He nodded again and slurped at his coffee. ‘She just refuses to let go. She won’t listen to anything I say, just keeps on talking about where we could send the kids to school.’
‘Right.’ This wasn’t so unusual. I knew plenty of married couples who’d been snogging casually at a school reunion dinner one minute then trailing round Peter Jones making a wedding list the next, without any active memory of how they’d gone from one state to the other. Or at least, the groom had no active memory of it.
More to the point, I knew plenty of girls who weren’t above using all their powers of bamboozlement to cling limpet-like to a relationship, particularly with an easy-to-manipulate specimen like the one cringing before me.
It spoke of a certain lack of ambition to me, but who was I to judge?
‘Can you help?’ he pleaded. ‘I mean, can you talk to her?’
I looked at his hopeful little face. To Bryan, the whole sphere of womanhood was clearly a mystery, requiring the intervention of an interpreter: mother, sister, nanny . . . me. I think he liked it that way. He certainly didn’t look as if he wanted to tackle the rocky path to enlightenment.
‘I prefer action, Bryan,’ I said as kindly as I could. ‘Sometimes getting straight down to business saves an awful lot of time and effort.’
He gulped his coffee. I shifted in my seat so his gaze wasn’t quite so firmly fixed on my chest.
By the time I’d calmed him down, and he’d hoovered up a whole plate of ginger biscuits, it was gone three thirty, so I suggested he give me a lift to West Kensington, and I’d get a cab home from there.
‘Do you mind if I bring this with me?’ I asked, shoving the bag with Emery’s toile into the boot of his car. I knew it basically fitted her, so I could always take it home and repin it around her. In fact, if she thought about how much work was involved, it might trigger a rare guilt trip. Stranger things had happened.
As we drove through London, fragments of new information began to emerge about Bryan and Camilla’s complicated relationship. Complicated in that he’d tried to escape more times than Houdini, and she’d thwarted him at every turn. I was beginning to wonder what hidden talents this man must have for Camilla to want to hang on to him quite so tenaciously.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone being dumped by FedEx before,’ I mused.
‘I wanted to be sure she got the bloody letter,’ he groaned. ‘While I was safely out of the country. I didn’t know her flatmate was going to sign for it, then leave it under the Yellow Pages for five months, did I?’
I agreed that absent-minded flatmates could be a terrible curse on a relationship. Fortunately, Nelson practically policed my post, especially red bills.
We pulled up outside his house, and immediately Bryan turned a clammy shade of white.
‘Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. There’s her car, parking at the top of the road,’ he muttered hysterically.
‘OK,’ I replied calmly. ‘I’ll talk to Camilla and you can—’
‘I don’t mean Camilla,’ he whispered, now almost paralysed with fear. ‘I mean her mother.’
‘Bryan!’ I snapped, turning to him. ‘Now is the time to come clean! What haven’t you told me?’
‘We’re meant to be announcing our engagement,’ he gabbled. ‘Today, her mother, coming round, Camilla making cakes and everything, talking about wedding planners, I have no idea, no idea, shit, shit, shit.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with, for heaven’s sake?’ I said crossly.
‘If I said it aloud it would be real!’ he wailed.
‘Don’t panic,’ I said, laying a hand on his flailing arm. ‘Leave it with me.’
We made it into the house as Camilla’s mother finally got her car wedged into a surprisingly small space. From my vantage point behind the curtains in Bryan’s room, I saw Camilla emerging from the passenger side. I had seen her type before, at the various horsey events Allegra used to drag me to: the sort of girl who would cling onto the reins with her teeth, rather than stop to have her broken arm set.
‘Pooky!’ she bellowed as she let herself in. ‘We’re here!’
Bryan shot me a panicked look.
I ruffled his hair and undid the top six buttons on his shirt, then did them up again the wrong way.
‘What are you . . .’ he started.
I put my fingers to my lips to shut him up, undid his belt, then pressed my mouth against his neck so my pale pink lipstick smeared a little on his skin.
I was somewhat taken aback when he grabbed me and tried to kiss me for real; I got a brief insight – I think – into what might have made him such a catch.
‘No!’ I hissed, giving him a hard shove.
Bryan looked disappointed.
God, some men, I thought. No sense of occasion.
‘Get downstairs, and look confused,’ I ordered. ‘Offer to make her some tea.’ I was about to add ‘act nervous’, but that wasn’t really necessary.
As Bryan left, I gave his belt a tug, so he nearly fell down the stairs trying to do it up.
Originally, I’d simply planned to be the Other Woman, but if half of what he’d told me about Camilla was true, then I needed to step things up a bit. It was drastic, but . . .
I slipped off my pencil skirt and unbuttoned my blouse, stuffing them in my big handbag. Then, with no small effort, I wriggled into Emery’s toile. Emery was at least two sizes smaller than me, but the lace-up feature of her dress allowed me to wedge most of my ample bosom in, if I held my breath. I couldn’t do it up, which meant that my bra was very much in evidence.
I examined myself in the mirror. At least I’d got my glamorous new balconet bra on. Black wasn’t the ideal choice for bridal underwear, but the stocking tops showing through the skirt did give me a usefully vampish look. I adjusted my wig so it looked ruffled, but not too wig-like, then walked downstairs very carefully.
The whinneys of rage and complaint emanating from the sitting room made me feel even more sorry for Bryan than before. I was beginning to see why he might prefer to live in his own fantasy world than deal with real life.
‘What sort of tart wears cheap lipgloss like that?’ Camilla was honking. ‘You’re covered in it! You pig! By rights I should walk out of this door right now and leave you to her!’
There was a hopeful pause from Bryan, then she yelled, ‘Not on your life, Bryan! I’m not leaving here until you’re jolly sorry you ever looked at another woman! Sit down! Where do you think you’re going? Mummy! Sit down too!’
I left my bag by the door for ease of get-away, then shimmied into the room.
Camilla and her mother turned and stared at me, their mouths temporarily frozen.
I pretended not to see them. ‘Bryan, darling, I know it’s terribly bad luck, but I thought you’d want to see the sort of thing I was . . . Oh, hello! Are you the wedding planners?’ I asked.
‘No!’ gasped Camilla’s mother. ‘No, we’re . . .’
‘Oops,’ I said, covering my exposed bosom with a hand. I’d remembered to swap my signet ring onto my engagement finger on the way downstairs and I made sure Camilla got a good look at it. ‘Sorry about this. We’re planning a renewal of vows ceremony, and I wanted to have the dress I never had first time round.’
‘The dress you never had,’ repeated Camilla, stunned.
‘Mmm,’ I nodded. ‘Bry and I were married on the beach in Thailand, weren’t we, darling, and I always said that after I’d got rid of the baby weight, and Bryan had got over his illness, we’d have the wedding of our dreams. It’s been hard, what with me being posted abroad for so long, but now I’m home and everything’s in full swing! It’s been wonderful, hasn’t it, darling? We’ve been courting all over again!’ I gave him a hug for emphasis.
He hugged me back, weakly.
‘You’re very quiet, big man,’ I said, huskily. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘Cat’ll get more than his tongue!’ roared Camilla, suddenly springing to life.
I was relieved to see her mother sink onto Bryan’s sofa with a deep sigh of confusion. She had the look of a woman who’d played a lot of lacrosse in her youth and I didn’t fancy my chances if she got pushy.
‘Oh, he’s not . . .’ I turned to Bryan sternly. ‘You haven’t been up to your old tricks, have you? I can see you have. You naughty boy.’ I wagged my finger at him, indulgently. ‘He hasn’t asked you to marry him, has he? Oh, Bryan.’
‘Yes, he has!’ Camilla’s eyes were furious, rather than tear-filled, I noticed. ‘How the hell are you so calm about it?’
I smiled the smile of the MP’s patient wife and put on a patronising expression of forgiveness. ‘Married life is all about working through problems, don’t you think? Don’t feel bad, darling, you’re not the first to be taken in by that boyish vulnerability. Bad, Bryan!’
Camilla spluttered something unintelligible, but the wind left her sails as quickly as it had arrived and she looked as if she was about to burst into tears of frustration.
‘Can I get you a cup of sweet tea, Mrs, er—’ I began, turning politely to her mother, who averted her eyes at the sight of my exposed bosom. ‘This must have come as quite a shock.’
I was surprised to find I was almost enjoying myself. It was quite a novelty to be the one causing the disruption, rather than having to sort it all out.
Fortunately, her mother suddenly came to life. ‘Camilla, I think we should leave! While we all still have some dignity.’
She gave me a very pointed look as she said that.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, offering a hand to shake. ‘Bryan, say something.’
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Bryan, looking shell-shocked.
Camilla swept past him without saying a word. As they left, I distinctly heard her mother whisper, ‘Not again, Cammy! This must stop!’
‘Bye-bye!’ I shouted after them. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure it must be visible through my chest.
‘Where did all that come from?’ demanded Bryan in an undertone. ‘You didn’t say you were going to do anything like that.’ He’d appeared behind me, peering over my shoulder to check, I think, that Camilla had really gone.
‘It just . . . comes,’ I whispered back.
‘You were magnificent,’ he whispered. ‘Really . . . amazing.’
‘She’s gone, Bryan,’ I whispered. ‘I think we can stop whispering.’
We both stood there, breathing hard, watching the Volvo estate disappear round the corner.
Then I became aware of how close Bryan was standing to me and took a definite step sideways.
‘You were amazing,’ he said again, this time more suavely. ‘Can I take you out for a drink?’
‘Bryan, I think you would benefit from some time on your own, don’t you?’ I said sternly. ‘Now, I need to get out of this dress. On my own.’
I virtually had to push him to one side to get to the stairs.
As with most situations in my life, Emery’s dress was much harder to get out of than it had been to get into. The annoying thing about mentally transforming myself into Honey was that, like Superman, the effect wore off after a while, and I’d have hoped to have been free of Bryan’s house and well on the way home by this stage. As it was, I had one arm out of the bodice and was seriously considering biting the remaining stitches with my teeth to free myself when my mobile rang.
‘Hello?’ I said, trying hard to sound professional despite being practically nude on top and clad in my sister’s wedding dress below.
‘It’s Jonathan. Where are you?’
‘I’m actually in a meeting,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have answered my phone.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Jonathan, not sounding particularly sorry. ‘But it’s kind of urgent. I need your company for a very, very important meeting. Tonight. Can you make it – it’s drinks after work?’
With some effort, I looked at my watch. Half past four already. Nelson had muttered something about wild trout for supper, there was a whole raft of soap operas on and it was my night for the hot water.
‘Please?’ said Jonathan, with some effort.
‘Oh, go on,’ I said, unable to resist.
13
Jonathan was standing by the door of the Oxo Tower, looking at his watch as if it were one of those Mission Impossible watches that would issue him with instructions. His face was even more guarded than normal, but as I approached he gave me a quick nod, and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. I noticed his pale skin looked stressed with the bright sunlight that had started to warm up the London air.
‘Hello,’ I said cheerily. ‘You look smart. New suit?’
He just grunted, which was unusual, because normally Jonathan was well-mannered enough to trade compliment for compliment, a trait I had come to appreciate very much.
‘What took you so long?’ he demanded, raking a hand through his hair, which gleamed luxuriantly in the sun. ‘I thought you said you’d be half an hour. And what the hell’s that?’
He gestured to the bag with Emery’s toile in it. I’d stuffed it into a smaller bag for portability, but tell-tale puffs of material were escaping.
I took a deep breath and counted to ten, so as not to be rude. But I wasn’t going to let him order me around the way he ordered people round at Dean & Daniels. It wasn’t that kind of arrangement.
‘Jonathan,’ I said, ‘might I remind you that you called at very short notice, while I was dealing with another client? I came as quickly as I could. Regrettably, I have some baggage.’
Jonathan snorted. ‘Don’t we all?’
‘I’m going to go to the ladies’ over there, freshen up and come back. And we’ll start again, shall we?’ I gave him a dark look. ‘Jonathan?’
This was the first time I’d had the nerve to return his own professional brusqueness – or rather, the first time I’d been too cross to censor myself or feel intimidated by his manner.
For a brief moment, Jonathan looked as though he were about to yell at me. His eyes glinted and a muscle on his jaw twitched. He was obviously in a much worse mood than I was. But I refused to lower my glare, and after a second or two, he had the grace to look shame-faced.
‘OK,’ he said, letting out his pent-up breath. He rubbed his chin ruefully, where tiny prickles of ginger stubble were beginning to show. ‘Pardon me.’
‘Thank you. I’ll be two minutes.’ I walked to the ladies’ as carefully as I could. My suspenders had gone slack and I could feel the thin layer of London grubbiness on my skin. So far, the choice bits of my own wardrobe had been fine for a tepid early summer, but I had a feeling some re-investment would be needed to keep Honey looking elegant and cool during summer.
Safely inside the ladies’, I splashed my wrists with cold water, readjusted my stockings, shook out my wig and replaced it, and spritzed myself (and the inside of my high heels) with cologne. Then I blotted my shiny nose, reapplied my lipstick, checked my teeth for debris, took a deep breath and walked back out, a new woman.
Jonathan had an apology ready at once.
‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ he said, blinking rapidly. ‘I was out of line there. I should have filled you in – these people we’re meeting, they’re old friends of mine and Cindy’s. They’re in London for a few days, and called me this morning to see if I was around for a drink. I meant to call you earlier, but I’ve been out at viewings all morning, and, well . . .’ His voice trailed off and he shrugged. He was trying to be cool about it, but I could see the tension in his face, deepening the lines around his eyes and nose. I could see he was terribly on edge. It was unlike him to be rude; brisk, yes, and sometimes a bit distant, but I knew he was a very courteous man.
‘To be honest? I didn’t want to see them, but I felt ambushed,’ he explained awkwardly.
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to apologise.’ I patted his arm. ‘Do you want to freshen up too before we take the lift?’ I dug around in my bag and offered him my Rescue Remedy spray.
/>
Jonathan smiled. Wearily. ‘Does it work?’
‘Works for me. One quick squirt on the tongue. Two for driving tests and “We’re going to have to let you go” interviews.’
Jonathan gave himself three short squirts, then squeezed his eyes shut. ‘Thanks,’ he croaked.
‘OK!’ I said, a little surprised by this glimpse of vulnerability but determined not to let him see. ‘Tally ho!’
As we soared up in the lift, he rattled off a briefing about his friends: ‘Kurt and Bonnie Hegel. He’s a lawyer, she’s a life coach. She knew Cindy from college, they lived near us in New York. Nice enough, but they always took Cindy’s side, you know? Both crazy about England – Bonnie reckons she can trace her ancestry back to the Mayflower. I very much doubt that, but humour her OK?’
‘Right!’ I said. ‘Do they know anything about me?’
‘No.’
‘And do they still talk to Cindy?’
‘All the time.’
‘I see,’ I said, and glanced at Jonathan. I’d have loved to ask more about Cindy, but this wasn’t the time. His jaw was set, and now a little muscle was twitching in his forehead. He probably thought he was hiding his nerves well but I had had plenty of practice at seeing through tough fronts.
I wanted to say, ‘Don’t worry,’ but I’ve always thought that’s an annoyingly pointless thing to say when there’s clearly lots to worry about. Friends of exes were just the worst. Instead I focused on being as glamorous as I could possibly manage, if only to prove to them that Jonathan didn’t need their sympathy.
We walked across the crowded bar and Jonathan enquired about the table we’d reserved at the balcony. It seemed the Hegels had beaten us to it. I tried to step back a little so Jonathan could lead the way over there, but he shoved me, none too subtly, in the back, and I was forced to shimmy round the tables, deranged smile fixed on my face all the while.
The Hegels rose, but didn’t remove their shades.
The Little Lady Agency Page 18