The Proposal

by Tasmina Perry

  She looked around the Bird’s Nest – it did feel as if you were inside the treetop home of some garishly plumed magpie, with all the bric-a-brac casually strewn here and there. There was a wonderland quality about Annie’s flat that she loved; you never knew what you were going to find next. Reaching over to a rickety table to her right, Amy picked up a magazine from a pile and raised her eyebrows: The Lady. The cover featured a picture of a glamorous older woman standing next to a horse, and promised articles entitled ‘Baking up a storm’ and ‘Dressing for the opera’ and an interview with Dame Judi Dench. It seemed an unusual magazine for her friend to have in her flat, but then Annie Chapman had always walked a slightly off-kilter path.

  Intrigued, Amy flicked through the magazine. It was actually strangely comforting, with features on winter perennials and recipes for jam and fruit cake. Amy felt a sort of distilled essence of Britishness coming through the pages, like an idealised version of what England was, where everyone lived in cottages with roses around the door. It was nice. As she flipped towards the back, she found herself drawn to the Appointments section, a series of advertisements unlike any she had ever seen before.

  ‘Wanted: housekeeper and groundskeeper for stately home. Would suit a couple. Some chauffeuring required. Accommodation and uniform provided.’

  Uniform? thought Amy, imagining some strapping hunk in a peaked cap and white gloves opening the door of her vintage Rolls-Royce.

  ‘Mary Poppins required for children five and seven,’ read another. ‘Foreign languages and equestrian skills preferred!’

  It was another world. Where were these extensive properties that required experienced groundsmen? Who could seriously require a gamekeeper or a valet in the twenty-first century? It was as if Downton Abbey had been a documentary not a drama – it was fascinating to imagine what stories lay behind each of these quirky adverts. And more than that: Amy found herself fantasising about actually applying for some of these positions. How hard could it be? ‘Driver wanted for South of France second home’ – she had a clean licence and she could certainly do with some sun. Or what about being a ‘governess to twin girls’? The advert actually stated that qualifications were negotiable. Perhaps they’d be impressed by Amy’s background in the arts – didn’t all little girls want to be ballet dancers? She smiled to herself – maybe not. Besides which, she almost had a job to go to. If Eduardo Drummond called her back, of course. She was about to fold the magazine when one ad caught her eye, or rather two words: New York. Amy looked closer. The advert was small, listed under the Situations Wanted header: ‘Mature lady seeks polite companion for Manhattan adventure. Must be available for travel 23–27 December. Flights and New York accommodation included.’

  She paused for a moment and then reread it. Must be available for travel 23–27 December. Flights and New York accommodation included. Underneath the advertisement was an email address. She picked up her phone, logged into her mail and without hesitating another moment drafted her reply.

  She had been in the shower when her phone had rung, so the message had been delivered by voicemail. Amy pulled her dressing gown tighter around her body and listened to it again, hoping she hadn’t heard it right the first time.

  ‘Darling. It’s Driscilla here. I’m afraid it’s a no from Eduardo about Tango Nights. They loved your audition, but they saw a lot of great girls, and between you and me, perhaps your toe still represents something of a problem . . .’

  Amy snapped the phone shut, not wanting to hear her agent’s voice any longer. A no! She couldn’t believe it. It had been a great audition. She had danced her ass off, got on with the director; even Driscilla had said that it was in the bag, and she was an agent from the tough love school of showbiz, where nothing was a done deal until the ink was dry on the contract.

  Amy sank to the sofa bed and took a sip of the glass of water that Annie had left on the table the night before. She needed it, she thought, gulping down the cool liquid and wishing she had some Nurofen to go with it. She had no idea how much she had drunk last night. There had been at least five glasses of champagne at the Tower of London dinner, and then Annie’s cocktail . . . Her eyes darted to the curvaceous glass containing a green neon straw and the residue of the daiquiri – all stale and curdled, which was precisely the effect the Ukrainian brandy seemed to be having on the contents of her stomach. Urgh, she thought, feeling suddenly quite nauseous, not helped by her flashback of the night before. The artichoke, the toxic comments and sideways glances from Vivienne Lyons, and Daniel’s effective dumping. She had geared herself up for a proposal and instead had got propositioned by her boyfriend’s dad. As she had lain awake in bed the previous night, mulling everything over, the only thing that had kept her going was the hope that she would get the Tango Nights job, and now that was a busted flush.

  Annie bustled into the living room and kissed the top of her head.

  ‘How are you this morning? Sleep well?’

  ‘No,’ said Amy, rubbing her temples.

  ‘How about we go for some breakfast?’

  ‘Great. And then you can tell me what to do about my agent.’

  ‘What’s wrong with darling Driscilla?’

  ‘I think she’s going to get rid of me.’

  Annie frowned and perched next to her on the sofa bed.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘She just rang to tell me I haven’t got the job I auditioned for yesterday. Didn’t even speak to me – just left a message.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very conclusive.’

  ‘It’s just a feeling,’ replied Amy, pressing her lips together. ‘I didn’t even get a Christmas card this year. When I first moved to London and signed with the agency, I’d get all these little lunches in Soho, phone calls twice a week to see how I was doing. Now my toe represents something of a problem and I think I’m about to get the kiss-off. Not even Driscilla wants me, Annie,’ she said, lying back and swinging her arms dramatically over her head.

  ‘You need protein. Eggs, bacon . . . Or maybe we could go to Fortnum’s for afternoon tea in the morning. I don’t have to be at work till two.’

  ‘And I gotta double shift at the Forge starting at one, which I need like a hole in the head,’ said Amy, wondering if she should just keep the Bird’s Nest curtains closed and not come out until the next decade.

  Annie left the room to go and get dressed and Amy sat up, crossed her legs and reached for her phone, half hoping that Daniel had had a change of heart and been in touch. She was greeted by the stream of messages that usually filled her inbox each morning – Groupon and a host of other discount websites she had once subscribed to.

  One address, however, she didn’t recognise. Georgia Hamilton.

  Frowning, she clicked on the message and began to read.

  Dear Miss Carrell,

  Thank you for your reply to my advertisement in The Lady magazine. Perhaps we could meet to discuss my situation further. As I am due to travel in just three days’ time, it might be better to do this sooner rather than later. Are you available today? Please call me on the number below. I look forward to meeting you.

  Kind regards,

  Georgia Hamilton (MA Cantab)

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Annie, coming back into the room and handing Amy a cup of black coffee.

  ‘I did something a bit crazy last night.’

  ‘Do I need to call a lawyer?’

  Amy explained about the advertisement in The Lady and her reply from Ms Hamilton.

  ‘It’s a Christmas miracle,’ gasped Annie, grabbing the magazine that Amy had flung down the night before. ‘It’s like Scent of a Woman.’

  ‘Scent of a Woman?’

  ‘That movie where Chris O’Donnell takes the blind man to New York. Al Pacino. Can you imagine if you were going with someone as sexy as Al Pacino,’ she said, her breath quickening in excitement.

  ‘Well, last time I looked, Georgia was a woman’s name,’ said Amy, unable to share her friend�
��s enthusiasm about this new development to the day.

  ‘Amy, last night you said you wanted to go back to New York, and here’s your opportunity.’

  ‘Except I’m not going to be accompanying Al Pacino. Best-case scenario it’s some no-friends weirdo; worst case . . . it’s a psychopath who wants to kill me and bury me under her petunias.’

  ‘It will be some little old lady who can’t carry her own bags . . . Now go, give her a ring and get it sorted. Otherwise you’re coming for Christmas at my parents’ place and you’re sharing a room with the dog.’

  An hour later, Amy was getting off the tube at Chalk Farm station. She still felt terrible and looked worse. Her meeting with Georgia Hamilton had been arranged for eleven o’clock, giving her time to get over to the Forge for after lunch. It had meant there was no time to go back to her apartment in Finsbury Park to change, and not wanting to turn up to her interview in last night’s now half-bald sequinned dress, she had been forced to borrow something from Annie’s eclectic wardrobe: a lemon-yellow 1950s hoop-skirt dress two sizes too big and a pair of grey suede pumps one size too small had been the most conservative items she could find. What invariably looked fantastic on Annie made Amy feel like one of those crazy bag ladies she used to see shuffling around Penn Station in the nineties.

  As she turned to cross the footbridge joining Chalk Farm with Primrose Hill, her phone beeped to register a text from Nathan: ‘So do we have a five-carat sparkler on our finger yet? X’.

  Snorting, she switched off the phone and quickened her pace. It was beginning to rain, and Annie’s pink parasol would provide little resistance against the December elements.

  Once she had crossed the Regent’s Canal bridge, it was like entering a parallel universe, she thought, noticing that the gritty minimarts and curry buffets she had spotted at the Camden end of Chalk Farm had made way for a more serene village atmosphere. Primrose Hill was quite lovely, with its Georgian architecture and leafiness, its boho bakeries, boutiques and pavement cafés, which all made Amy wonder why she didn’t come up here more often.

  She stopped in front of a smart Victorian town house and checked the address she’d scribbled on a piece of paper.

  Georgia Hamilton. 27b Chalcot Terrace. She had spoken to Ms Hamilton on the phone, of course, but it had been a very short and rather formal conversation, all ‘I’d be delighted to meet you’ and ‘I’d be grateful if you’d come to see me’. Amy hadn’t really been able to glean much about the woman from her voice. Elderly, polite, polished: that probably described half the people living in this part of London. She had googled the name, with similar results. Georgia Hamilton could be a tapestry cleaner, a publishing executive or a minor B-movie actress who hadn’t made a film since 1976. Whoever she was, she was rich. Amy could see from the two bells next to the door that the building was divided into flats, but even so, she liked to read the property sections of the newspapers on Sundays, and she was aware that a duplex apartment in Primrose Hill would cost more than a mansion with stables anywhere outside the M25.

  Here goes nothing, she thought, pressing the button next to the brass plaque marked simply ‘Hamilton’, then jumped when the door buzzed and a disembodied voice said ‘Second floor, please.’

  Amy pushed into the high entrance hall. God, it’s got a chandelier in the hallway, she thought, immediately intimidated. There was a vaguely musty smell in the air and the paintwork looked in need of a refresh, but even so, it was clearly a grand old house, with large vases containing fresh flower arrangements on each landing and expensive-looking pearlescent paper on the walls.

  Ascending the wide staircase, she realised she was walking on tiptoes, trying not to make any noise in this hushed space, instinctively respectful of the history of the place. She supposed it was because it was exactly as she had imagined London to be when she had first read about it as a child: this was the sort of house that would have had servants and a nanny, the sort of place you could imagine Peter Pan visiting late at night.

  ‘Get a grip,’ she muttered to herself as she reached the top floor and knocked on the door marked with a brass ‘2’.

  ‘Miss Carrell, I presume?’

  Amy took a moment to examine the lady in front of her. She looked to be in her early seventies, although it was very hard to tell. Her ash-blond hair, shot through with fine silvery strands, was cut short and tucked behind her ears, and she was dressed simply in a grey blous and wide black slacks with a string of pearls around her neck and matching earrings in her lobes. Elegant, that was the word that immediately sprang to mind. The sort of high-born elegance that made Amy wonder if Georgia Hamilton knew Vivienne Lyons and all her snobby friends.

  ‘Yes, Amy actually,’ she said, shaking the outstretched hand.

  ‘American?’

  ‘New York,’ said Amy, feeling a little awkward as the woman looked her up and down. Perhaps the sequins would have been better than Annie’s yellow vintage sundress.

  There was a pause, then Georgia Hamilton nodded, as if she had made a decision.

  ‘Do come inside,’ she said. ‘You can leave the umbrella by the door.’

  Amy followed her down a narrow corridor and out into a light, spacious living room.

  ‘Wow!’ said Amy. ‘That’s some view.’

  The room had a wide bay window that gave an uninterrupted vista of the slopes of Primrose Hill park and the hazy city beyond.

  ‘Yes, it is rather special, isn’t it?’ said the woman with a hint of amusement in her voice. ‘I suppose it’s human nature to become accustomed to one’s surroundings, even if they are remarkable, but I confess I do often catch sight of the view and smile at my good fortune.’ She gestured towards an armchair. ‘Please do sit. Would you like some tea? I have just brewed a pot.’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Amy, perching on the edge of the chair and looking around nervously. She was immediately reminded of the Bird’s Nest. Georgia Hamilton’s home was equally eclectic and personal. But where Annie’s flat was chaotic and cluttered, a mish-mash of ideas and fleeting enthusiasms, this home was understated and calm. There were abstract paintings and black and white photographs, interesting-looking pots and ethnic-style sculptures, but it all seemed to fit together like pieces of some artistic puzzle.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of books.’ Amy smiled, observing the bookcases stuffed with all manner of hard- and soft-backed books.

  ‘I used to work in publishing,’ said Georgia, still watching her. ‘Occupational hazard, I’m afraid, though in my defence, they’re not entirely for show. I have actually read most of them.’

  ‘So you’re that Georgia Hamilton,’ said Amy, immediately regretting it. Now she would have to confess to checking up on the older woman. I’m going to look like a stalker, she thought.

  ‘Google, I take it?’ said Georgia to Amy’s surprise as she handed her a bone-china cup and saucer. ‘That’s the problem with information overload. In the modern age you can know pretty much all you ever need to know about a person before you even meet them. Where is the mystery? Where is the unwrapping of a new friend, a new lover?’

  ‘I don’t really like surprises,’ said Amy. ‘Not where lovers are concerned, anyway.’

  The old lady tilted her head thoughtfully and took a sip of her tea.

  ‘And tell me, Amy, what do you do?’

  She opened her mouth, ready to say that she was a dancer, waiting to explain about her injury and her training, but suddenly it seemed far easier just to admit that she was a waitress.

  ‘I wait tables at the Forge in Islington. It’s where I’m going after this.’

  ‘I was a waitress myself many years ago. No better job for people-watching, observing human nature. It’s probably why so many creatives are drawn to it. You think you are there to pay for your art, but actually, I rather find it helps your art.’

  Amy smiled and the atmosphere relaxed.

  ‘Down to business,’ said Georgia, setting her cup aside. ‘I have booked a trip to New Y
ork to leave in a few days. Incredibly, I have never been to Manhattan and I feel that at my age I should be visiting the places I . . . well, the places I have missed.’

  ‘Sort of like a bucket list?’ said Amy without thinking. Note to self: try not to suggest that the lady interviewing you has one foot in the grave, she thought. Luckily Georgia smiled.

  ‘Something like that, yes. I suppose I could have gone on one of those ghastly tours for mature single travellers, but the thought of shuffling around Manhattan like a bunch of geriatric crocodiles . . .’ She waved a dainty hand. ‘Which is how I came to advertise for a travelling companion. There’s no call for concern, I’m not likely to fall and break a hip, but I’m not quite as spry as I was in my prime.’

  Amy thought it best not to reply, lest she put her foot in it again.

  ‘So how is it that you’re able to travel, Amy?’

  The question took Amy by surprise, and it must have shown on her face.

  ‘Well, it is Christmas, after all. I imagine most people your age are booked up with parties until New Year.’

  ‘Something fell through,’ said Amy awkwardly.

  ‘Relationship entanglements?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ she said, glancing up.

  ‘You have that look in your eye,’ nodded Georgia. ‘You don’t look as if you want to leave London for the holidays, Amy; you look as though you want to flee.’

  Amy could see that there was no point in denying it.

  ‘This is my situation, Ms Hamilton—’

  ‘Miss,’ said the woman. ‘But please call me Georgia.’

  ‘I’ve had a really crappy week, and right now all I want to do is go back home. I figured this might be a way to see my folks, even if they have to come into Manhattan to meet me. If that’s a problem say so now, because that’s why I want to do this trip. But seeing my mom and dad would only take a couple of hours, and the rest of the time I’m all yours. I work hard, and I can take you to all the little places only New Yorkers know about as well as the touristy things you probably want to see and do.’