Paradise Fields (33 page)

‘We might have to do a trawl of the charity and second-hand shops,' said Viv. ‘Are you up for that, Nel?'

Nel sighed, infinitely tired. ‘I would really love that, but I just don't have time. I do promise you, though,' she added reassuringly to the two women who were looking at her with critical consideration, ‘that I will get the dog hairs off everything I do wear, and that I won't fall over in the mud first.'

‘Ah ha!' declared Florence, triumphantly. ‘You fall over too! And no one put you in hospital for it!'

‘I didn't fall over, quite. I just got a nasty attack of muddy football in my cake . . . Oh, never mind. You had to be there.'

Vivian was laughing. ‘I was!'

WHEN FLEUR HEARD
about the meeting, she insisted on taking her mother shopping.

‘I know you're really busy, I know you're getting people signed up for the market, and to buy these plots of land, blah, blah, blah, but if you're going to wow them at the meeting you can't turn up in that navy blue number which makes you look like Mary Poppins without the good bits.'

‘You only want me to go shopping so I'll bring my credit card and you're at a loose end because Jamie's gone back.' Normally, Nel loved buying size ten clothes and shopping with Fleur was always fun, but she wasn't in the mood for girly trips to town at the moment. ‘He is a nice boy, isn't he?'

‘Careful, Mum, you'll make me go off him.'

‘Well, not that nice, obviously,' said Nel hurriedly. ‘He has dreadful taste in music.'

‘You don't care what sort of music he listens to, but I'm glad you're not freaking about him coming from London any more. So, shopping?'

‘I told Florence and Viv I didn't have time to go shopping. And I haven't. You'll have to buy whatever it is you're after with your own money.'

‘Well, I do need a pair of jeans rather badly, but honestly, Mum, this is for you. If Jake is going to be there you have to look gorgeous.'

‘I am not interested in Jake. Any slight interest I may have had in him has long gone.' This wasn't remotely true, but she felt if she said it enough times it might one day become so. Besides, she was getting used to lying; she could even do it without blushing.

‘Derr! That is so not the point! You want to make him sorry he did whatever he did to make you stop liking him!'

‘But he did that before he met me, sweetheart. I told you. Simon brought round that bit of paper, and when I spoke to him about it at the wine bar, he didn't deny anything. He's a no-good rotten scoundrel.'

‘Well, I like him. He's not patronising or bossy.' She mouthed, ‘Like Simon.' She added aloud, ‘And Viv agrees with me.'

‘Not now, she doesn't. Not now she knows what a black-hearted devil he is.'

‘You do have some quaint expressions, Ma, but trust me on this one. Even if you genuinely don't like him any more' – Fleur's raised eyebrows indicated how much she believed in that particular myth – ‘you want to make him sorry.'

‘Darling, I don't play those sort of games.'

‘Bollocks,' Fleur said bluntly. ‘I'm far more experienced with all this than you are. Now, pick me up after school and we'll hit the shops. I finish at two.'

Realising she was vanquished, not so much by her daughter's bullying but by her own need to spend a little time being frivolous, Nel muttered for a few minutes about how in her day she had to stay at school all day, whether she had lessons or not, and Fleur muttered back that it was not her day now.

Nel rang Viv to confess that she would be taking an
afternoon off from her labours, having told herself that if Viv sounded remotely disapproving, she wouldn't go.

‘Good idea! You can't work every minute God sends, and Mum is right. You will feel much more confident about the meeting if you're looking fab.'

‘I do feel a bit guilty. A whole afternoon. I could visit two point four potential farmers' market stallholders in that time. The rent from them is going to be much more important to the hospice when we lose our fields.'

‘You can still have some time off. Besides, I'm going to be ringing a few of Mum's old friends, tell them she's been in hospital etc., and I shall just throw into the conversation about the hospice. Several of them are on the crochet squares team. What would they do with their time if there was no hospice to support?'

‘Support an animal charity, I expect, or something that won't ask them to buy bits of old field they can't even use.' Nel paused, and Viv knew what she was thinking.

‘Look, I know you think that Jake slept with you for all the wrong reasons.'

‘There are no right reasons, Viv. Whatever his motives were they were bad.'

‘Rubbish! What about desire! That's perfectly acceptable.'

‘Desire is too nice a word for it. It was lust.'

‘Even so, there's nothing wrong with honest lust—'

‘Except there was nothing honest about it!'

‘You don't know that. And one day you'll be able to think of the experience as lovely, just for itself, with no pain or bitterness.'

Nel considered this for a few seconds. ‘I might think
that if it was lust, or desire or whatever, but I won't think that if I believe what happened happened because he wanted to subdue me. God! I'd rather be seduced for my money! At least that's a positive thing.'

‘Except you haven't got any money.'

‘That's not the point.'

‘Well, I think you're wrong. I think he wanted you as much as you wanted him.'

Nel thought for a heart-churning second. ‘Possibly.'

‘And you had a really good time, didn't you? It was fantastic?'

‘Yes. But what about that whole morning-after pill fiasco? That was pretty dreadful.'

‘Not really. It worked, didn't it? The pill? You're not pregnant. I'm not saying you're going to feel fine about it immediately. But, one day, you'll look at that time you spent together as something really nice that happened to you.' Viv paused. ‘After all, if Simon is all you've got in mind, you may never have sex again.'

‘Viv!' wailed Nel. ‘I'm going now.'

‘Good. Don't forget your credit card, and don't worry about how much you spend. That's what credit cards are for. Oh, and can we have something a little more exciting than our normal black or navy blue? I know you think you're the size of a house, but no one else agrees with you.'

Fleur's first requirement on hitting Cheltenham was to eat. ‘You need energy for shopping, Ma. If you're hungry you just grab anything. I know a little place.'

It was a good choice. Owner-run, it did home-made soup, wonderful salads, and, Fleur pointed out, it had a licence. ‘Have a glass of wine, Mum. Go on.'

‘But I haven't eaten all day! It'll go straight to my head. I am driving.'

‘A spritzer then, and we'll share it. You need a bit of alcohol to make you try new colours and things. Viv gave me strict orders that you're not to come back with black or navy.'

‘That leaves me with bottle green or brown, then,' said Nel. ‘Or possibly dark grey.'

Fleur grimaced hideously and then smiled at the waitress. ‘Two soups and a Caesar salad to share, please.'

While they were eating soup and bread and butter, and picking at the salad, Fleur regarded her mother with her head on one side. It made Nel nervous.

‘I'm not having a makeover. Don't even suggest it! We haven't time for one thing. And if you bully me too much I won't buy you anything.'

‘I was just thinking a slightly brighter lipstick. That brown colour you wear is OK, but it doesn't exactly make a statement.'

‘It's not brown! It's soft rose! And it's only on my lips! It's my mouth that makes the statements!'

Fleur made a face and tore off another hunk of bread.

‘The trouble is,' said Nel as they contemplated the racks of clothes, ‘I can't tell what I like when there are so many of them. In a charity shop, you usually only like one thing, and it either fits or it doesn't. I get confused when faced with rows and rows of jackets all the same. Like a fox in a hen house, I don't know which one to kill.'

Fleur gave her mother a frown and a shake of her head, in acknowledgement of her insanity. ‘There aren't rows and rows! Just a couple in each size!'

‘And there's another thing! Fancy spending' – she looked at a label in horror – ‘all that money, only to find someone else wearing the same thing. In a size eight.'

‘You won't, Mum,' said Fleur with confidence. ‘No one who's a size eight would wear anything like that. Unless they're really old and sad.'

Nel looked anxiously round to make sure no one really old and sad was within earshot. ‘Honestly, Fleur!'

‘And I don't think you should wear it either. Come with me, over here.'

‘Darling!' Nel braked hard. ‘This label charges nearly a hundred pounds for a T-shirt!'

‘They have a sale! Like always! Now stop being difficult.'

‘You're so bossy.'

‘Well, one of us has to be. Now, what about that?'

Forced by Fleur to go through the torture of trying it on, Nel emerged onto the shop floor uncertain of how she felt.

It was a sort of long cardigan coat made of merino wool and hung beautifully. It was designed to go over a skirt, but Fleur pushed that aside with disdain. ‘I know we're trying to get you out of black trousers, but they do look good with that.'

‘But is it smart enough for a meeting?'

By now the shop assistant was on the case, and, to Nel's slight annoyance, firmly on Fleur's side. ‘Absolutely! It will take you anywhere, that coat. You'll live in it once you get used to it. It's elegant, practical, smart, warm and slimming.'

‘And does it also provide tasty snacks and dog-sitting services?' asked Nel sarcastically, aware she was beginning to feel wonderful in it.

‘If you let the dogs near that, I'll kill you!' said Fleur. ‘It's gorgeous. But do you love it?'

Fleur, who had enough clothes to supply a whole town's worth of charity shops, had a strict rule. If she didn't love it, she didn't buy it. Nel tended to buy things if they vaguely fitted and she could afford them, not caring to fly in the face of coincidence. Viv was constantly threatening to go through her wardrobe and throw half of it out.

Nel sighed. ‘Yes, I do, actually. I don't want to take it off.'

‘Excellent! Now, what to go with it?'

‘I thought you said black trousers looked OK!'

Fleur sighed. ‘Not those black trousers! You need better ones!'

Reluctantly Nel agreed with her. Besides, the trousers she was now wearing, and wore almost like a uniform, were inextricably connected with Jake. She remembered him taking them off with hideous regularity. If the memories weren't triggered every time she went to the loo, it would definitely make the getting-over process a whole lot easier.

Fleur convinced Nel to go to the cosmetics department. ‘Look, there's a really good free gift if you buy two products.'

‘Darling, I don't need two products! I've already spent a small fortune on clothes I can't strictly justify. I don't need make-up as well.'

‘You do, you know. That eye-shadow is a bit blah. Makes you look old. I don't think you should wear it.'

‘But you're always stealing it!'

‘You've always taught us to share, Mum, and I just
think you need another one, to go on top. Give you a bit of shape. Now let's see what we've got.'

Nel, who liked bargains as much as anyone, did concede that there were quite a lot of useful little bottles and tubes in the make-up bag they gave you if you spent a week's housekeeping on an eye-shadow and some tinted moisturiser.

‘You have got lovely skin,' said the saleswoman, who was reassuringly old, but, more disconcertingly, wearing white lipstick. ‘This is just what you need to even out the skin tones and give you a lovely natural look. See how easily it blends in. Now, what you need with that . . .'

Ten minutes later, Fleur and Nel left the counter, bearing two very attractive carrier bags, and no end of cures for fine lines (the word ‘wrinkle' being totally non-PC in the beauty world), enlarged pores and broken veins.

‘I can't believe I have just spent so much money. Nor that I've just taken beauty advice from someone who wears white lipstick. I must be even more mad than I realised. Just because she said I had nice skin!'

‘She was really generous with the free gifts, though, and that's a lovely shade . . .'

‘I don't mind sharing, but it lives in my house, OK?'

‘OK. Now, cup of tea? Or shall we go home?'

‘Home. I have tea at home, and a sample of lemon cake someone gave me.'

‘Oh, excellent.'

When Simon rang to ask her out for a drink she didn't like to admit she was too tired, having spent the afternoon shopping, so she said yes. She would have much
preferred to watch back numbers of
Sex and the City
with Fleur, who had them all on video. As she put on the new eye-shadow, and evened out her skin tones, she wondered if this was a sign she should definitely tell Simon she couldn't see him any more. Except she might need Simon. Did she want to end up a lonely old lady? It was one thing preferring to spend an evening with Fleur when Fleur was there. Would old episodes of
Sex and the City
seem so appealing when she was watching them on her own and had no one to comment on the clothes with?

Also, could she cope with any more upset just now? Simon might well be devastated, especially when he'd done so much work for her. Did she want to put him through what Jake had put her through? Certainly not! Simon was a kind and honest man. When she'd got over this emotional blip with Jake, she'd recognise him for what he was, and possibly agree to marry him.