by Jenny Oliver
It felt imperative suddenly that she had to make things right with Charlie. She wrote a last quick message, her phone on two per cent battery. I really am sorry, Charlie, I’m about to go to bed but I just want to check you’re OK? X One kiss. Normally she put two or a heart-blowing emoji. But even one felt like she was putting herself out on a limb.
Outside, the waiter was carrying a tray high above his head crammed full of teetering beer glasses. The cigarette smoke wove in wispy tendrils, there were laughing faces, the sky was a wash of vermillion lines.
Beside her, Amber snored.
Charlie messaged back: Yeah, seriously, I’m fine. Hurt, embarrassed, but I’m fine. To be honest, Julia, I just want you to work out how to be happy so everything can get back to normal.
Normal. Julia flagged at the word. OK, she replied just before her phone died.
No kisses from either of them.
Chapter Eleven
The alarm went off at five a.m. Julia was wide awake, having woken practically every half hour and checked her watch to ensure she hadn’t overslept. The attic room had heated up and up during the night so she’d got up to open the window. She’d finally dropped off, only to be woken by the loud noises of the market starting.
Amber was grappling with her eye mask and so tied up in her sheet that she almost fell out of bed, having to grab the side table and knocking over the light as she tried to silence her phone alarm.
‘Jesus. Where am I? What is this? Holy shit, you’re here,’ were Amber’s first and only words for a while. Amber was clearly not a morning person. She stalked around the room semi-naked, yawning and rummaging through her case. She showered and dressed in black jeans, a black lace-trimmed vest, zebra-skin bumbag and huge black sunglasses in about two minutes flat and looked sensational.
In contrast Julia had a white shimmery polyester Primark skirt and an oversized white vest from the pack she’d bought Charlie, the outfit felt painfully prim and clean-cut when compared to Amber. Her and Lovejoy were all rugged and grooved, wiry and hard-edged, there was something primal about them, like they’d been dug out of the earth together. But the skirt and vest were all Julia had. Then she realised she didn’t have any clean pants. ‘Oh no.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Amber was tying her hair up and slicking on some red lipstick.
‘I don’t have any pants,’ said Julia. ‘Just my bikini bottoms.’
Amber laughed. ‘Wear them inside out. You can buy some at the market.’
‘Urgh.’
‘Or don’t wear any,’ Amber offered, brow raised in challenge as if she knew on instinct Julia was not the type of person to go knicker-free.
The suggestion did indeed spur Julia into wearing yesterday’s bikini bottoms inside out. Then she hastily got ready and packed up because Amber was waiting at the door, clicking her fingers, antsy to get going.
Outside it was already light. Stallholders were adding the finishing touches to their sprawled tables. White vans blocked every roadside, horns honked, furniture was being dragged on dollies up the centre of roads while police were trying to unmuddle knots of traffic.
They crossed the road past a council truck washing the hot concrete kerb-side. Other buyers traipsed out of the hotel yawning. Amber clearly had her routine down pat. Marching down the centre of the road, her battered bumbag bouncing as she went straight into the café where Lovejoy had been the previous evening. ‘Deux espresso,’ she said, then to Julia, ‘Wait here,’ and disappeared out the door.
All Julia could think about was breakfast. Her stomach was gnawing.
The waiter slammed down the two little cups just as Amber came back with two piping hot pains au chocolat from the boulangerie next door and two bottles of water. She paid the waiter, downed her espresso and with a huge bite of gooey chocolate croissant in her mouth said, ‘Come on, Julia, let’s go.’
Julia felt like she was on fast forward. Downing her own coffee and ravenously tearing at her pain au chocolat, wondering if she had time to buy another.
Everything shimmered in the early morning sun. They walked fast up a cobbled side street, past stalls piled high with silverware, ‘This isn’t for us,’ Amber said when Julia slowed to look.
There was so much to see. Julia was dying to get her phone out, to snap a picture of the bright red sunrise behind the cathedral spire. Maybe get a great shot of her own face reflected back in a heap of silver teapots. But her phone was dead. It was just her, the croissant and a shit loads of antiques.
A woman selling jewellery saw them and called, ‘Bonjour, Amber!’
Amber offered a brief wave but didn’t pause. Another guy, pulling a chest of drawers on a trolley up the road greeted her like an old friend. Amber turned and walked backwards, greeting him with pidgin French before turning and marching on.
‘Keep up, Julia,’ she called, tearing off some pain au chocolat. ‘We’ve got bargains to find.’
Julia hurried to keep up.
Another stallholder waved. Even the wrinkled old man in a colourful hat with only one good eye, selling novelty whistling birds, said, ‘Bonjour, Amber.’
‘Do you know everyone here?’ Julia asked.
Amber laughed. ‘Pretty much. I’ve been coming here for years. And they all knew my dad. Everyone knew my dad,’ she smiled proudly at Julia. ‘He was larger than life – you couldn’t not know him.’
Julia thought about her own father. Was he larger than life? Only when it came to holding court about share prices over the dinner table.
Amber pointed towards the cathedral. ‘The best stalls for me are here.’
In the shade of the giant church, it was cool enough for Julia to shiver and wish she had a cardigan. Amber had no regard for the weather and was already a stall ahead of her haggling over some plaster-cast hands and feet.
To Julia it all just looked like a sea of objects. Most of them awful. There were jugs shaped like ducks, horrible dirty plastic lights, mangy teddy bears and wood-worm riddled boxes. It resembled the crap they’d found in their house when they’d moved in and boxed up in the attic. She didn’t desperately want to touch anything let alone ask how much it was.
She tried to envisage Emerald House and what might suit. What might appeal to someone like Lexi. It was Lexi and Hamish’s living, breathing dream to be members of Emerald House. One of their friends had nominated them but the waiting list was impenetrable. Charlie would hate it, he hated anything that was members only. Only by pleading did she get him in a jacket and tie for Sunday lunch at her parents’ tennis club. In the past, Julia had always listened wistfully to Lexi talking about the time she’d been a guest of her friend at the Barcelona Emerald House, they’d had evening massages by the subterranean plunge pool and sipped espresso martinis for breakfast dressed in white fluffy gowns in the morning room.
Amber could most likely wrangle Julia membership now, but who would it impress?
On the next table Julia saw a turquoise glass vase almost identical to one Lexi had on her coffee table, one Julia had always coveted. ‘How about this, Amber?’ she asked, holding it up.
Amber turned back and said disparagingly, ‘Too trite.’
Julia was about to defend the vase but stopped herself when she realised it was strangely liberating to hear someone not immediately like something of Lexi’s. Instead she put the vase back with a ‘Pardon,’ to the stallholder in apology for Amber’s dismissal but he couldn’t have cared less.
She caught up with Amber who had paused to ask the price of a whole box of old gilt picture frames.
‘Oh, they’re nice,’ said Julia, knowing Amber would be the type of person who could artfully arrange a wall of natty mismatched frames like the ones she saw on Instagram.
The stallholder, a guy with a roll-up hanging from his lips was giving Amber a price.
‘That’s cheap,’ Julia said, holding up a small gold frame.
Amber shot her a look.
Julia immediately shut up.
Amber wav
ed her hand at the guy’s price and started to walk away. Julia put the frame back in the box and went after her.
The guy shouted another price after them.
Amber paused. Turned back. Quoted lower. The guy shook his head. ‘Not even for you, Amber.’
Amber shrugged. Then finally, when they were almost out of earshot, he relented and Amber strolled back and paid him for the whole box. Writing down what she’d bought in a little notebook and making a note of the stall number so she could pick it up later. ‘And please, Julia,’ she said, without looking up from her pad, ‘please don’t comment when I’m haggling. It really doesn’t help.’
They continued in a similar vein. Julia seeing just a table full of tat, Amber plucking out some amazing gem that out of context Julia could see would sit perfectly in Emerald House. A bronze palm tree lamp that Julia hadn’t even noticed in a box beside a big van. A life-size porcelain sausage dog. All haggled with military efficiency. Amber tried to buy a big round mirror with a gilt trim but the stallholder wouldn’t budge on price, no matter how hard she turned on the charm.
The cobbled street opened out onto a riverside promenade. Water glistening in ripples, an ancient arched bridge in the distance, rowers pulling into a boat club on the far side.
As they walked along the wider, less crowded promenade, Julia noticed that Amber’s strides were much longer than hers, the pavement like her catwalk, her step a strut. It made Julia work a bit harder to be by her side, to improve on her normal hurried, head-down walk. To almost strut herself. To put her shoulders back and hold herself a bit higher. It was enjoyable to be by Amber’s side, to be in the glow of her notoriety.
Julia found herself wanting to impress her.
She pointed things out, but Amber just shook her head. A glassy heat rose from the river. Julia wiped the sweat off her brow. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a mirror almost exactly the same as the one Amber hadn’t been able to afford earlier.
‘Amber! Look! How about this?’ she called.
Amber paused where she was studying an etched carafe on the next table. She put it back and walked across the cobbled street to look where Julia was standing. She pulled her sunglasses down to inspect the mirror. ‘No.’
‘But it’s the same—’ Julia started.
‘It’s not the same, Julia. Look,’ Amber picked up the mirror. ‘It’s new. Look at these fastenings. And this trim, it’s painted gold.’
Julia peered. ‘Oh,’ she said.
Amber gave her a pitying look. ‘You’ve got to go with what you like, Julia. Not with what you think I might like. You’ve got to get a feeling for something, a connection. You have to feel it here,’ she said, pointing to her heart.
Julia wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to feel anything in her heart for the stuff on these stalls. She was annoyed because usually with enough study she could ace things pretty fast. ‘OK,’ she said, but didn’t point anything out after that.
They walked on and on. Up and down snaking back streets in the now blistering sun. Past so many Instagram opportunities. Julia was tired, hot and hungry. Her white vest was getting dusty and black from handling the antiques. She wondered what Charlie was doing. Lounging on the sofa enjoying the peace and quiet? Painting the living room maybe? Or chatting with Frank the plumber who was giant and loud but really sensitive and actually quite good fun to have in the house. She remembered when he’d plumbed the upstairs bathroom, Charlie had been his sidekick while Julia had stripped the wallpaper in the bedroom. They’d all sat on the dust-sheet-covered bed eating cheese and pickle sandwiches for lunch, lamenting the amount of plaster that had crumbled off the bedroom wall as the wallpaper was stripped and discussing Frank’s penchant for Japanese anime movies on Netflix.
Walking the hot cobbled street, Julia chastised herself for being so nostalgically homesick when she was mid-adventure. In reality, she and Charlie would probably be having a row about something DIY-related, or just the fact they should be doing DIY, while Frank sucked in his breath over the price of the ceiling leak. The house was like an endless task on the horizon. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she and Charlie had done something nice together. Even trips to the pub were frustrating conversations trying to explain how the other envisioned the bedroom, indecipherable diagrams drawn on napkins, until one or the other retreated into their phone.
As Amber and Julia turned the next corner they passed Lovejoy and Martin next to a giant lorry, its tarpaulin side completely concertinaed back to reveal sofas and tables for sale on platforms. They were examining a glossy wooden bedstead. The type that might have once been in a hotel like The Savoy. There were mini crystal chandelier sconces attached above the polished walnut shelves and a built-in radio. It looked expensive, decadent and perfect for an Emerald House bedroom.
When Lovejoy clocked them, he stopped what he was doing, draped his arm protectively over the beautiful swirling wood of his purchase and said, ‘Jealous, Amber?’
Amber inspected the bedstead over the top of her sunglasses.
Even Julia could tell it was gorgeous and exactly the type of thing Amber would buy. Inlaid around the edge of the wood were strips of gold, the drawer handles were shiny gold half-moons and the spindle legs ended in an elegant gold-tipped point.
‘Not in the slightest,’ Amber replied.
Lovejoy grinned.
Amber beckoned for Julia to walk away. Muttering under her breath when they were out of earshot, ‘Shit! That was a really nice piece.’ From then she stalked from stall to stall even quicker, more focused.
The air was getting hotter. Julia’s feet hurt, her shoulders were burning.
Amber’s phone rang. She looked at the name flashing on the screen. ‘Oh God, what now,’ she said, voice worried, before answering with a cheery, ‘Hi, Billy.’ She walked as she was talking, casting her eyes vaguely over the stalls.
Julia listened.
‘Lovejoy?’ Amber said with an incredulous laugh. ‘Course it’s bloody not. Whatever gave you that idea?’ Amber stopped, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head, she covered her eyes with her hand. ‘Ned said it? Well Ned doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
Julia turned, she could see Lovejoy and Martin walking in their direction. She leant forward and tapped Amber on the arm, gesturing with a nod of her head at Lovejoy’s proximity.
Amber swore under her breath. ‘Billy, it’s preposterous. Don’t be silly. Listen, my phone’s about to die. I forgot my charger.’ Amber looked away from Julia as she lied. ‘I’ll call you when I get home, yes. I’ll be home tomorrow and we can discuss properly. I have to go. Literally, darling, it’s bleeping that it has no battery.’ Then she hung up. ‘Shit!’ she said.
Julia looked at the pavement. It felt like the web was tangling. That Billy wouldn’t be so easily deterred. ‘Amber, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’
Amber waved her concern away. ‘Yes. It’s fine. All I need to do is hold it off till I get home. I just need to get this sorted and then I can come up with a proper plan. It’s fine.’
Just then, Lovejoy strode past with Martin. ‘Having a nice little chat?’ he asked, eyes sparkling. ‘You snooze, you lose, ladies. You snooze, you lose!’
Amber ignored him. Putting her phone away as if nothing had happened she walked off in the opposite direction.
But the air around her was charged. Like she too knew she was on borrowed time. Billy was tenacious, Julia knew that just from teaching him to cook. She wanted to tell Amber that, as an observer, she really should be telling him the truth, but then who was Julia to talk? Why hadn’t she spoken to Charlie sooner? Because like Amber she was trapped. Not by lies but by expectation. A too big mortgage, no money, bad DIY, and all the aspirations of tradition on the horizon: a baby or two, a bigger car, exotic holidays, good schools, extensions, bi-folds, loft conversions…
Julia needed a break. She needed some sanity. She wasn’t comfortable with the way Amber was lying to Billy. She
liked Billy and it felt weird being party to his deception. She looked around at the miles of antique stalls still to cover. Then noticed that down a side road to her right the stalls looked a bit different. More of a market selling new things. Somewhere where she might pick up a charger and some pants.
‘Amber, I’m just going to get some stuff down there,’ Julia said, pointing in the direction the stalls.
Amber’s attention had been caught by a taxidermy fox, she was turning it this way and that in the light, completely absorbed. ‘OK, I’m going up round the park, it’s a big circle so you’ll find me.’
Julia nodded. ‘OK, see you in a bit.’
Down the street, the stalls were more commercial. There were knock-off phones for sale, new clothes, toys, and fruit and veg polished till they glimmered in the sunshine.
Julia queued at a cashpoint to get some money out, wincing at their overdraft. Trying to blot the debt out of her mind, she went in search of a very cheap phone charger. A very vociferous salesman on the knock-off phone stall tried to flog her a battery pack to use straight away as well as a charger, sweetening the deal with a hefty discount. Julia’s desire to connect with the outside world won and she bought the bundle. Then she turned her attention to the underwear stand. Everything appeared to be pastel shades of ginormous. The biggest pants she’d ever seen hung stretched on a hoop at the back. Rummaging through all the crates filled with underwear, the only knickers she could find in her size were baby blue and had waistbands that went over the belly button of the woman in the picture. Reluctantly she handed over five euros.
Pausing to look around, Julia realised she wasn’t in any hurry to rejoin Amber. She liked this bit of the fair, it was fun. A break from all the mountains of old tat. A mime artist followed her for a bit which was so uncomfortable in the end it made her laugh. There was a huge stand selling wine in small plastic tumblers for a euro and griddled merguez sausages in buns.
