Practically Perfect (15 page)

Feeling rather embarrassed, Anna started to get undressed. There was a long silence while they both looked at Anna’s reflection. Anna saw a very white figure in bra and pants that were both grey, but somehow not the same grey.

‘Well,’ said Chloe bluntly, ‘you’ll definitely need new underwear, even if you don’t need a padded bra. And the armpit hair has to go, I’m afraid. I don’t care if it’s a feminist—’

‘It’s not! I’ve just lost my razor.’

‘And you need a leg wax and a pedicure. I’ll do it for you if you like.’

‘It’s OK, I can paint my own toenails.’

‘All right, as long as you do do it. You might want to wear strappy sandals, and painted toenails are a must.’

Anna looked at her toes. The nails did look a bit gnarly at the moment.

‘Right, let’s get this over your head.’

The scarlet sequins moulded themselves to Anna’s figure except when they got to her breasts. There the dress flapped about in a disheartening way.

‘Now I come to think of it, I was breastfeeding when I
bought
that. I have got some of those chicken fillet things somewhere.’ Chloe started rummaging about in her drawers.

‘Don’t bother,’ Anna mumbled, struggling out of the dress. ‘I don’t quite see myself in scarlet sequins, sadly. Have you got anything else a bit … quieter?’

‘There’s this skirt and camisole. You could either wear it with a pashmina or a shrug.’

‘What on earth is a shrug?’

‘Oh, Anna! Don’t you watch any normal television? No, I forgot, you haven’t got one.’ Chloe gabbled happily. ‘It’s like a cardigan that just covers your arms. No, on second thoughts, you’ve got great arms. You should show them off.’

Anna looked at one arm. ‘Is it great?’

‘Yes! Toned but not stringy. It looks as if you work out, but carefully.’

‘Hmm, to think I got great arms by hulking timber about. Perhaps I could market the idea and get people to pay me to come and shift stuff.’

‘Great idea,’ said Chloe, who wasn’t listening, but instead was trying to prise her clothes apart so she could see what was what. They were packed so tightly it was a hard job. ‘The good thing about having so many clothes,’ she said, at last pulling something out, ‘is that they stay in place just by themselves, without hangers. Now, what about this? This is what I wear when I want to feel sexy.’

‘I don’t want to feel sexy. I want to feel safe,’ Anna objected.

‘Rubbish! Where’s your feminine pride? You’ve got to show all those old college friends that you’ve turned into a wonderful woman.’

‘They won’t care!’ Anna spoke defiantly but took the garment that Chloe held out to her. It was black and made out of a soft stretchy material She did want to look sexy,
but
she didn’t want to admit it to Chloe and risk having to tell her why.

It seemed to take a while to get the dress on because it kept snagging on Anna’s bra and knickers but at last she got it pulled into place.

Chloe looked critically at her. ‘Wow! You’ll need your hair up.’ She found a clip and twisted it on top of Anna’s head. ‘Or cut. And you need proper shoes and some jewellery, but basically it’s a wow!’

Anna gazed at herself. She was almost unrecognisable. With her hair back from her face she looked entirely unlike herself. She stood on tiptoe to get the effect of high heels. ‘Gosh, I look almost feminine.’

‘You need a smaller size, really, to show off your fabulous waist,’ said Chloe. ‘I bought that soon after I’d had Harry when I hadn’t lost all my baby weight.’

Anna kept turning this way and that in astonishment. She looked so different. ‘Do you think I look sexy in this dress?’

‘Mm. Definitely.’ Chloe paused. ‘So you
do
want to look sexy.’

‘Of course. It’s a party.’

Chloe gave her a suspicious look and Anna wondered how on earth she’d explain Max away if, by any wonderful chance, he did more than glance at her. ‘I want a good night out, with my old friends. And you’re right, I don’t want them all to think that I’ve lost interest in my appearance completely.’

‘OK,’ Chloe said after a considered pause. ‘Now, what are you going to do about your hands?’

‘What do you mean?’ Anna regarded them. ‘Wash them? Paint my nails?’

‘Definitely paint your nails, and wash them, and have a manicure, but they’re still a bit …’

‘What?’

They both considered Anna’s outstretched fingers.

‘Well, let’s put it this way,’ said Chloe. ‘You can tell you’re a dab hand with the hammer and nails.’

Anna inspected her hands more closely. She’d never given them much thought, really. She didn’t wear rings: they didn’t fit in with carpentry and the other things she found herself doing each day; and she could see that the nails, all different lengths, with a fair amount of paint under them, and an old cut across the thumb where a saw had leapt out of her control, did make her look more like a workman than a femme fatale. ‘They do rather spoil the effect.’

‘Well, don’t despair, there’s quite a lot we can do before the party. When is it?’

‘About ten days – the Saturday after next.’

‘Well, if you slather on the hand cream, wear rubber gloves, let me give you a manicure—’

‘Chloe, I have loads to do. I can’t work in rubber gloves or hand cream. I can do what I can about my nails, but—’

‘I know!’ said Chloe gleefully. ‘Gloves!’

‘I’ve just said, I can’t—’

‘Not rubber gloves, idiot! Long, sexy black ones. Velvet, if we can’t get glacé kid.’

‘Which we won’t be able to, which is just as well, as I don’t approve.’

‘Velvet then. I’ll scour the charity shops, and if we can’t find any there, we’ll go to Cheltenham. I know a shop that sells that sort of thing. We might go there for jewellery. Oh, this is so much fun! I wish I’d had a girl, really.’

‘You’re better off with boys. Girls won’t wear the pretty little smocked dresses with itchy collars their mothers try and force them into. Take it from me, I know.’

Chloe laughed. ‘I bet Laura wore them.’

‘Not for long. After she’d stopped conforming, she rebelled, only she did it in such a way that our mother thought that what Laura wanted was her idea. Laura’s a genius at getting her own way. It’s surprising she’s so nice.’

‘So what about your father?’ Chloe asked.

‘Mum was widowed very young. I think that was when she started becoming dependent on friends and neighbours. She’s got a husband now.’

‘And don’t you like him?’

Anna thought for a moment. ‘He’s OK. Mum adores him and that’s the important thing. He just seems a bit of a … I don’t know. I wouldn’t say scoundrel, or bounder, exactly …’ She paused. ‘I expect it’s the permatan that makes him look a bit dodgy.’

‘But handsome?’

‘If you like that sort of thing. Now, I’d better get my own clothes back on. Do you need me to come and buy long black gloves?’

Chloe looked at her in amazement. ‘I don’t understand you! You’re turning down a lovely bit of retail therapy, for what?’

‘A lovely bit of plumbing. If my sister’s coming down, I’ve got work to do.’

Will drove Anna – all kitted out with Laura’s smart little silver case on wheels – to the station on the Saturday morning. They had arrived the night before, so Anna had given them the double bed and returned to her sleeping bag. Caroline started the night in her cage (which she loved), for Laura and Will’s sake, but everyone knew she’d creep back on to the sofa later.

It had been such a jolly evening. Chloe and Mike had got a babysitter, and they had all gone to the Chinese for a meal. Now, on the forecourt of the station, queuing for
her
ticket, Anna wished she wasn’t going to a nerve-racking college reunion, but was staying at home to have a nice, relaxing time with her sister and brother-in-law and her friends.

Laura had insisted on packing her bag, since she didn’t trust Anna not to just stuff everything in. Fortunately, Chloe’s dress was made out of some obliging sort of crepe that didn’t crease. The gloves, bought from the little shop in the back streets of Cheltenham known only to the cognoscenti, who fortunately included Chloe, didn’t crease either. And nor did the beautiful jet necklace that Laura had brought down for Anna to borrow. It was choker length, with strings of beads hanging from it, and it was real Whitby jet. It made the dress, the gloves and the shoes (Chloe’s, elegant but hideously uncomfortable) look supremely classy.

Neither Laura or Chloe knew exactly why Anna was so intent on looking fabulous, seeming to accept that wanting to look your best when you’re going to see old friends was entirely normal.

Once on the train, cup of coffee in hand, a book, a magazine and an
A–Z
in a little shopper lent by Chloe, Anna sat back, sipped her drink and looked out of the window at where the Cotswold stone buildings clung picturesquely to the hillside. When she’d first seen the view, coming down from London to look at what was to become her house, she’d known it was a good place to move to. Nowhere so divinely pretty could possibly be a mistake.

Now she felt a little proprietorial as she admired the golden stone and the quirky building styles; it was where she lived, or very near. She decided to enjoy herself.

‘For the duration of this train journey, and for a little while afterwards, my dream is still intact,’ she told herself.
‘It
may all shatter dreadfully later, but just for now, I can indulge it.’

When the pretty bit of the journey was over, instead of reading the book or the magazine, or even checking how to get from Paddington to the hotel, she closed her eyes and daydreamed until she fell asleep.

Chapter Nine

AT PADDINGTON, ANNA
was surprised at how quickly she got into the rhythm and swing of London, and found she was excited to be back. Perhaps she wasn’t a country girl, after all. Perhaps she was a city slicker. The thought was so amusing she found herself smiling into the mirror in the Ladies. She’d put make-up on that morning for the first time in ages. Laura and Chloe had convinced her to have a practice at wearing it before the party that night. Now, as she regarded her features, pleased she hadn’t rubbed her eyes, she realised they did seem more defined with the bit of kohl that Laura had chivvied her into putting on, and the few tentative swipes of Laura’s eye-shadow. These two were now in Anna’s sponge bag, along with Laura’s concealer, which Anna was very dubious about knowing how to use, and various other aids to beauty.

Yes, make-up did have a purpose, the most valid one being to make Anna feel different – and different, in her case, meant more confident.

Laura and Chloe had nearly despaired of her that morning. Chloe had come round, ostensibly to lend Anna some spare tights but in fact so she could join in the makeup process, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Anna enjoyed her trips to the dentist marginally more.

‘I don’t understand you!’ said Chloe. ‘You happily pick up an electric saw and cut into some precious boards—’

‘Not happily! I’d measured them about twenty times, and made a cardboard template!’

‘And yet you go all girly and pathetic when confronted with a make-up brush,’ Chloe finished.

‘It’s different,’ muttered Anna.

‘It washes off!’ declared Laura. ‘Now close your eyes.’

But Anna didn’t wash it off in the Ladies, as she’d promised herself she would, because she liked feeling different. Instead, she headed for the tube.

It was only when she came across a group of her college friends in the foyer of the hotel that she realised how competitive reunions could be. There were various ways of acquiring status and Anna doubted if she had mastered any of them. She didn’t have a stunning job, wasn’t studying for a further degree, and wasn’t married.

Crystal, whom Anna had never been close to, was showing off a huge sapphire engagement ring that linked with a platinum wedding band. ‘He does something with property, I’m not sure what. Here’s a picture.’ She produced a wedding photo of herself looking suave and slinky, showing off her perfectly formed and tanned arms, and her husband, who was equally perfect if you overlooked the lack of chin.

‘Wow,’ exclaimed Anna, not knowing what else to say.

‘And what about you, Anna?’ said Crystal, stowing the photo in her limited edition Chanel bag. ‘Have you got a husband, a partner?’

‘I’ve got a dog,’ she said, suddenly missing her.

‘Have you?’ said another friend, who didn’t seem to like Crystal much either, ‘I love dogs.’

‘So, are you married, Zara?’ asked Anna, hoping she wasn’t the only singleton in the group, although they were all still young.

‘Oh, God no! I’m disastrous with relationships. I’m
hoping
to find an old flame tonight. I always had the hots for Max Gordon.’

Anna tried to smile. ‘Not sure I remember him.’

‘He was only a guest lecturer, you may not have come across him.’ She frowned. ‘Though wasn’t it you who had the last dance with him at the Grad Ball?’ Anna gulped. ‘Perhaps it was someone else.’

Anna relaxed a little. Being wrapped up in Max’s arms had made her oblivious to who might have been watching them. She had no idea if their dance had been witnessed or not.