Gifted and Talented (13 page)

Olly stared at her indignantly, his shyness evaporated. He had worked long and hard on that sitting room, peeling mouldy newspapers from the floor. He had literally gone back in time; those at the bottom concerned the Paris uprisings of 1968. ‘You should have seen it before,’ he said, warmly.

Oh, but she was lovely. Her profile – even against the damp patch on the wall above the bed – was exquisite. Suddenly his humble room seemed exotic, warm and alive. With her long, flowing red hair, she looked like a Pre-Raphaelite model – in the tatty studio of an impecunious artist; that bit was right, certainly.

‘What’s that noise?’ Isabel asked, suddenly.

Olly’s head was filled with nervous rushing, but he could make out a familiar, strident voice. ‘It’s Lorna Lintle,’ he said.

‘Who?’

Olly explained, and about Alfie. ‘Mother love,’ he said flippantly. ‘It takes some strange forms.’

Isabel wondered, as often she had lately in her bleak, dark hours, about her real mother. She felt a pang so powerful she almost cried out. Fortunately, Olly did not appear to have noticed; he was still talking about poor Alfie.

‘Dotty’s supposed to coach him to leadership of the London Symphony Orchestra. At the very least. Preferably by the end of next week.’

Isabel giggled, perhaps harder than the remark merited, and was able to hide her red face and shining eyes that way.

The problem was, Olly explained, that, according to Dotty, Alfie wasn’t really orchestra-leader material. He wasn’t violinist material either, even at the most basic level, and accordingly she was trying to release him from the musical bonds he so obviously hated.

‘She’s trying to stop the lessons?’ Isabel précised.

Olly nodded. ‘But it’s an upward struggle, I gather.’

The kettle had now boiled and, passing Isabel her mug of grey water in which a grey corner of teabag bobbed like a jelly fish, Olly could hear Lorna downstairs, huffily receiving the news that Alfie probably wasn’t grade-one standard
quite
yet. The voices, from the landing below, floated up the attic stairs and in through Olly’s half-open door.

‘Why on earth not?’ Lorna could be heard snapping. ‘He’s been having lessons for ages.’

The listeners in the attic looked at each other, then back to the half-open door. ‘Wow,’ Isabel whispered, wide-eyed. ‘I see what you mean.’

Dotty: ‘I’m, er, well, not
entirely
persuaded he’s going to pass it, Mrs Lintle.’

‘Dotty’s being very brave, I think,’ Isabel hissed.

‘Well, he can keep trying until he does,’ Lorna said flatly. ‘Failure is not an option for Alfie. On
any front
,’ she added, ominously.

‘I don’t think he will pass it, though. Ever.’ Dotty’s tone was almost pleading. ‘Really, I would consider withdrawing him, Mrs Lintle. It would free up his Wednesday lunchtimes. And Friday evenings. Yours too.’

Olly could picture Lorna Lintle’s pursed lips. As the pursuit of leisure time was clearly not one of her goals, she would resent any inference that it was.

‘He doesn’t seem to me to be enjoying it much,’ Dotty added, daringly.

Isabel, listening intently, clenched a white fist. ‘Go, Dotty!’

Lorna would be staring at Dotty now, Olly knew. Through those preternaturally clean wire-rimmed glasses of hers. What, she would be thinking, did enjoyment have to do with the pursuit of Art? ‘Are you saying Alfie should stop his lessons?’ she demanded.

‘Er . . .’

‘He’s simply taking his time,’ Lorna’s voice boomed up the stairs. ‘Many famous people exhibited similar traits. Did you know that Einstein was ten before he could read?’

Isabel and Olly stared at each other. ‘I want to laugh,’ Isabel muttered, ‘but I can just imagine poor Alfie standing there staring at those dusty floorboards . . .’

‘Dusty!’ interjected Olly, mock-indignant.

‘. . . and wanting to disappear right through them. Sssh!’ she added, raising a warning white finger as Lorna started to speak again.

‘So,’ she concluded brightly, ‘I think if you can keep faith with Alfie a little longer, you’ll find it’s worth it.’

‘No!’ Isabel urged quietly from above. ‘Don’t give in now, Dotty!’

But Olly, who had a better idea of the pressures his landlady was under, could almost hear Dotty’s resistance flicker and die. ‘OK, Mrs Lintle,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll put him in for the exam.’

Alfie and his trials, painful though they were, had conclusively broken what ice remained between Olly and Isabel. They talked, after that, for the rest of the afternoon. Isabel, starved of conversation for what seemed like years, had endless impressions to disburse, from the rock cakes in the buttery to the mysterious Master of Branston College who nobody ever saw. Olly listened with such concentration that Isabel, interpreting his fixed expression as boredom, brought her monologue to a sudden halt. ‘Just listen to me, banging on about myself non-stop.’

‘It’s fascinating,’ Olly assured her, with perfect truth,

‘But what about you?’ she said, flustered. ‘How’s the, um, novel going?’ He shook his head in comic despair.

‘No one understands my genius,’ he sighed, reaching into the dusty shadows under his bed and pulling out the latest handful of rejection letters. ‘You’re supposed to send in the first three chapters and a summary, but I’m wondering now about sending in the last three instead and working it back from there.’

‘You know the ending already?’ Her wide, green, disingenuous eyes, focused so intently on him, made Olly suddenly feel the world had somehow slipped a little.

No, he didn’t know the ending, he said silently, passionately, back to her. This was just the beginning. Aloud he said, smiling, ‘Of course. The good end happily and the bad unhappily. That—’

‘Is what fiction means!’ Isabel chimed in, completing the quote.

Olly looked at his watch. He was surprised to see how much of the afternoon had gone by. She would be going soon, he realised, and he didn’t want her to. Yet what was there for her to stay for? Supper with David and Dotty, watching
Strictly
, or supper in the kitchen listening to them watching
Strictly
? ‘Er, fancy a drink?’ he suggested, standing up. ‘There’s a pub round the corner.’

Isabel glanced at her own watch in surprise. ‘It’s only five,’ she pointed out.

‘Exactly,’ Olly said boisterously. ‘Happy hour.’

‘I was going to go back to the library.’

‘All work and no play makes Isabel a dull girl,’ Olly countered. ‘Come to the pub.’

Isabel, about to refuse, hesitated. Why not? It was about time she had some fun.

‘It used to be ordinary but it’s been gentrified,’ Olly warned as they approached the Duchess of Cambridge a couple of streets away. ‘Like the woman herself, I suppose,’ he added.

Isabel giggled and glanced up at the pub sign, painted with a grinning Kate Middleton, teeth blazing and dark hair flowing, accurate right down to the heavy black eye make-up.

They stood at the bar with its real ale pumps and blackboard behind featuring an array of wines by the glass. ‘Pint of Pippa’s Bottom, please,’ Olly called to the barmaid. ‘What do you fancy?’ he asked, turning to Isabel.

‘A glass of Chateau Carole, if that’s all right. It’s white, isn’t it?’

‘As her teeth,’ the barmaid grinned.

Olly piloted her towards a distressed leather sofa overlooked by a photograph of the eponymous Duchess in a yellow dress with her skirt blowing up. Facing it was a portrait of Prince William thundering down a polo field.

A feeling of wellbeing filled Isabel. The relief and happiness of seeing Olly again kept exploding within her like small fireworks. Their reunion struck her as a small miracle.

Isabel, habitually so shy, was amazed at how much she had to talk about with this virtual stranger. Seemingly interested in her every thought and impression, he asked her endless questions. And the glasses of Chateau Carole and pints of Pippa’s Bottom kept coming. ‘How’s the job hunt going?’ Isabel eventually managed to slip in. ‘Been for any more interviews?’

He had been hoping she wouldn’t ask. He had kept bowling her questions partly because he was interested and partly because of the licence her answers gave him just to stare at her face. But he was also reluctant to admit his utter failure to get a job. Talking about it – even thinking about it – made him bitter, and bitterness was not, he knew, a good look.

His chest heaved in a sigh. ‘Actually, since I saw you, I’ve been to the
Thongsbridge Gazette
, the
Cripplesease Enquirer
and the
Slack Bottom Times
. I made that last one up,’ he added. ‘But the others are real.’

She giggled. ‘So how did they go?’

‘Gone,’ Olly said ruefully. Like the
Chestlock Advertiser
, and owned by the same company, both were about to go weekly and were shedding staff rather than hiring them. ‘Same old story,’ Olly told Isabel. ‘The parent company is renegotiating parameters and streamlining their platforms.’

The newspaper-owning De Borchys, in other words, were frustrating his every move. It was hard, especially now, on his next Pippa’s Bottom, not to succumb to the bitterness he felt. ‘It’s just so unfair,’ he heard himself moaning. ‘One very rich family owns all these papers and they’re throwing lots of hard-working and underpaid people out of work. Meanwhile, their horrible, overprivileged sons at university throw dwarf parties and smash windows and guzzle champagne like it’s going out of fashion.’ He ripped open a packet of Nobby’s Nuts to relieve his feelings and to stop himself ranting. He had managed at least not to mention Caspar De Borchy. He didn’t intend to give that oaf the oxygen of publicity.

Isabel watched him, the ends of her mouth twitching. She recognised the reference to the Bullinger Club and remembered Ellie had said something about dwarves and strippers. As before, she only half believed it.

The Chateau Carole, slightly greenish in its chill-beaded glass, was having a soothing effect. Isabel felt very relaxed. The pub had filled up a little, although discreetly, just enough to create a pleasant surrounding buzz. The jazz soundtrack, previously decorously low, was now turned up, the barmaid keening along in a rasping approximation of Nina Simone.

‘So, back to you,’ Olly said, sitting back and forcing a relaxed tone into his voice. ‘It’s going well, you say – your first term?’

He could hardly keep his eyes from the fantastic length of her legs, the fire of her hair, those bewitching eyes.

Alone with her now, her porcelain face glowing under the soft lighting, he felt under some sort of spell.

He was glad she was happy, as Isabel had insisted she was. She had been careful to give everything an upbeat spin, emphasise the positive, much as she did to her mother. He had accepted it all, unquestioningly; for a goddess like Isabel, it made sense. Life, perforce, would be easy. Only now did he notice that she had gone rather quiet, that she had not, in fact, answered him.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked her gently.

Her face was twitching strangely, he noticed. He thought at first that she was laughing but then he saw that her eyes were wet and that the opposite, in fact, was the case. She was about to cry.

‘Another drink?’ he suggested, hastily.

Isabel made a stupendous effort to control herself. ‘Oh . . . yes. Thanks. I didn’t realise I’d drunk that so quickly.’

‘It’s the nuts,’ Olly said diplomatically. He got up and went to the bar.

Left behind, Isabel stared hard at Prince William wielding his polo mallet and tried to reel herself back in. The tears had come from nowhere. Well, nowhere she had planned to talk about, anyway. But now it all came pressing in on her: Ellie’s indifference; Amber’s trickery; Kate’s jibes. She had not, up until now, allowed herself to recognise the full extent of her misery.

‘Better?’ Olly said, heaving cautiously into view and proferring yet another glass of Chateau Carole.

She nodded. ‘Yes . . . thanks.’

‘So tell me,’ Olly said, setting his pint on the table and clasping his hands. ‘Tell me all about it.’

Isabel took a deep breath and told him. She was gratified to see his head shake as she described Amber.

‘Awful girl,’ he said.

‘You think so?’ Isabel was amazed that any male found Amber less than bewitching. All the boys who came to her room seemed besotted with her. ‘Let me in, you gorgeous thing!’ they shouted, banging on her door.

‘I’ve had to read a lot of papers for all these interviews,’ Olly explained, ‘and she seems to be in all of them. All the time.’

‘I can’t imagine why she’s here,’ Isabel said, ‘at university.’

Olly felt he might have an idea. He had waded through endless Sunday supplements in which people like Amber regularly featured. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that being a rich-girl model who’s at a grand university distinguishes her from all those rich-girl models who aren’t.’

‘You may be right,’ Isabel allowed. ‘It seems extreme, even so. Didn’t she get any attention at home or something?’

‘Or homes,’ Olly put in. ‘I imagine she must have a few.’

‘Well, she’s got all the attention she could want in Branston,’ Isabel said. ‘The newspaper pictures of her in her underwear are Sellotaped to almost every male student’s door.’

Olly shook his head. ‘How very progressive. I read somewhere she was even going to be given her own column.’

Isabel rolled her eyes. Amber’s life was an endless sequence of opportunities. Exit the TV series, enter the column. How did it all happen? She remembered the shouting in the bathroom; an agent, presumably. She had never even dreamed there were students like this, so aware of their market value, so willing to exploit it. ‘But what will she write a column about?’ she wondered.

‘Piercing political analysis, I expect.’ Olly’s mouth was twisted ironically. ‘Or maybe the latest scientific breakthroughs.’

‘Or maybe pet care,’ Isabel snorted. It was an introduction; she was nearer now than she had ever been to telling anyone about the dog, its disappearance, the continuing hold over her that its absence gave Amber, the lie that Amber had made her tell. Perhaps Olly would understand, would give her absolution.