Before I Met You

60


Ten Days Later




‘AH, MISS BETTY Dean, welcome, welcome, welcome!’ Jeremiah Worsley walked towards her, his feet crunching against the gravelled driveway, a big red hand outstretched, smiling widely. ‘Welcome to our humble abode.’

Humble it was not. A picturebook Jacobean manor house set in a wooded vale; crenulations, candy-twist chimney stacks, box-cut yews, a moat and gargoyles. One of the prettiest houses Betty had ever seen.

‘Allow me to introduce you to George Worsley, my nephew, and his wife, Kitty. They run the estate now, poor buggers,’ he laughed heartily.

Betty shook hands with the couple who looked like they’d stepped straight off the cover of Country Life, right down to their ruddy cheeks and the pair of chocolate Labradors skittering around their Wellington-booted feet.

‘Hellair, hellair,’ they both said, ‘how wonderful to meet you, Betty.’

‘Likewise,’ she said. And then she turned to the minibus parked in the driveway behind her. ‘I’ve brought quite a party,’ she said, ‘I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Nair nair, not at awl,’ said George, ‘after all, this is quite a momentous event.’

The door of the minibus slid open and Betty introduced its passengers as they disembarked.

‘This is Jolyon, Arlette’s son, and Alison, my mother. This is Alexandra Brightly, a friend of mine, who helped with my search. And this,’ she held out her hand to help her from the bus, ‘is Clara Davies, Godfrey’s daughter.’

Jeremiah, George and Kitty’s faces blossomed at the sight of their guests. ‘So lovely to meet you all, so utterly thrilling.’

‘Such a beautiful house,’ said Clara, staring upwards and around herself in awe.

‘Thank you veh much,’ trilled Kitty. ‘It’s a total pain, awbviously, but worth all the sweat and tears. Anyway, come in, come in, do.’

The party followed Jeremiah, George and Kitty through breathtaking room after breathtaking room. They gave a perfunctory commentary as they passed through each: blue room, red room, green room, sitting room, library, billiards room, like a full-size tour of a Cluedo board.

And then they came to a stop outside a room with a plaque outside that said: ‘The Gideon Worsley Room.’

‘Well, then, here we are,’ said Kitty, rubbing her hands together. ‘As you know, Great-uncle Gideon was a well-regarded portraitist of the post-war generation. Something of a black sheep, he found his way to London after the war and lived an unconventional life: a meagre cottage, bohemian friends and a taste for the exotic. Two of his portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery, and five hang here, at his ancestral family home. The rest are in private ownership around the world. So,’ she glanced from Jolyon to Clara, ‘are you ready?’

Clara and Jolyon smiled at each other and nodded.

‘Here it is,’ said George, removing a red velvet cover with a flourish, ‘Sandy and Arlette.’

Betty caught her breath and held it as the cover came away. And then she gasped. Her hand went instinctively to her throat and she turned to catch Jolyon’s reaction. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, shaking his head slowly. ‘Well, I never.’

Betty turned then to Clara. She too had her hand to her throat and was staring at the painting with her jaw ajar.

‘Wow,’ said Alexandra.

‘Incredible,’ said Alison.

‘Good grief,’ said Jolyon.

‘Quite something, isn’t it?’ said Jeremiah, smiling with satisfaction.

‘It’s awesome,’ said Alexandra. ‘I want it. How much will you take for it?’

Her joke broke through the air of stultifying shock and everyone laughed softly.

Jolyon moved closer to the painting and squinted at it. ‘It’s incredible,’ he said, leaning in closer. ‘Utterly incredible, I mean, look at Mummy. Look at her.’ He turned incredulously to both Betty and Alison. ‘She looks so ... sexy.’ He flushed violently red as the word left his mouth. ‘Remarkable,’ he continued. ‘Just remarkable. I can’t believe you did it, Betty. You really did it.’ He eyed her proudly. ‘What an achievement. My God. And all this history. All this colour. This drama. Imagine,’ he said, dreamily, ‘if we’d just placed an advert and no one had replied and we’d never have known any of this.’ He shook his head sadly at the thought. ‘Thank you, Betty,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much.’

Clara was sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as Betty put an arm around her shoulder, ‘it’s just, you know, wow. My daddy. Such a fine, fine man. I just want to touch him, you know, I want to stretch out my hand and just touch him.’

George pulled a camera from a bag around his neck and said, ‘Would you mind awfully, Jolyon, Clara, just a photo, just for us, of the two of you, next to your respective parents?’

They looked at each other uncertainly. Clara said, ‘Not for publicity? Not for anything official? My father, my real father, I don’t want him to –’

‘No, I assure you, just for us, for the family, for posterity.’

Jolyon and Clara posed then, one on either side of the painting, smiling shyly, Arlette’s son, Godfrey’s daughter, neither the child that the couple had dreamed of making together, but their children none the less. Betty took some photos with her own camera and with Clara’s, and Alison took photos with hers. It was a sweet, perfect moment, as the sun streamed in through the stained leaded windows and a small group of disparate people made some kind of resolution with themselves and the truth of their pasts. A weird kind of family connection was being made here today, a connection not of blood, but of shared history.

Betty stood back for a moment and surveyed the scene. She imagined for a moment Godfrey and Arlette watching from somewhere high above them all, from somewhere high behind that hot, round summer sun. She saw them and they were smiling.


John Brightly did a double take when he saw Betty walking towards his record stall the following morning.

‘You’re blond again,’ he said.

She ruffled her hair with her fingers and smiled. ‘I certainly am.’

He nodded. ‘I like it.’

‘Good,’ she said, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair.

‘I thought you’d moved out.’ He gestured at the door behind them with his eyes.

‘Yeah. I did. I have. Last Friday. I would have said goodbye, but you weren’t here.’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah. Yeah ...’ he petered off.

‘What happened to you?’

He shrugged again. ‘Nothing much. Just needed to, you know, regroup. Find a new flat.’

‘And did you?’

‘Yeah. I did. A nice place. Top floor. Dry. Clean. You know.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Notting Hill. Well, yeah, North Kensington, more accurately, but I can walk to the tube in under ten minutes.’ He rearranged a stack of records, mindlessly. ‘And you,’ he said, eventually. ‘What about you? Where are you living now?’

‘I am living in Zone Three,’ she said with a grim smile.

John winced sympathetically.

‘Tooting Broadway. Sharing a flat with a girl called Celia. Found it through an ad in Loot, you know, like a real Londoner. Nice quiet block. Nice quiet neighbours. Half an hour on the Northern line to work. No one’s been sick on our front step. Yet.’ She smiled and rocked back on her heels slightly.

‘So you decided against the rock-chick lifestyle option?’

She snorted. ‘Of course I did.’

He looked at her curiously. ‘Hmm.’

‘Hmm what?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just, you know, that night, you sounded like you were seriously considering it.’

‘Well, yeah. I was. For about thirty seconds. Until somebody gave me a good reason not to.’

He glanced at her with surprise. Then he turned back to his record stall as if the conversation was over.

‘It’s my birthday today,’ she said. ‘I’m twenty-three.’

‘Oh,’ he turned to her and smiled. ‘Wow. Well. Happy birthday to you.’

Betty took a deep breath, readying herself for her next question. ‘Is that kiss still up for grabs?’

He stared at her in amazement. Then his face softened. ‘What,’ he said, ‘you mean, this one?’ He leaned down and kissed her.

‘Yes,’ she said, pulling away from the kiss. ‘Yes, that one.’

John Brightly smiled at her, one of his lottery winner smiles, and said, ‘Oh, all right then, but only because it’s your birthday.’ And then they wrapped their arms around each other, there, in the swirling, pungent chaos of a crazy Soho morning, and they kissed each other as if there was nobody there to see them.





Acknowledgements


Thanks to Kate Burke, my lovely shiny new editor, for the superb brainstorming session which helped bring Arlette’s story fully to life, and for finally letting me have a photograph on my cover, like a big grown-up writer. And massive thanks to Susan, Jen, Najma, Claire, Georgina, Selina, Rob, Andrew, Richard and everyone else at Random House who works so hard on my behalf.

Thanks to all my friends on the Board, life without you doesn’t bear thinking about. And thanks to all the staff at Apostrophe for letting me sit for hours over a laptop and a double macchiato without ever asking me what on earth I was doing.

Thanks to Jonny Geller, my trusty and wonderful agent.

Thanks to Jascha, my trusty and wonderful husband.

And thanks to all my lovely followers on Twitter and fantastic friends on Facebook. I hope it doesn’t sound daft to say you make me feel like part of a big online family.

The character name of Minu McAteer was given to me by Maggie McAteer, the winner of an auction in aid of the brilliant Peter Bowron Catteshall Stroll which raises funds for the children’s hospice charity Shooting Star CHASE (www.catteshallstroll.co.uk). Thank you Maggie, I really hope your niece enjoys her namesake (once she’s old enough to read!).