. It was a sight, Pamela thought, staring as if she had a sudden desire to rehearse the Banquo scene, that deserved something a great deal more linguistically positive than bloody ‘Crumbs’.
Both women, with an instinct born from years together, avoided each other’s eyes. To not do so was to court hysteria.
‘Peter!’ they cried in unison. He looked startled at the over-enthusiasm.
He closed the door as silently as he could but it still went ping, and he winced. It might be original, but he had always advocated removing it.
Then, very brightly, he said, ‘Hi!’
Quite unable to resist, Pam said, ‘Yo!’ which stopped him in his tracks. And then she stared. He was wearing a pink shirt and red-rimmed spectacles. Perhaps it was not Oscar? With the roses he looked a little like a character out of The Boyfriend.
As if rehearsed, he said, ‘Pam, you look great.’
‘For me?’ she said.
‘Who else?’ he said in a voice that she was later to describe as spine-chilling.
Behind her Lionel gave a sort of exhalation.
She looked round at him. Was that the suspicion of an antler appearing in his forehead?
‘This is Peter,’ she said. ‘Peter, this is Lionel.’
They moved towards each other. Lock horns and come out fighting, she wanted to say.
She noticed Peter’s limp and felt a sudden stab of affection. All she could do was smile and smile and smile. If she opened her mouth, she knew she would say, Lord Lucan, I presume – or similar.
‘Please excuse me,’ he said to Lionel. And then, turning to Pam, said, ‘I just wondered if you would like to have lunch?’
This time Lionel sucked in his breath.
Jenny made for the office, her back view freezing in the doorway as the door went ping again
Pamela jumped and prayed it was only the collecting nun.
Some nun.
Here she was at last, the thorn without a rose. Poison-chops.
If Zoe Brown had been treated cruelly by life, it refused to show. She was wearing black, of course, with long suede gloves and a hat. What did she think this was, Ascot? What was worse, both men stared at her with interest and admiration. Jenny returned from the back office. But there was nothing to say. The ‘Crumbs’ had done it all.
Zoe extended her gloved hand.
Pamela thrust the roses into Jenny’s arms and touched those suede fingers as if they were contaminated. ‘How nice,’ she said. ‘How well you look. Do you know my assistant, Jennifer?’ She prayed her partner would forgive the downgrading.
Jenny did a kind of dance with the roses. Prick her, you fool, thought Pamela, but she did not.
‘And Peter? Peter Pryor.’
Zoe moved her neck as if it were on castors. ‘I have heard of you,’ she said, as if she could eat him. Peter took a step back. He was not good with sirens.
Peaches’ father advanced. ‘And I think I’ve seen you,’ he said firmly.
Zoe looked down her nose.
‘Not surprising,’ said Pamela curtly. ‘You live in the same block.’ She put the emphasis on block to give the impression it might be Council.
Jenny disappeared with the roses.
‘This has all got a little out of hand, I’m afraid,’ said Pam, giving Zoe a very superior smile. ‘I won’t be able to see to you after all, because I’m having lunch with –’
And then the superior smile faded a trifle.
Who the fuck was she having lunch with?
Both men stared at her. She could hear her voice rising. ‘Look, Zoe – I’m really sorry but I’ll just have to leave you with my assistant.’
Jenny had completely vanished. It was all Pam could do not to clap her hands three times, as if summoning the houri.
Zoe gave both men a short, tantalizing, mocking (infuriating in Pamela’s opinion) glance, and said, ‘Well, I expected to have your attention. Especially since we haven’t seen each other for so long. Douglas would have been here, but he had to do something with Mary.’
That worked. Pam felt an elephant kick her in the solar plexus. So he had a Mary, did he? Revolting name.
‘That’s all right,’ said Peter, defrosting himself. ‘You two go ahead. I’ll try another day. When you’re less busy.’
Lionel still looked quite put out. He was staring at Zoe and he suddenly said, ‘Number nine,’ just like on the Beatles’ album.
Zoe stared at him as if he were an alien.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I’m number twenty-two.’
Zoe stared again.
‘Battersea Waterside. We are neighbours.’
This time her stare was tempered with considerably more warmth.
Pamela said, still high-octave, ‘Lionel has asked me out to lunch, too. All these lunches suddenly, I don’t know . . .’ She trailed off before really putting her foot in it.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘perhaps I could take you both to lunch?’
Zoe swivelled her neck again. Lionel was wearing his Paul Smith. She relaxed. ‘Oh –’ she said. ‘Are you two – ?’ She pointed with a little black suede pinkie, from Lionel to Pamela.
Peter suddenly appeared interested, too.
And Pamela, curse it, began to blush.
‘Lionel is my client,’ she said. And, because she did not want to hurt him unduly, she added, ‘And also a friend.’
Peter, in a burst of wholly inappropriate gregariousness, said, ‘Well – why don’t we all have lunch together?’ After all, he had given up minimalism; he might as well apply it socially, too.
One day we’ll all look back on this and laugh, thought Pam. If we don’t die from it first.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Pam, quite beyond everything by now. This was another thing men were good at. Focusing on a sensible solution. She was still confused as to what her name was. ‘Oh, yes, what a good idea. Can you hold the fort, Jen?’
Jenny did not look as if she could hold anything much. Having said she was going to take the roses into the office, she had reappeared, still clutching them. A burst from The Bartered Bride would not have come amiss.
Jenny nodded. ‘Sure,’ she said faintly.
And then something approaching horror appeared on her face. She was looking across the shop and out of the window. This time she did not say, ‘Crumbs,’ but, very softly, ‘Oh, shit. . .’
Pamela followed her gaze and thought that if swooning had been an option, she would have embraced it.
Zoe said, ‘Oh, look, there’s my brother!’
Pamela said, ‘Oh, really, where?’ as if she had pointed out a particularly interesting bicycle.
Peter said, ‘More the merrier,’ so that Pam wished to kick him. And Lionel said, ‘Ah, yes.’ Which could have meant anything.
They all stared out of the window as Douglas’s hunted, handsome (oh, still so handsome) face peered in, looked alarmed, and backed away on to the pavement.
Zoe leapt towards the door. Ping. And dragged him in by his sleeve.
‘You said you were only going to drop me off,’ she said, her arm hugging his tightly. She flashed a look of triumph at Pamela. ‘Guess what, Douglas? We’ve got a lunch party.’
Pamela stood there, feeling dead in every particular save her heart, which beat and beat so that everyone must hear it. She raised her eyes. He was looking down at something on one of the tables – something made of glass, was it ? Pam’s focus had gone.
‘Douglas,’ she faltered. ‘How are you?’
He touched the glass object. She knew those hands. She knew the ridges on the knuckles, the squareness of the nails.
‘I’m well,’ he said, suddenly bright, raising his head, defiant. ‘And you?’
She nodded, dumb again.
‘I can’t stay,’ he said stiffly.
Pamela was still trying to find a word. Any word at all.
‘No,’ she managed eventually. ‘No, of course.’
And then Jenny, dear, sensible, land-based Jenny, said, ‘Zoe, you really must look at these. I think they are just the thing. What do you think, Douglas?’ And she ushered them both towards the book of tapestries and began to open it. The moment passed.
She thrust the roses back at Pamela, who very nearly chewed them.
Peter then said casually to Lionel, ‘What block is that?’
Pamela, standing there, from somewhere on another planet, was impressed.
Here it was again, she thought, Immediate Focus. Maybe they are better at running the world?
Lionel said, ‘Battersea Waterside.’
And they were off. Masculine alacrity. If Pamela had not had to concentrate on breathing, in out, in out, she would have congratulated him.
Douglas, over by the book of tapestries with Zoe, looked as if he had a board up his backside.
‘Will you give us five minutes?’ Pamela said to Peter and Lionel.
But they were well away, talking noise levels, wind tunnels and the wonders of external piping.
She absent-mindedly gave Peter back his roses, who stared at them perplexed. She went over to join the others.
Jenny turned the heavy pages very slowly, which was soothing.
Pamela took a couple of swift looks at Douglas, but he did not look up. He made the perfect picture of a man deeply engrossed in French hunting scenes and medieval sprig. Pamela knew better. She longed to say to him that he did not need to go on with this. But Zoe was plainly delighted with the whole show. She must not be allowed to think that she had won any kind of victory. Pamela’s pride would not allow it.
‘What do you think, Douglas?’ she said mischievously. ‘Lovely, aren’t they?’
Their eyes met. It was the old conspiracy. He suddenly smiled, sunlight in winter, and nodded. It was a small victory, and she squirrelled it away. It was hers.
She turned to Zoe. ‘But, really, far too expensive. . .’
Zoe was piqued, as Pamela knew she would be. ‘That’s irrelevant if I like something,’ she said. ‘And I like these.’
Douglas looked down again. Pam knew the cast of his face, knew his thoughts. He began flicking through the designs with speed. ‘Not fruit, not flowers –’ he reeled away.
Zoe said, ‘Not so fast.’
But he rattled on. ‘Not stags, not fleurs-de-lis. . .’
Zoe nestled against him. ‘What would I do without your eyes?’ she said.
Walk over a cliff, hopefully, came to Pam’s mind, but she held back.
Douglas had that little tiny smile at the edge of his mouth that said he was up to something. Then he stopped flicking.
‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Perfect.’
They all looked. It was a pale green background crowded with flashy peacocks.
‘Peacocks,’ said Pamela. ‘Just the thing.’ For a picosecond their eyes met and they knew.
Douglas nodded.
‘Lovely,’ said Zoe, and clapped her little gloved hands.
And then it was over.
Douglas said, ‘I have to go.’
He went, and did not look back.
And then another miracle happened.
The telephone rang and Jenny went to answer it.
She came back looking very grave.
‘Pam,’ she said, ‘I’m really sorry to do this, but there’s been an emergency with the Barnetts’ carpet. Wrong colour and they’re about to cut it. They insist on you personally.’
‘Oh, what a shame,’ said Pam.
And so, thanks to quick-thinking Jenny, yet again, she did not have to endure the lunch.
Future appointments were made. Peter was appeased. ‘Perhaps dinner would be better? I had no idea you were this busy.’
Pamela and Jenny took the compliment coyly.
Then, looking slightly confused, and still holding the roses, Peter followed Lionel and Zoe out into the street. She turned to give a little wave. Pamela stood to attention until they were right out of sight. Then, for want of anything else to say, she asked, ‘Who was on the phone really?’
‘A wrong number,’ said Jennifer glibly. ‘For Lupin Lodge.’
She began to tidy the books away.
‘From where I’m standing it could have been right.’
Jenny pursed her mouth. ‘OK?’ she asked.
Pamela said, ‘Yes.’
She would think about the veracity of that statement later.
The door went ping again. Peter came back into the shop, looking irritated.
He was still holding the roses. ‘These were supposed to be for you,’ he said, pushing them at her. Then he turned on his heel and pinged out. Pam watched him go and, out of the jumble of her feelings, wished, suddenly, that the two of them could have gone and sat quietly together somewhere. At least she knew where she was with him. Or she thought she did. But in that outfit she was not so sure.
Wearily she turned back from the window and smiled at Jenny.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. Tight-lipped, she went around the counter, through the back office, and into the small courtyard. She stared up at the grey, chill sky and, after taking what seemed like her first deep breath for hours, she filled her lungs and yelled, ‘Fu-u-u-ck!’ at it, thrice.
How many years?
Today of all days.
If Dean had popped in, they could have scored a hat trick.
Douglas, she thought, Douglas. . .
Taking another deep breath, ‘F-u-u-u-ck,’ she went again. And then, feeling a little better, she went back in.
In the companion courtyard of the charity shop next door, the Misses Avril and Elsie Timothy, nearly a hundred and fifty years between them, but still sound of hearing, stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe. They were sorting plastic bags of cast-off clothing in the outside air (you never knew what was going to pop out) when the obscenity took place, and remained frozen in their positions for some time.
‘Perhaps she’s doing Amateur Theatricals again,’ said Miss Avril eventually.
Miss Elsie nodded.
‘Very modern ones. . .’