The Last Word (27 page)

Then, without warning, her mother’s voice popped into her head.
We never had a wedding
,
Anna
,
and it was a sign
. Anna didn’t see the cakes, just her own reflection as the words carried on.
Pregnant with you, Anna, and standing in some crummy registry office with a couple of witnesses he’d dragged in from outside. I didn’t even get a new dress. And in those days you didn’t have pregnancy clothes, Anna, not the flashy things you have now. Oh no, I had a big hoop of corduroy pleated around my belly like a traffic cone. There were no photos. Thank god. But when I think about it now, I know it was definitely a sign. He wanted to gloss over it. A wedding is more than just a day, Anna. It’s a statement of intent
.

As Seb pulled out a chair and stretched his legs out in the morning sun, Anna perched on the edge of the one opposite and said, ‘My mum rang yesterday.’

He twisted his head round to look at her. ‘What did she say?’

‘That she’d give us the money to get married. All of it.’ Seb sat up straighter. Anna licked her lips and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes. ‘As long as I don’t invite Dad.’

Seb spluttered a cough. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. No way. What did you say?’

She brushed some of the creases from her top. ‘I said I’d think about it.’

‘Anna, you can’t not invite your father.’

‘Why not? What difference would it make? At least it’d solve my problems.’ She paused. ‘Maybe then I wouldn’t have to invite yours either.’ She snorted at her own little joke, but Seb didn’t find it as funny as she’d hoped.

‘You can’t not invite him.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I can’t start my married life on that kind of threat. She’s being a bitch.’

Anna bristled. ‘She’s not, he just hurt her.’

‘It was a long time ago, Anna,’ he said.

Anna glanced to the side, away from looking directly at Seb and, in doing so, caught a look at the girl behind the counter.

‘Oh god, it’s Rachel.’ Anna whipped round so fast her sunglasses fell off her head and landed with a clatter on the metal table.

‘What? Who?’ He stuck his nose right up against the glass. ‘No it’s not.’

‘It is. You’re so obvious.’ She pulled him back by the arm.

‘Well what’s wrong with it being Rachel. I liked Rachel.’

‘Urgh, that’s because you were a big old square at school just like her.’

‘I don’t think people say things like that any more. Not when they’re grown up.’ He raised a brow like she was one of his pupils.

‘God, I bet she’s loving this.’ Anna said, picking up her glasses and sliding them on to over her eyes. ‘Me back here with my tail between my legs. I bet that means Jackie’s somewhere about the place as well.’

‘Of course she is, Anna, she’s a teacher at the school, she helped me get the job.’ Seb shook his head at her like she was mad, as Anna started to breathe in too quickly.

‘Oh great, that’s all I need. Come on, we have to leave.’

‘Anna, stop it. This is ridiculous, you’re being ridiculous. You’re going to see people you used to know.’

And they’ll think, stupid Anna, now it’s our turn to laugh at her, she thought. They’ll think, what’s Seb doing with her? Have you heard, she lost all their cash? Spending outside her means. Running off to London, we all knew it was doomed. Never made it though, did she? Very few do, it’s a tough industry to break into. Did you hear she lost her job as well? Tough times though, isn’t it? Or the time to cut loose dead wood?

‘I can’t sit here.’ She started to push her chair away.

‘Anna!’ Seb raised his voice just a touch. ‘Anna, calm down. Sit down.’

‘No, I’ll see you later. Have a good first day,’ she said, grabbing her bag from where she’d slung it over the back of the chair and marching away in the direction of Vintage Treasure. She heard him sigh but couldn’t turn round. She caught sight of her reflection in the window of the old gift shop, Presents 4 You, and tried to regain some of her infamous poise. Her eye caught a T-shirt draped over a stack of gift boxes, on it read
Paris, Milan, New York, Nettleton
. In their dreams, she thought, in their dreams. Who would ever want to end up back here?

‘How do you like your tea?’ A woman’s voice called as soon as the bell over the door of Vintage Treasure chimed.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Anna said, her eyes pained by the catastrophe of objects piled around the place.

‘That’s not what I asked.’

She heard a clinking of teaspoons and the air-tight pop of the lid coming off a tea caddy, and made a face to herself at the woman’s tone.

Contemplating describing her love of Lapsang Souchong, her dislike of semi-skimmed milk and her tolerance for normal tea as long as it wasn’t too strong, she thought it easier to reply, ‘I just have it white.’

There was no answer, so Anna carried on her journey into the dingy Aladdin’s Cave, just relieved to be out of the scorching heat and the gossiping voices that seemed to lace the air. Inside, dust swirled in the beams of sunlight that forced their way through the dirty windows and shone like spotlights on such delights as a taxidermy crow, its claw positioned on an egg, a crack across the left-hand corner of the glass box, a dark-green chaise lounge, the back studded with emerald buttons and a gold scroll along the black lacquered edges. A looming welsh dresser stacked full of plates and cups and a line of Toby jugs with ugly faces and massive noses.

If there was one thing Anna hated, it was antiques. Anything that wasn’t new, anything with money off, anything that had to be haggled for or marked down.

All it did was remind her of being wrapped up against the cold, having her mittens hanging from her coat sleeves, her dad bundling her up at five in the morning in the passenger seat of his van, a flask of hot chocolate and a half-stale donut wrapped in a napkin that she ate with shaking hands as he scrapped the ice off the inside and outside of the window of his Ford Transit before trundling off to Ardingly, Newark or some other massive antique market. She had inherited her mother’s intolerance of the cold. The fiery Spanish blood that coursed through her veins wasn’t inclined to enjoy shivering in snow-crisp fields, her fingers losing their feeling, her damp lips freezing in the early morning frost as she trudged past other people’s mouldy, damp crap for sale on wonky trestle tables.

As she edged her way through the maze of a shop, a woman bumbled out of the back room with a plate of Gingernuts and two mugs of stewed tea clanking together, their surfaces advertising various antique markets and fairs.

‘I made you one anyway,’ she said, pushing her glasses up her nose with her upper arm as she pushed the tea onto the glass counter.

Mrs Beedle. How could Anna have forgotten? Huge, dressed in a smock that could have doubled as a tent, round glasses like an owl, white shirt with a Peter Pan collar, red T-Bar shoes like Annie wore in the film, a million bracelets clanging up her wrist and pockets bursting with tape measures, pencils, bits of paper and tissues. Her greying hair pulled back into an Anne of Green Gables style do, the front pushed forward like a mini-beehive and a bun held with kirby grips.

‘Anna Whitehall, now look at you.’ She leant her bulk against the counter, took out her hanky and wiped her brow. ‘Still as much of a pain in the arse as you always were, I imagine.’

‘Hello, Mrs Beedle,’ she said, running a finger along the brass-counter edge.

Mrs Beedle narrowed her eyes as if she could see straight inside her. ‘Mmm, yes,’ she murmured.

Anna licked her lips under the scrutiny of her gaze.

‘Now, remember, I’m doing your father a favour, I don’t want you here. Got that?’ She took a slurp of tea. ‘And why he wants you here, I have no idea.’

Anna didn’t say anything, just pushed her shoulders back a bit further.

‘To my mind, you’re a jumped-up, spoilt brat who’s caused more harm than good. But, I’ll tolerate you. As long as there’s none of your London crap, or—’ She picked up a Gingernut, ‘Any of that attitude.’

‘I’m not sixteen any more, Mrs Beedle.’ Anna said with a half sneer, her hand on her hip.

Mrs Beedle’s lip quivered in a mocking smile. ‘That’s exactly the attitude I’m referring to.’ She dunked her biscuit into her tea and sucked some of the liquid off it, before saying, ‘So what can you do?’

Anna thought back to the Opera House. She was very good at mingling at parties, casually introducing people, she could calm down an over-wrought star with aplomb, she could conjure a masterful quote out of thin air for any production, she could throw a pragmatic response into a heated meeting. And her desk was impeccable, perfect, spotless. A place for everything and everything in its place, her mother would say. ‘I’m very organised,’ she said in the end.

Mrs Beedle snorted. Then, clicking her fingers in a gesture that meant for Anna to follow, she pulled back the curtain behind her to reveal Anna’s worst nightmare. A stockroom filled with stacks and stacks of crap, piled sky-high like the legacy of a dead hoarder.

Anna swallowed. She had imagined spending most of the day sitting behind the desk reading
Grazia
. ‘What do I do with it?’

‘You organise it.’ Mrs Beedle laughed, backing out so that Anna was left alone in the damp-smelling dumping ground and settling herself down in the big orange armchair next to the desk, a thin marmalade cat appearing and twirling through her legs. ‘I’ve been meaning to do it for yonks.’

Anna opened her mouth to say something, but Mrs Beedle cut her off. ‘You know, I think I might actually enjoy this more than I thought I would.’

There had been a time, Anna thought two hours later, as she carefully plucked another horsebrass from a random assortment box and put it into the cardboard box on the shelf she had marked, BRASS, that she had had an assistant to do all this type of manual work in her life. In fact, she’d had two. One of them, Kim, she’d rather forget. She had given her her first break and, in return, the ungrateful brat had stolen her contact book and then promptly resigned and was now clawing her way up the ballet world while Anna was holding what looked like a Mexican death skull between finger and thumb.

Anna had had people to move boxes and post parcels and send emails to the people she’d rather avoid. Her status had defined her. Had made her who she was. She liked the fact she had her own office with her name on the plaque on the door. She liked the fact people came in to ask her advice or crept in in tears and shut the door to bitch about some mean old cow in another department. She liked the signature on the bottom of her email and the fact that she didn’t follow most of her Twitter followers back.

She patted the beads of sweat from her face with a folded piece of tissue she’d got from the bathroom and blew her hair out of her eyes. The room had heated up like a furnace and she felt like a rotisserie chicken slowly browning.

She had been somebody. And it didn’t matter that at about three o’clock, most days, she had stood in a cubicle in the toilets holding a Kleenex to her eyes after catching a glimpse of the dancers rehearsing and thinking,
That should have been me
. Before blowing her nose, telling herself that this was just life, this is what happens, this feeling is weakness and you’re not weak Anna Whitehall. Then calling up Seb, all bright-eyed and smiling voice, asking if he wanted to go for cocktails after work, her treat.

Anna lifted up another brass object: a revolting frame shaped like a horse-shoe, and thought of her old air-conditioning unit, her ergonomically designed chair, the fresh-cut flowers in her office, her snug new season pencil skirt and a crippling pair of beautiful stilettos.

She wanted to grab her old boss by the shoulders and shout,
Look at me, now! Look what you’ve made me become, you stupid idiot! Why did you have to scale down the PR department? Why?

‘Everything all right back there?’ Mrs Beedle had pulled back the curtain and was watching Anna as her lips moved during her silent tirade. The cat was curled up under Mrs Beedle’s arm, nestled on the plump outline of her hip. A wry smile was twitching the woman’s lip as she said, ‘Christ, you still stand in third position.’ She shook her head.’ Well I never, you’ll be doing pliés in here next.’

Anna, who hadn’t noticed how she was standing, moved immediately and leant up against the stack behind her.

‘Haven’t got far, have you?’ Mrs Beedle peered at her work.

Anna frowned. ‘I thought I’d done quite a lot. Look. I have boxes for all the different items. Here‒’ She waved her hand along one of the lines of shelves. ‘China, figurines, brasses, decorative plates, medals…’

‘Maybe.’ Mrs Beedle said with a shrug. ‘I’m going for lunch and, as it’s so quiet, I’m going to shut the shop and make a couple of deliveries. I’ll be back, what? Three-thirty? Four?’

‘What should I do?’ Anna asked, her forehead beading with sweat, her shorts dusty, her fingers rough with dirt, her Shellac chipping.

‘Just carry on as you are. No point stopping now,’ Mrs Beedle said and backed out, shaking her head at the marmalade cat. ‘She has a lot to learn about work this one, doesn’t she? A lot to learn. Always the little princess.’