Love Is a Four Letter Word (10 page)

∼ ∼ ∼

‘… Isabel, isn't it?' A hand was waving in her face, claiming her attention. Recoiling slightly, Bella craned again to see the man. His face turned: a longer nose, thinner mouth. Quite different. Not Patrick at all. No. Of course not. She shook the thought away and turned to concentrate on the person standing rather too close in front of her. It was the woman in unlawful possession of an offensive patchwork hat.

‘No,' said Bella, automatically. ‘It's Bella.' Who was this woman? Under the brim, her face did look sort of familiar, but Bella couldn't quite place it.

‘Well, that's short for Isabella anyway, isn't it?' The woman glared at her almost accusingly.

‘Not in my case. It's just Bella.' She smiled. ‘I'm so sorry – I'm terrible with names—'

‘Ginger Badell. We met at Scotton Design just the other week. I create concepts for Benson Foods.' The woman clutched at a tall, thin man hovering in a nervous orbit around her and steered him by his elbow towards Bella. ‘And this is Roger, my
amore.'
She looked to either side of Bella, and pulled the stringy
amore
closer as if worried that Bella might suddenly make a grab for him and slurp him into a passionate embrace.

They chatted politely for a few minutes, while Bella
tried to glance round unobtrusively for Springy Hair. Had he gone?

‘So nice to see you again.' said Bella, backing away. ‘I must just grab this chance to buy a signed copy – do excuse me.'

There were three other people in front of her waiting to have their books signed. Bella looked around the room while she waited. Springy Hair had obviously left. She would have thought he might say goodbye. Not that she'd been interested; he must have been a bit weird, the way he'd looked at her. He was probably a stalker. Probably hadn't fancied her anyway. Probably was just being friendly out of pity. Must be on his way home now back to his wife. And his four children. And their dog. Bloody hell. Even that bonkers Ginger woman with the world's worst taste in millinery had a man. Well, just about, although he seemed to have about as much testosterone as a mouldy flannel. And she said concepts instead of ideas and
amore
with a sickening coy look and was far too intense. And, worst of all, she probably looked down on Bella, pitied her because she was obviously alone.

She reached the head of the queue.

‘What shall I put?' The poet sat with pen poised. ‘Is it for anyone special?'

‘Hah!' The man behind her gave a start. Oops, she hadn't meant to be quite so emphatic. She ahem-ed as if she'd only been trying to clear her throat. ‘I should be so lucky,' she said.

When Bella got back home that evening, there was no message from the damp man. How dare he? She had become accustomed to his regular messages with ever more intriguing excuses about why he couldn't come yet, but she was definitely, no question, the next job up; she was in his little book, so there were no two ways about it. How like a man. Just when you were
getting used to being let down by one in a particular way, he switched to some new form of irritation. She had come to expect the little flashing light on her answerphone that indicated another exciting episode in the life and work of Mr Bowman. Her favourite so far was that the lodger had left without giving notice. Quite why this should prevent Mr Bowman from hacking off her plaster, she was unsure, but he was adamant on the matter.

There was, however, another one from that Henderson person, the garden designer; they had been playing answerphone tag for days. Perhaps he would like to join Mr Bowman on the list of people who were supposed to be helping her Sort Out Her Life but inexplicably never turned up. He might like to come and overturn half of her garden and leave her with a nice big heap of soil and rubble. Then it would complement the sitting-room with its attractive collection of boxes. Maybe she should just offer to sleep with Mr Bowman – might that move her up his list of priorities? She suspected otherwise; no doubt he would say, ‘Well, I'm sure that would be most acceptable Mrs (he couldn't quite bring himself to say Ms, but she was evidently much too old to be a Miss, so she must be Mrs) Krer … er (he typically ahem-ed his way politely through her surname rather than risk embarrassing himself by actually trying to say it), but I've got to service two other ladies first and they been waitin' longer 'n you.'

Will Henderson's message said his man with a machete was still chomping at the bit, but that they didn't seem to be having much luck getting each other, her life was obviously one non-stop glamorous social whirl. Perhaps he would pop round on Saturday morning, around 10ish, but if not OK, could she phone and leave another message. Actually, could she phone anyway because she hadn't given him her address.

Streuth, she might as well programme his number into the phone's memory. Certainly she would, if she ever found the manual and managed to suss out how to programme the memory, she would do that.

She phoned in the morning, from work.

‘Hello again. Bella Kreuzer here again. Just calling—'

‘Hello?' The phone was picked up.

‘Mr Henderson? In the flesh? You do exist, then. You've completely thrown me now. I was getting on so well with your answerphone. Best relationship I've ever had.'

‘Shall I hang up and leave you two alone together?'

She gave him her address, agreed that Saturday morning would be fine.

‘And please can I beg you not to cut anything back before then,' he said. ‘It's so easy to lose something wonderful because it doesn't look like much and you might not recognize it.'

‘I promise. Scout's honour.'

Friday. Best day of the week. In the afternoon someone would slip out for cakes and, if Seline was out of the office, a couple of bottles of wine. They'd dabble at bits of work while reading out highlights from
Hello!
and playing ‘Choices' – ‘Would you rather live in an MFI showroom for three months
with
people coming round and watching you all day OR sleep with the man in the sandwich shop?' ‘Which – not the one with the teeth?' ‘Yup,
and
you have to snog him.'

Bella sketched in her layout pad, toying with grandiose schemes for her garden – a Victorian summer house on wheels, topiary pyramids, Moorish channels of water criss-crossing like a Mondrian grid, enormous craggy rocks with a full-scale waterfall, a swing hanging from a massive cedar tree, suspended on ropes entwined with roses and ivy. Could you
transplant two-hundred-year-old trees, she wondered? Perhaps not.

Seline suddenly swept into the office unexpectedly. There was a muffled clinking as bottles were hustled under desks, computer games swiftly replaced by Quark layouts.

‘Has anyone seen my copy of
Hello?'
she said.

Saturday morning. The doorbell rang. Was it really that late or was this Henderson character early? She ran down the stairs, buttoning up her jeans. Shoes? Never mind.

‘Springy Hair!' She tried to turn it into a cough. The funny man from the poetry reading.

‘It's
you,'
said Springy Hair. ‘What did you say?'

‘Nothing, nothing. Just a tickle in my throat.' She cleared it loudly. Very alluring. Why not just hawk phlegm all over him? ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I've come to blowtorch your garden. Will Henderson.' He smiled. ‘Hello. I'm glad I've bumped into you again.' He apologized for having dashed off after the reading without saying goodbye. He'd been embarrassed when he saw her talking to the woman with the hat after he'd been so rude about it.

‘Hey, psychedelic toes.' He nodded at her shimmering blue nail polish. ‘Or is that a rare disease I shouldn't mention?'

Good grief. Blue toenails, as if she were a teenager. She cast about for a pair of shoes.

‘So, have you just moved in then?' He waved at the multi-storey box park in her sitting-room. She explained that there was no point unpacking everything because there was still the DAMP to be done.

‘I see it in capital letters in my head now because I've been meaning to have it done for so long. Mr Bowman's more elusive than the Scarlet Pimpernel.'

‘Bowman, eh. Hmm-mm.'

‘What? What?'

‘No, he's very good. You're not in a hurry though, are you?'

She explained that she'd already been waiting for over two months, then launched into a tirade about Mr Bowman and his imaginative range of excuses, he never came when he promised, now he wasn't even bothering to ring to say he wasn't coming. Was he a local legend, Bella asked, was that why Will had heard of him?

‘No. He's my brother-in-law.'

‘Yeah, right. Very droll.' At school, certain kids always made that joke; if you passed a man wearing a bad toupee on your way to the library (holding a sticky-handed boy with the tips of your fingers) and you hissed ‘Wig!' at your neighbour, he would say, ‘That's my uncle actually,' and pretend to be offended. It was a fashion, a phase, like jacks or saying ‘Vanies' or putting cartoon-character stickers on the inside of your desk lid.

‘No. He really is. Sort of. Well he's my brother-in-law, in-law. My sister's husband's brother. What does that make him?'

‘It still makes him a very annoying person who hasn't done my damp, I'm afraid.'

They went out to the garden. He nodded in places, humming, clucking his tongue in others, making a running commentary to himself – ‘mellow brick wall, dum-de-dum, courses of flint – hmm-mm, concrete pavers – dodgy lawn – few decent shrubs – good clematis dum-de-dum – Russian vine, oops – brambles – perennial weeds – clear this bit – transplant that–' He plunged between bushes, got down on his hands and knees to peer under things, stuck his hand into the soil, crumbling it between his fingers.

She saw him make scribbly sketches, numerous
notes, tiny diagrams. He would come back and measure properly if she wanted to go ahead, he said.

‘OK if I ask you a few questions?' Will put down his mug and took out a notebook from one of the bulging pockets of his jacket.

‘Sounds ominous. It wasn't me, Officer. I wasn't even there. Ask anyone.'

‘Remain calm.' He looked up from his notebook. ‘Trouble is, the reason people end up with a garden that doesn't suit them is they plunge straight in without thinking about what they really want.'

Bella shifted in her seat and sat on her hands to stop herself fiddling.

‘I feel as if I'm in an exam.'

‘You are.' Will rolled up his sleeves. ‘If you get too many wrong, my fee goes up.'

‘Ready? Right, question 1. What do you want to do in this garden?'

‘Can't we start with an easier one?'

‘No we can't. Judging from the state of it, can I assume you're not a veteran plant-collector? So do you want somewhere for eating out? A bolt-hole from the rat race? Place to sunbathe in privacy? All of the above?'

‘What was the middle one again? I don't know, I don't know. But privacy's a must. I want a secluded corner somewhere with lots of traily things hanging down. I hate feeling people are looking at me. Does that sound terribly paranoid?'

‘It must make life pretty awkward.' Will jotted something down in his notebook.

‘What? Being paranoid?'

He shrugged as if it were obvious.

‘No – just – well, I imagine you get looked at quite a lot.' He raised his eyes from what he was writing.

‘Next question?'

Bella looked down into her mug of coffee, then started to watch his hands to avoid his penetrating gaze. Why did he have to look at her like that? It was quite rude really. Now he had made her feel selfconscious. He was obviously only saying it to wind her up anyway. No-one could find her attractive the way she looked this morning in these grotty old jeans and baggy jumper. Her hair was loose and she hadn't even bothered with lipstick, never mind the whole routine that she needed to feel even half-presentable.

‘Any kids?'

‘Nope. What's that got to do with it anyway?'

‘Play space. You might want a sandpit. Swing. Whatever. Any on the horizon?'

‘The Vatican will declare me a modern miracle if there are.'

‘You're not keen on kids then?'

‘Is this really part of the questionnaire?'

‘Not really. I'm just nosy.' That look again.

Bella laughed. At least he was honest.

‘It's not that I don't like them. I just—' she shrugged. ‘I – anyway, I'm— More coffee?'

Bella spent some time fiddling with the lid of the kettle, loudly opening and closing cupboards to look for biscuits.

‘Don't bother. Really.' Will got up to go. ‘I've been here way too long already. So, think about exactly what you want in the garden, any must-haves and so on. Make a list.'

‘Right. List-making, I'm good at that. Will you really design it to suit my every need?'

‘Not at all. I'll nod and say, “I see. No problem,” a lot, then ignore you and do whatever I thought of in the first place.'

Will held out his business card.

‘Call me. Here – let me give you a few in case you want to pass one on.'

Bella smiled. ‘You had too many printed, didn't you?'

‘Well, it's ever so cheap if you have a thousand done.'

‘A thousand? Grief. Give me a stack. I can do shopping lists on the back.'

‘They're quite good for sticking under wobbly table legs in restaurants too.'

There were no spare drawing pins on her kitchen pinboard, so Bella tucked one of his cards behind the corner of a photograph. The one of her and Patrick. Her finger rested for a moment on the pin, feeling its cold hardness solid beneath the fleshy pad of her fingertip.

She had been cooking when she heard the news.

∼ ∼ ∼

Bella is stirring her sauce, giggling at Viv's description of some pompous pillock she has had to endure at her all-day conference.