The Valentine's Card

by Juliet Ashton

  ‘I’m aware of that, dear. I’m happy as I am.’

  ‘Nobody is happy alone,’ grunted Bogna, and Orla could hear Marek’s obstinacy in her tone.

  ‘We’re not all the same, thank goodness,’ said Maude. ‘If we all liked pistachio ice-cream the world would run out of the stuff. Luckily, some of us prefer chocolate chip.’

  At the noise of the bell, all three of them turned, ready to greet a customer. ‘Only me!’ beamed Sheraz, staggering under a large cardboard box. ‘I’ve run out of Toilet Duck.’

  ‘We’ll survive,’ murmured Maude.

  ‘Orla? It’s Ma. Can you talk?’

  ‘Howaya Ma. Wednesday already!’

  ‘December already.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Aren’t the years getting awful short?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘And here we are in December. Well, well, well.’

  ‘Well, well, well indeed.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m getting at, ya little feck!’

  ‘Ma, such language and me only thirty-three.’

  ‘Orla Cassidy, are you or are you not coming home for Christmas?’

  ‘No, Ma, I’m not.’

  ‘Great. Fabulous. Right. I’ll cancel the turkey. I’ll spend the day in bed. On me own.’

  ‘Ma, you’ll have the usual full house.’

  ‘This could be my last Christmas on this earth.’

  ‘You’ve been saying that since 1990, Ma. You’re fine. Aren’t you? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? Ma?’

  ‘Yes, I’m feckin’ fine. I wish I had a nice fatal illness to tempt you back with but I don’t. If your father was here—’

  ‘He’d tell me to do what I wanted to do, Ma. And this year I want to be in London.’

  ‘What about New Year’s Eve? We’re always together on New Year’s Eve. It’s better even than Christmas. I’ll do me special coleslaw again. It’ll be a riot. Just like last year.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Don’t hmm me, madam.’

  ‘Just give me this year off, Ma, and maybe I’ll be there for next New Year.’

  ‘Ah, sure, couldn’t we all be dead by next New Year?’

  *

  Orla rounded up her class on the steps and explained the academic director’s reaction to the news that their classroom ceiling had collapsed.

  ‘They were swear words. If he’d spoken more slowly you would have understood.’ Her flock were fluent cursers.

  Shivering but demob happy only an hour into their Thursday, a day that usually delivered an oral test and grave looks from Teacher, the students smirked at one another.

  ‘Now, there’s no room available for us today because …’ Orla didn’t really understand her boss’s reasons. ‘Well, anyway, admin promise they’ll sort us out with a corner later today or tomorrow. Until then why don’t we all simply set up a temporary classroom in a café or – hey!’ By then, she was talking to their backs, as her students dispersed like spilt mercury.

  ‘Lazy buggers,’ said Abena fondly.

  ‘Abena, if you like, you and I can—’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Abena hugged her, blocking out the winter with the sunny smell of the oils in her hair. ‘Bye bye!’

  So Orla was at home, stretched out on her sofa, iPad throwing out light and colour on her lap. Orla had sworn off it that morning, awaking, horrified, to find the tablet cradled in her arms like a beloved pet. But here she was again.

  Orla rapidly whizzed through the forums on Digital Spy – nothing on her subject since the rumour commented on and debated by fourteen members, that Anthea was to go into EastEnders – and on to Sleb Snap, where she skidded to a halt. There’d been a sighting that morning.

  As a return visitor, Orla had no right to sneer at the tackiness of a site that published candid snaps of celebrities submitted by Joe Public, but curling her lip helped her to feel a little less soiled as her cursor hovered over the thumbnail of Anthea.

  The blurry image bloomed to fill her screen. Wraparound sunglasses gave Ant the look of a fugitive fly as she sped past the lens of a mobile phone camera, head down, hair held out of her face with a scrunchie. Orla read the caption.

  SHE’S TINY IN REAL LIFE QUITE RUDE

  JUST PUSHED PAST ME AND HUBBY. LOVE HER

  IN THE CORTESAN. DIDNT SHE GET HER

  KIT OF IN SOME OLD FILM?!!

  Indeed she did, madam. Orla knew the title (Sing Me No Songs), the year of release (1974) and the critical reception (‘A turgid fable of gangland London enlivened by its young stars and much talked about nude scene. Two stars.’) She knew that Anthea herself had referred to it in a 2011 Empire magazine interview as ‘tame low budget nonsense. Just a flash of boob and a bit of bum. Nothing like the graphic nudity young actresses are bullied into these days’. Orla had seen the fuzzy stills, studied the out-of-focus pointed little breasts that were nothing like the impressive contents of The Courtesan’s corset.

  Helpfully, the fan had snapped Anthea passing a shop called Primrose Hill Antiques, placing her accurately in a small area of town. The untidy hair and lived-in sweats led Orla to conclude that the actress wasn’t far from home.

  This shot of adrenaline was familiar by now. Orla was amassing data (a highfalutin’ word that conferred near-respectability on her hobby) and each fresh factoid brought her nearer to pinpointing Anthea’s address.

  The address held a special power. With Anthea’s address, Orla could plan the final act, the tête à tête that would bring the journal home.

  Her virtual day got better and better: after following the shaky lead of an offhand mention of Anthea Blake as a collector of rugs, Orla happened on the very interiors site she’d found and subsequently lost a week ago. Learning from that day’s frustration, Orla now collated all her finds on Sim’s laptop with a cross-referenced accuracy her students would recognise.

  A gallery of eight interior shots: rich pickings indeed. The first shot – Ms Blake’s elegant exterior – divulged information straight away. The house number, normally obscured in such articles, was there for all to see. Orla lived at number forty-nine, something street.

  Orla lay back on the sofa and wandered at leisure through Anthea’s home.

  She favoured Christmas colours. Red and green and tangerine, the house was moody and seductive. And dark: Orla had to squint at some of the pictures to discern the highly decorative scheme.

  It was a night-time house, theatrical yet artless. A shot of Anthea on the stairs, sending a come hither look over her shoulder, triggered the self-criticism that teetered in the wings during these forays: I’m seventeen years younger than her but I wouldn’t look that good in a v-backed dress.

  Her phone chirruped. Marek, she thought, with a rush of warmth, only slightly corrupted by her guilt. Thank goodness, she thought, that he’s safely far away and can’t see what I’m up to.

  I’m just around the corner.

  Orla let out a small mew.

  Make the best of your unexpected day off and JOIN ME! I’m in the Polish cafe. I’ll feed you rogalicki until you burst. X

  Of course, it’s Thursday. Marek, a man who did what it said on the tin, ate at the café every Thursday: Orla loved, even wallowed in, his reliability. She typed out

  See you in five mins!

  But the words ate themselves before they were sent, disappearing as Orla backspaced over them. She looked at the photo gallery. Next: Anthea’s boudoir.

  Would love to, but busy! Sorry! Later? Your place? Kissing ‘n’ that? Xxx Miss you

  That was true: she did miss him. Orla had divided herself so neatly down the middle that she could miss Marek and forgo seeing him at the same time, just as she could bewail the stupidity of cyberstalking and indulge in it at every opportunity.

  Shame. I MIGHT kiss you later. p.s. I WILL kiss you later.

  Anthea’s bedroom leapt out at her: Orla hadn’t thought to fortify herself against it. It was, she had to admit, the perfect setting
for Sim. She pictured him sprawled, naked as a baby, on the Chinese silk bedspread, his impertinent arse happy under the gilded stars on the purple-tented ceiling.

  In her tear-stained imaginings, Orla had often strayed into this bedroom. She’d never had the décor right, though, as she forced herself to watch Sim kiss Anthea’s neck and move down to her shoulders. (She knew his routine well.) Orla had clearly heard Sim’s milky sighs and groans of pleasure, seen his look of joyous surprise as Anthea bent to leave a trail of kisses down his torso en route to her goal. Their orgasms had kept her awake as if they were in the next room.

  Orla scanned the text like a scholar, alert, nose twitching for data. The author of the piece, no doubt bewitched, used superlatives like a drunk buying shots for everybody in the bar. Anthea was ‘screen temptress and fine classical actress, Anthea Blake’; the house, apparently, reflected her ‘passionate nature’ and echoed the ‘timeless quality of her beauty’.

  Yes, thought Orla, and the Duralit toaster on the worktop reflects her passionate nature. As does the toilet brush just in shot in the marble en suite.

  ‘An Olivier award sits on her mantelpiece, perfectly at home in this theatrical house. “As soon as I saw this place in the estate agent’s window I knew I had to have it,” Anthea tells me over a glass of her favourite rosé champagne. “I believe in fate.”’

  Orla broke off to snort unattractively. You believe in copping off with other women’s blokes.

  ‘“How could I pass up a house on a street named after the very first Shakespearean heroine I played? The part that won me the Olivier. I’ve been very happy here and I can’t see me ever moving out.”’

  Orla’s zest for codifying paid off at last. She whizzed through her dossier, tracking down a note she’d made a while ago. This was fun; a similar thrill to untangling a Sudoku. Clean and contained, her spreadsheets were removed from the messy confrontation they would enable.

  Orla lifted her head. As if a migraine had cleared, she was suddenly blessed with perfect vision. What the feck is wrong with me? She leapt up, the iPad tumbling, and punched her arms into the sleeves of her hooded rain jacket. Running through puddles, she didn’t stop until she reached the crossing opposite the café.

  He was leaving, pulling his collar up, hastening through the deluge.

  ‘Marek!’ Orla’s shout couldn’t compete with the cantankerous traffic. A bus obscured her view as she battered the traffic signal button with a flat palm. She jumped up and down on the spot until the green man appeared, but the bus still squatted on the crossing, forcing Orla to dart around it. She hit the other pavement running and didn’t break step, dodging shopping bags and dog leads, reaching the side street just in time to see the low, distinctive, chocolate brown car pick up speed and grow smaller.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘It’s disappointing,’ said Orla as sternly as she was able, which wasn’t very sternly at all. It was hard to attain maximum sternness in a Starbucks, aware that she and her multinational assembly had taken over most of the available seating yet spent as little as possible on coffee. ‘I know it’s a Monday and we all hate Mondays and we’re disappointed that we still don’t have a classroom, but I expected some effort from you. Learning English is the biggest favour you can do yourselves. Abena, are you listening?’ Her pet, round and brown and sparkling Abena, was behind with her coursework. They all were. They were as bad as she was, it transpired, at dealing with unexpected free time.

  ‘Sorry. My eyes cannot resist cake.’ Abena made a diamond of the simple word, polishing it with African vigour until it shone.

  ‘Mmm, brownies,’ said Dominika.

  ‘I like best lemon cake,’ offered Javier, looking expectantly at Orla.

  ‘What? Jaysus.’ Orla tutted but was already on her feet. ‘Shut up, shut up!’ She flapped her hands at their sudden volubility. ‘I’m not taking orders. I’ll buy a selection of lemon cakes and brownies and nutty bastards and you can fight over them.’

  Queuing by the glass display case, Orla decided to pop into admin after this disastrous tutorial and beg again for access to some tiny corner of the college. Her students were lagging behind, and she was fearful for their results.

  ‘All of them, please,’ said Orla pointing to the straggling brownies left on a tray. ‘And seven lemon things. And four of those. Eat in.’

  The course needed to get back on track. And she needed to escape her iPad. If she’d joined a gym at the start of these unexpected three days of leisure she’d be part-way to a presentable arse by now. Instead, she’d drunk cup after cup of tea and tunnelled ever deeper into the underground seams of the internet.

  She hadn’t Googled all of Friday away; Marek had sneaked away from work to take her skating.

  ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she’d warned him, her ankles buckling like Bambi’s knees the instant she stepped out onto the ice.

  ‘Lean on me,’ he’d said.

  Marek was good, his style economical but graceful. Orla was bad, even worse than she’d worried she’d be, managing only a crouching mince. She knew her nose was cranberry and her knees hurt from a spectacular fall, which had made Marek want to guffaw. He’d held it in as he helped her up, but those dimples gave him away.

  ‘Here.’ Marek held out one arm, glided up behind her so that she leaned back on it, and took both her hands in his, wide, cruciform. ‘I’ll support you. Just lean on me. I can take it.’

  Off they went. She stumbled. Recovered. His body was long and hard and hinted at reserves of strength he didn’t bother to use, but could call upon. Orla was too busy trying to stay upright to steal a look at his face but she knew it would be serene, with that pout that stopped it being severe.

  What scares you? she’d wondered. And would you ever show it?

  ‘How much?’ she squeaked at the girl in the Starbucks apron. She pulled a couple of notes from her purse, swept a beady eye over her students, all happily impersonating the way she pronounced their names. They were worth it, she supposed.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m off out again, Maudie-poos.’ Orla peeped apologetically around the door of Maude’s eyrie.

  ‘Afraid?’ Maude’s neck lengthened at the word as she muted the television. She made barely a dent in her nest of sofa cushions. ‘Why afraid, dear?’

  ‘I haven’t been around much this week.’

  ‘Good!’ Maude laughed at Orla’s dismay. ‘Now, now, no gurning. You know I cherish your company but truly, I’d need a heart of stone to begrudge you your new romance.’

  Orla stepped into the room, coat on, scarf wrapped, already halfway to Marek’s in her mind. ‘You sure you’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’m not a china doll.’ Maude turned up the television again.

  ‘Why don’t you nip out somewhere? A bit of fresh air would do you—’

  ‘What would do me good is for you to stop wittering on.’ The look Maude gave Orla was blank, her hyacinth eyes cool. ‘Shoo,’ she added deliberately.

  Worrying about Maude, fretting that the woman never seemed to get out these days, consumed Orla for the whole of her tube journey.

  It was impossible, however, to brood with her bare bottom hard up against a kitchen cabinet and Marek inside her. A white bowl, a spiral of artful ridges, crashed to the floor. Neither noticed.

  ‘I love you,’ said Marek afterwards, as they stood clinging together, like survivors of a shipwreck. He pulled back far enough to see her eyes. His were weary and happy. ‘I really do, Orla. I love you.’

  Orla opened her mouth but found herself silenced by his finger on her lips.

  ‘You don’t have to answer,’ he whispered, and kissed her unhurriedly. ‘I just had to say it.’

  ‘The students will have a field day if I go in wearing the same clothes tomorrow.’ The mews was still and grave in the dark, its merry trellises grey. Orla hopped from foot to foot. ‘Go indoors, Rabbit, you’ll catch your death.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Marek shivered in a tee and boxers,
arms folded, shoulders hunched. ‘Bring a change of clothes next time. Promise? This feels like an excuse to run away.’

  ‘Why would I want to?’ Orla leaned in to him, bent her head back, offered him her lips, an offer he took. ‘I love your bed hair.’

  ‘Christ.’ Marek put a self-conscious hand to his Keith Richards pompadour.

  ‘I like you ruffled. I like knowing it was me who got you that way.’

  They kissed again, swaying.

  Orla knew her fringe was in her eyes, her mascara had bled Rorschach blots on to her cheeks, her nose was cherry red. She was suffused with feelings of gratitude towards Marek for loving her, just when she felt her most unworthy, her most discarded.

  But, thought Orla, how could the enchantment last? For enchantment it must be. Orla was a reserve. Sim had known her inside out, thoroughly road-tested her and concluded, Nah.

  A metallic purr announced the taxi rounding the corner of the mews.

  ‘Text me when you get inside your flat.’ Marek made a guttural noise in his throat. ‘You should have stopped me having that third glass. I could have driven you.’

  ‘The cabbie doesn’t look like a murderer to me, Marek.’

  ‘They’re the worst ones.’ He leaned in and gave the driver Maude’s address. ‘Do you have cash?’ he asked Orla, straightening up, patting his top and underwear as if there might be a stray tenner lurking somewhere.

  ‘Yes, yes, stop fussing and get back to bed. I’ll text you. Goodnight.’

  She saw him decide not to say it again as he kissed her chastely on the forehead and waved her off, but as the taxi jolted over the cobbles before joining the smoother, fleeter road, Orla knew he loved her.

  The cab stopped at the lights. She imagined Marek picking his barefoot way back to the rectangle of light stretching from his open front door, like a beachcomber hopping across hot sand. She leaned forward and tapped on the glass dividing her from the driver.

  ‘Actually, change of plan,’ she said, and named a road in Primrose Hill.