Perfect Timing (5 page)

Three weeks later, on a wet Wednesday afternoon, the weather was so depressing that Caspar decided he couldn't possibly work. This was the trouble with skylights and broad attic windows. When the rain came down, you knew about it.

To cheer himself up—and take his mind off the fact that the painting he was supposed to be working on should have been finished a week ago—Caspar watched a bit of lunchtime
Coronation Street
and polished off the bowl of cherry tomatoes he'd spotted earlier in the fridge. Then he helped himself to a cappuccino mousse with whipped cream on top.

By now,
Coronation Street
had finished and been replaced by one of those audience participation talk shows. This one was about shoplifting. A skinny woman in an orange wig stood up to announce that she was a professional shoplifter. Another boasted about having once shoplifted a three-piece suit. The talk show host said this almost deserved a round of applause and the audience, unsure whether or not they were supposed to clap, looked nervous and fidgeted in their seats. The host then introduced this week's expert, a woman psychiatrist with a face like a bulldog, and Caspar fell asleep.

He was woken up an hour or so later by the doorbell. Opening the front door, he found Claudia's mother shivering on the top step. It was still pouring with rain.

‘Come in, you're drenched.' Caspar pulled her inside and ushered her into the sitting room. ‘Sorry, I was asleep.' He switched off the television and made a token effort to plump up the squashed sofa cushions. ‘Claudia isn't home from work yet. She'll be back around five. Can I get you a drink?'

Angie Slade-Welch smiled at the sight of Caspar, so streaky-blond and deliciously tanned, in his turquoise tee-shirt and white shorts. He looked like a beach bum, and not a day over twenty-two.

‘I knew Claudia wouldn't be here.'

She also knew that so long as you were prepared for it, a bit of rain didn't go amiss. The damp, disheveled look suited her down to the ground. It was why, having been dropped off by her driver right outside the house, she had waited half a minute before ringing the bell. Plenty of Audrey Hepburn eye make-up and a fragile smile, and Angie could take on the world.

As long as the mascara was waterproof.

‘You knew Claudia wouldn't be home yet? Oh dear,' said Caspar. ‘In that case, I hope you haven't come here to ask embarrassing questions behind her back. My mother did that once when I was in high school. She cornered the French teacher, convinced that I was being led astray—'

‘And were you?'

‘Of course.' He grinned. ‘But it improved my French no end. So, is that really why you're here? You want me to dish the dirt on your daughter's love life?'

‘Not at all.' The only love life Angie was interested in was her own.

‘You want to find out if she's happy here?'

Angie shrugged and shook her head. ‘No, but you can tell me if you like. She's had a couple of moans about the new girl… what's her name? Poppy.'

Never one to boil a kettle when he could open a bottle instead, Caspar was relieved to discover an unopened bottle of Pouilly Fumée hidden behind the mineral water at the back of the fridge.

‘Ah yes, Poppy and Claudia.' He filled two glasses and passed one to Angie. ‘The harem, as some of my not very witty friends have taken to calling them.'

‘And are they?' Angie raised an interested eyebrow. ‘Your harem?'

Caspar pulled a face. ‘They bear a passing resemblance. Claudia doesn't trust Poppy an inch. Now I know what it would be like, keeping a wife and mistress together under one roof. Except,' he added with a grin, ‘I'm not sleeping with either of them.'

‘How quaint.' Angie could imagine how desperately Claudia would have liked to. She would leap at the chance. Caspar evidently wasn't interested. Good.

‘In fact, neither of them are to my knowledge sleeping with anyone,' he went on, ‘which means there isn't really any dirt to dish.'

‘Some harem.'

‘So if it isn't a rude question,' said Caspar, ‘why are you here?'

‘I'd like you to paint me.'

Angie crossed one slender charcoal-stockinged leg over the other. She was wearing an efficient-looking grey pinstriped suit today, tightly belted to show off her tiny waist. Unfastening her bag, she took out a calfskin-bound diary.

‘Um… no offense, but I'm pretty expensive,' said Caspar. It was always better to come out and say it straight away, particularly when the potential client was someone you knew. Even friends-of-friends had an embarrassing habit of expecting you to do it for free.

‘That's all right, so am I.' Leaning closer, Angie gave him a conspiratorial look. ‘The thing is, I want the painting for Hugo. It's his fiftieth birthday in December—'

‘If you want it finished by December I'm going to have to charge more,' Caspar interrupted. ‘Look, it's going to be six grand. I'm sorry, but my manager would shoot me if I said anything less.'

Privately he was marveling at the choice of gift. How many men would want to so much as glance at a portrait of their ex-wife, let alone be given one for their birthday? What if he threw darts at it?

‘Six grand, no problem.' Angie Slade-Welch was unperturbed. ‘He'll be paying for it anyway.' She smiled. ‘One thing I will say for Hugo, he's a perfect gentleman when it comes to alimony.'

Poor Hugo, thought Caspar. With four ex-wives to support, no wonder he kept having to fly over to Hollywood to star in the kind of mega-budget movies he despised so much. Small wonder too that none of the ex-wives had ever bothered to remarry. When the payoffs were that generous, where was the incentive?

Caspar, who didn't have anything as efficient as a diary, led Angie Slade-Welch upstairs to his studio. The back of the door was covered with pinned-up business cards and scraps of paper with names and phone numbers scrawled across them. Some had dates and times added in brackets. This was Caspar's filing system. It was a miracle he ever got anything done.

‘Mondays are good for me.' Angie was flipping through pages with beige, French-manicured nails. ‘Wednesdays… no, that's aromatherapy. Um, Thursday afternoons could be arranged. Or maybe Friday mornings…'

They haggled amicably for a few minutes. Caspar never felt like doing much at all on Mondays. Finally, they settled on three preliminary sittings to be going on with.

‘This Friday then.' Caspar prepared to show her out. ‘No need to worry about getting your hair done, not at this stage. But bring a couple of outfits so we can decide what'll look best. Nothing too fussy—'

‘Nothing fussy at all,' Angie promised, her mouth registering amusement. ‘Did I not mention it earlier? I want this to be a nude portrait.' She paused, waiting for his reaction. ‘That's not a problem for you, is it?'

‘Not exactly a problem for
me
…' Caspar was looking doubtful.

‘Well then, that's fine. If you're worried about my daughter,' said Angie with a careless shrug, ‘don't tell her. This is a private business transaction between consenting adults. Claudia doesn't need to know.'

After a rotten day at work and a rain-drenched dash from the tube, Claudia wasn't thrilled to come home and find Caspar and Poppy gossiping together in the sitting room, cozily sharing a packet of Jaffa Cakes and showing no sign whatsoever of doing anything about the mountain of washing-up in the sink.

She was even less enchanted when she spotted the empty bottle of Pouilly Fumée up on the mantelpiece. Two glasses stood side by side on the low coffee table next to the carton that had earlier contained her favorite cappuccino mousse.

Next moment her attention was distracted by something more awful still—

‘Ugh—UGH!' screamed Claudia, shuddering with fear and revulsion. She pointed at the carpet beneath the table. ‘SPIDERS!'

Caspar craned his neck to see. He grinned, leaned over the edge of the sofa, scooped them up and lobbed them at Claudia.

‘Don't get in a flap, they're only tomato stalks.'

‘
Oh
.' Claudia was still trembling. ‘You really are the living end…'

‘Sweetheart, I wouldn't have thrown them at you if they'd been spiders.'

‘Not that,' Claudia wailed, glaring at him. ‘They were
my
tomatoes. This,' she jabbed a finger at the empty carton, ‘was my cappuccino mousse. And I was saving that wine for a special occasion!'

‘This afternoon was a special occasion.' Caspar thought of the six thousand pounds. ‘That's why I opened it.' Then, since Claudia was looking very cross indeed, he added, ‘I'll buy you another one.'

‘That's not the point.' Claudia hadn't inherited her mother's gift for looking good when wet. Her hair was a mess and her navy mascara had run dramatically down her face. Turning to include Poppy in the diatribe she went on, ‘You didn't even leave enough for me to have a glass. You had to jolly well drink it all.'

Poppy had only arrived home from work ten minutes earlier herself. She looked indignant. ‘It wasn't me, it was—'

‘Anton. From the gallery.' Caspar indulged in a bit of improv, sensing that now was not the time to tell Claudia her mother had been round. ‘He dropped by to show me the brochure for next month's exhibition.' Ad-libbing shamelessly he went on, ‘It looks completely brilliant. Anton says it's already attracting interest from dealers in Japan—'

The phone rang. Claudia picked it up.

‘For you.' Tight-lipped, she handed the phone to Caspar. ‘It's Anton. Calling from New York.'

Caspar, well and truly caught out, grinned. ‘Told you Concorde was fast.'

‘I'm not one of your girlfriends,' Claudia said bitterly. ‘You don't have to lie to me.'

‘Didn't I tell you Angie Slade-Welch was trouble?' said Caspar when Claudia had disappeared upstairs to have a long hot sulk in the bath.

‘You could have turned her down,' Poppy protested. ‘You could have said no.'

He pulled a face. ‘I'm not famed for my ability to say no.'

‘Well, I just hope she's worth it. You haven't even seen her with her clothes off yet.'

‘I don't think there's any danger she'll fail the audition.' Caspar was doodling in the margins of the
Radio Times
. Glancing up, catching the expression on Poppy's face, he began to laugh. ‘Well I'm sorry. I'm just being honest. You were the one who asked how my day had been. If you're going to disapprove, I won't tell you anything in future.'

‘I'm not disapproving. I'm interested. It's the big difference between men and women, isn't it? You don't have to love someone, or even like them very much, but if you're a man you'll still sleep with them.' Poppy tore open a packet of chips with her teeth. ‘It's a bit of entertainment, a nice way of passing the time. Like doing card tricks or playing Trivial Pursuit.'

‘I'm not completely indiscriminate,' Caspar protested. ‘And okay, I might not be in love with these women, but I do like them. Claudia's mother knows the score. She doesn't expect anything more than a fling. She certainly doesn't
love
me.'

‘I suppose.' Poppy shrugged. ‘It just seems weird.'

‘You've had a sheltered upbringing.' Caspar drew a caricature of one of the ITN reporters, naked at his newsdesk.

‘I have not!'

‘What I'm saying is, you met this boyfriend of yours when you were seventeen. You went steady for a few years, got engaged, planned to get married… he's probably the only bloke you've ever slept with.'

‘So?' Poppy demanded hotly.

‘I just think you should get out and about a bit more,' Caspar explained. ‘Live a little. Go to parties, meet new people.'

‘Sleep with new men.'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘Because,' Caspar sounded exasperated, ‘you're twenty-two years old and you're single. It's what twenty-two-year-old single girls
do
.'

Poppy sighed. She only wished she could. It was over six months now since she had left Bristol and she was still unable to summon up so much as a flicker of interest in a member—any member—of the opposite sex.

She didn't even know if it had happened as a result of meeting Tom or as a side effect of calling off the wedding to Rob, but happen it had. The way things were going, Poppy was beginning to wonder if, libido-wise, she would ever feel normal again. It wasn't as if she was unhappy or depressed either, because she wasn't. She just felt as if her heart had been snipped out and swapped for a block of ice.

And like the Cointreau lady, it was taking a hell of a time for the ice to melt.

Caspar was still watching her.

‘Well I'm sorry,' said Poppy, ‘but I don't want to run round London waving my knickers in the air. I told you before, I'm not interested in sex. I'm immune.'

‘I just hope it isn't catching.' He grinned and held up the magazine so she could see his latest effort. A caricature of her with manic ringlets, a halo, and a Just Say No tee-shirt stood alongside a wicked one of Claudia, looking hopeful, with Just Say Yes Please emblazoned across her vast bosom.

‘Poor Claudia. Be nice to her.' Poppy, who had to be at work by seven, forced herself to her feet.

‘What are you doing?'

‘You told me I should go to parties and meet more people.'

‘I'm talking about places where you aren't the one passing round the vol-au-vents,' said Caspar.

‘Yes, well. I have an exorbitant rent to pay. And a pig of a landlord.' Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Poppy grabbed the
Radio Times
and tore out the page he'd doodled on. Claudia wasn't likely to appreciate the joke. She crumpled the unflattering caricature into a ball and threw it, just in time, into the bin.

‘Right,' Claudia announced, smiling at them both. ‘I feel better now. Sorry I lost my temper before. Who'd like a cup of tea?'

Amazed, Caspar and Poppy both put their hands up.

‘I'll make a big pot.' Claudia beamed again, to prove they were forgiven. ‘And I bought some biscuits on the way home. Oh great, my
Radio Times
. Let's have a look at what's on tonight…'

‘Well?' Returning at midnight Poppy poked her head round the sitting-room door. ‘At least you're still alive. But will she ever speak to either of us again?'

‘I'm exhausted. I've spent the whole evening being nice,' said Caspar. ‘Not that kind of nice,' he added as Poppy's eyebrows rose.

‘All that fuss over one lousy missing page.' Working in the evenings meant Poppy barely got to watch any TV nowadays. She glanced across at it as the film Caspar had been watching drew to an end. The credits began to roll. The name Fitzpatrick made her heart leap for a moment but it was only someone called Shona Fitzpatrick, one of the supporting actresses in the cast.

Sensing something was up, Caspar followed her gaze. He caught the name just before it slid off the screen.

Then he had a brainwave.

‘Why don't you advertise on television for your father?'

Poppy looked at him. ‘Now that is a terrific idea. Why didn't I think of it months ago? Hang on a sec,' she patted her jeans pockets, ‘where's my purse? I know I've got sixty or seventy grand here somewhere.'

‘Okay, okay. There is such a thing as free advertising,' Caspar reminded her. ‘You could wait until the next big rugby international at Twickenham, make up a banner with Desperately Seeking Alex Fitzpatrick plastered across it, and streak across the pitch at half-time.'

‘Desperately Seeking Attention more like. Not to mention a chilly night in the cells.' Poppy conjured up a mental image of herself without any clothes on, being chased around the rugby field by a lot of smirking policemen. ‘Anyway, I don't have the chest for it.'

‘I'm trying to help,' said Caspar, ‘and all you're doing is making feeble excuses. How about advertising in the newspapers then? That needn't cost much.'

‘I know, but it's not very subtle either.' Poppy had already considered this idea. ‘The thing is, I'm not looking for a missing person. I'm looking for someone who had—and probably still does have—a wife. The chances are that he has kids of his own. How are they likely to feel, discovering that he had an affair with my mother all those years ago? I don't want to hurt anyone,' said Poppy, ‘or be the cause of some awful showdown. Any way of tracking him down would have to be discreet.'

‘But you still want to try.'

Poppy was leaning against the sitting-room door restlessly turning the handle this way and that. She nodded.

‘More than anything. I want to meet him, even if he doesn't know who I am. I just need to know what he's like.' She took a deep breath, frustrated by her own helplessness. ‘I might love him to bits, he might be perfect. On the other hand, he could be awful.'

‘Then again,' said Caspar, ‘why should you be the only one around here with a parent who's awful?'

Poppy looked shocked. ‘Your parents aren't, they're brilliant.'

‘I didn't mean me. I'm talking about Angie Slade-Welch.'

‘Goodness,' Poppy mocked. ‘So does that mean you won't be sleeping with her after all?'

‘I said she was an awful parent.' Caspar grinned. ‘I daresay she's better in bed.'

Poppy went upstairs to catch a few hours' sleep. She was running the stall single-handed tomorrow while Jake toured the auction rooms. Ever since she had shooed away a wasp with her rolled-up program and found herself the new owner of a twenty-foot refectory table riddled with woodworm, Jake hadn't let her within screaming distance of a gavel.

Caspar, who wasn't tired, spent the night working in his studio. He made great progress with the painting Angie Slade-Welch had admired earlier.

He wondered, as he worked, how long it would be before Angie made her move. That she would make a play for him wasn't in doubt; it was more a question of when. Caspar squeezed the dregs of a tube of cobalt blue onto his palette, chucked the empty tube in the direction of the bin, and began blending the blue with viridian. Some women, enjoying the sense of anticipation, confined themselves to gentle flirting for the first three or four sittings. Others, eager not to waste a moment, made their intentions obvious straight away. Caspar had a bet with himself that Angie Slade-Welch would make her move at the end of the first sitting. She didn't seem the type to hang around.

He then surprised himself by wondering whether or not he should go along with it. This was startling because it had never before occurred to him not to.

Caspar put down his brush. Reaching absently for a can of Coke he drank from it, his gaze fixed on the ink-black sky through the uncurtained windows, his thoughts elsewhere.

This was all Poppy's fault. It was thanks to her that he was actually thinking of not sleeping with someone. Not because he had been lectured to, either, by some born-again do-gooder droning on about the evils of promiscuity. That was always guaranteed to backfire. That was, thought Caspar, enough to send anyone hurtling into the nearest bed.

But Poppy hadn't done that. Nor was she a droning do-gooder. She had simply wondered what the purpose of it was when there was no love involved.

And now, for the first time in his life, Caspar found himself wondering if maybe she didn't have a point.

The rain had by this time stopped. There still wasn't a star in sight. Caspar wiped his paint-stained hands on his trousers and resumed painting, his brush moving more or less automatically over the canvas as he thought some more about Poppy Dunbar and the things she had said to him tonight.

The perfect solution, of course, would be to sleep with her.

Caspar grinned to himself and loaded a clean sable brush with cadmium yellow. He liked Poppy, had liked her from the first moment he'd met her. She had spirit and energy, and she made him laugh.

She also had amazing hair and a flawless creamy complexion which was certainly undeserved considering the rubbish she ate. These plus points, combined with yellow-green eyes and a curvy mouth that always seemed on the verge of a smile, meant she looked every bit as good as the models who were forever throwing themselves at him.

But Poppy wasn't throwing herself at anyone. She had erected an invisible barrier around herself, a kind of aura that sent out the signal: Definitely Not Interested. This was a natural enough reaction, considering what she'd gone through earlier in the year. Caspar had never experienced it himself because he'd never had to endure any form of emotional trauma, but he was perfectly prepared to believe it existed. He'd heard about all that stuff on Richard and Judy.

The thing was, it was beginning to intrigue him now. He couldn't help wondering if he could
make
Poppy be interested in him.

What a brilliant challenge that would be. He needn't bother with a pushover like Angie Slade-Welch; he could concentrate all his attentions instead on Poppy, who would be so much more fun to sleep with.

Caspar was painting faster and faster. The more he thought about it the more the idea appealed. He would be helping Poppy over her ice-block, as she called it. Mentally they were well matched. Physically—he just knew—they would be perfect. Damn, they'd be great together…

Watery sunlight streamed through the windows of the studio as Caspar put the finishing touches to the painting on the easel before him. He stretched, glanced at his watch—eight thirty—and wandered downstairs.

There was a plate of toast, thickly buttered just the way he liked it, on the kitchen table. Exerting tremendous self-control Caspar left it there and began breaking eggs into a frying pan instead. Moments later Poppy shot into the kitchen half-dressed to fill up the kettle and wrench the lid off the biscuit tin.

She looked stunned when she saw him.

‘What are you doing?'

Caspar, who would have thought it was obvious, said, ‘Cooking.' Proudly, he added, ‘Eggs.'

‘I mean what are you doing up? It isn't even nine o'clock.'

‘I haven't been to bed. Damn—' Showing off with the fish slice he managed to break two yolks.

Poppy looked puzzled. ‘Why on earth not?'

‘I've been working.' He paused, meaningfully. ‘And thinking…'

But Poppy was late for work. The kettle hadn't boiled because Claudia had unplugged it to make way for the iron. The iron was still there. With a mouth full of chocolate biscuit and her back to Caspar so he wouldn't see her knickers, Poppy seized the opportunity to get the worst of the creases out of her skirt.

‘Most people take their clothes off before they iron them.'

She turned and grinned at him.

‘Most people take their clothes off the minute they walk into your studio, but it doesn't mean I have to. It isn't compulsory.'

The skirt, being small, didn't take long. When Poppy had dragged a pair of tangled black tights out of the tumble drier, helped herself to another handful of biscuits, and located her black suede shoes under the kitchen table, she blew a kiss in Caspar's direction and made a dash for the front door.

‘Hell,' Caspar sighed, staring down at the eggs in the pan. Poppy had distracted him. They were hopelessly overdone.

‘Yuk,' said Claudia, coming into the kitchen with her coat on.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘How on earth did you manage to
burn
them?'

Caspar was starving and there weren't any eggs left. Nor, he discovered as Claudia finished her mug of tea, were there anymore tea bags.