A Random Act of Kindness Read online

  Home is along the Regent’s Canal towpath; a one-bedroom basement flat in Primrose Hill. The flat isn’t actually mine – my parents own it. It’s easy to get to, situated between the two Northern line stations of Camden Town and Chalk Farm. It’s a ten-minute walk along the canal from Camden Lock. It used to be my father’s pied-à-terre during the week and when he retired I moved in as a sort of tenant, to ‘look after the property’, as they put it, on a temporary basis until I save enough for a deposit for my own place. The emphasis is on the word temporary. However, I haven’t yet told them I’ve been fired from my dream job as personal stylist in a large department store, and that getting my own place has become an ever more distant and unlikely prospect.

  In the meantime, I’m very grateful to live here.

  The walk is beautiful in the early mornings; cyclists say hello, walkers smile, the air is fresh and the shadows of the bridges cast cool stripes across the towpath. The sky is filled with gulls shrieking like the sound of the harbour when the fishing boats come in. At night, though, it’s a different place – the smell of dope hangs in the air, empty lager tins bob on the glossy canal and the bridges are lit up with violet lights.

  The decor in the flat is early 21st-century modern; this is my father’s taste: Barcelona chairs, glass console tables, a built-in glass wine rack and a flatscreen TV. The flat isn’t very big, but it has a brick-lined utility room that stretches under the pavement on the street, which I use as my walk-in wardrobe. The living area is divided between the kitchen at one end and the lounge at the other, with a hallway leading to the bathroom and bedroom. The bedroom is in an extension and looks out on a small L-shaped garden with raised decking and palm trees, which my father created in the new millennium when he heard on Gardeners’ Question Time that summer droughts would turn all gardens into deserts.

  Since then it seems to have created its own microclimate. The hardy banana plants bear fruit, stubby little bananas that I’ve never been tempted to eat, then having thrown their energy into fruiting and fulfilling their mission, they give up and die and a new plant grows. All this happens without any help from me apart from a quick swaddle in the winter with gardening fleece.

  The foliage is pretty to look out on and it’s fairly low maintenance. My father rings me up now and then to remind me to do the ‘brown-bitting’, as he calls it, which means cutting off the dead bits so that the palms look respectably green – it’s something I generally put off until just before my parents visit.

  What else? I’ve got good neighbours. Above me lives Lucy Mills, an actor. The top floor is occasionally inhabited by a retired Welsh couple who travel a lot.

  As well as my pitch in Camden Market, I sell clothes online. As a hobby it was fun, but as an actual source of income it’s not going that well, to be honest. The main problem is, I don’t like sending dresses out into a void. I like to know the person they’re going to; their shape, their colouring, their temperament.

  The returns are a problem. Basically, women are now a different shape from what they used to be. And even though I write down the measurements of each garment along with a ‘will this fit you’ exact measurement guide, people really can’t be bothered to use a tape measure – does anyone even have a tape measure these days? I give the approximate equivalent dress size (this will roughly fit a size 10 or 12), but even if it does fit, that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily suit a person. If shoppers like the look of something onscreen, they’ll give it a try and then send it back if it’s not suitable. This means that my income is worryingly unstable from day to day. It’s not a good feeling to be solvent at the beginning of the week and then over the next few days have to return the money and go back to square one.

  And people aren’t always honest. Sometimes the clothes come back worn, or splashed with red wine, or smelling of cigarette smoke. And if I point this out in a phone call they’ll argue that I’ve ‘sold them as preowned so obviously … blah blah blah’. And that’s the reason for the one-star stroppy reviews that say if it had been possible to give less than one star they would have, because I was rude or reluctant to refund the money.

  One of the main selling points of wearing vintage is that the piece is a one-off. It’s also one of the main drawbacks; the popular dresses are snapped up quickly and that’s another reason my ratings are low – it’s often down to disgruntled shoppers.

  It’s hard work being self-employed, but since I lost my dream job as a personal stylist, this is my plan B. And that’s where I’m at now; trying to make it work. My long-term aim is to have a solid customer base of people to shop for. I love that feeling you get when you see a garment that brings to mind a person, when you find a dress that’s totally them, and all you want to do is reunite them.

  In Camden Market at the weekends, it’s crazy. One month into my new venture, I’ve had a couple of really good days, which keep me going. A lot of gorgeous girls come through looking for something original to wear – model agency scouts find a lot of new faces in Camden – but the customers I like best are the ones who are shy and uncertain and who dress for comfort in safe colours: grey, beige, brown. They look warily at my stall as they hurry past, and then come back and try not to catch my eye. What keeps me going is when they find something and suddenly see themselves through new eyes. They are my dream customers.

  Unfortunately, I don’t come across them very often.

  I trundle the case up the horse ramp from the towpath and halfway along my street, I bump it down the steps to the basement.

  The first thing I do is hang the dresses up in the utility room under the pavement. There’s no storage at my stall, which means I have to pack and unpack my stock every day.

  While I’m getting on with this, vaguely thinking of my encounter with David Westwood, I hear myself saying ‘Any relation to Vivienne?’ in that cringy way and David Westwood laughing, ‘No. Sorry.’

  And then my thoughts switch to the old woman wearing Chanel and red lipstick, model slim in her black-and-white Chanel suit, perfect in it, and that approving expression in her eyes when she saw me.

  Unpacking a Comme des Garçons dress that still hasn’t sold on the stall after a month, I shake the creases out and put it on my mannequin, Dolly. With her moulded black hair and rosebud lips, Dolly seems particularly supercilious and unhelpful today. I bought her from Blustons in Kentish Town when it closed down. Blustons was famous for the Fifties-style showstopping red-and-white polka-dot halterneck dress in the window that Dolly modelled wonderfully for many years.

  I move Dolly into the light and photograph her for the website. My phone rings and I pick up to my father, who tells me they are having dinner with the Bennetts and that they’ll be staying at the flat overnight. Oh joy!

  First, this means I’ll be sleeping on the sofa. Secondly, I’ll have to tell them that I’ve lost my job – I’ve so far managed to put this off for a month by keeping our phone calls short.

  There’s nothing wrong with my father; he’s a decent enough guy and he’d probably understand if I told him the whole story. But my mother’s a different matter. I’m always uncomfortable with her, never able to relax. She modelled in the Seventies, at the time when models dictated the popularity of women’s fashion, and my love of clothes has totally come from her. She never reached the worldwide popularity of models Jerry Hall and Christie Brinkley, but for a while she moved in the right circles, and the glitter and glamour of those times has never faded for her – she still has every copy of Elle, Cosmopolitan and Vogue magazines in which she featured.

  When it became obvious in my teens that I was too short to be a fashion model – I overheard her tell a friend, regretfully, that I’d inherited my father’s looks and her brains – I thought it would please her if I studied fashion design. But at St Martin’s, the more I found out about the great designers, the more certain I was that I could never equal them. As a daughter, I’m an all-round disappointment and losing my job doesn’t help.

  To take my min
d off my worries, I call my boyfriend, Mick, who’s in Amsterdam with his band, just to say hello. It goes to voicemail, so I leave him a message to say hi.

  Mick and I have been dating for nine months in a friends-with-benefits kind of way. We met at Bestival on the Isle of Wight. He’s got red hair and a beard that covers most of his very beautiful face. He’s a sound engineer and spends a lot of time travelling. Sometimes I meet up with him somewhere like Hamburg or Paris, and when he’s in London he stays over and we have fun together, but other than that, I don’t know where the relationship is heading, if anywhere. We both like it the way it is. He’s keen on the idea of free spirits; figuratively and literally – no commitment and drinks on the house. His job means that he’s not home a lot, but I don’t mind. Honestly, it suits me, too.

  In a flurry of activity, I make up my bed for my parents with fresh linen, do a bit of desultory tidying, spray the place with Febreze, and then I go shopping for vodka, Worcestershire sauce, tomato juice and celery so I can make some Bloody Marys to welcome my parents with. It’s ‘their tipple’, as they put it, and because of the tomato juice element they knock it back as if it’s a health food, which is fine with me.

  As a family we like each other a lot better after a drink.

  I start watching television and around ten thirty, I give up on my welcoming committee duties and fall asleep.

  I wake up as I hear them coming down the steps sometime later and listen to the key rattling in the lock. In my lowest moods I decide I’ll ask for that key back, ‘for a friend’, an excuse I’ve used before, but they seem to have a little stash of them in reserve in case I absentmindedly forget who owns the place.

  With a wide smile of welcome, I jump to my feet and there’s my father in a Burberry trench coat, carrying an overnight bag and holding the door for my mother, who comes in with her cream hair blending with her fur-trimmed cream cape, fluttering, elegant and distant.

  ‘Hi! Hi! Come in!’ I say, even though they’re already very much inside.

  I don’t recognise my mother at first. Without a shadow of a doubt, even despite my habit of scrutinising everyone, I would have passed her in the street.

  My father has mentioned my mother’s ‘tweaks’, as he calls them, and I realise that one of them has involved filling the dimple in her chin. I have the very same dimple and now she’s got rid of hers … What does that mean? We both have the same wide mouth too, only hers is now poutier, even though she’d pouted perfectly adequately with the old one. And her eyes, which had been large and round, are smaller, as if her real face is sitting some distance behind the one she’s currently wearing. She has the eyeholes of Melania Trump.

  She looks me up and down without a word, taking in my pencil skirt and white silk blouse. If she could have frowned, she would have. She recoils with a gasp when she sees Dolly. Overreacting is an affectation she’s developed.

  ‘You’ve still got that ugly old thing,’ she says.

  I cover up Dolly’s ears. ‘Don’t offend her, she’ll come and get you in the night.’

  My mother pretends not to hear.

  ‘Bloody Marys,’ I say cheerfully, sweeping my hand in the direction of the kitchen island as if I’m introducing them to each other.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ my father says, putting his hands on my shoulders briefly in what passes as a hug.

  ‘It’s warm in here,’ my mother remarks in a troubled way. She looks around with the restlessness of discontent, fanning her strange and unfamiliar face. ‘Isn’t it warm?’

  It isn’t, actually, because the heating went off at ten, but my mother’s menopausal, so I agree with her. ‘It’s been very sunny today and hot air sinks, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It rises,’ my father says.

  ‘It must be affecting us on its way up again,’ I say brightly. Honestly, I’ve no idea who I am when I’m with my parents. They seem to bring out my inner inanity. When I’m with them, they’re the grown-ups and I regress to some attitude of despicable girlishness that isn’t really me at all.

  I stir my drink with my celery stick, mixing in the spices and turning it dark brown. Wow, it’s strong.

  They sit on the sofa with a sigh and I perch on the footstool opposite them with an eagerness I don’t feel. ‘How are the Bennetts?’ These are the old friends they’ve had dinner with.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ my mother says dismissively. ‘Ruth drinks too much.’ She pulls her cape around her and gulps hers down. ‘How’s work?’ she asks with an emphasis on work. Her voice is hoarse and it catches in her throat. ‘Still dressing people? However would they manage to go out in public without you?’

  That’s sarcasm, that is, but it gives me the chance to look at her properly without appearing to stare. ‘How would they go out in public without me? Naked, I suppose,’ I reply, also with sarcasm.

  ‘Have people got no taste of their own?’ my mother asks.

  I take a large gulp of my drink and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand in a show of reckless bravado. ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about people’s taste anymore, because I’ve been fired.’ I’d been dreading breaking this bit of news to them but now, ta-da! It’s done!

  I brace myself for some yelling, because being with them is as nerve-racking as living on the edge of a volcano, but unusually for my parents they seem at a loss for words.

  ‘Fern, Fern.’ My father closes his eyes and shakes his head in despair. He looks more resigned than surprised. ‘You were fired? Why?’

  I give them the short version of the story.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘A month ago.’

  ‘And you’re only telling us now?’

  They glance at each other over their drinks. I’ve confirmed their deepest fears about me.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ my father asks. ‘Are you getting Jobseeker’s Allowance?’

  ‘No.’ I wipe the condensation off my glass with my thumb. ‘I’m concentrating on my vintage clothing company. I’m a fashion curator.’

  ‘Really?’ My mother looks at me with a flicker of animation and for a moment we connect briefly with a small spark of mutual passion that makes my spirits lift.

  My father, too, looks hopeful. ‘You’ve got business premises?’

  ‘I’ve got a stall in Camden Market,’ I tell them.

  They freeze. It’s as if we’ve got some kind of satellite time-lapse going on; it takes them a few seconds for the horrible implications to sink in.

  All empathy wiped clean once more, my mother says suspiciously, ‘You’re telling us you’re a market trader?’ as if it’s some elaborate story I’ve made up to make a fool of her.

  I take a business card out of my wallet, which depicts me standing against a wall of flowers in a Sixties minidress. ‘Look!’ I say. ‘That dress is Pucci. You had one like that, didn’t you?’

  She knows I’m trying to get around her and she doesn’t reply.

  Some vague desperation for that old connection makes me persevere. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it? Marilyn Munro was buried in Pucci, you know.’

  ‘I’m assuming not in this specific dress.’

  Ha ha, she’s hilarious, my mother.

  She reads the business card slowly, at arm’s-length, too proud for reading glasses. ‘Fern Banks Vintage.’ She hands it back to me and sighs, summing up my enterprise with her own brand of snobbery. ‘In other words, you’re selling people’s cast-offs.’

  That hurts.

  I reply lightly, forcing a smile. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘And you hope to make a living this way?’ my father asks.

  ‘Yes, I do. I never pay over the odds. I look for styles and buy diffusion lines, nothing too out there, just clothes for women to look good in.’

  ‘As opposed to?’

  ‘Look …’ I’m talking too fast and too defensively, I know, but I want them to understand that this is something I can make a go of. ‘This is something I’m actually good at. And I’m
building a decent client list.’ I’m stretching the truth a bit here, obviously. But it’s early days.

  A deep weariness has come over them.

  See? I think bitterly. Dressing people up in a department store doesn’t seem such a bad job now, does it?

  My mother expresses her disapproval by emanating a dense and disappointed silence.

  I play with a button on the Barcelona footstool. The silence is just starting to get uncomfortable, when: ‘How’s Mick?’ my father asks casually, breaking it.

  That didn’t take long, did it? ‘He’s fine! He sends his love.’ I say that to annoy them. It’s not the kind of thing that Mick would do, send his love to my parents. They’ve only met once, briefly, on my birthday, and he wasn’t what they wanted for me. What he thought of them, he didn’t say. He never gives them a second thought.

  They digest my comment for a moment.

  ‘Your mother and I have been talking about the flat,’ my father says, crossing one leg over the other.

  ‘Oh, really?’ I feel nervous, as if I’m no longer on solid ground, and I stare at his feet. For a moment I think that what I’m seeing is his pale bare ankle, but no, he’s wearing beige socks.

  ‘The reason we’re keeping it in our name, apart from the issue of capital gains tax, is because we feel it’s financially safer. For you, you understand,’ he adds.

  ‘How so?’

  He and my mother exchange a look.

  ‘Have you thought,’ my mother says, ‘that Mick might simply be out for what he can get?’

  This is a brand-new put-down out of a whole array of criticisms. I mean, Mick couldn’t possibly like me for my company, my looks and the fact the sex is good, could he? No. He’s after my flat. Correction: their flat. I take another mouthful of my drink. My eyes water. It hits the back of my nose like mustard powder. It’s more like a punishment than a cocktail.

  ‘He’s got his own house,’ I point out. ‘In Harpenden.’

  That shakes them.

  ‘Actually his own?’ my father asks dubiously.

  ‘Yes. Actually his own.’ I’ve got a decent imagination, but even I couldn’t invent a house in Harpenden.