Twenties Girl

All the way home, I’m deep in thought. Josh is vulnerable. He’s confused. It’s the perfect time for me to rekindle our love. But I have to use what I’ve learned. I have to change myself.

I keep obsessively tracking back over everything he said, trying to remember every detail. And every time I reach one particular phrase, I squirm and wince. It was fine, but it wasn’t great .

It’s all blindingly clear now. Our relationship wasn’t great because he wasn’t honest with me. He didn’t tell me any of his little niggles. And they all built up in his head and that’s why he chucked me.

But it doesn’t matter-because now I know what the problems are, I can solve them! All of them! I’ve put together an action plan, and I’m going to start by tidying up my bathroom. As soon as we get back to my flat, I stride in, full of optimism, to find Sadie heading me off.

“What are you going to wear tonight?” she demands. “Show me.”

“Later.” I try to get past her.

“Not later! Now! Now!”

For God’s sake.

“All right!” I head into my bedroom and wrench open the little curtain that hides my wardrobe. “What about… this.” At random, I pull out a maxiskirt and my new limited-edition corset top from Topshop. “And some wedge sandals, maybe.”

“Stays?” Sadie looks as though I’m brandishing a pig’s corpse. “And a long skirt?”

“It’s the maxi look, OK? It’s really fashionable, actually. And these aren’t stays, it’s a corset top.”

Sadie touches my corset top with a shudder. “My mother tried to make me wear stays to my aunt’s wedding,” she says. “I threw them on the fire, so she shut me in my room and told the servants not to let me out.”

“Really?” I feel a spark of interest in spite of myself. “So you missed the wedding?”

“I climbed out the window, took the motor, drove to London, and had my hair shingled,” she says proudly. “When my mother saw it, she went to bed for two days.”

“Wow.” I put the clothes down on the bed and look at Sadie properly. “You were a real rebel. Were you always doing things like that?”

“I did rather torture my parents. But they were so stifling. So Victorian . The whole house was like a museum.” She shudders. “My father disapproved of the phonograph, the Charleston, cocktails … everything . He thought girls should spend their time arranging flowers and doing needlework. Like my sister, Virginia.”

“You mean… Granny?” Now I’m fascinated to hear more. I only have hazy memories of Granny, as a gray-haired lady who liked gardening. I can’t even imagine her as a girl. “What was she like?”

“Horribly virtuous.” Sadie makes a face. “She wore stays. Even after the whole world had stopped wearing them, Virginia laced herself in and put her hair up and arranged the flowers in church every week. She was the dullest girl in Archbury. And then she married the dullest man in Archbury. My parents were overjoyed.”

“What’s Archbury?”

“Where we lived. A village in Hertfordshire.”

This is ringing bells in my mind. Archbury . I know I’ve heard it-

“Hang on!” I say suddenly. “Archbury House. The house that burned down in the 1960s. Was that your house?”

It’s all coming back to me now. Years ago Dad told me about the old family home, Archbury House, and even showed me a black-and-white photo dating from the 1800s. He said that he and Uncle Bill had spent summers there when they were little boys and then moved in when their grandparents died. It was a wonderful place, all old corridors and huge cellars and a great big grand staircase. But after the fire, the land was sold off and a development of new houses was built in its place.

“Yes. Virginia was living there with her family by then. In fact, she caused the fire. She left a candle alight.” There’s a moment’s silence before Sadie adds with an acidic edge, “Not so perfect after all.”

“We drove through the village once,” I volunteer. “We saw the new houses. They looked OK.”

Sadie doesn’t seem to hear me. “I lost all my things,” she says distantly. “All the things I was keeping there while I was abroad. All destroyed.”

“That’s awful,” I say, feeling inadequate.

“What does it matter?” She suddenly seems to come to and gives me a brittle smile. “Who cares?” She whirls away, toward the wardrobe, and points imperiously. “Get out your clothes. I need to see them all.”