The Look of Love (31 page)

‘Well there’ll be your byline shot, but really it’s not
just about that … it’s more about the PR people and so on. I know they need us onside more than we need them, but it’s a glamour business, obviously. We’d need you not to be … oh I don’t know how to put this without sounding vile. If I just say,
tea dresses
and the word
never
, will you be offended, darling?’

Bella looked down at her old jeans and softened linen comfort shirt. Image. Right. So she might not fit the gig on frock grounds. She’d see about that. She had an idea.

‘I promise I’ll never so much as look at ditsy florals ever again, Charlotte. After this week, I am now style incarnate. But look – we’re wrapping up the
Fashion Victims
thing tomorrow and having a gathering here at my house. Why don’t you come along? See what we’ve been doing? And you can meet Daisy and Dominic …’ That should do it, she thought, recalling Charlotte’s squeal of delight in Quo Vadis when she’d mentioned their names.

‘Oh, yes! I’d be delighted to! It’ll be
lovely
to see you!’

Only if I’m not wearing a flowery matron-frock and cropped cute ballet wrap, Bella thought ruefully as she hung up and returned to her computer to close it down.
Tea dress
, she thought, I’ll bloody show Charlotte.

There were several new emails in her inbox and she began opening them, quickly consigning to the junk the usual ones offering to enlarge bits of body that she
didn’t possess, and deleting others that promised online shopping bargains from rather safe catalogues that she was normally quite fond of but now felt more picky about. She was, she was amused to find, all clothed out for the moment. It was quite a liberating feeling. Now if she could only manage to feel the same about Saul, love and relationships, life could be just hunky-dory.

A new message flashed up as she was about to shut down the Mac. Saul. Stupidly and infuriatingly she went instantly trembly and tense. What on earth would he say to her in an email? She hoped, prayed, that he had more class than to reveal his married status via something as impersonal as the Internet. That would put him even below the level of Rick, who, she now thought, might well have almost deliberately – even at a subliminal level – let his wife do it for him. However else would she have known he was going to be at that New York hotel, unless he’d somehow told her? If he really had used Carole as a means of dumping a mistress, it showed quite a resourceful – if cowardly – streak in him.

Nervous at what she would read, Bella clicked the email open. It was short, only a couple of lines. She couldn’t decide if this was a disappointment or not. Much as she wanted detail and information, reams of rambling explanation in an email would mean that talking face to face about this was something Saul intended to avoid.

‘
We need to talk – in person, not by phone. Tomorrow, please, on our own. Everything is a stupid tangle of misunderstanding and I’m so sorry. I do love you, Bella, please don’t doubt it
.’

Not
to doubt it was her instinct, she was surprised to find. She was also surprised at how touched she felt by the straightforward, uncomplicated message. It had simple sincerity in it. She pictured Saul at home in Soho, possibly in the big scarlet office surrounded by all those photos of half-built structures. All that work in progress. She saw him at the big table, tapping out the message to her in the fading evening light, trying to find the right words, maybe writing too many, discarding them till he’d whittled it down to those few bare-bones sentences. Below in the street would be other rickshaw cyclists, ferrying other romantically entwined couples; there would be so many people in the restaurants and bars, holding hands and trusting each other’s love. Well lucky them, she thought sadly, may it all work out the way they dreamed.

If Molly wanted someone to blame for ending up in Giles’s bed that night, she’d have had to pick Shirley, who had simply taken her by taxi straight from the town centre to his house, leaned across to open Molly’s door and more or less hurled her out on to the pavement.

‘All right Molly, I looked up Giles’s address in the
phone book. You agreed you’d talk to him but you have to do it
now
. It’s the perfect moment for you. Can’t hang about for you though, I’m off to meet Dennis. Bye, darling, and good luck!’ she called, throwing Molly’s bag out after her, slamming the door shut and telling the driver to pull away immediately so Molly couldn’t change her mind.

The cab sped away, did a swift U-turn and Shirley waved goodbye. Molly waved back, ruefully realizing that the entire shopping trip was a con. Here she was in the new black skinny jeans Shirley had bought her (exactly the shape Daisy had told her to go for), and a coral-coloured long top (colour from the spring palette), too-hot high black strappy shoes and with a speedy but effective make-up makeover from a girl on the Bobbi Brown cosmetic counter (‘Just for fun, darling,’ Shirley had persuaded her, ‘let’s see what the professionals can do,’) who had gone to a lot of trouble with three shades of eyeshadow and too much mascara. As a finishing touch she’d mussed up Molly’s hair and clipped it up loosely with a butterfly slide.

‘Perfect,’ Shirley had decreed, inspecting the finished version of Molly. ‘You look a bit less pink and scrubbed, more along the lines of Sandy from
Grease
when she’s in the leather outfit. Though nowhere near as
obvious
, of course.’

‘Do you mean I look a bit slutty?’ Molly frowned at
her reflection. ‘I’ll try it out on my next conquest, if I ever get one. I suppose boys like this sort of thing.’ She thought of Aimee and her tops cut so low that most of her bra showed. Was that all it took?

‘No, you don’t look at all slutty. Just a little sexier than usual but also
in charge
. It suits you. It is,’ Shirley added rather mysteriously, ‘perfect for the purpose.’

What she had meant, Molly now realized, was that it suited
this
purpose. The one she’d had in mind all the time. Talk about devious. Her own gran had completely set her up. Could you trust
anybody
? Slowly, she went towards Giles’s garden gate. The space where Giles’s mother kept her car was empty; it would be just the two of them. It would be a long walk home, so she might as well get this discussion with him over with. If he was in.

She rang the doorbell, feeling quaky and yet strangely in control, as Shirley had assured her she would. It really was something to do with this not-quite-her new look. It was as if she’d put on a costume to play a particular role. A sexy, confident one – not hiding her body under baggy hoodies. None of the cute-and-cosy hiding of hands up her sleeves. She waited a while, getting no answer and hearing no sign of life from inside. This was mad – she should have texted or phoned first. Perhaps Giles was on a trip to Mothercare picking out prams with Aimee. But just as she turned away, the door opened and there, rubbing his wet hair with a towel, was Giles.

‘Molly! Er, wow! I was so not expecting you – sorry, was in the shower. Got dressed dead quick when I heard the bell. You’re looking very … er … different, very … er, come in.’ He looked embarrassed suddenly and she realized the word he’d been thinking was ‘sexy’. Good. Serve him right – now he’d see what he was missing. She stalked in past him, enjoying the unusual sensation of being those few powerful inches taller on the mad shoes. Ah yes … perhaps her gran had a point.

‘Yeah. Well I just felt like a change.’ She shrugged. Although she knew she looked stunning, she actually felt slightly uncomfortable. Her mouth felt all sticky with hyper-shiny lip gloss. Her hair was escaping its clip and the jeans might possibly be just that bit too tight.

‘Is it what they made you wear on that programme?’ he asked, looking her up and down. Although she felt very
contrived
, she could tell he liked what he was seeing. She could see how the what-you-wear thing could collect results.

‘No. It’s my choice. I like it.’ She shut up then. He was the one who was supposed to be doing the talking. It crossed her mind, suddenly, that possibly he wasn’t alone in the house. Suppose he’d got Aimee with him? Perhaps (eeuw!) they’d been having soaped-up porno shower action? She started to back away towards the door, appalled at her imaginings, her confidence shrinking.

‘Maybe this was a mistake …’ she said.

‘No don’t go! Come in,
please
– I really wanted to see you.’ He looked like a pleading puppy, she thought, so sad and desperate. She relented and followed him into the kitchen. Music was coming from upstairs but she sensed the house was otherwise empty.

‘Drink?’ he offered, opening the fridge.

‘No thanks. Oh, well yeah, maybe some water.’

He poured them both some chilled water from the fridge tap, and the coldness of it almost froze Molly’s fingers to the glass.

‘She’s not pregnant,’ Giles said. ‘Aimee, I mean.’

‘Yes I know you mean Aimee,’ Molly snapped. ‘Unless she’s just one on a list.’ This was such a mistake. She and Giles were almost circling each other in the kitchen, nervous and unsure what to say.

‘She made it up, just to get at you. She’s jealous. Mad, bonkers and jealous,’ he told her.

‘Why didn’t you say, then?’ Molly asked. ‘Why did you go all silent on me and not want to see me? If there was nothing in what she’d said, you could have just laughed it off and told her to get lost, and we could all have moved on.’

‘Can’t we get past this now? I’m sorry I was such a flake. I got scared.’

Molly could almost feel her brain cells stretching and flexing in an effort to make sense of this. Why would he
be scared if there was nothing to be scared about? Because there was, that’s why.

‘Right. But … although she’s not pregnant, you had sex with her, didn’t you?’ Well obviously. The brain cells relaxed, job done. ‘
That’s
why you were scared. You thought she might really be pregnant.’ She felt detached now, having sorted the truth. She could almost feel sorry for Giles; he looked close to tearful, so penitent.

‘Why?’ she asked him. ‘Was it because we hadn’t? I mean, you know I would have …’

‘It wasn’t about you.’ He wouldn’t look at her. ‘It was about me. I wanted it to be so right for us, just like you did. But … well …’ He laughed, nervously. ‘You aren’t the only one who hadn’t done it before, OK?’ He laughed again. ‘You don’t know how much of a big-deal admission that is for a bloke, Molly! I expect you’ll want to go home now.’

‘So why Aimee?’ She was still puzzled; was he saying he had sex with Aimee so Molly would somehow get the benefit? How so?

‘She’s done it all. With everyone.’ He shrugged. ‘It was like … I don’t know, going to a class or something. Just a …’

‘Learning curve?’ How harsh, she thought. Poor Aimee, functioning as nothing more than an all-comers’ sex manual. How could they treat her like that? Why would she want them to?

‘Molly, I’m
really
sorry. I know you’re going to say we’re totally over, but I do still love you and I wish I hadn’t done it. Truly, I feel gutted on every possible level. I mean, how unfair was it not just to you, but to Aimee? She’s a human with feelings and I treated her like some hooker. I hate myself for that.’

Turning point. Molly took a step closer to him, put her hand on his face, stroked him gently. If he’d only been sorry about
her
and had dismissed Aimee as no more than the school bike as so many others did, she’d have turned and left the house and never come back. But he hadn’t. With some people, she thought as he pulled her close to him, it was worth looking past their mistakes.

The dawn was arriving much later now the year was so close to the autumn equinox. At seven thirty it was only just light and in spite of the continuing heat, there was no more pretending that the year wasn’t fast heading towards the cold season. Bella was up early and ready for the day after a restless night in which she’d flipped about in her sleep, first feeling too hot, then thirsty, then too cold. She’d wandered around, thinking and brooding, staring out of the window at the empty avenue below and startling herself with her own reflection in the big mirror.

Her eventual 2 a.m. reply to Saul’s email was short; she’d simply written that she hoped they’d get a few minutes together some time today during the filming. His instant response (had he kept his iPhone next to the pillow, anxious to hear from her? The part of her brain
that didn’t want to give up on him rather liked to think so) was that he really hoped they could do much better than that. She felt the same – if he was going to come out with some terminal let-down truth, she would obviously prefer it not to be in front of friends, family and film crew.

Does all this relationship agonizing ever stop, she wondered as she made her way round the terrace with the garden hose, watering the plants in their pots. Did her mother get moments like this with Dennis, or did a time come when everything was straightforward, grown-up and complication-free? It didn’t seem much to ask, once in a lifetime, to hook up with a man who had no tricksy little secrets, but Bella hadn’t come across one of those in years, so perhaps they were heading for extinction.

The garden was still lush and leafy, partly thanks to the slotted-in extra plants from
Green Piece
. She gave those an especially large drink, feeling she was their babysitter and that she was responsible for making sure they were returned to their home thriving and well. Her own flowers hung on from high summer, still blooming prolifically but with seedheads forming now; new flower heads were smaller, as if the plants were flagging, and petals were dropping.

Nasturtiums tumbled untidily, trailing from their pots across the paving; the deep-pink cosmos – thanks
to regular deadheading – still had many buds ready to open, but the nicotiana were setting seed and their leaves were starting to look a bit yellow. She thought about the ones whose heady scent had wafted in from Saul’s roof garden as she lay in his bed – they too would be turning, dying down and producing smaller, less showy blooms on ever weaker little offshoot stems. Her nicotiana had bits of twig and grass cuttings and grit clinging to their sticky, resinous leaves. Saul’s would have the oil-slick-coloured feathers from rooftop pigeons on them.