‘My angel is home!’ he said, swivelling his head towards the door.
‘I’m not feeling very angelic, I can tell you that for free.’
‘Oh dear. Did it not go well?’
‘It went… Erm… How did it go?’ I dropped my bags by the kitchen table and flopped on the opposite sofa. ‘For starters, I probably shouldn’t have kissed my interview subject.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘Not really. I mean he tried to, but I said no.’
‘Pols! What on earth? That’s unlike you.’
‘I know, I know. But I was trying to be professional. Or something.’
‘Did you fancy him?’
‘No. Not my type. He’s kind of hot, but in a very obvious way. Tall. Blond hair, sort of… athletic, you know. Blah blah.’
Joe rolled his eyes. ‘Those are the worst. The ones who are obviously hot.’
‘Don’t be mean, I’m not strong enough. I nearly died from my hangover on the train.’
‘Here, have some Lucozade. And then sit down and tell me everything.’
‘No, no, I’m good. I think I need a hot bath and bed.’
Joe sighed and turned his head back to the telly. ‘You’re so boring. I tell you everything.’
‘Too much sometimes, I’d say. Anyway, what have you been doing all weekend? Apart from marinating on the sofa.’
‘Oh, this and that. Went out with a bunch of gays last night in Soho. Got roaringly drunk and ended up in Mr Wong’s eating three-headed sweet and sour chicken.’
‘Any action?’
‘Nope. Chaste weekend for me. Which is why I’m seeking solace in crisps. But I’m terribly cheered that you’ve had a bit more activity, my darling. Was beginning to worry you’d rust up.’
‘It really wasn’t activity. But it’s good that you have such a clear understanding of how female anatomy works.’
‘Isn’t it just? Ah, Pols, Fiona Bruce is the only woman for me anyway. Look at her being nice to that little man about his hideous clock.’
‘I think I’m going to leave you to it and have a bath and get immediately into bed so I can face you-know-who tomorrow.’
‘Your new boyfriend?’
‘Who’s my new… Oh… No, I mean Peregrine.’
‘Have you rung your mother?’ Joe and I had a Sunday evening pact that we would always ring our parents.
‘Shit. And Lex texted me asking me to ring too. Oh, God, I can’t be bothered. Is it terribly bad if I ignore them all?’
‘Text them, then your mum won’t worry and the others will know you’re alive.’
‘OK, thanks, Dad.’
‘Welcome. Now go to your room. You’ve been a very naughty girl.’
I texted Mum once in bed.
Just home. Going to crash out. Will ring tomorrow for a gossip. You OK? XXX
Then I texted Lex.
Just home. Going to crash out. Long story. Will ring tomorrow. You OK or suffering some sort of grievous sex injury? XXX
Except obviously I got them the wrong way round.
Darling, should I be suffering some sort of sex injury? Glad you’re home safely. Speak tomorrow. X
I went into the office early the next morning feeling like a weary First World War soldier on the morning of the Somme. I ordered an extra-strong Americano in Pret. It was going to be One Of Those Days.
On my to-do list:
1)Write 2,500 words about the Marquess of Milton which Peregrine would like, revealing the ‘real’ Jasper, the charming, outdoorsy, upstanding young man who would be the fourteenth duke.
2)Call Lex, who’d texted last night – ever the dramatist – to say if I didn’t call her that morning she’d put a curse on me.
3)Call Mum to talk about Bertie, Jeremy Paxman and her hospital appointment.
4)Text Bill.
5)Decide what I was going to say to Lala about Jasper.
My phone vibrated on my desk and made me jump. It was a message. From a random number.
Hope you got home to your poky flat in one piece. I’m intrigued about what you’re going to write. Dinner this week? J
I looked blankly at my phone for a few seconds. J for Jasper? Jasper had texted me. I texted him back.
How did you get my number, you creep?
I move in mysterious ways. Dinner Friday?
I’ll have written the piece by Friday…
Fine. We can discuss it over dinner. The Italian on Kensington Park Road at 8 work for you?
‘Morning, Polly.’
I jumped again as the office door crashed open and I dropped my phone. It was Peregrine.
‘Morning.’
‘How was it? What did you get?’ he asked.
‘It was… erm… I got… it was…’
‘Come on, Polly, you’re a journalist not a mute. What did he say?’
‘Various things. Lots of pressure, lets off steam every now and then, he knows who sold the pictures, family life a bit tricky and so on. It’ll make a piece.’
‘Good. Can you file this afternoon? Say five o’ clock?’
‘I think so. Should be fine.’
‘Good.’ He paused in his office doorway and squinted at me. ‘You all right? You look terrible.’
‘Oh no. No, fine, thank you. Probably just caught a cold from the shooting or something.’
‘Well, dose yourself up on Lemsip in that case and get cracking. Two thousand five hundred words. My desk. Tea time.’
Which is why I didn’t have time to ring Lex or Mum that morning. Although I didn’t have to worry about Lala because she was off sick, apparently.
Sorry, Pols, think I’ve got food poisoning so not coming in today. How was it? Xxxxx
Lala seemed to be incredibly unlucky with food poisoning on Mondays, but at least I had another day to work out what I’d tell her about Jasper, because I agreed to have dinner with him.
Tell you tomorrow, get some sleep, you idiot. X
It took me five coffees and untold calories but by 5 p.m. I’d squeezed out 2,500 perfectly all right words on Jasper and his family – the censored version. According to my piece, they were eccentric – naturally – but didn’t everyone prefer their aristocrats that way? No point in having a duke who went about life like a dreary geography teacher. As for Jasper, he was a charming and, yes, admittedly quite handsome man who loved his Labrador and liked to forget about the pressure of inheriting such a large chunk of the country.
Given he was inheriting £500 million, I thought this was absurdly generous, but this was Posh! not the Guardian, and our readers would nod along and sympathize with him from their own castles. The Duchess, I wrote carefully, was in excellent shape and on ‘friendly’ terms with the estate staff. And Violet was a sweet, quiet girl who generally preferred her pony to people. ‘It’s lucky,’ I wrote, ‘that the castle is overseen by Ian, the butler, a modern-day Jeeves, who strolls silently about the corridors finding vital bits of clothing, extra bottles of red wine and the odd lost dog. Should you require it, he also makes a terrific hot toddy.’
‘Good,’ said Peregrine, walking towards my desk, article in hand. ‘Just a few marks. You liked him then?’
‘Who?’
‘Jasper. You’re very nice about him.’
‘Oh, well, I mean. Yes, I did like him. He’s, you know, fun.’
‘Mmm. Can you look at my comments? I think just a few more nice lines about the family as a whole. I don’t think we can be too kind to them, useful to keep them onside. Then put it through and talk to the art department about pictures.’
‘’Course.’
‘Keep them onside’. Honestly. I couldn’t have been kinder to this mad, addled, gamekeeper-shagging family.
‘I’ve made some pasta with fridge droppings, I hope that’s OK,’ said Mum when I arrived for supper at her flat that night.
‘Delicious. How was your day?’
‘Oh, fine, fine. There was a tiresome woman who spent four hours deciding what colour toile to hav
e for her bedroom curtains, but other than that it was easy enough. How was yours? How was the piece in the end?’
‘All right. I had to be a bit careful with it.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, just because the whole family are completely mad, but I can hardly write that. And poor Jasper…’
‘Who’s Jasper?’
‘The son.’
‘He can’t be that poor if he’s the son of a duke.’
‘Well no, he’s not poor, I just mean he has two parents who are constantly at war so he rattles around that place on his own, trying to avoid them both.’
‘Why doesn’t he get a job?’
‘Well, he kind of does have a job. He’s learning how to run the estate.’
‘Is he good-looking?’
‘Erm, kind of.’
‘Kind of?’
‘He’s tall, blond, very charming. He sort of tried to kiss me, as it happens.’ I didn’t have many secrets from Mum. And vice versa.
‘Darling! How thrilling. What does “sort of” mean though?’
‘He tried to kiss me, but I stopped it. It seemed a bit… unprofessional.’
‘Oh, you girls these days and all this professionalism,’ said Mum, rummaging around in the fridge. ‘Where is that cheese? I know there’s some buried in here somewhere. Ah, here it is, under the fish paste.’ She retrieved a small, quite dry-looking nub of Cheddar. ‘Do try and be a bit romantic sometimes, Polly love.’
‘Mmm, I will,’ I said, peering into the pan on the cooker. It was an unidentifiable brown sauce.
‘Do you think you’ll see him again?’ Mum asked this in her ‘casual’ voice.
‘Well, as it happens, Mrs Bennet, I’m having dinner with him on Friday, to discuss the piece, he says, anyway.’
‘A date! That’s good news,’ she said, before narrowing her eyes at me. ‘What are you going to wear?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘And will you brush your hair?’
‘I will.’
‘Also,’ she went on, ‘are you still all right for the doctor’s appointment on Friday? At 4.15 at St Thomas’?’
‘Yes, yes, ’course.’
‘Are you sure? I’d probably be fine on my own. If you need to, you know, get ready for your dinner.’
‘No, no, of course I’m coming. I’ve told Peregrine.’
‘I don’t think it’ll take very long. An hour or so maybe. Which should give you enough time to get home afterwards and wash your hair.’
‘Phew. Thank God for that.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic, Polly. Men don’t like sarcasm.’
It was only on the bus home that I remembered I still needed to call Lex.
‘Finally, where have you been all my life?’ she said, picking up.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, just a mad few days and now I’m just on the way back from dinner at Mum’s. What’s up?’
‘I just wanted to check you were free this Friday for our engagement party?’
‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘Exciting. And yes, ’course.’ Then I remembered the dinner with Jasper. ‘Ah, er, actually, shit, no. Sorry, love. I’ve said yes to having dinner with… someone on Friday.’
‘With who?’ Lex sounded indignant.
‘That guy I interviewed on the weekend. Jasper Milton.’
‘Like a date?’
‘No, like a dinner.’
‘A dinner on a Friday night sounds suspiciously date-like to me.’
‘Honestly it’s not. I think he just wants to make sure I’ve said nice things about him.’
‘OK, well, can you come for drinks on Friday before your dinner that isn’t a date? One glass of champagne?’
‘Yup, probably. Where are you having it?’
‘Portobello Road.’
‘OK, perfect. I think so.’
After we hung up I wondered again if Lex was doing the right thing, or just caught up with the fripperies of a wedding. The ring, the engagement party, the dress. It seemed so all-consuming I was worried she’d forgotten the actual point of marriage.
I met Mum at 4 p.m. on Friday. I spotted her from a distance, sitting on a bench just outside the main entrance to the hospital, hunched in her red coat, and felt a pang of sadness. She looked totally alone. Vulnerable. It wasn’t often that I wished Dad was still around because I couldn’t remember that much about him. Just sitting beside him in the car listening to Dire Straits while he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and his soily gardening boots by the kitchen door. I felt guilty, sometimes, that I didn’t remember more. But once I’d settled at school in Battersea and Mum had found her job in the shop, our life in London was so radically different from life in a quiet Surrey village that I quite forgot it. Maybe it was a coping mechanism. An expensive shrink might hum and haw and say I’d pushed it out of my head deliberately. Who knows? It didn’t bug me very often. But that moment, outside the hospital, I wished Dad was there.
Mum sounded slightly less vulnerable when I reached the bench. ‘I mean, look at all these people, smoking on their drips. It’s a disgrace,’ she said loudly, gesturing with her arm.
‘Shhh, Mum, they’ll hear you.’ I leant down to kiss her.
‘And the fat ones. Look at all the fat ones.’
‘Never mind them. What bit are we going to?’
‘Hang on.’ She fumbled in her handbag and retrieved the letter. ‘The Bill Browning Wing.’
We set off, into the main entrance, down stairs, up lifts, along corridors with pictures of smiling nurses and posters about washing your hands until we came to the door of the wing.
‘Hello, can I help you?’ said a receptionist, not looking up from her computer.
‘Yes. My name is Susan Spencer and I’m here for my MRI scan. We’re a bit early though because the appointment’s for 4.15. Does that matter? That we’re a bit early?’ She was nervous.
The receptionist didn’t look up. ‘Letter, please.’
I gave Mum what I hoped was a reassuring smile and looked at the others in the waiting area. It was like a local bridge night, clusters of people, mostly old, with grey hair and grey faces, sitting around looking bored. Looking as if death might even be a welcome distraction.
‘Right, Mrs Spencer, let me just get your duty nurse and we’ll go from there. OK?’ The receptionist’s voice went up at the end of ‘OK’ as if she was talking to a child.
‘Shall we sit, Mums?’
‘Yes, let’s.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I hope Bertie’s OK without me in the shop.’
‘He’ll be fine. He’s the last thing you need to worry about.’
‘I know, I know.’ She was twisting a crumpled tissue around in her fingers.
I changed the subject. ‘What are you up to this weekend?’
‘Oh, not much. I think I might be in the shop tomorrow. And then I thought I might go to church on Sunday.’
‘Church?’
‘Yes, you know. The one on Battersea Park Road. Proper, old-fashioned vicar apparently. Doesn’t make everyone kiss each other after prayers. Can’t be doing with all that.’
‘Oh. Cool. Just because you…’ I trailed off. As far as I could remember, the last time Mum went to church was when Dad died.
‘I thought it might be a peaceful thing to do,’ she said firmly, still twisting the tissue in her fingers. ‘Just to go and think about things and have a little pray.’
‘Want me to come with you?’ As soon as I said it, I regretted it. The thought of getting to Battersea on Sunday morning to sit on a hard pew, in a cold church, surrounded by enthusiastic Christians didn’t fill me with the Holy spirit.
But it was too late, because Mum looked so hopeful that I had to say yes. ‘Oh, would you? Only I don’t know anyone who actually goes there. Although I suppose there might be coffee or something afterwards.’
‘Maybe even a biscuit. If we’re lucky. ’Course I’ll come.’
‘Susan Spencer?’ A nurse in blue overalls and white Crocs appeared in
the waiting area.
‘Oh,’ said Mum, looking at him with surprise. ‘It’s a man,’ she hissed at me under her breath.
‘Hello there, I’m Graham,’ said the nurse, holding out a hand. ‘I’m going to be your nurse today so if you’d like to follow me then we can get the boring paperwork out of the way.’
‘Hi, I’m her daughter,’ I said, quickly interjecting before Mum could say anything offensive to Graham. ‘I’m Polly. Can I come along too?’
‘’Course you can. More the merrier. Follow me.’
We walked through the swinging doors behind Graham, down a long corridor with stripped beds lined along one side, and into a small office. Graham’s Crocs squeaked on the floor.
‘Right now, let’s have a look at this,’ he said, sitting down and opening a blue folder at the desk. ‘So, Susan, you’re in for an MRI scan today. I’ll give you some robes to put on for this but it shouldn’t take long. Once we’ve done all these forms, it’ll be into the robes and then we allow about an hour or so for the whole process. Now, can I just confirm you’re not wearing anything metal?’
Mum shook her head.
‘And you haven’t eaten or drunk anything in the past hour?’
She shook her head again. ‘I’m gasping for a cup of tea.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sure you are,’ said Graham, sympathetically.
I looked at a poster on the wall behind the computer that said ‘Stand up to Cancer’. A smiling family were holding hands on it; a little blonde girl between her parents. A silly phrase. Of course you stand up to cancer. Nobody invites it. Nobody says, ‘Come on in, Cancer, do you fancy a cup of coffee?’
Graham carefully lay four different bits of paper on the desk in front of him, in four different colours. ‘They said when we got computers it would be so much easier but, honestly, look at all this paperwork. It’s just twice the work now. Dear me. Right, can I just confirm a few more things?’
He ran through Mum’s address, birthdate, medical history. ‘And you, Polly, are the responsible adult today, is that right?’
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