* *
My mother arrived just as Dan was leaving.
‘Who was that?’ she asked as she headed straight for the fitting room.
‘A journalist called Dan,’ I replied. ‘He’s just interviewed me for a local paper. He’s a bit chaotic.’
‘He looked rather nice,’ she said as she stood in front of the mirror scrutinising her appearance. ‘He was hideously dressed, but I like curly hair on a man. It’s unusual.’ Her reflected face looked at me with anxious disappointment. ‘I wish you could find someone again, Phoebe – I hate you being on your own. Being on your own is no fun. As I can testify,’ she added bitterly.
‘I rather enjoy it. I intend to be on my own for a long time, quite possibly forever.’
Mum snapped open her bag. ‘That’s very likely to be my fate, darling, but I don’t want it to be yours.’ She took out one of her expensive new lipsticks. It resembled a gold bullet. ‘I know you’ve had a hard year, darling.’
‘Yes,’ I murmured.
‘And I know’ – she glanced at Emma’s hat – ‘that you’ve been … suffering.’ My mother could have no idea quite how much. ‘But,’ she said as she twisted up the colour, ‘I still don’t understand’ – I knew what was coming – ‘why you had to end things with Guy. I know I only met him three times, but I thought he was charming, handsome and nice.’
‘He was all those things,’ I agreed. ‘He was lovely. In fact, he was perfect.’
In the mirror Mum’s eyes met mine. ‘Then what happened between you?’
‘Nothing,’ I lied. ‘My feelings just … changed. I told you that.’
‘Yes. But you’ve never said why.’ Mum drew the colour – a slightly garish coral – across her upper lip. ‘The whole thing seemed quite perverse, if you don’t mind my saying so. Of course, you were very unhappy at the time.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But then what happened to Emma …’ I closed my eyes to try and shut out the images that will haunt me forever. ‘Wel l… it was terrible,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t know how she could do that … And to think what she had going for her … so much.’
‘So much,’ I echoed bitterly.
Mum blotted her lower lip with a tissue. ‘But what I don’t understand is why it then followed, sad though you were, that you had to end what appeared to be a happy relationship with a very nice man. I think you had a sort of nervous breakdown,’ she went on. ‘It wouldn’t be surprising …’ She smacked her lips together. ‘I don’t think you knew what you were doing.’
‘I knew exactly,’ I retorted calmly. ‘But you know what, Mum, I don’t want to talk ab—’
‘How did you meet him?’ she suddenly asked. ‘You never told me that.’
I felt my face heat up. ‘Through Emma.’
‘Really?’ Mum looked at me. ‘How typically sweet of her,’ she said as she turned back to the mirror. ‘Introducing you to a nice man like that.’
‘Yes,’ I said uneasily …
‘I’ve met someone,’ Emma had said excitedly over the phone a year ago. ‘My head’s in a spin, Phoebe. He’s … wonderful.’ My heart had sunk, not just because Emma was always saying that she’d met someone ‘wonderful’, but because these men were usually anything but. Emma would be in raptures about them, then a month later she’d be avoiding them, saying they were ‘dreadful’. ‘I met him at a fund-raising do,’ she’d explained. ‘He runs an investment fund – but the good thing,’ she’d added with her usual, endearing artlessness, ‘is that it’s an ethical one.’
‘That sounds interesting. So he must be clever then.’
‘He got a first from the LSE. Not that he told me that,’ she added quickly. ‘I got it from Google. We’ve been on a few dates, but things are moving on so I’d like you to check him out.’
‘Emma,’ I sighed. ‘You are thirty-three years old. You are becoming very successful. You now dress the heads of some of the most famous women in the UK. Why do you need my approval?’
‘Well …’ I heard her clicking her tongue. ‘Because I guess old habits die hard. I’ve always asked your opinion about men, haven’t I?’ she mused. ‘Right from when we were teenagers.’
‘Yes – but we’re not teenagers now. You’ve got to have confidence in your own judgement, Em.’
‘I hear what you say. But I still want you to meet Guy.
I’ll have a little dinner party next week and sit you next to him, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I sighed …
I wish I didn’t have to be involved, I thought as I helped Emma in the kitchen of her rented house in Marylebone the following Thursday evening. From the sitting room came the sound of nine people laughing and talking. Emma’s idea of a ‘little’ dinner party was a five-course meal for twelve. As I got down the plates I thought of the men Emma had been ‘madly in love with’ over the past couple of years: Arnie the fashion photographer who’d two-timed her with a hand-model; Finian the garden designer who spent every weekend with his six-year-old daughter – and her mum. Then there’d been Julian, a bespectacled stockbroker with an interest in philosophy but precious little else. Emma’s latest attachment had been to Peter, a violinist with the London Philharmonic. That had looked promising – he was very nice and she could talk to him about music; but then he’d gone on a three-month world tour with the orchestra and had come back engaged to the second flute.
Maybe this chap Guy would be a better bet, I thought as I rummaged in a drawer for Emma’s napkins.
‘Guy is perfect,’ she said as she opened the oven, releasing a burst of steam and an aroma of roasting lamb. ‘He’s the one, Phoebe,’ she said happily.
‘That’s what you always say.’ I began folding the napkins.
‘Well, this time it’s true. I’m going to kill myself if it doesn’t work out,’ she added gaily.
I stopped mid-fold. ‘Don’t be so silly, Em. It’s not even as though you’ve known him that long.’
‘True – though I know what I feel. But he’s late,’ she wailed as she took the lamb out to rest it. She thumped the Le Creuset meat dish down on to the table, her face a mask of anxiety. ‘Do you think he’s going to turn up?’
‘Of course he is,’ I said. ‘It’s only eight forty-five – he’s probably just been held up at work.’
Emma kicked shut the oven door. ‘Then why didn’t he phone?’
‘Maybe he’s stuck on the tube …’ Anxiety contorted her features again. ‘Em – don’t worry …’
She began basting the meat. ‘I can’t help it. I’d love to be calm and collected like
