As Good As It Gets? Read online

  As I’m heading out of London, and away from the worst of the traffic, I soon make up for lost time, and by the time I pull into the car park at Archie’s, I’m all soothed. I have a quick chat with Freya and Jen, who run the visitors’ centre and shop, then trot upstairs to the light, airy office. Our website implies that our potato chips are hand crafted in our home kitchen, deep in the Essex countryside. It is the country, just about; i.e., we’re not quite on the Tube, and are surrounded by flat, scrubby fields, and the building I work in is a converted village school with a small, tidy garden in front. But this isn’t where our crisps are actually made. That happens in an ugly gunmetal-grey manufacturing plant, concealed by a dense row of conifers. It’s why we don’t offer factory tours. The public would come expecting to see a kindly granny carving Maris Pipers, and discover a terrifying slicing machine and several enormous vats of bubbling oil manned by twenty-odd employees.

  I pull off my jacket, and consider texting Rosie to ask if she’s feeling okay about the model agency meeting – as she clearly isn’t – then decide against it. She’ll be at school, and anyway, the more I try to reassure her that it’ll be okay, the more terrified she’ll be. That’s a thing I’ve noticed about teenagers: how very opposite they are. If you want to put them off buying some terrible shoes, all you have to do is go on about how gorgeous they are.

  I click on my computer and check my inbox. There’s a ‘missive’ – as my boss calls his perky team emails – from Rupert, AKA King of Crisps.

  Wednesday, July 9

  From: [email protected]

  To: all teamsters

  Subject: Just a few odds & sods!

  Hi folks,

  How’s tricks, my lovelies? Just a line to say thanks for all being so awesome! We’ve had a crazy time and you’ve all been incredible. No distribution probs lately, and we’re all set to take the world by storm, or at least the highlight of our crisp calendar – The Festival of Savoury Snacks!

  Just a tiny thing. With a few new peeps having joined the team, can I just – sorry to be a pain here – mention a few words we don’t use here at Archie Towers?

  I should point out that there aren’t actually any towers. It’s just one of those cuddly things that Rupert likes to say.

  You know how pernickety I am! he goes on, sprinkling exclamation marks around as liberally as his favoured hand-harvested sea salt. Just give me a punch next time you see me, haha. Anyway, here goes:

  Instead of staff we say team (singular = teamster)

  Not company but family (i.e. you’re now welcomed into the bosom of the Archie family!)

  Not fry but cook (yes, I realise that’s technically what we do here, but we all know the connotations of the word ‘fry’ – i.e., greasy, artery-clogging and frankly pretty horrid. Which isn’t our bag here at Archie’s, right?)

  Not meeting but gathering

  Not supplier but friend (i.e., our potatoes come from our friend Mickey Hunter’s farm in Kent)

  Okie-doke?

  Love,

  Rupe xxx

  ‘Sounds like someone’s said “fry” again,’ I tell Dee, who’s arrived pink-cheeked, having cycled from her village a couple of miles away.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ she sniggers, removing her jacket and helmet and dropping a contraband snack (raspberry Pop Tart) into the toaster. Dee and I look after events, PR and social media together. I’m also in charge of updating our touchy-feely website. Rupert insists on lots of photos of ‘teamsters’ doing fun stuff together, to convey the message that we’re a happy gang, forever larking about, and never have to do anything as mundane as sit at a desk or attend a meeting. I’ve had to stage garden parties and bike rides to show what a jolly time we all have. However, despite the tweeness and Rupert’s relentless enthusiasm for making everything ‘fun’, I do enjoy working here, especially since – and I feel awful even admitting this – Will’s been at home. It’s my escape, of sorts. Is it okay to want to run away from your own husband? I don’t mean in a packing-my-bags, forever sort of way. But I’m aware that I cherish my time away from the house.

  ‘I still don’t get the family thing,’ remarks Dee, who’s fairly new here, as she makes coffee.

  ‘I thought it was weird at first,’ I reply, scrolling through the rest of my mail, ‘and I did try to point out to Rupert that we’re not really a family, in that we’re not a biologically related unit who all go on holiday together …’

  She laughs. ‘How did he take that?’

  ‘He said that to him, we are family.’

  ‘Scary,’ Dee says, handing me a mug of coffee and proceeding to make the first of a barrage of phone calls with remarkable efficiency. At twenty-four, she is probably the most grown-up person I know. She buys scented oil burners from John Lewis and pounces on White Company bed linen at sale time. She knows what an Oxford pillowcase is, for goodness’ sake. She explained it to me. At her age, I was already a mother, so I probably looked like a bona fide adult as I pushed Rosie on the swings in the park – but our tiny flat whiffed of wet laundry and potties and stress.

  ‘Look what Mike bought yesterday,’ Dee enthuses, during a break in calls, beckoning me over to look at her phone. She has photographed a chrome standard lamp with a hot orange shade – that’s how proud of it she is.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I say.

  ‘Isn’t it? And we’re choosing rugs on Saturday …’ She has just moved into a tiny, impossibly cute cottage with her handsome builder boyfriend who sent possibly the world’s biggest bouquet of red roses to our office on her birthday.

  ‘So how is it?’ I ask. ‘Living together, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, it’s great. I love it that we’re together more, you know? And it didn’t make sense to keep two places going.’

  ‘No, I understand that …’ I glance at Dee. Her hair is pale blonde, straightened and shiny as glass, and her elfin features are defined with a flick of liquid liner and a touch of lip gloss. She seems so young for cosy, rug-choosing domesticity.

  ‘So, um … what d’you and Mike do in the evenings?’ I ask.

  She shrugs. ‘Well, we do dinner – okay, I do dinner – and then we watch a box set.’

  ‘But you do go out sometimes?’ I realise I probably seem overly fascinated by her lifestyle: the habits and behaviour of a young person. It’s just … she seems so content. Why can’t I be like that, all excited by John Lewis home fragrances?

  ‘Occasionally,’ Dee replies, ‘but to be honest, we’d rather get the house finished than waste our money in pubs and restaurants.’

  Hmm. Perhaps it’s because my freedom was curtailed so abruptly – by having a baby at twenty-two – that I can’t help feeling youth is something to be cherished and clung on to for dear life.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dee says, ‘isn’t it Rosie’s big day today? With the model agency, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, we’re due there at four.’ The sound of tuneless whistling announces Rupert’s arrival as he bounds upstairs to our office.

  ‘What’s this about modelling?’ He beams at us – his ‘girls’, which in my case is stretching things a bit – and rakes back a mop of curly dark hair.

  ‘Rosie was scouted on Saturday,’ I explain. ‘We were out shopping and a woman from an agency came up to us. She seems keen to take Rosie on.’

  He feigns a crestfallen face. ‘Only Rosie? What about you? I’d have thought they’d have snapped you up!’

  ‘Don’t think so, Rupert,’ I reply, laughing, ‘unless they have a special division for people to model stair lifts, or those easy-care slacks you get in the Sunday supplements.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he blusters, grinning fondly and perching on the edge of my desk. In his faded checked shirt and scruffy jumbo cords, he’s actually impossible to dislike. Not bad looking either, although not my type; mid-forties, glinting grey eyes and long, skinny legs, which lend him an endearing foal-like quality. Archie’s is his baby. Realising his own name – Rupert Plunkett-Knowles – was perhaps
a little too fancy for something as earthy as crisps (even posh crisps), he named the company after his beloved Golden Retriever.

  I start to update Rupert on our plans for the snacks festival in Bournemouth, which Dee and I are pulling together. Competitions, goodie bags and live cookery demonstrations: Rupert greets our every suggestion with his customary enthusiasm. ‘Sounds excellent!’ he booms as we wrap things up. ‘Anyway, I know you’re heading off early today so I’ll let you get on … sounds like an amazing opportunity for Rosie.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ He strides to the window and peers out, as if surveying his kingdom. Rupert and his wife Marcelle have four daughters with flowing blonde manes, like thoroughbred ponies; I have no idea how they manage to hold everything together. ‘Rupert,’ I say hesitantly, ‘what would you do if one of your girls wanted to be a model?’

  He turns and shrugs. ‘I’m fine about whatever they want to do, as long as it makes them happy. How d’you feel about it?’

  I consider this. ‘You know, I think it’s actually okay. It could be a good experience for her, doing the shoots, maybe a bit of travel …’

  ‘You don’t sound completely convinced,’ Dee remarks.

  ‘Well, no. Of course there’s the worry about the pressure to be super-skinny – having a thigh gap and all that … I mean, what’s that all about?’

  ‘Horrible,’ Dee agrees with a shudder.

  I sip my coffee. ‘I don’t think it’s an especially healthy thing – the whole business, I mean – and she’s not madly confident. She pretends she is, but it’s just an act, really. And she still seems so young—’

  ‘But if it doesn’t work out,’ Rupert cuts in, ‘she can just stop, can’t she?’

  I nod, hoping it’s that simple. Giving me a reassuring pat on the arm, he snatches his trilling mobile from his pocket and lollops back downstairs. Dee and I spend the rest of the day finalising plans for the festival and, despite my doubts, I’m starting to feel pretty excited for Rosie as I head downstairs and through the shop, where baskets of new crisp varieties have been set out for testing. Always a dangerous time for me, this, and my favourite work skirt is already feeling a little pinchy on the waist. ‘Go on, try these,’ Freya urges me from behind the counter.

  ‘What are they?’ I ask, hand hovering as I try to resist the urge to snatch one.

  ‘Mature Cheddar and vintage ale.’

  ‘Hmm. Doesn’t seem quite right, eating beer.’ I pop one into my mouth; scrumptious, I decide, heading out to my car, although if truth be known you can’t beat good old salt and vinegar. My phone rings as I start the ignition. ‘Where are you?’ Will barks.

  ‘Just setting off. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time—’

  ‘It’s just, you need to have a word with Rosie right now.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Will sighs. ‘She came home from school and hid in her room for ages and next thing she’s bloody plastered in make-up …’

  ‘Oh God, she really doesn’t need—’

  ‘And when I mentioned it,’ he interrupts, ‘I mean, I only said, “You’re wearing quite a lot of make-up, Ro”, she started crying and now her eyes are all red and puffy and she said she can’t possibly go. Can you please have a word with your daughter?’

  Ah, my daughter now. Technically accurate, but he never says that. ‘She’s just sensitive,’ I start, ‘and pretty nervous, I think. I’ll have a word when I get home.’

  ‘You need to,’ he declares. ‘I can’t handle this, Charlotte. I don’t know what to say to her.’

  And he thinks I do? ‘All right,’ I mutter as Frank from the factory saunters past, slugging a can of Coke. ‘Listen,’ I add, ‘I can’t do anything sitting here, can I? Try to calm her down and, whatever you do, don’t criticise her. In fact don’t comment on her appearance at all.’

  ‘What should I say then?’

  ‘Nothing. Just talk about … nothing. The weather or something.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll help. That’ll sound really natural. As you know, Rosie and I often have long discussions about cold fronts and cloud formations …’

  For crying out loud. ‘Don’t say anything then,’ I snap, watching Frank stop and light up an extremely un-Archie’s cigarette. A moment later, Dee comes out too and he offers her one from his packet. The sight of them chatting and laughing in the sunshine makes me feel extremely old and tired.

  ‘Okay then,’ Will says. ‘I won’t say another word to her. I’ll be mute.’

  ‘Sounds like a good plan,’ I growl, pulling out of the car park and hoping my husband’s mood has improved by the time I get home. After all, we’re going on a family outing.

  *

  ‘How is she now?’ I ask Will, tossing my jacket over a kitchen chair.

  He shrugs. ‘I did what you said. I haven’t attempted further communications.’ Why is he speaking like this, as if English isn’t his mother tongue?

  ‘I’ll talk to her.’ I brush past him and march up to her room. She’s had permission to leave school early today; Ollie will head over to his friend Saul’s after school. ‘Rosie, are you okay?’ I call through her bedroom door.

  ‘Yup.’ She sounds deflated.

  ‘It’s just, we’re supposed to be at the agency at four. Are you getting ready?’

  Silence.

  ‘Rosie, d’you think we could possibly have a conversation that’s not through a two-inch-thick door?’

  There’s a shuffling noise, then the door opens slowly. Will was right: inexpertly applied foundation cakes her lovely face. She’s applied smudgy black eyeliner and a ton of red lipstick. Her cheeks bear swirls of violent pink blusher, like scorch marks, and her eyes are bloodshot from crying. ‘Oh, darling.’ I bite my lip. ‘You look a bit upset.’

  ‘I am upset,’ she snivels. ‘You know what Dad said? “What’ve you done to your face?” How d’you think that made me feel?’

  Um, he had a point. ‘What he meant was—’ I start.

  ‘He’s always criticising me,’ she exclaims, which is patently untrue, ‘and on a day like this which is so important to me. Look at the state of me, Mum!’ As if Will had strapped her to a stool in the middle of Debenhams and proceeded to pile on the slap like an over-zealous Benefit counter girl.

  ‘Dad just wants what’s best for you,’ I say firmly. ‘But if it’s going to be a huge drama then maybe we should cancel this meeting …’

  ‘No!’ she wails. ‘I don’t want that, Mum. Please.’

  At a long-ago yoga class, I remember Liza telling us all about breathing through your bellybutton. It sounded bizarre, but she said it was calming and now I wish I’d learnt how to do it. ‘Okay,’ I say slowly, ‘if we’re going, then please take off your make-up and let’s get ready.’

  Rosie sighs and wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her top. Miraculously, she does tissue off most of her make-up and, after much splashing of cold water, her eyes lose some of their pinkness. ‘Hey,’ Will says as we meet in the kitchen, ‘that’s better, love. You look great.’ He does too, having swapped his usual gardening attire for a smart chambray shirt and dark jeans, accessorised with an expression of grim stoicism. He just cares, I remind myself, kissing him on the cheek.

  ‘What was that for?’ He smiles.

  ‘Nothing. I just love you, that’s all.’ I wait for him to add, I love you too.

  ‘Well, we’d better be going,’ is all he says.

  Chapter Seven

  It’s not Laurie who greets us at Face Models but a bored-looking girl with a blunt dark fringe and a gleaming pink nose stud, like a pomegranate seed, on reception. In fact, when I say greet, that’s not quite what she does. She continues to stare at her laptop for a few moments before deigning to acknowledge our arrival. ‘We’re here to see Laurie,’ I say, sensing nervousness radiating from my daughter’s every pore as she hovers at my side.

  The girl glances up. ‘She just popped out. Have a seat …’ She indicates the sole chair in the small reception
area, brightening suddenly as she registers Will’s presence. ‘God, am I glad to see you. Weren’t you meant to come this morning? The whole place is going mental!’

  ‘Sorry?’ Will looks baffled.

  ‘Wifi’s down. I’ve been onto your people five times now. Complete nightmare—’

  ‘Er, I’m not here to fix your Wifi,’ Will explains. ‘I’m just, er …’

  ‘He’s with us,’ I cut in, realising at once that it’s wrong of me to speak for him. The girl twitches her nose, in precisely the way Guinness does, and Laurie rushes in clutching a carton of coffee.

  ‘Oh, hi – Rosie! Sorry, darling. Sorry, sorry …’ She gives her a fleeting hug, which seems to turn Rosie rigid with alarm, whilst holding her carton aloft. ‘You look great. Wow – you’ve all come. Dad too. Quite the family outing!’ We all laugh awkwardly and follow her into a bright open-plan office buzzing with trilling phones. ‘Bit manic today,’ Laurie adds, quickly naming the half dozen young people who are all seated around a large oval table strewn with paperwork, coffee cartons and phones. ‘Sasha, Milly, Greg, Claudia, Ryan, Jojo …’ I nod, trying to take it all in, but none of the names are lodging in my head. ‘They’re the bookers,’ Laurie adds. ‘Well, Claudia’s the boss. But we all pitch in here, we’re like family …’ Hmm, just like Archie’s. There’s the odd half-hearted smile, hastily dispensed in between intense phone conversations and the odd outburst of shouting.

  ‘Marla’s had a meltdown at the Burberry shoot,’ wails a young man (Ryan? Or Greg?) with a shock of sandy hair and a brow piercing. ‘For fuck’s sake. That girl needs to get a grip.’ Unperturbed by his outburst, a gaggle of incredibly tall, angular girls are gossiping and sipping from water bottles in a far corner. Of course, Rosie’s tall too – but she’s my daughter, I’m used to her lofty height, and barely register it. I mean, I don’t go around feeling all gnome-like at home. But among all these towering strangers I seem to have become a sort of sub-species.