Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

A man needs to feel that he can share his innermost thoughts and desires with his sweetheart. Show your potential by encouraging your chap to talk about himself. Be attentive to his emotional needs and quicker than you can say ‘diamond ring’ he will see you as his greatest confidante!

Matilda Beam’s Guide to Love and Romance, 1955

Over the coming days, I try again to broach the subject of my mum with Grandma. On Sunday afternoon, while demonstrating how to list items on eBay at the kitchen table, I casually ask her once more why she and Mum didn’t speak to each other for all that time. Grandma avoids having to answer by feigning a sudden terrible headache that ‘must have been brought on by the ghastly lights of the computer machine’. On Monday afternoon, I try to catch her unawares after her nap. I wait patiently outside her door until she wakes up, and when she blearily comes out of her room, I corner her and ask what exactly happened the day my mum left. With wide eyes and sleep-rumpled hair, she stutters that she’s can’t quite remember, that it’s not a good time, that I mustn’t worry and that she’s suddenly very tired and, come to think of it, ‘rather needs a second afternoon nap’. Then, blinking rapidly, she shiftily retreats backwards into her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

I try to push the unanswered questions away − I’m usually so good at refocusing my brain − but they continue to whizz and flutter around my mind like cheap glitter in a shaken-up snow globe. On Monday night, once everyone has gone to bed, I skulk downstairs and search the house for clues. I rifle through drawers and dressers and cupboards trying to find old letters or pictures, any evidence at all of my mum’s time here and what might have happened for her to become so disconnected from her own parents. But beyond the dolls and a single framed photograph of my mum as a teenager in a demure-looking party dress, I discover precisely bloody nothing. Once again, I find myself wishing that I’d asked Mum about her life when I had the chance. Maybe if I’d known more, if I’d forced her to tell me what happened, helped her to fix it, I could have stopped her from getting so ill.

By Wednesday, I decide to hang fire on my secret investigation because life gets all kinds of busy and, to be honest, I’m grateful to be distracted from the unsettling Mum thoughts. Having listed all the hallway junk on eBay, we’re (thanks to my amazing descriptions) inundated with buyer bids, and in-between waking up early to squeeze in secret runs and sneaking out late to meet Doctor Jamie for sexy rendezvous at the clinic, I spend most of the days managing auctions, requesting feedback and packing up items for Peach to take to the post office. I read some more chapters of Matilda Beam’s Guide to Love and Romance when I can, watch Grace Kelly movies with Peach, and, under Grandma’s instruction, learn how to walk as a lady − shoulders back, arse tucked in, nose up, short, delicate swaying steps. So like a twat, basically.

I try my best to get some words down for How to Catch a Man Like It’s 1955, but time seems to slip so easily away from me and I don’t manage to do anything more than an opening chapter.

But I will.

Definitely.

The days race along, and by Thursday it’s time for my next night out with Leo. Despite my asking, he’s refused to give any clue as to what we’ll be doing, beyond asking that I meet him at the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square at six o’clock. Based on the fact that I didn’t have a bloody clue what to talk to Leo about on our last date, I ask Grandma for advice as she’s getting me ready.

‘Of course, the aim this evening is to get Mr Frost to open up to you,’ Grandma declares as she wraps my pale ginger locks up into pin curls, securing each one with a purple crocodile clip. ‘Very early on, he needs to see you as someone with whom he can share his hopes and his dreams. A confidante. A partner!’

Hopes and freaking dreams? Wow. That sounds super heavy. I don’t know much about second dates, having never been on one before in my life, but that seems like a dead intense topic of conversation. Shouldn’t we be talking about Great British Menu or, I don’t know, favourite childhood toys?

I frown at Grandma in the bulb-framed bathroom mirror. ‘Isn’t that a bit pushy? I mean, won’t it scare him off?’

Grandma laughs out loud, her hand paused on my head. ‘A Good Woman is a little pushy from time to time, dear. Men don’t know what they want or what they need. It is our job to show them. Subtly, of course.’ She gives me a benevolent look. ‘People love to talk about themselves, Jessica. All anyone really wants is to be heard.’

But … I’m no good at that. I’m no good at emotional stuff and listening and seriousness. I never have been. When you let people tell you their deep feelings, they expect you tell them your deep feelings too. They call it sharing. And then you have to think about your emotional shit and everything gets sad and complicated.

‘On second thoughts, can I not just stick to being fake-fascinated by him instead?’ I try. ‘He seems to really like that.’

Grandma tucks a strand of wiry silver hair behind her ear and gracefully shakes her head with a chuckle. ‘Of course he likes that. But I’m afraid we don’t have a great deal of time to do this, and tonight we need to deepen things a little. You must get him to open up, Jessica. Ask him lots of questions about himself. Prompt him to reveal his heart’s desires to you. Be a good and sincere listener and he will see you as a serious contender.’

I pull a face. ‘Contender? For what?’

‘Why, for love, what else? Trust me.’ Grandma pats my shoulder and takes a tub of Pond’s cold cream off the countertop, ready to moisturize my face for the hundredth time this week. ‘Millions of women have taken my advice on how to make a man fall in love. I know exactly what I’m doing.’

I cross my arms and grumble into the mirror. A whole entire night aimed at discovering Leo Frost’s hopes and dreams. Awesome!

Not.

* * *

‘Wow.’ Leo smiles broadly as I do my new, slinky ‘lady’ walk to where he’s waiting for me at the Fourth Plinth − which is currently topped with this mental sculpture of a cockerel blaring ultramarine blue in the hot sun.

‘Wow,’ he repeats, drawing the word out across two syllables, green eyes taking in every inch of me with undisguised lust. To be fair, Grandma has done a cracking job tonight. I’m wearing another sundress, this time a saturated coral-pink colour that nips right in at the waist and with little cap sleeves instead of spaghetti straps. My feet are encased in turquoise Mary Jane high heels, and balanced on my nose is a pair of huge winged tortoiseshell Chanel sunglasses. With my pin-curled hair framing my elegantly made-up face, I’m totally channelling a 1950s bombshell – less goody-two–shoes Doris Day, more smoking-hot Ava Gardner.

‘You look good too,’ I purr, briefly tilting my sunglasses down with my forefinger. It’s true. Leo is dressed down in a fitted navy blue polo shirt that shows off his broad shoulders, and tan chinos that demonstrate the admittedly pleasing shape of his bum. His quiff is still perfectly coiffed and dickhead like, but out of the dapper suit he looks different. Less … dapper.

I hold onto the memory of Valentina’s warning. Leo Frost is not to be trusted. He’s probably dressed like this because he knows how hot it looks. Well, I know better, so who’s the sucker here?

Leo Frost. Artist. Thinker. Man. Sucker.

‘I got you a gift,’ he grins, reaching into the back pocket of his chinos.

Aha! This is what Valentina said he would do. Give me extravagant gifts in order to ‘woo’ me into bed. Must be something small if it fits into his back pocket. Jewellery? A Eurostar ticket to Gay Paris? A little origami heart that he made all by himself?

Leo pulls his hand out of his pocket and gives me … a small white paper bag?

I tentatively take it from him and open it up. There’s nothing inside. He’s given me an empty paper bag.

Huh?

Oh!

All at once, I get the joke. It’s an aeroplane sick bag. It’s not an extravagant gift at all. Leo Frost brought me a sick bag! I laugh out loud in surprise and make a great show of tucking the bag carefully into my purse. Well played, I think suspiciously. Leo laughs back gleefully and offers me his arm.

‘So, where are going tonight?’ I ask, delicately linking arms with him as we wander past the fountains in the square. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this evening all week long.’

Leo points over towards the National Gallery.

‘Right there,’ he says, eagerly leading me in the direction of the steps. ‘There’s a private viewing of a newly acquired Van Gogh collection and I’ve got tickets.’

Van Gogh?

Shit.

If there’s one thing I know even less about than poetry, it’s art.

Gad, why can’t he just take me to dinner like a normal person? Or a rock concert. I’m ace at rock concerts − I can mosh like nobody’s business. Except for that one time when I tried to crowdsurf but the crowd was a bit sparse and it was essentially just one meaty-looking guy holding me up in the air for a bit.

I frown discreetly to myself. Art. Leo Frost has gone and thrown me another bloody wild card. I only just got through the poetry night without letting the Lucille veneer slip and revealing Jess underneath.

How the fuck am I going to manage this one?