Anne Billson - Stiff Lips

He was staring intently, staring with a hooded gaze that saw everything , even the things I had always tried to keep hidden. I could pretend what I liked, but he would always know . He would always understand .

In that instant, our eyes met and he smiled, and I wished, how I wished he hadn't, because it was a smile that was not in the least bit reassuring.

Still smiling, he drew his finger in a vicious sweeping gesture, from one side of his neck to the other. Like someone cutting his throat.

I registered all this in the time it took to blink once, blink twice, and then, without thinking, I turned my head to look back over my shoulder. Of course there was no one there.

There never had been anyone there.

The stallholder punctured the silence with his voice.

'Doesn't it?' he asked.

Time started to move forward again.

I turned back to the mirror, but the only figure reflected there was mine.

The stallholder rubbed his eyes. 'Sorry, love. Could've sworn you were with someone.'

'You and the rest of the world.' And just as I was congratulating myself for having kept a cool front, I felt my knees beginning to buckle.

'Whoah,' said the stallholder, sliding a chair to catch me as I concertina-ed earthward. My mind flashed back with an incongruous feeling of triumph to the model couple I'd seen in Cinghiale. Now I too had found myself a man to slide chairs beneath me as I sat down.

'You all right?' he asked.

'Thought I saw someone I knew.'

'Blimey,' he said. 'Take a look at your face.' He held up a small hand mirror, and I stared in awe. I'd turned almost as white as Robert Jamieson himself; my skin was the colour of tender baby veal that had never been exposed to daylight. I stood up, a little shakily. A million miles away on the Portobello Road, the crowds milled and murmured and went about their business in the crisp cool afternoon sunlight. I needed to get back there and mingle with the mass of living, breathing human beings. I needed to soak up some of their warmth.

'I'll be all right now,' I said to the stallholder.

And I honestly believed I was telling the truth.

For several days after that I tried to avoid looking in mirrors, but for someone as image-fixated as me it wasn't easy. Where's the problem? I asked myself. You wanted to see him, didn't you? Well, you've seen him. Happy now?

The trouble was, I wasn't happy at all. No matter how often I tried to persuade myself that Robert and I were two of a kind, that we were made for each other — or that we would have been made for each other if only he hadn't been dead — I couldn't get the memory of that smile out of my head. I was prepared to do almost anything to ensure I wouldn't have to see it again, and if that meant going round all day with toothpaste down the front of my T-shirt or a bogey hanging out of my nostril, then that was the price I would have to pay.

But eventually, when it came to getting ready for Carolyn's birthday bash, personal vanity defeated all other considerations, and I confronted my reflection head-on. Lank hair, pale eyes blinking behind spectacle lenses: it was all disappointingly back to normal. How had I ever worked myself up into such a foolish panic? Robert Jamieson had been nothing more than a mirage. I'd been wanting to see him so badly I was ready to believe he'd finally shown himself.

It had been one of my life's ambitions to be invited upstairs at the Malabar, but now I was there I felt out of place, sandwiched between two groups of people, none of whom I recognized. All the more familiar faces — Sophie, Charlotte, Toby, Grenville, Isabella — were clustered on the opposite side of the room. Something, possibly pride, or perhaps the fear they would ignore me, prevented me from going across to talk to them, and naturally it never occurred to any of them to come over and talk to me. I was singing along beneath my breath to The Girl from Ipanema , telling myself I didn't need to socialize but was content to stand on one side and observe this peculiar sort of human being at play, when I noticed Charlotte casting quick, almost flirtatious glances in my direction.

No, not at me. She was glancing at a spot somewhere behind me, to my left.

But of course no one was bothering to cross the room and talk to me. They could see I already had company.

He was here.

I felt my heart hammering so hard I thought it was going to burst out of my chest like the horrible little monster in Alien . But I had to get a grip. If I wanted this relationship to go anywhere, I couldn't very well fall to pieces every time my other half made his presence felt.

I formed a mental picture in which I was a woman made of steel, a bit like Margaret Thatcher in her prime, but younger, sexier, more compassionate. Then, feeling more than capable of kicking a few men around the room, I took a sip of champagne and murmured, 'I didn't realize you were there.'

From somewhere to the northwest of my shoulder blade there came a resounding silence.

'Nice to see you,' I said. 'Or not, as the case may be.'

I paused, giving him time to reply. When the silence had stretched out into a minute, I looked round. And of course there was no one there. What had I been expecting? He hadn't revealed himself to me in company before, and he wasn't going to start doing it now.

But perhaps bang in the middle of a crowded party was as good a situation as any to establish parameters.

'I'll be honest with you,' I said. 'I wasn't too happy about that business with the fork.'

I glanced over to where Charlotte was still watching us intently. She whispered something to Grenville, who was standing next to her and whose arm, I noticed, had crept around her waist.

There were still things that needed saying. 'I don't like it when you play tricks,' I said. 'No more suddenly popping up like that, please. You know it makes me nervous.'

Charlotte nudged Sophie, who was on her other side. Sophie looked over in our direction and her mouth set in a bitter line. Now I understood why she'd usually steered clear of me when we'd been out drinking with the others. The sight of Robert and me — together — must have hit her where it hurt. For me, though, the sensation was one of sweet revenge for all the petty humiliations she had inflicted on me over the years. I wanted to make her suffer even more, so I tossed my head vivaciously, trying to make my hair bounce like it did on the models in hairspray commercials. I laughed and chatted animatedly to my invisible companion until Sophie and Charlotte grew bored with watching and returned to their conversations.

But I'd reckoned without Carolyn, who was studiously performing her duties as a hostess. She came up and kissed the air in front of my face and thanked me once again for the expensive scarf I'd given her — that wispy yet exquisite strip of silk I'd found stuffed into one of my pockets after the visit to Hyperbole.

'You all right?' she asked.

'Absolutely,' I assured her.

'I could introduce you to some people, if you like.'

'No need,' I said. 'Robert and I are fine.'

She looked a little perplexed. 'It's funny you should say that,' she said, 'because I was just wondering why you hadn't brought him along.'

It took me a few seconds to process this information, and then I had what I call a Tom and Jerry moment. This is when your jaw drops all the way down to the ground, your eyes pop out on stalks, your face turns the colours of the Italian flag, one after the other, and there's an orchestral chord so deafening it almost drowns out your bloodcurdling shriek of horror. Though of course all this was in my mind. Outwardly, I managed to hang on to my cool.

But how could I have been so blind?