‘Maybe it’s time to use it, lovey. Your mum would have wanted you to.’
Erin looked at her grandmother’s deep blue eyes and knew she loved her more than ever. But she also knew she was right.
‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ said Erin, wondering how much of Jilly’s rice pudding she would have to eat before she could slip off and make the phone call.
‘Ah, Erin Devereux. Good of you to call back. I tried your mobile but I’m not sure it’s working.’ Catherine Weiner’s voice was brash and over-friendly. It had been so long since Erin had been up to London for her agency interview, but she remembered how scarily efficient the woman was.
‘Then I tried this number on your CV. Didn’t recognize the dialling code. Where are you? Surrey?’
‘Er, Cornwall,’ said Erin, putting on her best telephone manner.
‘Cornwall,’ replied Catherine, surprised. ‘You’ve not moved down there, have you?’
‘Just staying with friends while my new London flat completes,’ Erin quickly lied. ‘Solicitor tells me it’ll be Friday. Then I’m on the first train back to London.’
‘Well, that’s good news,’ said Catherine, briskly. ‘Because Cornwall is hardly commutable and I think I’ve got a job for you.’
Erin’s interest was piqued. ‘Oh yes?’
‘I see from the notes I took at your interview that you were looking for secretarial cover at a publishing company. Well, this is not that, but it should be lively work for a girl your age.’
‘So what is it?’
‘Events management. It’s a three-week job. The client, a very glamorous lady-about-town needs help staging a benefit dinner. Sending out tickets, lots of admin, lots of running around. She wanted someone bright, organized, presentable. Doesn’t need particularly sharp typing skills, which is why I thought of you. Starts ASAP, mind you. She wants to interview tomorrow. Lots of my girls are committed to long-term contracts, but I thought you might be free …’
Charming, thought Erin.
‘So I have to come up to London for an interview?’ said Erin, thinking about the cost of a train ticket.
‘Erin,’ said Catherine, her voice sharp and reprimanding. ‘This is what’s known as a very sexy gig. Now, are you in or out?’
Erin looked out of the window at the grey emptiness There was no denying it was beautiful here; it even smelt wonderful, with the tang of the sea air mingling with the scent of the wild flowers on the cliffs and the oily trawlers in the harbour. She knew that when she was her grandmother’s age there would be no better place in the world in which to live, but, right now, aged twenty-four, life seemed to be on pause. Cornwall was so cut-off, so disconnected from the rest of the world, she had to get to London to wake herself up. To connect with society. To connect with people.
‘Count me in. I’ll be on the first train tomorrow.’
3
‘Last shot and then that’s it for the day,’ shouted Sally Stevenson, art director of Your Wedding magazine, adjusting the tiara on Summer Sinclair’s head and smoothing down the undulating layers of the Vera Wang gown. Summer groaned with relief. She could see it was already pitch-black outside the French windows of the location house, and she was dying to get home and soak her feet. All day she had wriggled in and out of white meringues and slinky ivory columns, her hair had been pinned up and blow-dried down and she had run through every expression from poetic wistfulness to carefree laughter. In short, she’d spent the day being trussed up like a toilet doily and she was exhausted. Still, at least some of today had been fun, thought Summer, glancing at Charlie McDonald, the male model who had been playing the dashing groom to her blushing bride. Charlie had made her giggle all day long, doing impressions of Stefan the surly Swedish photographer, and chasing the three tiny bridesmaids around the studio creating pandemonium. He was good looking, too, in a preppy, Ralph Lauren kind of way, she thought. Although not my type at all, she corrected herself quickly. Summer tended to go for older men – rich, older men – something her mother had drilled into her since she was a girl.
‘He might be handsome,’ she could hear her mum saying, ‘but can a handsome man get you a private jet?’ No, Charlie was no more than her age, and the last time she had been out with a twenty-four-year-old she had been sixteen – and, even then, he’d been a banking heir.
‘Right now, I want something sexy, something romantic,’ said Stefan sternly. ‘Charlie, can you move to the side of the staircase?’ he directed. ‘And slip your arm around Summer’s waist.’
Charlie moved in close. Bloody hell, he was handsome. Narrow green eyes framed by sooty lashes, clear, lightly tanned skin, a mop of dark blond hair. Without the square jaw he would have been pretty, but the angles of his face toughened him up like a fifties film star. ‘Now, I want you to kiss her gently on the lips.’
Awkwardly, Summer turned her head, feeling her heart beat faster as his lips brushed hers. Charlie was so good looking it was hard to be completely professional, to dissociate desire like you were turning off a tap. It had been over a year since she’d had any sort of intimate contact: despite her looks, Summer rarely dated.
‘Come on, Summer. You’re supposed to have just married this guy!’ shouted Sally. ‘Don’t look at him as if you’re scared stiff.’
Summer forced a smile and moved closer to Charlie as Sally and her assistant began throwing silver and white balloons into the shot.
‘Come on, pretend that you love me,’ Charlie whispered with a soft smile. ‘Then we can all go home.’
The highly strung photographer threw his hands up in the air in frustration. ‘These British!’ he moaned. ‘They are so uptight!’
Sally Stevenson rushed in, clapping her hands. ‘Okay, thank you everyone, that was great,’ she said, lifting her hands above her head for the traditional end-of-shoot applause.
‘So, who wants to come for a drink?’ she asked, looking hopefully at Charlie, who she had booked specially because she fancied him.
‘Don’t mind if I do …’ he said, not taking his eyes off Summer as he spoke.
Summer went into the bathroom to take the thick foundation off her face. She scrambled out of the creamy meringue. Bloody wedding shoots, she thought, staring into the mirror. Then again, she wasn’t exactly Kate Moss, was she?
Come on, Summer, get real and stop grumbling, she chided herself. A fashion shoot for Your Wedding wasn’t the edgy, ground-breaking high-fashion editorial she had dreamt of doing when she had first started modelling; but at least it was work, something she hadn’t had a great deal of since Christmas. At twenty-four, Summer knew that her modelling shelf-life was running out.
Charlie McDonald was waiting for her in the marbled hall, swatting at the balloons as the bridesmaids were bundled into thick duffle coats by their beaming parents.
‘Are you coming for that drink?’ asked Charlie, throwing his bag over his shoulder.
‘Only if you’re buying,’ said Summer playfully.
‘So, how come I haven’t seen you in castings before?’ asked Charlie as they walked towards the door.
‘I’ve been out of the country for the last few years.’
‘Oh yeah? New York?’
‘Japan,’ said Summer, a little embarrassed. She knew Tokyo was considered rather down-market as far as modelling was concerned. The very top girls went to New York where they could make millions of dollars, while the tall, skinny girls went to Paris where they would make couture dresses look even more exclusive and luxurious. Toyko barely even made it onto the fashion map, but the commercial Japanese market had loved Summer’s glorious girl-next-door perfection, with her flawless, peachy complexion, rosy lips and watery, lavender-blue eyes that shined with such innocence that no one noticed that they were there to sell you overpriced cosmetics. She had been one of the top girls at her Tokyo agency, a big star in her tiny neon universe. It was four years of hard work, but it had boosted her confidence, given her plenty and, most importantly, it meant her mother’s
seal of approval.
‘Wow, Tokyo? That’s fantastic!’ said Charlie, without any hint of snobbery. ‘I thought about going out there myself to make a bit of money. Apparently they don’t mind short-arses over there.’
Summer laughed. Charlie probably just scraped six foot, but she could sympathize. The lack of work in London for girls her height – five feet seven – was one of the reasons why she went to Japan in the first place.
‘You should go,’ said Summer, ‘it’s an amazing place. A little strange and fantastically polite, but amazing all the same.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I have a band. The only reason I model is to pay for guitar strings.
‘Ah-ha!’ said Summer triumphantly, ‘I knew it! So you’re the next Noel Gallagher.’ She had always been jealous of male models. While they rarely got the big bucks that the top female models could command, most men she met on the circuit were using modelling as a stopgap or a passport to other things: students working off a bank loan, wannabe TV presenters getting visibility or actors making a quick buck.
‘Yeah, just like Noel Gallagher,’ smiled Charlie, ‘but with better teeth.’
They walked out onto the streets of Belgravia. With the tall white Georgian houses stretching up around them, her hair still in a bouffant, carriage streetlamps glowing like dandelion clocks, she felt like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel. Sally, Stefan and some of the crew were still huddled in the doorway of the house, sheltering from the spitting rain and debating where to go to drink.
‘What about the Blue Bar for a cocktail?’
‘I’m not paying a tenner for a drink,’ grumbled Charlie. ‘Aren’t there any pubs around here?’
‘Well, what about the Grenadier?’ said Sally looking directly at Charlie. ‘I saw Madonna in there once.’
‘No one famous is going to be out tonight,’ said Jenny the make-up artist, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. ‘It’s that big party in South London tonight, isn’t it?’
Summer felt a sudden sense of panic. ‘Oh shit!’ she said, and started looking up and down the street for a taxi.
‘What’s up?’ asked Charlie.
‘I promised my mum I’d go out with her,’ groaned Summer.
‘Hot date at the bingo?’
Summer laughed at the image. ‘My mum is probably more rock ’n’ roll than anyone you’ve ever met in the music industry.’
‘Excellent! Get her down to the Grenadier!’ said Charlie.
Summer doubted her mum had been to anywhere as down-market as a pub since the 1970s.
‘What are we waiting for over there?’ said Sally Stevenson irritably, unhappy that Summer was monopolizing Charlie.
A black cab pulled up to the kerb, and Summer quickly spoke to the driver. ‘I’d better go,’ said Summer apologetically, clunking the door open.
Charlie rifled around in his bag and pulled out a CD. ‘My band,’ he said, handing it to her with an endearingly nervous expression, like a twelve-year old schoolboy who’d just plucked up the courage to ask a girl out for the first time. ‘Give it a listen. If you like it, we’re playing at the Monarch a week on Thursday. You should come down and hear us.’
She felt a little spike of affection as he pulled a copy of NME out of his bag and held it over his hair as the rain got harder.
‘And if I hate it?’ she asked.
‘Come down anyway.’
As the cab began to turn back up the street, Summer pulled down the window to tell Charlie she would try to make it. As she passed the group, she could see Sally Stevenson sidle up to Charlie and say, ‘Funny fish, that one, isn’t she?’
She couldn’t hear Charlie’s reply.
4
Karin strode into the Great Hall of Strawberry Hill House to give it one final check before heading back to London to get a blow-dry. It was certainly a magnificent room and Karin had very, very high standards. The marble pillars had been wrapped in gold-tipped ivy matching the mansion’s incredible gilded ceilings. The ballroom was studded with bay trees sprayed white, and a long catwalk extended through the sea of tables – Karin had insisted that the vital ingredient of the night’s entertainment would be a showcase of the Karin Cavendish cruise collection. There were ice sculptures, huge vases of Calla lilies and a small stage festooned with waves of ivory voile on which Havana’s finest jazz band were due to play. She stood back and smiled. She knew she had got it just right.
Karin had spent three months deciding on this venue for the global warming benefit dinner because it had to be perfect. Central London was out; the venues which could accommodate big numbers for dinner and dancing were so over used and frankly, a little déclassé. No, Karin knew that if the Stop Global Warming benefit was going to make a splash, it would have to be somewhere elegant and original, and in Strawberry Hill House, a stunning Gothic mansion fifteen miles outside London, she knew she had found the place. Even being so bloody far from Chelsea had its benefits; at least thirty guests were arriving by helicopter, adding a further dash of exclusivity to the evening. The irony of using helicopters in place of cars or taxis to arrive an event aimed at highlighting the perils of global warming was not lost on Karin, but then her heart was in the party, and certainly not the cause. Global warming! Why on earth would she want to trade her BMW X5 for one of those ridiculous hybrid cars that looked as if they were used to transport OAPs? The way Karin looked at it, if she was raising a few million for the penguins and the polar bears, then they could turn a blind eye to a few teensy helicopters.
‘Hey, look lively, here comes the dragon,’ whispered one of the hand-picked models-cum-waiters who started polishing the crystal goblets frantically as Karin approached. Erin stifled a giggle before putting her head down to examine the table plan.
‘I said Verbena roses, not Iceberg roses,’ snapped Karin at Jamie Marshall. Jamie was one of the country’s premier florists, and was currently working like a camp demon on islands of roses for the table centrepieces.
‘But Karin, darling,’ he whined. ‘They are both white roses, who will notice the diff—’
‘Change them,’ said Karin emphatically, and moved on before he had time to object.
‘You!’ Karin had turned her attention to a waiter who was putting the menus on the crisp white tablecloths. ‘Get me some blueberries to nibble on. Organic … And you! Haven’t you been home to change?’
Erin winced, feeling for the poor waiter about to get a tongue-lashing.
‘Erin! I’m talking to you!’ Karin snapped.
‘Me? I … I thought …’ said Erin, flustered. ‘But I have changed.’ She looked down at her outfit, embarrassed. It was a knee-length black shift dress with a little diamanté buckle she had bought at the Next January sale to wear to Richard’s Law School Ball. It made her feel pretty, slim and demure.
She caught Karin rolling her eyes. Five minutes ago she had felt a little like Audrey Hepburn; now she felt hopelessly inadequate.
‘Oh well. At least it’s black,’ sighed Karin.
Since Erin’s first call from the Deskhop Agency, three weeks had passed in a blur. Erin had been surprised to have been offered the job on the spot by Karin Cavendish, especially as she had been so nervous in the interview after recognizing Karin from the society pages of the Mail. Karin had wanted her to start immediately, so Erin had been forced to make the awkward call to Richard asking if she could stay at his flat for a couple of weeks while she sorted herself out and decided whether her future was in London or Cornwall. From her first day at Karin Cavendish, it had been a trial by fire for Erin. Eighteen-hour days were commonplace and the attention to detail Karin demanded was phenomenal. Thankfully, Erin was not organizing the Stop Global Warming event by herself. Karin had recruited a production company to sort out everything from furniture to lighting and a PR company whose responsibility seemed to be keeping the press away from the event rather than persuading them to cover it. Even so, the volume of work required to coordinate everything made Erin’s head ache. It di
dn’t help that Karin was such a demanding taskmaster. Every bit as particular and exacting as she was glamorous, Karin was the ultimate perfectionist, insisting on signing off every last detail personally. She had spent days hand-picking the best-looking waiters from catering agencies all over London, and would spend hours agonizing over whether to have Tattinger or Perrier Jouet champagne at the reception. As far as Erin had been concerned, champagne was champagne before Karin had explained the difference. Just being in Karin’s company made Erin feel more chic and worldly.
‘I’m going to Charles Worthington in ten minutes,’ said Karin. ‘So we need to run through everything now.’ She held up a finger, then touched her earpiece. ‘Hi, darling. No, can’t talk now. See you tonight, yes? Ciao!’
She sat down at Erin’s table and fingered the cream floral centrepiece critically. ‘You understand that I won’t be anywhere near the door tonight?’ she asked Erin. ‘So I’m leaving that to you.’
It was the thing Erin was most excited about. She was to be in charge of the guest list and would be checking people in as they came through the velvet rope. There were plenty of celebrities on the VIP list: Robbie Williams, Yasmin Le Bon, even Hector Fox, one of Britain’s hottest new actors; Erin had recently seen him as a troubled hit man in an ITV drama and he had made her feel weak at the knees.
‘You have got to be beyond strict,’ continued Karin, snapping her fingers to summon a waiter and barking the word, ‘water.’
‘Remember, no ticket, no entry. And cross-reference with the guest list, I don’t want anyone slipping through. I’m diverting all calls to you from now; they’ll all be blaggers trying to get a last-minute ticket for after dinner; you’ll get loads of press too. Tell them this is a bloody charity night and let them buy a ten-thousand-pound table if they want to come. Anyway, Tatler has the exclusive.’
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