by Alice Castle
Eventually, Beth found her voice. ‘Well, congratulations! May I ask, who’s the lucky man?’ And how old is he? Beth wondered, but just about managed not to say.
‘Oh, I’ve got a couple on the go. Not sure which one it’ll be, but one of them’s going to pop the question in the next few days. That’s if they don’t pop their clogs first,’ said the lady, cackling with laughter, which rapidly turned into a fearsome hacking cough.
Beth, getting up to fetch some water, sincerely hoped none of the members of this love triangle were going to tarry with each other’s affections for too long. Delay could be fatal.
‘I’ve shocked you, in’t I? Bet you thought we was all too old for hanky-panky. Well, let me tell you, a Freedom Pass in’t just for the buses, love,’ said Beth’s client. She took the glass of water from Beth in an alarmingly shaky hand, sipping gingerly at it. It seemed to do the trick, the ferocious cough subsided to an occasional ghastly wheeze.
‘My chest’s been a nightmare, ever since that doctor got me to give up smoking. I told him, I did, the fags were the only things keeping the phlegm down. Would he listen? Pah.’
‘Oh, when did you give up?’ Beth asked politely, imagining the lady puffing her last during the Swinging Sixties or thereabouts.
‘It was just last week. Look here,’ she said, holding out a trembling arm, pushing back her coat sleeve with some difficulty, and displaying a couple of dog-eared nicotine patches stuck to her skin. The mothball aroma was suddenly a lot stronger. Beth wondered why it didn’t put suitors off, but maybe the sense of smell declined with the passing years?
She drew back in alarm. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re only supposed to wear one of those patches at a time.’
‘Nah, one wasn’t working. This is a bit more like it. But you haven’t got a fag on you, have you, darlin‘?’
‘Er, no, and um, maybe we should talk about the pre-nup? The thing is, I’m not entirely sure we do them, and even if we did, we’d have to wait until you were actually engaged. That is, I think so.’
‘So you don’t know? I thought I could just take a blank one, fill in the details as I go along. That way I’d be ready for any of them beggars. It’s like the January sales, sometimes, down at the sheltered housing. And I’m in a good position now that Ivy Penrose has passed.’
It was Beth’s turn to cough now. On the one hand, this was the only potential fee she’d laid eyes on since she’d been at the solicitor’s office. On the other, she was pretty sure this wasn’t how the law was supposed to work. And were pre-nups legally binding anyway?
‘If you don’t mind me asking, do you have the sort of level of assets that would make an agreement of this sort necessary?’
‘Well, no-one’s ever complained about me assets before, dearie,’ said the lady irrepressibly, looking down at her well-filled tweed coat, which did indeed seem to boast substantial bulges, even if they were at waist height. She immediately started to cackle again, this time more loudly than before. Beth wondered if she should pat her on the back, or feed her another sip of water, but when she got up to assist, the lady waved her away.
Just when Beth was starting to fear the pre-nup would be redundant and the old lady’s beneficiaries would have much preferred her to concentrate on brushing up that Post Office will, the bell jangled, and Potter loomed in the doorway.
‘Ah, glad you’re holding the fort there, Beth. Had to pop out. Some trouble with Lancelot.’
‘But isn’t he dead?’ Beth blurted.
Potter gave her a sharp look. ‘Yes. Very sadly. But the vet wanted to discuss an… um, issue, that’s come up, something to do with the circumstances. But there was a huge queue, then the same again in the chemist when I went to pick up my prescription… Look, if I give it to you, could you nip out for it? Meanwhile, I’ll take care of Mrs, erm?’
‘It’s Miss,’ said the old lady archly, recovering magically from her coughing jag now there was a man in the room. She got up from her seat as though she was on springs and allowed herself to be ushered ceremoniously to Potter’s office, with him gallantly wheeling her shopping trolley, after momentary surprise when he felt the weight of Orlando’s cat food haul. At the door, she turned and gave Beth a smirk. It looked as though she was going to get her pre-nup, even if she died doing it.
Beth was a bit reluctant to leave the office while this interesting side-show was going on, but now that it had moved into Potter’s inner sanctum she was excluded anyway. She got up and couldn’t help herself, stooping over to retrieve the largest bits of leaf that had been wheeled in and throwing them in her bin. As far as she knew, it wasn’t her job to clean the office – Nina had been vague on this point – but she was incapable of sitting and staring at clumps of dirt. She took the slip of pink paper from her desk, threw on her coat and scarf, and looped her bag over her arm.
The cold was really biting now as dusk fell, the Matisse sky gone and replaced by a blue-black backdrop, the colour of the Quink ink cartridges Beth remembered from school. Wow, that seemed a long time ago. The bare fingers of the trees stood out starkly, but a couple of strings of clashing Christmas lights strung across the shop facades added an artificial glow, and reminded Beth she hadn’t done a thing to get ready and the 25th was looming. She shook her head to try and banish such thoughts and walked quickly to the chemists, choosing the one on her side of the road. Maybe there’d be some stocking fillers here she could snap up while she was waiting.
It was a relief to get in out of the cold. The windows of the shop streamed with condensation, giving the interior a cosy fug, and she handed over the prescription to a smiling assistant and turned to see if there was anything here that might make a small boy grin on Christmas morning. Apart from a small stand of make-up, which she felt quite drawn to inspecting for herself, there was very little for Beth to pause over. Ben was too old for Minions bubble bath; too young, thank goodness, for the Family Planning section; would definitely not appreciate any of the nit-repelling sprays she was quite tempted to invest in; and would throw a toothbrush out of his stocking without even giving it a cursory glance. Things had been a lot easier when he’d been tiny and didn’t have to keep one eye on ‘coolness’ and what other kids would think of his bag of swag.
The best Christmas, and almost the easiest (apart from the two-hourly feeding and changing rigmarole), had been his first. As doting new parents who greeted their miraculous child’s every move as proof that he was a rare genius, she and James had bought him ridiculous quantities of toys and been mildly miffed when he’d spent forever playing with one tiny scrap of Rudolph-infested gift wrap, crumpling it in tiny hands, dropping it, picking it up, attempting to eat it, and then repeating the whole sequence until even his captive, captivated audience had had enough.
Beth felt the usual needle of guilt now, as she remembered James. She drifted over to the make-up display, picked up a mascara and unscrewed it, peering at the bristling wand without really seeing it. James’d been such a wonderful dad. And he’d been a lovely man. She’d had a moment recently when she’d wondered if things would have lasted between them, if he hadn’t gone and died on her like that. She’d even decided that things had become a bit stale. But now, she realised that she’d probably needed to think that, in order to liberate herself from James’s ghostly embrace. She’d had to turn away from the image of him as a perfect husband and father, see him as a flawed human being just like everyone else, in order to move on – into someone else’s arms. It had been hard, and she’d probably been too harsh to James’s memory. But she’d been too misty-eyed about him before. She hoped now that she’d finally achieved some sort of balance. It was hard getting perspective on things. And perhaps it was even harder if you weren’t particularly tall, she thought, with a self-indulgent smile.
She put back the mascara, which was probably now a bit dry, and looked at an eyeshadow palette. Everyone seemed to do these at the moment – acres of tones of beige, sliding up gradually to muddy browns. It reminded her o
f the décor of the office, and she put it back. Next, she looked at a contouring kit. Blimey. She couldn’t imagine how these brick reds and dark greys could ever translate to cheekbones and chiselled noses – well, not in her hands, anyway. She’d be safer with a lipstick. But no, even these were either too dark or too sparkly. Feeling pickier than Goldilocks, and a bit disappointed as it had been ages since she’d had new makeup to play with, Beth screwed the last bullet-shaped lipstick back into its case and turned sadly away.
‘Um, prescription for Potter?’ said the assistant at the counter. Beth walked up with a smile. ‘Are you Mrs Potter?’ the young woman said, the light glinting off a delicate gold ring in her nostril.
‘Er, no, but he asked me to pick it up for him.’
The girl frowned and scanned the creased prescription, smoothing it out with her hands, pretty pink nails catching the light. She turned it over, then back again. ‘I’ll just check this. Won’t be a second.’
Beth nodded a little blankly, wondering what the problem was, but content to wait. The shop was all but empty now, with just one forty-something woman pottering around the cold cures. There were a few little packets of sweets at the counter that might do for Ben, if she was desperate. And she pretty much was at this point, she admitted to herself, with Santa’s sleigh so close she could almost hear the bells.
She quickly selected a couple of the bags and lined them up to pay for. There was some murmuring from the back office, and Beth was sure she heard the word ‘Potter’. The door between the shop and pharmacy area wasn’t completely shut.
It was too hard to resist. She sidled round the counter, trying to look as if she wasn’t, and got as close as she could to the back-room door, pretending she was scrutinising the shelves closest to it. Unfortunately, as she soon discovered, these were generously laden with laxatives and their opposites which, she remembered from a long-ago crossword clue, were called costives. Her late father, who’d suffered from a dicky tummy (possibly due to the fry-ups which eventually did for his arteries), had bluntly called these ‘cork pills’.
She picked up a box of Imodium and pretended she was desperately interested in the small print. ‘Capsules to restore your body’s natural rhythm,’ read the euphemistic blurb. She turned the carton this way and that, while straining her ears to hear the muted conversation from the back room. ‘…Sent someone else in for it this time.’ ‘Is it the usual? The Zimmer frame?’ Then the handle was turned, and the door abruptly clicked shut, cutting off the sound of voices.
At the same moment, someone came into the shop, out of the cold, and bustled over to the counter. It was a mother that Beth was on nodding terms with, her Year 1 child cavorting around her. Beth smiled at her, realising she probably knew Nina. The woman beamed back initially, then noticed Beth clutching the tell-tale jumbo pack and averted her gaze, embarrassed.
A second later, the shop assistant came out of the back room like a jack-in-the-box and almost bumped into Beth, who rapidly back-tracked and then bumped into the little Year 1 lad, who set up a fearsome wail. His mother stooped to comfort him and couldn’t resist sending a daggers dart in Beth’s direction.
Beth, by now scarlet and still clutching the massive carton of anti-diarrhoea treatment, sidled back to the proper position at the counter and tried to pretend lots of difficult things weren’t happening at the same time. The assistant fixed her with a professional-looking smile, her eyes dropping only once to the medication. ‘I’m really sorry, but Mr Potter hasn’t filled in the part authorising you to pick up the medicine for him.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
Beth blinked. Was this the only problem? ‘Um, well, can I just fill that in now? What do you need, my name and address?’
‘I’m sorry, no, he has to do it, and he has to sign it, too.’ Beth thought for a minute. This was a pain, and Potter was not going to be thrilled.
‘Is there any way round this? I can get him on the phone and he can authorise me? He’s just up the road in his office.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said the girl sympathetically. ‘But we can’t really do anything, our hands are tied. Sorry. Would you like me to ring that up for you?’ she said neutrally, studying the box in Beth’s hands.
‘Oh! No thanks, I was just, erm, looking…’ said Beth, putting the packet down hurriedly. ‘Are you sure you can’t just give me the prescription?’
‘I’m sorry, no,’ said the girl firmly, her tone final, as she looked over Beth’s shoulder to the Year 1 mum, saying a little sharply, ‘Yes? Can I help you?’
Beth had no choice but to take the sheet of paper back and shove it into her pocket. As she turned to leave, empty-handed, the other mother steadfastly avoided Beth’s eyes. Oh dear. That probably made one fewer friendly face to talk to in the playground when Katie was away, and on top of that, she had to make her way back to the office empty-handed. She’d concentrated so hard on her eavesdropping and been so eager to distance herself from the Imodium, that she’d ended up forgetting to buy the sweets for Ben. But just before she turned up the road to the solicitors, she’d remembered her earlier mishap – the coffee. She trailed down to the Sainsbury’s, investing a much-begrudged fiver in a lurid, shocking pink aerosol that promised to get any stain out of any surface. We’ll see about that, she thought with a harrumph.
Oh well, at least having a real client in the office might have cheered Potter up, though the prospects of making any money out of the lady and her pre-nup seemed extremely slim. Beth was pretty sure that off-the-peg forms weren’t really a thing, in the UK at least, and even if they were, one of her prospective suitors would not only have to go down on one knee – quite possibly a perilous operation in itself – but also live long enough to sign on the dotted line, and then make it all the way to the altar as well.
Beth wasn’t altogether surprised to find that there was no trace of their recent customer when she got back to the office, apart from a few remaining shreds of mulch. She could spray that with her aerosol while she was at it. And that might rather sneakily cover up the mopping operation from her coffee mishap, if Potter had failed to notice the lingering scent of the spilled liquid and the suspicious darker patch under her desk.
She knocked on Potter’s door, popped her head round, and explained briefly what had happened in the chemists – leaving out salient points like the eavesdropping, the Imodium, and its impact on her social standing – and watched his face fall. He wiped a hand over his features, a characteristic gesture she was coming to recognise, then pulled himself together and said with false heartiness that it didn’t matter a jot.
‘Anything you need to finish up, Beth? If not, then why don’t you make a move? And then tomorrow will be the last day before we shut up shop for Christmas. Not sure whether you’ll be back with us after that, will you? Or will Nina be back in play?’
‘Oh, I think Nina will be returning to the helm, don’t you worry,’ said Beth, equally jovially. ‘I’ve got a couple of reports to finish, but if you don’t mind, I might get to them tomorrow morning. First thing when I get in, of course,’ said Beth. ‘Just got to fetch my son from the childminder’s now,’ she added, not letting on that his office manager and her nanny were, surprisingly enough, one and the same person.
‘Of course, of course, must be tricky juggling,’ said Potter, trying to sound sympathetic but actually just coming over, as far as Beth was concerned, as insufferably smug. He didn’t have her logistical problems, as he had a wife at home. Not for the first time, Beth wished she did, too. Or a helpmeet, she supposed; she wasn’t too fussed about gender. Someone on her team who could take up the odd centimetre of slack every now and again. It would be a long time, if ever, before Harry played any part in her childcare arrangements. Until then, it was her and Ben contra mundum.
As Beth trundled off in search of Ben, she kept thinking that she’d missed something important somewhere. Was it something that their unexpected bride-to-be had come out with? Her mouth quirked irresistibly at the corners as she r
eplayed that scene. And Nina would love it, too. No, it wasn’t their new client, good value though she’d been. Was it Potter’s terrifying, almost murderous rage, this morning? No, once he’d calmed down, that had all been fine. And so little else had happened. The deadening effect of office life crashed in on her.
She was lucky, she realised yet again, that her job at Wyatt’s was so flexible. Much more so than her employers had ever imagined or wanted, she thought briefly, but she waved that airily from her mind. Even though, to all intents and purposes, it was just as much office-bound as her current post, it allowed her oceans of licence by comparison. She had carte blanche to nip out whenever she liked, sometimes with unforeseen consequences. And if any reports had to be typed, well, she only had herself to blame if they were dull, as she wrote every word herself.
She’d always tried to value her little job, but now she would be thanking her lucky stars every time she opened her office door, with her own key, that she hadn’t hidden somewhere like a crazy fictional cat.
As she walked up the road towards Nina’s place – realising that you only really appreciated that Herne Hill was hilly when you were walking up towards Dulwich, after a long day at work – a thought continued to nag away at her. There was something, somewhere, that she’d missed. What on earth could it be?
Just then, a mum in a hurry swerved past her, almost dragging her little girl by the arm. Either they were in one of the few after-school clubs that hadn’t stopped for the Christmas break, or they were rushing for a train at North Dulwich station. Maybe a holiday treat, like one of the West End shows. Beth had taken Ben to see The Lion King a couple of years ago, and they’d both been mesmerised by the elegance of the drifting giraffes moving across the stage.
Just as they overtook, the mother clipped Beth’s leg with a bulging plastic bag. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said, as Beth inwardly winced but outwardly apologised back for getting in the way of the woman’s collection of unfeasibly sharp objects. That was going to bruise, Beth cursed, as she rubbed her shin ruefully. But wait a minute. That white plastic bag had had a green cross on it. From the chemists.
