“No I’m not. Come.”
I feel suddenly light-headed, overcome by fear, but also weirdly exhilarated. I sense he has an agenda, that this isn’t just a spontaneous show of friendship. But I don’t think I’ll manage to behave normally around him now that I’ve read Tilda’s letter, and I can’t imagine us getting through the evening without it ending with me losing my temper and in some catastrophic confrontation. At the same time, the more information I can extract from him, the better I’ll be able to protect Tilda. For ages I say nothing, then I agree to go, and the minute I put the phone down, I turn back to the dossier to make a list of questions to ask him.
? ? ?
The following day, in the bookshop, I’m packing up the returns and phoning customers to say their reserved books have arrived, but my mind is on Felix, and I find myself becoming absurdly fixated on the difficulty of fitting in at the Wolseley. I don’t imagine it’s a jeans and T-shirt sort of place, and before I know it, I’m seeking advice.
“Daphne, I’m going to the Wolseley, could you give me some advice on what to wear?”
She snorts in a way that Mum would call “unbecoming,” and puts her Virginia Woolf mug down.
“Bloody hell, sweetheart.” She’s bellowing across the shop, “How come?”
“My sister’s boyfriend is taking me. The one I don’t like—I think he’s trying to win me round.”
“Well, make the most of it. I’m not sure I’m the right person for style advice—but how about this—I’ll buy you a dress. I’ll close the shop for an afternoon and we’ll go into town together and choose something.”
So that’s what we do. She takes me to Fenwick department store on Bond Street, and I try on several dresses that each cost hundreds of pounds, all of them picked out by Daphne “to make the most of your shape.” She riffles through the rows of clothes, finger-walking through the hangers like an efficient filing clerk, saying, “No; no; God no; that’s frightful; yes, take this one . . .” And she follows me into the changing room, peeking round the curtain and commentating. “No, it’s squashing your bust,” or “Too droopy; you need fitted.” I surrender to her wisdom, recognizing that she’s picking out classic designs for me and is making me look stylish; although it’s odd that her own way of dressing—leather miniskirts and Cuban heels—is so different.
We settle on a royal-blue dress. At first I don’t think I can possibly wear it, I feel so exposed. Not that it’s too low cut, or too short, but the fact that it follows my curves is embarrassing. When I protest, Daphne says, “I’m not going to pressure you, Callie, but you do look quite lovely. You have a fantastic figure . . . and you have no sense of how gorgeous you are, which makes you all the more lovely.” I feel my cheeks crimson, and I say, “Okay then, I’ll be brave.”
“Now for some shoes.”
“No. It’s too much! You can’t spend all this.”
“And you can’t wear that dress with trainers.”
“I think it would be fun with trainers.”
“Not for the Wolseley. Come on.”
So she buys me shoes. At least, a pair of ankle boots in smoky gray suede with a thin little heel. “I adore them,” I say. “But I feel guilty.”
“View them as your summer bonus, a reward for persuading Mr. Ahmed to buy all those P. G. Wodehouses and selling so many Get Well Soon cards.”
I laugh, because we both know that I’ve sold only one Get Well Soon card in the past three months.
? ? ?
At work the next morning I wear the suede boots with my jeans, and Daphne says, “Very nice. Dress them up; dress them down.” Wilf comes in, and I make a point of walking across the shop floor to put a cookery book back on its shelf. He doesn’t notice the boots, but he looks at me with a bemused face, trying to work out what’s different.
“Can I help you?” I say.
“Yes, I think you can.”
“How?”
“Are you free this weekend? Do you want to come and do some gardening?”
“What? With you?”
“Of course with me. . . . Do you have Wellington boots?”
“Yep.”
He leaves and I’m astounded by the turn of events, amazed that Wilf hasn’t written me off. I look at Daphne, and she looks at me. “Don’t get excited,” I say. And she starts whistling the tune of “Love Is in the Air.”
“I had no idea that you can whistle.”
“I had no idea you could garden.”
? ? ?
On Saturday Wilf drives to my flat and picks me up. His car is a beaten-up Volkswagen, splattered with mud. He removes some old newspapers, cardboard coffee cups and other detritus from the passenger seat and tosses them into the back, where gardening equipment is piled up—spades, forks, trowels and bags of compost and gravel—and I get into the passenger seat. It’s a hot day, and I’ve dressed for gardening in an old cotton shirt with faded blue flowers on it, and shorts that used to be pink but have faded in the wash so that they’re kind of pig-colored. And, as instructed, Wellington boots.
“I like the way the car smells of dirt.” I smile, so he knows I’m not being sarcastic.
“I love dirt.” He grins back and glances down at my pale thighs, which are very much on show in the passenger seat. I look at them too, and wonder whether they could conceivably be thought luscious, rather than just big.
We arrive at the gates of a whitewashed mansion on Bishops Avenue, all pillars and portico. Wilf has to tap in a code for the ironwork gate, which opens electronically.
“I reckon the inside is made of marble and gold,” I say.
“You’re not far wrong. Big marble floor.”
“Russian oligarch?”
“Nope . . . Middle Eastern diplomat.”