boys don’t become men. Boys just get papier-mâchéd inside a man’s mask. Sometimes you can tell the boy is still in there.) Julia talked about her afternoon in the solicitor’s office in Malvern. She’s doing a summer job there, filing, answering the phone and typing letters. She’s saving to go on holiday with Ewan in August on an Interrail. You pay £175 and can go anywhere on the trains in Europe for free for a month. Acropolis at dawn. Moon over Lake Geneva.
Jammy thing.
So anyway, it was Mum’s turn. ‘You won’t believe who was at Penelope Melrose’s today.’
‘I completely forgot to ask.’ Dad’s trying harder to be nice these days. ‘How was it? Who was it?’
‘Penny’s fine – but she’d only invited Yasmin Morton-Bagot along.’
‘“Yasmin Morton-Bagot”? That’s got to be a made-up name.’
‘Nobody made her name up, Michael. She was at our wedding.’
‘Was she?’
‘Penny and Yasmin and I were inseparable, during our college days.’
‘The fairer sex, Jason,’ Dad gave me a crafty nod, ‘hunt in packs.’
It felt all right to smile back.
‘Right, Dad,’ Julia remarked, ‘unlike the unfairer sex, you mean?’
Mum pushed on. ‘Yasmin gave us the Venetian wineglasses.’
‘Oh, those things! The spiky ones without a base so you can’t put them down? Are they still taking up loft space?’
‘I’m rather surprised you don’t remember her better. She’s very striking. Her husband – Bertie – was a semi-professional golfer.’
‘Was he?’ Dad was impressed. ‘“Was”?’
‘Yes. He celebrated going professional by shacking up with a physiotherapist. Cleared out the joint bank accounts. Didn’t leave poor Yasmin a bean.’
Dad went all Clint Eastwood. ‘What sort of a man does that?’
‘It was the making of her. She went into interior design.’
Dad sucked air through his teeth. ‘Risky venture.’
‘Her first shop in Mayfair was such a hit, she opened another one in Bath within a year. She’s not one to name-drop, but she’s done work for the royals. She’s staying with Penny at the moment, to open a third shop in Cheltenham. This one has a big gallery space, too, for exhibitions. But she’s been let down by the manageress she’d originally hired to manage it.’
‘Staff! Always the tricky part of the equation. I was telling Danny Lawlor just the other day, if—’
‘Yasmin offered me the job, you see.’
A very surprised silence.
‘Fantastic, Mum,’ Julia beamed, ‘that’s just brilliant!’
‘Thank you, sweetheart.’
Dad’s lips smiled. ‘Certainly, it’s a very flattering offer, Helena.’
‘I ran Freda Henbrook’s boutique in Chelsea for eighteen months.’
‘That funny little place where you worked after college?’
‘Mum’s got a fabulous eye,’ Julia told Dad, ‘for colours and textiles and stuff. And she’s great with people. She’ll charm them into buying anything.’
‘Nobody’s denying it!’ Dad did a jokey-surrender gesture. ‘I’m sure this Yasmin Turton-Bigot person wouldn’t have—’
‘Morton-Bagot. Yasmin Morton-Bagot.’
‘—wouldn’t have floated the idea if she had any doubts, but—’
‘Yasmin’s a born entrepreneur. She hand-picks her staff.’
‘And…you said…what, to her?’
‘She’s calling Monday for my decision.’
The bell-ringers in St Gabriel’s began their weekly practice.
‘Only, it’s not in any way a pyramid selling thing, is it, Helena?’
‘It’s a gallery and interiors thing, Michael.’
‘And you did discuss terms? It isn’t all commission?’
‘Yasmin pays salaries, just like Greenland Supermarkets. I thought you’d be pleased at the prospect of me having an income. You won’t have to shell out hills of money on my whims any more. I can afford them myself.’
‘I am. I’m pleased. Of course I am.’
Black cows’d gathered in the field, just over our fence, past the rockery.
‘So, you’d be travelling to and from Cheltenham every day, would you? Six days a week?’
‘Five. Once I’ve hired an assistant, it’d be four. Cheltenham’s a lot closer than Oxford or London or all the places you manage to get to.’
‘It’ll mean pretty major adjustments to our lifestyles.’
‘They’re happening anyway. Julia’s off to university. Jason’s not a baby any more.’
My family chose this moment to look at me. ‘I’m pleased too, Mum.’
‘Thank you, darling.’
(Thirteen is too old to be a ‘darling’.)
Julia urged her, ‘You are going to take it, right?’
‘I’m tempted.’ Mum did this shy smile. ‘Being stuck in the house every day is—’
‘“Stuck”?’ Dad did an amused squeak. ‘Believe you me, there’s no “stuck” like being stuck to a shop, day in, day out.’
‘A gallery, with a shop. And at least I’d meet people.’
Dad looked genuinely puzzled. ‘You know dozens of people.’
Mum looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Who?’
‘Dozens! Alice, for one.’
‘Alice has a house, a family and a part-time business. In Richmond. Half a day away by glorious British Rail.’
‘Our neighbours are nice.’
‘Certainly. But we haven’t the blindest thing in common.’