No Place For a Man (15 page)

‘What did it sound like?’ Matt whispered as he climbed out of bed and groped on the floor for his jeans. Jess didn’t hurry him. She fully sympathized with the need to face a ruthless intruder clothed rather than vulnerably dressing-gown-clad.

‘A sort of scraping noise. Rustling. Coming from the back, near the conservatory or even on it.
Could
someone get in, do you think?’

‘Not very likely, everything’s locked. I checked after Clarissa got done over.’

‘What about Natasha!’ Jess leapt out of bed and wrenched the door open. ‘She must be scared stiff!’ There was no way of seeing out from the attic into the back garden: on that side there were Velux windows set high in the sloping roof and only of use for counting the stars and the passing planes.

Matt laughed softly. ‘She’ll be asleep. A herd of wildebeest could race through her room and she wouldn’t stir.’

They were both at the top of the stairs now, squinting down into the darkness. Jess shivered and wrapped her arms across her front to stop herself trembling, as
if her bones could be heard crashing around in her body.

Matt, silent with bare feet, walked slowly down the stairs. At the bottom, he flung the bathroom door wide open and switched the light on fast. She almost giggled: Matt had flattened himself back against the wall, reminding Jess of TV cop shows when they’re searching for the armed villain.

‘Woss goin’ on?’ A bleary-eyed Natasha appeared on the landing next to Matt, scratching at her tangled hair.

‘Your mother thought she heard something, down in the garden.’

‘Oh thanks Matt,’ Jess said. ‘“
Your mother thought
.” I
did
hear something. I’m not losing my mind.’

‘’S just the cat.’ Natasha yawned. ‘He’s on my bed. He jumped on the window ledge and I let him in. Can we all go back to bed now?’ Without waiting for a reply she went back into her room and shut the door on them. Jess heard a bad-tempered grunt as she got back into bed. Natasha had never liked having her sleep disturbed. But in the morning, Jess knew, Natasha probably wouldn’t even remember waking up.

‘That was close,’ Tom whispered into the soft downy back of Natasha’s neck. ‘Suppose they’d come in?’

‘Jeez. Dad would’ve killed you. And me too, I expect. Still, he didn’t though.’

‘Nah, not this time.’

Robin was already there. Angie and Jess could see him as they walked down from the car park. He was photographing the shopfront from the far side of the road, stopping much too often, Jess thought, to adjust his lens settings. A pair of women walking past hesitated
and turned back to look at him, then across at the window display full of highly titillating underwear that he was focusing on, after which they picked up speed and practically scurried down the road.

Angie giggled. ‘You can guess what they’re thinking,’ she said, smirking. ‘Mucky perv. He really shouldn’t have worn that mack. He’s practically in dirty-old-man costume – do you think he hired it?’

‘Paula said she’d try to send a woman photographer,’ Jess said. ‘There’s no way he’s snapping at me wearing the goods.’ In fact there was no way any photo of her in any state other than fully clothed was going to appear in the magazine. ‘Oh, but sweetie …’ Paula had protested when she’d called about the arrangements, though she’d given in unflatteringly quickly when Jess had mentioned the dreaded C-word: cellulite.

Robin crossed the road as they arrived and Jess introduced Angie. He nodded perfunctorily at her and then turned to Jess. ‘I don’t know what the brief is …’ he began. Angie snorted a giggle and he glared at her, turning pink. ‘Brief,
briefs
!’ she explained, pointing at the shop window full of beribboned lace knickers.

Jess tried hard to keep her face composed. ‘Angie’s got a … a sense of humour,’ she explained, pretty certain he hadn’t had much experience of one of those. ‘Come on then, let’s get in and get on with it.’

‘I’ve already met the owner.’ Robin’s gloomy tone suggested it hadn’t been a happy encounter. ‘She’s let me set up just inside the door but she won’t let me go any further in, not with a camera anyway,’ he said. He sounded sulky, as if he’d been denied a treat. He probably had, Jess thought, smiling to herself.

The manager of the shop was a small, chic, well-upholstered woman who was making a careful and
largely successful effort to look as if she wasn’t on the far side of retirement age. ‘Hello, I’m Olive Cutler,’ she beamed at Jess, holding out a hand that supported a diamond ring Liz Taylor wouldn’t have scorned to show off, and a pair of ornate gold bangles so heavy Jess wondered how the narrow wrist could support them.

‘Hallo. I see you’ve already met Robin, and this is Angie. I brought her along because …’ Suddenly Jess couldn’t think of a reason.

‘Because I adore underwear,’ Angie gushed. ‘It’s my absolute
favourite thing
.’ Olive Cutler beamed approval at Angie and then looked Jess up and down quickly and not quite so approvingly, as if measuring with her practised eyes.

‘I take it you haven’t had a proper bra fitting before?’ she said, which Jess thought was possibly rather rude of her. After all, was it that obvious? She pulled her shoulders back, and her tummy and bottom in, trying to recall the rules of perfect posture as practised by her ballet teacher so very long ago. All she could remember was something about tucking her tail in, which had made her think of putting her dollies to bed.

‘Well, not since I was pregnant,’ she conceded. The inside of the shop was like being inside a child’s jewel box. The walls were lined with deep scarlet velvet and thick curtains, with fat-fringed gold pelmets separating the sales area from the fitting rooms. The other sales assistants, a couple of black-clad young girls, looked as if they’d taken full advantage of the stock and, with shoulders back and heads erect, seemed to glory in their high, pert bosoms.

Olive Cutler led the way behind the curtains like a diva flouncing from an unsatisfactory stage. ‘Tch!
Pregnant! Completely the wrong time to be fitted! With your body changing from one day to the next!’

Angie and Jess looked at each other, trying not to break into giggles. Olive held open the door of a large fitting room and they filed in.

‘Right. Let’s have a look at what you’re wearing and we’ll see what can be improved on,’ she ordered.

Obediently, Angie and Jess stripped to their bras. Angie, Jess noted, was wearing a purple and pink polka-dot satin balcony number for the occasion, causing her breasts to loom up over the fabric in a challenging manner.

‘So you don’t mind if they escape then!’ Olive commented, at last allowing herself a wry smile. Angie, daunted, flipped up her hands to protect her vulnerable body. Jess had gone for the sensible approach, wearing her plainest and most comfortable bra, a pristine white one that hadn’t yet met with a colour-run accident.

‘Well that doesn’t fit, does it dear?’ Olive’s experienced fingers tweaked at the front of Jess’s bra, pulling it free of the flesh. ‘They’re staring at the floor, aren’t they?’ Jess looked down at her front, feeling as if she’d certainly failed. ‘I’m a 34B, have been for years,’ she rallied.

Olive Cutler laughed. ‘Oh I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Never mind, we’ll sort you out. Just wait there.’

‘Aren’t you going to measure us?’ Angie suggested, with commendable bravery, Jess thought.

‘
Measure?
’ Olive looked as outraged as if Angie had asked for a view of her knickers. ‘We don’t measure! No need!’ And she swished out of the room and back through the curtain.

‘I hope Robin isn’t up to no good out there,’ Jess
whispered – anything louder couldn’t be risked, head-mistressy Mrs Cutler might rush back in and tell them off.

‘Oh sure, he’s probably dancing about with a leopard-print thong on his head,’ Angie giggled.

Mrs Cutler returned with her arms full of multicoloured frills and lace. ‘Right, you first, seeing as you’re the reporter,’ she said to Jess. Speedily she fastened her into a primrose yellow bra that was almost entirely soft, intricate lace. ‘Gorgeous!’ was Angie’s verdict. ‘Expensive,’ Jess mouthed at her behind Olive Cutler’s back, having caught sight of a pallor-inducing price tag.

‘Too tight,’ Olive decreed. ‘Digs in across here.’ She pointed to the tiniest irregularity in the diagonal line across the front.

It took a long time: Jess and Angie were wearying of taking bras off and on. Several times Jess had been certain they’d arrived at the perfect fit only to be told, with unarguable firmness, that she was completely wrong.

‘I don’t know what they’d say in M&S if we took the entire stock into the changing room like this,’ Jess commented as the pile of underwear surrounding them on the floor grew and grew.

‘Oh you soon get the hang of what to look for, with practice.’ Olive stood back and smiled; Jess stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked OK, she thought, more than OK in the wispy scarlet item.

‘Now that’s perfect.’ Olive tweaked at the straps and showed her how the back of the bra should be straight, not pulled out of place by them.

‘You’ll have to buy it now,’ Angie prompted, taking her turn at being fitted and making a face at being
strapped into something more demure than her own purple satin.

‘I know,’ Jess agreed.

‘We do matching panties.’ Olive scented a full-set sale. ‘High cut or mini or perhaps you veer towards a string?’

‘Er high cut for me.’

‘Oh I’m a thong girl myself,’ Angie giggled. Olive Cutler gave her a look as if any doubt about that hadn’t even crossed her mind.

Robin was blushing scarlet by the time they emerged from the changing room. Olive’s two assistants were talking him through the stock, suggesting he might like to buy something ‘for a friend’ or for a ‘special occasion sir?’ With great speed and hands trembling, he photographed Jess browsing through the racks of knickers as if she was a genuine customer.

‘Psst, got anything to fit my friend here?’ Jess spun round. Matt was in the shop, accompanied by Eddy who had fluffed his hair out and was pouting, in an attempt, with no great effect, to look girly.

‘Matt, get out, will you!’

‘Interrupting your work, my precious?’ Matt leaned across a rack of sumptuous bridal basques and kissed her cheek. ‘Me and Eddy are looking for some special pulling-knickers for him, what do you think? These pink fluffy ones?’ Matt plucked them off the hanger and held them up to the over-strained crotch of Eddy’s faded jeans.

‘Oooh! Gorgeous! Do you think they’re me?’ Eddy minced round the shop, squealing and holding the marabou-edged knickers against him.

‘Er excuse me! Do you intend to buy those?’ Olive Cutler’s voice cleaved the air like a whistling axe.
‘Would you mind either purchasing or
buggering orf
?’ she hissed at Matt, with no decline in dignity. ‘You’re disturbing my customers.’

‘Sorry.’ Matt and Eddy stood side by side with their heads hanging, looking like naughty ten-year-olds.

‘Jesus, Matt, haven’t you got anything better to do?’ Jess asked as Olive went to ring up her purchases (well she had to buy them now, hadn’t she?) at the till.

Matthew looked up at her, puzzled. ‘Anything better? Well …’ He scratched his head. ‘Well no. I haven’t, actually.’

‘You’re completely impossible! I could get fired over this if Mrs Cutler complains to Paula!’ Jess told both men off as they left the shop and walked back to the car.

‘Yes but you love us don’t you?’ Eddy put his arm round her and crushed her against him.

‘One for me too.’ Angie snuggled up to Eddy, demanding her share of the hugs.

‘I suppose so,’ Jess admitted, squeezing Matt’s hand. In spite of him messing about she felt pretty pleased with life just for the moment: with neither the effort of a diet nor the expense and pain of surgery, she had, according to Olive Cutler’s practised eye and professional judgement, lost two inches and gained two cup sizes. Not a bad morning’s work.

Zoe felt burdened by other people’s secrets. She wished she could just sick them up and flush them away like a bulimic with a chicken sandwich. She wondered if this was how Emily felt about food, that when it got inside her it was a sort of contamination that had to be got rid of as soon as possible. It was as if she was carrying round in her head more than just her own life, but had had the nastier bits of other people’s dumped on her as well. She needed to get on with having fun and mucking about with her mates at school. She wanted to get into her own trouble over forgotten homework and for wearing her uniform in a messed-about way and doing text messages on her mobile in Physics. Instead she felt she had to be good, just in case if one thing went wrong, everyone else’s badnesses that she was carrying would all tumble out too. It was like hearing the ‘call waiting’ message all the time when you were trying to get connected, completely frustrating and time-wasting.

She hadn’t wanted to know about Emily and the baby (the baby that
wasn’t
) in the first place, and now she knew something even worse about her. Babies got themselves born or miscarried or whatever given time, but the anorexia thing wouldn’t go away, not without a lot of other people being involved and years of awfulness. Emily had phoned a couple of times from school and said she was fine, everything really, really was fine. There was nothing to worry about. For a second or two Zoe had relaxed, thought, well maybe that woman at the clinic had frightened her into eating properly again. Maybe they could just get back to seeing each other a bit in the holidays, with no big deal and none of that new-best-friend stuff, but then Emily had admitted she was ringing from the school medical wing: she’d fainted in Maths. ‘I faked it, I was just messing about. I hate geometry,’ she’d giggled. Zoe had gone cold.

There’d been a girl at her school who’d nearly died of starving. She used to sit with everyone else and eat lunch because the staff had been warned to keep an eye on her, but she’d always raced straight off to the bogs after and smelled of sick all afternoon. No-one had wanted to be her partner in Chemistry when it was experiments. That girl had fainted all the time, and she’d had to stay indoors on games afternoons because she was just too shivery and feeble to be allowed to get chilled. She’d gone to be locked up somewhere in the end, everyone said. Her mother had come to the school and cried and shouted at the Head. You could hear her all down the corridor. She’d screamed about why had no-one said anything, why had she been the last to know, which they all had thought was stupid, how was everyone else supposed
to see what was happening if her own mother couldn’t?