Olivia’s Luck (2000) (13 page)

“Can I hel – Oh!” She started, hand to mouth.

Ah. So she recognised me. I smiled warmly, taking it all in quickly, noting that she was quite pretty in a pink-cheeked, healthy sort of way, and also quite pneumatic, but heavens, Imo was right, nothing special. She had that sort of skin that blushed easily, and the colour rose up.

“Hello,” I smiled. “Look, I just thought I’d pop in because I realise this situation could potentially be very embarrassing for both of us, so I wanted to break the ice and say hi. We’re obviously going to be seeing each other around a bit and I thought – well, far better to be grown up about it and not let everyone think we’re at each other’s throats, don’t you think?”

“Oh! Yes, well – ” she faltered, flushing to her roots.

“I also wondered,” I went on, “if you’d be kind enough to deliver these to Johnny.” I handed over a package of his letters. “Only I’ve been sending them to his office every day, which costs a fortune, and it seems crazy when I could quite easily give them to you.”

Her mouth went slack with shock. “Oh! Well – yes, I – ”

“Is that OK then? If I just pop them in periodically? Thanks so much.”

Without waiting for an answer I bestowed yet another warm smile on her, turned, and pushed out through the glass swing doors. I made off down the long corridor. Off to collect my daughter. On the way I passed plenty of waiting mothers hovering outside classrooms, some of whom I knew, and some of whom, quite possibly, already knew of my predicament. My head was high, though, and my chin well up. Thanks Mum, I thought, my heart pounding as I strode along. Thanks for the tip, but actually, I can go one better.

D
ays passed and Nanette’s dinner party loomed. On the day of the actual event, I tried to get out of it a few hours beforehand by coughing wretchedly into a bloodstained hanky, but Claudia wasn’t impressed.

“Alf saw you do that in the kitchen with the tomato ketchup bottle,” she informed me sternly as I sat on my bed clutching hanky to mouth. She had her back to me at my open wardrobe and was riffling through my hangers. “We all thought it was pretty sad of you, actually. Alf was on the phone to Vi at the time, and when he told her about it she said that you should definitely get out more and had you thought of taking Prozac? What’s Prozac?”

“Jesus!” I flopped back on the pillows. “Now my labourer’s wife is pitching in with her two pennyworth, is she?”

“Don’t say Jesus, Mummy – Oh! Hang on. What about this?” She pulled out a hanger and threw a short red dress at me.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Claudia. I haven’t worn that in years! Not since puberty. Ooooh…God.” I shut my eyes and clutched my forehead. “I do feel rotten.”

“Mum, I told you, the game’s up. We all know you’re faking it. Oh look, what about this one then?” Some equally ancient miniskirt came winging my way. I snatched it up, then threw it on the floor, swinging my legs round to get up.

“Claudia, if I’m going out at all I’m wearing my black, and that’s final –
if
I’m going out.”

“Oh, Mummy, not your black
again
,” she wailed. “You always wear that; you look like Batman.”

“Rubbish. I look thin and mysterious,” I said, wiggling into black trousers and a velvet shirt.

“And old and tired.”

“Thank you 50 much, my angel.”

“Well, you could at least wear chunky jewellery or something, like Nanette does.” She leapt up on my bed and bounced up and down in her nightie, a packet of crisps in her hand, “or that pashy thing.”

“My pashmina – ” I reached for it.

“No, not the grey one, the red one, and look, you tie it like this…”

“Yes, I know how to tie it.” I snatched it from her salty hands and sat at the dressing table to arrange it. Then I dropped it. Groaned. “Oh God, what am I
doing
here? Dressing up to go to some godawful party of Nanette’s to talk to some ghastly greasy Herbert she’s lined up for me?”

“How d’you know he’s going to be greasy? How d’you know he won’t be absolutely gorgeous? And if he is, for heaven’s sake
smile
, Mummy, flash your rings, tell him you’re a rich divorcee or something.”

I gazed at her a moment in the dressing-table mirror; turned. “Claudia, what’s the
matter
with you? Don’t you want Daddy to come back? You can’t want some slimy accountant sneaking about the place, surely?”

“Of course I don’t. I’ve told you, Mum, this is tactics. Apparently you can bring a man to his knees by pretending to be in love with someone else, and Dad’s got to see you’re having a good time,” she insisted. She knelt up on the bed urgently. “And even if you’re not, you’ve got to pretend, Mum. I know you think I’m the only one in my class from a broken home – I’ve heard you wailing about it on the phone to Molly – but I’m not. Chloe Chandler’s dad went off with a floozie, and d’you know what Mrs Chandler did?”

“No idea.”

“She went straight down to B & Q where lots of men hang about, followed a few around with power drills and things in their baskets, and when she found one she liked, she brought him back home and – guess what – Mr Chandler came back the very next day!”

“Claudia – ”

“And it doesn’t have to be a Homebase-type thing. Chloe says you can do it anywhere. For instance, you could go to a bookshop, Mum – you like books – or – or yes, a garden centre! Mum, go to a garden centre! There’s bound to be some there. They’re everywhere!” She opened her eyes wide. “Men are everywhere!” she repeated with awe. She flopped back dramatically on the bed, arms wide like a starfish.

I shut my eyes. “Claudia, I am not popping down to B & Q for a DIY enthusiast, nor am I creeping round garden centres looking for a like-minded soil tiller, and neither, my love, is your father going out with a floozie.”

“Teacher then.”

I swung round aghast. “How did you know that?”

“He told me last Sunday. Said in case I found out from someone else.”

“And how do you feel about it, my darling?” I got up and hastened anxiously to the bed. Hurt? Bitter? Murderous? Do you want to squash her peachy little face right into her blackboard? Poke chalk in her eyes? I know I do.

She shrugged. “OK, I suppose. I’m glad she doesn’t teach me, though.” I clutched my mouth at this horrific thought. She screwed up her nose. “She’s pretty average too, don’t you think? I had a look at her in the playground. Not vampy and black-knickerish like I expected.”

I shut my eyes again. I didn’t want to think about the colour of her knickers. Although I was sure they were white and came in a pack of three. I sighed. It never ceased to amaze me how much straight-talking children could take, and come back with too. Or was it just my child? My one and only, mature beyond her years.

“Daddy said you went to see her.”

“Oh yes?” My eyes snapped open.

“Said you were quite…” She puckered her brow.

“What?” I pounced.

“That word. What the missionaries do to the savages.”

My mind boggled. Missionaries? Savages? Had I tied her up, popped her in a cooking pot and boiled her to death, and let it slip my mind?

“Civilised.”

“Oh!”

I waited. “Anything else?”

“Nope.”

I turned back and picked up my mascara. Well, whoopee. One tiny little brownie point from my estranged husband because I’d behaved well. I couldn’t help thinking it was a better ‘tactic’ than shagging DIY shoppers, like Mrs Chandler, though.

“It was Granny’s idea, wasn’t it?” she went on, munching her crisps.

“What?”

“Granny told me she’d told you to be nice to her.” She leant forward eagerly. “Granny also said there was a curse on all the women in this family, because Great-grandpa left French Granny, and Grandpa left her, and now Daddy’s left you. D’you think that’s true? D’you think it’ll happen to me or d’you think I’ll break it? Break the curse, fair maiden!” She raised both hands and plunged an imaginary sabre into the duvet.

I slammed down my hairbrush and spun round. “Your grandmother talks far too much to a girl of your age! Curse, My Eye. You’re to stop going there so much, Claudia!”

Her eyes widened. “What, you mean I’m banned? Like Granny said you were banned from seeing French Granny?” She grinned. “History repeating itself, Mum!”

I stared at her for a moment. Then I stood up, snatched up my pashmina and swept it around my shoulders. “Don’t be silly, I just said not so much, that’s all.”

It hadn’t escaped my notice that Claudia spent more and more time in my mother’s company. Mum lived only a few roads away from the school and often picked Claudia up, taking her home for a cup of tea and a jam sandwich. When I went to collect her, I’d find Claudia lying on her tummy in front of the gas fire, engrossed in old letters and photograph albums, all of which had been locked away when I was a child. In those days I’d be told that it was none of my business, to go to my room, to be quiet. She was always irritable, like a bad-tempered terrier, always snapping at the heels of childhood. Sit still! Don’t slouch! Get out of my kitchen! Not so with Claudia. How old were you when you got married, Granny? When did you first fall in love? Can I see the pictures? Oh, she’d grumble, sure, but she’d get them out, and talk Claudia through them, too. Was it just a mellowing of age? I wondered. Or was it simply Claudia’s style – chirpy, probing, authoritative – taking life by the scruff of its neck, so unlike my own cowering self at that age? Well, I thought, striding to the door, they could dissect
her
broken marriage to their hearts’ content, but I didn’t want them delving into mine, and I’d tell Mum that, too; tell her to cut the chat.

“Claudia, I want you in bed by nine o’clock tonight.” I swept out to the landing.

She gasped. “That is way, way too early!”

“I disagree.”

“Who’s baby-sitting?” She snatched up her crisps and followed.

“Mac. He’s downstairs in the kitchen, I think.”

“Not Spiro?”

I turned halfway down the stairs; eyed her beadily. “No, Claudia. Not Spiro. Spiro is in the Fox and Ferret having a pie and a pint. He’s twenty-four-years old, married with a child, and you, my darling, are ten.”

“I know!” She coloured dramatically. “Just asking, OK?”

“OK. Just telling.”

“Oh!”

Her exclamation came as we both came barging through the kitchen door together, sniping at each other, arguing loudly, before the extraordinary vision before us stopped us in our tracks. A devastatingly attractive man, tanned, blond, with eyes nearly as blue as Johnny’s and wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt, was sitting at the little scullery table eating a bowl of Frosties.

“Blimey!” Claudia added, just for good measure. “Adorns!”

He got to his feet in confusion. “God, I’m so sorry. My father said you were out and that he was going to babysit or something. I had no idea – you must think I’m appalling, sitting here eating your food.” He smiled an apologetic but faintly winning smile.

“Good gracious, you must be Lance then,” I said, recovering, and coolly extending my hand. Would I extend a hand to Alf? I wondered.

He shook it warmly, grin still in place.

“That’s it. I’m really sorry if I surprised you, but I’ve been travelling for about six hours and my father said you wouldn’t mind.” He gestured to the bowl.

“No! No, not at all.” Heavens. My father? Not Dad? Pop? The old man? And when had any of my other workers ever got up when I’d come into a room? Most of them promptly sat down.

“We’ve got Coco Pops too,” piped up Claudia, “if you prefer?” She dashed to the cupboard and flung it open, brandishing the packet, grinning rather too widely.

“That’ll do, Claudia,” I said briskly. “Go and brush your teeth, please.”

But Claudia didn’t move. And after a moment I realised we were both just sort of staring at Lance. He really was very, very good-looking. Suddenly I came to.

“Right! Well, I must be off. I take it you’re joining your da – father while he baby-sits for Claudia, so if you could just tell him I’ll be back at about – ”

“Right here, luv,” said Mac, coming in through the kitchen door behind me, wiping his hands on a rag. “Just bin checking the generator down in the cellar, went a bit haywire the ower day. You’ve met my boy then?” He nodded at Lance.

“Yes! Yes, indeed.” I smiled brightly. “And I hope he’s recovered from his journey.” I frowned. “Was it really six hours, Lance? From Billericay?”

“Oh no,” he laughed. “Florence. I had a couple of days off, you see, and I’ve got a bit of a thing about Botticelli so I went to have a look at those fabulous paintings in the Uffizi gallery again. My God, that guy could wield a brush. Have you seen them?”

“Oh! Um, yes.”

“When, Mum?”

“Oh, years ago, darling, when you were a baby.”

“But I thought you said you’d never bee – ”

“Now run along, Claudes, there’s a good girl. Half an hour of television and then bed, OK?” I turned to Mac. “You know where I am, don’t you?”

“Number 32, down the other end. The sequinned busybody.” He looked at me approvingly. “You look smashing, by the way, luv, don’t she, Lance?”

“I think that’s something of an understatement,” grinned Lance. “Have a good time.”

“Will do,” I managed as I scuttled to the door.

I shut it gratefully behind me. Phew. Feeling a bit hot in there, for some reason. Bit sort of sweaty-palmed. I tripped thankfully down the steps. Suddenly I stopped, wrapped my shawl dramatically around my shoulders, lifted one eyebrow and growled, “I think that’s something of an understatement.” I giggled, then tried it again as I turned left down the street, poshing up the accent until I resembled the Duke of Devonshire. Really, I mused, if it weren’t for his obvious parentage I would never have guessed his provenance. One tiny clue, though, I thought with a grin, as I skipped along the cobbled street towards the Abbey, my heart feeling lighter and my step quickening by the second: Florence, the lifting of the bottom from the chair and the educated accent were all very fine, but if I wasn’t very much mistaken I was sure I’d caught a glimpse of a gold chain nestling beneath that T-shirt. I’d also spotted a tin of Old Virginia and a packet of Rizzlers on the table, too. Still, I reflected as I reached Nanette’s steps, the vast old Abbey towering right above me now, pale and golden in a beautiful evening sky, he might be more interesting than most labourers to have around. He was certainly more decorative.