Best Supporting Role (15 page)

“So how many parking bays have you reserved outside the shop?” the Dumpster guy asked.

“Parking bays?”

“To park the Dumpster?”

“Ah. Right.”

“A five-yarder needs three. I take it you’ve called Parking Services and got it all sorted.”

“Parking Services . . . right. I haven’t actually called them as such.”

He muttered something about useless bloody women.

“So you’re expecting my blokes to deliver a five-yard Dumpster first thing Monday morning and you haven’t organized anywhere to park it?”

“I’m really sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

The chap let out a sigh. “Call them now. They work until four on a Saturday. It’s ten to now. You’ll probably just catch them. Then get back to me.”

“Brilliant. Thanks. Will do.”

As I put down the phone, an image of Steve popped into my head. He was laughing at me and telling me how irresponsible I was.

•   •   •

T
he good news was that Parking Services were still picking up. The bad news was the nice lady there charged me four hundred quid to park the Dumpster for the week.

Determined to avoid further cock-ups, I spent most of Sunday
making a to-do list. This included calling the bank to set up a direct debit to cover the rent, buying heavy-duty refuse sacks to take all the paper rubbish, finding somebody cheap, reliable and competent to do the renovation work and calling my parents in Spain so that they wouldn’t think I was neglecting them.

In the evening I cooked the kids’ favorite dinner: roast chicken, roast potatoes and honey carrots. I bought strawberries and Ben & Jerry’s for dessert. I meant it purely as a treat, but as we sat down, Dan announced that this was “Mum’s good luck dinner.” It was a sweet, lovely thought that brought tears to my eyes.

“Aw . . . thanks, hon.”

“Yeah, good luck, Mum,” Ella said. “Tomorrow when I’m in school, I promise to spend the whole day thinking about you. It might be hard in art ’cos I like art, but it’ll be easy in humanities ’cos Mrs. Warboys is so bor-ing.”

“Thank you, sweetie. All good luck thoughts greatly appreciated.”

I didn’t mention that despite my excitement about what the future might hold, I was praying that this good luck dinner didn’t turn out to be my Last Supper.

•   •   •

O
n Monday morning, after dropping the kids at school, I drove home, parked the car and walked the two minutes to the train station. There was no way I was driving into town on a weekday. Half an hour later, I was heading out of Bond Street station.

I picked up a latte and a Danish in Pret. I walked past Selfridges, took a left and headed towards Manchester Square. A couple of
turnings later I hit Villiers Mews—its crested and brass-plated shops daring anybody without a title to cross their thresholds. It struck me what an idiot old man Mugford really was. If he’d been prepared to put his hand in his pocket and spend some proper money renovating the shop, he’d be getting five times the amount that I was paying him in rent. On the other hand, if he had decided to do up the shop, I couldn’t have afforded five times the rent. I could only be grateful for his stupidity.

I unlocked the door of Shirley Feldman Found Garments and picked up the mail, which was scattered, along with a few dried-up leaves, over the shabby mat. As I sipped my coffee, I wandered around, tearing idly at bits of wallpaper and dislodging lumps of loose plaster. With only a few thousand pounds to keep me going, I needed to get the business up and running fast. For the umpteenth time that morning, I started to panic, but before the churning in my stomach had a proper chance to take hold, there was a tap on the door.

It was Dave, the house clearance guy. He had brought his mate Declan with him. They were a pair of chirpy, salt-of-the-earth types who spent an hour schlepping ancient storage units, filing cabinets and broken desks up from the basement. When he realized that there was no way that the Formica shop counter would go out through the front door in one piece, Dave obliged by going at it with a large hammer and a chisel. Dave and Declan even agreed to take down the shop awning and the sign. I was so grateful that I gave them fifty quid on top of the seventy-five we’d agreed. They seemed more than happy. “I bet they were,” I imagined Steve snorting. “They saw you coming. Sarah—don’t you get it? You’re on a budget. You don’t have money to throw away.”

Not long after Dave and Declan had gone, the Dumpster arrived and slotted neatly into the three parking bays that I’d booked for the week. I paid off the delivery guys and spent the next couple of hours sifting through junk—in case there was anything worth keeping, which there wasn’t—and lugging it up from the basement. There were battered box files spilling over with papers, stray mannequin limbs, roll after roll of stale faded satin, supermarket bags full of crisp, yellowing invoices and receipts. (The aunties had called me to say that they’d put recent ones in the safe.)

Everything was covered in dust, which rubbed off onto my clothes and skin. There were no windows in the basement. The more I gathered up junk, the more I disturbed the dust and the thicker the air became. Soon I was coughing and my eyes started to itch. I made the mistake of rubbing them with my hands, which only made it worse.

The current stock—the ready-to-wear range of bras, panties and corsets—was stored upstairs in the wall of “brown drawers.” The overflow was packed into large, flat boxes. These were stacked to head height in one of the fitting rooms. Later in the week, I would load the boxes into the car and take them home. I couldn’t risk leaving them to the mercy of drilling builders.

At three thirty I was back at the school gates, dusty, red-eyed and aching. All I wanted to do was get out of my filthy sweats and shirt and soak in a hot tub. I was in no mood for making mummy small talk. I was certainly in no mood for Tara and Charlotte, who were sashaying towards me.

“Sarah. Haven’t seen you in ages,” Tara cooed. “How
are
you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Good. Funnily enough, Charlotte and I were just talking about you. Weren’t we, Charlotte?”

“We were.”

“And we were wondering if your cousin Rupert has been in touch with Greg Myers.” She put “cousin” and “Rupert” in heavy italics. The woman so didn’t believe my story. When the truth came out, the summer fair committee would force me to be the target on the wet sponge stall.

“As far as I know, he’s e-mailed Greg,” I said. “And he’s still waiting for a reply.”

“Really?” Charlotte said. “Seems odd that he’s still waiting, bearing in mind your cousin knows him.”

“Oh, you know how busy these people are. Greg probably hasn’t even opened Rupert’s e-mail yet.”

I was petrified that they were going to press the issue, but by now they’d noticed my clothes and were busy looking me up and down.

“Goodness, I had no idea you were into Dumpster diving,” Tara said. If the woman were any more of a bitch, she’d have puppies.

Charlotte started to titter.

I glared at her and turned back to Tara.

“Not diving. Loading.”

“Sorry, not with you,” Tara said.

Noting her friend’s confusion, Charlotte’s dainty brow formed a supportive furrow.

I explained that I’d spent the day clearing out Aunty Shirley’s shop. “She died recently and I inherited it. I’m hoping to have it open again in a few weeks.”

“I’m guessing grocer’s? Hardware store?”

Another titter from Charlotte.

“Actually it’s a lingerie shop—specializing in bespoke bras.”

“What? I don’t think you’ll find there’s much call for bespoke bras where you live.”

“Who said anything about it being where I live? Actually it’s behind Selfridges.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Villiers Mews.”

“Villiers Mews? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely positive.”

“Goodness. In that case, we might have to pay you a visit—don’t you agree, Charlotte?”

“I do.”

“OK—here’s the thing,” I said, looking straight at Tara. “Whereas I can see my little atelier being up Charlotte’s street, I think you might be just a tad disappointed.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Well . . . I’m not planning on doing a line of thongs with furry hearts.”

I watched Tara’s face turn the color of a furry heart. Then I caught sight of Dan and Ella running towards me.

“Sorry,” I said, smiling at the two women. “I have to go.”

“Omigod,” Charlotte shrieked at Tara, apparently unaware that I was still within earshot. “I had no idea you wore tarty underwear for Hugo. But how on earth does
she
know?”

“One of her kids must have come into my bedroom and found it. Nasty snooping brats.”

“So . . . come on . . . what else does Hugo like you in? Crotchless panties? Rubber? I bet you’ve got handcuffs and a whip.”

“As it happens, I do. . . . But who said anything about them being for Hugo?”

“No!”

•   •   •

T
here was no point asking the mothers at school to recommend builders, because they all used people who cost the earth. Employing workmen from Kensington and Chelsea—gentlemen builders who’d quit working in the City for shorter hours and less stress—was just another way of outposhing one another. Smart vans with their understated lowercase lettering constantly dotted the neighborhood—especially in spring. Their arrival heralded the end of winter as surely as the cherry blossoms.

When Mike and I had been about to start renovating the old house, I’d inadvertently called several gentlemen builders to give me estimates. Umpteen Oscars and Benedicts had arrived in their striped rugby shirts with the collars turned up, their wrists covered in ethnic string-and-bead Shambhala bracelets, and demanded two grand just to paint and paper the boxroom. I was in no doubt that they would do an excellent job—I simply wasn’t prepared to part with an arm, a leg and several bits of offal for the privilege. In those days I may not have been good with money, but I wasn’t reckless. I told them I would let them know and started shopping around. I ended up hiring a small local firm. Although they didn’t have pictures of Gwyneth Paltrow’s loft extension in their glossy brochure—in fact they didn’t even have a glossy brochure—they did an excellent
job and charged a fraction of what the Oscars and Benedicts had wanted.

Battersby and Son may not have been fashionable, but even so, I got a kick having builders’ vans parked on the drive for months. It gave me a sense of belonging, that I had a place in the neighborhood. The old me. I winced.

I must have spent an hour Googling builders and trawling through the customer reviews. In the end I made appointments with six, who appeared to be cheap and reliable.

They came with their notepads and bits of chewed pencil. Some had gone home first and changed into clean pressed shirts; others arrived in paint-spattered tees and jeans. They pulled bits of plaster off the wall, stuck the ends of their screwdrivers into architraves, prodded at damp patches. Heads were shaken. Air was sucked in between teeth. There was talk of new dampproof courses and ceilings, which sounded expensive. They all agreed that the place was rotten, subsiding, terminal. Had it been human, they would have instructed it to go away and get its affairs in order.

A few days later the estimates began dropping into my in-box. There wasn’t one that came in below twelve grand. It struck me that they’d all bumped up their quotes because they reckoned that running a business behind Selfridges meant I was probably good for it.

By now I’d paid the aunties three thousand pounds, which left me with six or so. Mugford’s two-and-a-half grand bumped it back up to more than eight—my total for the refurb and living expenses. I deleted the estimates.

I found Kandoo Building and Decorating on the notice board in my local newsagent’s window. It was crammed with “situations
wanted” postcards—mainly foreign au pairs and cleaners looking for work. Among them were a few landscape gardeners and carpenters offering their services. There appeared to be one builder, but his postcard was written in smudged pencil and full of spelling mistakes. I was about to give up when a printed card on the bottom row caught my eye:
Kandoo Building and Decorating—also basic plumbing and electrics. I am experienced, honest, hardworking. Reasonable rates. Excellent references.

The moment I got home, I called the number.

“Kandoo. Hugh Fanshaw speaking.” Posh name. Ditto the accent. Flashy gentleman builder. I could see little point in pursuing this conversation. Strange, though, that he was advertising in the newsagent’s window. Maybe the recession was hitting high-end tradesmen harder than I’d thought. Even so, his prices would still be way out of my league.

Since I was too polite to put the phone down on Hugh Fanshaw, I had no option other than to describe the parlous state of the shop and gave him a rough outline of the work I thought was needed.

“The thing is, I’m on a very tight budget,” I said. “I really don’t have tens of thousands to spend.”

Bound to put him off, I thought.

“And I’m a widow,” I blurted. Great. Now he’d assume I’d just come into hundreds of thousands in life insurance.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Can’t be easy. OK, why don’t I come and take a look and we can take it from there?”

“Fine, but as I say, my funds are quite limited.”

“Not to worry. These days everybody’s being forced to cut corners.”

I didn’t buy his sympathy line. He was simply trying to snare me,
but hell, I’d gone this far. What was the harm in letting him give me a quote? He could use all the strong-arm tactics he liked, but he couldn’t make me spend money I didn’t have. And there was always the chance—however slim—that his estimate might be reasonable. I gave him the address and we agreed that he would stop by around ten the following morning.

I expected a chinless toff in the regulation rugby shirt and Shambhala bracelets. Not only did Hugh Fanshaw turn out to have a rather well-defined chin, but he arrived wearing baggy cargo shorts—a spanner sticking out of one of the pockets—a discolored, misshapen tee and beaten-up Cat boots. Bog-standard builders’ wear. Clearly I was out of touch. These days gentlemen builders were adopting a man-of-the-people image.