One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [68]
It could only mean one thing. He’d got back early. Had said he might, from Toulouse, but I knew that trip: hadn’t really imagined he would. And yes, I had said come round, in the unlikely event. And he’d have found the spare key, the one I always kept for Seffy under the geranium pot, and which I moved periodically, leaving a note in Latin, hoping the burglars weren’t versed in the classics. I didn’t have a bit of food in the house, not even an egg. But more to the point – more pressingly – I didn’t have any make-up on. Not a scrap. No eyeliner, no mascara, no hideously expensive Touche Éclat, which I needed to erase the dark circles from under my eyes, the lines from my mouth, the tiny spider veins from my cheeks. No transfiguration unguents, which, when applied, went some way to ensuring I resembled not a dewy twenty-six – that would be downright impossible – but at least a sophisticated creature the right side of forty. Right now, all I had on was my Sunday night, greasy-haired, barefaced cheek. The one I reserved for my family or old friends like Maggie, who’d seen me open-mouthed and snoring as we slumbered in the back of a lorry, waiting for the sun to rise over some distant brocante; who knew about the ravages of time and had seen the whole difficult, intricate process of living etched on my face.
But not this individual. He certainly hadn’t. In that moment, all morbid thoughts of Hal, Letty – Seffy, even – were dispelled in a trice. With something approaching panic I leaped behind the dustbins, riffling furiously in my handbag like an old lady fumbling for her keys, except this one was after lippy. Lippy lippy lippy. Oh God, lippy! Hands trembling, I’d just managed to pull it out, twist it erect, and was poised to slather it on furiously – when my front door swung wide.
There, in the doorway, tousled and blond, in a crumpled white T-shirt and trailing jeans, feet bare and tanned, looking very much the dewy twenty-six I couldn’t hope to achieve, was Ivan. He blinked in surprise as I hunched, paralysed over a dustbin in the moonlight, my compact mirror in one hand, a stick of Chanel’s appropriately named Sunset Rose in the other.
‘Oh, it is you. I heard the key in the door and couldn’t work out why it didn’t open.’ He peered at me in the gloom. ‘Have you been swimming?’
14
‘Um, yes.’ Swimming. God, I did look rough. I put my head down and made to slide past him. ‘Desperate for the loo, though. Won’t be a tick.’
‘Hey, not so fast,’ he laughed, stopping me with a huge arm and giving me a bear hug. ‘Haven’t you got a kiss for your old man?’
Old he certainly wasn’t, but I liked the possessive article, and even though it was under the glare of my ghastly overhead light, I succumbed to his embrace. I made a mental note, eyes shut, mid-kiss, to remove the bulb. I’d removed all the other overhead bulbs in the house when I’d met Ivan, replaced them with extremely low-voltage table lamps, but hadn’t got round to the hall. In the first place there wasn’t room for a table – no matter, it could sit on the floor – but neither had I envisaged being ravaged here. I can’t imagine why, I’d been ravaged most other places in the house, and this thought clearly occurred to Ivan as he began to peel off my jacket, eyeing the twelve square feet of carpet speculatively. But I wasn’t having that.
‘Won’t be a mo!’ I gasped, as I finally came up for air. I wrenched myself free from his arms and stumbled into the downstairs loo, locking it firmly behind me.
Happily, a full set of beauty paraphernalia was to hand – I kept make-up in most rooms, these days – and I frantically got to work. Not the full rig, I thought, scrubbing off too much blusher – that might be a bit obvious – but I outlined my eyes, glossed my lips, then threw my head down and tossed my hair back to add bounce. I sucked in my cheeks and eyed my reflection critically. Better. Nothing would improve the nose Dad had given me, Roman and distinguished on a man, less so on a girl, nor the