by Alice Castle
From Beth’s angle, several feet below in the water, Belinda’s breasts looked like the pyramids of Giza. Good for her if they were real. And good for her if they weren’t, Beth thought, trying to be fair, though she felt a moment’s sadness at any woman choosing surgery over nature. But at her age it was all very well thinking that way, she realised. She might have an entirely different take on it in a few decades when gravity had done its worst. Though she still probably wouldn’t have the money to change things.
Belinda’s perfectly executed dive sliced through Beth’s thoughts and, after a couple of lengths of flashy crawl, which displaced shoals of small children in its wake, she zoomed into the spot next to Beth’s clinging hand and bobbed elegantly in the water, smoothing her hair back from her face with an effortless rake of her red nails.
‘Isn’t it fabulous?’ she smiled.
‘Mm,’ said Beth, scanning the pool for Ben and Billy, and waving to them.
‘Ugh, you’re wrinkling up like a prune,’ said Belinda, catching sight of Beth’s fingers, which were indeed looking pretty wizened. ‘Maybe it’s time we got out.’
She put her hands on the side of the pool and levered herself out in one smooth movement, water dripping off the blinding costume in perfectly orchestrated rivulets. A daddy swimming nearby crashed into a group of old age pensioners and could be heard apologising profusely.
Beth abandoned any ideas of getting out like Belinda, and chugged round to the steps instead, her usual doggy paddle seeming even less elegant than usual today after her fright. Getting up the stainless-steel stairs was quite an effort, water flying in all directions from her suit, which she tried to hike up around the now alarmingly baggy crotch. This thing was definitely going in the bin the moment she got home, she decided. She looked down for a second, only to be confronted by escaping straggles from a lady garden that was definitely more of a wilderness than a pleasure park. In dread of showing off much more in public than she’d had to even while giving birth all those years ago, and in front of Belinda MacKenzie of all people, Beth yelled to Ben.
Luckily, he was quite docile as Billy, too, had been ordered out of the water, and he stood patiently by the steps, screening her from most eyes. Beth was then able to follow very closely behind him all the way back to the changing rooms, as her costume sagged in every conceivable place.
‘Want to come round tomorrow?’ she heard Ben asking Billy, somewhat to her chagrin. She had nothing against the boy; surprisingly enough, he was quite a sweetie, especially when he wasn’t with his brother, Bobby. But she wasn’t sure if she could cope with another dose of Belinda.
‘Nah, can’t. I’ve got an extra session with the tutor, then Mum says I’ve got to do at least two practice papers, then my piano lesson…’ The poor boy looked downcast.
Belinda, leading from the front, as ever, affected not to have heard the exchange, but Beth smiled to herself. So much for not doing a thing during the holidays! But did that mean she ought to up Ben’s game, get him slaving, too? The poor lad. She did feel he deserved a break. But it was now (or in a couple of weeks) or never, for Wyatt’s, wasn’t it?
True, they could attempt to get him in later, if Year 7 didn’t work out, but would they? One humiliation was probably enough. Beth sighed. She’d have to give it some serious thought. And there was really no point trying to discuss it with Harry. He wasn’t from Dulwich. He didn’t understand. He’d gone to a normal school, and that was fair enough. But she’d always dreamed, probably stupidly, that Ben would go to Wyatt’s. Had she just been setting him up for failure, all this time? She hoped not. She really, really hoped not.
Chapter Seven
Beth was scarfing down her second mince pie in the kitchen the next morning, and vowing that she’d start a new keep fit and grooming regime the moment the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, when the phone rang.
‘What you up to this afternoon?’ said a perky voice that was becoming familiar.
‘And hello to you, too, Nina. Um, I was just wondering what we’d do,’ said Beth, a bit indistinctly through the last mouthful of Mr Kipling’s pastry. ‘Park, maybe?’
‘Tell you what. Pop down here to the office. Himself’s going to be out all afternoon, he’s just told me. One of his mysterious meetings that I’m not allowed to ask about. You can come round, I’ll show you what’s what, then we can take the boys for a run-around in Sunray Gardens.’
It sounded like a lot more of a plan than Beth currently had. They rapidly agreed timings, and Beth put down the phone. It left just about a big enough window to drag Ben through his paces on a timed paper. English, maybe, that was definitely his Achilles heel. Or one of his heels. Unfortunately, she rather suspected that both their bodies were entirely made up of heels some days. Or should she have another mince pie and just let him lie fallow for a while longer? Maybe, like a medieval piece of land, he’d do all the better for being let alone for a spell. And that would give her time to catch up with Harry.
She dialled his number quickly, before she had time to worry too much, about him, Ben or just life in general, and was about to burst into speech when she realised she wasn’t listening to Harry live, but Harry recorded. He had one of those deceptive answering machines that sounded just like his normal telephone manner. She left a quick message, but there was no telling when he’d get back to her. He could be round the corner, dealing with a break-in at one of the enormous houses near the Picture Gallery – the ones she’d had an envious eye on her entire life – or he could be sorting out the aftermath of a knife fight in Deptford. It had been over four hundred years since Christopher Marlowe had come to grief in an argument over the bill in a tavern there, but some things never changed. She hoped Harry had his stab vest on. Then she smiled at herself. It was the equivalent of making sure Ben wore a jumper on a cold day. She just wanted to keep them all safe, happy, and warm.
They hadn’t managed to see each other now for days, which niggled at her. The relationship was in its fledgling stages; some would say the honeymoon period. Surely, at this point, they should be so wrapped up in each other that the outside world barely got a look in? But instead, they seemed to be involved in an endless game of telephone tag, with the occasional gooey late-night text message which, Beth admitted, made her heart beat faster.
In some ways, she was quite grateful for the snail’s pace progress of the romance – it meant that ticklish issues, like her recent dilemma over whether to invite Harry to the school Nativity, had been taken out of her hands. Bringing him with her would have been tantamount to announcing their engagement by loudhailer in Jane’s café on a Saturday lunchtime. Was she there yet? She’d been worrying about it for days when, as it turned out, he was on shift all along.
And they were, of course, playing it very carefully with Ben. So far, he showed every sign of thinking the sun shone out of Harry’s notebook – but Beth worried (of course) that all that would change once he finally sussed the nature of Harry’s relationship with his mother. Any nocturnal visits had been cut short by Harry tip-toeing out of the house long before dawn like one of the criminals he was always trying to catch, and romantic suppers had taken place only twice – both times when Ben was on a playdate at Charlie’s.
In some ways, Beth felt ridiculous keeping the whole thing from her son, as though he was a potentially psychotic, jealous rival. But the boy had had his mother all to himself for years now, and as an only child, he already found the concept of sharing a little mysterious. It was probably no accident that his greatest friend, Charlie, was a singleton, too. The boys did share well together, but both treated the act of taking turns like a massive favour one bestowed upon the other, in a rather ceremonial fashion. It wasn’t instinctive.
Secrets were definitely not good. Beth had had concrete experience of the trouble they caused in families, and she resolved that, as soon as the time was right, they’d be open about the situation, especially given that Nina had already made a few indiscreet comments within
earshot of Ben. There was a bit of a frisson, though, in having an illicit fling. She could see how people could become hooked on the sneaking around, the sidelong glances, the snatched messages and hidden rendezvous. It was like a naughty game, with some grown-up perks thrown in for the moments when they finally did manage to be in the same place at the same time. But she didn’t want to be a guilty secret forever; it felt a little grubby.
Grubby could be good – and the corners of her mouth twitched upwards as she reminisced about their last encounter – but she didn’t want Harry to be ashamed to be seen with her. That wasn’t it, was it? The reason why everything was still under cover, as it were? She shook her head, alone in the kitchen, apart from Magpie who was watching her through slitted eyes, glinting green. She was being silly.
And anyway, she was hardly after a huge declaration. She still felt quite tentative herself, at this point. If it had just been the two of them, she and Harry, then sure, she wouldn’t have minded sauntering down the street with him, hand-in-hand. But as it was, they needed to be circumspect. And maybe this was just destined to be a short fling? There’d been no sign from Harry, so far, that he harboured any long-term ambitions for them.
Beth had ample experience of commitment-shy behaviour from her brother, Josh, who’d avoided long-term entanglements as efficiently as oil declining to mingle with water. It wasn’t that he’d never fallen in love, just that he did it with extraordinary regularity, and it always lasted exactly two years from beginning to end. The first six months were perfection, bliss, and – for all she knew – endless sex. The next year was an escalation of misunderstandings and disagreements as the object of his affections realised they’d get so far and no further. And the final six months were consumed in the flames of resentment, anger, and bitterness. A couple of months off, once the relationship was well and truly dead – sometimes reduced to a couple of days – then Josh would be away again, having learned absolutely nothing at all, and with the next unfortunate girl thinking this time she’d found the one.
Beth had never discussed this cycle with Josh. What was the point? He was quite happy with the situation. Even the six-months-of-hell part was a thousand times harder on the girl (whichever one it was at the time) than it was on him, because he knew the score while she was just trying to piece clues together and work out where she’d gone wrong and how she could do things differently. One of the hardest things for Beth was that, ultimately, her sympathies had to lie with him, and not with whichever heartbroken woman he had in tow. He was her brother, after all. Blood was thicker, as they said. That wasn’t to say she approved, though. And if asked, which she tried to avoid if humanly possible, she would be as honest as she could with the girlfriend of the moment. She just hoped that Harry wasn’t in the same mould as Josh.
There was nothing at all, yet, that suggested he was or ever had been. His behaviour around colleagues had never hinted that any of them were exes (whereas Josh, as a photographer, had to avoid certain newsdesks these days as they were staffed by the ranks of the fallen), and she’d never noticed Harry giving any other woman the eye when she was around. Sadly, this couldn’t be said for Josh. Much though she deplored it, his internal workings were set to auto-flirt.
She hoped Ben hadn’t inherited any of the same propensities. He bounded into the kitchen, still in his Spiderman PJs and with his dark hair tousled, looking heart-breakingly like his dad. Beth felt the usual lump in her throat but converted it swiftly to a big smile. ‘Nearly time for you to get dressed, what do you think?’
‘Same to you, mum,’ Ben said, pointing to Beth’s ancient M&S dressing gown, which was now scattered with mince pie crumbs.
‘All right, I’ll do you a deal. First one to get dressed chooses what we’re having for lunch,’ and they both charged up the stairs, while Magpie moved with stately dignity towards her cat flap and all but rolled her eyes.
Ben was still running when they followed the road down to Herne Hill later. After the hideous drizzle of recent days, the blue sky was a treat, though the lack of cloud cover meant a piercing cold, which cut through Beth’s down coat with surgical precision. She sank her chin into her scarf and felt her eyes watering as the wind gusted up the hill and seemed to pass through her body. Thank heavens, they were soon at the frosted glass office. Beth paused with her hand on the door, trying to see whether Nina was right, and Potter was out. It was impossible to tell anything from outside. Yes, there was a blurred shape inside, but it could have been a yeti for all they could tell from here. She pushed their way in and the door gave a merry jingle. Nina bustled forward.
‘Wilf’s going to be so pleased to see you, he’s blimmin’ dying of boredom over there,’ she gestured at her son, who on the contrary was hunched over a phone and moving slightly from side to side as his fingers, in a blur, vanquished unknown foes.
Beth sighed as Ben looked up at her, eyes limpid with appeal. ‘Oh, go on then,’ she said, handing her phone over.
‘Wait, Nina, I thought you only had a brick phone?’
‘Yeah, that’s Potter’s old one, believe it or not. Wilf downloaded the app himself, he’s great with all that stuff. But come over here, let’s show you the popes.’
‘You are sure Potter’s not going to be coming back?’
‘Nah. Gone for the day, he has. Never comes back if it’s an afternoon appointment. Sometimes he’s barely in at all anyway. Acts like he owns the place.’
Beth raised her eyebrows at Nina.
‘Yeah, well. All right then, so he does own the place. But how does he keep it going, if he doesn’t do anything? I’m not exactly working my arse off while he’s out, I can tell you that much.’ She tapped a big slab of a paperback on the countertop to prove her point. It was Beth’s favourite type of reading matter, as long as she wasn’t being observed, that is. The cover was all menacing silhouettes, a shouty title and the statutory quote from another million-selling author saying, ‘I’m jealous I didn’t write this,’ or something similar. As a single mum who was solely responsible for checking under the beds for bogeymen, and as someone who could easily be kept awake for hours by an unauthorised creak from the floorboards, Beth knew she should give these books a very wide berth. But they were a guilty pleasure.
She turned the chunky volume over and read the blurb, the hairs rising pleasurably on the back of her neck. She shouldn’t let herself get distracted, though – potentially there was just as interesting a conundrum right here. She slapped the book back down and turned to Nina, all business. ‘So where do you think Potter is this afternoon?’
‘That’s the sixty-four-rupee question, innit? It’s a great big blimmin’ mystery, that’s what it is.’
Beth paused and wondered whether, at some stage, she would be able to work out whether Nina’s unique way with phrases was an accident or design thing. Now was probably not the moment. She didn’t feel she knew the other woman well enough yet to cross-question her and, as she’d just said, they had something else rather pressing on their hands. Despite Nina’s confidence, Beth was terrified that Potter would make a reappearance, so they needed to get on with it.
‘Ok, then, for now, how about you just show me the, erm, ropes, then I’ll try and work out what’s going on – if anything is. It could just be, well, something that has a perfectly reasonable explanation.’
Nina gave her a sidelong glance. ‘And that’s how things usually pan out, is it? It all turns out to be perfectly “reasonable”?’
Beth blushed, though it was hardly her fault that so much had happened in Dulwich recently, and that so little of it came under the heading of reasonable.
‘Well, no. There’s often more to things than meets the eye. And if you really think something’s off, well, then it’s worth investigating, isn’t it? Just in case.’
Nina nodded briskly, seemingly satisfied. But neither of them clarified what would happen if her suspicions did indeed prove correct. Beth, by this stage, felt she was quite used to flying by the seat of her
not inconsiderable pants – and that reminded her, she really ought to go underwear shopping if things with Harry continued. Nina, who seemed a little bit more of a planner, although that perhaps wasn’t saying an awful lot, didn’t reveal her thoughts about next stages. Instead, she got down to brass tacks.
‘Right,’ she said, yanking open the top drawer of her desk. ‘Here’s all the stuff you’d usually find – stapler, hole punch, calculator, pens, Post-its, paperclips… all that jazz. Gets a bit more interesting in the next drawer down.’
Beth perked up, only to sag again as Nina opened the next drawer on three of her current author’s previous works, all dog-eared and looking as though they might well have been read in the bath, as well as the office. She’d have to use all her strength to resist this much junk fiction. ‘In case things get dull. But down here, here’s where we finally get down to it. The files on current cases.’
The third drawer of the desk was arranged as a deep filing cabinet, taking full-sized A4 files containing loose-leaf sheets about current projects Potter was working on. Beth was looking forward to reading these. Not just because here might lie the solution to the mystery nagging at Nina. She hated to admit it, but she was, as ever, agog with curiosity. Who in the little charmed circle of Dulwich life was consulting a solicitor at the moment, and what for? And could anything here be at the root of Nina’s sense of unease?
The afternoon pottered on, with the boys fighting invisible enemies on their phones, and Beth getting increasingly irritated by Nina’s explanations of office processes. The only thing she didn’t pick up in seconds flat was the complicated telephone system. Even though the office was so small and there hadn’t been a single call since they’d got here, the switchboard was an enormous piece of apparatus, taking up half the counter, with buttons and switches galore.
