Authors: Charlotte Oliver
“No, no,” I said, “it makes sense.”
To my relief, a timer went off just then, and Jack leapt into action. “Time to grill those birds!” Ten or so minutes later, the potatoes were mashed, the chard was steamed and sauced, and the quails lay gleaming in Marsala-and-butter reduction.
I fell upon it like it was the last meal on earth. The wine was delicious—dry, but with the lightest touch of sweetness, and a scent of figs and vanilla.
“This is gorgeous,” I murmured between mouthfuls, “thank you so much.”
“Looks like you’re starving,” he observed.
“Didn’t have breakfast,” I admitted, blushing with shame. I must have been eating like a pig for him to say that. “I was so nervous this morning.”
He looked at me in surprise. “Why would you be nervous?”
I felt silly. Why had I said that? “Well, it was a bit of a shock, the—the arrangement. The home office thing . . .” I trailed off, not sure where I was going with this. I wasn’t even exactly sure, anymore, what had been behind the feelings of dread—they seemed far off. “I wasn’t expecting it, I suppose.”
The faintly seedy undertone was impossible to ignore.
“You mean Tam didn’t mention that?”
“No. Was he supposed to?”
Suddenly, Jack had thrown down his fork in disgust, making me jump a mile. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you that. He
knew
he was meant to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly, my heart pitter-pattering with surprise, and I immediately felt guilty. At this rate, I was going to make him hate his own brother.
“It does,” he said, firm. “I’m going to have to talk to him about that. You must have been so uncomfortable. Sorry—you were saying something. Carry on.”
“Um,” I said, trying to remember what I was talking about. Oh, yes—I was going to tell him that Tam had very rudely insinuated that I wasn’t being hired for anything other than Jack’s personal amusement.
But had he really meant it like that?
And did I really want to be responsible for him falling out with his brother over it? Clearly Jack was a decent person, open-hearted and not one who was interested in deceiving anyone. What did it matter what Tam thought, anyway?
“Oh—that was all, really. I was just a bit taken aback, and you weren’t here, and—I was just a bit apprehensive, that’s all. You giving me a ring really helped, though, thank you so much for that,” I blurted, in a lame effort to lighten the mood. Jack had a face like thunder and I really wanted our happy day to continue smoothly.
“You’re most welcome,” he muttered darkly. “It was the least I could do.” After a moment, he seemed to brighten a little, and refilled my glass.
After lunch was eaten, we retired to the sitting room with a second bottle of wine. I needn’t have worried too much that I’d put a damper on things; conversation had quickly lightened. I was definitely starting to feel drunk, but I didn’t care anymore. I was having
so
much fun. Who would have thought Jack was so lovely?
“Where did you learn to cook such a gorgeous dish?”
“Did you like it? It was one of the first things I learnt at chef school.”
“You went to chef school? Why?”
“So I could lull young ladies into a false sense of domestic security with my culinary skills, obviously.”
Earlier in the day, I would have blushed and looked away, or laughed uncomfortably, or some such rubbish. But now, several glasses in, I threw back my head and roared with laughter.
So the afternoon progressed. It turned out he’d gone to chef school on his gap year before going to St Andrew’s to study economics, just for the hell of it. I told him about my sister’s art history degree and how marvellous she thought he was, being a patron and all that. “Tell her I just do it as a tax break,” he grinned. “Tell her I think Damien Hirst’s a prick.”
After we finished the second bottle of wine at about 3 o’clock, Jack said he was starting to feel sloshed, so we had better stop and, as a precaution, eat the pack of storebought crème caramels he kept in the back of the fridge. “My secret vice,” he whispered, smiling slyly.
Before that, while we were sitting on the sofa together, I’d thought he was an exceptionally good-looking, quite charming man. I’d been inestimably glad that I’d come back that morning instead of going to snivel at Victor’s feet in an effort to get my old job back.
But when we were standing in front of the open fridge, slurping down custard and sniggering at how great it was to skip out on work for the day and talk crap—that was it, I think.
That was the moment I started to fancy him.
I’ve mentioned before that Mia is blonde and green-eyed and generally exquisite. I know it’s a cliché, but she lived up to her appearance. Mia had a constant string of panting, semi-hysterical boys hanging on her every word—and that was before she turned twelve. By the time she started going out with Luke, we had near-suicides on our hands. I used to tell her she needed to carry cards for the local crisis hotline if she had any chance of keeping a clear conscience.
The summer that I was thirteen and Mia was in uni, I spent many hours moping in my room, bemoaning the mousy brown hair that Mum wouldn’t let me dye black (I had to wait till I was sixteen for that: rest assured, my birthday present to myself was a box of Clairol Midnight Onyx), my freckles that no amount of Maybelline Matt Dream Mousse could cover, and my dull blue eyes that didn’t match the rest of me. I especially lamented the fact that Mia, on top of being phenotypically gifted, had a go-getter effervescence that attracted friends and admirers like honey attracted flies. If she liked a boy, there was no room for long analyses of whether him letting her have one of his chips meant that he fancied her back. Oh no. With Mia, it was go-for-the-jugular,-because-even-if-he-doesn’t-fancy-me-I’ll- convince-him-to.
I had no such gutsiness. When I came home from work that evening, chattering maniacally about how wonderful my new boss was, and how gorgeous he was, and how he’d made me a lovely lunch, she demanded to know why I hadn’t at least starting laying down some preliminary flirting. “Men like that don’t hang around forever, Aves. You’ve got to move quickly, show them you’re interested.”
I rolled my eyes. Mia didn’t believe in playing hard-to-get; she believed in a truncheon over the head. “He’s my
boss
.”
“So what?”
“What do you mean, so what? If he turns me down, I’ll be embarrassed forever and still have to see him five days out of every seven.”
“I’m not suggesting that you wear a negligee to work.”
I sighed in exasperation. “He’s really good-looking, though,” I whined. “He’ll never be interested in me. Not like that.” I hoped against hope it wasn’t true.
“You only think that because
you’ve
decided that he’s out of your league. Honestly, you’re so predictable.”
“What do you mean?” I asked poutily. I hated being called predictable. I wanted to be flighty, impetuous, capricious, and all those other words that are usually used to describe a literary heroine.
“I mean,” Mia said patiently, “you live in a fantasy world where every good-looking man is too gorgeous for you, and where you don’t deserve his attention, and all that. That’s why you only ever go out with boys who are uglier than you.”
“You bitch!”
“I don’t mean it like
that
, keep your hair on. I mean, boys who aren’t as good-looking as you. You know what I mean. Think of Mark.”
I didn’t want to agree with her, but I kind of had to. Mark, the only boyfriend I’d ever held onto for more than a month,
had
been a bit geeky. I’d gone out with him for two years—from the last half of GCSEs through till when I dropped out of college—which was about 23 months too long.
And after that, just after I started at the dealership, a local accountant called Greg had stalked me for a while. Wanting to cover all my bases, I tried to go out with him, but he was just too dreadful.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said noncommittally. “But that doesn’t change anything. And he’s probably got a girlfriend anyway,” I sighed.
“Having a girlfriend isn’t the same thing as having a wife,” said Mia. She was a firm believer that anyone who wasn’t married was fair game. She’d got this from Mum, who’d always said the same thing. I thought it was a convenient philosophy to have in an emergency, but it certainly didn’t make me feel any more optimistic.
If only I were more like Mia
, I thought to myself as I lay in bed that night, starting to feel hung over from the day’s drinking.
If only I was more exciting. I haven’t got a hope.
But in the days that followed, it became clear that I didn’t need to be the exciting one as long as Jack was around.
~
Thursday was a perfectly normal day. Jack smiled pleasantly at me at half-hourly intervals. I typed things for him, got a filing system going, learnt how he liked his coffee, that sort of thing. We chugged along happily, in a similar spirit to the day before; friendly, sometimes chatty, but nothing untoward or out-of-the-ordinary. Then, before I left to go home, he said, “Have you a cocktail dress?”
“What?” I blurted, rudely. “I mean, pardon?”
“A cocktail dress. Do you have one?”
“Um. Like a smartish sort of dress?”
“Yes.”
“Y-yeah. I mean, yes,” I lied. All I had were a few (tarty) Lipsy frocks I kept for occasional clubbing. But I’d make some sort of plan. Surely Mia had something I could borrow?
“Good. Bring it along for tomorrow evening. Jemima Illingworth’s new exhibition is opening.”
My brain raced. This was bloke-speak for “you need to look good”. Makeup? Would I be able to get my hair done before I left the next day? Would there be time if I dropped in now, after work, and then slept with the rollers in or something like that? “Great!” I chirped, brightly. “Looking forward to it!”
“Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-
fuck
,” I said all the way home on the bus.
Mia and I nearly came to blows over dinner when I asked her if I could use the little black dress I remembered her wearing a few Christmases ago.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve still got my shoes under your bed, you cow,” she hissed when Mum’s back was turned. “I’m only waiting until you’re sleeping to get you back for that.”
“You’ve got to let me wear it,” I said urgently, “I’ve got to look good.”
“It’s Stella McCartney. You think I’m going to let you wear
my
Stella McCartney dress?”
“
Pleeeease,
” I whined.
“I’m going to injure you. Honestly, I’m going to stab you with this fork if you ask me again.”
Just then, Mum turned back to use, clutching the apple crumble dish with a look of concern on her face. “You two aren’t arguing again, are you? Aren’t you getting too big for this, darling?” she said, addressing Mia.
Something fantastic about playing second fiddle to Mia’s Bright Young Thing was that she was usually expected to be Responsible and Level-Headed, while I was still permitted to be Annoying and Immature under certain circumstances.
“Mum,” said Mia patiently, “we were having a private conversation.”
“
Mia
,” said Mum, bristling, “I think if you’re going to live under my roof, I’ll be thanking you not to take that tone with me.”
“Go and ask Sharon if she’s got a dress for you,” said Mia, ignoring Mum. “She’s got tons of clothes.”
I made a mental note to text Sharon and see what she was up to. And to cancel Friday night drinks; as nice as an evening in the pub would be, duty was calling. “Shaz only has things from New Look. I’ve got to have something grown up.
Please
.”
“Mia, I think you should allow your sister to make use of your dress tomorrow.”
Mia looked at Mum with a face like thunder. “Don’t you
dare
—”
Mum’s eyes went wide, her mouth puckered, and she drew herself up to her full five feet and half an inch. “Mia, I’ve never once asked you for anything in return for my hospitality. Not one thing.”
Mum’s icy stare betrayed little emotion, but Mia was visibly fuming. Mum was an expert picker-of-battles, and Mia knew it; she also knew better than to go against her once she’d made up her mind. She whipped her head round at me. I instinctively shielded my face. “You’ve got your way now,
dear
Ava,” she said, sweetly. “I do
so
hope you’re happy about that.”
The next morning, dress on a coat-hanger, makeup bag in hand, relieved that I had survived the night without becoming the victim of a vengeful disembowelment, I made my way back to Jack’s flat. I’d already toyed with the notion of getting a place of my own that was closer to his—say, a single tube stop away. That way, if we went to evening engagements, I didn’t necessarily have to flee with the last night bus home as if I were Cinderella. I may even—joy of joys!—be able stay over in one of his guest bedrooms if push came to shove, without having to explain to Mum or Mia where I had been all night.