Picture Imperfect by Nicola Yeager Read Free Book Online Page B

contraceptive.
    In case you were wondering, and it was causing you not
a little anxiety, the two I’d totally forgotten about were Paige and Alicia.
    Those are the sort of things that I have to aspire to.
Those are what my mother thinks of as success stories. What’s a little strange
is how my mother actually knew what these young women were doing in the first
place, as if she’d followed their lives with the help of a private detective or
had been stalking them for the last fourteen years. Surely those sort of details wouldn’t have been in the local paper, would
they? Trinity Addison- Copely to have mole removed expensively, claims proud mother.
    As far as I know, she had no contact with any of their
parents when I was in school with them (none of them lived near us) and would
only have heard of them if I’d mentioned them in some context or other. Maybe
after a few years, all mums form some sort of club where they can brag to each
other about their offspring’s success in this world. I can just imagine what it
must be like:
    ‘How’s your Chloe doing?’
    ‘Very well, I suppose. She’s in university somewhere.’
    ‘Ooh. What is she studying?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Has she had a boyfriend who’s gone off to Greece yet?’
    ‘Not yet, but it’s pretty inevitable, we think.’
    ‘That’s what happened to Grace Copper’s daughter. She
had a nervous breakdown, you know.’
    ‘What – Grace did?’
    ‘No. Her daughter.’
    I wonder how Mark and the gang are doing. Will they
have got on the plane yet? Probably. Mark told me the
time they’d be arriving in Greece, but I’ve forgotten it. It doesn’t really
matter to me what time they get there. Just as I’m about to go back to work,
the bloody phone goes again. Right. That’s it. I’ve
just about had all I can take from my mother today.
    ‘Yes?!’
    ‘Don’t take it out on me, dear, whatever it is.’
    ‘Oh. Sorry. Hi.’
    It’s Rhoda, my agent. I squint at my watch. She never
rings me up this late. Her working day starts, I believe, at ten in the morning
on a good day. She has lunch at about midday, finishes it just before three,
and then usually visits one of her young men. It must be something important.
    ‘Yes, yes. Anyway, I was wondering if I could pop
‘round and see you tomorrow.’
    ‘Tomorrow? I’m working
tomorrow.’
    ‘It won’t take long. You won’t even have to put your
brush down.’
    ‘No, I mean I’m working at the office. In the job I
have to do two days a week. Remember?’
    I try to keep a bitchy, bitter tone out of my voice
when I tell her this. A sort of ‘if you were a better agent
and sold my stuff, I wouldn’t have to work in some bloody office two days a
bloody week’ tone. Bloody.
    ‘Oh yes. That. How about Wednesday?’
    ‘Yes. Wednesday will be fine. Any
particular time?’
    ‘Morning?’ She says the word
like she’s not exactly sure what it means.
    ‘OK, Rhoda. I’ll see you then.’
    ‘Lovely.’
    Well what the hell was that all about? She rarely, if
ever, visits me at home. Am I going to be dumped by her agency? Is she coming
to tell me personally rather than over the phone? I try to think back to what
she said and reinterpret it in a paranoid, unbalanced way. ‘It won’t take
long.’ That was one of the things she said. Is it a ‘sorry, we’re going to have
to let you go’ sort of ‘won’t take long’ situation? That would really, really
be all I’d need right now.
    I decide that that would be one too many things to
worry about, put it out of my mind and get back to the painting. After spending
over twenty-four hours with my own angry thoughts, plus a couple of unsettling
telephone calls I didn’t particularly need, it’ll almost be a relief to get
back to the bloody office.

 
 
 
    Tuesday 17 th

 
    As I get off the tube and walk to the bloody office, I
start thinking about Mark and his holiday again. Try as I might, it’s really
hard to keep it out of my head. I mean,