A Random Act of Kindness

by Sophie Jenkins

  Now it’s my turn to be appalled and I close my eyes wearily. ‘Pass me the bottle, will you.’

  He tops up my glass. ‘I’ve read the labels. Some of these dresses are Jon Mweer,’ he says in a dubious French accent.

  ‘Jean Muir. She wasn’t French, she was British. Forty.’

  ‘Eighty.’

  ‘Forty-five.’

  ‘Fifty.’

  I do a double-take. ‘Fine, that’s fair, fifty then.’ There will definitely be a profit in it for me. I open a packet of Marmite thins – don’t let anyone tell you I’m not a good hostess. Marmite thins are a great invention. I make them look artistic on the plate. I’ve been watching MasterChef and it’s all about the presentation.

  Cato and I do our familiar riff on how hard it is to make money doing what we’re doing and we reassure each other that really we’re doing it because it’s our passion. Which is true, but we’ve still got to live. ‘How long are you going to give it?’ I ask him.

  ‘Five years. You?’

  ‘More like five months, ha ha,’ I say merrily. ‘We’ve just got to get known, haven’t we? I’m scraping by at the moment, to be honest.’

  Cato glances discreetly around this Primrose Hill flat that my parents own. ‘Same,’ he says. ‘Scraping by.’ He chinks his glass against mine. ‘It’s just a matter of discovering one good thing; one sleeper … something with provenance that’ll make a fortune …’

  ‘Just one beautiful garment,’ I say thoughtfully. ‘There’s this woman I met recently. She’s got this wardrobe and it’s so wonderful, Cato. And the thing is, she knows how lucky she is,’ I say with the intensity I get when I’m halfway to being drunk. ‘She knows.’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying,’ he replies. ‘Once you have a passion …’

  I’m excited, lying on the floor with my wine and a whole new wardrobe of clothes to admire. I’m looking forward to turning myself into a human mannequin, teaming the gold-and-green pleated skirt with flat brown brogues and a white silk shirt with a pussycat bow, enjoying their sheer loveliness.

  Happily, I don’t realise it’s a decision I’ll turn out to regret.

  Before I keep my date with Mick at the Jazz Cafe, I change the sheets, shave my legs and paint my toenails. I can’t wait to see him. This date will eclipse my inexplicable crush on David Westwood and get him out of my head. It’s always exciting meeting up with Mick again because we’ve never been together long enough to get bored, so it’s like a series of first dates, where we look at each other closely, enjoy the novelty of being together, feel each other up under the table and fall in lust all over again.

  It helps that in appearance he’s absolutely nothing like David Westwood. Mick has got shaggy red hair, a short red beard and the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s distinctive. He’s average height but he’s got the flawless, innocent face of a Da Vinci disciple and with his beard – really, he’s impossible to overlook. And nobody did overlook him until a couple of months after we met, when he shaved his beard off on impulse and I didn’t recognise him.

  It wasn’t just me. Not recognising him, doormen at clubs that he’d gone to for years ignored him, his mates asked him to his face where he was and he travelled around perfectly anonymously until he grew the beard back and became visible again.

  He smokes roll-ups with narrowed eyes and taps out drumbeats on tables, but he’s also kind and funny, which is why we’re still together.

  Obviously, I’m dressing to impress him in my new clothes. I wear the silk blouse with a pussycat bow and the green-and-gold pleated skirt. It feels elegant as it swirls around my bare ankles and it makes me walk taller. I team it with my brown brogues and tie my hair up in a high ponytail.

  Being the trendy place it is, it’s hard to stand out in Camden Town, which is one of the area’s most endearing features in my opinion. Even the most outrageously dressed people will find they’re just one of many, so as I happily walk from the flat, down Parkway to the Jazz Cafe in the cool evening air, velvet skirt billowing, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

  I can see Mick waiting for me in the queue, his copper hair burnished by the sun, and I sneak up to him and tap him on the left shoulder then feint to the right – it’s a joke we play on each other.

  He turns around with a big smile, which instantly fades as he looks me up and down.

  Instead of the admiring hug and kiss that I’d been anticipating, he takes a quick step back, rakes his hand through his hair, looks me up and down once more and says, ‘Fuck me! Who made you granny all of a sudden?’

  To display the clothes successfully I’ve accessorised with a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. ‘Gorgeous, aren’t they? Feel!’ I said, grabbing his hand and smoothing it down the pleats of my skirt around my thigh.

  But he’s not laughing at all and he pulls back. ‘No, seriously, Fern. Take the glasses off. You look weird.’

  I feel my confidence drain, replaced by self-consciousness and uncertainty. The magic goes out of me – the warm breath of velvet against my legs, the shivery touch of the silk against my arms, and all I can think now is: do I really look that bad? Rallying, I conclude that no, of course I don’t. I just look different from what he’s used to. This realisation is followed swiftly by annoyance and I fight back, folding my arms. ‘You look weird as well, Mick, actually. What’s with the T-shirt?’

  Mick looks down at himself as we shuffle forward in the queue. We’re right behind a group of girls looking at their phones.

  ‘What are you talking about? This is my Status Quo T-shirt,’ he says. ‘I always wear it.’

  It’s true, he does always wear it, but it feels as if I’m seeing it for the very first time because now it doesn’t accessorise with what I’m wearing. We don’t look like a couple at all anymore. We look like random strangers in a queue. We clash, horribly. We’re totally mismatched. ‘What you need, Mick, is a tweed jacket and brogues,’ I tell him, thinking fleetingly of Cato, who would, as it happens, coordinate with me perfectly.

  Mick stares at me blankly and rubs his pale blue eyes. When he looks at me again, they’re narrowed and watery and even more naked.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he says, giving me the once-over as if confirming his initial impression. ‘What’s going on, Fern?’

  ‘Nothing’s going on,’ I tell him. ‘It’s my new look.’

  ‘But it’s an old look. You look like a National Trust life member.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The girls in front of us in the queue stop playing with their phones and turn around to see what a National Trust life member looks like. I glare at them disapprovingly over the top of my glasses.

  When I met Mick at the beginning of last summer at a festival, I was going through my Kate Moss phase; fringed shorts, boots and floaty tops. He liked the free-spirited image because it complemented his own, which is ageing rock star. His T-shirt collection is from gigs that he’s been to and the logos are so faded from washing that you have to be really committed to work out the image on them. Just to make it clear, despite the rock star T-shirts, I’ve never viewed him as merely an accessory – I genuinely like him. Or did.

  Which is why his criticism hurts so much.

  In my frayed shorts and boots I used to slouch a bit, but now I’m walking tall, as if the previous owner still inhabits her clothes in spirit. Standing straight makes me a couple of inches taller than Mick and when he goes to put his arm around my shoulders, he has to reach up a bit. He gives up and pulls the ends of my white pussycat bow.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘That’s better,’ he says. ‘Undo a couple of buttons and let your hair down.’

  I’m deeply outraged. ‘Mick, I’m not used to men telling me how to dress. In fact, I think there’s something unpleasantly controlling about a man who judges a woman’s wardrobe.’

  Call me cynical, but most men only notice a woman’s clothes if they’re short and bodycon. In a situation like this they have two stock responses (*delete
where applicable): 1) Wow! You look hot! 2) What? I didn’t even notice her!

  So, I tie the floating white ribbons into a bow again and we shuffle nearer to the door in an atmosphere of hostility. The bouncer nods in acknowledgement and Mick shakes his head wearily then does something with his eyes that makes the bouncer look me up and down. He smirks.

  ‘Oi! I saw that,’ I protest, elbowing him, but just then he lets us into the Jazz Cafe and the argument is put on hold for a while.

  Despite the music, which is good and loud, and the drinks that keep coming, and the fact we have a table and food, the night doesn’t go well. Mick barely looks at me. I resent his attitude. I keep playing the conversation over and over in my head – granny??? – and I formulate so many counterarguments to his criticism that it feels as if we’ve been yelling at each other all night.

  When it’s over and we’re back outside in the dumb, raucous hustle of the late-night crowds, I fold my arms and look at him accusingly.

  ‘Fern.’ Mick says my name and takes me in his arms very lovingly. ‘This is crazy.’

  ‘I know.’ I nestle into the soft right angle of his neck and shoulder with a sigh. His beard smells of mandarin and cedarwood. I’m ready to forgive him. ‘I’ve missed you so much. I can’t believe we’re arguing.’

  ‘I’ve missed you, too,’ he says in his lovely deep voice. He kisses me softly and gives a wry grin. ‘Just promise me you won’t wear this ridiculous look again. Not when you’re out with me.’

  And suddenly it all flares back up again, and we’re back to square one. ‘Mick! Argh! You can’t tell me what to wear!’

  ‘Whoa! Easy! I’m not telling you what to wear. I’m just saying that you look better in other stuff – what’s wrong with that? I’m just being honest. Anyway, don’t you think it’s superficial to be so fixated on the clothes you wear?’

  ‘Now who’s fixated? Don’t you think it’s superficial to be judging me on them?’

  ‘I’m not judging you, am I? Come on, Doll, let’s go home.’ He puts his arm around me.

  I brace myself. ‘No.’

  He laughs. ‘No?’

  ‘Not until you apologise.’

  ‘Apologise for what? Laughing at your dress sense?’

  This is the thing – his comments hurt so much it’s like a physical pain. My emotions are bashing around in my head and I can’t control them, even with logic. Fashion is my thing, my area of expertise, my specialist subject, and I should be able to rise above it because what does he know about style? His clothes are all jeans and band promos.

  But I can’t let it go. He’s mocking the part of me that I’m most proud of and I’m all ready to hit back hard. ‘Mick, if you’re not going to apologise you can go back to Harpenden tonight. I just don’t want to talk to you anymore at the moment.’

  He frowns. This is where he should back down, apologise and beg me to forgive him. Instead, he looks at his watch. ‘Okay. Fine. Have it your own way, if that’s how you feel.’ And he heads quickly for the Tube to King’s Cross so that he can catch the last train home.

  ‘You’re uncharacteristically quiet,’ David Westwood says to me the next morning, emerging pale-faced from his personal universe like the man in the moon to offer me some coffee from his flask. He’s brought an extra cup. I’m deeply touched.

  I fill him in on the reasons for my misery. ‘It’s our first major argument. Although Mick would probably agree with me that we’ve never gone through the stage of actually being in love, I’ve always been pretty fond of him,’ I say, playing with my pleated skirt.

  Fond?

  The new clothes from Cato are hanging up around me on my stall and I start to wonder if I really have turned into another person altogether, because ‘fond’ isn’t a word that I’d normally use.

  ‘Why don’t you just wear something else instead?’ David asks reasonably, moving his teak chair closer to my stool.

  ‘Because! I like the power of transformation. It’s my superpower; my own personal airbag to defend me from people,’ I explain. ‘Everyone has an airbag, even if they don’t realise it. Maybe it’s jokes or sex or superiority or alcohol, something anyway to use as a buffer between them and the world. With me, it’s clothes. I could tell you other stuff like my name is Fern Banks and I have this stall, Fern Banks Vintage, and my hair is dark blonde, but these facts are subject to change, so I’m just describing myself the way I am now, today. Tomorrow, who knows?’

  David’s sitting there drinking from his steel flask lid – it’s a strange juxtaposition of images because he’s so startlingly good-looking you always expect him to be drinking Dirty Martinis. ‘Yes,’ he says.

  I take that to mean he agrees with me. Encouraged, I expand on my hypothesis. ‘See, in my opinion the art of reinvention is one of the best things about being human. It’s what separates us from animals because, let’s face it, despite their intelligence, you never see a dolphin in fancy dress. A dolphin would never wear a cow outfit because a dolphin has no conception of a cow. A dolphin knows what it is and sticks with it.’ I’m passionate about this and I really want him to understand.

  He looks at me thoughtfully through the steam of his coffee for what seems like a long time and I wonder if maybe there’s the potential for a deep connection between us. If he and Gigi don’t work out, I mean. But she’d be crazy to let him go – he really is incredibly good-looking.

  Finally, he responds. ‘You lost me at “dolphin in fancy dress”,’ he says.

  I’m at home scrolling through the Tallulah Young Auction Catalogue on the screen. Tallulah Young specialises in vintage and retro fashion and I’m looking for anything with an affordable guide price when my father calls. He’s not happy. He leaves out the niceties and plunges straight in, as formal as a lawyer.

  ‘I understand from the managing agents that there’s been a fire in the flat,’ he says. ‘It would have been courteous of you to have informed us yourself, in the circumstances; the flat not actually being yours.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t in our flat, it was in the flat above.’

  I can hear my mother prompting him in the background.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he says briskly to her, and then to me, ‘Our bathroom ceiling has had to be repaired, has it not?’

  When he’s annoyed he talks like that, in senior civil servant language.

  ‘It has. But it’s okay, Dad, the building insurance covered it.’

  ‘And I understand the front door was damaged. Do you realise it could have resulted in compromised security?’

  ‘Well, not really, it was just a bit of the panel. Anyway, it’s fixed now.’ It’s not going to help if I tell him it was repaired by me. At times like this, I’ve found it’s best to say as little as possible and let my father get it out of his system. It’s just a matter of being patient, so I carry on looking at the auction items on the screen while he continues to lecture me.

  ‘We, your mother and I, feel that you’re taking a very irresponsible attitude, Fern. Not just towards the property but towards your life in general.’

  Here we go. I put down the mouse because this sort of talk always scares me.

  I’m absolutely aware that without their support my life would be a whole lot harder – and I’m really grateful, but at the same time I also feel permanently at their mercy because they could withdraw their help at any time and all my ambitions suddenly seem precarious. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I got the place cleaned up. I didn’t want to worry you.’

  The apology calms him down.

  ‘In future,’ he says, ‘whenever something like this happens, just tell us, that’s all I ask.’

  As though it’s a problem that’s going to keep recurring.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, contritely. ‘I definitely will.’

  I can still hear my mother hectoring him in the background, but I think the whole conversation has taken it out of my father, because he ends the call suddenly without saying goodbye. I don’t think retirement is suiti
ng him that well; being with my mother twenty-four seven takes a lot of stamina.

  Almost immediately the phone rings again and I almost don’t answer it, but this time it’s not my father, it’s Mick.

  ‘Hey, Doll. Let’s call a truce,’ he says.

  I’m so pleased it’s him and not my parents that I’m super friendly. ‘Truce,’ I agree.

  ‘Good, because I’ve booked us a few days away on a mini-break.’

  Hooray! All is forgiven!

  ‘So where are we going?’ I ask, curling my hair around my finger.

  ‘South of France,’ he says in his deep, seductive voice. ‘Cap d’Agde. Plage Port Nature.’

  ‘Sounds amazing.’ South of France … Bardot country. He’s totally forgiven.

  ‘Don’t pack much,’ he warns.

  I’m really excited about our romantic trip and drop it into the conversation with David over our breakfast croissant of ham and cheese. I check the weather and it’s hot in the south of France.

  To show Mick that I, too, can compromise, I take his advice and travel light, packing a white bikini, my biggest sunglasses, a couple of A-line cotton shift dresses and a wide-brimmed white straw hat.

  When we meet up at the airport, we’re a bit cautious with each other, a bit polite, holding back warily following our first real argument. We’ve pushed, we’ve found ourselves on the edge of the precipice, and now we know where the boundaries are we’re making sure we stay well behind them.

  His innocent pale blue eyes take me all in approvingly. He doesn’t mention my yellow shift dress, although he can’t resist making a crack about my large straw hat, ducking underneath it to see if there’s enough room for two.

  He’s wearing a white linen suit and a navy linen shirt. ‘You look amazing,’ I tell him, delighted that he’s taken my criticism of his black T-shirts to heart. ‘Very French and chic.’

  ‘You think? It’s my “trying for an upgrade” kit,’ he says.

  All he’s carrying is a laptop bag. He’s travelling even lighter than me.