Would Like to Meet

by Polly James

  In the end, I just write, “Happy birthday, Dan. Hx.”

  Then I start worrying about the x, so I try to obliterate it by making it look like an extra-large full-stop. That results in the pen puncturing the card and making a total mess of it, so I throw the whole thing into the bin and use one of Joel’s spares instead. It says, “Happy Birthday” on the front, so I just scrawl “H” inside.

  * * *

  Bloody Pammy finds everything easier than Hannah does. On the morning of Dan’s birthday, she just chooses a really cool animated e-card, then signs it “P” and adds a heart right next to it. I’d kill her, if she wasn’t me.

  Danny doesn’t bother to thank me for the card I sent him, but he does tell Pammy that he loves hers.

  I could read what you wrote on it, too, which was a bonus, given the one I’ve just opened from my son.

  I ask what was wrong with that (or rather, Pammy does), so then Danny explains.

  I had to get it translated by a Chinese triad who runs my local takeaway. He’s an expert in UK gangsta-speak.

  * * *

  Once Pammy’s finished sucking up to Danny about his birthday, I take myself off to Abandon Hope for a rowing lesson.

  I row about 200 yards without dropping an oar but, as 190 of those yards are in circles, Albert eventually suggests we give up and go and get a cup of coffee.

  “While we still can,” he adds. “Someone’s bought the cafe, so I bet they’ll ruin it when they do it up.”

  I sit wondering if that will also be the effect of the makeover that Eva’s planning to give me, while Albert phones Pearl to suggest she joins us.

  “Watch out you don’t fall over any more oars on the way, my dear,” he adds. “Hannah’s been throwing those around with gay abandon.”

  Not on land, I haven’t, so Pearl makes it to the cafe in perfect safety. She sits down next to me while Albert goes to the counter to order her a drink.

  “Did you remember it’s Dan’s birthday today?” she asks, which is such a stupid question that I don’t bother to answer it. I ask if she’s got any news instead.

  That’s one of those polite enquiries you make when you’re trying to deflect attention away from yourself, isn’t it? Usually without any expectation that there will be news, or none that’s interesting, anyway – but this time, news there is, though I’m not sure “interesting” is the word for it. Astonishing’s a better one.

  “Yes, we have got some news,” says Pearl, using that “we” that’s been creeping into her conversation more and more often since she had her accident and she and Albert became such friends, if friends is all they are. I’m not at all convinced of that, not least because Pearl still changes the subject whenever I bring it up.

  Her “good friend” Albert’s arrived back at our table now, carrying a flat white for Pearl, along with Danish pastries for all of us.

  “You told Hannah yet?” he asks, but Pearl shakes her head.

  “I thought I’d wait until you joined us,” she says to Albert, as he settles himself into his chair. Pearl adds sugar to her coffee and then she makes her shock announcement: “Albert and I are off to China next week,” she says.

  I’m so stunned I accidentally take a bite of Albert’s pastry instead of my own, and then apologise. He tells me not to worry, and to finish the rest, but I’m too stunned to eat any more – or to speak. He and Pearl sit and share her pastry, while they wait for me to react. I wish they weren’t watching me so intently.

  “Did you say, ‘China’?” I say, eventually, my mouth so dry that it’s tricky to form the words. “Or did you say a Chinese restaurant?”

  Albert laughs as Pearl pats my hand and says, “China, of course, you daft girl. We’re going for six weeks as retiree volunteers, to teach English in a school a few miles from Beijing. Albert’s idea, but it’s a good one, isn’t it?”

  I hope my manic nodding convinces them, even if it doesn’t convince me. Pearl’s going away, and for six whole weeks? I thought she was dependent on me, but now I’ve got a horrible feeling it could easily be the other way round.

  Summer

  Chapter 30

  Danny signed off last night by saying that Pammy reminds him of his wife, “but in a good way”, and when I tell Eva what he said, she isn’t any help at all.

  “So?” she says, giving what I’m wearing a more disparaging glance than usual.

  I was gardening when she turned up, so why would I dress up for that? I stick my tongue out at her, then carry on dead-heading, which is what I’d quite like to do to her and Dan.

  “Well, what d’you think Dan meant?” I say, as I decapitate a mass of ox-eye daisy flowers with such force that they fly everywhere.

  “I don’t know,” says Eva, picking dead flowers off her dress and flicking them back at me. “I can’t know, can I? Not when I’ve never met Dan, or Danny, either – but maybe that’s the point. He probably just pictures Pammy differently to how he sees you.”

  I snip particularly violently at a browning rose and accidentally cut off several healthy ones.

  “Fuck it,” I say, contemplating the damage I’ve just wrought. Then I add, “Well, whatever it is, he’s not interested in me at all, now he’s so enamoured of her.”

  I chuck the secateurs into my new gardening basket and sit down huffily next to Eva.

  She gives me a kiss on the cheek, then says, “Look, Han – there is no polite way to say this. Why don’t you stop wasting time on Dan and concentrate on the date I’ve arranged for you? Preferably by coming into London with me tomorrow, so we can shop for this bloody makeover you keep putting off?”

  Joel walks into the garden at that moment, which completely freaks me out. I hope he wasn’t lurking indoors, listening to Eva going on about my forthcoming date. Or about Danny, for that matter.

  “What makeover?” he asks, at the same time as I say, “I can’t afford new clothes. Not at London prices.”

  Eva says, “You can if Joel pays you a fair rent.”

  She fixes Joel with the same look she gave my outfit earlier, and then she adds, “Your mother needs new clothes, Joel, to make her feel better about herself. So why don’t you stop making excuses and pay up? She’s a single parent now and you are a working adult. One who’s still living in her home, at her expense.”

  I should have tried that line myself, because Joel doesn’t argue, he just says, “Fair enough. I’ll do it now.”

  Then he goes online and transfers me half the outstanding money straight away.

  “I’ll give you the rest of what’s owing as soon as I get paid again,” he says, when he rejoins us in the garden. “If that’s okay with you, of course?”

  He’s addressing Eva when he asks that last question, judging by the fact that he’s looking at her, not me, but I answer, anyway.

  “That’ll be fine,” I say.

  A split second later, Eva adds, “You better had.”

  Honestly, what with Eva being so much better at running my life than I am, and Pammy being so much better at being me, I might as well resign from both.

  * * *

  “Do we really need to do this?” I ask, as Eva and I arrive in London and begin our mission to make me over.

  I’m already feeling intimidated, and this is only the first shop that Eva’s taken me to. The assistants are all even more stylish than she is, as well as decades younger, and I’m sure one just whispered something about me to her colleague, who smirked, then laughed out loud.

  Eva gives them both one of her most withering glares, which shuts them up immediately, and the whispering one starts to fidget nervously when Eva gives me a big smile and a wink. Then she takes my arm and starts guiding me around the rails, as if she was a guide dog with more fashion sense than usual.

  “We do need to do this, Han,” she says, “if only to make you feel better about yourself, and because I don’t want you to let me down by wearing that bloody shift dress for your date with Stefan.”

  His name is
Stefan? Oh, my God. That’s cool. It’s at least ten times better than Nigel, or Nige – and a hundred times better than Gandalf. Now I’m even more nervous about this date than I was before.

  I sneak a Kalms tablet out of my bag, stuff it into my mouth, and chew it rapidly. I don’t think Kalms are designed to be chewable, as now my mouth tastes so foul I need a swig of water. I don’t dare try that in here, though, not with Misses Whisper and Smirk following my every move.

  I return to the subject of the shift dress to distract myself from the horrible taste.

  “I couldn’t wear it again, even if I wanted to,” I say to Eva. “I gave it to the Oxfam shop to avoid any more Siamese twin disasters, though Esther said I should have given it to her, for when hers gets worn out.”

  I don’t mention the other thing that Esther said when I told her Eva was going to help me choose a new wardrobe today: that Eva “enjoys having an unattractive friend”. I don’t mention it, because I don’t agree with it. If that was the case, Eva would be only too happy for me to continue to wear my old clothes, wouldn’t she? Mind you, she obviously liked my shift dress a lot more than I thought she did.

  ”You gave that to Oxfam?” she says, in an incredulous voice. “It was the best thing you own, by miles.”

  After making that wildly exaggerated statement, she orders me to wander around the shop and to pick up anything I think would suit me, then bring it back to her.

  “After that, you can try it all on,” she says. “Let’s see how you get on by yourself.”

  For a second I wonder if Esther might have been right, but then I agree to do as I’m told, on condition that Eva doesn’t let those snooty saleswomen anywhere near me once I start. They still scare me even more than the prospect of my date with Stefan does.

  Half an hour later, I’ve finally managed to choose a few things, so I take them over to where Esther’s waiting, dealing with emails on her phone. She inspects my choices, one by one, before rolling her eyes and walking over to the nearest rail where she dumps the whole lot, before rejoining me.

  “They don’t belong there,” I say, horrified – God knows what Whisper and Smirk will say about this anarchic behaviour, but it won’t be good. “And, anyway, what was wrong with them?”

  Eva informs me that all the clothes I’ve succeeded in choosing are the same as the ones I already have.

  “We’re trying to update your look,” she adds. “Not duplicate the damn thing. Now sit down, and leave this to me.”

  She gestures at a chair in one of those seating areas that are usually reserved for elderly people whose legs are a bit tired, while she goes off to choose my clothes. I don’t argue as my feet are already hurting, and I know I’m hopeless at this stuff. I can appreciate style in other people – and could even achieve it for myself, decades ago – but now the best I aspire to is practicality. In natural fabrics, worn in plenty of layers so that I can put things on, then take them off again. (Often repeatedly, to cope with these bloody hot flushes, or whatever they are.)

  Eva’s gone over to the far side of the shop by now and all I can see is the top of her head, so I take out my sketchbook and begin to draw the other customers, all of whom look amazing to my untrained eye, regardless of their age. None of them are following the other part of my normal dress code: always wear black, because it makes you disappear. These women are wearing every colour of the rainbow, along with the most amazing accessories and even more amazing shoes. I love shoes, which is probably where Joel gets his obsession with trainers from, though I’m not responsible for the abusive socks.

  “What are you drawing?” asks Eva, who’s reappeared from nowhere with Whisper and Smirk in tow. They’re staggering under the weight of the mountain of clothes that Eva’s somehow persuaded them to carry on her behalf.

  “Her shoes,” I say, pointing to a woman who must be in her sixties, but whose shoes wouldn’t look out of place on one of Joel’s brunettes.

  This grey-haired woman is getting away with wearing them because she carries herself so well, and seems so confident, too. I wish I could look like that.

  “Nice,” says Eva, following my glance. “Now come with us, and hurry up. It’s time for you to try things on.”

  I get up and walk dutifully to the changing rooms, slouching along as slowly as I can behind Eva and her attendants. They seem to have experienced a major change in attitude.

  “If there’s anything else you need, just give us a shout,” they say, once they’ve hung all Eva’s selections on an extra-long clothes rail, and wheeled it into position outside a luxurious changing room.

  “Thanks – I shall,” says Eva, ushering me inside.

  Once there, she whispers that all she had to do to effect Whisper and Smirk’s transformation into decent human beings was to “casually mention” that she’s the editor of Viva Vintage, which is their favourite magazine, apparently. Then she passes me the first series of outfits she’s chosen, and goes to wait outside.

  I stare in disbelief at a dress with such a complicated construction that I’ve no idea how to put it on, which may explain why I have one arm left over, once I’ve put the other into the hole next to what I thought was the larger one for the neck. I wrestle my way out again under the glare of the halogen lights. They work miracles for my appearance, but do nothing for the flushing thing. I’m already as hot and bothered as it’s possible to be.

  “How are you getting on?” calls Eva, through the curtain.

  “Fine,” I lie, moving on to dress number two.

  I can tell which bits of me are supposed to go where with this one, so I’m making progress of sorts, but it’s not my colour, seeing as it’s not black. It’s a soft, dark grey instead, and the fabric feels amazing. It looks pretty amazing, too, when I finally zip it up and look at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Not bad,” says Eva, yanking the curtain across and stepping inside the cubicle without warning. “Though it might look better if you hadn’t left your jeans on underneath.”

  “I didn’t want Whisper and Smirk to see me in my pants,” I say, “if they also came barging in here, without waiting to be invited, like you just did.”

  Eva takes no notice, and simply instructs me to “stop being a wuss, and get on with it”.

  Four hours later, “hot and bothered” has given way to “dying of heatstroke”, even though I abandoned my jeans and my modesty more than three hours ago, along with much of my apparently “tragic” underwear. I have to give it to Eva, though, she knows what she’s doing with this styling business. Thanks to her, I am now the proud possessor of what she describes as a “capsule wardrobe”, by which she means a series of separates and dresses that I couldn’t put together badly, if I tried.

  I stand in the changing room, and take one more look at the last outfit she’s selected, which includes a pair of jeans that actually suit me and which don’t resemble Pearl’s, for once – but without looking like those worn by Joel’s young female friends, so there’s no question of anyone thinking “mutton” when confronted by the sight of me wearing them. They fit in all the right places, and the colour of the top Eva’s chosen to go with them makes my skin look ten years younger. My arse seems to have achieved the same feat, when Eva angles the mirror to prove it to me. I don’t recognise myself.

  “Bloody hell,” I say and then I start to smile. “Now shall we go and look for shoes?”

  Chapter 31

  It’s three days since Eva and I went shopping, and I still haven’t worn any of my new clothes to work. Joel asks why, while he’s preparing our pasta sauce tonight.

  “You were chuffed with them, when you got back from London the other night,” he says, “so why haven’t you worn them since?”

  I pull one of those faces that’s supposed to warn people you feel too stupid to answer their question, but it doesn’t work. Joel doesn’t give up easily, unless you’re talking about the essays he should have written when he was still at school. Those took him so long to start th
at, by the time he’d eventually begun, the deadline would then be so close he’d immediately decide he might as well give up again. It drove Dan and me nuts, especially when Joel began to use his self-diagnosed “learning difficulty” as an excuse not to go to university.

  He could have gone to catering college instead, on the basis of tonight’s performance in the kitchen. His cooking’s improving all of a sudden, whereas mine is not.

  “Answer me, Mum!” he says, chopping an onion at dizzying speed, thanks to a YouTube instruction video Marlon sent him.

  I close my eyes, in case any fingers get chopped off, but then open them again in a panic, in case I give Joel the same idea. It would be just like him to test whether he can chop at speed while his eyes are closed.

  Thankfully, he doesn’t, so once he’s finished wielding the knife, and is still the owner of all ten digits, he repeats the question, and I answer it.

  “I can’t wear them,” I say. “Not to go outside the house.”

  Joel looks incredulous as I explain I put a new outfit on on Monday morning, but then felt so conspicuous I took it off again before I left for work.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” he says. “I thought you looked good when you modelled your new clothes the other night. So did Pearl.”

  I did look quite good, but so different from how I usually look, I couldn’t face walking into work and everybody noticing and commenting on it. I don’t like people looking at me at the best of times.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, that’s pathetic, Mum,” says Joel, giving the sauce a vicious stir.

  It splatters all over the cooker, so I decide it’s time to head for the sitting room and message Danny instead. I’m sure he won’t say I’m being stupid, because he understands me, unlike everybody else.

  Just as I open my laptop, Joel comes marching into the room and thrusts my phone at me.

  “Someone for you,” he says, before turning round and walking out again.

  “What’s this Joel told me when he answered your phone?” says Eva. “That you’re too chicken to wear your new clothes?”