The trousers slid easily over her bottom with the minimum of tugging, and Neve could even fasten them, but they gaped at the waist and were far too tight over her hips and thighs. Neve took the jacket off the hanger and tried it on over her bra, just to satisfy her curiosity. The jacket fitted at least; she could do up all of the buttons, but …
‘How are you doing in there?’ Her mother’s strident tones carried through the curtain then, to Neve’s horror, it was pulled back so her mother could march into the cubicle. ‘Let’s have a look at you.’
‘The trousers don’t fit,’ Neve said, wrapping her arms round her waist defensively. ‘Jacket’s OK, I suppose.’
‘Let me see.’ Her mother forced Neve’s arms down and then had the audacity to stick her hand in the waistband of the trousers. ‘These are far too big for you.’
‘They’re too small. They’re clinging to my bottom and my thighs.’
‘Nonsense. They’re too big and the jacket is bagging over your bosoms.’
‘Mum! Get off me!’ Neve tried to bat away her mother’s hands, which were busy unbuttoning the jacket.
‘I gave birth to this body and it was no picnic, believe me, and we’re all girls together. Nothing to be embarrassed about.’ Her mother had succeeded in getting the jacket undone. ‘Oh, you’re much smaller-busted than I would have thought.’
‘What did I tell you?’ Now Celia was pushing back the curtain so she could stare at Margaret Slater in horror. ‘You don’t come into the changing room uninvited. You don’t offer an opinion, unless Neve’s asked for it, and there is definitely no touching. Get your hands off her!’
‘Really, I’ve never heard the like,’ Mrs Slater grumbled, unhanding her eldest daughter. ‘You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, Neevy. Ah, there’s hardly anything left of you.’
‘There’s plenty of me,’ Neve snapped, buttoning up the jacket again and offering herself up for Celia’s inspection.
‘You need to go down a size,’ her sister said. ‘It’s all too big.’
‘Am I talking to myself? Yes, the trousers are too big on the waist but they’re too tight on my gargantuan backside.’
‘Please, just put on the size fourteen so we can compare and contrast because I’m losing the will to live here,’ Celia begged.
‘Fine, whatever.’ Neve reached for the other suit, then glared at her mother and sister in the mirror. If Margaret Slater didn’t have a good twenty-five years on her youngest daughter, they could have been mistaken for twins. Same height, same build, same look of indignation on their faces, though Mrs Slater had started to go a few shades lighter on the Clairol colour chart, once the fiery red of her hair had started to fade. ‘I don’t need an audience, thank you very much.’
‘Well, we’re here now,’ her mother said, dropping down on the cushioned bench. ‘Lord, my feet are killing me. Now, this wedding – who do we know who’s getting married?’
Neve grabbed the other suit and threw Celia a desperate look because when they’d drawn up their list of Things Not To Be Discussed In Front Of Mum, they’d also entered into a pact to provide a diversion if their mother wouldn’t let something go. Not letting something go was Margaret Slater’s raison d’être.
‘We’ve already told you, Ma, it’s a friend of one of Neve’s friends that you don’t know,’ Celia said quickly. ‘Anyway, have I told you that Dougie and Charlotte are fighting all the time? Looks like we might have the first divorce in the family before too long.’
‘Hmmmph. When I think of all the lovely girls he courted and he gets married to her.’ Mrs Slater pursed her lips and looked up to the heavens. ‘I really should ask Father Slattery to drop in on them. But then she’s not Catholic, is she?’
‘She’s really not, Mum,’ Celia said piously, though she hadn’t been to Mass in ages and it would take a good day in the Confessional and a week of Hail Marys and performing Acts of Contrition before she was absolved from all her sins. ‘That’s what happens when you marry out of the faith.’
As diversions went this one was a sure-fire, guaranteed winner so that Neve could change suits secure in the knowledge that her mother was busy expostulating over the godless masses who were responsible for everything terrible from knife crime to swine flu.
Neve yanked on the trousers and pulled them up to mid-thigh where they’d refuse to budge. Except there was more than enough room to pull them all the way up, though it was futile as she’d never be able to get them to do up.
‘Celia, I think you must have picked up two size sixteens,’ Neve said, as she slid the zipper all the way up. ‘I mean, they’re still too big on the waist and too tight on the thighs. But the jacket seems smaller. Is the jacket too small?’
‘Let me have a look,’ Celia said, and then in complete contravention of the no touching rule, she dug a hand into the back of Neve’s waistband so she could look at the label. ‘Nope, it’s a size fourteen. And they’re not too tight; they’re meant to fall from the widest part of your leg, which they do, and they’re flat-fitted to your stomach.’ She turned Neve round so she could tweak and tug at the jacket. ‘The size sixteen was far too boxy. See how this nips you in at the waist.’
‘But I can’t be in a size fourteen pair of trousers. My hips are forty-three inches. Size fourteens are forty-two inches.’ Neve shook her head. ‘Are you sure they’re not too tight?’
‘Of course they’re not,’ Mrs Slater cried, pushing Celia out of the way so she could start poking and prodding at Neve too. ‘You’ve got a proper shape, my girl. Not like Celia, she’s built like a stick. They are too long in the leg, but a court shoe with a medium-sized heel will sort that out.’
‘Stick? I got my lack of curves from you, Ma,’ Celia hissed. ‘And you’re not buying any court shoes on my watch. But I think you are ready for a three-inch heel. Don’t worry, we’ll get you something with a T-bar.’
‘I can’t believe I’m in size fourteen trousers,’ Neve murmured dazedly, craning her neck to see what her bottom looked like. She honestly couldn’t tell if the trouser suit looked good on her or not. All she knew was that it was a size fourteen and that meant she had to have it. ‘What shall I wear underneath the jacket?’
‘You know, most women would wear nothing underneath the jacket, but I know you’re not most women,’ Celia said quickly, as Neve’s eyes widened in horror. ‘I hung some stuff up outside.’
There was a pretty chiffon blouse decorated with a smudgy cherry-blossom print with a shirred waistband and cuffs that Neve loved, and a dress that Celia had selected in case Neve had proved intractable on the whole trouser-suit thing. It was made of oyster-coloured satin with a black lace overlay and featured a shawl collar, three-quarter-length sleeves, cinched waist and a full skirt that swooshed around Neve’s legs as she walked. It was the prettiest dress Neve had ever worn and now she was wavering because it would do just as well as the trouser suit for the wedding. Even better, it had rendered her mother speechless.
‘Oh, Neevy,’ she sighed because the speechlessness only ever lasted a minute. ‘You look lovely. You really have got a cracking bust.’
‘Could this be my clubbing dress?’ she asked Celia hopefully.
‘Only if the club is from the 1940s,’ Celia said exasperatedly. She lowered her voice. ‘It looks gorgeous but it’s not WAG friendly and you’ll get much more use out of the trouser suit. Anyway, I picked something out for clubbing and I want you to try it on with an open mind, which I know might be a real stretch for you.’
‘Why?’ Neve asked suspiciously. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing!’ Celia said, sticking an arm through the curtain. ‘It’s just not your usual style, which I have to say is a little safe.’
‘I have classic style,’ Neve told her, though she knew that really she didn’t have much style at all. As long as her hips, thighs, belly and upper arms were covered, then she declared her outfits a success. But she could be open-minded – hadn’t the trouser suit proved that? ‘Oh m
y God, I am not wearing that! No way. It has sequins all over it.’
The dress Celia was holding up was short and covered in silver paillettes. The only thing going for it was the long sleeves, which was the only reason why Neve let her mother and sister cajole her into trying it on.
Neve looked at her reflection in the mirror, but all she could see were starbursts in front of her eyes from the sequins, and her meaty legs. ‘It’s too short. I look like mutton dressed as lamb. I have nothing to wear with it and it just looks stupid and ridiculous and unflattering. No!’
‘It’s a fricking A-line shift dress. That’s like, the most flattering cut in the world and you can wear it with leggings …’
‘Leggings?’ Neve echoed. ‘I don’t do leggings.’
‘Mutton dressed as lamb! You’re only twenty-five,’ Mrs Slater added. ‘That’s a nice little dress for the discothèque and it leaves something to the imagination. Some of these girls – they might just as well leave the house in their undies.’
Neve looked at herself in the mirror again. She was flushed with irritation, and when she forced her eyes downwards, her body covered in sequins didn’t match her anxious face. And good God, her legs looked huge.
‘I look horrible,’ she said flatly.
That should have been that, except Celia exploded, though Neve didn’t think it was so much to do with her as with the prolonged exposure to their mother. ‘Why can’t you see what we see when we look at you?’ she demanded, clamping her hands down on Neve’s shoulders so she couldn’t turn away from the mirror. ‘You look gorgeous and sexy! Or you would if you lost the mardy face. Christ, Neve!’
‘Now, there’s no need to take the Lord’s name in vain …’
‘That dress is a size fourteen! You’re a size fourteen. By no stretch of the imagination do you look fat in anything, unless you were trying stuff on in Chanel and, quite frankly, in that world size six is morbidly obese.’
‘You’re not helping, Celia,’ Neve gritted. It was just a silly spangly dress and Neve couldn’t understand why her sister was behaving as if it was a matter of life and death. ‘Look, I’ll get something with a few sequins on it for my clubbing outfit. Maybe round the hem or the cuffs or something.’
Celia folded her arms and planted herself bodily in front of the curtain. ‘You are having that dress.’
‘Celia, I’m an adult woman who’s quite capable of making her own decisions, so you can stand there and give me fight-face for as long as you like, it won’t do any good.’
‘I’m buying the dress for you,’ Celia insisted belligerently, as if she was offering to take Neve round the back and give her a good slapping.
It was time to call in the big guns. ‘Mum! Tell her!’
Mrs Slater pulled herself to her feet. ‘Celia, you’re not buying the dress for Neve. I’m buying both dresses and the suit. Now where do we go to get these shoes you were talking about?’
Celia could usually be cowed by a stern voice and a steely glare but she was just a second-generation copy. Mrs Slater was the real deal and she refused to listen to Neve’s impassioned pleas about how she didn’t want the sequined dress and she could buy the trouser suit now and put the other dress on her credit card.
‘You’ll let me buy them for you and you’ll bloody well like it,’ Mrs Slater finally shouted when they reached the till. ‘Now wait outside because you’re not so old that I won’t take you over my knee and smack some sense into you.’
Neve was mortified. Even Celia, who’d been about to say something, closed her mouth with an audible snap.
‘Thank you, Mum,’ Neve said meekly when Mrs Slater emerged with a stiff cardboard bag. ‘I do appreciate it.’
‘Well, I can’t remember the last time I went shopping with you, Neevy, and it’s a treat not to have to go to Evans. Now, shoes.’
They found the perfect pair of black suede shoes in Office with not one, but two straps and a solid enough heel that Neve decided she’d probably be able to walk in them with the aid of a cushioned inner sole. ‘So, we’re done, yes?’ she asked eagerly, after taking possession of another carrier bag. ‘Shall we stop and get a coffee?’
‘I need to go to Marks and get some towels. They don’t have very fluffy towels on the Continent and this might be some fancy shopping centre, but I ask you, how can you have a shopping centre in the middle of London without a John Lewis?’ Mrs Slater shook her head.
‘I say we do towels, then stop and get a drink,’ Neve said firmly. ‘Chloe from work said there was a nice coffee shop up on the balcony.’
‘As long as there’s somewhere to sit. I wouldn’t wish my bunions on my worst enemy.’ Mrs Slater adjusted the shoulder strap on her bag. ‘Which way is Marks?’
Celia smiled winsomely. ‘Can we go to Topshop because you haven’t got me a present yet and the new Kate Moss collection has just come in?’
‘I’m not getting you a present,’ Mrs Slater said sharply. ‘I haven’t been shopping with Neve since she left school and Neve never rings me to say that the electricity’s about to get cut off because you and that other little madam can’t pay the bill. And Neve never rings me because she’s got no money to top up her Oyster card and can’t get into work. I think you’ve had plenty out of me and your father over the years.’
‘Mum, Celia doesn’t make much money,’ Neve said, putting a calming hand on each of their arms because they were both bristling and she didn’t want them to come to blows in the middle of Westfield. ‘Fashion jobs are very low paid.’
‘They really are,’ Celia gasped. ‘And London is the most expensive city in the world. Apart from, like, Tokyo.’
‘But you don’t have to pay rent or a mortgage every month,’ Mrs Slater said crossly. ‘That was the whole point of giving you a flat. And if it’s not you, it’s Douglas on the phone wanting a handout. But does Neve ever call? No. And do you know why?’
‘Because she never goes out and she lives on steamed fish and brown rice,’ Celia said sulkily. ‘No offence, Neevy.’
‘Well, I’m taking offence. I was trying to stick up for you!’
‘The reason Neve never asks for money is because she has a monthly budget and she sticks to it even though she gets a pittance from that library and she graduated with first-class honours from Oxford too!’
‘Is that meant to be a dig because I didn’t do a degree in the end? Jesus, when are you going to let that drop?’
‘You could have retaken your A-levels but you swanned off to New York without even leaving a note …’
Neve sank down on the nearest bench. Celia and her mother would be at it for hours now they’d started. She pulled her phone out of her bag to check her messages and as she’d half expected there was a text message from Max; they were getting to be a daily occurrence.
Can’t stop thinking about all the rude things I want to do to you. How’s Keith? How are you? How’s Lucy? Max x
Duly noted, Neve texted back, because flirty texting wasn’t really her forte. Keith is fine, he sends his love. Lucy’s fine too. Hope those LA publicists are behaving themselves. Neve x
Even though she hadn’t heard anything from Jacob Morrison, Neve was still diligently working on Lucy’s biography. During the last week, it had become a habit to try and write at least five hundred words of an evening. Neve put her new work ethic down to having Keith in residence, as the last time Charlotte had come up the stairs to scream at Neve, Keith had done a really good impersonation of an attack dog.
‘I don’t care what life was like when you were my age! I bet the only reason people got married that young was so they could have sex.’
The argument was still raging on. Neve scooched down to the end of the bench so the people who were rubbernecking wouldn’t know she was related to the two red-headed, red-faced women shouting at each other.
‘Better to get married young than be out gallivanting every night and dropping your knickers left, right and centre. I’m just saying, Celia, a few nights in wo
uld do you a world of good. All that drinking and pre-marital sex, no wonder you’re so short-tempered. We never have to worry about Neve. She’s always been such a good girl.’
Neve really wished her mother would leave her out of this. Celia obviously felt the same way, because her face reached the very zenith of redness as she stabbed an accusing finger in her sister’s direction. ‘She’s got a boyfriend,’ she shrieked. ‘Who she’s using for sex practice because she’s in love with someone else. Sorry, Ma, but your good girl’s gone bad.’
‘You horrible little cow,’ Neve said, her voice murderously low, while her mother was rendered non-verbal for the second time that day.
‘Whatever,’ Celia drawled, but Neve could tell that she already regretted her outburst because the delivery of Celia’s all-time favourite word lacked its usual jauntiness. ‘I’m finished with the mother/daughter bonding!’
Celia scattered a gang of teenage girls like skittles as she stomped right through them. Neve was left with her mother, who was staring at her as if she’d suddenly started displaying the signs of stigmata.
‘It’s not as bad as Celia made out,’ Neve offered feebly. ‘I didn’t tell you about him because …’
‘Towels. Marks & Spencers,’ her mother said mechanically, as if that was the only thing she could focus on because focusing on Neve’s sex-life would make her head cave in.
Her mother kept up a steady stream of chatter all the way to Marks, pausing briefly to buy two sets of towels in a peach colour that would complement the autumnal shades in the guest bathroom of the villa in Spain, then she talked all the way back to Finsbury Park.
Neve now knew all about her father’s cholesterol levels (’much lower since he’s taken over the cooking, though I still think you can’t have a sauce without some butter and cream in it’), the silent suffering of her Auntie Catherine in New Jersey who was a slave to her Irritable Bowel Syndrome and her mother’s sketchy view of what she did all day.