Part 33 (1/2)
chapter forty.
W hen do you have to meet this man, darling?”
”Not till seven-thirty, don't worry.”
”Here, one more gla.s.s? And I'll just go and get the necklace.”
”Absolutely, thanks, Gran. This is really kind of you.”
”Well, it's lovely to see you, my darling girl.”
Laura drained her gla.s.s, and her grandmother poured some more champagne into it. ”There you go,” she said, and she padded back into the kitchen to put the bottle in the fridge. ”I'll just get the necklace.” She disappeared down the corridor.
Laura gazed around the flat, then looked out the window. It was a still, light autumn evening, with just a hint of cold in the air. She was meeting Marcus at a champagne bar near the Royal Courts of Justice, where the dinner was taking place, and since Marcus had rung her up the previous morning to confirm, and mentioned casually that it was very formal black tie and could she please be dressed appropriately (”Cla.s.sic,” Jo had said when Laura told her this. ”He obviously thinks you dress like a hooker”), Laura was demure in a black velvet dress falling just below the knee, tied with a pale silver Regency-style ribbon high on the waist. But she needed something else to not feel cheap, so she had rung up her grandmother and, killing two birds with one stone, asked if she could a) come to see her that evening to b) borrow her diamond necklace, which had been Mary's own grandmother's.
From the window in Mary's sitting room, one could see across the rooftops of central London, down south to her beloved Selfridges, toward Mayfair and Hyde Park. The sitting room was light, filled firmly with old, odd pieces of furniture from Mary and Xan's travels. An old Moroccan rug, woven with gold, hung on the wall. A mahogany writing desk, stuffed with letters and housekeeping files, all written in Mary's huge, looping scrawl. There on the wall was the picture of Xan that Laura loved so much. He was standing in the garden at Seavale, the sea in the distance, leaning on a spade and smiling at something past the camera. A rough cloth sun hat was jammed on his head. And there, staring up at him with frank adoration, was a very small (Laura thought four, perhaps) Simon, naked except for a pair of shorts, gazing with his mouth open. Laura smiled as she looked at the picture. It was funny how much Simon resembled his stepgrandfather. He was slow to anger, quick to laugh, just like Xan had been.
After what Simon had said to her the previous Sat.u.r.day, so cold and harsh, after Laura had seen the open disdain in his eyes, she had taken a long hard look at herself. Was she different now? She knew she wasn't the wide-eyed romantic she'd been a year ago. But had she, in trying to turn over a new leaf, to protect herself, gone too far the other way? She thought of Jo's comforting hand on her arm as she tried not to cry, thought how nice it would be simply to burst into tears and tell her all about it, how much she missed him, how she thought perhaps Mary might have been right all along but she had the feeling it was too late.
It wasn't too late for her, though, she knew that now. She wasn't going to change, again. She was just going to stop being this way or that way and simply be herself, again. Stop hiding. Stop dressing things up in fairy-tale costumes or dressing them down, packing them away and keeping them hidden. Just be herself. Go on dates, work hard, have a laugh. Enjoy herself.
She looked at her watch. ”You okay, Gran?” she called. She could hear her grandmother in her bedroom, clinking various boxes open and shut.
”Here it is.” Mary appeared, shaking her fist in the air. ”It wasn't where I thought it was, I couldn't find it. Silly of me.”
She opened her hand. Against the wrinkled, soft palm lay an old link chain and, at the center, a cl.u.s.ter of stars with twirling tails, intricately and beautifully made. One stone caught the light outside and twinkled quickly.
”Let me put it on you,” Mary said, and she shuffled past the armchair and slid the necklace around Laura's neck. ”Look at yourself.”
Laura patted her collarbone, loving the feeling of the scratchy, cold metal on her skin, and stood up to look in the small looking-gla.s.s by the balcony door.
”It's lovely,” she said. ”Just lovely.” She was glad her hair was up, twisted loosely into a chignon, so that the necklace could be seen. It was beautiful. Laura felt grown-up. She took Mary's hand. ”Thank you so much for letting me wear it tonight,” she said. ”I'll take good care of it, I promise.”
”Of course you will, darling,” said Mary, staring at the necklace. ”You'd be wise to anyway,” she added, turning away. ”It'll be yours one day, when I'm dead. Then you can wear it all you like.”
”Well,” Laura said, slightly briskly. ”We don't know that, do we? It should be Annabel's, and anyway, I'm not having this conversation with you, Gran!”
”Not Annabel's,” Mary said stubbornly. She picked up her drink, still standing in the middle of the room, and said rather gothically, ”You're my blood daughter, not her.”
”Mum is, you mean,” said Laura, feeling rather uncomfortable.
”Who?”
”My mum. Angela. She is.” Laura pointed to the wedding photo of her mother on the wall.
”Yes, yes,” said Mary impatiently. She blinked, and said accusingly, ”Stupid, stupid, we shouldn't be talking about this, you know.”
”Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited.”
”More excited about the necklace than this date, am I right?” said Mary, and she gave Laura an appraising stare. Her eyes danced, and Laura laughed, partly with relief.
”Er,” she said, picking her gla.s.s up again and twisting it round in her hand. ”Well, I don't know about that. Marcus-he's...”
Marcus had had an invitation for the dinner sent to her, addressed to ”Miss Laura Foster,” a thick cream card with gold around the edge; and today she had received flowers at work, a huge bouquet with a message that said, ”I look forward to tonight. Yours, Marcus,” which made Shana and Nasrin almost apoplectic with mirth-only Laura had heard them out in the stairwell laughing about something five minutes later, and she suspected it was that.
She thought it was nice, very, very nice. How many people actually did that? And wasn't it awful that girls spent their whole time complaining about boys and saying they were c.r.a.p-and then when a boy did something totally lovely and thoughtful, they laughed at him, like it was pathetic and needy and a bit strange? So what if she wasn't madly in love with Marcus? She'd only met him once, properly; he'd asked her on a date, and he seemed nice if a trifle, well, odd. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The new Laura. She smiled at Mary.
”Yes?” said Mary encouragingly, sinking slowly into a chair.
”Ahm,” said Laura, not sure how to start. She caught her grandmother watching her, with her bright, clever eyes that missed nothing, and thought, Actually, it's pointless to try and spin this for you, you miss nothing. It was strange that it was so.
”Heard from that nice young man lately?” said Mary.
”What? Him? No. No,” said Laura, giving her grandmother a quelling stare. She took a sip of her drink.
”Nothing?” said Mary.
”Nothing,” said Laura, then realized it sounded as if she was expecting to hear something. Of course she wasn't. ”No, nothing. You sound like Aunt Annabel.”
”What do you mean?”
”She rang me-” Laura began, then noticed the look on Mary's face, the one that brooked no criticism of Aunt Annabel. Laura knew she wouldn't be able to explain it to her grandmother, so she just said, ”Oh, nothing.”
”She's excited about it,” said Mary unexpectedly.
”Oh, good grief,” said Laura. ”There's nothing to be excited about. She's never called me before, why's she suddenly so interested?”
”Perhaps she was glad to have something to call you about,” Mary pointed out.
”I doubt that, highly,” Laura muttered. ”When was the last time she called Mum up, just for a chat?”
”Oh, darling,” said Mary firmly. ”Your aunt and your mother-they're very different. But they're more alike than you think. You all are. Annabel-she does love you, you know.”
”We're not alike,” said Laura, thinking of her and Simon, her mum and dad and their normal, easy life, and the Sandersons, so grand, so sn.o.bbish, so riddled with strange and foreign customs and ideas about life, and at the head of them, Aunt Annabel herself.
”That's just not true,” said Mary softly. ”You have far more in common than you realize. Far more.” She ran her nail around the edge of the gla.s.s, picking up the sheen of condensation that clung to it. ”Why do you want the world to be black and white? It's not.”
Laura looked down at the rather cheap velvet material of her dress. ”I don't,” she said, wondering whether they were still talking about Annabel or not.
Her grandmother was silent, and then she cleared her throat. ”Do you mind if I say something?” she said suddenly.
”No...” said Laura uncertainly, thinking that if yet another person was about to have a go at her-especially Mary, whose good opinion mattered so much to her-she might just throw her hands up and scream.
”I think you have too many people telling you what to do and telling you what you're like,” said Mary flatly. ”Don't you?”