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‘I don’t know her at all actually. Older than us, isn’t she?’
‘A few years, I think. She was very kind when… when Abi…’ I can’t go on for fear of sounding passive aggressive. The fact is, Jen has called in more often than Bella this last year. In that she has called round at all.
‘She’s a lawyer, isn’t she?’ Bella asks, wiping another blob of gunge onto my sad split ends. ‘I know he’s a structural engineer obviously, because of Neil.’
‘She’s a lawyer, yes, I think so. Divorce, possibly. He has an office on Eel Pie, I think.’
‘That’s right. I went there when…’ She blushes, gives a vigorous stir to the paste in its black plastic bowl. ‘She works up in town, doesn’t she? I think they drop the kids, then he drops her at the station then drives over to Eel Pie.’
I shrug. To my shame, I haven’t really met their kids. I know only that their younger daughter is about the age Abi would have been, or might still be, because I remember seeing Jen persuade her into the car once at the weekend. The older one, I have never actually seen, which seems incredible to me now I think about it. They’d only recently moved in when Abi went missing, and this last year I have deliberately designed my timetable so that I don’t bump into anyone. Johnnie, like most, has kept his distance, and when Jen has come to see me, she has come alone. I suppose I should feel honoured, or something, that she’s made such an effort to get to know me, especially under the circumstances. I could have asked to see her house, I suppose, and she would have gladly shown me round, but I haven’t even thought of it. It’s amazing how immaterial the material world can become when you lose someone who was a living part of you. And it’s ironic that, in having no interest in the luxurious sheen of the street’s new golden couple, I’ve inadvertently become closer to them than anyone else. Closer to one half of them, at least. From what Matt tells me, it would appear that every single one of my neighbours would give their right arm to be friends with the Lovegoods. Which explains why every single invitation has been accepted with such alacrity.
‘The nanny brings them back apparently,’ Bella is saying, and I realise I haven’t been listening. ‘That Volkswagen Up is hers – you know the little black one? They bought it for her. Bought the nanny a car – who does that? There’s something superior about them, I think. I mean, I know it’s all SUVs round here now, but a Porsche Cayenne is just showing off, isn’t it, and that bright orange colour… Honest to God, d’you know what he said to Nee? He said, orange as in cayenne, you know, as in cayenne pepper, like Neil wouldn’t know what cayenne pepper was.’ She laughs. ‘Idiot. And patronising. Like we wouldn’t know what cayenne pepper was, cheeky sod. Can you believe that? I bet I can cook better than him. I did courgette flowers last week for me and Nee. I bet he’d have a heart attack if he knew. He’d be like, don’t you people have egg and chips? Honestly, a Porsche just so you can go two miles down the road. I mean, I get it, mate, you’re as rich as the Kardashians.’ She laughs again before shaking the little plastic bowl at me and telling me she’s evil, isn’t she and to hold on while she fetches the heat lamp.
She leaves me sitting in my cape, trying not to stare at my nose growing under the harsh lights, the shadows blackening under my eyes, trying not to think about how much more she knows about my next-door neighbours than I do, despite the bud of friendship with Jen so recently flowered. We are not friends, not really, I think with a flash of guilt. If we were friends, I would have asked her about herself. I would know about her children, more about her job, where she’s from. Instead, I’ve just let her be the shoulder I chose to cry on. I’ve used her, in a way. I resolve to remedy that.
Meanwhile, the fact that Bella thinks Johnnie is condescending comes as no surprise. But as far as I remember, he was kindness itself that day. It was Johnnie who let Bella use his office printer to make the extra leaflets and posters – ah yes, of course, that’s what she meant a moment ago, why she blushed and moved on so quickly.
‘I should have offered to pay for the ink,’ I say to my reflection before stirring out of my daydream, checking that no one saw me talking to myself.
No one is looking at me. No one cares. No one really notices anything – not even a little girl wandering alone up a road, a toddler talking to the ducks at the river’s edge, reaching too far, too far… falling in.
I can hear a hairdryer, but I don’t know if that’s because someone has just turned it on or if I have re-tuned to it. A jingle, the promise of an hour of classic love songs later. The chemical smell of hair products. The jabber of women talking. A glance into the mirror reveals a woman with my face, but thinner and older than me, her hair covered in folded strips of tin foil. She looks utterly exhausted. I am too young to look like her. I am too young to look like this.
Bella reappears wheeling a heat lamp, wide bulbs branching off like hydra heads. This she positions over my head. She is fixing the outside of me. She is putting up the scaffold, doing what she can.
We are all, all of us, doing what we can.
Sixteen
Matt
The doorbell goes at 6.30 p.m. Ava is still upstairs getting ready after Fred, apparently picking up on his mother’s anxiety, was restless during his feed. Matt wishes she was here with him now; he would be able to give her a last hug before the party, a last encouraging word. She has barely spoken to him today, barely looked at him.
As it is, Fred asleep on one arm, he opens the front door to find Neil and Bella, as expected. Opening the door to them would have been nothing a year ago – it would have been Friday-night takeaway or movie night, maybe a lazy Sunday lunch. Now, the sight of them all dolled up takes him aback.
As if to emphasise the near formality of what was once so casual, Neil looks like he has come directly from the barber’s. The sides of his blonde hair have been close-shaved, and his remaining hair, piled up and back, looks stiff with wax. He has on a crisp white shirt withSuperdryembroidered on the breast pocket in navy blue, matching navy chino-style trousers and tan brogues. Neil has always been hyper-clean and smart, always freshly shaved, even on site, but since he met Bella, about six years ago now, he is immaculate. Even his overalls are white, a fresh set each day. Bella found Neil the way most people round here find their houses: great location, solid foundations but in need of TLC, to coin a favourite estate-agent term. And to be fair, she has showered her refurbishment project with plenty of tender loving care.
Bella, in a swishy dress and high-heeled sandals and smelling strongly of perfume, follows Neil into the house, handing Matt a bottle of Prosecco as he leans in to kiss her cheek.
‘No need for this,’ he says. ‘We’re only having a quick one here, aren’t we? Take it with you to the party.’
‘It’s OK, I’ve got another in my bag.’ She swings her hip to reveal a large white leather bag with a telltale bottle-shaped bulge. ‘I’ve got some chocs as well. Hotel Chocolat.’ She pronounces Chocolatchockerlarrand Matt hates himself for noticing – it is precisely the kind of educated snobbery Neil would despise, and that he himself despises.
‘Thank you, that’s really kind.’ Matt holds up the bottle, suddenly awkward in his own skin even though he knows Bella is always over-generous. He’s lost the habit of her, he realises. He discovered long ago that her over-the-top way – of giving, of dressing, of talking, of partying – is insecurity, knows that from Neil, who once told him that Bella feels she needs to do more, to be more, just to be enough. And yet to meet her, you’d think she was the most confident woman in the world.
Bella swishes past him in her thick cloud of scent. Her dress, Matt suspects, is up-to-the-minute: a soft animal print with thin shoulder straps that show off her gecko shoulder tattoo, arms tanned and muscular from the gym. He takes in her spike-heeled sandals, the painted toenails, and they bother him because he can’t separate her polished appearance from how it might make Ava feel. Ava has a different style, is a completely different kind of person, but even so, of late…
‘Just let me pop Fred in the basket,’ he says, escaping into the living room.
When he returns, Bella is arranging her leather jacket on the back of a bar stool, complaining that it’s too hot. He tries not to notice that they’ve chosen the places they always used to sit in, as if their seats have been saved.
‘Thing is,’ she says, wiggling back into her seat, ‘once the sun goes down, it gets chilly, doesn’t it? I just brought my leather thinking we might be in the garden later. If they’ve invited the whole street, there won’t be room in the kitchen for everyone, will there? I mean, it’s a big kitchen but it’s not that big, and it can get chilly, can’t it? Really chilly once the sun goes in. You don’t want to be cold, do you? Nothing worse than being cold.’
She plucks at an olive and pops it into her mouth, almost as if she is telling herself to shut up. Her long nails are painted the colour of a field mouse. This must be the latest shade. Matt remembers a few years ago Bella getting very excited over a pinky-beige colour that looked to him like calamine lotion and which she’d had done at her salon. He and Ava had laughed about it afterwards, which he regrets now as he pulls four flutes down from the cupboard and places them on the kitchen bar. But the fact is, Neil and Bella are so different and sometimes he and Ava need to process it, that’s all. And it’s not like they themselves don’t have their insecurities.
‘So nice to be getting together again,’ Neil says, taking charge of the bottle opening. He has rolled up his sleeves; the tips of his thumbs whiten against the cork.
‘It so is,’ Bella chimes in. ‘I can’t wait to see their place. Do you think they’ll let their kids come down for a bit? I’ve never even seen their kids. You have, haven’t you, Nee?’
