Free The Benefits of Passion by Catherine Fox

exactly the right amount of blusher into her hollowed cheeks. The pinnacle of Annie’s cosmetic ambitions had always been to apply mascara without getting a black line across the bridge of her nose when doing the left eye. She’d never mastered the professional backhanded method Isobel was so casually employing. Annie stared at her reflection. Her brown eyes looked rounder than ever – like a startled marmoset. The scene Annie had just written was her revenge on Isobel. She could always repent and cross it out later.
    It was just that Isobel was so frostily perfect. Her dark blue silk dress had been simple but stunning. Annie had given up trying to look conventionally beautiful, much to her mother’s disgust. You look like something the cat’s brought in, Anne. Why don’t you wear something smart for once? You’ve got plenty of nice things just hanging there in your wardrobe. If you’re not going to wear them you should take them down to Oxfam. And look at your hair. You’ve really let yourself go.
    Annie had ditched her teacher’s image along with the job. All those polite skirts and V-necked pullovers. Beige and grey, like her life had been. These days her only sartorial rule was to wear what she wanted, regardless of what it looked like and whether other people thought it was appropriate. Her clothes came from charity shops and jumble sales, or from dark little shops reeking of patchouli. All her skirt hems drooped. Her sweaters were vast and had unravelled cuffs. Nothing went with anything else. Army surplus with sequinned velvet. Tramps’ coats with silk stockings. Perhaps it would have worked if Annie hadn’t lacked that special ingredient – self-belief, perhaps? – which synthesized random garments into a fashion statement. Most of the time she knew she just looked odd. Edward called it her Orphan Annie look and it annoyed him almost as much as Ingram’s hair. Ted had teenage daughters and found it normal. He had only commented on her clothes once. She remembered him saying, after looking thoughtfully at her most wildly unravelled pullover, ‘Don’t go near any working machinery while you’re wearing that, will you?’
    Her choice of outfit for the ball had been a little black cocktail dress. Late Fifties or early Sixties, low cut and exquisitely tailored – four pounds from Save the Children. When she had tried it on in the shop it had seemed quirky and slightly risqué; but standing beside Isobel’s dark blue silk, Big Mistake seemed nearer the mark. Whatever was Edward going to say?
    Annie was going to the ball with him because he was trying to escape the attentions of an eager undergraduate who had – through no fault of his – got hold of totally the wrong end of totally the wrong stick. Annie could be counted on not to misconstrue his gallantry. Thanks , darling. Annie had tugged futilely at the front of her dress to make it plunge less, suddenly fearing that Edward would prefer whoomfy taffeta to exquisite tailoring and quirky décolletage . Oh, no! His feet coming along the corridor. A knock. She opened the door and he took two clear steps back, astounded.
    â€˜Gosh, Annie. Curves .’
    She wrung her hands, looking at his dinner suit. ‘Is it too awful? I don’t want to let you down.’
    â€˜Turn round.’ She obeyed. ‘I say , Miss Brown. Those aren’t stockings, are they?’
    â€˜Oh, no! They don’t show, do they?’ She tried to wriggle them up, but it proved impossible without hoisting her skirt. ‘Oh, help. What am I going to do? I should have bought tights, only I hate wearing them.’
    â€˜I could lend you some,’ offered Isobel politely, coming to the door with the little evening bag that matched her dress.
    â€˜No, no!’ protested Edward. ‘She wouldn’t dream of troubling you.’ And to Annie’s amazement, he swept her up in his arms