Before I Met You

by Lisa Jewell

  ‘Well,’ said Godfrey, after ordering dry Martinis for the whole table, ‘I feel a little as though I have fallen down Alice’s hole and woken up in Wonderland.’

  Lilian laughed over-loudly. ‘I absolutely agree with you, Mr Pickle,’ she said, in the silly new voice she appeared to have developed for his benefit. ‘But isn’t this just the most divine place in the world? All these beautiful people!’

  ‘And some not so beautiful,’ he replied, nodding in the direction of a woman with a heavily pencilled-in brow and a beak-like nose, dressed in head-to-toe black like a Spanish widow.

  ‘But still, all so different, all so unique.’

  ‘Well, yes, that they are.’

  A young girl approached their table then. She was small as a wood nymph and dressed in gold. Her black hair was bobbed to her jaw and her lips were painted into a red rosebud. ‘Gideon!’ she trilled, lowering her cigarette and blowing some smoke from the side of her mouth. ‘My goodness, I haven’t seen you for such a dreadfully long time! How are you?’

  Gideon got to his feet and clasped the girl’s hands between his. ‘Miss McAteer!’ he beamed. ‘How wonderful to see you!’

  ‘Oh, Gids, please don’t call me Miss. That’s just so old-fashioned.’

  Gideon looked stung at the suggestion that he might be out of date and puffed out his chest. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘Minu. Lovely Minu McAteer.’ He turned to his companions. ‘Everyone, this is my dear friend Minu McAteer. Minu, this is Mr ...’ he stopped and smiled, ‘... sorry, this is Godfrey, Lilian and Arlette.’

  Minu McAteer blew kisses at all of them and Gideon pushed himself up the banquette so that she could sit down.

  ‘So, Mr Worsley,’ she teased, ‘how are you? And what on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘I am absolutely fine. And I am here at the suggestion of Mr ... of Godfrey, whose portrait I am currently painting, at my studio.’

  She eyed up Mr Pickle curiously. ‘I feel I recognise you,’ she said. ‘Is it possible we have met before?’

  ‘Well, yes, indeed. I am a musician; you may well have seen me performing with one of my bands.’

  ‘One of your bands! Well, how impressive. And what bands might they be?’

  ‘I play clarinet, Mam’zelle, with both the Southern Syncopated Orchestra and also my own ensemble, a three-piece called Sandy Beach and the Love Brothers.’

  ‘Sandy Beach! Yes! Of course. We have met before. You played at another club I frequent. I asked you if you might be able to do some songs at my birthday party; you said you were too busy.’ She pouted at him and he laughed.

  ‘It has certainly been a busy year for me, Miss McAteer ...’

  ‘Call me Minu.’

  ‘Minu.’ He smiled at her broadly and Arlette felt her despondency grow again. ‘I have been on the road constantly since last summer. The length and breadth of your country, an itinerary that would leave you quite breathless. I apologise for being unable to play at your party. And for not remembering your quite, quite lovely face.’

  Arlette tensed at his words and resisted the violent urge to collect her hat and gloves and jump into the first carriage home.

  Minu McAteer turned to Arlette then and smiled sweetly, and Arlette felt her heart lift at the thought that she might be about to bring her into her conversation with Mr Pickle. But instead she said, ‘I wonder, would you mind awfully if I sat to the other side of you, so that Sandy and I may have a little chat?’

  And then the winsome young thing climbed over Arlette’s lap, squeezed herself in between them and turned her tiny, gold-clad back fully on Arlette and Gideon.

  Gideon looked down at Arlette and smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this place is rather a find, wouldn’t you say?’

  Arlette nodded wearily.

  ‘All these people. Extraordinary.’ He shook his head slowly and smiled. ‘Everything all right, Arlette?’ he asked gently. ‘You haven’t seemed quite yourself today.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, through a stiff smile. ‘Absolutely fine.’

  ‘Your friend Lilian, she’s quite a girl, isn’t she?’

  Arlette sighed. ‘Ah, yes, that she is. As is your friend Minu.’

  ‘Two girls, it seems, rather spellbound by our friend Mr Pickle.’

  ‘You mean Godfrey,’ she said archly.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Gideon smiled. ‘I must get with the modern way. The new etiquette. Godfrey.’

  ‘I think it sounds rather vulgar,’ said Arlette, primly. ‘We barely know him.’

  ‘Well, yes, that is true. But times are changing, Arlette. The world is a different place. It is impossible, I suppose, for the world to go through such upheaval and not come out of it rather changed. I rather like it. And you, well, I would call you the poster girl for the new world. A young woman of independent means, living off your own money, working at a job, finding your way in the big city almost single-handedly. You are the new modern woman. Why be scared of change?’

  ‘It’s not change I am scared of, Gideon, it is decline.’

  ‘Oh, Arlette, Arlette, Arlette ...’ He smiled affectionately and patted the top of her hand. ‘You are such a lovely little dichotomy. Such a puzzle. So unlike any girl I have met before.’ He looked at her fondly and then covered her hand with his completely, wrapping his fingers under her palm.

  Arlette stared down at her hand and stopped breathing for a moment. She had no idea what to make of it. In another context, a more formal context, that hand over hers would be a shocking approach, but here, in this peculiar, decadent place, full of bohemians and eccentrics and ladies whose stocking tops were clearly visible above the hemlines of their clothes, it seemed somehow sweet and reassuring. She heard Godfrey say something behind her and then the ear-splitting sound of Lilian and Minu both exploding with carefully orchestrated mirth. She curled her fingers carefully around Gideon’s and squeezed.

  ‘Well,’ said Gideon, flushing slightly, ‘I am glad to see that at least one woman in this party has not succumbed to the charms of Mr Pickle.’

  Arlette smiled tightly and said nothing.

  33

  1995

  CHELSEA EMBANKMENT WAS far more beautiful than its name might have suggested. On one side sat the Thames, fringed with evenly spaced trees and lampposts shaped like dolphins. On the other side the houses ranged from blowsy mansion blocks to narrow town houses, and, as Betty walked westwards along the wide pavement, clutching Arlette’s photograph in her hand, to clusters of pretty stucco cottages. She held the photograph before herself and slotted it into the panorama like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. There, she thought, there it was. She found a pelican crossing and headed to the other side of the street. The cottages, which looked grey in the photograph, were actually painted in sugary tones of pink and blue, and the trees that had once been tiny saplings were now full-size chestnuts, but it was, undoubtedly, the same place.

  She positioned herself in front of the cottages and realised she was standing in the exact spot that the photographer must have stood in to take the shot. And then she moved forward a few paces and put herself on the precise corner of the precise paving slab that Arlette was standing on looking slightly wistful next to her friends on some unspecified evening back in 1920-something. She felt an energy as she stood there, a jolt of something amazing and strange. Arlette had stood here, she thought to herself, a girl of her own age, alone in London, just like her.

  She stared for a moment at the man in the photograph, a happy man with dark, straggly hair and a scruffy overcoat on. But he looked artfully unkempt; his features were refined, his stature proud and tall. Betty wondered if this man might be G. And as she wondered this she turned to appraise the row of pastel-coloured cottages behind her and saw that the smallest of the six, the one closest to the spot where the picture had been taken, had a blue plaque attached to the front wall. She moved closer and read it:

  The painter and photographer

  Gideon Worsley

  lived and w
orked in this house

  1918–1923

  Betty blinked and looked from the plaque to the photo and from the photo to the plaque. Gideon. Gideon Worsley. He was G. The scruffy man with the beautiful nose must be G, she thought. He looked like an artist. He had a camera. And he was in a photograph directly outside a house that now bore his name. And if he was G, then Arlette was A, which meant that it must have been Arlette and Gideon who had scratched their initials into the tree at the bottom of the garden in Abingdon Villas, which meant that Arlette must have lived there. But if Gideon Worsley had been Arlette’s lover, then how did he fit into the rest of the story? What did he have to do with Clara Pickle and Soho jazz clubs?

  She found a bench and sat down. Then she pulled out the rest of the photographs and flicked through them urgently, looking for any more images of this man, this artist and photographer. But she found none. This was the only picture Arlette appeared to have of him.

  She took her disposable camera from her bag and took some photos of her own, of the cottage, of the plaque. And then, pulled along by an overwhelming wave of momentum, she opened the garden gate, walked up the lupin-lined path and knocked on the door of the cottage with the plaque. She knocked once, then again, but nobody came to the door. She looked up at the windows on the second floor but saw no signs of life. She sighed. Her day as a private eye had brought itself to a natural close. And anyway, it was nearly four o’clock; it was time to go to work.

  Amy Metz got to her feet and fixed Betty with a terrible shark-like stare.

  ‘Betty, I presume,’ she said in a mockney/California drawl.

  Betty gulped and looked at Dom. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘hello. Er, yes.’

  Amy narrowed her eyes and offered Betty a limp-wristed hand to shake.

  ‘I’m Amy,’ she said, somewhat unnecessarily. She was wearing a short leopard-print tunic with sheer black tights, and her violently red hair was pinned on top of her head with a big diamanté butterfly. On her feet she wore red platform boots and she smelled, overwhelmingly, of Opium. Her pretty face was gaunt and pale, and her thin arms were covered in scratch marks and patches of eczema. She looked, Betty thought, nothing like she did in photos; she had none of the glitter and the mystery.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘first off, I gotta tell you, I am not happy that Dom has been leaving my kids with a fricking stranger. OK? And I’m not saying that is your fault. It is obviously not your fault. OK? But this is not a situation that I am happy about. In the least.’

  Betty gulped and let her gaze fall to the floor. Amy Metz was only about five foot tall but had the fearsome aura of a giant.

  ‘But,’ she said, letting her features soften by an iota, ‘Dom tells me you’re great with the kids and Donny tells me you’re the bee’s fricking knees.’ She smiled sardonically. ‘So listen, Betty,’ she spat out her name as if she doubted its veracity, ‘what we’re gonna do here is make this official, OK? I’ve got some agency girls coming over the next day or two so I’m gonna get you in for an interview. OK? At my house. I want you to bring a CV, some references. OK? We’re gonna do this properly.’ She threw Dom a withering look, then turned back to address Betty. ‘OK?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ Betty said, adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, which she had not yet had a chance to put down. ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow, eleven a.m. Dom’ll give you the address. Meantimes, I’m happy for you to sit with the kids tonight. Yeah? I’ve got an idea of you now. Well, half an idea, at least.’ She threw Dom another rancid look. ‘If you need anything tonight,’ she said, ‘anything at all, you call me, OK. Not Dom. Me.’ She passed Betty a small business card and then, after some hurried but intense kisses and cuddles with her three children, she was gone, into a waiting car and towards a gig in Guildford.

  The house was silent for a moment after her departure. The three children sat in a row on the sofa looking slightly dazed and Dom sat quietly on the arm of the sofa, chewing the inside of his cheek. After a moment he pulled himself straight, dragged his fingers through his unkempt hair and raised his eyes towards Betty’s.

  ‘Er, yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t have a chance to warn you. Donny was full of Betty this, Betty that, all day apparently. Amy asked who Betty was ...’ He shrugged, rubbed his hair again. ‘I suppose I should have known it would happen.’

  ‘So ...?’ Betty tried to form a question she knew needed asking, but couldn’t quite find the words.

  ‘I think she’ll give you the job, I really do. I mean, getting the kids to like you is most of the battle, and they already do. And Amy is a big fan of cutting corners financially so if she can get someone without having to pay out an agency whack, she will see that as a huge bonus. And if you get the job then, well, we’re talking big salary. Travel. Some extra benefits. A car ...’

  ‘A car?’

  ‘Yeah, our nannies get a car. A little runaround. Paid taxes. Health care.’

  Betty sat down heavily on the armchair, her shoulder bag buried in her lap. Her dreams were coming real and the reality was only now hitting her. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘But hard work, yeah?’

  He nodded. ‘Really hard work. Long hours. But fun.’ He glanced at Betty and then down at his fingernails. ‘I’d’ve thought. Anyway, even if you don’t get the job, I’ll still need a baby-sitter. I am out, quite a lot.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Betty, ‘I know.’

  He looked up at her and smiled. ‘Do you think I’m a bad father?’ he asked, his eyes cast down towards his feet.

  ‘What? God, no! Why would I think that?’

  ‘Well, you know, what Amy just said, leaving my kids with a stranger, going out when I should be hanging out with them, all that, you know ...’

  ‘It’s your job,’ she said. ‘You’re a pop star.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s part of the job description. And as for leaving your kids with me, well, you and I both know the truth about that. You and I both know that I’m a safe pair of hands.’

  He looked up and smiled at her gratefully. ‘I haven’t always been the best judge of character,’ he said, alluding silently but heavily to the mother of his children. ‘But I guess that’s one of those things that you get better at, the older you get. Anyway,’ he pulled himself up straight and moved Acacia from his lap onto the sofa, ‘I need to get ready. And these guys,’ he rubbed Acacia’s curls, ‘need some tea. There’s a Bolognese on the hob.’

  ‘Yummy. Homemade?’

  ‘Er, yeah, but not by me, Amy brought it with her.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘See. Bad father.’ He stood up and surveyed his children. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘hands up who’s hungry?’

  ‘Me!’ shouted Donny, waving both short arms in the air. ‘I’m completely and totally starving.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said Betty, getting to her feet and offering Donny her hand. ‘Why don’t you come and help me get tea ready?’

  ‘Can I eat raw spaghetti?’ he asked, hopefully.

  ‘Do you like raw spaghetti?’

  Donny nodded.

  ‘Well, then, of course you can.’

  ‘Yes!’ Donny punched the air. ‘Yes!’

  After the children were in bed (and this time she managed to settle Astrid on just the third visit to her bedroom), Betty rolled herself a cigarette and took it to the window on the first-floor landing. She felt the same sense of strangeness she’d experienced earlier, standing on the pavement outside Gideon Worsley’s cottage, that sense of echoes and reflections, of being in someone’s shadow. As she pulled open the sash, felt it stick, pushed it again, heard the sound as it reeled itself loose and the window lifted in its frame, she felt like she’d slipped through a mirror to the other side of her life.

  She lit the roll-up and perched herself on the ledge, in the same place that she’d first seen Dom, and she looked across the courtyard, through a haze of steam and smoke, to the other side of the mirror, to the fire escape outside her flat. For a moment she saw a ghostly vision of herself: blond and fresh, full of silly dreams. The f
resh blond version of herself smiled at her across the courtyard and Betty smiled back. She wasn’t that person any more. She was fatter and darker and older and wiser. It struck her that the changes she could see in herself mirrored the changes she’d seen in Arlette between the photograph outside Gideon Worsley’s cottage and the photograph of her sitting on the floor between the legs of black men. The same face, two completely different women.

  And then she thought of this job. A full-time nanny. In Primrose Hill. It would be round the clock, unsociable hours, it would be total responsibility for three small children, it would mean obeying orders and following routines. It would give her absolutely no freedom at all. And after today, after her meeting with Alexandra, her visits to the houses in Holland Park and Chelsea, she knew that what she needed more than anything right now was time.

  She lit her roll-up and inhaled, and then she remembered that there was one thing she needed more than time. She needed money.

  She sighed.

  She would go to the interview. If nothing else it would be fascinating to see inside Amy Metz’s Primrose Hill mansion. But as to what happened after that, if Amy offered her the job, she had absolutely no idea, none whatsoever.

  34

  1920

  ONE MONDAY MORNING in early May, Mrs Stamper invited Arlette into her office behind the curtain at the back of the shop floor. She seemed twitchy and uncomfortable, and had a slightly oily, grey pallor.

  ‘Miss De La Mare,’ she said, grimacing slightly, ‘please, sit down.’

  Arlette smoothed her skirt behind her and sat before Mrs Stamper, rather apprehensively.

  ‘I have a small announcement to share with you and I would be obliged if you didn’t share this with other members of staff, but I discovered yesterday that I am to be a mother.’