Intrigued, I opened the package. Inside it was a dress—a sophisticated-looking black one. And, in a smaller packet, a bright red lipstick.
“They’re lovely,” I said, baffled.
“I thought you could wear them tomorrow.”
I frowned. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes. You’re not dog walking, are you? And we’re going out for a meal later on. Grace always looks so glamorous, doesn’t she? I thought you’d like to too. Go on, try it on.”
“What, now?”
“Yes, why not?”
I was still wearing the jeans and jumper I’d been wearing all day. If the girls hadn’t used up all the hot water for their baths, I’d have been in my pyjamas and dressing gown after a good old soak myself. I was feeling a bit sleepy after our day out and not in the mood to put on glamorous clothes. But, of course, I went upstairs to get changed. It would have been churlish not to. I had to wriggle a bit to get the dress over my head—it was quite tight fitting—but as I pulled it down over my hips, I knew that was the way it was supposed to be.
I stood in front of the mirror, gazing at my reflection. I’d lost a few pounds since moving to Ely, maybe in part due to the vegetarian diet. Anyway, for whatever reason, there were fewer bulges for the tight-fitting jersey material to emphasise, and I suspected Jaimie would approve. But did he really mean for me to wear it all day the next day? Not just for our meal out?
Jaimie joined me at the mirror. “You look fabulous,” he said. “Like the woman I met at the wedding reception last Christmas.”
I frowned, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “Is that who you want me to be?” I asked. “Do I disappoint you?”
“Of course not!” He turned me round to face him, planting a kiss on my lips. “I just think you look even more gorgeous than ever when you make a bit of an effort. Now, let’s get this off, shall we?”
“I only just put it on.”
“So?” he said, kissing me again.
12
I wore the dress the next day, as Jaimie had requested. And the lipstick. I even painted my nails red to match. The girls loved it and asked me to paint their nails too.
“What’s this colour called, Beth?” Olivia asked.
I tilted the bottle of nail polish to take a look. “Cherry Kisses.”
“Strawberry Kisses would be better,” Emily said. “I don’t like cherries.”
“No,” agreed Olivia. “They’re yucky.”
“It’s a nice red, though, don’t you think?” I said. “Well, I hope you do, because it’s the only colour I’ve got.”
“It’s okay,” said Emily, holding out her hand.
“Me first!” said Olivia, trying to barge her sister away.
“I tell you what, I’ll do one of Emily’s hands, and then I’ll do one of yours, Olivia.”
“But we need both our hands done,” protested Olivia.
I pretended to be surprised. “Do you? Are you sure?”
“Yes, silly.”
“Okay, then. Both hands it is.”
Then, when I was painting the nails on her left hand, Olivia smiled cheekily and said, “Poo-poo brown is a good colour for nail varnish.”
She erupted into giggles, watching my face. I wasn’t sure whether I ought to have been rebuking her, especially as I badly wanted to smile.
“Dog Dirt Damson,” suggested Emily, impressing me with her knowledge of fruit.
“I tell you what,” I said. “Next time I go shopping, I’ll be sure to keep a lookout for both those shades.”
But Olivia hadn’t finished. “Dog Wee White!” she said, giggling.
“Dog wee isn’t white—it’s yellow!” Emily corrected her.
“Thank you, girls. I think that’s enough, don’t you?” I said, finally stepping in. “If you like dogs so much, you can help out at the dog show my company is running next spring.”
Their eyes grew wide with excitement. “Can we, Beth? Really and truly?”
“Yes, of course. You can help to judge the waggiest-tail competition.” I looked at them, mock stern. “Of course, you’ll have to promise to be sensible. No being cheeky. No being rude.”
“We promise. Don’t we, Emily?”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, we’d better paint the nails on your other hands, hadn’t we?”
My heart lifted as I got busy with the nail polish again. For five minutes or so, the girls and I had actually had fun together. Maybe Jaimie was right. Maybe it was just a question of time. Perhaps being more girlie or joking around was the way to break down some of the barriers between me and Jaimie’s daughters.
But before I could start pencilling in a spa break or stand-up comedy gig, the girls ran off to play Pop-Up Pirate!, smearing their nail varnish in the process and forcing Jaimie out to the superstore for nail polish remover when I discovered I hadn’t got any. “Harriet will go crazy when she sees them in that state,” he muttered as he left the house.
While he was gone, the Pop-Up Pirate! game deteriorated into a row, Emily announced she was bored, and Olivia kept rushing to the window to ask when “Auntie Grace” was going to arrive.
Partly to escape, I ventured outside to the woodpile in my unsuitably glamorous dress for logs to keep the wood burner going. It was drizzling, the sky like a wet grey flannel stretched out behind the spindly branches of the grey poplar trees beyond the property. Ghastly Grey, Olivia might have called it. Miserable Murk.
As I stood there, I could hear nothing—absolutely nothing at all. No birdsong, no golfers on the golf course. The idyllic hammock-slumbering days of summer were a distant memory. And suddenly I was overwhelmed with nostalgia for my old neighbourhood. For my garden and my old flat. Had my tenants taken good care of it? They’d promised to do so, but that didn’t mean they had. Their tenancy had just ended, so I would need to go and check the place over before I let it anyway, so I’d soon see.
Staring out at the spindly trees, I pictured myself going down my steps, letting myself in. Would it still feel like home? Or would I feel a bit displaced, the way I did here sometimes?
The sound of Jaimie’s car pulling into the drive reached me, and I shook my head at myself, turning my back on the garden and going into the house.
Jaimie was in the kitchen. He held up a bottle of nail varnish remover and a bag of chocolate chip cookies to show me. “Peace offering,” he said. “Sorry I snapped.”
I shrugged. “No, it’s all right. I should have thought. They’re too young for nail varnish just yet.”
He gave me a little squeeze and moved past me to put the kettle on. “Maybe just a little,” he agreed.
And somehow, hug or not, shared laughter with the girls or not, I felt as if I’d failed. Again.
Mark, Grace, and Rosie arrived promptly at twelve o’clock. Of course they did—Grace was driving. If it had been Rosie behind the wheel, we’d have been given a two-hour window for their arrival, the exact time being determined by when Rosie got up. She was notoriously late for everything, which made it constantly surprising that she had such a high-powered job involving lots of travel. Rosie was to catch a train back to London on Tuesday, just in time for Christmas with her parents at Enfield. She’d already called me a traitor because I wasn’t going there this year, but I could hardly leave Jaimie, as this was his big Christmas with his girls. And besides, after abandoning me for Giorgio the previous year, she didn’t have a leg to stand on anyway.