by Jenny Oliver
‘What?’
‘Your dad’s on here.’
‘No!’ Anna made a face of horror.
‘Shall I put him in my Yes pile?’ Hermione laughed.
‘Don’t you dare.’
‘He’s a silver fox if ever I saw one. You know, I’d forgotten how handsome he is.’
‘Hermione, you’re talking about my father.’
‘I know and he’s a dish. Perhaps I could have a torrid fling with him.’
‘Hermione, don’t even thi—’ Anna paused, her hand hovering over the screen of her iPhone on the picture that had just appeared in front of her.
‘What?’
Anna didn’t reply.
‘What? What’s happened?’
She stared at the face that had popped up, thick dark hair all messy and lightened at the tips from too much time in the sun. Desert Storm fatigues, huge white-toothed grin, pale lips cracked, face tanned around goggle marks. ‘Nothing,’ she said to Hermione.
‘Don’t give me that. Who is it? Who have you seen?’
‘Luke.’
‘Luke Lloyd?’ She could hear the delight in Hermione’s tone. ‘The delightful Mr Lloyd back from saving the world and looking for sex. How marvellous. You must Yes him.’
Anna shook her head. ‘I’m not going to Yes him. I’m not Yes-ing anyone.’
‘Why not? You should meet up with him, show him what he’s missing. Show him what a glamour puss you’ve become.’
Anna looked down at her dirty cargo shorts and made a face at the idea of ever being referred to as a glamour puss again.
‘I couldn’t do it to Seb. ’
‘Seb schmeb,’ Hermione sighed. ‘He doesn’t even have to know. Email me a screen shot so I can see Luke.’
A few minutes later, after some convoluted and irritated instructions from Hermione teaching her how to take a screen shot and then how to email it, they were both staring at the same image.
‘He was always a delight. Always. And so exciting. Nettleton would have been unbearable if he hadn’t been around. You should do it, just meet him for coffee.’
‘Hermione, I’m engaged.’
There was a pause. ‘Anna. What did you do today? In fact, don’t tell me, it’ll make me ill. Just think what you would have done had you been here. What are you doing now? Let me tell you what I’m imagining and you can tell me where I’m wrong. Stop me anytime.’ There was a clinking noise as she assumed Hermione was taking a sip of her drink. ‘You’re in that crummy shop and, day to day, maybe one, two people come in. No one buys anything and if they do it’s a ghastly side-table or figurine. Tonight you’ll go home and sit in the garden, the scrap of lawn has possibly been trimmed recently with a Flymo or some other suburban tool. There are bedding plants in various arrays of life and death. Perhaps a fruit tree at the far end, which makes you convince yourself that you’ll make jam at some point and become a domestic goddess when really you’ll get fat and never eat the fruit because it will get some kind of disease or the apples will be too sour. I imagine there are birds tweeting and cows mooing which is all very lovely if you ignore the smell. I know that smell, Anna, I lived with that smell for eighteen years. And I bet your fence is just low enough for some busybody neighbour to stick her head over and say hello, bitch about someone in town or tell you that her colicky baby had her up all night. You haven’t stopped me yet, Anna. Let me think about you. The wine in your fridge is the only white wine you could find in the town, perhaps a Hardys or, if you’re lucky, an Oxford Landing. It’s warm because it’s so fricking hot that you can’t keep it cool enough, and, oooh I know, I bet you’ll lie on one of those ghastly sun-loungers that had brown and orange flowers on it and spiders that live in the metal fold-out posts while Seb watches the rugby or plays on his PlayStation. Am I close?’
Anna had shut her eyes. ‘He sold the PlayStation.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’ Hermione snorted a laugh.
‘Shall I tell you what I’m doing? Anna, I’m sitting on the balcony of my flat, the Thames looks beautiful, the sun just catching the water. I can see the Houses of Parliament and the wheel, the sky is red. Actually red, like someone’s squashed a handful of cherries and smeared it over the sky.’
‘That’s very artistic.’
‘Well I don’t work at Sotheby’s for nothing, darling. I am sitting on an Adirondack chair and I have my feet up on the glass wall of my balcony. And I have next to me a bottle of Bollinger in a cooler and a glass that I am topping up little by little so it doesn’t warm. And, later, my darling, don’t get jealous, I am popping to a party on the top floor of the Gherkin where the alcohol will be free and the Michelin-starred canapés my dinner.’
‘OK, that’s enough, thank you.’ Anna watched the marmalade cat perk up as the bell rang above the door and someone came in, nodding a greeting as she glanced over.
‘Put him in your Yeses, Anna. Seb doesn’t have to know. You need to grab yourself a little excitement while you still can. Before you forget, Anna. Before your waist starts thickening and you think getting 50p off your cappuccino because the milk wouldn’t froth is a bargain.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, looking back at the photo of Luke and trying to ignore the feeling that his crazy, action-packed existence conjured inside her, the taste of adrenaline and adventure in her mouth, the idea of slipping into something new, something chic and expensive and strutting into some bar and making him realise what he had given up in search of Sandhurst officer training and army fatigues. To show him what she had become since their teenage years snogging on park benches whenever she was back in the village. To see that glint in his wicked blue eyes, the cocky arrogance, to feel the shiver that ran through her just because he’d sauntered over to where she had been preening next to Hermione.
Then she shook her head to make the image go away. Feeling an instant rush of guilt about how just the idea of Luke Lloyd made her feel.
The customer was moving around the shop and Anna did a quick check to see they weren’t listening in on her call, before cupping her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop winding me up, Hermione, I know what you’re doing,’ she hissed.
‘Tempting though, isn’t it?’ Hermione said, gleefully. ‘It’s just a shame you’ve become so dull. If anything, just for us to have something to gossip about that’s not you getting married in the stinking cabbage hall.’
‘How did you know about that?’ Anna straightened up, forgot about whether the customer could hear her or not.
‘Seb phoned me to ask what I thought. And I told him it was a dreadful idea and that he should forget about it ASAP.’
‘He called you?’ Anna closed her eyes. ‘But he knew, he knew I wouldn’t want to do it.’
‘He’s a simple man, Anna. He wants a simple solution.’
‘Why would he have asked you before me and then still asked me? How do you know me better?’ She thought about their conversation the night before in the bathroom. Thought about the feeling of her pedestal teetering, her glamour slipping. Thought of the future and saw an endless wheat field stretching out ahead of her.
‘Look, Anna, Hermione is always right. Listen to me. What have you got to lose? Fucking hell, what are you expected to do, just stay cooped up in the country all your life, staring at cows and becoming the little wife? No. You need to live. People become boring in the country, it’s a proven fact. I mean, you never know, you think it’s Nettleton that makes you unable to breathe, but it could be the thought of marriage. Often I find that what we think is wrong in our lives is rarely what is. I’m not saying running off with Luke Lloyd is the answer but live a little, do some casual flirting, it’s fun. It’d make you feel better ‒ you’ve been through a shitty time recently ‒ it’ll make you feel more alive. And that can only be a good thing, Seb’ll notice the difference. And, he’ll never have to know either. If he did, he’d probably advocate it anyway ‒ wasn’t that his rationale about Smelly Doug ‒ a social experiment. ’ Hermione paused and
Anna could almost hear her brain thinking of a new tack to take. ‘And anyway, you should come up to London, set up some meetings. Did I tell you I bumped into your little assistant the other day, the one who stole all your contacts. What was her name?’
‘Kim,’ Anna said, nodding vaguely at the customer as they did another lap of the shop.
‘Oh yes. Well, she said you should have a catch-up. And, look, listen to this, it says on Wikipedia that a pitchfork has long, thick, widely separated, pointed tines. Tines, Anna. Tines. See, always right, Anna. Hermione is always right.’ She snorted a laugh down the phone.
The bell tingled over the door again and Anna heard the familiar out-of-breath panting of Mrs Beedle, so scrabbled to get her feet down off the counter, ‘Look I’ve got to go, H,’ she whispered.
‘Only if you swipe that man into your Yeses, Anna. Swipe him,’ Hermione carried on regardless.
‘OK, fine.’ She pulled her phone out from where she’d quickly shoved it in her pocket and swiped Luke Lloyd into her Yeses. ‘I’ve swiped him. Happy? Now I have to go.’
Anna cut Hermione off, but kept the telephone to her ear as Mrs Beedle came towards her. ‘Yes,’ she said to the dial tone, ‘Absolutely, we have a range of different antiquities, something for everyone, and if there’s something specific you require, we can have it in mind as we scour the markets across the country and across the channel. Oh yes, many of our pieces are from France.’
As she hung up, she noticed that Mrs Beedle was smiling, which never happened.
‘You sold the Russian clock?’ she said, dumping a shopping bag of milk, custard creams and an antiques magazine that Anna remembered her father getting delivered, down on the counter.
‘No.’ Anna shook her head. ‘I haven’t sold anything.’
Mrs Beedle paused and then looked out into the street. ‘I just saw a man leave with it.’
‘Not from here.’
‘Anna, it was from here.’ Mrs Beedle huffed back to the front door but there was no one in the street. Anna could see her standing on the pavement with her hands on her hips, looking right then left, calling to the group of men sitting on the bench on the other side of the square who shook their heads in response. When she finally came back in, she was shaking her head. ‘Bother,’ she sighed.
Anna straightened her shoulders. ‘He didn’t buy it from here.’
‘I bought that clock as part of a repossession auction of a Russian oligarch. Anna, it was the only clock of its type west of the Ukraine. Don’t tell me that wasn’t my clock.’ Her cheeks started to flush. ‘Clearly he didn’t buy it at all. See over there‒’ She pointed to a cabinet that had a dust-free square on the top about the size of a shoebox. ‘That’s where it was when I left.’
Anna glanced over at the shiny, polished square of emptiness and bit her lip, then pushed a strand of hair from her face and said, ‘Was it expensive?’
Mrs Beedle closed her eyes and sucked in her top lip before muttering, ‘You could say that.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Anna said, almost without thinking.
‘I’d rather you didn’t say that, Anna.’ Mrs Beedle opened her eyes, she looked sad and tired and old suddenly, and glanced from Anna over to the CCTV monitor that was currently rolling the closing credits of Murder She Wrote.
Anna felt herself inwardly cringe as Mrs Beedle squeezed past her, took the remote down and flicked the TV back to the security monitor, then took her bag of shopping into the stockroom.
Anna yanked off her gloves and rubbed her hand over her brow. All her usual defence mechanisms kicked in straight away. It wasn’t her fault. It could have happened to anyone. Even if she had been watching, what would she have done, tackle him to the ground? She leant against the counter top and gave it a bit of a polish with an old rag to look like she was doing something, anything rather than go into the back room with Mrs Beedle. As she polished and listened to the kettle being flicked on and saw the cat scamper underneath the curtain, her eyes kept being drawn to the dust-free patch on the top of the mahogany cabinet. She could actually remember the clock, and she knew it was probably the most expensive item in the shop. Gold and magnificent with two lions holding up the dial and an eagle on the top, its wings spread wide. A square base with claw feet like talons. She had remembered admiring it as quite a gem amidst the taxidermy, the assorted crockery and the jumble of chairs that blocked the back half of the shop.
When Mrs Beedle came out with her tea, Anna leant back against the counter and mumbled, ‘I’m sorry.’
Mrs Beedle paused as she brought the mug up to her mouth. ‘That’s not really much use to me.’
Anna bristled, unused to that kind of reaction. She thought of Seb squeezing her hand and telling her that it was OK after she’d lost all their money. ‘It could have happened if you were here or not—’
‘Anna.’ Mrs Beedle locked her with a look that cut her off immediately. ‘Don’t make excuses to me. It wouldn’t have happened if I was here, I know that, because this shop is my life and the things in it are my life. To you they may be nothing, but to me they are my livelihood and I respect them. I have given you a job when a lot of people here wouldn’t and all I ask in return, is you show my possessions just a little respect. That’s it. That’s all I ask,’ she said, her lips taut, her jaw as rigid as it could be in her round little face.
Anna opened her mouth to reply, but chose instead to say nothing, just nodded.
‘I don’t need you here. In fact, I’d rather you weren’t here. But your father has been my friend since I was at school and he asked for a favour. I’m not putting up with your shit, Anna Whitehall. I see through you. And, quite frankly, I’d say it’s about time you grew up.’
At five on the dot, Anna grabbed her bag and sloped out so that Mrs Beedle wouldn’t see her, and once outside she’d never been happier to feel the scorching heat of the afternoon sun on her face.
Pausing for a moment to sit on one of the chairs outside the French bistro, she leant her head against the wall and took a deep breath. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon flitting between fury about her telling off and guilt over the clock theft. Why had this had such an effect on her? It was just a crappy antiques shop, but it felt like the culmination of everything. The conversation with Hermione had rattled her, shaken her foundations. Her relationship with Seb felt like it was being wedged apart by a huge Nettleton crowbar, and now she had the big, sad, watery eyes of Mrs Beedle’s disappointment to contend with.
‘I don’t care,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘I do not care.’
As she was repeating the mantra to herself, the owner came out of the bistro where Anna had taken residence of one of his chairs. He very good-looking in a dark, Gaelic way she thought as he started watering the pots of red geraniums with an old glass bottle. ‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle. Can I get you something to drink?’
‘Oh no sorry, I was just sitting.’ Anna pushed herself up. ‘I’m just going.’
He shook his head, pouring the last of the water into one of the gnarly pots. ‘There is no hurry. You can sit as much as you like.’ He winked, shook out the drops from the bottle, and then disappeared back inside. She watched him go and wondered in how many places you could sit at someone’s cafe for free.
Standing up, she hauled her weary body across the cobbles, the sun burning on her back, the group of old men sitting on the bench staring, hands resting on their bellies, the old sheepdog at their feet turning its head away as she passed. She felt like everyone knew about the clock.
I don’t care, she said again under her breath. But then why was she so riled?
As she neared the bakery, she saw Jackie and Seb sitting on the chairs, laughing together over chocolate cake. She could see Rachel inside, behind the counter, wrapping up bread and scooping chocolates into gold boxes. The window had changed again, piles of jellied sweets shaped like strawberries and green apples, orange slices and bobbly raspberries glistened in the afternoon sun. Scattered nast
urtium flowers fluttered like butterflies, shots of bright vermilion and dazzling cerise. And hanging from ribbons in the window were tiny glass test-tubes, each with a sweet pea drooping from the weight of its pastel petals. If she still had it, a photo of the display would have been worthy of her book.
‘Anna!’ Seb called with a wave.
Jackie was still sniggering as she approached. Again Anna felt like the outsider.
‘Jackie was just asking me whether you’d ever change your mind about coaching her dance group,’ Seb said, as if by way of explanation for the giggling.
Why was that funny? Anna wondered.
‘Seb said that you didn’t really do things for other people.’ Jackie said over a mouthful of chocolate cake.
‘I didn’t say it like that.’ Seb shook his head, waving a hand to try and make her disregard Jackie’s comment. ‘I just said that you weren’t, you know, community-focused.’
Anna didn’t say anything. Just watched the pair of them, a thousand possibilities of what Seb had said swirling through her head. In London this was her time with him. Where she’d call and arrange to meet him in swanky bar, but he’d catch her just before she went in and pull her into a sweet, family-owned tapas place where they’d get free sherry with their chorizo, or make her stroll down the Embankment to look at the river in the twilight and the blue and white lights threaded through the branches of the ragged trees. Like when they first met and she’d led him round London like a pro, pointing out various landmarks and over-egging her knowledge of the history, he’d stopped her with a raised brow when she said something with total conviction about Big Ben or the fact there had to be more than two people in a London Eye pod in case you had sex in there, and he’d said, ‘You’re full of shit, Anna Whitehall.’ And she had turned, ready with a quick retort but had seen the twinkling in his eyes and realised that he was laughing at her. No one had dared laugh at her before and she had loved it.
But this was a different type of laughter. One that excluded her and made her feel foolish, out of the joke.
Jackie sat back in her chair, took a sip of her espresso, and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. You probably don’t have the skill set to do it anyway, Anna. Teaching kids, it’s hard, it’d make working in PR at the Opera House seem like a walk in the park.’
