‘Is this the bathroom?’
The voice took Angelica by surprise. With a gasp, she hurried to replace the lid on the shoebox. Then she twisted around to see Grandpa standing behind her. He was wearing a vest and drawstring trousers. For one horrible moment, it looked as if he was about to unbutton himself.
‘No it isn’t,’ she said, rising to her feet. She sounded cornered, perplexed and a little cross. ‘It’s my wardrobe, Oleg. The bathroom is across the hall. You know that, don’t you?’
Grandpa looked even more bemused than Angelica. He took a moment to consider what she’d said, before his eyebrows lifted in surprise.
‘Oh, of course! So it is. I’m sorry.’
As he spoke, Angelica’s expression shifted from surprise to concern. For decades, Oleg had shown no sign that age was getting the better of him. His wrinkles may have deepened, but this was the first occasion that his mind had let him down. Seeing him like this, as she recovered her composure, just served to make her aware that he wasn’t going to live forever. It didn’t matter how often Titus joked that Oleg’s diet made him immortal, one day nature would take her course. However you conducted yourself through life, whatever path you chose, everyone died in time.
‘You’ve had a senior moment,’ she told him gently, before encouraging him to turn and leave the bedroom.
‘Have I?’ Oleg looked like he had completely forgotten what just happened. Angelica placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She could feel his bones and joints at work, as fragile as if fashioned from balsa wood. At the same time, she hoped he wouldn’t go wandering downstairs on Saturday in a similar state of undress.
‘We have another shoot at the weekend,’ she told him. ‘It’s important that we stay out of sight and let them do their job.’
‘So the kids told me,’ he said. ‘But I would’ve figured it out for myself on account of all the cleaning you’ve been doing.’
Angelica smiled to herself. It was good to know that Oleg was a long way from living in a complete fog of bemusement. The fact was she had spent much of the day making sure the house was prepared. She had scrubbed and disinfected, dusted and polished and vacuumed every last inch.
‘It has to be done,’ she said, as he followed her out onto the landing. ‘Titus insists.’
‘You should just let him pay off your credit card,’ said Oleg.
And reveal just how much debt I’m in? Angelica thought to herself. He’d slay me.
‘Titus has his own concerns,’ she said instead, and directed OIeg to the bathroom in case he had forgotten.
‘Titus should relax about Sasha,’ he said. ‘At the moment he’s just driving her into the arms of this boy.’
Oleg stopped and looked around at his daughter-in-law. Angelica had been referring to the fact that Titus was preoccupied with work. Even so, Oleg had a point. The last time Titus tried to address the situation with his eldest daughter, Sasha had left the table early.
‘Did she tell you that he’s invited her over for supper?’ she said. ‘A vegetarian meal.’
‘So, it’ll give her wind all evening. Is that the worst thing that can happen? Let the girl learn from the experience.’
Grandpa shuffled into the bathroom. As he turned to close the door, he found Angelica looking at him thoughtfully.
‘Titus is just scared that his little girl is growing up.’ She gestured at the window overlooking the park and the city beyond. ‘It’s a big bad world out there.’
‘Sometimes it feels as if I can’t breathe at home,’ complained Sasha later that day. She looked at the ground, which was some way down, and shook her head. ‘My dad is such an asshole. Who put him in charge of all the oxygen, eh?’
Sasha Savage was sitting alongside her two closest friends on the back of a ramp at the skate park. Sasha, Maisy and Faria came out here at lunch breaks just to get away from it all. The canteen was always packed with Years 7 and 8. Even if the girls were starving hungry, the shrieking and the smell of egg, farts and crisps was enough to persuade them to find some space. It meant Faria could light up while Sasha could air her problems.
‘What’s he done now?’ asked Maisy, a pretty, cheery girl whose manner served her well in her Saturday job as a waitress.
Sasha looked across at her. At that hour, the sun was at its brightest. She shielded her eyes with her hand before answering.
‘It’s Jack,’ she said. ‘Dad hates him.’
‘How can anyone hate Jack?’ asked Maisy. ‘He drives his own car and everything.’
‘Anyway, why is your old man so upset?’ This was Faria, whose gaze was locked on the school buildings as she pulled on the cigarette hidden in the palm of her hand.
‘It’s his new default position.’ Sasha checked her bag to see if she had packed her sunglasses. She sighed to herself, but not just because she had forgotten. ‘They haven’t even met.’
‘Typical,’ said Maisy. ‘Bloody dads!’
‘Jack’s cooking for me this weekend. All properly romantic and everything. His parents are out, so it’s a really good chance for us to get to know each other, only Dad has decided that I’d be placing my life in danger by dining alone with him.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Faria. ‘It’s not like Jack’s going to feast on your liver and spleen.’
Sasha returned her attention to the ground, quietly wishing she had some shades to hide behind. Behind them, a couple of lads who’d left school the year before were slamming from one side of the ramp to the other on skateboards. One worked evenings at the Cheepie Chicken takeaway. The other had been rejected by the army. None of the girls paid them any attention whatsoever.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ asked Maisy.
‘I wouldn’t want to let Jack down this soon in your relationship,’ warned Faria, before sucking on the cigarette like an asthmatic with an inhaler in the midst of an attack. ‘There are girls out there who would literally kill for a piece of him,’ she finished, on exhaling. ‘Let’s just say that if you fail to make it to his supper at the weekend I don’t suppose he’ll be dining alone.’ Faria took another hit on her hidden cigarette, seemingly unaware that Sasha was looking at her incredulously.
‘Jack wouldn’t cheat on me,’ she said eventually. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’
7
In her teens, Lulabelle Hart had crossed catwalks from London to Milan. Her height, frame and freckles were perfectly suited for modelling, as was her tumbling red hair that she had learned to flick over her shoulder just as the camera shutter opened. For several years, Lulabelle lived a lifestyle that many would envy. Then the next generation of girls began to attract the attention of designers and magazine editors, and slowly the work took a slide. Now in her mid-twenties, Lulabelle’s last fashion shoot featured clothes most people had since passed on to the charity shop. Still, her agent continued to find her work, and though she no longer graced front covers you could still find her advertising sofas and conservatories in the back pages. Sadly, Lulabelle’s A-list days were long gone. What remained was her attitude.
‘Explain this to me,’ she said, having just swept into the Savage house on the morning of the shoot. She was standing in the front room, where a crew worked hard to set up lights and cameras. The shoot, an advert for a plug-in air freshener, required Lulabelle to play the role of a beautiful but harassed mother who finds escape in the synthetic aroma of a tropical seashore. Lately, Lulabelle had played a lot of beautiful but harassed mothers. Given her dislike of other people’s children touching surfaces and door handles, she found it all too depressing for words. ‘What is that?’