Читать книгу Christmas Magic - Cathy Kelly - Страница 9

Purple was not my colour. Not even a subtle, iris-hued gossamer cardigan that was supposed to drape delicately over the shoulders, revealing elegant collarbones before ending in fragile scallops around a Scarlett O’Hara-sized waist.

That’s what it would have looked like on Chloë, my older sister: a girlie confection of silk that made the wearer look part water fairy/part supermodel.

On me, it just looked like something I’d knit myself, without the pattern. The tiny, elbow-length sleeves made my own solid forearms look as if they belonged to a sheet-metal welder, while the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons were stretched in a too-small rictus with the buttonholes as they strained against extra-enormous PMS-variety boobs.

In the cardigan and a slithery lilac skirt, I resembled nothing so much as a bruise in full colour. A big bruise.

Not the elegant, lissom girl I wanted to transform myself into before the ten-year school reunion. Which was only six days away!

‘Come out of the cubicle, Sarah,’ ordered Chloë. ‘We want to see you.’

I came out gloomily.

Chloë and the assistant looked at me for a moment, matching bird-like blonde heads at an angle, mascaraed eyes narrowed as they took in the purple ensemble.

They looked more like sisters than Chloë and I did: both petite, fine-boned and capable of giving admiring men in passing cars whiplash.

Being six foot tall with an athletic build, the only way I’d ever give a man whiplash was if I banged into him at full tilt.

With my height, men just weren’t interested in me. I mean, I was the only female researcher in Reel People TV who’d never been chatted up by the Head of Marketing, although my colleague Lottie reckoned this was because even Slimy Eric didn’t have the nerve to flirt with a woman who could look down on his bald patch. It wasn’t that I secretly longed to feel his sweaty paw on my backside in the secrecy of the executive lift. I just wanted to be one of the girls for a change, instead of Amazon Woman.

‘Perhaps the green one?’ suggested the sales assistant.

Green! If purple made me look like a female boxer after a title match, green was even worse. Green made me look seasick, bilious, like second-stage bruising.

‘I mean,’ the assistant continued helpfully, seeing as I wasn’t saying anything to the contrary, ‘with your auburn hair, green would be lovely.’

‘Green doesn’t suit her,’ Chloë announced in a bored voice, studying perfect gel nails for flaws.

Sometimes I hate Chloë.

‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll have a wander around the shop and see if there’s something else I’d like,’ I lied, obviously convincingly enough, as the assistant drifted off to flog more Tiny Tears-sized clothes.

‘I don’t think there’s anything else here that would suit you, and we don’t have much time,’ Chloë said crushingly. ‘I have to be back in the office in half an hour.’

God forbid that she didn’t get back to PR Solutions in time, I thought crossly, wrenching the curtain across the cubicle.

I mean, who else would be able to organise all those crucial details for the latest society launch she was involved in – like making sure the Page Three stunna who was guest of honour didn’t end up sitting beside the footballer she’d kissed and told about the week before, or checking they’d got the right sort of mineral water so that the ladies who lunched wouldn’t be belching through the speeches.

I carefully inched my way out of a hundred and fifty quid’s worth of purple spider’s web and simmered. Why did my only sibling have to drive me insane every time she opened her mouth?

Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I reached for my T-shirt, I remembered why. Because Chloë was gorgeous and I wasn’t. Because she had attractive men falling over themselves to take her out to dinner while my last date had been with a systems analyst named Humphrey who’d taken me to a sports club in Clapham and run out of cash after buying me two vodkas. And because at the age of twenty-seven I was sick and tired of being ‘the clever one’.

Just a year apart in age, we were a million years apart in everything else. All through school, Chloë’d had endless boyfriends and everyone loved her. She’d actually been voted the most popular girl in the school in her last term. My claim to fame was winning the fifth-year physics prize, not an achievement guaranteed to make you a member of the cool gang. Chloë wasn’t just a member of the gang; she ran it. Despite that, I still wasn’t allowed in.

Ten years after leaving school, it still rankled. The invitation to the reunion had seemed like the ideal chance to redress the balance, to prove to the old girls of St Agatha’s that I was different from the Sarah Powell of old: glamorous, successful, and chased by scores of men. Except that I wasn’t any of those things. Well, I was successful enough. I’d just been given a promotion – without the help of the Head of Marketing – and I’d saved up enough for the deposit on a flat of my own. But the ‘glamorous and chased by men’ bit was a non-starter. You couldn’t be glamorous with unruly long red curls, freckles and the build of an Olympic swimmer.

I’d drafted Chloë in to help purchase the perfect outfit. If anyone knew how to wow the St Agatha’s Old Girls, it was Chloë. But that hadn’t exactly panned out either. I suppose you couldn’t expect a size-eight nymph to know what would suit a six-foot-tall Olympian with no discernible waist.

We hurried along Old Brompton Road together. Me stomping along in my TV researcher’s uniform of black jeans, black leather jacket and white agnès b T-shirt. Chloë immaculate in a white Michael Kors trouser suit, killer stilettos and more MAC than Lady Gaga needed for a photo-shoot.

I was too disheartened to talk but she chattered away like a canary on acid.

There was a guy she liked from another PR company, she said, but she didn’t think he liked her.

‘Why not?’ I said, surprised. Men loved Chloë.

‘He just doesn’t, right?’ she snapped.

‘Fine,’ I said, although I didn’t think Chloë had ever met a man before who didn’t fall at her feet. She was obviously imagining it. He was probably shy. I was about to tell her to just chat to him, but I thought better of it. How could I give Chloë advice?

We kept walking.

‘We’re organising the opening of the Jacob Kelian exhibition at Jo Jo’s on Friday night and everything’s been going wrong,’ she fretted, half-running to keep up with my long strides.

‘Who’s Jacob Kelian?’ I asked, wondering if he was that bloke I’d seen on TV who made sculptures out of old wine bottles. If it was the same guy, he’d go berserk with delight when he saw all the raw materials he could dredge up from the drinks cupboard at my place. We never got around to cleaning out the old bottles, and when we were manless – most of the time – myself and my flatmate, Susie, went through quite a lot of bottles of wine for our spritzers.

‘Honestly,’ huffed Chloë. ‘Don’t you ever read the arts pages? He’s only the hottest young artist around. He paints the most amazing nudes in oils.’

‘Oh,’ I muttered, keeping an eye out for taxis as I was now very late for work. ‘Sorry, never heard of him.’

‘He’s gorgeous, you know – Jacob. I met him yesterday. Real he-man stuff, American-football shoulders,’ Chloë said dreamily. ‘You can come along on Friday, if you want,’ she added off-handedly. ‘It’ll be fun.’

Since my usual Friday-night plans involved watching TV or going out with Susie and our pals to the Duke’s Head, I accepted. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. And there were bound to be cocktail nibbly things to eat, so I wouldn’t have to cook that night. Although it did cross my mind that Chloë probably wanted me there so I could hand out the cocktail nibbly things.

On Tuesday I left work early and hit the shops desperately hoping that the perfect reunion dress would leap out at me screaming Buy Me! Buy Me!

Nothing leapt out, apart from a blue fleece jacket that would look great with jeans but would hardly cut the mustard in Brighton’s poshest restaurant among sixty Prada-clad high-fliers.

Dejected and ravenous, I hiked over to Marks & Spencer’s food hall and proceeded to trawl the aisles for dinner. Forget the latest turn-into-a-nymph-in-a-week diet, I thought savagely, as I threw a brace of full-fat chocolate dessert things in my basket along with a tub of ice cream.

The reunion’s on Saturday, my conscience reminded me, so I put it all back and took two low-cal mousses instead.

‘I can never make up my mind either,’ said a deep voice with a faint American twang. ‘I love the fatty stuff, but you’ve got to really work it off.’

I wheeled around and found myself staring up – yes, up – at a dark-haired man in denim who was holding a shopping basket crammed with fruit. He was undeniably good-looking, with short, wavy hair brushed casually back, glittering black eyes and enough designer stubble to make him a dead ringer for the Diet Coke bloke. Broad-shouldered and lean in a grey marl sweatshirt worn with faded jeans, he was one of the few men I’d ever met who dwarfed me. He certainly looked like he worked out. All he needed was the Harley Davidson, I thought with a gulp, noticing the biker boots and the chunky diver’s watch on one massive tanned wrist.

‘I don’t usually do this, but I couldn’t help noticing you,’ he said, dark eyes appraising me coolly. ‘Would you like to go for a drink when you’ve picked up your groceries?’

I stared at him the way you would stare at a strange, admittedly gorgeous man who’d just chatted you up in the supermarket. My mind raced. This had to be a joke. There was no way he was for real. Men like this went for beautiful girls like Chloë. They didn’t eye up women like me over the low-fat yogurts, even when I was wearing my favourite pinstripe stretchy trouser suit and had recently washed my hair.

I peered around him, convinced I’d see someone from Reel People TV hiding behind the cheese, giggling hysterically at the idea of having set me up so marvellously. I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew they were there. It had to be Lottie’s idea; she loved practical jokes and had just started dating some American bloke. They’d probably spotted me coming into M&S and had decided to play a wicked trick. It wasn’t going to work.

‘Are you on a day release, by any chance?’ I asked, trying to sound supercilious. ‘Is this Care in the Community Week?’

‘No.’ He looked a bit surprised at this. One dark eyebrow went up in a look that was almost genuine. Probably an out-of-work actor, I thought. Lottie loved actors.

I marched off towards the vegetables. Nobody was going to make a fool out of me. He followed.

I picked up some celery and stuck it virtuously in my basket. Whoever he was, he wouldn’t be able to tell Lottie that I was a glutton who ate the wrong things. I dumped another packet of celery in for good measure. The fact that I didn’t like celery was immaterial. You could use it for Pimm’s, couldn’t you?

‘I didn’t mean to give you a shock, but I really would like to buy you a drink,’ he said, standing very close to me so that I could smell his aftershave, a musky scent I didn’t recognise.

New York? I wondered. I’d never been very good at American accents. I’d rilly likta buy y’a drink. Great accent, great voice. Dark, rich and treacly. Great-looking guy. I sighed. Why couldn’t this be happening for real?

To take my mind off him I stared at the avocados. I loved them with vinaigrette, onions and black pepper. But they were anti-diet items and I only bought them in moments of complete piggery.

Mr America expertly squeezed a couple of avocados with one tanned hand and stuck them in my basket. I stuck them back on the rack with their friends.

‘Avocados are full of protein and their nutritious qualities outweigh their calorific content,’ he pointed out calmly, putting them back in my basket.

‘What are you telling me that for?’ I demanded, eyes glinting dangerously. ‘Are you telling me I’m big or something?’ The joke was going too far.

‘No, you’re just right.’

I stuffed his bloody avocados at him crossly. ‘Yeah, and every actress in Hollywood would look better with another stone or two on.’

‘Probably,’ he said evenly.

‘Anyway, what are you doing in the vegetable section?’ I pointed accusingly at his basket where a head of lettuce and two giant cucumbers nestled in the middle of a large bunch of bananas, a honeydew melon, several lemons and a net of oranges. ‘You’ve got enough fruit and vegetables for a vegan orgy. Are you following me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you a friend of Lottie’s?’ I snapped.

‘Lottie? Who the hell is Lottie?’ he asked, his accent becoming even more pronounced.

He couldn’t have faked that much surprise. Not unless he was a very good actor, and a very good actor would have been rehearsing for some play or other and wouldn’t have time to play games with Lottie.

‘You mean you’re not doing this for a joke?’ I asked in a less strident voice.

His eyes, which were intelligent for such a handsome beefcakey type, sparkled. ‘You think I’m doing this for a joke? I’m not. I wanted to buy you a drink. If you’re not interested, say so. But I am.’

I loved the way he said ‘interested’. Innerested.

‘I didn’t say that,’ I mumbled.