Follies. Rosie Thomas

The panelling was painted soft bluey-green, like a bird’s egg, and the curtains and faded Persian rugs stood out against it in warm reds and garnets. She laid her typewriter down on the bare desk and switched on the green-shaded library lamp to make a little, welcoming circle of light.

      Here, Chloe thought with a sigh of satisfaction, she could work. Books. Peace, calm and no hassles. Perhaps this crazy idea was going to work out after all. A little sound from behind her reminded her that Gerry was still hovering by the door. She shot him a brilliant, dismissive smile.

      ‘Thanks very much. I expect we’ll be meeting again soon, if you live here too?’

      ‘Oh yes, certain to,’ Gerry rubbed his dry hands expectantly. ‘I could more than do with a drink now, in fact, after all that lifting. Won’t you join me? I’ve got a little something …’

      The flip-flop shuffle of down-at-heel slippers came up the stairs and along the gallery towards them. A second later the mass of Rose’s bulk filled the doorway. She jerked her head at her half-brother and, with surprising speed, he was on his way.

      ‘Another time, then,’ he winked at Chloe and vanished.

      Rose eased herself down on the foot of the bed and rested her podgy hands on her spread knees. The two women smiled.

      ‘Still not quite sure about it, eh?’ Rose asked. Chloe took off her jacket and stood stroking the fur absently.

      ‘Not a hundred per cent,’ she admitted. ‘Or even fifty. Sometimes it feels like a crazy decision to have made, three years up here reading George Eliot and trying to make ends meet on a grant. Not that it isn’t perfect to be at Follies House,’ she added warmly.

      Rose chuckled flatly and her little eyes flickered over the diamonds in Chloe’s ears, the discreet but heavy gold chain around her neck and the supple, rust suede of her tunic dress. ‘Don’t tell me that girls like you ever have to manage on a grant,’ she murmured. ‘And you’ll enjoy it here, mark my words. All kinds of people to meet, for a start. Different from your London ad men.’

      ‘I hope so,’ countered Chloe fervently.

      ‘Look at me,’ Rose went on. ‘I just have this house, nothing else. But enough goes on here to keep me looking forward to tomorrow.’ As she winked at Chloe she looked, for an instant, very like her half-brother. ‘So long as I choose the right people to live with me here at Follies, I have everything I need in these four walls. Which is just as well, because where could I go outside with a face and figure like mine?’ The white hands fluttered vaguely over the forbidding fleshy mass. Chloe could do no more than turn the talk with a question.

      ‘Who else lives here now? Since Colin Page’s sister left?’

      Rose’s face brightened in anticipation. ‘Ah. All new this term. You, dear, of course. A little mite called Helen, who you shall meet in one second, unless my predatory young cousin has swept her out of the house already. And by the end of the week there’ll be a pretty love called Pansy. Such a beautiful name, isn’t it? There’s just the three of you. I think you’ll make such an interesting combination.’ Rose’s fingers knitted across the mound of her stomach as she nodded happily at Chloe. Just for the moment she looked like a complacent puppet-mistress with her pretty dolls on sticks, waiting for the show to start. The idea amused Chloe rather than alarmed her. Why shouldn’t Rose live a little through her lodgers, after all?

      The landlady heaved herself to her feet and padded to the door.

      ‘Helen!’ she shouted up into the darkness. ‘Helen, darling, come down and meet a new friend.’

      Chloe wasn’t sure who she had been expecting as another member of Rose’s ‘family’, but the figure who appeared obediently a moment later came as a surprise.

      ‘Helen Brown, Chloe Campbell,’ Rose said easily. ‘And now I’m off. Tell me if you need anything simple. Anything strenuous, ask Gerry.’

      ‘Hello,’ Chloe said to the girl in the doorway. Helen was small and fine-boned, too thin, with collarbones that showed at the stretched neckline of her royal blue sweater. In her grey corduroy skirt she might have been a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, but something in the poised tilt of her head told Chloe that she was older, twenty or perhaps even a little more. Her skin was very pale and creamy under a mass of short black curls, and the huge grey eyes in the heart-shaped face were smudged underneath with violet shadows.

      ‘Hello,’ Helen responded warily. There was an exotic atmosphere in the room that wasn’t just compounded of expensive scent and suede, nor of the rich colours and fine proportions that were missing from her own room upstairs. The atmosphere came from the girl herself, prowling like a taut red-brown tiger on the Persian rug. Yet as soon as Chloe smiled at her it was different again. She looked ordinary, friendly and inquisitive now. Chloe seized Helen by the wrist and propelled her to an armchair.

      ‘For God’s sake, sit here and talk to me while I get my bearings. It’s my first day at Oxford, and you’re the first real person I’ve met. Are you new, too?’

      Helen shook her curls vigorously. ‘No. My last year. But it’s my first time living out of College. Follies isn’t exactly my natural habitat either. It’s been a strange day.’

      Chloe was rummaging in one of her bags. At length she lifted out a green and gold bottle and brandished it triumphantly. ‘Share this with me? It won’t be very cold, but it’ll do.’

      Helen watched the champagne sparkle into a pair of glasses and then lifted hers to Chloe. The strangeness of the day evidently wasn’t over yet, and something inside her didn’t want it to be.

      ‘Welcome to Oxford,’ she toasted the newcomer.

      ‘And to Follies House.’ Chloe’s bright green eyes glittered at her over the glass and they drank together.

      They finished the bottle as Chloe unpacked. Helen sat curled up in the armchair with her cold feet underneath her and listened as the other girl talked. The champagne sent unfamiliar waves of warmth and lassitude through her veins, and she found herself sinking into the cushions and smiling at the warm colours and scents around her. Chloe’s cases seemed to contain unbelievable piles of silks and cashmere and butter-soft leather, marching ranks of shoes and boots, and handbags in soft, protective wrappings.

      There were other pretty, more eccentric things too. A huge, fragile butterfly gaudily painted on rice paper swung airily on one wall. A silver-framed mirror bore the raised motto ‘Look, but linger not’. Chloe made a mock-grimace into it as she swung it into place on the mantelpiece. A collection of heart-shaped tortoiseshell frames all seemed to enclose pictures of different men. All these Chloe laid out among the vanity cases, silver hairbrushes and tiny crystal bottles.

      All the time, as she moved to and fro, Chloe went on talking. Had Helen but known it, she needed to talk more than anything else. She needed to put London firmly behind her; Leo and the agency and San Lorenzo and everything else. Almost by accident, the possibility of Oxford had today become a reality. Chloe was so used to feeling confident that it was doubly disconcerting to be nervous and apprehensive. Talking to this quiet girl seemed to help. She told Helen everything, but it was as much for Chloe’s own benefit. The explanation helped to put this mad, life-changing decision into perspective. She had no need of an Oxford degree and it was exactly the abstract, stringent challenge set by gaining one that Chloe knew she needed.

      With the last drop of champagne she smoothed a remaining square of tissue paper and tucked it into the last empty suitcase. Helen, who had drunk the lion’s share of the champagne as she listened, smiled vaguely up at her.

      ‘So here I am.’ Chloe gestured theatrically. ‘Unfettered, and as yet unlettered …’ they giggled happily, ‘… although Dr Hale is about to put that right. And feeling much, much better.’

      She stopped in front of Helen and put her hand over the younger girl’s. ‘Thank you for listening to all that. You’re a good listener, aren’t you?’ On impulse she knelt down and took both of Helen’s thin hands between her own warm ones.