Isabel Wolff - The Trials of Tiffany Trott

‘Happy Birthday, Tiffany!’ she exclaimed in her booming, basso profundo voice. It’s an amazing voice, deep and reedy, like a bassoon. She was looking smart in an Episode linen suit, dark of course, for court, her auburn hair cut short and sharp around her fine-boned face. Anyway, she’d brought me this lovely book, Face Facts – the Everywoman Guide to Plastic Surgery.

‘That’s really thoughtful of you, Frances,’ I said. ‘I’m terribly interested in all that, as you know.’

‘Yes, that’s why I’ve given it to you,’ she said. ‘In order to put you off. The photos are absolutely beastly.’

And then Catherine arrived, bearing a huge bunch of peonies, her fingers still stained with paint, a faint aroma of turpentine clinging to her long red hair. Catherine restores pictures, painstakingly swabbing at them with cotton buds and tiny brushes, eliminating the grime and dust of decades. Showing them in their true colours, I suppose you’d say.

‘Sorry I haven’t changed, Tiff,’ she said. ‘Hope we’re not too formal.’

‘Well no, it’s just the six of us,’ I said. ‘Everyone else has cried off.’

‘Oh good,’ she said, with a glance at the dining-room table, ‘all the more for us! Gosh those sausages look delicious!’

Catherine is very boyish. She usually wears jeans, and her lightly-freckled face is always shining and scrubbed. And I have never, ever, seen her wear make up. Not even mascara. Not even lip gloss. Whereas I – well, the thing I seem to use most of all these days is concealer. Industrial amounts of it actually, which I carefully apply with a garden trowel, filling in the widening fissures beneath my eyes.

Then at eight Emma turned up with a large box of Godiva chocolates. ‘School was a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I’ve had the most desperate lot of delinquents all day. TGIF, as they say – Happy Birthday, Tiffany – my God, what a lot of food, are you expecting an army?’

‘Er no, just a few regular troops, actually.’

Last to arrive was Kit. ‘Happy Birthday, Tiffany!’ he said, wrapping me in an enormous hug and planting a noisy kiss on my left cheek. Thank God for Kit. I often think I should forget about Alex – where was Alex, I wondered – and concentrate on Kit. My mother thinks I should marry him. My father thinks I should marry him. Lizzie thinks I should marry him. Everyone thinks I should marry him. Why didn’t I marry him? I suppose because the moment when it might have happened came and went years ago. But he’s still my other half – my creative other half, that is. I do the words, and he does the pictures. He’s my art director, you see. That’s how we met – on the Camay account at Gurgle Gargle and Peggoty. But now he’s my knight chevalier, my best male pal and, quite often, my colleague too. I love working with Kit. He’s freelance, like me, and we still collaborate on campaigns sometimes, though what he really wants is to direct TV commercials.

‘Did you get the Kiddimint job?’ he asked as we sat sipping champagne in my tiny garden.

‘Yes, I did,’ I said, picking a few late lilies of the valley to put on the dining-room table. ‘Blow, Coward Spank want the script in three weeks. Haven’t a clue what I’m going to do with it. Never done toothpaste before, let alone kids’ toothpaste. They want a cartoon. I might do something with Macavity, from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.’

‘You mean something like “Use Kiddimint twice a day kids, and Macavity won’t be there!”’

‘Yes. Something along those lines. That sort of thing. If they’re prepared to pay the royalties. What are you working on?’

He grinned. ‘I’m going to be – assistant director on a hairspray commercial!’

‘Kit, that’s fantastic.’

‘I know.’ He could hardly conceal his joy. ‘Cinema and TV. Big budget. It should look great. Head Start hairspray. For Yellowspanner. We’re shooting it in Pinewood, sci-fi style. We’ve cast this Claudia Schiffer lookalike,’ he continued. ‘She’s rather scrumptious, gorgeous in fact – and the way she tosses her hair to camera is sensational! But I’m not telling Portia that,’ he added anxiously. ‘I wouldn’t do anything to make her feel insecure.’

Pity, I thought. It would do no harm at all for Portia – commonly known as ‘Porsche’ – to feel less than one hundred per cent confident in Kit. She walks all over him in her Manolo Blahnik stilettos, leaving a trail of bleeding holes. I don’t know why he bothers. Actually, I do. After all, he’s told me often enough. He bothers because he loves her and has done ever since she tottered onto the set of that vodka commercial eighteen months ago. Portia, you see, is a model, but she’s hardly a model girlfriend. In fact, to be quite honest, she treats Kit like dirt. But he adores her. Isn’t that funny? He worships her. And the more indifferent she appears, the more intense his interest becomes. But then I’m the same. I mean, I’m always incredibly nice to men – and what do they do? Treat me disgustingly. I don’t know why. It’s not as though I don’t make an effort. I listen to them drone on for hours about their problems at work, and then I cook them supper. If there’s a show they want to see, I’ll get tickets for it, often queuing for returns. I buy them birthday cards to send to their mothers, and sew the buttons back onto their coats. And what do they do for me? Not ring when they said they would, then not even remember that they forgot to ring. And sometimes – and this is really annoying – they don’t turn up at all. All the ones I’ve been keenest on have treated me like that. Isn’t that strange? All except Alex, that is. Alex has always been so sweet. So considerate. So thoughtful. For example, he got me a really good discount on my Nina Campbell curtains and he gave me some excellent free advice about paint effects in my kitchen.

‘Look, no-one rag rolls any more, Tiffany,’ he said. ‘And spongeing is such, well, vieux chapeau. I suggest you go for a very simple colourwash in a pale tone, say eau de nil, with the barest hint of teal. That’s what I’ve just done for Lady Garsington – I could get some mixed for you too.’ He also showed me how to accessorise my bathroom properly, with antique stoneware bottles and waffle-weave bath towels and lovely pebble doorknobs – no more naff ceramic fish and bobbly bath mats. Oh no. I’ve really learnt a lot from him. I mean, what he doesn’t know about cracked glazes … but where was Alex, I wondered again. He’s usually as reliable as a Rolex. And then I found myself wondering what he’d got me for my birthday – probably a year’s subscription to the World of Interiors, or something tasteful in the soft furnishings line. He gave me a pair of wonderful velvet cushions in chrysan-themum yellow for Christmas – typically thoughtful. But that’s Alex all over – really, really nice and considerate although … now, I don’t want to sound disloyal or anything, but there is just one thing I’d criticise about him, and that is that he doesn’t play tennis – and I love it. In fact he’s not very sporty full stop. Also, I’m not too mad on his buttoned-right-up-to-the-neck winceyette pyjamas or his habit of playing Scrabble in bed. But then, well, you can’t have everything. It’s all a compromise, isn’t it? That’s what it’s all about. Taking the wider view. And it was so nice to meet someone caring and kind after my miserable time with Phillip. Phil. Commonly known as Phil Anderer. No, Alex was such a refreshing change after all that.

Suddenly Kit stood up and went and leant against the French windows. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring Portia with me,’ he said. A slight frown furrowed his brow. ‘You see, she’s got one of her headaches. Didn’t feel up to it. But she said she didn’t mind if I came on my own. Didn’t want to spoil my fun. She’s very good like that. Not at all possessive. I offered to come round and look after her,’ he added with a rueful smile, ‘but she said she didn’t need me. Said she could do without me.’ What a surprise, I thought. From inside the dining-room we could hear the popping of champagne corks and the squeak of party blowers.