Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [28]
`Anyway,' he went on, `that's enough about Adrian. When can I see you?'
Double-checking, Miranda said, `Have we definitely stopped playing it cool?'
`Definitely stopped.'
`Oh well, in that case,' she said happily, `how about tonight?'
Crammed on to the tube forty minutes later, Miranda was strap-hanging and swaying in unison with everyone else in the carriage when she saw a face she recognised.
She ducked her head and peered more closely at the copy of the Daily Mail being held up by the woman against whom she was currently squashed hip-to-hip. The paper was open at the Dempster page and the girl she had spotted in the main photograph was Daisy Schofield.
The woman to whom the paper belonged was reading the other page. Annoyingly, she was obscuring with her fingers the bit Miranda most wanted to see. But Daisy Schofield was certainly looking happy enough, with her thin arms draped around the shoulders of some man or other - oh, come on, move your fingers - and although the accompanying text was partially hidden, Miranda was clearly able to make out the words `in fine form', `sizzling romance' and `Wednesday night'.
So much for being laid up with a virus, thought Miranda. Elizabeth Turnbull had been right.`Lying bitch,' she muttered under her breath.
When the woman flinched and glanced sideways in alarm, Miranda realised the words hadn't been as far under her breath as she'd thought. Oh well, never mind, maybe if she apologised and explained, the woman would move her fingers and let her read the rest of the piece.
But the owner of the newspaper was too fast for Miranda. Before she even had a chance to open her mouth, the train screeched to a halt at South Ken. The doors scissored open and the woman, still clutching her paper to her chest, jumped off.
Now I'll have to buy one myself, Miranda thought indignantly, peering after her. Honestly, some people were so selfish.
Chapter 12
`Yap yap,' said Miranda when Fenn arrived at the salon an hour later.
`I knew it.' Fenn raised his eyebrows at Bev. `She's finally gone barking.'
`God, you're slow,' Miranda protested. `It's Friday, isn't it? Tabitha day. You said I could be your guard dog.'
Tabitha Lester, known in the salon as Try-it-on Tabitha, had been a hugely successful actress back in the seventies. Now past her sell-by date but steadfastly refusing to admit it, she spent her days having face lifts and fat hoovered out of her thighs, and her nights tottering along to film premiиres on the arms of embarrassingly young men.
She also had a massive crush on Fenn, who had once gone to her house alone and had barely escaped with his leather trousers intact. Since then, his regular trips to Tabitha's home in St John's Wood were strictly chaperoned, much to her disgust and his relief.
Miranda loved going too. If Tabitha Lester was willing to pay silly money for a house call, she didn't mind at all. The house was vast and decorated in wonderfully over-the-top Hollywood style. They were always plied with Hollywood-type food, and Tabitha - in an attempt to weaken
Fenn's defences - was forever opening bottles of pink champagne.
`I don't know why you don't sleep with her,' said Miranda, feeling quite Hollywoody herself in the passenger seat of Fenn's gleaming black Lotus. `Just make a hash of it, be completely useless. Then she won't pester you any more.'
`Is that your bright idea for the day?'
`It's a brilliant suggestion!'
`Right.' Fenn nodded. `We're talking about the queen of the tabloids here. That'll do my reputation the world of good, won't it? I can just see the headline: "My Quickie with Crimper Fenn - a Wizard with Scissors, Crap in the Sack."'
`Yes, but no one would believe it,' Miranda protested. Fenn's girlfriends tended to be supermodels and he was generally regarded as one of London's most eligible bachelors.
When you were a gorgeous heterosexual hairdresser - and a very successful one, at that - well, you could do no wrong. You were officially a great catch.
`I'd rather not take that chance,' Fenn remarked,