Chapter 31
‘You used to go out with him?’ said Gill, looking at Ana in wonderment.
‘Yes,’ said Ana, a bit sniffily. ‘We went out for about eight years.’
‘Really?’
‘What?’ demanded Ana, knowing that Gill was getting at something.
‘Well – he’s a bit, you know … he’s not …’
‘He’s vile, Ana,’ said Di, tipping a can of Diet Coke to her mouth and emptying it of its last drops.
‘Well,’ said Ana, defensively, ‘looks aren’t everything, are they?’
‘I’m not talking about his looks, sweetheart. I’m talking about him.’
‘What about him?’
‘He loves himself. And don’t get me wrong. I’m usually quite partial to a man who loves himself. But only when they’ve got good reason. And that man has absolutely no reason, dammit.’
Gill dissolved into giggles and dropped half a vol au vent on the floor.
‘Where on earth did you find him?’ continued Di, obviously using the fact that she’d only just met Ana as ample excuse to be as rude as she liked. Ana felt her hackles rising.
‘I met him at college,’ she said, ‘he’s highly intelligent.’
‘Yeah,’ said Di, ‘and so’s Mr Spock. But that doesn’t necessarily make him good boyfriend material.’
‘Hugh’s a good person,’ said Ana, lamely, ‘he’s done a lot for me. He’s a good friend and …’
‘Sorry,’ said Gill, wiping vol-au-vent crumbs from her fingertips into a piece of kitchen roll, ‘we’re no meaning to be mean, you know.
But it’s just that you’re such a beautiful girl, you know, and you’re so sweet and everything.
I just kind of expected anyone you’ve been out with to be a – I don’t know.
A nice guy, I guess. A cute guy. Someone kind and gentle. Like you …’
Ana’s tummy fizzed pleasurably. Kind and gentle? Beautiful? ‘But I’m not …’
‘Yes ye’ are. You’re gorgeous. Isn’t she gorgeous, Di?’
Di nodded enthusiastically. ‘You could be a model,’ she gushed.
Ana looked at them suspiciously. ‘You’re both taking the piss, aren’t you? You’re winding me up.’
‘No way,’ said Di. ‘I mean – you are 100 per cent gorgeous. Really. And I bet with a bit of make-up and some funky clothes …’
‘Done that already. Lol got me all tarted up last week when I first arrived.’
‘And?’
Ana shrugged.
‘I bet you looked stunning, didn’t you?’ said Di, excitedly. ‘Didn’t you?’
Ana let a smile seep slowly across her face. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t say gorgeous exactly. But I looked, you know – all right.’
‘Ooh,’ said Di, peering through the window, ‘talking of gorgeous. The beautiful Flint returns.’ She stood on her tiptoes to view the return of Flint, who was parking his car across the street.
‘Sit down, you old slapper,’ said Gill, dragging her down by the hem of her sweatshirt. ‘He’s too good for the likes of you.’
Ana stiffened as she heard Flint’s footsteps heading up the garden path.
She was still reeling from Gill’s drunken revelations about him and his sexual behaviour last night, about his failure to mention at any point during all the incessant talking about her past the fact that he and Bee had had a sexual relationship.
And she was also reeling from the faint stirrings of jealousy churning around inside her stomach.
What was all that about? What exactly was this nagging, insistent little voice inside her saying, ‘Why Gill? Why Lol? Why Bee? Why every woman in south-east England and not me?’ When she’d first met Flint he’d given off ‘unattainable’ vibes, the kind of man who would only look at a woman if she was actually Christy Turlington’s identical twin sister.
Discovering that he’d sleep with a warthog if he could get it to stand still for long enough was really very disappointing.
But then he’d walked into the house this afternoon clutching a little box of cakes, with his big shorts on and his tufty hair, and those negative thoughts had melted away immediately.
And then when he’d touched her – physically and emotionally – she’d had to resist the temptation to bury her head into his enormous chest and squeeze him half to death.
And then Hugh had turned up, and at one point she’d walked into the living room and looked at the two of them side by side and, oh God – Hugh had looked so little and inconsequential and kind of …
sad. She’d almost burst into tears seeing a man she’d loved unquestioningly and depended on so completely for so many years shrunken to such inadequate proportions in front of her very eyes.
And not just shrunken but somehow tainted – almost, she imagined, like it might be to meet an idol in the flesh who you’ve only ever seen in airbrushed photographs before.
But Hugh’s presence had done something else – formed a bond of complicity between her and Flint.
For the first time, she felt like she and Flint were equals.
Up until Hugh’s arrival she hadn’t been able to shake this feeling that Flint was just humouring her – that she was cramping his style in some way.
Even after he invited her back to Turnpike Lane to go drinking, even after he introduced her to all his mates in the pub, even after he phoned her this morning, even after he asked her to go out with him tonight in his car, she still thought he was just being nice.
Today she had suddenly realized that he wasn’t just being nice, that he actually wanted it to be her and him, together.
Flint walked in and his eyes went immediately to Ana’s. He looked at his watch. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said, grinning.
‘Ten minutes for what?’
‘To get your glad rags on and get going. Come on. I’ve got to be in Chepstow Road in half an hour.’
‘What for?’
‘A job. Now get going.’
‘But why do I have to get changed?’
‘No reason,’ he said, unzipping a suit carrier and heading towards the downstairs toilet, ‘you’ll just have more fun if you’re glammed up. Trust me.’
‘OK,’ said Ana, blushing at Gill and Di’s winks and heading up the stairs.
She unzipped her tartan suitcase and tipped the contents all over her bed.
What kind of choice was this, she thought, picking up ludicrously, almost comically ill-matched garments and discarding them?
She had two pairs of Bee’s Indian harem trousers, a spare T-shirt, her khaki Lycra top, which she threw to the floor when she realized that it actually smelled, a load of diamond jewellery, the black sequinned jacket, three brightly coloured cotton Indian tops and her pyjamas.
Bollocks, she thought, thinking of all those beautiful dresses and gowns she’d packed away at Bee’s and sent back to Devon.
But then she looked down at her legs and realized she couldn’t have worn a frock anyway – nearly a week’s worth of stubble – not just a hint of mousy growth but proper boots-and-shorts stubble.
So. Trousers. It had to be. She pulled off her cotton vest and slipped on an Indian top.
Pretty, she thought, eyeing up her reflection, but not glam.
She took it off. Then she took off her jeans and pulled on the harem trousers.
As she looked at her reflection she suddenly remembered that harem trousers were just stupid.
The sort of thing that probably seemed like a good idea when you were wandering around India with a bindi on your forehead eating lentils with your fingers, but get them home and you soon realize that they’re an incredibly unflattering garment that makes you look like you’ve done a huge poo in your crotch.
And then she remembered Lol. Lol wore jeans all the time but she always looked glamorous.
She pulled her jeans back on. And then she spied the black sequinned jacket.
She pulled it on over her bare chest and buttoned it up.
She arranged herself into all sorts of unlikely positions in the mirror, checking that her boobs didn’t fall out, and then she put on Bee’s diamond necklace and Lol’s snakeskin stilettos.
Jesus, she thought, checking herself again, this either looks great or I look a complete tit.
How were you supposed to know the difference, she wondered?
Could she, she wondered? Could she really go out like this?
With no bra on? No top? Well – she’d have to – she didn’t have any choice.
She was about to let down her hair and comb it out when she suddenly remembered what Flint had said earlier on about it suiting her up, so she smoothed it down with her fingertips, put on a pair of diamond drop earrings, got halfway through her door, remembered she’d forgotten deodorant, slicked some on, put some spit on her eyelashes and then went clattering down the stairs.
‘Ready,’ she cried, grabbing her rucksack from the coat stand and piling into the living room.
‘Oh. My. God,’ said Gill, getting slowly to her feet, a copy of Now! magazine falling to the floor. ‘You look amazing.’
Di’s jaw was on the floor. ‘I told you. Didn’t I tell you? Fantastic, absolutely incredible.’
And then Flint emerged from the kitchen, gulping down a glass of water, and Ana nearly fainted. He was wearing a black suit, a white shirt and a thin black tie. He looked like Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs. He looked like the handsomest thing she’d ever seen in her life.
‘Wow,’ he said, looking genuinely taken aback, ‘Ana – you look – wow.’
The two of them stood and stared at each other in wonder for a while, like a paused video, before someone hit Play and Flint looked at his watch and Ana said, ‘Come on, we’re going to be late,’ and in a big fug of embarrassment and wolf whistles and silly comments from Gill and Di, they both bundled themselves out of the door and towards his car, desperately trying not to look at each other as much as they both desperately wanted to.