Perfect Daughter

by Amanda Prowse

  The two women wandered along the busy platform at Paddington, marvelling at the station’s grand metal roof.

  ‘Isn’t this beautiful, G?’ Jacks looked skyward.

  ‘Course it is. Designed by old Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who also designed our very own Clifton Suspension Bridge. Come on, West Country!’ Gina shouted.

  ‘Did he help design the Leaning Tower of Pisa by any chance?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’ Jacks smiled and thought about Jonty. ‘Actually, Gina, I could do with nipping to the loo.’

  They navigated the crowds, ducking to avoid the wonky-legged pigeons that homed in on anyone eating food, and made their way to the toilets on the other side of Platform 12. Gina stared at the turnstile barring her entry.

  ‘Thirty pence for a wee? Are you kidding me?’ she asked at a volume that caused stares. ‘I’d rather wait till we get back to Weston and go for free!’

  A businesswoman in a suit walked around the giggling pair and deposited her change in the slot.

  ‘Jeez!’ Gina wasn’t done. ‘This is daylight robbery! I don’t earn enough to wee in this city! Come on, you’ll just have to cross your legs.’ She took Jacks by the arm and marched her away.

  ‘I love London!’ Gina shouted as they stepped on to the escalator down to the Tube.

  ‘I’m a bit scared of the Underground,’ Jacks confessed as they queued for their one-day travelcards.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Jacks fidgeted with her scarf. ‘Apart from the fact that I might wet myself, I suppose cos it’s so busy and I always think I’m going to get lost or pushed on to the track!’

  Gina laughed loudly, then removed her friend’s pashmina and used it to tie their wrists together. ‘There. Now you can’t get lost. You are tied to me and if you go over the edge, we go together. Happy?’

  Jacks giggled at her mate. ‘Happier,’ she admitted, raising their joined wrists. ‘I feel like a toddler!’

  ‘Don’t talk to any strangers!’ Gina yelled, much to the amusement of everyone else in the queue.

  The two made their way across town from Paddington, first heading east on the District Line and then changing to the Docklands Light Railway. The women were fascinated by the crowds of people huddled together in such an enclosed space; they made a plan in case they got separated.

  The closer they got to the exhibition centre, the sicker Jacks felt. She placed her hand on her stomach and exhaled. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘No you’re not! I will not let you go in there smelling of sick. You are going to be fine and confident and cool and you are going to march up to him and say casually, “Well I never, Brains! Fancy seeing you here!” or something less crap, but make it sound as though you are just bumping into him, okay?’

  Jacks giggled. ‘As if I’d just bump into him! I never go anywhere like this!’

  ‘But he doesn’t know that, does he?’ Gina squealed.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to see him, not now. Can we just not go in?’

  ‘No! We are going in. This is one of those things that might make you feel like pants before you do it, but afterwards you’ll be really glad you did. You just need to dig deep and find the courage, like diving off the high board.’

  ‘I never dived off the high board. I never got the confidence.’ Jacks looked at her friend.

  ‘Well, you should have, it was brilliant. And this is going to be brilliant too. Just go for it. You’ll be okay.’

  Jacks nodded, feeling far from okay. ‘I feel like I did at the school disco, waiting for someone to ask me to dance, clinging to the wall while they played Dr Hook, trying to be invisible while you snogged the face off Richard Frost.’

  Gina stared at her friend. ‘Are you stark, staring mad? What are you on about? Urgh! Richard Frost? I never did!’

  ‘You did so! I saw you!’

  ‘Have you seen him recently? He runs the arcade on the pier.’ Gina shuddered. ‘I mean, he’s nice looking in an Elvis kind of way, but the worst bloke to get off with in the world! Like snogging a double-mouthed octopus! Not that I would know, because I never kissed him.’ She coughed to clear her throat.

  ‘Just think, G, if you’d stuck with him, you could have had free rides on the waltzers whenever you wanted, you’d have saved yourself a fortune!’ Jacks laughed, forgetting her guilt, enjoying herself.

  They joined the end of a snaking queue.

  ‘Oh God, I mean it, I really don’t want to go in!’ Jacks gripped Gina’s arm.

  ‘Well, you are going in. I shall make you. So that’s your choice: you either stroll in and look confident or I’ll sling you over my shoulder and deliver you, fat arse first, on to his big posh boat, dumping you like a bag of eels. Which would you prefer?’

  Once again Jacks was giggling. ‘Stop it, G! You know I need the loo!’

  ‘Anyway, if you feel nervous, just think of those horrible hand-knitted jumpers that he used to wear. He looked like a right plonker!’

  ‘Yeah, a right plonker who left Weston and has this amazing life! Bet he spends hours wishing he’d had a shop-bought jumper like everyone else and was now running the arcade on the pier like Richard Frost who you snogged the face off!’

  ‘Shut up! I never did!’ Gina shouted a little too loudly.

  Both women collapsed against each other in giggles, for the second time that day, drawing stares from those around them in the queue.

  The exhibition hall was much bigger than Jacks had imagined. Vast and echoey, with rows and rows of stands staffed by yachting types who all seemed to be sporting tanned faces and forearms with pale-coloured jumpers draped over their shoulders. They spoke loudly and confidently and seemed to know each other, gesturing and shouting over the heads of the throng. She felt as far out of her depth as it was possible to feel.

  ‘Right, this is where we split up. You go find lover boy.’

  ‘Please don’t call him that!’ Jacks glanced over her shoulder, although she had to admit that the chances of bumping into any of Pete’s work colleagues from the building site were pretty slim.

  Gina laughed. ‘I’m only teasing you. You go find Brains and I’ll be in the bar in the middle. I’ll wait for you, no rush. Come there when you’re ready, okay?’

  Jacks nodded. She felt sick and scared. Pulling at her T-shirt front, she smoothed invisible creases from it and adjusted her pashmina before wiping the sweat from her hands on the front of her jeans and swiping a finger under her nose.

  ‘You look lovely, mate. You really do. Be confident, be sexy and kick ass!’

  ‘Who do you think I am? Angelina Jolie? I’m Jacqueline Davies from Weston. I don’t do sexy or kick ass, I gather up the dirty washing and cook the tea!’

  ‘Go!’ Gina patted her friend’s bum as she half shoved her into the crowd.

  Jacks studied the little map in her hand. ‘L34,’ she repeated out loud as she wandered up and down the similar-looking aisles. Stalls demonstrating the latest nautical navigation aids and others selling everything from deck shoes to life vests were packed side by side. Jacks wandered aimlessly, trying to get her bearings, only realising she was retracing her steps when something she had already passed caught her eye.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered under her breath.

  ‘Need any help?’ A confident-looking boy in a pale blue Boat Show polo shirt was grinning at her and waving his clipboard.

  ‘Thanks, my love. I’m looking for L34, can’t seem to make head nor tail of this little map thing!’

  ‘Ooo arr, me hearties! You sound like a pirate. I love it!’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your voice! You’ve got a pirate accent!’

  Jacks stared at the boy. It wasn’t a plum he had in his gob but rather the whole tree. She thought of what Pete would say: ‘And you sound like a proper knob.’ Jacks smiled and marched forward. Confidence stirred in her stomach. Pirate indeed!

  With her head held high, she scanne
d the white signs above each exhibit, eventually reaching a large enclosure housing a vast yacht, marked off with a cordon of thick, royal-blue rope set into shiny chrome stands – the kind she had seen at film premieres on the telly. The whole thing shone under a canopy of twinkling spotlights.

  ‘L34,’ she whispered. She folded the map into her handbag and took a deep breath. For the first time she noticed all the pretty girls who were standing around, every one of them with long legs and long hair and wearing matching pink T-shirts and short white shorts. They held little silver trays filled with glasses of sparkling plonk and were handing them with a bobbed curtsey and a cute smile to the crowds of men gathered round the boat, all of whom seemed to be dressed in similar navy blazers and toffee-coloured chinos. Other girls had stacks of glossy brochures balanced in their arms, which they waved enticingly at visitors carrying plastic bags already straining under the weight of free booty.

  Jacks had never been one for boats, despite having lived by the sea her whole life. Her maritime experience was limited to a quick circuit of the Marine Lake in Pete’s mate’s canoe every once in a while, but that was just to please Pete. Give her solid ground any day. This boat, however, was something else. Its sheer size was breathtaking. Her eyes counted fifteen shiny chrome-edged portholes along the hull and she wondered what lay within. She looked up on to the deck, where a clutch of shiny-haired people with toothpaste-white smiles raised glasses, trilled laughter and chatted. In that instant, something caught her eye. Her stomach dropped. She exhaled, her mouth dry as her hands shook.

  It was only a glance, one tiny sighting in the crowd of a shape so familiar that even the glimpse was enough to leave her winded. She had pictured him every day for so many years, held his face and every detail of him in her mind, so much so that after all this time, all it took was a brief sighting of the back of his head, his hand raised, a slight nod, and she knew it was him. She felt quite lightheaded until she remembered to breathe.

  It didn’t matter that it had been nearly two decades since the breath had last caught in her throat like this and her heart had danced such a crazy rhythm; it was as if that time had been erased. Things she had quite forgotten were suddenly crystal clear again. She was once again engulfed in the scent of the cheap white musk perfume that they’d both loved. She was lost in a world of mix tapes and innocence, of school uniforms and rushing home for tea, of hurried, desperate kissing wherever and whenever possible, of lying on a pale-blue daybed with the sun streaming through the vast kitchen window, and of restless nights, beset by whirring thoughts, her mind occupied by the promise of a glittering future, on a ranch in Montana, where the fireflies danced… That future had shone like an orb, always slightly out of reach – to her at least. But from what she saw in front of her now – the glamour, the undeniable smell of money – it seemed that Sven had grabbed it and run with it, just like he’d said he would.

  Jacks stood still, like prey unsure whether it had been spotted, hoping that if she stayed like that long enough, no one would notice her. Him included. She didn’t dare move as she studied the crowd, trying to spot him again.

  ‘Hello.’ She looked down towards the man that stood only five feet from her. She hadn’t seen him leave the deck, but there he was, in front of her, just as she had imagined him on so many nights. His voice had changed. It was deeper and a Californian drawl now muted his Swedish accent.

  Jacks raised her hand; her tongue remained stuck to the roof of her mouth, making speech impossible. She couldn’t speak, let alone kick ass. Definitely more Jacqueline from Weston than Angelina bloody Jolie.

  He smiled his easy smile and his eyes crinkled. His clothes looked expensive and he wore them with casual elegance; his shirt buttons were undone at the top and his hands were now pushed into his jeans pockets. His shoulders were raised, his arms straight, emphasising his broad shoulders and slender form. He wore suede Gucci loafers that were old but well looked after, and no socks. Not a hand-knitted jumper in sight. Deeply tanned, he looked like someone who had just come back from a foreign holiday. The scent of good living wafted off him.

  Jacks was suddenly aware of her crow’s feet, her home-dyed highlights and the cheap wedding ring that felt very heavy on her finger and appeared to pulse with a life of its own. She instinctively covered it with her other hand.

  She ran through lines in her head. What should she say? What had she practised? ‘It’s been a long time… I found you…! Here we are then…’ Jacks drew breath to speak when his voice sliced through the air.

  ‘Welcome to our home for the next few days!’ He raised his hands and with his arms outstretched indicated the yacht behind him. ‘I’m Sven Lundgren, CEO of Somniorum Yachts. Do you have an appointment?’ he asked casually, his eyes wide, his smile warm.

  ‘An… an appointment?’ she repeated, staring at him. ‘No. No I don’t. I didn’t know I’d need one.’ She shook her head, her eyes on the floor.

  He looked back at the boat. ‘Well, I think you’re in luck. We can squeeze you in. Come with me,’ he ordered.

  Jacks had forgotten that about him, the way he could speak with such authority that others did his bidding. It made her feel a little weak and she liked it.

  ‘Have you come far?’ he asked casually over his shoulder, waving to people as he navigated the crowd.

  Yes… I’ve travelled for years – nineteen years of my life – to be here today… ‘Not really. From the West Country. We came on the train, just for the day.’

  She felt her cheeks blush. Exchanging small talk as if he was a stranger was excruciating. Jacks wasn’t sure what was going on. Was he waiting to greet her somewhere more private? Then something inside her snapped. He wasn’t taking her somewhere for a private reunion – he didn’t recognise her! Her mouth was dry and the blood seemed to drain from her head, sending an icy cold quiver right through her. She wanted to disappear. Her mind raced as she tried to think of something to say that would break the awkward silence.

  ‘I thought I recognised the accent,’ he said. ‘I lived there once myself, a long time ago.’

  ‘I doubt it’s changed much.’ Jacks tried to keep the warble from her voice. For God’s sake, shut up, Jacks, you sound pathetic. Of course it hasn’t changed. Nothing ever happens there and nothing ever happens to you.

  ‘Are you buying today?’ He turned to her, bright voiced and wide eyed.

  She twisted her wedding ring with the back of her thumb. Buying! Me, who trawls the supermarket for bargains and adds up everything in my head before it so much as touches the basket on Mum’s lap? ‘No. Just… just looking.’

  ‘That’s the fun part, yes!’ He nodded his head and tapped his chin with his manicured finger. ‘Making the decision, thinking about the detail? It’s like accessories shopping and I think women enjoy that bit the most, am I right?’ He grinned.

  Jacks stared at him. She was not enjoying anything, and was unsure if she ever would again. She was broken, distraught, embarrassed beyond belief and wishing that she’d never come. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you live in the West Country?’ he asked, sounding more polite than interested.

  ‘Yes.’ Only a few streets from where I grew up, from where we went to school, from where you held me and made me feel alive and told me I would go on a great journey. She concentrated on making one foot follow the other, following him up a narrow, shiny gangplank when all she really wanted to do was run in the opposite direction.

  ‘Let me show you around.’ There was a flash of coolness in his manner.

  Jacks followed him down to a kitchen that was decked out with every conceivable mod con. ‘It’s a big kitchen for a boat,’ she noted, awkwardly, hardly able to think of what to say. But not as big as the one where we lay together and you made me love you.

  ‘Yes, it’s the biggest galley on any private yacht on the commercial market. But you need something this size when you’re entertaining large numbers and the boat sleeps sixteen guests, plus staff.’

&n
bsp; ‘Sixteen? Gosh.’ She thought of her little house in Sunnyside Road that had trouble accommodating five. ‘How much would a boat like this cost?’ She tried to sound interested, wanting to get the exchange over as quickly as possible so she could leave.

  Sven shrugged his shoulders. ‘Upwards of forty million. Depends on the technology package – you can double that at the top end.’

  Jacks shook her head. So much money and yet the words tripped off his tongue with ease. They were from different worlds and always had been. She considered their own nest egg, which had diminished a little because of Christmas, down now to seven thousand pounds. She doubted that would be enough for even one of his fancy chrome portholes. ‘I don’t get technology. Any technology. It mystifies me.’

  He reached for a glossy brochure, flipping it open to show her a diagram. Standing close to him was like torture. She felt her stomach flip.

  ‘We design our systems so they are very intuitive. The panels in each zone are the same, so you only have to learn it once. You can control every element of the boat from the central hub in the main salon, all from the comfort of your armchair. For example, you can alter the deck lighting to suit your mood – there’s a rainbow of colours; you can switch on the hot tub, get it warmed up; and you can even programme the sound system in the bathrooms. All with one touch of a button.’

  ‘Don’t think I could manage it, no matter how easy you’ve made it.’ She studied his temples where his hair had thinned and noted the weathering of his skin, the result of a life in the sunshine, no doubt.

  ‘I’m sure you could.’ He smiled, politely.

  Jacks shook her head. ‘Don’t think so. It took me ages to figure out how to release the arm on my mixer and that’s just one button. If there’s a power cut, I can’t use the cooker as I don’t know how to reset the clock and it won’t switch on without that. I can’t answer the kids’ phones, and I don’t understand why we have two remote controls for the telly. Sometimes I fancy a bit of Flog It! while I’m ironing, but after five minutes of pressing different buttons trying to figure out how to switch it on, I give up and put the radio on.’ She was aware she was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop, nervous of what might happen if she did.