Gifted and Talented (8 page)

‘Put no faith in appearances,’ Isabel murmured.

‘What?’

‘The motto on your tattoo.’

Amber sniffed. ‘Is that what it means? I thought it was something about full frontals. It’s an old boyfriend of mine’s family crest.’ She shook her head. ‘Silly thing to say though, don’t you think? I
always
judge by appearances. I’m quite staggeringly shallow.’ Her eyes ran up and down Isabel speculatively. ‘You’re bright, aren’t you?’

It seemed to Isabel a strange remark. Possibly even a trick one. All the students here were bright, surely. ‘No more than anyone else,’ she parried.

‘Brighter than me, definitely,’ Amber grinned. ‘I hate work. I’m here,’ she exclaimed suddenly, whirling nakedly round in the mass of dresses, ‘to have fun!’

It was obvious by now to Isabel that her idea of fun was different to Amber’s. What with the champagne, the dog, the dresses and all. That, apart from the subject they were studying – the same, she had discovered – they had nothing whatsoever in common, seemed very likely. She longed to leave and took a tentative step towards the door.

Amber’s sudden euphoria seemed suddenly to have faded and her large brown eyes were flashing angrily about her room. ‘I’ve got shoeboxes bigger than this,’ she said petulantly. ‘I’m thinking of hiring a hotel suite in town to keep my clothes in.’

Despite her concern for her wardrobe, she seemed not to have noticed her dog ripping it to shreds. It was currently tearing concentratedly into a dress of thick black silk with a Victoria Beckham label in the back.

Isabel bent and pulled Posh Spice’s handiwork gently away. A pile of bulky brown Amazon packets was exposed. ‘The Hon. A. Piggott, Eaton Square, London SW1’, Isabel read on the topmost one. This had been crossed out and ‘Villa Piggott, Mustique’ written over.

‘You’ve bought a lot of books,’ she remarked.

Amber shot her a white blaze of smile. ‘You know, I’m actually really hopeless on accents. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Are you Scottish or something?’

Was this rude? Isabel wondered. It was difficult to say, with that dazzling beam. She repeated her question.

‘Oh, the books! That bloody reading list,’ Amber cackled. ‘Haven’t had a second to look at it. And neither has
naughty
Coco.’ She shot an indulgent glance at the still-scrabbling animal. ‘Have you?’ she asked, swinging her gaze back to Isabel.

Isabel reddened, to her own irritation. There was no shame in having done the work.

‘You’ve read them
all
?’ Amber’s face was blank with astonishment.

Just below the sea of dresses, Isabel now noticed, was what looked like a small fridge. It had been dumped at a careless angle and had a glass door through which gold-foil-topped bottles could be seen. Only gold-foil-topped bottles. Her eyes widened. The champagne
was
on ice, after all.

Coco, meanwhile, was whining and scrabbling still harder. Amber flung the dog an irritated glance.

‘She might be hungry,’ Isabel suggested. ‘Or thirsty.’

‘I had something for her somewhere,’ Amber muttered, peeling up a couple of dresses.

Surely there wasn’t a plate of dog food beneath; Isabel winced.

Whether there was or not, Amber now abandoned the search. She opened the champagne fridge, grabbed a bottle and twisted the cork with an obviously practised movement. It exploded, sending the dog cringing into the corner. A white surge of bubbles dripped on to some of the clothes on the floor. As Amber did not seem inclined, Isabel lunged to the rescue again, whipping some Chloe and Stella McCartney out of the way just in time.

Amber had found an ashtray from somewhere, slopped some champagne into it and held it out to the dog. ‘Here, Cokes!’

‘She drinks champagne?’ Isabel blurted.

Amber giggled. ‘She should. She’s Mummy’s pooch de luxe, aren’t you, Coco? Oh well, suit yourself,’ she added carelessly as Coco cautiously dipped the black tip of her nose into the frothing liquid before cringing backwards.

‘I’ve got some water in my room,’ Isabel said, grasping the opportunity to escape. She had reached the door when she saw, striding up the corridor in a manner that betokened no nonsense, the burly, T-shirted college porter from the front hall. Behind him, fairly hopping with agitation, came a vengeful-looking Kate, now fully dressed. ‘Which room did you say it was?’ the porter was growling.

Isabel, remembering what Kate had said about pets not being allowed, shrank back inside. ‘The porter’s coming,’ she gasped. ‘He’s looking for Coco, I think.’

A kind of panic was filling her. Isabel, who had never been in trouble the whole of her educational life, hated the thought of being caught with someone breaking college rules on her very first full day at university. Being caught by Kate in Amber’s room was hardly less of a disaster.

Amber, however, just laughed. She picked up the still-trembling Coco and shoved her under the bed. A heavy fist now sounded on the door. Isabel felt sick with terror. But Amber’s eyes were shining with excitement.

‘Your bathrobe!’ gasped Isabel. ‘It’s nearly fallen off!’

‘Silly me!’ Amber exclaimed, waggling her tanned shoulders so the towelling slid finally to the floor. ‘Come in!’ she trilled, arranging herself invitingly on the bed as the door swung open.

The porter now got an eyeful that turned his meaty face pale with horror. He then flushed a violent purple and made a choking sound before fumbling wildly for the handle and slamming the door shut.

Amber’s lack of embarrassment was absolute, it seemed to Isabel. It was even possible that she was enjoying it. She raised a playful and perfectly plucked eyebrow at Isabel and called out, ‘Can I help you?’

The porter on the other side of the door was clearly struggling to compose himself. ‘I’ve been told,’ he managed after some seconds, ‘that you may have a dog in there, Miss.’

‘
Definitely
has a dog in there,’ Kate crisply corrected.

Amber was shrugging on her bathrobe. But it still hung open slightly as she opened the door and beamed at her accusers. ‘Dog?’ she echoed, her eyes stretched wide and her eyelashes batting innocently in the face of Kate’s hostile glower and the porter’s embarrassment. Even the tips of his ears were hot with shame, Isabel saw from her vantage point within the room.

‘Yes, dog,’ Kate hissed, as the porter seemed once again incapable of speech.

‘There’s no dog in here,’ Amber sang, waving a white-towelled arm backwards into the room. ‘Is there, Izzy?’

It took a couple of beats before Isabel realised this was directed at her. She blinked, realising she was being asked to lie. Amber had turned and was staring at her meaningfully, and beyond her were the burning eyes of Kate and the burning ears of the porter.

Isabel hesitated for an agonising minute before stammering, ‘Er . . . no,’ into the inquiring silence. She saw Kate toss her head in furious disbelief and Amber flash her a triumphant beam.

‘Ha!’ Amber exulted, once the footsteps of the interrogators had died away. She was sloshing the foaming liquid into a pair of glasses she had produced from somewhere. More wine was dripping on more clothes.

As Amber slithered into a tiny silver dress – ‘Zip me up, would you, darling?’ – Isabel stared at the tiny bubbles surging inside her glass. She had rarely drunk champagne, although Mum had splashed out on a special-offer bottle at the supermarket the day she got her university place. She didn’t feel much like celebrating, not with Kate’s angry face in her mind’s eye. There had been the promise of friendship there, before Amber had appeared on the scene.

That there was the same promise with Amber seemed doubtful. Already she seemed to have forgotten Isabel’s existence. She had shoved some of the clothes aside to reveal an enormous mirror propped sideways on the floor. She was staring at herself in it, twisting the hair at the back of her head up with one hand and, with the other, pinning it carelessly into place. It made all the difference. Amber had been lovely before with her hair flowing over her shoulders but now she looked stunning, her mane a pile of massy gold atop a flower-like face, balanced on the slenderest of necks.

‘Open that, could you, babe?’ Amber rummaged under some underwear and pushed a large, padded hot-pink leather box in Isabel’s direction. Lifting the lid, Isabel saw a flashing, glittering tangle of jewels.

‘My diamonds?’ Amber asked airily.

‘Are you going somewhere?’ Isabel asked, handing them over.

Amber was dabbing something behind her ears from a tiny bottle. An indescribably wonderful scent rose into the air. ‘With Jasper. Jasper De Borchy,’ she volunteered. She was shoving thin brown feet with blue-painted toenails into strappy jewelled sandals. ‘Know him?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You’d know if you did.’

‘Yes, it’s quite a name,’ Isabel said, slightly archly.

‘Norman French. They came over with the Conqueror,’ Amber stated. ‘They go way back.’

Isabel felt impatient.
So what?
she wanted to say.
Whose family didn’t?
She cared less about Jasper De Borchy’s pedigree than the fact that Coco was staring silently and sadly at her mistress from her corner. ‘Don’t you need to feed the dog first?’ she ventured.

Amber paused at the door. ‘
Would
you? That’s so sweet of you!’

The next second she had whirled out of the room. Isabel was left standing in a cloud of perfume and a froth of champagne-soaked clothes, looking uneasily at a contraband poodle.

Diana glanced at her watch, which had smears of dirt over the silver Cartier casing, one of the few remaining reminders of her old life. She could see, nonetheless, that it was time to fetch Rosie from school. Or from the after-school club, rather. The fact that Campion Primary ran both a breakfast club and after-school facilities with, it seemed, the sole purpose of helping working parents, was a very strong point in its favour, whatever other doubts she might entertain.

But how had Rosie fared? Please, Diana prayed, don’t let me turn up to see her standing shunned and alone in the playground. She stared hard at the earth to stop the agonising picture forming.

The bald, tilled, weedless black earth she had worked on slightly soothed her agitation. It had been a long first day, and a tiring one, but a satisfying one ultimately. Apart from the extraordinary episode with the girl and the film crew, she had worked undisturbed. She had not seen the end of the shoot – it seemed to have broken up acrimoniously. There had been a lot of shouting and Diana had hurried away. The person shouting had been male and American – familiar, somehow.

She had made progress in the garden, anyhow. Where there was chaos, she had brought order. Perhaps gardening, ultimately, was all about control. Therapy, too. The business of planting and tidying brought succour at a time when there was little to be had anywhere else. Plunging her fingers into the earth, Diana felt she was nurturing and creating, even as all she had valued – Rosie excepted – had withered and died.

She drove off. The evenings were drawing in now and there were some spectacular sunsets. But the flaming clouds billowing across the sky were also a reminder of oncoming winter. Cold weather, Diana suspected, was expensive. In her former life, she had turned up the thermostat without a second thought.

Soon, Diana was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, her progress impeded by a temporary traffic light. A hole surrounded by cones yawned to the side of her.

Drawing up, finally, beside the Portakabins and wooden shacks of Campion Primary, Diana took a deep, galvanising breath before getting out. Hands in the pockets of her green gardener’s gilet, she hurried towards the red school gate.

She looked about for a little figure standing alone. None could be seen, however. Then, with a rush of pure relief, Diana realised that the small girl running about in the middle of a crowd of children, yelling the loudest of them all, was her daughter.

‘Darling!’ Diana waved at her. Rosie paused, looked at her beseechingly, then ran over. ‘Mummy! Don’t call me “darling”!’

‘Sorry!’ Diana whispered.

‘I’m hungry, Mum.’

Diana had promised her daughter a first-day-at-school treat for supper. Anything she wanted. Now she was bone tired and bone cold too, Diana rather regretted this. Hopefully it would not be too labour- or time-consuming. ‘What would you like for supper, darling?’ Then, catching Rosie’s chiding eye, ‘Oh, sorry!’

‘Toad in the hole, please. And it’s tea, not supper.’ Rosie cast a wary eye around at her new companions, all of whom were being marshalled by their mothers and not listening anyway. Diana could not help noticing that they seemed quite obedient, more so, certainly, than Rosie’s former classmates at Smart’s who routinely ignored the nannies pleading to take them home from parties and playdates.

‘Tea. Right.’ Diana passed a hand across her forehead, trying to remember if she had the ingredients. Eggs, milk, flour, sausages. Did she have flour? Possibly not. And she definitely didn’t have sausages. They would have to call at the supermarket on the way home, park, stand in a queue; most of all, they would have to spend money.

Budgeting carefully to within a specific sum was a new and tricky skill to master, involving a new familiarity with the supermarket ‘basics’ range and the ‘damaged’ shelf. Rosie adored the ‘damaged’ shelf; always full of things they never usually bought. ‘They’re only 20p,’ she would sing, grabbing a ragged jelly box or a packet of bashed boudoir biscuits and putting them in the basket Diana now always chose in preference to the trolley, which could so easily and so expensively get filled up.

And yet, despite the ‘damaged’ shelf, and for all the ‘basics’ ranges, Diana always ended up spending more than she meant to. That there had been a time when she had not kept a running total, had handed over the credit card without noticing the bill at the end, had flung whatever she fancied into the trolley on a whim, now seemed amazing.

‘Sure you don’t want beans on toast?’ Diana now bargained. She had bread and beans at home.

Rosie’s eyes lit up. ‘Ooh, yes. I’d love beans.’

‘OK,’ Diana said, relieved.

‘
With
the toad in the hole.’

Diana smiled resignedly. There was one thing at least to be said for the stop at the supermarket. It would delay the return to their new home.

The sun had set while they were in the supermarket and it was properly dark when, forty minutes later, they wound up through Fourth Avenue on the Campion Estate.

The semi-detached that was number thirty-six was an unlit box, its pebbledash and its scabby garden looking bleak in the glow of the streetlamp. By contrast, light poured from every window of the house next door. As Diana, clutching her shopping bags, shut the car door with her foot, fear slithered coldly through her stomach.

When first she had come to look at number thirty-six, with a view to long-term rental, the denizens of number thirty-eight had been out. While Diana, moving from room to room, had noticed the cardboard-thin walls, the lack of carpet and the general stony chill, she had been glad of the apparent peace. And the patch of ground outside, while unloved, overgrown and full of rubble, definitely had possibilities. She could imagine a vegetable plot, see sweet peas and nasturtium splashing colour among the beige and grey palette of concrete and asphalt. A further source of encouragement was the estate’s being named after the little pink campion, the ubiquitous hedgerow flower that grew from late spring onwards. While she had yet to see a single example of the flower in the vicinity, Diana the born-again gardener had signed on the dotted line.

Money was, after all, extremely tight and renting in the area expensive. Until she got financially back on her feet, a former council house would do very well.

But then, on hers and Rosie’s first evening in the house, a continuous booming sound had accompanied the unpacking of boxes. Going outside into the darkened garden, Diana had seen that the neighbours were in and, at number thirty-eight, on the partition wall between the two houses, was mounted the biggest, loudest and flattest television she had ever seen. Booming TV voices, raucous laughter and pounding pop music had continued late into the night. On the camp bed that was substituting until she bought proper furniture, Diana had lain, fists clenched, staring at the blade of streetlight slicing between the thin curtains across the Artex ceiling. As the television had pounded, her mind had pounded too, with angry, indignant phrases she planned to deliver first thing in the morning.

Until, next morning, she had seen her neighbours lumbering out of their own garden gate. They looked big and fierce: a huge man, an enormous woman and two large, puddingy teenagers. Diana, whose build was wiry and whose stature was short, had felt her arguments – along with her courage – melting away. She had watched them stop and look at her car, exchanging what appeared to be disparaging remarks about it, before climbing into a very large, new and shiny people carrier, parked further down the road.

Now, as she approached her front door, Diana gazed with despair at the giant illuminated rectangle of the plasma TV screen in the neighbours’ sitting room. Tanned faces, sheeny hair and improbably white teeth jerked about against a zinging background. A game show was evidently underway. Even from the car, the noise of canned laughter could be heard.

Diana pressed her lips together. For Rosie’s sake, she must pretend that nothing was amiss. Rosie, in any case, had not complained about the noise any more than she had complained about the school. As her mother tossed and turned, Rosie had continued to sleep peacefully at nights in the camp bed beside her. Her daughter, Diana thought, was making a much better fist of the lifestyle adjustment than she was herself.

She heaved the bags through the battered gate and up the broken concrete path to number thirty-six. Plonking her shopping down on the front steps, she searched for the key to the front door. Rosie, she saw, had edged along the dark garden and was staring through the window of number thirty-eight, at the television. Diana could see its reflected colours on her daughter’s fascinated little face.

‘Rosie!’ she said sharply.

The child hurried to her side, deftly sidestepping the broken bricks and other rubbish in what might once have been a border. And would be again, Diana vowed to herself, once she had cleared it out. It was full of stones and pieces of glass; the previous occupant of number thirty-six seemed to have drunk enough to sink a brewery and his idea of recycling was to fling them all straight into the garden. Bottles were buried everywhere. Patiently, with thick gloves on this occasion at least, Diana had been removing them. It was painstaking work, but the earth left behind was of far better quality than she had imagined. So the two balanced each other out.

The insubstantial door of number thirty-six rattled open. Diana switched on the bare bulb in the hall and lugged the plastic bags into the kitchen. In her old life, she had used jute recyclable ones, but there was no spare money now to spend a pound on a bag which was invariably left in the car boot anyway.

Before tackling the toad-in-the-hole batter, she switched on the electric oven. She had scrubbed this free of its clinging grease on the first day, but it seemed to her that it still had an air of rancidity about it.

Using things that other people had used before her – and not too respectfully, either – was something else she had had to get used to. In her old life, appliances had been ordered from John Lewis and delivered by a cheery man in a dark green van.

‘Rosie?’ Diana called, realising her daughter was not in the room. She hurried out of the kitchen, down the hall, her footsteps echoing on the unvarnished boards. There had been a carpet when she looked round but for some reason it had gone. The estate agent had been evasive as to why. He had been evasive about many things, including information about the previous occupant. The décor, if so it could be described, seemed to suggest an old lady, but the agent remained obtuse.

‘Mummy?’ Rosie looked up from where she sprawled on the beanbag before the gas fire in the front room. She had fished out her book and was buried in it once again, apparently insensible to the TV pounding through the wall from next door.

How
could
people behave like this? Diana wailed silently to herself. No neighbour in her old life ever had. Admittedly, the nearest had been several acres away.

She forced herself to smile at Rosie as she crouched to operate the gas fire. The flames sprang purple up the white asbestos ridging at the back of the heater and she was reminded of the delphinium idea for Branston College gardens. Feeling more hopeful, she returned to the kitchen and began to beat the batter, seeking relief from her feelings in the slap of the whisk in the mixture.

Later, they sat at the battered Formica table with its let-down flaps; Rosie, munching appreciatively, paused now and then to take a slug of milk. Diana thought longingly of the cut-price bottle of screw-top rosé she had permitted herself at the supermarket. She tried not to drink in front of Rosie, however; besides, in the undersized, underpowered and elderly fridge it would be nowhere near chilled yet.

The kitchen at number thirty-six was at the side of the house, overlooking, through institutional iron-framed windows, the planned vegetable garden. It was as far as any room in the house could be from the booming TV next door. And yet, now, there sounded a great burst of pop music.

Something within Diana seemed to explode at the same time. She had had enough. Perhaps Rosie’s good day at school had given her courage. This could not, she decided, go on.

Smiling calmly, she rose slowly to her feet, not wanting, with any movement or expression, to alarm her daughter.

‘I’ll just be a second,’ she told Rosie. ‘I left something in the car.’

She felt strangely determined. Her entire existence could not be allowed to become a nightmare. She closed the rattly front door softly behind her and hurried down the broken path in the dark. She did not stop. The merest pause or hesitation and she would, she knew, be lost. Passing the gaping gate of number thirty-eight, she hurried up their path – in a worse state than her own – and hammered on the door.

There was no response; the blaring of the TV continued. Diana fought the nauseating surge of nerves and the desire to run; no one had heard her, after all; no one would be any the wiser. But then, remembering Rosie, who must be allowed a peaceful night, she raised her fist again and banged harder. Her heart galloped painfully as she heard shouts within the sitting room and noise within the hall, then a lumbering towards the door as if of some huge beast.