31 Dream Street (17 page)

‘Friday night. Six-thirty to nine.’

‘Hmmm.’ Joanne turned it over again. ‘I don’t know.’ She was feigning disinterest, but Leah could tell that Joanne had taken the bait. She would be there, without a doubt.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you can’t make it, please let me know. Numbers are tight and I’d like to pass your invitation on to someone else if you’re not going to come.’

‘Yes,’ she said, slipping the card into her bag. ‘OK. I’ll come.’

‘You will?’

‘Yes. Count me in.’

‘Excellent,’ beamed Leah. ‘I’m really glad. It’s going to be such a lovely evening. You’ll love it.’

And then something remarkable happened – Joanne smiled. ‘I look forward to it,’ she said. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Leah, ‘my pleasure entirely.’

Leah glanced at the phone when she got back inside. An image of a large, wrinkled Amitabh, lying in a cold bath, waiting for her to call him back, passed through her mind. She touched the phone briefly with her fingertips, then retracted them. She couldn’t face it. She’d call him tomorrow.

Instead she went back to the front window and peered across the street again. She saw the shadowy movement of a figure, climbing the stairs, through the central window of the Peacock House. She assumed it was Joanne, on her way to her lonely, fortressed room with a pink invitation in her handbag. She glanced upwards and saw Toby, sitting as ever in his window, playing on his computer. She wondered what he was looking at. Was he in a chatroom talking to a fat girl from Maryland called Paris? Was he cogitating over his poetry? Or maybe he was just staring, vacantly, meaninglessly, into whiteness.

She wondered if he’d seen her just now, talking to Joanne on the street.

She wondered if he’d approve or if he’d think she was interfering.

A couple of minutes later he stood up, walked to the
other side of the room, then came back and drew his curtains, and all at once Leah found herself staring at a dark, silent house. Feeling a bit weird, she drew her own curtains and got on with her night.

31

Joanne was the first guest to arrive at the Pink Hummingbird on Friday night.

She was wearing her black leather coat over a black jersey dress and bottle-green shoes with leather laces that crisscrossed up her ankles. Her hair looked as if she’d used crimpers on it and she was wearing bottle-green eye shadow. Leah removed her coat and put it in the stockroom. ‘I’m so glad you came,’ she said, handing Joanne a glass of white wine. Leah noticed for the first time that, out of her coat and in her clingy jersey dress, Joanne had a really lovely figure: a tiny waist; angular shoulders; firm, round breasts. ‘Did you come straight from work?’

Joanne nodded distractedly and gulped a mouthful of wine. Her eyes swivelled round the shop, taking in the detail – the lamps, the silk flowers, the mirrors.

‘Where do you work?’ asked Leah. ‘In town?’

‘Yes,’ said Joanne. She took another gulp of wine. ‘Where’s the make-up?’

Leah started, slightly shocked by her brusque manner. ‘Erm, it’s through there, in the back room. But they’re not quite ready yet.’

Joanne glanced at her watch, an elderly Swatch with
a clear plastic strap. ‘I thought you said six-thirty? It’s six-thirty-two.’

‘Yes, I know. They won’t be long. Just another minute or two. So, what do you do, Joanne?’

‘Do?’

‘Yes. For a living?’

Joanne sighed. ‘I’m an actress,’ she said.

‘Oh, really. So is that what you’re doing at the moment? In town?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I’m working on something else at the moment. There are some nice things in here.’

Leah was finding it hard to keep up with the abrupt conversational leaps Joanne kept making. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘yes. It’s very feminine.’

‘Yes,’ said Joanne. ‘I like those camisole tops.’ She pointed at some rose-pink pointelle jersey underwear with silk ribbon trim.

‘Lovely, aren’t they? Come with matching knickers and trousers.’

‘Really?’

‘Tempted?’

‘Mmmm,’ Joanne smiled, ‘maybe. Do you have any other clothes?’

‘No. Not really. Just a bit of lingerie, some hats, some slippers.’

‘Oh,’ she looked mildly disappointed, ‘never mind.’

‘You’re really into clothes, aren’t you?’

Joanne smiled again. ‘Clothes, to me, are like paint to an artist or words to a writer.’

‘I’ve noticed,’ said Leah, choosing her words carefully, ‘that you’re quite experimental with clothes.’

‘Yes,’ said Joanne. ‘I am.’ She’d finished her wine. Leah poured her another glass. She could see Joanne was getting fidgety and that, if she didn’t get what she’d come here for soon, there was a danger she would leave.

‘Let me just see how they’re getting on back there.’

Clarice and Maya from Santa Monica were set up and waiting, brushes at the ready. The doorbell rang. Leah let in a gaggle of Muswell Hill yummy mummies in designer jeans and Joseph shearling coats. Leah asked one of her assistants to take over on the door and went to find Joanne. She was admiring a pair of ivory silk slippers with pink embroidered butterflies on them. ‘Cute,’ she said, putting them down.

‘Gorgeous, aren’t they? Anyway – they’re ready at the back. Do you want to come through?’

Joanne seemed rapturously interested in every last detail of the blçnk organic cosmetic range. She hung on Maya’s every word, absorbing every reference to beeswax and nettle powder and ground blueberry essence, as if it were the truth of life itself. Leah watched as Clarice stripped Joanne’s face of make-up, with soft pads of cotton wool and a liquid cleanser infused with green tea. She then gave Joanne’s face a gentle massage with something called ‘angel oil’. Devoid of make-up, Joanne looked young but tired.

‘So,’ said Clarice, ‘what do you do, Joanne?’

‘I’m an actress,’ she said.

‘Oh, wow! Really? Like a real proper actress?’

‘Yes, well, I trained at the Central School of Drama.’

‘Wow. So, have you been in anything I’d have heard of, like a movie?’

‘No. I shouldn’t think so. I mostly do stage work. Although I haven’t worked in a while now.’

‘Oh, I see. Having kids?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Did you stop working to have kids?’

‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I don’t know. I guess I just talk to so many women about your age and they all tell me what they
used
to do. I
used
to be a model, I
used
to be a marketing director. You know, I just
assumed
.’

‘Well,’ said Joanne, ‘that’s not the case.’

‘So – just taking a break, huh?’

‘Yes,’ said Joanne. ‘Just taking a break.’

‘Well, that’s great. And I have to say, you have amazing skin, Joanne. It must be doing you good.’

Leah waited at the front of the shop for Joanne to emerge from her makeover. The Pink Hummingbird was buzzing with women. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and there was lots of talk of Gymboree and swimming lessons and skiing in Morzine. It was hard for Leah to believe that she was the same age as these women, when their lives were so entirely different to hers. It took a lot of hard work to look as good as these women did at their age, especially after a couple of kids. It wasn’t a happy accident. It was a full-time job.

Joanne walked past. ‘Let’s see, then,’ said Leah.

Joanne spun round, looking slightly alarmed.

‘Wow,’ said Leah. ‘You look really beautiful.’

And she did. Without her own heavy-handed approach to make-up, she looked soft and pretty and warm. ‘Are you happy with it?’

‘Yes,’ said Joanne. ‘I am. Well, thank you for inviting me. I’ve had a very nice night.’

‘Oh, you’re not going already, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what about those silk slippers? Did you want to get a pair of those?’

‘Oh, no. I don’t think so. I may come back another day.’

‘But no!’ Leah took a breath to calm her voice down. ‘No. Buy them now! I can give you them at a discount. Twenty per cent off?’

Joanne wiggled her nose and turned her head to look at the slippers. ‘Hmmm. How much are they?’

‘Twenty. Sixteen pounds with the discount.’

‘What about that jersey camisole?’

‘Yup. That’s thirty-nine ninety-nine. I can let you have it for thirty-two?’

‘OK,’ she said, swinging her handbag round onto the cash desk. ‘Do you take Switch?’

Leah sent an assistant to collect the slippers and the camisole, and hoped that she would be as slow as she usually was. ‘So,’ she said, to the side of Joanne’s head, ‘are you going home now? Back to Toby’s?’

She turned to face her. ‘Yes.’

‘He’s lovely, isn’t he, Toby?’

She threw Leah a strange look. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose so.’

‘And that house is amazing.’

‘Yes. Rather poorly maintained, though.’ She turned impatiently to see what the shop assistant was doing. She returned with the slippers in a box and opened it up for Joanne’s approval.

‘They look a bit big,’ said Joanne. ‘What size are they?’

‘Large,’ said the assistant. ‘What size are you?’

‘I’m a size five.’

Leah sent the assistant away to get the slippers in her right size and tried to think of a way of turning this conversation to her advantage.

‘So, what’s it like living with all those people?’ she began.

‘Which people?’

‘The people? In Toby’s house?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Really? It’s just, I’ve just split up with my boyfriend and now I’ve got to move out of our flat and I’ve been looking at all these flat shares and I just feel so old, so set in my ways. The thought of having to share with people I don’t know is just awful. How do you do it?’

‘I ignore everyone. I pretend they’re not there.’

Leah looked at her in amazement, then she laughed. And then, amazingly, so did Joanne. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘it’s not very nice. But if I actually acknowledged their existence I’d go insane.’

‘You know what,’ said Leah, ‘I think you’ve got the right idea.’

‘Idefinitely have the right idea.’

‘So, will you be moving out soon?’

The assistant arrived with the right slippers and went off to find the camisole top.

‘No. Sadly not.’

‘No lovely man in the background who you’re secretly dying to move in with?’

‘No.’

‘Shame.’

‘Not really.’

‘Oh, I see. Not into men at the moment?’

‘I’m not really into anyone at the moment.’

‘Ah,’ said Leah. ‘Fair enough.’ Joanne was softening as they talked and she knew that given just a few more minutes she might actually start to get somewhere. ‘I’m starting to feel a bit the same myself,’ she said, taking the top from the assistant. ‘I thought my future was in the bag, but suddenly I’m thirty-five and I’ve got to start again. It does make you feel a bit…
bitter
.’

‘Bitter?’ said Joanne. ‘I’m not bitter.’

‘No, no, no,’ said Leah. ‘Not bitter, but just a bit –
lost
. You know?’

Joanne pursed her lips. ‘There are worse things,’ she said, ‘than splitting up with someone.’

‘Oh,’ said Leah, ‘right, yes. I suppose there are.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m healthy. I’m alive.’

‘Yes.’

Leah took Joanne’s card and swiped it through the terminal. ‘Did you split up with someone? Is that how you ended up in Toby’s house?’

‘No.’ She tapped her pin number into the terminal. ‘Not really.’

‘Not really?’

‘Life is episodic. A certain passage of my life had come to a close. It was time to move on.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’

‘It’s the
only
way of looking at it.’ She handed the terminal back to Leah and they both stared at it in silence for a moment.

‘But even if you believe that life is episodic, surely there’s a continuity between chapters?’

‘Not necessarily. I’m the heroine of my story. I can go where I like and never meet the same person twice.’

‘Like a road movie.’

‘Yes, I suppose – like a road movie.’

Leah placed Joanne’s slippers and camisole in a carrier bag and handed it to her across the cash desk. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but the whole deal with a road movie is that the protagonist is either running away from something or in search of something.’

‘And who says I’m not?’ Joanne slung her handbag over her shoulder and tightened the belt of her leather coat.

‘Running away? Or looking for something?’

‘Both.’

They were just reaching the kernel of the conversation and Leah had run out of excuses to keep her in the shop. Her next question had to be a bullseye.

‘And how far along the road are you?’

‘What?’

‘Between what you’re escaping and what you’re seeking?’

Joanne smiled. ‘About halfway,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ said Leah. ‘The hardest place to be.’

‘Indeed,’ said Joanne. And then she turned and left, cutting a swathe through the chattering womenfolk of Muswell Hill like a small but very sharp knife.

32

Toby and Con were in the kitchen together. Toby was stuffing hunks of Greek cheese into raw chicken breasts and Con was wrapping them up in filmy slivers of Parma ham. In the oven was a tray of miniature new potatoes and garlic cloves, slavered in olive oil and strewn with pine nuts and rosemary needles. Some tenderstem broccoli sat in a steamer basket on the work surface and in the fridge there was a pot of home-made tuna paâté which they would have with some pumpkin and sunflower seed bread rolls that Toby had baked specially this afternoon.

Con couldn’t believe how much Toby knew about food. How did he know, for example, that you could put garlic in the oven like that, whole? And that you could cut open a raw chicken breast, stuff it with whatever you fancied, then seal it shut with this ham that was like a sort of meaty cling film? He was making out that everything was really simple and really unexceptional, but to Con what he and Toby were creating in the kitchen tonight felt like magic.

‘Thanks,’ he said to Toby. ‘Thanks for all of this.’ And then, quite unexpectedly, he found himself giving Toby a hug. Not a bear hug, but a sort of clasp. He was surprised by how solid Toby felt underneath his
clothes for someone who looked like they could be blown over by a summer breeze.