MILLIE'S FLING (37 page)

‘They really suit you,’ lied Hester, angling the mirror so the pimply teenager could get a better view of herself. Holding the sequin-and-feather earrings up to her ears she swung her pudgy neck this way and that.

‘They really look great,’ Hester assured her. ‘Not everyone can get away with earrings like that.’ But those red sequins exactly match your spots, she didn’t add.

Not out loud, anyway. Thinking up mean insults was pretty much all that kept her going these days. It was one of the few— pathetically few—remaining pleasures in her life.

‘I can’t decide.’ The girl studied her reflection, then gazed longingly at the other pair she had picked out. ‘I love those ones with the yellow beads as well.’

Ah, the yellow beads that go so well with your yellow teeth, thought Hester with an encouraging smile. Oh God, what's the
matter
with me? I’m turning into a nasty, mean, spiteful witch! At this rate I may never be able to think nice things about anyone ever again.
By this time next week I’ll be reduced to yelling obscenities at complete strangers in the street.

‘I tell you what.’ Ashamed of herself for being so horrible, Hester said, ‘They’re seven pounds a pair, but you can have both pairs for a tenner.’

‘Really?’ The girl's plump chin quivered with delight.

‘Really. When you go out tonight you’ll knock the boys dead.’ This time Hester's smile was genuine. See? I can still be nice when I want to be.

‘It's my birthday today.’ Overcoming her shyness, the girl confided happily, ‘I’m having a party. There's this boy I’ve invited… he's so cool…’

How old was she? Sixteen, Hester guessed. Maybe seventeen. At that age she hadn’t exactly been Claudia Schiffer herself but it hadn’t stopped her chasing after Lucas with all the energy of a Energizer bunny.

‘Have a brilliant time,’ she told the girl as she wrapped up the earrings, ‘and I hope things work out with this boy of yours.’

Take my advice, she added silently, and find out what he's like now. For God's sake don’t waste the next ten years lusting after someone who shags like Mr. Bean. Because by the time you’ve actually made this earth-shattering discovery, you could have messed up your
whole life
.

Danielle was busy pulling a face at the back of a potential punter as he moved away from her stall without buying so much as a single candle. ‘Miserable git,’ she jeered when he was out of earshot. ‘I hope all his hair falls out. And you’re going soft in your old age. That girl would have bought both pairs anyway,’ she went on, tearing the cellophane on her packet of Chelsea buns. ‘You just did yourself out of four quid. Here, catch.’

Hester caught the Chelsea bun.

‘I was just seeing if I could still be nice.’

‘And that's the way you go about being nice?’ Danielle tut-tutted. ‘Try feeding stale bread to the ducks next time. It's cheaper.’

‘I wanted to be nice to a person. I thought it might cheer me up.’ Miserably, Hester bit into the Chelsea bun, giving herself a confectioner's sugar moustache in the process.

‘In that case, throw stale bread at me.’ Danielle made swimming movements with her hands and loud quacking noises. ‘Go on, try me. Bet you I can catch it in my beak.’

Hester began to feel a bit less miserable. Tearing off a corner of Chelsea bun, she lobbed it at Danielle, who leapt off her stool and almost managed to get her mouth to it.

‘Quack, bugger! That was
so
close. Do it again!’

This time the chunk of bun sailed over Danielle's head and bounced off a large silver candle carved into the shape of St. Michael's Mount.

‘My turn!’ Hester scrambled eagerly to her feet, bracing herself like a goalkeeper facing a penalty shoot-out. ‘Let me have a go.’

‘Only if you honk like a goose,’ Danielle demanded.

‘Honk! Honk! HONNKKK!’ bellowed Hester, flapping her wings and waggling her tail. Nodding with approval, Danielle ripped off another bit of bun, took careful aim, and…

‘MMPHHH!’ Punching the air with delight, Hester did an ecstatic little dance on the spot. Half the bun was sticking out of her mouth and there was confectioner's sugar all over her face but she just didn’t care, because she’d caught the bun first go, she’d
leapt
at it like a gazelle…

After all these years, I’ve finally found something I’m really, really good at!

‘She did it,’ Danielle whooped, equally thrilled, ‘She actually did it! Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for—’

Hester gave her an encouraging nod. Why had she stopped? Had she forgotten her name? To help Danielle over her embarrassing memory lapse, she hurriedly removed the wodge of bun from her mouth, spread her arms wide, and declaimed, ‘A
huge
round of applause, please, for… me!’

A fair-sized group of tourists had by this time gathered around the stall. Easily entertained, they laughed and clapped. As she smiled and curtsied, acknowledging their appreciation, Hester wondered why Danielle was doing that thing with her eyebrows. For heaven's sake, it was like two caterpillars wiggling across her forehead, she was making herself look completely
stupid
—

‘Hello, Hester.’

Hester, her sugar-moustached mouth dropping open, swung round. Not looking stupid at all, she stared gormlessly at Nat.

‘Nat?’

Was it
really
him?

‘And there I was, thinking you’d be pining away in a corner,’ Nat told her, ‘because you missed me so much.’

‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ stammered Hester.

‘I’m back.’ Nat was watching her carefully. ‘The question is, is that good news as far as you’re concerned? Or not?’

It was really odd, not knowing. As she struggled to get her act back together, Hester brushed a shower of sugar granules from her mouth.

Finally, she said, ‘That all depends. If you’re here to tell me you’ve just got married to Anastasia, it's not good news at all.’

LIKE A TROOPER, DANIELLE volunteered to look after the stall for the rest of the afternoon. In a daze, Hester allowed Nat to lead her outside. When he took her to one of the crowded pavement cafés on Cassell Street, she wondered if he’d chosen it because he thought dumping her in public would be safer, that she’d be less likely to wail like a banshee and cause an embarrassing scene.

Ha, as if embarrassing scenes weren’t her specialty.

‘Right,’ said Nat, when their drinks had arrived. ‘We need to talk.’

‘That's what I’ve been trying to do for the last few weeks. But you’ve been doing your best to avoid me.’ Hester didn’t mean to sound bitter, but it was hard to be chirpy when your knees were clacking away like castanets under the table. It wasn’t helping, either, that Nat was looking so serious.

It's three months since I last saw him, Hester realized with a stab of longing. He's had his hair cut shorter than ever, he's wearing a yellow shirt I’ve never seen before, there's even a new scar on the back of his hand… all these things happened while he was up in Glasgow and I was down here panting after Lucas.

Don’t think about Lucas.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nat said finally.

Oh God.

‘About what?’ Hester clamped her clattering knees together. ‘Sorry it's all over between us? Sorry you’ve found someone else?

Sorry you were never there when I phoned because you were too busy shagging Anastasia?’

Nat didn’t flinch.

‘It's not like that. I was never involved with Anastasia. Not in the way you mean.’ He waited. ‘But I’m sorry I made you think I was.’

Hester's hands were shaking. She didn’t dare pick up her drink because she knew she’d only spill it down her front.

‘So what are you doing here now?’

‘I told you. I’ve come home. For good,’ said Nat.

For good?

‘Why?’

He shrugged.

‘Why not?’

Stunned, Hester gasped, ‘Did they sack you?’

‘No. I handed in my notice.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I missed you.’ Nat sounded calm but she sensed he wasn’t. ‘And me being up there wasn’t doing either of us any favors. But of course the rest is up to you,’ he went on slowly. ‘You might not want me back. I saw the chap who drove you home the morning after that party, remember? For all I know, you two could still be seeing each other.’

‘Me and Con Deveraux? Are you serious? I
told
you,’ wailed Hester. ‘He gave me a lift. Nothing happened between us, that's the God's honest truth. How can I make you believe me?’

‘I believe you.’ Nat nodded to show he meant it.

‘And now you have to tell me about Anastasia,’ Hester blurted out. Oh help, this was like instructing the dentist to rip out all your wisdom teeth without anaesthetic. Did she really want to be doing this?

‘Annie's a TV producer,’ said Nat.

Jealousy rose up in Hester like a wave. Oh brilliant, so not the
least bit glamorous then. Just your humdrum, ordinary, everyday TV producer. Fine, fine.

Swallowing, she croaked, ‘Go on.’

‘Her company's been filming one of those fly-on-the-wall documentaries in the restaurant.’

‘Wouldn’t that be a fly-in-the-soup documentary?’ Hester couldn’t help it; when she was nervous she had a habit of saying stupid things.

‘Anyway.’ Nat ignored her feeble stab at humor. ‘They began filming three weeks ago. Jacques was in his element, throwing tantrums, playing to the camera, chucking saucepans at the junior staff and making them cry… well, you know what he's like.’

Hester nodded. She’d never met the famously temperamental Michelin-starred chef, but she’d heard about him from Nat. Jacques made Gordon Ramsay look like Terry Gilliam in a wimple.

‘The rest of us let Jacques get on with it. He was the star of the show, after all. I just kept my mouth shut and stayed in the background. Anastasia was too scared of getting her head bitten off to ask Jacques any questions. So every time she needed to find out something or have some tricky technique demonstrated, she came to me. And after a while she started telling me I was such a natural in front of the camera, she could see me with my own TV show.’

Ha! Hester bristled. I’ll bet she could! And did she by any chance happen to have her lithe body pressed against yours and her hand plunged meaningfully down the front of your trousers at the time?

Desperate not to picture the scene—at least, not in any more shudder-making detail than she was already doing—Hester said accusingly, ‘You never mentioned
any
of this to me.’

‘It all happened after Orla Hart's party. I needed time to think things through.’ Nat gave her a pointed look. ‘Annie was getting keener and keener on the idea, pressing me for a decision, and I needed to think about that too. It would mean moving down to
London. Throwing myself into the whole media scene, doing endless PR to sell the program. I didn’t tell you,’ he went on, ‘because I didn’t want it to be a factor in how you felt about me.’

Thanks a lot, Hester thought indignantly, but a small, shameful corner of her knew he’d been right not to. Cringing inwardly like a slug showered in salt, she reminded herself that the reason she’d been so enraptured by Lucas in the first place had been the fact that he was a DJ with his very own show on ritzy, racy Radio Cornwall.

Worse still, Nat knew this. Oh God, she was as bad as those girls whose ambition in life was to sleep with a premier-league footballer. No wonder he didn’t trust her an inch.

‘Okay,’ Hester whispered. ‘So what happens next?’

He was back for a few days, at a guess. Then off to London to begin his glitzy new life as a celebrity chef.

Nat's gaze was unwavering.

‘I decided against it.’

‘What!
Why
?’ Hester's head jerked up in astonishment.

‘I want to cook, not show other people how to cook. I’m a chef. Slaving away in a kitchen is what I do. It's what I love doing. As for all that “it's-not-what-you-know, it's-who-you-know” business and being seen out at all the right parties… well, that's just not me.’

Hester pictured Nat on TV. There was a lump the size of a kiwi fruit in her throat.

‘Well, I’m glad you’re not going. But you could have done it, you know. You’d be great on TV.’

She meant it. He would have been fantastic. Nat had an easy way about him that inspired confidence. He possessed massive enthusiasm for his subject, endless patience, and wonderful flashes of humor that made you feel as if the sun had just come out. Remembering the time he’d spent an entire afternoon teaching her how to make faultless mayonnaise—they’d ended up using seventeen eggs—tears sprang unexpectedly into Hester's eyes.

If you rolled Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith together—into a mille-feuille, perhaps—you’d get Nat.

‘Well, thanks. But I decided against it.’ Nat smiled briefly. ‘And as it turned out, I made the right choice. I hadn’t realized there was a hidden agenda.’

‘Oh.’ Hester guessed at once. ‘You mean Anastasia…?’

‘Had a massive crush on me. I was completely in the dark about it.’ Bemused, Nat ruffled his short spiky hair. ‘I hadn’t a clue what was going on. Until she tried to get me into bed and I turned her down.’ He raised his expressive eyebrows in despair. ‘She ended up going completely mental.’

This was absolutely typical of Nat. He had no idea how attractive he was to the opposite sex. If a woman stood in front of him and peeled off all her clothes, Hester thought, he’d simply assume she must be feeling a bit hot.

‘What kind of mental?’

‘Furious. Jesus, more than furious. She couldn’t believe I wasn’t interested. God, she even accused me of leading her on.’ Nat hunched his broad, rugby-player's shoulders in disbelief. ‘
And
she told me I was an ungrateful little shit. She said I could forget about moving down to London, she’d find someone else to launch into the big-time. Launch,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘Like a ship. Can you credit it?’

‘Plenty more chefs in the sea,’ said Hester.

‘So anyway, that was that. I handed in my notice and now here I am.’

Idiotically, Hester said, ‘And now here you are.’

God, sparkling conversationalist or what? Look out, Jonathan Ross.

‘My sister's offered to put me up until I find a place of my own. And finding another job—any old job—shouldn’t be a problem.’