Chapter 32
There’s no Logan at home. Just Amanda busily unpacking more new purchases at the kitchen table. ‘Hey, where’ve you been?’ she asks.
‘Out for a walk,’ Celia replies.
Amanda gives her a curious look. ‘Just a walk -walk?’
‘Yes,’ she says with emphasis. ‘What other kind is there?’
‘Just…’ She smiles. ‘Just… you look like something’s happened.’
They’ve barely seen each other for twenty-five years and Amanda can read her mind now?
‘Nothing’s happened,’ Celia says breezily, peering closely at Spike in the hope of detecting an improvement.
Tea, she’s thinking. She has a plethora of tea therapies up her sleeve that she’s still experimenting with, having noted encouraging results with other more amenable succulents.
She turns back to Amanda. ‘Okay, I went for a walk with Enzo.’
‘With Enzo? Cactus-Enzo?’
‘Yes.’ Celia smiles. ‘Just up to the flagpole and back.’
‘Right!’ Her brows rise and she looks quite delighted by this news. Celia, out walking with a man! Taking the air! ‘Did he just… come round? Or what?’
‘Yes, with Mathilde and Laura this time. That’s Mathilde’s mum…’
‘Oh, so you all went together?’
‘No, just me and Enzo,’ Celia replies, filling the kettle now as if there is nothing notable about that.
And there isn’t, she tells herself. It was just a walk and a chat and it was lovely, and she’d started to think she might have made a new friend until he seemed a bit awkward when they ran into sporty Kim.
Now all Celia is concerned about is the whereabouts of her son.
‘So just the two of you?’ Amanda reiterates.
‘Yes.’ Celia shrugs.
‘Is he with Mathilde’s mum? I mean, are they together?’
‘No, they’re not.’ Celia is keen to veer off the subject now.
‘They’re good friends, I think.’ She pauses and adds, ‘The first time he came round he was with this other woman, Saska. And then today we ran into this other woman called Kim, who seemed to, I don’t know…
’ She blows out air. ‘It just felt a bit funny. That’s all. ’
Amanda seems to be studying her. ‘So he has women friends? That’s allowed, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is! Amanda, I don’t even know him. I’m just saying.’ Celia doesn’t actually know what she’s saying. Just that her senses are up and she wants to move the subject on to something else.
‘You think he’s a bit of a player?’ Amanda ventures. ‘I don’t get that feeling…’
‘Well, who knows? I don’t really care,’ Celia says firmly.
Amanda gives her an exasperated look, and then seems to catch herself, and her expression softens. ‘Anyway, was he upset about the cactus?’
‘He was okay, actually.’
‘Oh, that’s good. He seems nice,’ she adds lightly, which Celia chooses to ignore. ‘So, what d’you think?’ Amanda is holding up a dress now; one of her new purchases that’s notably out of place in the shabby kitchen. ‘Don’t you just love it?’
‘Oh, that’s gorgeous,’ Celia enthuses. The fabric is floaty and patterned with tiny flecks of greens and blues – like water, she thinks.
Water with sunlight dancing on its surface.
It’s knee-length and sort of flippy – possibly slightly twenties-style?
– and bias-cut. She’s picked up the terminology from the boutique. ‘You’ll look amazing in it,’ she adds.
Amanda beams at her. ‘It’s not for me. It’s for you.’
‘Oh no,’ Celia exclaims. ‘I can’t have that.’
‘Celia’s, it’s yours,’ Amanda says firmly. ‘Go and try it on. I need to see you in it.’
Celia’s heart sinks. She’s not up to this right now – being Amanda’s pet project. ‘It is lovely,’ she starts, ‘but?—’
‘I promise, it wasn’t expensive,’ Amanda insists.
Now Celia feels guilty and is yearning to hide away and tend to her baby spider plants. They’re ready to be potted up now. ‘You’re incredibly generous,’ she says, ‘but honestly, you have to stop buying me so many things. I don’t expect it, you know.’
Amanda regards her steadily. ‘I know you don’t. But you’ve put me up here, all this time?—’
‘You don’t need to pay me for that.’ Without thinking Celia crosses the kitchen towards Amanda and hugs her. ‘You don’t think that, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t.’ They pull apart and Celia is taken aback to see how emotional her friend looks.
‘It just feels like a fair exchange, that’s all.
’ Amanda raises a bright smile, a TV smile , and Celia wonders – if it really feels like an ‘exchange’ to her, then what is Amanda gaining by being here?
Because when she’d shown up on her doorstep, she’d claimed she just needed ‘a little break’– and by anyone’s standards, three weeks is a lengthy stay.
It’s not that Celia minds any more, or even that she did at the start, once she’d recovered from the shock.
And they have settled into a rhythm now.
Amanda has found a Pilates class and her rampant shopping habit often lures her out of the flat.
So they’re not exactly under each other’s feet.
What Logan feels about her being here is another matter, but who knows what he really feels about anything?
Celia tried to talk to him and look what happened there.
‘So you like the dress?’ Amanda prompts her.
‘Of course I do. It’s gorgeous.’
‘I’ve got it right this time, then?’
Guiltily, Celia had given her the previous purchases back.
‘I love it,’ she says. ‘But where would I wear it?’
‘That’s not the point.’ Amanda smiles. ‘You know what I always used to say to my ladies?’
‘Your ladies?’
‘My ladies on Look for a Lifestyle ,’ Amanda confirms. ‘Those timid ladies who were terrified about appearing on live TV. You know what I’d always tell them? That if you have the outfit, then the occasion presents itself.’
Celia smiles. ‘D’you really think it works like that?’
‘I do! You look in someone’s wardrobe and it tells you everything about their life. C’mon – let’s have a look through yours.’
Celia hesitates. All she really wants to do is make contact with Logan, and brew a pot of strong Darjeeling tea for plant-resuscitating purposes. ‘Okay then,’ she says with some reluctance.
As they go through to her bedroom, she fills Amanda in on the pink wafer assault. ‘Celia,’ she says firmly, ‘that was not assault.’
‘What was it then?’
‘That was just you losing your shit for one minuscule moment – and it’s about time, if you don’t mind me saying. It was high time for your shit to be lost. You’ve spent your whole life keeping your feelings battened down, not letting anything out.’
‘Have I?’ Celia exclaims. What does Amanda know about her life?
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ she says quickly, cheeks flushing now. ‘But yes. I think what you did was totally justified.’
Still somewhat stunned, Celia opens her flimsy wardrobe that leans slightly to the left. She steps back and Amanda grins at her before delving in.
Although Celia doesn’t understand the point of this, she is curious to discover precisely what Amanda is looking for and whether she’ll announce that its entire contents should be burnt.
She’s certainly fiery today as she flips through trousers and skirts, and then moves to the shelves where there are neatly folded sweaters, sweatshirts and tops.
Finally, Amanda stands back. ‘There’s a lack of colour here,’ she announces. ‘In fact, I don’t see any colour at all.’
Celia thinks of the shameful red shoes, stashed away at the bottom of the wardrobe in their box. ‘Grey is a colour,’ Celia says. ‘So are black and navy?—’
‘I mean colour -colour,’ Amanda scoffs. ‘And I’m getting the feeling of everything being a bit… basic. Practical, I mean. Worn for doing a job.’
‘Well, that’s exactly what it is,’ Celia points out. ‘I’m either tending the plants or working at the shop. That’s my life.’ Her statement seems to shimmer between then. ‘It’s the look for my lifestyle,’ she adds, forcing a smile.
Amanda smiles too, and then goes to fetch the flippy dress from the kitchen and again orders her to try it on.
Celia picks up the fragile, beautiful thing, about to take it through to the bathroom.
She is a communal changing-room avoider, not a fan of stripping off in public.
On the rare occasions when Geoff seemed to notice her body, he seemed somehow disappointed, as if it had fallen short of his expectations now the wrapping was off.
But Amanda isn’t ‘the public’ and she’s certainly not Geoff.
So, as her friend continues her inventory of her wardrobe, Celia pulls off her trousers and top and slips the dress on, and before she’s even glanced in the mirror she can tell that it’s not just a dress, but the dress – for an occasion that has yet to happen.
Amanda springs around to face her and gasps. ‘Oh, Celia. My God. I wish you’d worn that to my wedding—’ Her hand flies to her mouth. ‘Not that you didn’t look great that day…’
‘I wish I had too.’ Celia smiles.
Amanda appraises the dress, stepping back and studying Celia from all angles, approvingly. ‘I love it. This is so you, y’know – this silhouette.’
Celia has never thought of herself as having a silhouette.
‘Would you have put me in this on Look for a Lifestyle ?’ she asks.
‘Definitely!’ Amanda throws her arms around her and grins. ‘Because I can tell you something, Celia Bloom. Your lifestyle is going to change.’