Perfect Timing (11 page)

The last time Dina had visited London had been on a school trip to the Science Museum which had bored her stupid. The highlight of that outing had involved eyeing up another busload of schoolboys from Birmingham, one of whom had thrown a doughnut at her in the Museum coffee shop. The lowlight had been getting a love bite on her neck from spotty Stuart Anderson on the journey home.

But that had been yonks ago, when she was just a kid. This is far more like it, Dina thought gleefully. No more stupid school uniform. No bossy Miss Wildbore, head of physics, barking at her to pay attention. No Mr Killjoy-Carter telling her to wipe off that lipstick or else.

Best of all, no baby.

‘You jammy thing, have you fallen on your feet here or what?' Dina crowed with delight. She threw herself down on the sofa and gazed rapturously around the room.

Poppy knew she had to find herself another job fast if she wanted to stay here. At this rate, she was going to end up a pub stripper after all.

‘Never mind my feet.' She'd turn her attention to the job dilemma later. ‘What did Tom say to you when you saw him?'

‘Talk about uncool,' mocked Dina. ‘Anyway, who said he said anything?'

‘But he did.' Poppy knew Dina too well. She wouldn't have been able to resist talking to him.

‘We-ell maybe. Good-looking, isn't he? All that curly hair. And those
brilliant
eyes…'

‘I could always pull out your toenails one by one.'

Poppy was too shattered to play games. She had only managed three hours' sleep. She'd been hokey-pokeying and singing bawdy songs until five in the morning, in an haute couture dress.

Dina gave in. ‘Okay. Well, I was there with Maggie and I spotted him right away. He was wearing a red and white striped shirt and white jeans. Brilliant bum, too. Well, I said “Hi” when we went past him to get to the bar and he didn't twig at first, what with me being a bit of a different shape.' Smugly, Dina patted her flat-as-a-pancake stomach. ‘So I reminded him who I was and he kind of lit up and got interested. Asked me what I'd had and how the baby was getting on. Then he kind of took a deep breath and asked how you were.'

‘And?'

‘I told him nobody had heard from you for yonks. I said you'd called off the wedding and done a bunk. I'm telling you, you should have seen the look on his face…'

‘What kind of look?' Poppy tried not to shriek. Dina was spinning this out on purpose.

‘Oh, kind of…' Dina mimed it. ‘No, hang on, maybe a bit more like…' She tried again, then shrugged. ‘Well, pretty much gobsmacked. So I told him, then, all about you turning up at Rob's house the next morning, and how Rob wouldn't believe you when you said it was all off, and how Margaret was flying off the handle and trying everything to make you change your mind because she'd never be able to live down the shame.'

‘What did he say when you'd finished telling him all that? Or,' said Poppy evenly, ‘was it kicking-out time by then?'

Dina looked offended. ‘He said if I ever heard from you, to give you his phone number and address.'

‘He
gave
them to you?'

Yes, yes! This was better than Poppy had even dared to expect. She had to control herself, sit on her hands. The temptation to frisk Dina, to rifle through her pockets for the precious information, was strong.

‘He gave them to me.' Dina blinked. Nobody, thought Poppy, wore quite as much navy-blue eyeshadow as Dina.

‘Well? You're here now, you can give them to
me
.'

‘Except I kind of lost the piece of paper. Well, the beer coaster,' gabbled Dina. ‘You see, he wrote it down on the back of a beer coaster and I put it in the side bit of my white handbag, the one with the chain strap. So it wasn't my fault,' she went on defensively. ‘It's not as if I chucked it in a bin or something, like on purpose. It just… fell out of its own accord.'

‘You've lost it,' Poppy echoed. Trust Dina to raise her hopes and then dash them. Anyone with a grain of compassion would never have done it like that. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, for heaven's sake, would have left out the whole bit about the beer coaster.

Poppy wasn't yelling at her, but Dina could tell she was upset.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, looking perplexed. ‘I didn't think it was that important. I mean, it wasn't as if you called off the wedding so you could run away with this chap instead, was it? You said you were never going to see him again. I didn't realize getting his number was such a big deal. You should have said.'

I hadn't realized it either, Poppy thought glumly. Until now.

When she had said good-bye to Tom that night, she had still been intending to marry Rob the next day. The subject of phone numbers had deliberately not been raised because that would definitely have been tempting fate. When you felt that strongly about someone and you were marrying someone else, their phone number was a dangerous thing to know.

But she hadn't married Rob. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about Tom either.

‘It's okay,' said Poppy wearily. ‘You're right, it wasn't your fault. I should have said.' She heaved a sigh. ‘Just, if you ever bump into him again, could you take his number and not lose it?'

‘Oh, I won't.' Dina shook her head vigorously. ‘Bump into him again, I mean. He told me the brother he was staying with in Bristol was on the verge of emigrating to Australia.'

‘Terrific.'

‘I did kind of glance at the beer mat,' Dina was trying to be helpful, ‘before I put it in my bag.'

‘And?' Poppy hardly dared to hope.

‘It said Notty something. Maybe Nottingham. Or Notting Hill.'

‘In other words,' said Poppy, ‘not a clue.'

A hyperactive six-year-old would have been easier to handle than Dina. By Sunday afternoon, Poppy was on her last legs and down to her last fiver in the world. On Saturday, they had shopped. On Saturday night, they had visited more bars and clubs than she had known existed. On Sunday morning, Dina had dragged her out again, to Camden Lock market. From there they had moved on to Covent Garden. At four o'clock, they arrived back at Cornwallis Crescent. Dina had to leave at six to catch the coach home.

The trouble with Dina, Poppy decided, was she looked as if she were giving every man she met a lascivious once-over. She
was
giving every man she met a lascivious once-over. The drawback was letting them know it.

But Dina was unstoppable. She had been let off her leash for the weekend and was making the most of it. London was terrific; London was glamorous. It was also teeming with men.

And she hadn't had to change a nappy once.

***

‘That girl is so brazen,' Claudia said scornfully when Poppy had dragged Dina downstairs to pack.

‘I know, isn't it great?'

Caspar loved it, of course.

‘It is not. She hasn't stopped flirting with you since she got here. And all you're doing is encouraging her.'

He grinned. ‘Is that against the law?'

‘She's married,' Claudia reminded him. ‘And she's got a baby.' Acidly she added, ‘Somewhere.'

‘So, okay, chances are she isn't a virgin.' Caspar loved teasing Claudia. It was the perfect pastime for a Sunday afternoon. Well, maybe the second most perfect.

‘All this promiscuity. Don't you get tired of it?'

‘I'm getting tired of being lectured to about it.' First Poppy, now Claudia. Caspar was tempted to boast about turning Angie down but sensed her daughter might not appreciate it, seeing as she didn't know about Angie's clandestine visits to the house in the first place.

Claudia was jealous. She knew this was because she'd been going through a bit of an arid patch recently, man-wise, but it only made Caspar's lack of interest in her more hurtful. Not to mention the shaming debacle with Jake…

Things just weren't going her way right now. Claudia wished she knew what she was doing wrong. She flipped shut the copy of
Cosmopolitan
on her lap and gazed moodily at the model on the cover.

‘So who's your ideal woman?'

‘Someone who doesn't lecture me, who doesn't go on and on and on about boring morals—'

‘Seriously.'

‘Someone who doesn't take me seriously.' Caspar stretched. ‘Oh, I don't know. Maybe I haven't met her yet.'

‘But what's your ideal
type
?' Claudia was frustrated; she wasn't going to give in. ‘I mean, short or tall, blonde or dark?'

No mention, Caspar couldn't help noticing, of medium-sized redheads.

‘I like all kinds,' he said with unaccustomed tact. ‘Anyway, personality's more important than looks.'

‘Oh sure, as if you'd ever go out with some old boiler just because she told great jokes.'

Claudia abandoned
Cosmo
and started giving her nails their second coat of plum polish. Caspar couldn't figure out for the life of him why women wore the stuff.

‘Depends how great the jokes are,' he said, ‘and whether she laughs. Laughter's sexy. Men like girls who laugh.'

Right on cue, the sound of Dina gurgling like a drain drifted up the stairs.

‘Okay,' Caspar amended, ‘men like most girls who laugh.'

‘Are you trying to tell me I've been a miserable old cow lately?'

‘Well, the odd smile now and again might help.'

Claudia looked doubtful. She tried one.

‘You mean like this?'

‘Ravishing.'

She broke into a grin, blew on her wet nails, and chucked over a pen.

‘Go on then, get some paper. Write down all your best jokes.'

Poppy gazed at the emerald earrings, pear-shaped and lavishly set in twenty-two carat gold. Jake was out at an auction and she wasn't—strictly speaking—allowed to do any buying herself. But even she could see these earrings were special; if she turned them down, she could be missing out on a terrific deal. And where would be the sense in that?

The woman selling the earrings was middle-aged and frail, with a genteel manner and a high-pitched quavery voice.

‘They were my grandmother's,' she explained to Poppy, ‘but the time has come to sell. I don't want to, of course. Grandmother would be
so
disappointed… oh dear, but Christmas is coming and since my husband died it's become harder and harder to manage.'

‘The thing is,' said Poppy, ‘my boss isn't here at the moment. If you could come back tomorrow—'

‘I'm sorry, my dear. I really wanted to get it over and done with today. I'm afraid I find this whole business rather distressing.'

‘How much were you hoping to get for them?'

The woman, close to tears, dabbed at her eyes with a pink hanky and shook her head. ‘I don't know—whatever you think is fair. Maybe… two hundred?'

Poppy reached beneath the counter and took out the cash box. The earrings were easily worth that. She smiled conspiratorially at the poor grief-stricken woman.

‘I tell you what. Let's make it two hundred and fifty.'

Jake was right beside Poppy the next day when the policeman approached the stall. He didn't say anything, just held up a photograph.

‘Nope,' said Poppy, having studied intently the face of a buxom girl in a dark green ballgown. ‘Sorry, never seen her before in my life.'

Next to her, Jake groaned.

‘Not the face, madam,' said the policeman with the merest hint of a sneer. ‘The earrings.'

‘Oh bugger,' wailed Poppy.

‘We caught her this morning, trying to off-load more stolen goods.'

Poppy didn't dare look at Jake.

The policeman bent over to study the contents of the jewelry cabinet. Within seconds he spotted the earrings, marked at four hundred and fifty pounds.

‘I'm afraid we'll need to take these from you, sir.'

Poppy stared at the policeman. Anyone could hire an outfit like that from a fancy-dress shop…

‘Wait!' she yelled. ‘You can't expect to waltz off, just like that, with a pair of valuable earrings! We'll see some identification,' she demanded hotly, ‘if you don't mind.'

‘Oh Poppy,' Jake sighed.

The policeman flashed his card at her. He smirked.

‘What a shame you didn't think about that before.'

Jake was still speaking to her, but only just. The policeman, quite unfairly Poppy felt, had delivered a depressing lecture, warning her of the dangers of handling stolen goods. To listen to him, you'd have thought she was the mastermind behind the Brink's Mat Robbery.

The sight of Claudia colliding in the doorway with an impressively endowed woman in a fedora brought much-needed light relief to the afternoon. Their bosoms clashed. They ricocheted off each other like Sumo wrestlers. The woman in the hat glared at Claudia. Claudia, who felt she had right of way, glared back.

Poppy collapsed in giggles, which didn't help. Claudia had spent the last two hours planning her entrance and it hadn't included this. Trust it to happen when she was seeing Jake again for the first time in weeks. Just when she wanted to look cool.

Not to mention cheerful.

‘Shame you weren't wearing a double-breasted jacket,' said Poppy, who was being a damn sight too cheerful. ‘Then you might have won.'

Claudia tried to appear unconcerned. She smiled, as Caspar had advised her to do. It was a weird sensation, thinking about your smile while you were actually doing it. Claudia hoped it looked more natural than it felt.

She swung the smile from Poppy to Jake and quickly back again. Jake was wearing a beige and brown checked shirt and crumpled black trousers, and his dark hair was sticking up at odd angles at the back. Really, thought Claudia, if it weren't for those dark eyes of his, nobody would look at him twice. And even they were hidden behind Scotchtaped-together spectacles…

Not that she was even interested anyway, Claudia hastily reminded herself. An impoverished antique dealer in an windbreaker wasn't her idea of happy-ever-after. Jake was only someone she had decided she could practice on in the meantime. She could use him to try out her new smile.

‘Well, this is an honor,' Poppy prattled on, since Claudia's collision appeared to have robbed her of the power of speech. ‘Your first visit to our humble stall. You haven't come all this way, have you, to tell me off for leaving the butter out of the fridge?'

‘Actually, I came to pass on a message. You had a phone call earlier, from some chap called Matthew Ferguson.' It was hard going, smiling and talking at the same time. Claudia's cheek muscles were starting to ache. ‘He said to let you know the job was yours and he'd see you tomorrow night.'

‘I've got the job,' squealed Poppy. ‘Brilliant!'

‘I didn't know you'd applied for one.' Claudia was curious.

‘It was Caspar's idea. He had a word with a friend of his. I went to see him last night.'

Caspar's idea. Claudia experienced a spasm of jealousy. It sometimes seemed that all Poppy needed to do when she wanted something was ask Caspar. Place to live? No problem. New job? Here you are, take your pick! Like some fairy godmother, he would wave his magic wand and effortlessly grant yet another wish.

‘What is it, more waitressing?'

Several of Caspar's friends owned restaurants.

Poppy looked smug. ‘Modeling.'

Oh, now this was too much.

‘You can't be a model,' Claudia replied crushingly. ‘You're too short.'

‘Not a model-model. Not catwalks and
Vogue
covers,' explained Poppy. Her mouth twitched. ‘What I'll be doing involves fewer clothes.'

‘You mean topless? Oh my God!' Claudia gasped, no longer envious. How disgusting. How
degrading
. Furthermore, it wasn't even as if Poppy had an impressive pair of boobs.

Filled with indignation—not that she would do it for the world—Claudia thought:
I'm
the one with the boobs.

‘Actually,' said Poppy, ‘fewer clothes than that.'

‘Nude?' Claudia gasped. ‘You're going to be
nude
? What, like in…
Playboy
?'

By this time even Jake was beginning to look alarmed.

‘It's for life drawing classes at St Clare's College of Art.' Poppy broke into a grin. ‘There, you see? Nothing disreputable after all! I'll be doing four nights a week for the students taking evening classes. All I have to do is lie back and think of… well, whatever I want to think of, and let everyone else do the work.' She beamed. ‘Good, eh?'

‘You're serious?' Claudia couldn't believe it. How could Poppy possibly think that what she'd be doing was respectable? ‘You'd really parade around naked for a bunch of dirty leering old men?'

‘I won't be parading around. And they aren't dirty old men. It's an art college,' said Poppy patiently, ‘not a strip club in Soho.'

‘Ugh. It's repugnant.' Claudia had forgotten she was supposed to be smiling. She shuddered in disgust. ‘They'll see…
all
of you.'

‘So? I'll be able to pay
all
my rent.'

‘Well, you wouldn't catch me doing anything like that. I
couldn't
.' Claudia looked across at Jake for support. ‘Could you?'

‘Um… well, no, I suppose not.' Jake tried to bury himself in a brochure for Lassiter's next furniture auction.

‘Look, it pays as much as Kenda's Kitchen and it's a damn sight easier on the feet. I'm doing it and that's that,' said Poppy. ‘Now, is there anything else anyone would like to lecture me about or can I take my tea break?'

Claudia remembered her other reason for coming here and seized her chance. She turned to Jake.

‘Well now, seeing as I've found you, I may as well spend some money. Perhaps you could help me choose a present for my mother. Something classy, elegant…'

I might not be classy and elegant like Angie Slade-Welch, thought Poppy resentfully, but at least I'm getting paid for being painted in the nude. I'm not the muggins who had to pay Caspar six thousand pounds.

‘Actually,' said Jake, ‘Poppy could be the one to help you there.' Claudia was smiling—no, baring her teeth—at him as if her life depended on it and it was making him nervous. ‘I need to talk to Terry about picking up that set of rattan chairs,' he went on hurriedly, turning to Poppy for help. ‘Is that okay? Can you take your tea break later? I really must speak to him now.'

‘What's the matter with him?' asked Claudia, disappointed, when Jake had rushed off.

‘I don't know. What's the matter with your face?'

Claudia looked alarmed. Her hands flew up. Was her foundation streaky, her mascara smudged?

‘No, your mouth.' Poppy was genuinely trying to help. She did a fair imitation of the smile Claudia had practiced for so long in front of the mirror. ‘It's your wisdom teeth, isn't it? They're playing up again. You really should see the dentist and have them out.'

Upstairs in the coffee shop, Jake sat alone. He was pretending to read the paper and thinking about Claudia. More to the point, he was telling himself what a hopeless coward he was when it came to socializing with the opposite sex.

The fact that he was even thinking about it was all Poppy's fault. For years he had led the kind of life that suited him most. Basically, this involved steering clear of the opposite sex.

He had been comfortable doing this because the odd bit of loneliness was so much easier to cope with than the traumatic process of meeting girls, deciding which ones you liked, figuring out if they liked you back, plucking up the courage to ask them out…

As far as Jake could see, the whole tortuous dating business was a nightmare, an endless procession of trial and error that seemed far, far more trouble than it was worth. How many relationships lasted the course these days anyway? Look at the way his parents had fought before splitting up. No, those kind of complications he was better off doing without.

It was only since Poppy had come to work for him that Jake had begun to wonder if maybe there was something missing from his life. Not that he was secretly lusting after Poppy, because he knew he wasn't. It was more to do with the way she had taken control of her own future. She had seized it, given it a damn good shake, and forced new things to happen. Poppy was fearless, impulsive, and determined to make the most of every moment. She seldom bothered to worry about what might happen if she got something wrong.

This wasn't necessarily a plus, Jake thought with a wry smile. Especially when you were her employer. But at least Poppy had a go at whatever she set out to do.

He knew she must think his lack of a social life downright weird.

And now here I am, thought Jake, beginning to wonder if maybe she wasn't right.

He looked at his watch. Half an hour had passed. It should be safe by now to venture back downstairs.

It wasn't as if Claudia wasn't nice, because she was. It wasn't as if he didn't find her attractive either, because he did. Perhaps if I take it slowly, one step at a time, Jake told himself, I could mentally gear myself up towards asking her out. In a couple of years' time.

When he hit the bottom step, he saw that half an hour hadn't been long enough. Claudia was still there, evidently torn between a pair of rococo candlesticks and a blue and white Florianware pottery vase.

‘…are you serious? You've really never been to a flea market?' Poppy was saying as Jake approached. ‘You don't know what you're missing—they're brilliant fun! If you want to give them a whirl, Jake can tell you the best ones to visit. He goes every Sunday, don't you, Jake?'

This was it, this was his big chance. Taking a leaf out of Poppy's book, Jake plunged in.

‘There's a good one out at Henley this Sunday. I could pick you up if you like, we can go together… it's best to be there early, I'd have to be at your house by eight… and there's a pub overlooking the river, which does terrific food. We could have some lunch there afterwards…'

Jake ran out of words. Luckily he'd said all he needed to say. There, he'd done it. The last time he'd asked a girl out he'd been nine years old.

Golly, thought Poppy, astonished and impressed. She turned expectantly. All Claudia had to do now was say yes.

‘Oh, I would have loved to.' Claudia was stricken by the bad timing. If it had been anything else she would have canceled like a shot. ‘But I have to go to a christening on Sunday. My cousin's little girl. They're doing it in Brighton. What a
shame
…'

Poppy looked at Jake. It was like prodding a snail and watching the head shrink back beneath the shell.

‘No problem. Just a thought. It really doesn't matter. Is this what you've chosen for your mother?' Jake held up the blue and white vase, his hands trembling slightly. ‘Did Poppy tell you it's Florianware? Eighteen-nineties, and signed by Moorcroft—'

‘How about the following Sunday?' Poppy couldn't bear it. She couldn't let him change the subject. ‘You could go then instead. How about it, Jake? The Sunday after next?'

‘I'm away that weekend,' said Claudia unhappily. ‘Staying with Harriet and Tim in Wales.' Even to her own ears it sounded feeble, and she knew it was the truth. Heaven knows how it must sound to Jake.

‘I'm busy as well.' Jake wished the ground would swallow him up. He wished he'd stayed put in the coffee shop for another thirty minutes. He definitely wished he hadn't made a complete dick of himself. How
could
he have been stupid enough to think Claudia would want to go to a flea market with him? I mean for God's sake, thought Jake despairingly, of all the glamour spots of the world, a
flea market
.