Alex Hines - Chance

‘It would be wonderful, cheer me right up.’

Ava didn’t realise what she was saying until she had said it. But suddenly, what had been unfurling in her was spreading its tentacles. Loneliness, unhappiness or was it simply a case of the grass always being greener?

‘Do you really need cheering up? I’m worried about you.’

‘Oh, I’ll be fine. I’m just, well … a little bit flat.’

‘Because of Rob?’

‘No. Well, yes – but not just Rob, just a creeping sense of …’

‘MUUUUM!’ Mel’s son Jake was screaming from the kitchen, alarmingly loudly even via Ava’s phone.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘Oh, God! I think Wine Time is already over … It’s not fair to leave Rich to deal with this alone.’

Sounds from the kitchen were ominous. Was that a plate breaking? ‘No problem, you get back to them.’

‘But we’ll pick this up in an hour or so when I’ve dealt with this lot.’

‘Sure,’ Ava tried to give an audible but reassuring shrug but it didn’t work very well. ‘You take care and love to the lot of them.’

Ava pottered back to her kitchen with an empty glass, refilled it and then made what she could of the Parmesan, ham and eggs. She snipped a few needles from the rosemary plant she had left by the door, telling herself calmly that there was no need to let standards slip just because she was unexpectedly alone. After all, it wasn’t as if she lived with Rob yet. That was a whole separate discussion.

She sprinkled the rosemary onto the omelette, gave it a final turn, put it on one of her favourite plates and then sat with it at her kitchen table, listening to next door’s cat squawking at a blackbird. Soon she saw the bird flap up over the wall and fly away, clearly flustered. She remembered Mel’s obsession with feeding the birds in their shared flat at college: she had spent hours staring out the window at birds on the adjacent garage roof pecking away at the stale bread and bird balls she had thrown there for them. It was possibly the most unglamorous and most endearing thing any of her college friends ever did. But the two were firm buddies long before the bird-obsession revealed itself. They met at swing classes in their first year and warily spent time together, each fearful the other was what they considered to be a ‘part timer’ where their love of dance was concerned. Back in the early nineties being a dance fan had seemed almost subversive and certainly not a regular hobby for 19-year-olds, so their commitment was unusual.

‘Ava, as in Ava Gardner?’ had been Mel’s first words on being introduced to her.

‘Yes,’ she replied hesitantly. Usually people turned their noses up at such a deliberately retro name, or thought she was assuming a mannered alias.

‘Wow! Named after The Barefoot Contessa . Impressive … I think my parents had been watching too many Melanie Martin dramas when I was born.’

And then the dancing began. Ever confident, Mel had paid Ava little attention for the next few weeks as she was furiously pursuing a boy whose name neither of them could remember any more. But after a few months of regular attendance at Swing Night and some pretty raucous parties, they formed a close friendship. By the end of the year they were flatmates. Despite the inherent skankiness of their student accommodation, dancing proved an irremovable streak of glamour and romance in an otherwise average student experience and despite house moves, babies and their impending forties, it remained the glue that bonded them. Mel’s unstoppable pragmatism needed a friend with Ava’s ability to let her imagination fly. And Ava’s over-imaginative tendency for anxiety was grounded by the reassuring sense Mel was always able to provide.

The unfamiliar trill of the landline jump-started Ava from her memories.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, how are you ?’

Lauren’s sugary, super-kind tone was the one used when she was keen to get the polite practicalities out of the way as quickly and emphatically as possible before launching into a chat that was to involve her getting her own way. It worked like a dream in the property finding business when she was schmoozing with City players for whom she was commissioned to find idyllic boltholes in which to install their docile wives, movie location scouts who needed country homes that didn’t require the guttering to be digitally removed, or privacy conscious celebrities who wanted a driveway slightly longer than the longest of lenses. But it was too much of an old trick for Ava, who was able to read the signals loud and clear. In fairness, it wasn’t always Lauren’s tone – Ava did her fair share of whinging too, but tonight this was the last thing she felt like. She poured a further slug of wine into her glass.

‘I’m fine, sweetie, just a bit down but it’ll pass.’

‘Oh, right .’

Ava noticed that Lauren didn’t ask why she was feeling down – a classic move. ‘Rob messed me around over dinner.’ she continued, regardless.

‘Were you supposed to go out?’

‘No, but …’

‘Oh, right .’

Another slice of classic Lauren: in her opinion, if it wasn’t a smart restaurant in Marlborough or a genteel gastropub with portraits of hunting dogs on the walls, it can’t have been a big deal.

‘You sound really disappointed, though.’

‘I am. It’s no big deal, though.’ Her tone softened as Lauren showed genuine concern.

‘But you’re okay, you two?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’

Now a pause when Ava would have liked Lauren to ask a little more.

‘Great. So listen, about this dress …’

And that was that.

‘Yes?’

‘There are big problems with organising this dress fitting. The woman is being totally unreasonable about timings and when I can actually get to see her. She doesn’t seem to understand that I’m not at a desk all day like normal people.’

Ava wondered what was so bad about being at a desk all day, and if Lauren had ever noticed she wasn’t either.

‘She is saying she won’t cut the fabric without my approval but the times she’s giving me are really restrictive. I can’t just drive all over Wiltshire on a whim because it suits her – I am the customer after all! Honestly, I knew I should have had it done in London, one of those lovely ateliers.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘This woman, ’ Lauren seemed to spit the word, ‘is some kind of well-kept secret. One of the guys working on Bishopstone Park told me about her – she had worked on the costumes and did the dress for Violet Bennett.’

Violet Bennett, breakout star of the country-house drama Bishopstone Park , had indeed worn a glorious dress for her well-documented wedding to the romantic hero of a gritty urban crime series. Elegant, befitting of a leading lady, but avoiding the trap of trying to look like a princess, it had been praised by the weekly magazines and the designer had been the subject of much debate but a name never released. Sadly, if the tabloids were to be believed, the marriage itself was not enjoying quite the same level of success as the gown itself.

‘If she did that dress or any of the other dresses on the show maybe she can call the shots, Lauren. She’s clearly a pro – she can probably pick and choose her clients.’

A moment’s silence.

‘Look, the long and the short of it is if we don’t want the whole thing to turn into a total ’mare, I’m going to have to take a half day off work – rearranging a really important client meeting – and I’d like you to come with me.’

Ava, apparently, had no essential meetings with clients.

‘Right, when is this?’

‘Just under two weeks: Saturday, 3 September.’