Chapter 13
It is so very gorgeous to wake up in bed with Felix!
Things are, dare I say it, going . . . kind of well?
I mean, he’s not my boyfriend, of course, but I’m actually seeing him.
Mostly in bed, which is fine with me, because if there is anything I enjoy more than rolling around sweatily with Felix and having my brain addled by the orgasm hormones then may I tell you that my brain is too addled to think of it right now.
‘Do you have proper coffee?’
I shake my head. ‘Only instant.’
He grimaces. ‘No, thanks. I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ I say with a shrug. It’s only the nicest, most comforting thing in the whole world, I do not add.
‘Not so good either,’ he says, sitting up in the bed and leaning against the headboard.
His chest is bare, smooth and lightly tanned even though we’re well into the chilly end of autumn.
It’s like he has a delicious year-round glow, because of course he does.
He’s Felix Balfour. If anyone’s going to have a delicious year-round glow, it’s him.
‘What are your plans for the day?’ he asks me. It’s a cold, sunny Saturday and naturally I would like to spend it with him, but instead I’ve agreed to hang out with my mother.
‘Meeting my mum,’ I say, shrugging.
He squints at me, trying to remember our previous conversation about my mother. ‘And you . . . don’t like your mum?’
‘It’s not that,’ I say quickly, the stab of disloyalty spearing me right through the heart. ‘I love her. I like her. She’s just hard work, you know?’
‘All the best women are,’ he says, flopping back on the bed and reaching his arms out to me. I climb on top of him and, oh, look, we are once again having sex. Who can blame me for wanting to stay here with Felix all day? But, unfortunately, I have places to be.
* * *
I’m only a little bit late to meet my mum in Covent Garden, but of course she’s a little bit later than that, so I get to pretend that she’s totally inconveniencing me.
‘I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t want to miss the delivery of my vintage leather pouffe!’ she says, drawing me into a tight hug against my will when we meet in the piazza.
‘It’s fine, Mum,’ I tell her grudgingly, and we begin our stroll around the shops.
When we’re in the big branch of Boots on Long Acre, in search of the one specific volumising product that’s the only thing my mother will use on her trademark curls, on the end of the Dior counter I catch a glimpse of their new campaign.
I’m slightly surprised to see that instead of a sexy young actress, it’s a sexy old model – Gina Simone, one of my mum’s old model lot, but she barely looks a day older than her supposed heyday.
‘Good for Gina,’ Mum says when she spots it, but her words have an edge to them. ‘I’ll pay for this, and then shall we get a coffee, darling?’
‘Sure.’ I shrug.
She leads us to a café down a side street and we’re blessed to find a vacant table. We sit down, and a good-looking young guy comes over to take our order. I let out an audible sigh because I know how this is going to play out, but Mum doesn’t notice.
‘Are you an actor?’ she asks him after our orders have been duly placed.
‘Uh, no,’ he says, shaking his head, looking a little confused.
‘A model then?’ she ventures.
‘Not that either,’ he mumbles.
‘Well, you should be, darling – beautiful bone structure.’
He turns a colour I did not know it was possible for a human to become. ‘Thank you,’ he squeaks out before scuttling off.
‘Mum,’ I whisper through gritted teeth when he’s gone. ‘Stop flirting with the waiter, it’s mortifying.’
‘Mortifying for who?’
‘Him! Me! You! Everyone involved,’ I tell her.
Mum just shrugs. ‘Not for me. You need to lighten up.’ She is possibly the first person in human history to tell me that, while everyone else wishes I was just a little bit more serious.
I let out a groan to signal my irritation but leave it at that.
Our coffees arrive, steaming and deliciously frothy. I take a sip and decide to be a grown-up rather than leaning into my tendency to get annoyed by my mum. ‘How’s the yoga?’
‘Oh, it’s just marvellous, darling,’ she says, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘I’ve now got three classes! And to think, only a few months ago I had none!’
I can’t help but smile at that. I am proud of her. ‘That’s great, congratulations.’
‘It’s only in the church hall at the top of the hill, but . . . it feels like people are really enjoying it, you know? A real place for connection and bonding. The yoga’s going great, it’s just . . .’ She trails off.
‘What?’ I ask, suddenly seized with concern.
She sighs heavily, dramatically. ‘Darling, you know that big campaign I did? The jeans ad?’
I resist the urge to a) pretend I have no idea what she’s talking about and that I’ve forgotten all about it, or b) ask her how I could possibly have forgotten about it when she brings it up at every available opportunity.
To say that the Sabor jeans campaign was her heyday would be an understatement.
It was the heyday of a whole generation of models, of which she was one.
I have to admit, the campaign is not just very cool but genuinely iconic.
Instead of trolling her, I just nod.
‘Well, apparently it’s somehow the thirtieth anniversary of that shoot coming up and they want to get us all back together for it, you know, to recreate it.’
‘That’s fun,’ I say encouragingly, but I can tell by the way she’s nibbling the skin on her lip that she’s not excited about it at all. ‘Isn’t it?’ I ask.
She tries to offer me a brave smile but her face falls. ‘I just don’t know if I can do it,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘It’s not for ages, maybe the summer next year . . . I suppose they’re making enquiries now because so many of us are still so in demand,’ she adds with a sad smile.
‘Why would you say no?’ I ask, but I think I already know why.
‘I just don’t know if I want to be photographed standing next to them all .
. . I mean, you saw what Gina Simone is looking like these days .
. .’ I can tell the Dior campaign is playing on her mind.
Gina Simone looked completely sensational, sure, but she would have been airbrushed to shit, plus she is probably cosmetically enhanced to within an inch of her life!
‘I did,’ I say, nodding slowly. I can see why my mum would feel self-conscious in a line-up with the other models if they all looked like Gina Simone.
It’s a great source of shame for her that she’s, to her mind, let herself go, but she’s still so incredibly beautiful, in a way that no one else can compare to.
At least, that’s what it feels like to me.
‘But she has nothing to do with you. You’re not Gina Simone, you’re you,’ I say, wanting her to understand that she deserves to be there just as much as any of the other models.
She doesn’t have to be anything other than who she is.
But – surprise, surprise – it doesn’t work.
‘You don’t need to tell me that, Mary-Elizabeth, darling,’ she says a little shortly, and I can tell she didn’t really understand what I was trying to say, which flares up a little flame of irritation in my chest. ‘I know I’m not Gina Simone; I never was, and I never will be.
I never got a Dior campaign back in the day, let alone now.
I’ll bet you anything Gina’s not teaching yoga in a church hall,’ she says a little bitterly.
‘A minute ago you were so proud of what you’ve built! And now it’s just nothing?’ I ask her, trying to get her to see the insanity.
Mum picks up her coffee cup, exhales sharply through her nostrils. ‘It’s hardly a Dior campaign, is it?’
‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ is all I can manage. But I don’t want to let it go. I don’t want her turning down the reunion shoot, because I think she’ll regret it in the future.
‘I suppose I could go on a diet or try one of those wraps where they cover you in seaweed and cling film – apparently you can lose inches doing that,’ she says, bringing the cup to her lips, lost in thought of how she can possibly bring her body in line.
‘But maybe it’s my face that’s more of the problem?
I can lose weight, but I can’t just magically make myself look twenty-five years younger, can I?
Maybe it’s time to seriously consider some interventions.
’ She sets the cup down and starts gently pulling at her neck to erase any sign of sagging, as if she was looking in a mirror.
‘You don’t need to do that,’ I say as gently as I can, but it comes out more forcefully than I intend it to.
‘Darling, you have no idea what it’s like. You think you’ll be young and beautiful forever, but it catches up with you. You’ve got to be on your guard at all times,’ she says, narrowing her eyes.
‘I don’t want to be on my guard.’
She shrugs. ‘You don’t have a choice. Time comes for us all.’
I want to tell her that I think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, that even though she’s annoying and she’s hard work and she’s irrational, I love her just the way she is. But I don’t.
‘Fine, don’t do the campaign then.’ I throw my hands up in the air. ‘No one’s forcing you.’
‘Well, I didn’t say that,’ she mumbles. ‘I might do it.’
Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it. ‘So you just wanted to complain about it but you’re still going to say yes to it?’ I say flatly, because I can’t help myself. Oops.
‘No, that’s not it,’ she says resolutely. ‘I’ll email them back now and say no.’ She starts rummaging in her enormous Chloé tote bag for her phone.
I reach my hand out to stop her and knock over the glass of water on the table between us.
‘What did you do that for?’ Mum says, leaping dramatically to her feet to avoid the spill.
‘It’s just water, it didn’t even go on you,’ I say wearily, but the young, handsome waiter is already making his way over.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Mum says to him. ‘My daughter is so clumsy, she spilled this water all over the table.’
‘No problem at all,’ he says, wiping it down with a cloth. ‘Shall I get you some more water?’
‘No,’ I say quickly, ‘I think we’re leaving.’
Mum blinks at me, wounded. But I can’t keep going with this ridiculous back-and-forth any longer. Plus, by knocking the water over, I may have inadvertently prevented her from turning down the reunion campaign.
This is what it’s always like with my mum: even when I’m making an effort, even when I’m trying, it’s like we’re speaking at cross purposes, like we’re speaking different languages, like all the baggage we’re bringing to every conversation is too much to be able to just cut through it and see eye to eye.
I suppose the thing is, what actually worries me amid all my complaining about my mum is that underneath it all, I’m just like her. Not very original, is it?
After we part ways but before I get on the bus home, I stop by the Portrait Gallery to see my favourite room, sit with Saint Fabiola, all 450 of her.
I might as well, since I’m here. It’s a Saturday, so the gallery is heaving, but the little side-room housing this exhibition is almost empty.
I sit on a bench in the middle of the room and let my eyes roam over the images, hundreds of them, all the same and all different, all collected by the same man and displayed here for my pleasure.
When life gets annoying, there’s always art, I suppose.