Towards the terrace table, towards the man who sat there, quite, quite motionless.
There was no expression on his face.
Her heart started to slump heavily in her chest cavity, hollowing out a space around it. She felt sick.
Sick with dismay.
Oh, God—all that work, all that time, and it’s a disaster—I can see it in his face. It’s awful, awful.
It had taken so long—hours and hours. And so much had been done to her. All over. There had been so much chattering, and agitation, and volatility, that she had just let them get on with it. The treatments had gone on and on, one after another. Spreading stuff on her body, then wiping it off again, and on her face several more times. Then she’d had her hair washed, and more stuff had been put on it, and left in, then rinsed out, and different stuff put on. And in the meantime the tweezers had come out, and nail files and buffers and varnish and hot wax, and yet more body wraps and creams. She had had to eat lunch, served in her room, with her face and hair covered in gunk and her body swathed in some kind of thin gown. And while she’d eaten yet another one of the army of people in her room had held up one garment after another, off a trio of racks that had been wheeled in—so many garments that she’d simply lost count.
‘Please,’ she had murmured faintly, ‘whatever you think best.’
And finally the last of the wraps had come off, and the rollers had come out of her hair, and it had been blow-dried—though heaven knew what rollers and blow-drying would do for her hopelessly frizzy hair. Then yet another beautician had gone to work on her, with a vast amount of make-up, before, at the very last, she had been lifted to her feet and one outfit after another had been whisked on to her, commented on by all in the room, then replaced with another one and the process repeated.
Until one had been left on her, her hair and make-up had been retouched one last time, and she had been gently but insistently guided towards the French windows.
She had no idea what she looked like. She could see she had nail varnish on—a soft coral-apricot colour—and her hands felt smooth and soft. Her hair felt different—lighter somehow. As if it were lifting as she walked instead of hanging in a heavy clump as it normally did. As for her clothes—she could see she was wearing a cinnamoncoloured dress, with a close-fitting bodice and cap sleeves, a narrow belt around the waist and a skirt that floated like silk around her legs.
But she hadn’t seen a reflection of herself. No one had asked her whether she wanted to see in a mirror, and she had been too cowardly to want to anyway. Deferring the evil moment.
But now it had arrived, and she wanted to die.
Oh, God—what had been the point of it all?
She must look ridiculous, absurd—dressed up like this, done up to the nines. All such fine feathers could do was show just how awful she was underneath.
Hot, hopeless embarrassment flooded through her. Why had she let them do this to her? She should have just stayed as she was—accepted what she was.
The ugly sister. Who, even when she was dressed up for the ball in gorgeous clothes, was still the ugly sister.
At her side, Ben was chattering away as she walked slowly, mortifyingly forward—towards the figure seated, motionless, under the parasol at the terrace table.
Her eyes went to him, full of dread, and as she looked at him she felt her stomach give its familiar hopeless clench.
He was wearing shorts, and a white T-shirt that strained across his torso, and he was watching her approach with absolutely no expression on his face whatsoever.
She tore her gaze away from him as she felt the hot, horrible heat of exposure rise in her. She wanted to turn and run, to bolt back to the safety of her bedroom, hide there for ever and never come out again…
She reached the table.
Say something. Anything.
She swallowed hard.
‘Oh, Ben—that’s a wonderful fort.’ Her voice sounded high-pitched and false. And coming from a hundred miles away.
‘Me and Tio Rico made it. It’s got two towers, and a bridge that lifts right up, and look, Mummy, it’s got a porcully that goes up and down. Tio Rico made it work. Look, I’ll show you, Mummy—’
She forced herself to look as Ben tugged on the string that operated the portcullis.
‘That’s really good,’ she said in a strangulated voice.
I’ve got to look at him. I must.
It was the hardest thing in the world to do, but she did it. She turned her head so that she was looking straight at him. Looking straight at that totally expressionless face.
‘It’s a brilliant fort,’ she said to him weakly.