by Jenny Oliver
‘I don’t know, I didn’t have time. Look, Mum, I really have to go, OK. I’ll get one when I get home.’
‘I hope you didn’t use a cashpoint because it’s daylight robbery. Oh there’s someone at the door. I don’t know who that is. Terence, can you get the door? I’ve got to go. Bye, Julia.’
‘Bye, Mum.’
Julia hung up, feeling as she always felt when she spoke to her mother – small and a little disappointing. She took a deep breath. Then turned round to buy her trolley.
The stallholder and his mate were sitting smoking cigars.
Julia got the money out of her bag then looked around to see where they’d put it.
The stallholder hoiced his trousers up, puffed out a breath and said, ‘It’s OK, the man paid for it.’
‘Which man?’ Julia asked, puzzled.
‘The man. Your man. The tall one.’
Julia shook her head. ‘He’s not my man. He’s not with me.’ She felt her stomach sink. ‘It wasn’t his trolley, it was mine.’ She looked around trying to catch sight of Lovejoy. To rectify the situation. But he was nowhere to be found. ‘I bought it. It was mine,’ she repeated to the stallholder. Her previous high like sand slipping through her fingers.
The stallholder shrugged like it wasn’t his problem and sat down again with his mate.
Julia couldn’t believe it. ‘This can’t happen. It was sold to me.’ But the man was completely indifferent to her protestations.
Julia walked a few paces away from the stall and stood still. She could just imagine what Amber would say – ‘Well you’ve learnt what a dick Lovejoy is’ or ‘You must always do your own deals!’
She couldn’t believe it. The disappointment was exponential. Not only was it the first thing she’d ever successfully haggled for, it was the first antique she’d had a feeling for. It was going to impress Amber. More than that, it felt like a symbol of her skill and independence.
Julia went over to a doorway and slumped down on the concrete step. There were some people playing boules in a café garden to her left. She got out her phone. Whether out of habit or desire, she wasn’t sure, she found her fingers hovering over the keys to call Charlie.
She dialled his number.
‘Hello?’ he said, voice sharp and unwavering.
As soon as he answered, Julia knew it was a mistake. They were still at loggerheads and any explanation about the trolley would sound stupid and pathetic. ‘Hi,’ she said.
On the other end of the phone, Charlie waited. ‘Julia, is everything OK, because Frank’s here.’
‘Oh right, no it’s nothing,’ she said, pushing her hair from her face, fanning herself with her hand. Feeling silly for ringing. ‘It was just that Lovejoy stole my trolley, but it doesn’t matter.’
‘I have no idea what that means,’ Charlie replied. ‘Hang on, Julia. Yeah, mate, great, that’s great thanks,’ he said to Frank the plumber. ‘Yeah, enjoy your weekend. No, hopefully I won’t see you soon,’ he added, all jolly and laughing. ‘OK, he’s gone,’ Charlie said back to Julia, voice immediately curt and clipped.
Julia heard him walk down the corridor into the kitchen. It was weird to envisage Charlie’s every move but not be there to see it.
There was a silence.
Julia picked at the pebble-dash of the step she was sitting on. ‘So do you miss me?’ she asked.
Charlie sighed. ‘I’m having quite a nice time, actually. It’s quite peaceful.’
‘Oh right,’ Julia said, unable to mask her disappointment. She looked up, shaking her head. Saw the boules players all laughing at something. In the distance a jazz band was playing on the stage, there were little kids dancing and the smell of buttery crepes being cooked on hotplates filled the air.
‘Oh come on,’ he countered. ‘You’re living it up in France.’
‘I’m not living it up in France, Charlie. I’m only here because things aren’t right at home.’
‘Things are fine,’ he sighed.
Julia put her head in her hand, staring at the blackness of her palm. ‘They aren’t. You can blame this all on me, Charlie, but it’s not all me. You can’t just get married, you know, and then stop trying.’
Charlie laughed in disbelief. ‘I haven’t stopped trying. I’m knackered. I’ve had a stressful week at work, I spent most of yesterday evening peeling wallpaper off the living room ceiling and this morning making small talk with Frank. Do you know how much it costs to get a plumber out on bank holiday weekend?’ he added, his tone not expecting a reply. ‘Now I want to relax. Is that allowed? Or would you prefer if I was cycling with Hamish Warrington? What do you want from me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Julia, standing up, pacing up and down in the space between the stalls and the doorway. ‘Something. Anything.’ She knew it was selfish and awful but she just wanted him to fight for her. ‘Something to show that you care that I’m not there.’
‘Like what? You want me on a plane? Coming to get you? I’m really not Hamish Warrington, Julia!’
‘I don’t want you to be Hamish Warrington.’ Although at that moment she could completely imagine, if she was married to Hamish Warrington, him suddenly tapping her on the shoulder having flown to France because he couldn’t live without her. ‘There’s a middle-ground, Charlie.’ Julia sighed. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. It feels like this has got too big. You know I’ve just had my mum on the phone telling me Suzy Maynard’s diamond-dealing son flew his wife to the Canaries after a row.’
There was a pause on the other end of the phone.
Julia suddenly realised that probably wasn’t the best thing to have said. Charlie knew her mother had harboured a secret desire for Julia and Suzy Maynard’s son to marry.
‘And what did you say?’ Charlie asked slowly.
‘Nothing,’ said Julia. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You didn’t say, “Charlie’s not going to do that because it was me writing messages about having sex with the guy over the road that started all this”?’
Julia cringed. ‘No, because I’m not talking about sex with my mother. I just told her we weren’t getting a divorce.’
‘Divorce?’ Charlie repeated. ‘Who said we were getting a divorce?’
‘No one! Nothing.’ Julia was in way over her head. This had gone too far. She felt even worse. All she’d wanted was for Charlie to talk her down about her parents. And now, as he was pushing back, she realised suddenly how much she relied on him to calm her down about things that wound her up. How often he made her laugh about things that seemed disastrous. What was happening right now was not the order of things. She back-pedalled furiously. ‘It was stupid, Charlie, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Yes you should’ said Charlie, clearly steaming. ‘You should have stuck up for me. Christ, you’d probably quite like a diamond dealer. Go and compare rings with Lexi.’ He snorted with rage. ‘I’m going now, Julia. That’s enough for me.’
Charlie hung up.
Julia stood with her phone. God. She tipped her head back against the wall, eyes closed. The sunlight flickered in colourful patterns on her eyelids.
From beside her, she heard Amber’s voice say, ‘That didn’t sound like it went very well.’
Julia jumped upright ‘I didn’t know you were there.’
Amber shrugged. ‘I came to look for you. Thought you might have got lost. I wasn’t listening, but it did get quite loud at one point.’
Julia stepped away from the wall. ‘I don’t think Charlie and I bring out the best in each other at the moment,’ she said, resigned. ‘I don’t even know if we like each other anymore.’
Amber looked sadly at her.
Julia changed the subject – not wanting to think of the phone call and her goading about Suzy Maynard’s son – she recounted what had happened with the silver drinks trolley. ‘I was really stupid and got duped by Lovejoy,’ she said with a shrug, blowing wisps of hair that had escaped her messy ponytail out of
her eyes. She felt tired and bedraggled.
Amber listened, then said simply, ‘That’s Lovejoy for you.’
‘I can’t believe he took it,’ Julia said, unable to let it go. ‘It was really good, Amber, I promise, you would have been really impressed.’
Amber nodded, attention already caught by a stall selling old postcards ahead of them.
Julia bit her lip, looked down at her sandals and kicked a bit of loose shingle. ‘I really wanted you to be impressed.’
Amber paused on her way to the postcard stall and turned to look at Julia. Then she reached forward and momentarily touched Julia’s arm. It felt like a gesture she didn’t do very often. Awkward and quick. Amber didn’t seem like a toucher. Her skin was cool. It made the moment Lovejoy touched Julia’s back seem purposefully manipulative and practised. Then with a hint of amusement in her big brown eyes, she said, ‘I’m very rarely impressed, Julia.’
And for a second Julia forgot her despondency and laughed. Amber too.
‘Come on,’ Amber said in a voice that seemed as if it were usually reserved for Billy, ‘it’s getting late, we’ve still got work to do.’
Chapter Twelve
For the next few hours they walked together side by side at every stall. Julia pointing out things that Amber deigned to give a cursory glance. When Julia picked up an old school test-tube clamp purely for the nostalgia of science lessons, Amber bought it as a possible bedside lamp stand. They stood together staring at an old green factory pendant light – would it work draped over a club chair in the corner of the bedroom? Amber got her notepad out, flicking through to one of the pages dedicated to the room redesign and showed Julia where she could replace the standard lamp in the corner with the pendant, amending the little sketch.
Julia looked at the drawing. ‘You’re really good at drawing.’
‘I know,’ Amber replied.
Julia stared at her in surprise.
‘What?’ Amber stopped what she was doing, confused by her expression.
‘Just…’ Julia shrugged. ‘Not many people just agree to a compliment.’
‘What would you prefer me to do?’ Amber looked at her puzzled. ‘Go all coy and dopey?’ She put her notebook back in her bumbag.
‘No, no,’ Julia waved a hand to show she wasn’t disagreeing, ‘no, I want you to say yes. It’s just most people deny it, don’t they, if someone says they’re good?’
Amber narrowed thick lashes. ‘Well most people care too much what other people think.’
Julia paused for a second. ‘Yes, I suppose they do,’ she mused as she followed behind Amber, snaking through the mass of people, her contemplation of the fact making Amber smile under her breath. Maybe she’d have Julia ditching the Lexi-esque pompom on her bag before the end of the holiday.
They finished off the south section of the fair by zigzagging up a network of side streets where Amber bought a handful of Emerald House pieces. It was just before lunch by the time they’d done the main bulk of the fair. There were only the stalls on the north of the river still to do but Amber explained that was all the smaller stuff – jewellery and more antique pieces that they would have a cursory look at but it wasn’t that relevant to her.
So they retraced their steps, picking up everything Amber had purchased and lugging it back to the van. They had to do four trips, borrowing a trolley to wheel a little chest of drawers Amber had bought along with three big mirrors. Julia carried a bag filled with lamps and candlesticks that cut deep into her skin. Amber hoisted the taxidermy fox under one arm and the cardboard box of picture frames under the other. They were hot, dirty and sweaty by the time it was all collected, and only then did Amber sanction a quick stop for lunch at her favourite crepe van. It was where her dad always took her when they were here. As a kid, he’d lift her onto his big broad shoulders so she could watch as the woman in the van scattered the pancakes with grated cheese that bubbled and melted as soon as it hit then she’d crack an egg and when done, she’d fold the finished crepes into perfect quarters with a palette knife and slide them into their little cardboard envelopes, handing them over with a flourish. Always with a big grin and a sneaky double helping of cheese for Amber’s dad. It was one of Amber’s favourite memories – everything about it was good. Behind the counter it was still the same woman making the crepes, back hunched and wrinkled skin, but the same beaming smile.
Julia and Amber stood under the shade of a plane tree and drank Perrier from bottles, runny yolk dripping on their chins, silently surveying all they still had left to cover. The vans glistening like flames in the incessant heat. A mirage of winding lanes ahead of them.
Lovejoy and Martin strolled past. Lovejoy spotted them and with a tip of his head said, ‘Ladies.’
Julia glared at him sullenly.
Amber shouted, ‘That was a dirty trick you pulled on Julia, Lovejoy.’
He held his arms wide with a smile. ‘What are you talking about? I had to buy it, someone else came along and offered him more.’
Amber groaned, ‘Oh please, that’s such a lie.’
Lovejoy crossed his heart, ‘God’s honest truth.’ Then he grinned at Julia, ‘Aww, don’t look at me like that. I promise, I had to buy it!’
Amber replied with a dismissive wave, sending him on his way.
Lovejoy held up his hands, still protesting his innocence. ‘It’s the truth.’
Amber tossed the cardboard wrapping of her crepe in the bin, then got her compact out and redid her lipstick.
Julia said, ‘I don’t think that’s true.’
Amber smacked her red lips together. ‘Course it’s not.’ She chucked the compact into her bumbag.
Lovejoy had paused by an adjacent plane tree to answer his phone. Amber’s attention was immediately caught when she heard him say, ‘Billy?’ Her gaze shot to Lovejoy, his smiling, quizzical face as he spoke into the handset. ‘What are you calling me for? I’m standing right by your mum.’
Amber felt her heart start to hammer. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ she said, striding over towards Lovejoy. ‘He’s just calling you because my phone’s died.’
But Lovejoy held up a hand to fend her off. The light through the branches of the tree played on his face. ‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t quite catch that. Your dad? What do you mean, your dad?’
Amber watched with horror as Lovejoy started to frown, listening to whatever Billy was telling him on the other end of the line.
‘Christ, Billy,’ Lovejoy blew out a breath, leant one hand against the peeling trunk of the tree. ‘No it’s not me. Definitely not.’ He laughed. ‘Bloody hell.’ Then he paused again, nodded. ‘No, there’s no way your mum wouldn’t have told me—’ He looked up, caught Amber’s eye as if to convey the fact this was big news being discussed, almost sorry for Amber that her and her son were going through this.
Amber stopped a metre or so away from him. She swallowed. Waiting. Waiting for the hesitant moment of doubt to cross his face.
But she needn’t have worried. Lovejoy wasn’t going to give it any credence. She should have known. Should have guessed. He would never want to even consider the possibility.
He shook his head, looked at Amber, all regretful. ‘Nah, mate, you’ve got the wrong guy. Sorry, kiddo.’
And his expression took her back to exactly the moment when he had looked at her exactly the same way. Used exactly the same tone. Finished the sentence with that slightly off-hand laughter that always served to make the other person feel just a tiny bit silly for asking.
It was the same afternoon her mother had left with Keith, one of the many boyfriends she’d handed herself over to after Amber’s dad died, but this one stuck. It was a Tuesday, she remembered because the dustbin men were collecting the rubbish and she remembered the sweet, rotten smell as she stood in the wind-tunnel corridor of their flat block with her rucksack. A couple of cleaners hired by the landlord were already working on the flat she’d lived in with her mother, getting it ready for his next cash in hand tenants
. She saw them shoving stuff into bin bags – Amber’s eighteenth birthday cards still on the windowsill, a vase of dying tulips, some old shells they’d picked up on the beach, a stack of condolence cards for her dad that Amber’s mother had shoved in the drawer as soon as one of her new boyfriends came on the scene – all grabbed and discarded by the rubber-gloved hands of a stranger. She remembered having no idea what to do, shocked that even though she knew what her mother was like, she had never expected her to leave. Amber had been so lulled by her mother’s desperate dependency on her that she had never prepared for the eventuality of being left.
When she’d had enough of watching the stuff she couldn’t carry being unceremoniously junked, Amber had turned and walked three doors down to Lovejoy’s. He’d been her best friend since she was ten years old.
His mum, Carole, was the complete opposite of her own mother. The type of woman who glowed with open friendliness. She made vats of jam – with quinces and apples from her allotment. She had symbolic tattoos up her arms, smelt of washing powder and was always lamenting the fact she wasn’t lying on a Lanzarote beach. She was an antiques dealer too, she’d been a great friend of Amber’s dad’s, and her mother loathed her. Jealous of their shared laughter. Carole laughed a lot. She hugged a lot. And when she looked at you she could see right into you.
She’d opened the door with a beaming smile, an offer of a cup of tea and an apology about the state of Lovejoy’s bedroom as Amber disappeared down the corridor in that direction.
Amber’s friendship with Lovejoy had recently developed from its teenage bantering one-upmanship into a tentative relationship. She’d tried to resist – she’d seen enough of his girlfriends leave the pub in tears or watch as he got bored and dumped them with a text. She had been the friend he whined about them all with and she’d vowed to never step into their shoes. But then one night, their flirty peacocking had slipped into an illicit, never-mentioned kiss round the back of the King’s Head and she hadn’t been able to forget it. She had woken up at night thinking about him. Lovejoy had been trying to get her into bed since they were sixteen, it had been part of their banter, so when she finally caved in he was delighted. Then it was covert nights spent over, and finally to what it was at that point – coy hand-holding when they walked down the street and an understanding that they’d go home together after a night out. Their friendship, initially unchanged, had just started to tip, to veer into territory where not everything could be said out loud, where vulnerability and pride were suddenly at stake. And neither was willing to be the first to dip their toe into the water first.
