Perfect Timing

by Jill Mansell

  It wasn’t the kind of remark an Enid Blyton mother would make. For a time Claudia’s father had remonstrated with his wife, in that famously sexy, laid-back manner of his. But Angie, who had never taken any notice of anyone, least of all her husband, had carried on regardless. Then the divorce had happened and Claudia had seen little of her father for the next few years. On his infrequent trips back from Hollywood she hadn’t dared to whine. Instead, she had stoically endured her mother’s careless insults, pretending instead to be as happy as anything. As she grew older, she took care never to introduce Angie to any boyfriends she particularly liked.

  One week after her eighteenth birthday, Claudia had moved out of the family home and into the first of several chaotically shared flats.

  But there was never any real getting away from Angie, short of upping sticks and emigrating to Siberia. For the past two years, she had been passionately involved with an already married hotel owner on the Costa Smeralda and Claudia had enjoyed the break. Now that affair was over. The hotel owner, possibly fearing for his health, had decided to stay with his rich wife. And Angie Slade-Welch—together with her sickening twenty-one-inch waist and size-three satin stilettos—was back.

  She hadn’t been invited to tonight’s party but had, predictably, turned up anyway. Watching from a safe distance as her mother approached a well-built sculptor friend of Caspar’s and swung into action, Claudia absently helped herself to three prawn and cucumber canapés from the tray of a passing waitress.

  ‘If you want to do something useful,’ said a voice at her shoulder, ‘you could always introduce me to that hunky chap talking to your mother. When she’s finished with him of course.’

  Claudia turned to Josie, an ex-flatmate from last year.

  ‘By the time my mother’s finished with him, there might not be much left to introduce.’

  Josie giggled. ‘Well, if there is.’

  ‘And I don’t know who he is anyway.’ Claudia tried not to sound annoyed, but it was a bit much. It was her birthday, supposed to be her party, and she had forked out a fortune on caterers, yet Caspar had done his usual trick and casually suggested he might invite a few of his friends along too. ‘Just to make up the numbers,’ he’d said with a grin before she’d had a chance to object. ‘No need to look so alarmed, Claudie, only half a dozen or so. No undesirables, I promise.’

  It was her own fault, Claudia decided with a sigh, for having been stupid enough to believe him. But it was still irritating, having her own party invaded by so many of Caspar’s friends that there were more strangers in the house than people she actually knew. They ate like gluttons too. The expensive caterer, thin-lipped because she had only been asked to supply food for forty guests, had just warned her they were about to run out.

  What annoyed Claudia most of all was the fact that—having successfully hijacked her birthday party—Caspar hadn’t even had the common courtesy to show up. And everyone thinks I’m so lucky to be living in this house, thought Claudia, her expression mutinous. Huh.

  ‘Where is Caspar anyway?’ asked Josie, her appreciative eye still lingering on the broad shoulders of the sculptor.

  Claudia pulled a face. ‘Congratulations. You’re the fiftieth person to ask me that question tonight.’

  ‘Come on, cheer up.’

  Claudia tried. ‘Okay. Sorry. He’s just impossible, that’s all.’ Flipping back her heavy blonde hair she shook her head in exasperation. ‘D’you know, it’s not as if he’s even gone out anywhere. He’s upstairs in his studio, bloody painting. I went up and banged on the door at nine o’clock. He wouldn’t come out. He said he was on a roll and didn’t dare stop.’ Claudia, whose knowledge of art was pretty much limited to the water-lily print on her duvet cover, glanced up in disgust at one of Caspar’s paintings hung above the mantelpiece. ‘I mean, it isn’t as if there’s any hurry. His stuff sells really well now. He’s hardly short of cash.’

  Josie was slightly more knowledgeable. ‘Money means nothing to these artistic types.’

  ‘Evidently not.’ Claudia spoke with feeling. ‘Particularly when it comes to offering to go halves on the food.’

  ‘Stop moaning. You don’t know how lucky you are.’ The waitress was back with her tray. Josie chose the canapé with the biggest prawn on top. Through a mouthful of puff pastry she said, ‘I’d love to live here.’

  ‘That could be arranged. Oliver’s moving out at the end of the week. He’s going back to New York.’ Claudia’s mind was on other things. This was the third time the red-haired waitress had circulated with the same tray. She touched the girl’s arm. ‘Excuse me. We’d like to try the blinis.’

  ‘Sorry, they’ve gone,’ said the girl with the red-gold hair. ‘These cucumber thingies are all that’s left.’

  The mini blinis stuffed with Sevruga caviar, a specialty of Kenda’s Kitchen, were what Claudia had been looking forward to all evening. Instead, they’d been guzzled by a bunch of gastronomic philistines who would no doubt have been just as happy with sardines on toast. This really was the living end.

  Bloody bloody hell, Claudia seethed inwardly, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘Um, if there’s a room going free in this house,’ said the waitress, ‘I’d be interested.’

  Claudia couldn’t have looked more startled if one of the prawns had opened its mouth and asked the time.

  Josie burst out laughing. ‘Talk about seizing the moment.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the waitress, registering the expression on Claudia’s face, ‘but if you don’t ask you don’t get. And I am desperate.’

  Poppy wasn’t exaggerating. Canceling her wedding three months earlier had been the easy bit. Becoming known—practically throughout north Bristol—as The Girl Who Jilted Rob McBride, had been much more of an ordeal. An old lady whose ginger cat Rob had once rescued from a tree had shouted abuse through the letter box of Poppy’s home. She had received horrible phone calls. One of Rob’s ex-girlfriends from years ago, passing her in the street, had called her a bitch. And Poppy’s father—except he was no longer her father—had said coldly, ‘I think you’d better go.’

  Which was why, just four days after her nonexistent wedding, she had found herself on a coach bound for London. Poppy had chosen this city for three and a half simple reasons. Firstly, more coaches traveled more often to London than to anywhere else. She had also, on a school day trip years ago, fallen in love with the Portobello Road and Petticoat Lane antiques markets.

  The third reason, so flimsy it only just qualified as one, had to do with her real father. Poppy needed time to make up her mind about this. Even if she wanted to try and find him, she realized her chances of doing so weren’t great. All she did know was the name of the man who had had a brief but passionate affair with her mother and that he had once—twenty-two years ago, for heaven’s sake—lived in London.

  But if this was flimsy it was nothing compared with the fact that London was also home to Tom, which was why she had only allowed it to count as half a reason. Poppy knew, with the benefit of hindsight, that she had been spectacularly stupid, but at the time, she had made a conscious decision not to ask. And now it was too late, she thought ruefully. When you weren’t even in possession of something as basic as a person’s surname… well, then you really didn’t have a hope in hell of finding them again.

  Still, she had at least had one thing going for her on arriving in London. She hadn’t expected too much of the place, hadn’t imagined the streets to be paved with gold.

  And she had been right, they weren’t, but Poppy had taken the grim reality in her stride, refusing to be appalled by the low standard of rented accommodation available within her price range. She also refused to be offended by the amount of unfriendliness she encountered, which some people appeared to have elevated to an art form.

  Mentioning no names, thought Poppy now. Manfully keeping her opinions on the subject to herself, she directed a guileless smile at the tall, blonde, cross-looking girl whose party—an
d home—this evidently was.

  ‘The room,’ Claudia said at last, ‘isn’t going… free. This isn’t the Salvation Army.’

  No, thought Poppy, they’re far more welcoming.

  ‘I didn’t mean free-free,’ she explained patiently. ‘I meant available. Look,’ she went on, ‘this chap Caspar I keep hearing about, maybe I could have a word with him, see if he’d be willing to let me take the room.’

  ‘Why are you desperate?’ said Josie, who was incurably nosy.

  ‘You should see the place I’m in at the moment.’ Goodness, a friendly voice. Poppy turned to her with relief. ‘Purple wallpaper with yellow lupins all over it. Holes in the carpet, missing floorboards, groping old landlord, incontinent cat—you name it. There’s a heavy metal freak upstairs and a Glaswegian bloke with a beard who steams his own haggises. Or haggi. Anyway, the smell is terrible. The flat’s a dump. But this,’ Poppy concluded with an appreciative sweep of her arm, ‘this is a fabulous house. I mean it, I would be so happy to move in here! This place is a palace—’

  ‘The trouble with palaces,’ Claudia cut in, ‘is they cost more to live in than dumps. I don’t want to sound funny—’

  Of course you do, Poppy thought.

  ‘—but I doubt very much if you could afford the rent.’

  ‘I might be able to,’ Poppy said mildly. ‘I only do this in the evenings. I do have a proper job.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What is it?’ Josie asked, warming to the girl who was standing up so well to Claudia at her huffiest.

  ‘I’m a stripper,’ said Poppy simply. ‘It’s great, and it pays well. I recommend it. If you ever want to earn good money, just become a stripper in a pub.’

  Chapter 5

  Poppy paused for breath at the top of the third flight of stairs then knocked on the dark green door as Claudia had instructed. Several seconds passed before an abstracted male voice said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Um, hi. My name’s Poppy Dunbar. I wondered if I could see you.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said the voice through the door, ‘you’re a friend of Claudia’s and she’s sent you up here to act as bait. Your job is to lure me down to her party.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ He sounded amused. ‘I know the way her mind works. Don’t tell me, you’re a ravishingly beautiful blonde.’

  ‘Nope.’ Poppy smiled. ‘A ravishingly beautiful redhead.’

  ‘Hmm, shock tactics.’

  ‘I’m not one of Claudia’s friends either. She only sent me up here because she couldn’t think how else to get rid of me.’ Poppy thought for a moment then added, ‘And maybe to punish you for not putting in an appearance downstairs.’

  ‘Punish me? What are you, a tax inspector? A ravishingly beautiful redheaded tax inspector,’ Caspar mused. ‘Surely there’s no such thing.’

  ‘Open the door,’ said Poppy, ‘and find out.’

  The attic studio was large, taking up the entire top floor of the house. There were canvases everywhere, propped against the white painted walls, stacked untidily on chairs, and littering the polished wooden floor. Also occupying space were three sofas—one dark blue, one black velvet, one tartan. There was also, Poppy couldn’t help noticing, an unmade king-sized bed.

  ‘Good heavens, a choice of casting couches.’

  Caspar French, who was tall and tanned and very blond, broke into a broad grin.

  ‘We aim to please. I’m puzzled though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, I’m fairly sure we haven’t met before. And you say you aren’t a friend of Claudia’s.’ He paused, picked up an already opened Beaujolais bottle, held it up to the light, and discovered it was empty. Reaching for a Kit Kat instead, he dropped the wrapper on the floor, broke the bar in two and offered half to Poppy. ‘So what I don’t understand is how you came to be at the party. Unless we’ve been gate-crashed. Are you sure you aren’t an undercover tax inspector?’

  ‘I work for Kenda’s Kitchen,’ said Poppy, ‘the caterers.’

  ‘Ah.’ Caspar nodded. ‘And how’s it going? Is Claudia happy with the food?’

  ‘She might have been if your friends hadn’t eaten it all. I’m afraid Claudia isn’t very pleased with you.’

  ‘I’ll survive. I’m used to it.’

  The area over by the window appeared to do duty as Caspar’s idea of a kitchen. As well as chocolate to sustain him, there were cans of Coke, a few half-full coffee cups littering the floor, an empty pizza box, and several more wine bottles. Picking his way barefoot through the chaos, Caspar discovered one that hadn’t been opened. ‘Hooray. White all right with you? Looks like something Australian.’

  ‘Thanks but I can’t. Much longer up here and I’ll get the sack.’ Poppy, suddenly nervous, wiped her damp palms on the back of her skirt. ‘The thing is, I overheard your friend Claudia saying you had a room to rent. So, I’d like to volunteer myself for it.’

  Unable to find a corkscrew, Caspar had given up on the wine. Instead he began cleaning brushes, carefully soaking each one in turn in a jug of white spirit before going to work on them with a rag which had evidently once been an evening shirt. He was wearing a pale yellow cotton sweater with the sleeves pushed up, and extremely paint-spattered white denims. The smell of the oils he had been using still permeated the air. On the easel in the center of the room stood the current work-in-progress, two almost completed figures sprawling comfortably together on a sun-drenched lawn, their heads bent as though they were sharing a secret.

  ‘Gosh, you’re good,’ exclaimed Poppy. Realizing she sounded surprised she added hastily, ‘I mean, I’m no expert—’

  ‘That’s okay. You’re right anyway. I am good.’ Caspar turned and winked at her. ‘I’m up-and-coming. According to the dealers, at least.’

  ‘You’re certainly good at changing the subject.’ Poppy was bursting with impatience. ‘Go on, give it a whirl,’ she begged. ‘Say I can move in. I am house-trained. I pay my rent on the dot. I even Hoover occasionally.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the room yet. Are you an undercover journalist?’

  ‘I’m not an undercover anything.’ Poppy glanced at her watch. ‘But I’ll definitely get the sack if I don’t shoot back downstairs. Look, will you at least think about it and let me know?’ Seizing a nearby pencil—a sooty 6B with meltingly soft lead—she scribbled her address and phone number across the back page of an old Daily Mail and underlined it twice for good measure. Never again was she going to make that mistake.

  ‘I’m trying to decide what it is you have,’ said Caspar. ‘Nerve or style.’

  Poppy handed him the newspaper. ‘Can’t I have both?’

  ***

  Back downstairs she found herself cornered almost at once by Claudia.

  ‘Well, what did he say?’

  ‘That I had a nerve,’ Poppy dutifully replied.

  ‘Just what I thought he’d say.’ Looking immensely pleased with herself, Claudia smoothed back her blonde hair and waved hello to someone behind Poppy. When she chose to use it, Poppy thought, she actually had a nice smile. ‘You see,’ Claudia went on, ‘maybe it’s different where you come from but around here introducing yourself to total strangers and asking if you can come and live with them isn’t really done.’

  ‘No. Sorry.’ Poppy hung her head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well then, that’s that sorted out.’ Having won, Claudia was prepared to be magnanimous. ‘I’m sure you’ll find somewhere else to live soon enough,’ she said kindly. ‘By the way, did Caspar mention anything about coming down to the party?’

  The words Caspar had affectionately employed were: ‘Silly old bag, let her sweat.’ But Claudia wasn’t the only one who could be gracious in victory.

  Poppy said, ‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon.’

  ‘I say,’ purred Angie Slade-Welch twenty minutes later. ‘You have to admit there’s something awfully attractive about a man who just doesn’t give a damn.’

  ‘Mother, Clark
Gable’s dead.’

  ‘Never mind Clark Gable.’ Angie was beaming away like a lighthouse. ‘Your landlord’s turned up at last. Does he cultivate that just-got-out-of-bed look or is it natural?’

  ‘It’s accurate,’ said Claudia in pointed tones. ‘He spends his life just getting out of bed. Beds, rather. Oh for heaven’s sake,’ she sighed, catching a glimpse of the paint-spattered white jeans. ‘He could have changed into something decent before he came down. He’s not even wearing shoes.’

  ‘Nice feet,’ Angie observed with a nod of approval. ‘Anyway, why should he wear shoes? This is his house. He can walk round stark naked if he likes.’

  Claudia cringed. ‘Don’t tell him that. You’ll only put ideas into his head.’

  ‘Or yours.’ Angie loved to embarrass her daughter. ‘Come on, you can tell me. What really goes on in this house when there are just the two of you here? Is anything likely to develop, do you think—?’

  ‘Mother!’

  Angie shrugged. ‘Only asking, my darling. You never tell me anything so how else can I find out? And he is irresistible, isn’t he? Go on, whisper it.’ She lifted herself playfully on tiptoe, tilting her head. ‘You can’t tell me you don’t fancy him rotten. And living together like this… well, he must have made a pass at you at some stage.’

  A glass bowl of cornflowers stood on the marble mantelpiece. Claudia, in front of it, realized she had been abstractedly de-petaling the blue flowers. This was the effect her mother always managed to have on her. What Angie actually meant was that Caspar must have made a pass, even at her, at some stage.