Sophie Weston - The Accidental Mistress

‘She does with a little help from her friends,’ said Izzy. ‘You handled that brilliantly.’

She splashed cold water under her arms and the back of her neck.

Jemima watched as she towelled off and pulled on sheer dark tights. ‘I couldn’t make head or tail of Pepper’s gibbering. So I went back to the first speech you wrote and said, “You do this bit; I’ll do that.”’

‘Worked like a dream.’ Izzy’s voice was muffled as she pulled a slim charcoal-grey dress over her head. ‘Looked good, too. Very cool. How did you get her to do it?’

‘I told her she owed you.’ Jemima was whipping her maltreated hair into place with expert rapidity.

‘Owed me?’

‘Yup.’

‘Owed me? But this is her project, her idea. I wouldn’t even have a job if it weren’t for Pepper and Out of the Attic.’

‘Correction. You’d have another job.’

‘Maybe. But—’

‘No maybe about it,’ broke in Jemima. She stopped fiddling with her hair and sent Izzy a minatory look. ‘Don’t put yourself down. You can turn your hand to anything.’

‘So can the odd job man in our block.’

Jemima ignored that. ‘And you’re always the best, too.’

Izzy smiled in spite of herself. ‘You’re prejudiced.’ She cast a cursory look in the mirror and fluffed her hair out.

‘Let me do that,’ said Jemima impatiently.

She pressed Izzy into one of the small gilt chairs and took up a brush. Her own tangled ponytail had been an artful creation, whereas Izzy’s tangles were the result of too little attention and a hectic three hours spent scrambling among the installations.

‘I am going to give you a present of a day at a decent salon,’ Jemima said, attacking the tangles ruthlessly. ‘When did you last have your hair done properly?’

Izzy chuckled. ‘The last time you gave me a present of a day at a salon.’

Jemima smacked her lightly with the brush. ‘How you have the gall to lecture Pepper, I’ll never know.’

‘That’s different. That’s business. It matters how Pepper looks.’

‘It matters how everyone looks,’ said Jemima, shocked to the core.

‘Believe me, it doesn’t.’

Jemima paused in her work. She met her sister’s eyes in the mirror.

‘You mean when you were hiking round the world you had more important things to think about than your split ends?’ she interpreted.

Izzy was shocked. ‘Am I that smug?’

‘You’re that weird,’ corrected Jemima. She extracted the last tangle and pursed her lips. ‘Plait,’ she decided. ‘No option. Don’t fidget, I gotta concentrate.’

‘I’m not weird,’ said Izzy, offended.

‘Yes, you are. Don’t give me that nonsense about not caring about clothes. You love clothes. But you’re always finding stuff for other people. I used to think it was just me. But since Pepper arrived you’re always coming home with things to suit her, too. Never you.’

Izzy shrugged. ‘Well, you two are on display all the time. I’m a backroom girl.’

Jemima was whipping threads of thick red hair into a plait. They kept springing free.

‘Oh, this is hopeless. I need gel. Don’t move.’ She rootled through her bag, saying over her shoulder, ‘You go to parties. Most people like to look good at a party.’

Izzy clicked her tongue. ‘I go to parties to meet people. Not to be looked at.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jemima dryly.

Izzy slewed round. ‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Don’t move.’ Jemima found the gel. ‘And, yes, you did mean it,’ she said. ‘And I’m tired of it. At some point you decided that I was the pretty one. So you delegated caring about clothes and makeup and stuff to me. Boring.’

‘I—’

But Jemima was combing the gel through her hair with busy fingers and refused to be interrupted.

‘You’re not on some broken-down Latin American bus any more. You live in London. You have a job. Out of the Attic sells clothes, for heaven’s sake. Wake up and start looking in the mirror. You’re beautiful.’

This time the hair slid sweetly into its elaborate plait.

‘There!’ Jemima stepped back. ‘Bit darker than we started off with, but not bad. Not bad at all.’

Izzy looked at herself. Her hair was still ordinary red. Not Jemima’s lustrous firelight tones, not Pepper’s curling Titian—plain, common or garden, brickdust-red. But the plait and the fashionable gel made her look alert and faintly dangerous—and at least she was dark auburn for the moment. She grinned.

‘Well done.’

‘Not finished.’

Before Izzy could complain, Jemima was waving pots and brushes around. They had done this since they were small. Izzy sat very still, resigned.

‘Apes groom each other, too, you know,’ she said chattily.

‘Shut up.’ Jemima’s eyes narrowed to slits. Then she swooped, lipliner in hand.

It took less than two minutes. Jemima, after all, was a professional model. When she straightened, Izzy had cheekbones. She looked at herself in the mirror, half-bemused, half-uneasy.

‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to feel grateful.

‘Make-up lessons,’ said Jemima, committing it to memory. And, with apparent irrelevance, ‘You taking Adam to the party, then?’

‘No.’

Jemima nodded. She did not look surprised. ‘Another one falls at the Third Date fence,’ she said sadly. ‘What is it with you?’

Izzy knew how to deal with a nosy younger sister. ‘The party is work. You know we don’t mix work and play.’

‘You play?’ said Jemima, mock incredulous.

‘Watch it, brat!’

‘Social skills course and make-up lessons,’ said Jemima, grinning.

Izzy stood up and gave Jemima a quick hug. ‘Don’t waste your money,’ she advised.

Jemima bit her lip.

‘Don’t worry about it. I prefer being the sister who bites.’

‘I don’t care about that,’ Jemima said impatiently. ‘It’s this giving up on clothes and third dates that worries me.’

Izzy grinned. ‘I’m just not the pretty one. Get used to it.’

Jemima was packing away her stuff. She glared.

‘You’re crazy. You ought to be gorgeous. You’re three times as much fun as I am. You dance like a maniac. Guys line up and half the time you don’t even see them. And you look as if you don’t own a mirror. And,’ yelled Jemima, suddenly losing it, ‘I feel—as if—it’s my fault.’

‘Hey. Calm down.’ Izzy was disconcerted and a bit annoyed. ‘It’s nothing to do with you if I look like a rag bag.’

Jemima stopped yelling. But under the exquisite make up her face was drawn and her eyes tired. ‘Yes, it bloody is,’ she said. ‘And we both know it.’

Their eyes met. For a moment there was silence in the luxurious cloakroom. Then Jemima gave a quick, spiky shrug and started to stuff all her tubes and pots and brushes back into the designer tote bag.

‘Oh, what’s the point?’ she said wearily. ‘Come on. We’ve got a cousin’s business to promote.’

She stuffed the bag under the coat rack and went back to the conference room without a backward look.

Izzy followed more slowly. There was a faint frown between her brows. It was not like her sister to fly off the handle. Maybe all the time-zone hopping was getting to her.

‘You and I,’ she muttered, ‘have got to have a long talk. And soon.’

But Jemima did not hear. Or did not want to hear. And once in the conference room, like the professional she was, Jemima went instantly into posing beautifully for assorted photographers, her usual vibrant self again.

She had changed into what Pepper hoped would be the Attic’s signature outfit: soft full trousers and a shirt with sleeves that an eighteenth-century duellist would have killed for. Jemima’s chosen colours were chocolate and amber. They made the glorious hair look alive, as if it had caught lamplight and fire in its depths.