Miss You

FOURTEEN Tess

For our third anniversary, Dave surprised me with a weekend in London. He fixed up for Hope to sleep over at Anne’s, where Dad was living virtually full-time now, and he’d consulted Doll about where we should stay, all without me knowing. We caught a train full of Arsenal supporters drinking lager at nine o’clock in the morning, so Dave had a great time comparing statistics and predicting the score. When we got to London, and all the red-and-white shirts swarmed merrily towards the Tube, I knew he would have loved to follow along with them to the match.

Doll had apparently offered to book us into the Hilton, and I was relieved that Dave hadn’t accepted, generous though the offer was. But the hotel he had chosen on Southampton Row was a bit shabby and impersonal, so I felt disappointed for him. Our room looked out over a grimy shaft in the center of the building, where ventilation ducts from the kitchen were pumping out blasts of bacon.

“We won’t be spending much time in here anyway, will we?” I tried to make the best of it. “It’s so exciting! I’ve never stayed a night in London before. And the flowers are beautiful!”

Dave had rung in advance to get white roses in the room, which were what he always gave me on our anniversary because they had been in the wedding marquee where we’d had our first kiss, so I’d never mentioned that we’d had white roses on Mum’s coffin.

For lunch we had a sandwich and a cappuccino in Starbucks, still a bit of a treat in the days before every other shop had an espresso machine with a milk frother. Dave said what we did for the rest of the afternoon was up to me because I was more familiar with London.

“How about the Eye?” I suggested, knowing it was one of the things he wanted to do.

“Shame to waste the afternoon queuing...,” he said, insisting he’d be more than happy to wander around places like Doll and I used to. But as we passed a pub on the way to the Tube station, I could see him craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the match on Sky Sports.

“Why don’t we meet back at the hotel after?” I said.

“Are you sure?”

I walked straight down to Waterloo Bridge and along the riverbank to the Tate Modern.

A huge, blood-red sculpture by Anish Kapoor filled the vast space of the Turbine Hall like a jumbo jet in an aircraft hangar. To me, it looked like a giant human organ, which kind of made sense when I read that the title was Marsyas, after a mythological figure who was flayed.

In the galleries, I spent a long time looking at a cut-out picture by Matisse called The Snail. The spiral of bright colors gave me such a feeling of joy I was glad Dave wasn’t there making comments about painting like that when he was four, which was what he always said when there was something about modern art on the news, like the record price a Picasso had fetched at auction, although I’d read that Picasso himself said he’d spent his whole life learning to paint like a child.

In the lobby outside the gallery, there was a little exhibition of a primary-school class’s attempts to reproduce Matisse’s Snail with torn colored paper on a sheet of white printer paper. It was amazing how different all the pictures were. A couple of them were really good; others, even though they contained exactly the same elements, just weren’t, somehow. I wondered what Picasso would make of that. I bought a postcard of the work in the gift shop, thinking Hope’s class might try a similar thing in art.

There were posters advertising free lectures in the gallery on weekday evenings. If I lived in London, I thought, I would go along and learn about art, and in summer I would queue for the Proms and learn about classical music. There was so much stuff available, even if you weren’t a student.

Standing on the wobbly bridge, I could see Shakespeare’s Globe and the house Sir Christopher Wren lived in when he was building St.Paul’s and all the way down to Tower Bridge. I walked across to the north side of the river and caught a bus along Fleet Street to the Aldwych. Wending my way through Covent Garden, I paused outside the regal frontage of the Royal Opera House, its cream stucco columns flooded with golden light. Along the outside walls, there were framed advertisements for the new ballet season.

A few weeks back, Kev had sent us the program of a triple bill. I hadn’t been able to work out why—he’d been in lots of productions and never sent a program before—until I spotted his name on the cast list. His first-ever solo role. Along with it he’d enclosed a postcard of the Empire State Building, with When are you coming to see us? scribbled on the back. I’d promised Hope long ago that we’d go to New York and I’d almost saved enough money when 9/11 happened, which put everyone off flying. It would be so amazing to see him performing on stage, I knew I should get up the courage while Hope was still young enough for a child’s fare.

The crowd going into the Opera House matched the opulence of the foyer. Whoever it was who said that women can never be too rich or too thin was probably an opera goer. Some of the men were wearing bow ties and the women had those little bejeweled clutch bags you see in magazines and tottered on high-heeled shoes you’d never find in Clarks. I swept inside with them and up the red-carpeted staircase.

On my right was the Crush Room, where people were eating their pre-show suppers beneath sparkling crystal chandeliers that were reflected in the enormous mirror at the end of the room, making it look like an endless glittery hall; on my left, a huge conservatory-like room echoed with the hubbub of rich people drinking champagne.

I slipped through a door which took me up a red flight of stairs into a curving corridor lined with wooden doors and, daring to open one, found myself in the dark antechamber of a box, where there were hooks to hang your coats. Stepping down into the seating area, I sat and gazed up into the vast, empty auditorium, its tiers decorated with pretty little lamps and gilt curlicues, then down at the heavy crimson velvet curtains edged with gold rope and embroidered with the initials of the Queen. It must take some nerve to step out onto the stage with thousands of expectant faces watching you. No wonder Kev was highly strung.

I jumped up as the door to the box opened.

“Oh, excuse me!” said a tall man, backing out again.

“No, I’m just looking,” I mumbled, sliding past him and his female companion, my eyes lowered, as if I’d ventured into a posh shop where I couldn’t afford to buy anything.

Dave wasn’t keen on trying any of the Chinatown restaurants with roasted ducks and strange-looking sausages hanging in the window, so we got a window table in the Aberdeen Steak House where you know what you’re eating, and there’s an awful lot of it, including a big flat mushroom, onion rings, the lot.

I loved watching the different types of people hurrying past: groups of foreign teenagers carrying matching backpacks; families with whining children who’d been on their feet all day; chefs who’d stepped out of the kitchen for a quick smoke; young couples on their first date, and elderly ones who’d grown tetchy with one another.

“They’ve obviously missed the start of the show and she’s livid because she booked the tickets months ago,” I said about a couple who were arguing just on the other side of the glass.

“Do you know them?” Dave asked.

“Course not!”

“You’re weird, sometimes, you know that?” he said.

The waiter took our order and brought glasses of house white to go with the prawn cocktail.

“This is the life!” said Dave. “Cheers!”

We clinked.

He leaned across the table. “Can you believe it’s been three years?”

People always say that women are the ones who push for commitment, but in our relationship, it was more Dave. I was always a bit flustered when he started talking about “us” because he was my first proper boyfriend, the only man I’d had sex with, but I wasn’t quite convinced that he was the soulmate I’d envisaged sharing my life with. My romantic education had come from novels and all my favorite heroines had to suffer misunderstanding and despair in their pursuit of true love: Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw, Meggie and Ralph de Bricassart—none of them were easy-going relationships like mine with Dave. Don’t get me wrong—I really liked him and we had a good time together. He was attractive and generous and occasionally, like this weekend, surprised me with unexpected thoughtfulness, but I just wasn’t sure I was ready for the next step and I sometimes suspected that’s what he was leading up to.

It’s difficult to keep veering off the subject when you’re sitting face to face in a booth, and he’s intent on three courses. I babbled on about the passers-by and the steak—was it the quality of the meat, or the sharpness of the knife that made it so easy to cut?—and I ordered a glass of red to go with it and encouraged Dave to do the same. Since he’d been drinking lager all afternoon, he went fairly rapidly from mistily sentimental to recounting, step by step, the injustice of the penalty kick that had been awarded to his team’s rivals.

When we left the restaurant, the audience was coming out of the theatre where Mamma Mia! was showing, laughing and singing snatches of the title song. An air of celebration mingled with the delicious sweet smell you get from those vendors cooking nuts in caramel, which I’ve never tried because I always think the taste’s bound to be a disappointment, like proper coffee.

“Wouldn’t Hope love this?”

Hope was somehow always with us, even when she wasn’t.

“We could bring her up to see a musical at Christmas, if you like,” said Dave.

I wasn’t sure it would be worth the money. When we’d taken her to the pantomime at the Winter Gardens, she’d sung along so loudly that the pantomime dame—a comedian famous for his ad-libbing—had invited her up on stage to sing with him. Hope was wearing a yellow summer dress with thick purple tights because she chose her own outfits in the holidays, and had a Santa hat with lights in the white trim perched on her head. The dame just about managed to tread the line between having and making fun, but it had been a struggle to get Hope to leave the stage, and had probably set a dangerous precedent. Nobody would tolerate that kind of behavior in London.

Back in our hotel room, Dave switched on Match of the Day while I went into the bathroom to have a shower. We only had a bath at home, so a shower was a bit of a treat. Standing under the powerful jet with the water streaming down my back, and the wine still blurring my brain, I jumped when Dave slid open the Plexiglas door and stepped in with me.

Even now I was still slightly shy about being naked with the lights on. Dave’s body was sturdy and strong. He claimed he was five foot ten and a half, which was technically taller than me, but I always felt kind of exposed standing beside him with no clothes on, as if my arms and legs were a bit too long somehow. I was never sure whether to look him appreciatively up and down like he did me. There’s nothing hidden with a man, is there, and it feels so personal, somehow. Dave kissed me, first a peck. Then, with the mmms becoming longer and more intense, he pressed against me in the shower cubicle, his stiffening erection jabbing into my tummy button. There was a gleam in his eyes, a subtle change from affection to urgency. He wanted to do it, right there with the water streaming over us. Trying to get some purchase on the tiles with my back as he hoisted me up, I inadvertently knocked the temperature dial from warm to scalding.

“Bloody hell!” Dave slammed the dial the other way to freezing.

So we had to turn the water off, which killed the moment.

“It’s not like it is in the movies, is it?” Dave laughed.

It was one of his phrases, and I knew it was meant to be funny and forgiving, so I laughed too, but it always made me slightly feel as if I wasn’t very good at sex.

Dave wrapped me in a big white towel, and then picked me up, carried me back into the bedroom and lay down beside me. I dried myself as best I could, making a turban of the towel for my head, so my wet hair wouldn’t soak the pillow.

Dave climbed on top of me, giving me another long kiss.

He was very gentle, but I was still always a bit tense as he caressed my breasts, half-expecting him to find something that I’d missed. I lay there, holding my breath, as if he was a bomb-disposal expert checking the ground for unexploded ordnance.

Dave was always keen for me to have a good time, but sometimes I wanted to say to him, Just get on with it, I don’t mind.Instead I’d pant and moan into his ear, like they actually did in the movies.

The bit I enjoyed most was lying in his arms afterwards, all warm and contented, knowing that I’d satisfied him.

“You know when we first met,” Dave said, propping himself up on one elbow. “When I came back to your school on the last day of term?”

“Yup...”

“I told you I’d left something in the hall...”

I did remember, but thought it was funny to mention it now, three years later, because if it had gone into the lost and found, it would probably have been thrown away by now.

“It was my heart,” Dave said. “I left my heart in that hall, Tess. I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you.”

I couldn’t think of an adequate response—I was meant to be the one who was good with words—and the silence began to feel too long, so I said, “I love you too.”

The following afternoon, Dave’s reluctance to queue for the London Eye was explained. He’d booked us tickets that fast-tracked us to the front.

We were almost at the top, and I was pointing landmarks out to him—“Look, there’s Nelson’s Column, there’s the Telecom Tower”—when I became aware that the whole pod full of tourists had gone quiet. I turned around to find Dave on one knee, offering me a ring in a little blue velvet box.

“We’ve been together three years now, Tess...” He started into a speech he’d clearly rehearsed. “It’s been the best three years of my life, because you’re the nicest, funniest person I’ve ever met.”

There was a wobble in his voice. Please God, I prayed, don’t let him cry!

“I know you don’t think you’re beautiful...”

Why are you even telling everyone that?

“...but you are to me. I want to make a happy life for you, so I’m sure you know what’s coming next. Will you marry me?”

The crowd sighed, as if they’d collectively been holding their breath. Even if you didn’t understand a word of English, it was pretty clear what had just happened. Camera lenses, which had been pointing out of the windows, were now trained on me.

Look at the view!I wanted to shout at them. “We’ll be down in a minute and they don’t let you go around again!”

“It’s been such a lovely weekend—”

Realizing it wasn’t going to be a straightforward “Yes!” Dave interrupted before I had a chance to get to “but...”

“You need to think about it,” he said, adding for the benefit of any English speakers, “She thinks a lot!”

No one responded. They were mostly Chinese, I noticed, much shorter than me, and looking up at me the way children might gaze at a dinosaur skeleton in a museum.

“Take the ring anyway,” Dave urged.

So I did, because it gave him the chance to get back up to his feet without losing face. Then we kissed quickly, and received a little round of applause.

“Dave didn’t tell you he was going to propose, did he?” I asked Doll when she popped by on Monday evening to hear how the weekend had gone.

“No, but I guessed. He was so keen to get everything just right, bless! Let’s see the ring, then,” she said.

I went upstairs and got the blue velvet box. It was a pearl, surrounded by tiny diamonds. It looked so modest compared to the bracelet of diamonds dangling from Doll’s arm, I felt almost fonder of it.

“Because I was wearing pearls the first time we kissed,” I said.

“Weren’t those my pearls?”

“They were.”

“So, anyway,” said Doll, impatiently, as if I was the one who’d interrupted the flow of the narrative. “You said yes?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” I said. “I mean, would he move in here? His flat’s not big enough for all of us. I’ve got to think about Hope.”

We were sitting in the kitchen because Hope had Pop Idol on in the living room.

“Dave is great with Hope,” Doll said.

“I know. It’s just... I thought marriage would be different, not the same,” I finally admitted.

“You’re weird, you do know that?”

“That’s what Dave always says. I didn’t say no. I just want to think it through.”

“If he sticks around. You want to think about that!” Doll warned. “Dave’s good-looking and he’s lovely. He’s a kind man, Tess! Your mum would be so happy!”

Would she, though? I didn’t know if that was true. And I didn’t think it was for Doll to say, to be honest.

Anyway, she’d forgotten the first bit Mum had said about finding a man who understands who you are. I didn’t doubt Dave loved me. But he didn’t even know about the bit of me that wanted to live in London and learn about stuff, and discover what I liked and what I was capable of.

“Who’d have thought you’d be the first?” Doll said so sadly that we sat there in silence for a moment or two. “Me and Fred have split up.”

So then I understood, and appreciated Doll making the effort to talk about my good news first.

“Shall I make us a cup of tea?” I asked.

The way our friendship worked, I was always more comfortable listening to her problems than having her giving me advice. Maybe it was something to do with being a big sister rather than the baby of the family.

“We had a row about me working,” Doll began. “And I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to look out for myself, haven’t I, if you’re not going to marry me?’ And he didn’t say, ‘Let’s get married,’ he just said, ‘Please yourself!’ Four fucking years, Tess! Please yourself! ‘I will then,’ I told him. And that was that. Four years! Can you believe it? I don’t need that shit any more. I’m sick of being on Fred’s arm, like some bloody...”

“Appendage?”

“Whatever,” said Doll. “What have I got to look forward to with Fred? Babies and Botox, that’s what.”

If I was meant to say, “But what about...?” like she’d just done with me, I couldn’t think of anything, because I hated the way that Fred had been increasingly dictating what Doll was and wasn’t allowed to do.

“You’re sure, then?”

“I’ve moved all my stuff back home.”

I knew it was selfish, but I felt pretty happy that she’d be just down the road again. “So are you going back to the salon?”

“Not exactly...” Doll gave a strange little smile. “I’ve seen the future, Tess, and it’s nails.”

“Nails?”

For a moment, I was thinking metal spikes you hammer into wood, but then I noticed that Doll was proffering her hand. Each fingernail was pale glossy pink, with a diagonal flash of diamanté stones.

“Everyone needs a haircut, right?” she said. “Now everyone needs their nails done too. Except a nail salon is cheaper to set up, because you don’t need a lot of space and equipment, and you don’t need people who can cut hair either.”

“Do you know how to run a business, though?”

“Tess, I’ve met a lot of business people through Fred, and you’d think they’d be clever and educated and stuff, but they’re not. Fred’s agent says there’s two ways of making money. You have one big clever idea, like Bill Gates, or you have a little one and you do it over and over. So what I’m going to do is nails, and only nails, and do them well and at a price people can afford. I’ll be the first in this area.”

“Isn’t having your nails done just a passing fad?”

“Trust me, Tess, I’m a trained beautician. There’s no going back with this one. It’s like Halloween.”

I couldn’t see the connection.

“When we were kids, we didn’t have all the cards and presents and dressing-up and trick-or-treat, did we? You can’t not, now, can you?”

She had a point. We even had a Halloween-themed week at St.Cuthbert’s.

“What are you going to call your business?” I asked.

“I was thinking Maria O’Nail’s. What do you reckon?”

“How about The Dolls’ House?” I suggested, sparking off her enthusiasm.

“That’s brilliant, Tess!”

She took a pink leather notebook out of her pink Mulberry handbag and wrote it down.

“You’ve got the apostrophe in the wrong place,” I pointed out. “It can either be Doll’s House, that is, your house, or The Dolls’ House, which means for lots of dolls.”

“Sod the apostrophe!” said Doll. “I mean, who cares? It’s not like Toys R Us is grammatical, is it? Hang on, though, doesn’t The Dolls House make it sound like there’s only one?”

“Not that you’re getting ahead of yourself, or anything!”

“The Body Shop has loads of branches, though, doesn’t it?” Doll mused. “And she started in a seaside town, didn’t she? What you have to do is build a brand...”

Perhaps my friend did have what it took. She’d always had an eye for a buck. She’d got a Saturday job sweeping up in a hairdresser when she was only thirteen and was getting tips for washing the customers’ hair within a few weeks. By fifteen, she was setting her mum’s friends’ hair for church socials at a fiver a time, and the day of our school prom she’d organized back-to-back appointments for full hair and make-up in the O’Neills’ bathroom. So it kind of made sense that all this time she’d been a footballer’s girlfriend, with nothing to do except look good in photos, she’d been taking notes.

“You need publicity, obviously, but I’ve got contacts in the magazines,” Doll continued. “I’ve got to get a move on, though, because there’s only a couple of months before ‘Following her split with footballing fiancé Fred, Maria O’Neill launches The Dolls’ House’ turns into ‘Who?’”

“Only one problem.” I tried to inject a note of realism. “Won’t you need some start-up money?”

I noticed she hadn’t given Fred the diamond bracelet back. I wondered how much that was worth.

“So, I put on my Chanel and went to the bank, didn’t I?” Doll said.

“Number Five?” In my head I could hear my mother saying, “If you marry a rich man, Tess, that’s the scent he’ll buy you!”

“Not the perfume, you wally. My suit! You know the little black-and-white check collarless jacket and skirt that shows just the right amount of leg? Must have looked the part, anyway, ’cause he said it shouldn’t be a problem.”

I felt a bit left out, discovering that she’d already got so far in her new venture without me.

“You’ll help me, won’t you, Tess?” Doll asked, because she knew me well enough to see what I was thinking.

“Course I will,” I said. “If I can.”

“You already came up with the name!”

I put a mug of tea in front of her.

“This is the life!” Doll helped herself to a Tunnock’s caramel wafer. “You know what, Tess, you think there’s this whole exciting world out there, but I’ve been to Dubai and St.Tropez and Florida and I’ve stayed in five-star hotels, and honestly, there’s nothing quite like sitting here in your kitchen, eating a biscuit if I feel like it. Sometimes the best things are staring you right in the face, know what I mean?”