‘Dad likes beautiful women,’ Anna was saying, her eyes glowing as they always did at the mention of her father. ‘Grandma always says it’s the Spanish blood in him. Actually, I don’t believe that. I mean, there’s no logical reason for it.’
The taxi had reached Sloane Square. Tessa had meant to have a nice, long lunch but now, on the spur of the moment, she decided that a little shopping wouldn’t go astray.
‘Shopping for what?’ Anna asked curiously, barely glancing around her. ‘Do you need anything?’
‘I think I need an entire overhaul, actually,’ Tessa told her, smiling. ‘I mean, look at me! I need a new wardrobe!’ She hadn’t actually even considered this until now, but, thinking about it, she wondered whether it wasn’t true. No one would guess that she was only twenty-eight. Lucy was forever teasing her about her old-fashioned clothes and Tessa had always laughed off the good-natured criticism, but now she wondered if she was as much of an anachronism as Anna was.
‘I like the way you dress. It’s…comfortable.’
‘Hmm. Sounds exciting.’ They began strolling up the road. It was a gorgeous day. Bright skies, cold and dry and almost windless. A perfect day for shopping.
With each step, Anna’s interest in the shop windows grew, and when she finally pointed out something she actually liked Tessa instantly pulled her inside, away from the drab, well-tailored grey skirt towards a rail of reds and burgundies, brief, beautiful short skirts with tiny, boxy jackets to match. She overrode the protests, hearing the insecurity in Anna’s voice as she shied away from trying to turn herself into something she wasn’t.
A beautiful mother, a father who was singularly drawn to women because of the way they looked… It wasn’t too difficult to see how a timid child could turn into an adolescent who was convinced of her own plainness. In her head, Anna had come to the conclusion that she couldn’t possibly compete with her mother or with any of the women she had seen her father with, and so she had gone in the opposite direction. She had taken refuge in sensible clothes and sensible shoes and no trace of make up, ever, that might signal a willingness to enter into the dressing game.
Tessa could identify with all that so she couldn’t quite understand why she just didn’t accept it.
It was very gratifying, though, to see Anna stare at herself in the small burgundy suit, eyes wide at the change in her appearance.
‘Maybe I’ll give it a go…’ she conceded, pulling out the cash that was hers to use.
By the time they finally made it to the restaurant, there was a clutch of bags. A three-hour lunch hour! They bolted down their food and returned to the office, literally like guilty truants, to find Curtis there, waiting for them.
Anna ran and flung herself at him, and Tessa stifled a heartfelt urge to groan.
‘We’re late,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m really sorry. My fault. I decided that I’d take Anna out to lunch and—’
‘My fault, Dad!’ She stood back and gestured to all the carrier bags that had been summarily relegated to the ground the minute she had laid eyes on the unexpected sight of her father. ‘I’ve been shopping!’
She ducked down to the bags strewn on the ground and, in the intervening pause, Tessa made her way to her desk and asked him crisply how the trip had gone, whether it had been successful.
The lifeless computer screen sent another jab of guilt at the extended length of time she had been out of the office. It was unheard of. She had never, but never, sidelined her duties in favour of something frivolous. The work ethic was so deeply ingrained in her that she very rarely even made personal calls from work, so skipping off on a three-hour jaunt was almost beyond the bounds of belief. Worse was the fact that she had been caught out.
‘Very good.’ Curtis was watching his daughter with amused indulgence, perched on the desk, arms folded.
He was wearing faded jeans and a long-sleeved cream jumper, the sleeves of which he had pushed up to the elbows. Tessa took it all in as she industriously switched on the computer and sat down.
His mouth was curved into a smile of loving expectation as he looked at his excited daughter. Improbable as it seemed, given his relentlessly single image, he was a doting father. He didn’t often make it to any school things, Anna had told her, but, she had quickly excused, that was because he was always so busy at work. When he did visit her at school, he invariably arrived with armfuls of gifts, and of course he was always the centre of attention. Her friends swooned over him. She had related this with great pride in her voice, never implying that she had ever longed for anything else. Reading between the lines, just having Curtis as her dad gave her some kind of indefinable street cred amongst her classmates.