7
The upside of having your best friend to stay is that she can provide you with an extra pair of hands. The downside is that she is on hand to talk you into doing something you might otherwise not want to do. Like speed dating. This being “the thing” that Mel had arranged for Polly. That and the small thing of being filmed by Daisy’s friend Vanessa – and she wasn’t exactly thrilled. Ah well, nothing ventured…
‘Mel? Mel! Have you seen my other shoe?’ Polly dashed into the kitchen, waving aloft a single black strappy sandal and trying to do up the back of a green silk dress which clashed beautifully with the kind of red hair any pre-Raphaelite artist’s model – posing for a painting of, say, The Lady of Shalott – might well have been proud of.
‘Hang on, let me give you a hand,’ said Mel, zipping her up.
‘I could just not go,’ Polly said, as she plonked herself on a chair in front of Mel, who’d returned to coaxing Rowan into eating an eggy soldier. But she was having none of it. Instead, she beamed at her mother – egg solidifying on her chin. Hard to resist! ‘Hey, Ro Ro.’ Polly set about tickling the tot under her arms.
‘Oh great,’ said Mel, putting down the spoon – as Rowan giggled and wriggled. ‘You’re like a wriggly worm. A wriggly, squiggly, giggly worm.’
‘Not a burm, Mummy. Ha hahaha eeeee.’ As Rowan squirmed, Polly continued to tickle away. Just look at her. Ro Ro was as cute as cute could be. What with that little button nose and those strawberry blonde curls – a colour that Polly and Mel called blorange (it being somewhere between blonde and orange).
‘Tears before bedtime,’ warned Mel. ‘You’ll make her sick with all that tickling.’ To which Rowan promptly obliged by coughing up Ribena all over her mother’s arm.
‘Whoopsie!’
‘See?’
‘All right, all right – know-all!’ Polly wiped first her arm and then her child’s face with a tea towel, then turned to Mel. ‘Oh no,’ she said, making a show of feeling Rowan’s forehead. ‘You don’t think she’s coming down with something, do you? Because if that’s the case then I’d better not go…’
‘Nice try,’ said Mel, ‘but you’re going to this speed dating and that’s final.’ She gave Polly the kind of stare which brooked no argument, as she stood behind her friend, placing her hands on her shoulders. ‘Besides, we promised Daisy’s friend—’
‘We? You promised her, more like!’
‘Whatevs. Daisy has agreed, on your behalf, that you’ll take part in this short film Vanessa Whassername is making about singles and dating. You never know, you might even have fun. Remember what that was? Fun?’
‘I’m a responsible single mother, now…
‘If you say so.’
‘I’m still not sure this is a good idea. Imagine the embarrassment if I go and do something stupid – it’ll all be on film.’
‘Remember what your mother says? Any publicity is good publicity – for the shop! Not you – unless you’re planning on selling yourself…’
‘Ha ha.’
‘And it’s free publicity, Poll, right? Free. Not to be sniffed at.’
‘Okay, okay. Just so long as I don’t come across as a right saddo… I mean – speed dating!’
Polly lifted her daughter out of her highchair, breathing in her freshly bathed baby smell. Rowan radiated that post-bubble-bath thermal glow they get, right from the top of her head, all the way down her cute pyjamas – populated with Tigger, Piglet and Pooh Bear – and on to those fluffy Winnie the Pooh slippers of hers, Rowan being Number One fan of the inhabitants of Hundred Acre Wood.
‘You still haven’t said how I look?’
Her friend gave her an appraising stare. ‘Very nice. Hmm… Except…’ and she pointed down at Polly’s feet. ‘…you might want to rethink those Ugg boots.’ All three stared at Polly’s sheepskin boots – worn down at the heels and with a hole in the right toe, through which poked a tuft of white fleece. ‘Unless you’re going for the look of some C-list celebrity off to the corner shop for milk and a wrap of cocaine.’
‘I’ll never be girl-about-town again.’
Mel gave her a – were you ever? – look, which she chose to ignore.
‘Help me! I’ve looked everywhere.’ She picked up the single sandal she’d brought into the kitchen with her. ‘But I can’t find the other soddin’ shoe anywhere!’
‘Tsk. Swearing.’
‘Don’t suppose you’ve seen it, have you?’ She stared expectantly at her friend. For Mel was a finder of things. The sort of organised person who had all her CDs and books carefully catalogued in alphabetical –and sometimes subject – order. Mel’s idea of fun was to clean out her kitchen cupboards. And who knew at all times where everything was. Whereas Polly was the sort who was forever losing things: keys, handbags, umbrellas, gloves – she lived in fear of leaving Rowan on the bus or outside a shop.
Mel was staying in Polly’s spare room – an occurrence so frequent it was dubbed “Mel’s Room”. (And why not? She was more family than Polly’s own.) Right now, she needed a bolthole/stayover place while a leak in her bathroom was being repaired. An event which Polly found hilarious seeing as Mel had discovered said leak on her return from a weekend’s course on dousing – for hidden springs – in Glastonbury. (She’d been dabbling in alternative therapies since hooking up with girlfriend Fen, who was a fan.) ‘Darling, it’ll only be for a couple of weeks,’ she’d assured Polly.
‘I thought you’d move in with Fen.’
‘Best not. Fen might take it as a sign that I’m ready for this whole “urge to merge” lesbian thing, if I do.’
It’s a different world , thought Polly.
Her best friend’s arrival had cheered Polly up no end. She’d been on a bit of a downer, weary of coping alone with work and a toddler. And the housework had been getting on top of her. Now, her home had never been so clean and marshalled into order since Mel arrived. She half expected her objects to jump to attention the second Mel entered a room.
Mel was now giving Rowan a wink, as if they were co-conspirators. ‘Silly Mummy would forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on, wouldn’t she?’
‘Mel? Shoe?’
‘Silly Mummy,’ said Rowan, clapping her hands.
‘Okay.’ Mel bent down to a level with hard-of-hearing Rowan. ‘Shall your fairy godmother wave her magic wand and find your Cinderella-mummy’s glass slipper?’
Rowan’s eyes grew big and round with expectation.
‘Stop filling her head with ideas,’ said Polly. ‘Fairy godmother, indeed. Please, please tell me. Have you seen my shoe or not?’
‘Here goes. Ta da!’ Mel gestured as if waving a fairy wand. ‘Your other sandal is over there, by the dresser.’
‘Thanks, Mel. You are a real lifesaver!’
‘You shall go to the ball, Cinders!’ Bending down again to the little girl’s height. ‘Did you see my magic wand, Ro Ro?’ She nodded enthusiastically.
‘You really shouldn’t fill her head with such stuff…’ said Polly, kicking off her Uggs and hopping first on one leg then the other as she strapped on her sandals. ‘I’m trying hard not to expose her to that whole Disney happy-ever-after world.’
‘Oh, spoilsport. Couldn’t we all do with a bit of romance and magic in our lives?’
Polly looked around. ‘You’ve not seen my handbag as well, I suppose?’
Mel retrieved the bag from beneath the table. ‘You should pay me, you know.’
‘Ah, but crass payment would ruin the magic, wouldn’t it? Because everyone knows that fairy godmothers perform spells out of the goodness of their hearts.’
‘I should join a union.’
When Polly met Mel, it was love at first sight. Best Friends Forever. They’d clicked straight away.
‘Wanna come round mine and watch Doctor Who videos?’ was practically the first thing Mel said to Polly when she sat next to her on Polly’s first day at Bishopston High School. Polly, being a big fan of Doctor Who , thought Mel was brilliant.
‘Yeah, great,’ she’d said.
‘Jammie Dodger?’
Even better: ‘Cool.’
‘You’re not a lezzer, are you?’
‘No. Naff off.’
Which was funny, when you consider how things had turned out: what with Mel bumping into Fen in a pub on that fateful night of the Gay Pride march last year. Mel, caught up in the crowd on her way home from work, had ducked into the first likely place, where Fen – who’d popped in to use the loo – had approached her, chatted her up and – ‘It was lust at first sight,’ Mel had told her.
Polly was still trying to adjust. If she was totally honest with herself – which she did try to be – then she was a teensy bit jealous of Fen. Jealous that Fen was now – more often than not – Mel’s first go-to person. And that used to be Polly’s job. Everything changes when your best friend in the world takes up with a female instead of a male lover. No more girls against men. Polly hadn’t quite got her head around the sexual politics of it, let alone how she felt inside. She didn’t like not being wholly happy for Mel, and she was going to give it her best shot. Even though she didn’t much care for Fen. There was something about her. Or perhaps she saw her through green-eyed monster spectacles. It was a right old muddle.
Now Rowan was jiggling enthusiastically up and down on the spot, executing her Tigger bounce and shouting, ‘Rain has gone! Rain has gone!’
‘Hang on a tick.’ Polly smiled at Mel then, gathering her daughter into her arms, pressed Play on the CD player, and out loud came their favourite song: Johnny Nash singing his sunshine Caribbean lyrics.
‘Bance, Mummy. Bance!’ shouted Rowan, as Polly lowered her daughter to the ground from where she busted her little moves in the middle of their bright yellow kitchen, with Mel joining in. Rowan, the child that Polly and Spike had made. Not like made from Plasticine or anything. No. Made by accident, and much loved and wanted by Polly. Her beautiful Rowan, with the same smile and dimples as her father, making Polly’s heart skip a beat each time she turned it on.
‘Bance, Mummy. Bance.’ And Polly joined in, with Rowan clapping her chubby hands, then holding on first to Mel, then onto Polly as she danced and twirled and delighted them both by singing how it was going to be a bright, sunny day.
As the song ended, Polly glanced up at the clock. ‘Right. I need to pop to the loo after all that dancing.’
‘You should have kept up those pelvic floor exercises,’ Mel said. ‘Hope you remembered to pack your Tena Lady pads.’
‘Oh, ha bloody ha.’
‘Okay. Now, are you sure I look okay?’ Polly asked her friend.
‘Yes!’
Bending down to give her daughter a goodnight kiss, Polly knew Mel was right and that moping around the house like a wet weekend was pathetic. Spike was never coming back. (Secretly, Polly was rather touched that her friends had arranged this night. Even though it was hardly dignified that she, Polly Park – queen of cool children’s clothes – was going speed dating!)
‘And you are absolutely sure that I should wear this dress? Or… I could try another one?’
‘How many more times? You look fabulous. Don’t you think so, Roly?’ Mel gave the toddler a small nudge. ‘Shall we send your mummy off to meet her Prince Charming?’
Polly forced a smile at them both. She could hardly bear to leave her daughter. Because the first time she set eyes on her Rowan, not only was it love at first sight, but everything changed forever and Polly’s life became one full of sunshine, with just the merest light dabblings of rain.