Title: One Woman's Disaster
Fandom: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Rating: G
Length: 400
Characters: Miranda West, Nicola Marlow
Content notes: spoilers for the plot of The Attic Term
Author notes: This one is for legionseagle.
Summary: Two birds with one stone: getting rid of the Disaster at last, and giving Nick something to make up for the grotty term she’d had.



“One coughing bear,” Miranda said, handing the parcel to Nicola.

Two birds with one stone, more like: getting rid of the Disaster at last, and giving Nick something to make up for the grotty term she’d had.

If Mummy had ever paid any attention to her daughter’s likes and dislikes, or even stopped to think what Miranda would look like in a pleated cream-coloured silk dress, she wouldn’t have bought the Disaster in the first place. And then Elsa the au pair wouldn’t have been able to pack it by mistake in Miranda’s trunk for the term, and Miranda wouldn’t have gone looking for second-hand slacks to wear instead in the evenings, and she and Nicola wouldn’t have stumbled on that weird clothes shop that turned out to be a front for drugs, and Nick wouldn’t have ended up getting a Conduct Mark that she didn’t deserve. Unlike Ginty, who had earned her Conduct Mark fair and square, with all that illicit telephoning from the secretary’s office to Patrick Merrick. Wasn’t Patrick supposed to be Nicola's friend, anyway?

After a term like that, it was nice to be able to give Nick a proper Christmas present. Something she’d look absolutely super in at the Merricks’ party, which would put Ginty’s nose out of joint. Which, frankly, was no more than Ginty deserved. Why she couldn’t do her own dirty work instead of getting Nick to ring up Monica’s mother on First Day and find out how Monica was after the accident – and why, having done that, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut instead of dragging Nick into the row with Keith about Ginty’s telephoning to Patrick, Miranda would never know.

It was a pity she couldn’t be a fly on the wall at the Merricks’ Twelfth Night party, to see Nick dancing in the Disaster. But it was enough to remember how she’d looked in it, cool and demure in a way that reminded Miranda fleetingly of Jan Scott. Enough to remember the shiver of pleasure in Nicola’s voice at the touch of silk against her skin: “It feels marvellous.” Enough to remember how she’d stared at her image in the glass, as if she couldn’t believe it was really her.

Of course there’d be a row when Mummy found out. But whatever she said – and Miranda was pretty sure she’d say a mouthful – it would still be worth it.