Perfect Timing

by Jill Mansell

‘Shame you weren’t wearing a double-breasted jacket,’ said Poppy, who was being a damn sight too cheerful. ‘Then you might have won.’

  Claudia tried to appear unconcerned. She smiled, as Caspar had advised her to do. It was a weird sensation, thinking about your smile while you were actually doing it. Claudia hoped it looked more natural than it felt.

  She swung the smile from Poppy to Jake and quickly back again. Jake was wearing a beige and brown checked shirt and crumpled black trousers, and his dark hair was sticking up at odd angles at the back. Really, thought Claudia, if it weren’t for those dark eyes of his, nobody would look at him twice. And even they were hidden behind Scotchtaped-together spectacles…

  Not that she was even interested anyway, Claudia hastily reminded herself. An impoverished antique dealer in an windbreaker wasn’t her idea of happy-ever-after. Jake was only someone she had decided she could practice on in the meantime. She could use him to try out her new smile.

  ‘Well, this is an honor,’ Poppy prattled on, since Claudia’s collision appeared to have robbed her of the power of speech. ‘Your first visit to our humble stall. You haven’t come all this way, have you, to tell me off for leaving the butter out of the fridge?’

  ‘Actually, I came to pass on a message. You had a phone call earlier, from some chap called Matthew Ferguson.’ It was hard going, smiling and talking at the same time. Claudia’s cheek muscles were starting to ache. ‘He said to let you know the job was yours and he’d see you tomorrow night.’

  ‘I’ve got the job,’ squealed Poppy. ‘Brilliant!’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d applied for one.’ Claudia was curious.

  ‘It was Caspar’s idea. He had a word with a friend of his. I went to see him last night.’

  Caspar’s idea. Claudia experienced a spasm of jealousy. It sometimes seemed that all Poppy needed to do when she wanted something was ask Caspar. Place to live? No problem. New job? Here you are, take your pick! Like some fairy godmother, he would wave his magic wand and effortlessly grant yet another wish.

  ‘What is it, more waitressing?’

  Several of Caspar’s friends owned restaurants.

  Poppy looked smug. ‘Modeling.’

  Oh, now this was too much.

  ‘You can’t be a model,’ Claudia replied crushingly. ‘You’re too short.’

  ‘Not a model-model. Not catwalks and Vogue covers,’ explained Poppy. Her mouth twitched. ‘What I’ll be doing involves fewer clothes.’

  ‘You mean topless? Oh my God!’ Claudia gasped, no longer envious. How disgusting. How degrading. Furthermore, it wasn’t even as if Poppy had an impressive pair of boobs.

  Filled with indignation—not that she would do it for the world—Claudia thought: I’m the one with the boobs.

  ‘Actually,’ said Poppy, ‘fewer clothes than that.’

  ‘Nude?’ Claudia gasped. ‘You’re going to be nude? What, like in… Playboy?’

  By this time even Jake was beginning to look alarmed.

  ‘It’s for life drawing classes at St Clare’s College of Art.’ Poppy broke into a grin. ‘There, you see? Nothing disreputable after all! I’ll be doing four nights a week for the students taking evening classes. All I have to do is lie back and think of… well, whatever I want to think of, and let everyone else do the work.’ She beamed. ‘Good, eh?’

  ‘You’re serious?’ Claudia couldn’t believe it. How could Poppy possibly think that what she’d be doing was respectable? ‘You’d really parade around naked for a bunch of dirty leering old men?’

  ‘I won’t be parading around. And they aren’t dirty old men. It’s an art college,’ said Poppy patiently, ‘not a strip club in Soho.’

  ‘Ugh. It’s repugnant.’ Claudia had forgotten she was supposed to be smiling. She shuddered in disgust. ‘They’ll see… all of you.’

  ‘So? I’ll be able to pay all my rent.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t catch me doing anything like that. I couldn’t.’ Claudia looked across at Jake for support. ‘Could you?’

  ‘Um… well, no, I suppose not.’ Jake tried to bury himself in a brochure for Lassiter’s next furniture auction.

  ‘Look, it pays as much as Kenda’s Kitchen and it’s a damn sight easier on the feet. I’m doing it and that’s that,’ said Poppy. ‘Now, is there anything else anyone would like to lecture me about or can I take my tea break?’

  Claudia remembered her other reason for coming here and seized her chance. She turned to Jake.

  ‘Well now, seeing as I’ve found you, I may as well spend some money. Perhaps you could help me choose a present for my mother. Something classy, elegant…’

  I might not be classy and elegant like Angie Slade-Welch, thought Poppy resentfully, but at least I’m getting paid for being painted in the nude. I’m not the muggins who had to pay Caspar six thousand pounds.

  ‘Actually,’ said Jake, ‘Poppy could be the one to help you there.’ Claudia was smiling—no, baring her teeth—at him as if her life depended on it and it was making him nervous. ‘I need to talk to Terry about picking up that set of rattan chairs,’ he went on hurriedly, turning to Poppy for help. ‘Is that okay? Can you take your tea break later? I really must speak to him now.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Claudia, disappointed, when Jake had rushed off.

  ‘I don’t know. What’s the matter with your face?’

  Claudia looked alarmed. Her hands flew up. Was her foundation streaky, her mascara smudged?

  ‘No, your mouth.’ Poppy was genuinely trying to help. She did a fair imitation of the smile Claudia had practiced for so long in front of the mirror. ‘It’s your wisdom teeth, isn’t it? They’re playing up again. You really should see the dentist and have them out.’

  Upstairs in the coffee shop, Jake sat alone. He was pretending to read the paper and thinking about Claudia. More to the point, he was telling himself what a hopeless coward he was when it came to socializing with the opposite sex.

  The fact that he was even thinking about it was all Poppy’s fault. For years he had led the kind of life that suited him most. Basically, this involved steering clear of the opposite sex.

  He had been comfortable doing this because the odd bit of loneliness was so much easier to cope with than the traumatic process of meeting girls, deciding which ones you liked, figuring out if they liked you back, plucking up the courage to ask them out…

  As far as Jake could see, the whole tortuous dating business was a nightmare, an endless procession of trial and error that seemed far, far more trouble than it was worth. How many relationships lasted the course these days anyway? Look at the way his parents had fought before splitting up. No, those kind of complications he was better off doing without.

  It was only since Poppy had come to work for him that Jake had begun to wonder if maybe there was something missing from his life. Not that he was secretly lusting after Poppy, because he knew he wasn’t. It was more to do with the way she had taken control of her own future. She had seized it, given it a damn good shake, and forced new things to happen. Poppy was fearless, impulsive, and determined to make the most of every moment. She seldom bothered to worry about what might happen if she got something wrong.

  This wasn’t necessarily a plus, Jake thought with a wry smile. Especially when you were her employer. But at least Poppy had a go at whatever she set out to do.

  He knew she must think his lack of a social life downright weird.

  And now here I am, thought Jake, beginning to wonder if maybe she wasn’t right.

  He looked at his watch. Half an hour had passed. It should be safe by now to venture back downstairs.

  It wasn’t as if Claudia wasn’t nice, because she was. It wasn’t as if he didn’t find her attractive either, because he did. Perhaps if I take it slowly, one step at a time, Jake told himself, I could mentally gear myself up towards asking her out. In a couple of years’ time.

  When he hit the bottom step, he saw that half an hour hadn’t b
een long enough. Claudia was still there, evidently torn between a pair of rococo candlesticks and a blue and white Florianware pottery vase.

  ‘…are you serious? You’ve really never been to a flea market?’ Poppy was saying as Jake approached. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing—they’re brilliant fun! If you want to give them a whirl, Jake can tell you the best ones to visit. He goes every Sunday, don’t you, Jake?’

  This was it, this was his big chance. Taking a leaf out of Poppy’s book, Jake plunged in.

  ‘There’s a good one out at Henley this Sunday. I could pick you up if you like, we can go together… it’s best to be there early, I’d have to be at your house by eight… and there’s a pub overlooking the river, which does terrific food. We could have some lunch there afterwards…’

  Jake ran out of words. Luckily he’d said all he needed to say. There, he’d done it. The last time he’d asked a girl out he’d been nine years old.

  Golly, thought Poppy, astonished and impressed. She turned expectantly. All Claudia had to do now was say yes.

  ‘Oh, I would have loved to.’ Claudia was stricken by the bad timing. If it had been anything else she would have canceled like a shot. ‘But I have to go to a christening on Sunday. My cousin’s little girl. They’re doing it in Brighton. What a shame…’

  Poppy looked at Jake. It was like prodding a snail and watching the head shrink back beneath the shell.

  ‘No problem. Just a thought. It really doesn’t matter. Is this what you’ve chosen for your mother?’ Jake held up the blue and white vase, his hands trembling slightly. ‘Did Poppy tell you it’s Florianware? Eighteen-nineties, and signed by Moorcroft—’

  ‘How about the following Sunday?’ Poppy couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t let him change the subject. ‘You could go then instead. How about it, Jake? The Sunday after next?’

  ‘I’m away that weekend,’ said Claudia unhappily. ‘Staying with Harriet and Tim in Wales.’ Even to her own ears it sounded feeble, and she knew it was the truth. Heaven knows how it must sound to Jake.

  ‘I’m busy as well.’ Jake wished the ground would swallow him up. He wished he’d stayed put in the coffee shop for another thirty minutes. He definitely wished he hadn’t made a complete dick of himself. How could he have been stupid enough to think Claudia would want to go to a flea market with him? I mean for God’s sake, thought Jake despairingly, of all the glamour spots of the world, a flea market.

  Chapter 20

  Caspar was on his way out to a party in Belsize Park the following evening. He offered to drop Poppy off at St Clare’s en route.

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘What, of your driving?’ Poppy grinned and shoved a gummy bear into his mouth. ‘I’m used to it by now.’

  ‘Nervous about the class. Getting your kit off.’

  ‘Yes.’ She could admit as much to Caspar. ‘But that won’t last, will it? The first five minutes will be the worst.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want me to come in for a bit, keep an eye on you?’ He winked. ‘Make sure they don’t laugh? Ouch—’

  Poppy whacked him on the arm.

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll be okay. I just hope the heating’s on.’

  Caspar’s petrol light flashed with renewed urgency. Spotting an Esso garage up ahead, he pulled onto the forecourt.

  ‘Won’t be a minute. Give me one more gummy bear… not another green one,’ he protested, because Poppy always fobbed him off with those. His eyes lit up as he glimpsed a coveted red gummy bear in the bottom of the bag.

  Poppy had seen it too.

  ‘Here, have a lovely yellow one—no, no!’ She let out a yelp as Caspar made a grab for the bag. They wrestled over it for several seconds. Then the bag split. Gummy bears catapulted in all directions.

  Grinning, Caspar picked the red one off the dashboard and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘You should know better than to fight with me. Don’t I always win?’

  ‘Petrol,’ Poppy reminded him, because if he didn’t get a move on she was going to be late.

  While Caspar was filling up, she slid off the passenger seat and began collecting the scattered gummy bears. By the time she scrambled upright, he had disappeared into the shop to pay.

  If she hadn’t been so busy chasing gummy bears, Poppy realized afterwards, she would have seen Tom sooner.

  If she’d stayed down on the floor a few seconds longer, she would have missed him altogether.

  But there he was, clearly visible under the bright fluorescent garage lighting, making his way back from the shop with a packet of Benson & Hedges and a can of Coke in one hand, a copy of the Evening Standard in the other. The tangled curls and glittering dark eyes were just as Poppy remembered them. He was wearing jeans—maybe the same pair he had worn last time she’d seen him—and a dark grey polo-necked sweater beneath a black leather jacket. The way he walked was the same. Nothing about him had changed. If she touched him, Poppy realized, she knew exactly how he would feel.

  She sat frozen in the passenger seat, too shocked at first to react. It felt like hours but was probably no more than a couple of seconds. I’ve got to move, thought Poppy, dazed. I’ve got to attract his attention.

  Tom’s car was obscured from view by an RAC van. All she could see was the bumper. But he was heading for it, and if she didn’t do something sharpish, he was going to climb in, start the engine, and disappear.

  Galvanized into action, Poppy launched herself at the door handle. As she did so, the car Tom was about to get into started up. Someone else was driving. Poppy panicked and tugged again, frantically, at the handle. Slippery with sweat, her hand slid off. The car with Tom inside began to move and thanks to the angle of the RAC van and the petrol pumps, she still couldn’t get a good look at it.

  ‘Stop… help… WAIT… STOP!!’ screamed Poppy, realizing too late that she was the helpless victim of a child lock. Any second now, the car would pull out into the road. This had been her chance in a million and she’d almost blown it. Her heart racing, Poppy threw herself across to the driver’s side and leaned as hard as she knew how on the horn.

  ‘Here. Don’t say I never buy you anything.’

  An unopened bag of gummy bears landed with a crackly thud in Poppy’s lap. Caspar climbed back into the car.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Poppy was too shell-shocked to explain. She felt sick. She couldn’t eat a gummy bear now to save her life.

  ‘Last-minute panic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, something’s happened.’

  ‘Your car horn doesn’t work.’

  Caspar waved his keys at her. ‘Not without these in the ignition.’

  Hell.

  ‘And there’s a child lock on this door. You don’t have children,’ said Poppy.

  ‘The chap I bought the car from had them fitted. Kate was showing me yesterday how to work them. Sorry, couldn’t you open the door?’ said Caspar. ‘I didn’t realize they were still switched on.’

  Around Poppy, at varying distances, sixteen pupils stood before their easels observing, drawing, re-drawing, and shading the contours of her body. Every detail mattered. Their concentration was total. When they spoke, they did it in whispers.

  The group comprised seven women and nine men, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty. The only disparaging remark about their new model had come from a tall older woman in a hand-crocheted tunic, complaining about Poppy’s lack of saggy bits and wrinkles. Nobody had ogled her either. They were too busy drawing to leer.

  Poppy gazed at a peeling patch of wall. Her mind was elsewhere—back on a chilly garage forecourt on the Marylebone Road—but her body was right here doing its job.

  At least seeing Tom again had given her something else to think about other than the fact that she was sitting here minus her clothes.

  Money had been tight for the last few weeks and Poppy had been forced to give the Cavendish Club a miss. When she visited it the Fr
iday before Christmas, she heard the jaunty, bluesy sound of Alex on the piano as she reached the stone steps leading down to the entrance of the club.

  Inside, half the office parties in London appeared to have crammed themselves willy-nilly into the three interlinked cellars. The place was heaving with tipsy secretaries and excitable clerical types with their shirtsleeves rolled up and their ties awry. Everyone was celebrating their last day at work. Ugly men waving scrawny bits of mistletoe were looking hopeful. There was a lot of smudged lipstick about. Poppy found herself fending off the enthusiastic attentions of a burly lad in a reindeer suit.

  ‘If you don’t give me a Christmas kiss, you’ll hurt my feelings,’ he pleaded.

  ‘If you don’t take your hands off my bottom,’ said Poppy with a grin, ‘I’ll rip your antlers off.’

  She found Rita in her usual corner of the bar, looking festive in a bright red dress and snowman earrings. The first thing she did was buy Poppy a drink.

  ‘Still speaking to us then? I thought you might have decided you’d had enough of these jazz types.’ She watched Poppy take a thrifty sip of her lager and downed her own drink in one. ‘Come on love, get it down your neck. Don’t worry, I’m buying.’

  Was Rita looking older? Were there shadows under her eyes, carefully but not totally masked by concealer? Poppy watched her stub out one cigarette and straight away light up another. There was an air of recklessness about her tonight, a definite I-could-do-with-a-Valium look in her eyes. The smile was put on. And she kept glancing across in the direction of the stage, as if compulsively checking that Alex was still there.

  Maybe they’ve had a fight, thought Poppy. Maybe Rita had been a bit free and easy with her own Christmas kisses and Alex had got jealous. Or vice versa.

  Or there was more to it than that, and she had discovered he was having an affair—

  Poppy stopped herself before she got carried away. This was her trouble, she was always imagining things and leaping to conclusions. There were, after all, any number of reasons why Rita might be on edge.

  Poppy glanced over her shoulder and saw a pregnant girl standing over by the fire exit. Rita had mentioned ages ago that she hadn’t been able to have children. Briefly, almost casually, she had said, ‘No, no kids. It just didn’t happen. Still, never mind.’ But behind the brave, don’t-care façade, Poppy had glimpsed the pain, and the number of soft toys in Rita’s house had been another giveaway. The sight of a pregnant woman must remind her every time of what she had missed.