Wonder Women

by Fiore, Rosie

  ‘Someone very young.’

  ‘Don’t. I know. I’m mortified every time I think about it. Anyway, I think in the mixing-each-other-up-in-crazy-crap stakes, we’re just about even.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘So …?’

  ‘Where does that leave us?’

  ‘Maybe … having dinner sometime?’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Fraser, sounding profoundly relieved.

  They had had a few dates since that phone call, each one slightly more relaxed than the last. They hadn’t slept together, or even broached the subject, but Holly was enjoying getting to know him. She was touched that he would come to Serena’s gig – she imagined it would be like a school concert – but he was genuinely pleased to be invited, and even brought a good-luck card for Serena.

  Holly couldn’t have been more wrong. Serena looked beautiful (Holly was proud to have had some part in that), and she had a simply stunning voice. She played the piano well, and the songs she had written were poignant and original. She also did a couple of cover versions, and at the end of her thirty-minute set, the applause nearly brought the roof down. The owner of the bar was thrilled, and immediately said he would like to book her again.

  ‘I have the feeling we’ll be telling our grandchildren we were at Serena Grey’s first gig,’ said Fraser, taking Holly’s hand as they walked down the road after leaving the venue.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Holly. ‘She did so well, and the music thing seems to have helped her relationship with Mel.’

  ‘So … what are your plans for the rest of the evening?’ said Fraser, looking hopeful.

  ‘I have to go home,’ said Holly regretfully. ‘I have to get up early for work tomorrow. But I’m free on Sunday night … all night.’

  ‘Really?’ said Fraser, and he drew her close and kissed her breathless.

  On Sunday evening, he invited her over and cooked a beef bourguignon. Luckily, he had made it in a slow cooker, because fifteen minutes and half a glass of wine after she arrived, they were in the bedroom, a trail of clothes strewn in their wake. Sometime after eleven, Holly stood up and wobbled dramatically.

  ‘I’ve gone weak at the knees,’ she laughed.

  ‘Why, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. It’s low blood sugar. I didn’t have lunch, and dinner should have been hours ago. I’m absolutely starving.’

  ‘Come to think of it, so am I,’ said Fraser.

  She grabbed a sweatshirt Fraser had dropped next to the bed and pulled it on. ‘Feed me,’ she demanded.

  They sat at the counter in the kitchen, devouring big bowls of the stew with spoons. The rice Fraser had put on to steam had dried out unappealingly, and Holly scoffed at his offer of salad.

  ‘Well, Dr John, said Holly, leaning back in her chair, ‘that was worth the wait.’

  ‘Stew is always better when you leave it for a bit,’ he said, wiping his plate with a slice of bread.

  ‘I didn’t mean the stew.’

  He smiled at her wickedly, and her stomach did a little flip. ‘To be honest, I never thought we’d get here,’ he said.

  ‘We did seem cursed, didn’t we?’ Holly grinned ruefully.

  ‘Like some kind of excruciating farce.’

  ‘So is this the calm before the storm? Is it all going to go pear-shaped again? Is a long-lost ex going to jump out of a cupboard and assault me?’

  ‘I checked the cupboards before you came over. We’re okay.’ They sat sipping their wine in companionable silence. ‘So, if it doesn’t sound too … pathetic and needy,’ said Fraser, ‘where do we go from here?’

  ‘We go … slowly? One step at a time?’ said Holly, getting up. Fraser’s wine rack was on the top of one of the kitchen cupboards and she stretched up to get another bottle.

  ‘Dear God, woman,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’re not wearing anything under that sweatshirt.’

  ‘Am I not?’ said Holly innocently.

  ‘There’s only one place you’re going right now,’ he said, taking her firmly by the hand and leading her back to the bedroom.

  *

  A week or so later, the house clearance was finally finished, the will was sorted and it was time for Judith’s house to go on the market. David found an estate agent he was happy to deal with, and Holly agreed to meet him and hand over the keys so they could begin showing the property. She was lucky with the traffic and got to the house early. It was odd to walk through the empty rooms. The house looked enormous, and it felt very cold. Without the furniture and pictures, it looked like what it was, a rather out-of-date, albeit well-kept 1930s suburban house. She thought this would be a difficult and nostalgic moment, but she didn’t feel overwhelmed with memories at all. The house seemed to have lost its spirit. She would be happy to walk out of the door for the last time. She did a last check of all the rooms to see that the house-clearance people had taken everything. It seemed they’d done an excellent job. She wandered into the kitchen, and saw they had left a stack of post on the draining board. She’d written to the utility companies and everyone she could think of to let them know her mum had died, and she had changed her address, but there was probably someone she had missed. She flipped through the envelopes – mostly junk mail. The last one, however, was not. It was addressed to her, and the envelope was crumpled and grubby. The stamp showed it had been posted in Zimbabwe around a month ago. It had taken its time getting to her. Even if she hadn’t recognised the handwriting, she would have known who it was from.

  Dear Holly,

  I don’t know if you’ll get this letter. I’m making two copies and sending one to Pierre’s house in Johannesburg and one to your mom’s house in London, because I don’t know where you are. I don’t even know if there’s any point in telling you how sorry I am.

  Now I’m writing it, I don’t know what to say. This has been the worst year of my life, and believe me, considering the mess I got into last year, that’s saying something. I’ve been moving from country to country – Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe … trying to stay ahead of the cops. I’ve needed new ID wherever I went, so I’ve got mixed up with some very bad guys. I know if I stick around here, someone will end up killing me.

  I’m going to go to the border at Beitbridge, and if I can get across, I’m going to Jo’burg to hand myself in to the cops. I’m not doing it because I’m scared I’m going to die … in lots of ways I feel like I deserve to die. I just don’t want to die without making it up to you and my mom and the people I hurt. I can’t fix what I did. I don’t know if I’ll ever even be able to give you your money back. But I have to make it right. None of this was your fault, Holly, and you didn’t deserve any of it.

  I’m sorry and I will always love you.

  Damon

  She read the letter again. Then she thought for a moment about what it made her feel. Nothing. The answer was nothing. So much had happened since she had left South Africa that Damon and his actions seemed like a distant nightmare. She didn’t love him any more, nor did she hate him. All she could think of was that the letter would be evidence in her defence if it came to it. The doorbell rang. That would be Roger, the super-smooth estate agent. She stuffed the letter in her handbag and went to hand over the keys to her past.

  32

  JO NOW

  Everyone in New York looked like an extra in a movie. From the sharp-suited businessmen and women, to the villainous-looking cab driver who took Jo from the airport to her hotel, to the pretty hippy girl who rollerbladed past her as she left the hotel the next morning, everyone looked like they were playing a part, and every street corner could have been the set of every film and television show she had ever seen. There was a Starbucks across the road from the hotel. She would never have visited one in London, but it seemed the right thing to do here and she went in and ordered a coffee ‘to go’. She’d checked the night before where Verity’s office was on the map, and it was an easy walk from where she was staying. Striding down 57th Street with
her coffee in her hand, as the yellow cabs roared by honking their horns, Jo realised she was an extra in the film too. When she turned a corner and saw one of the actors from The Sopranos standing by the open door of his Cadillac, her happiness was complete.

  Well, almost complete. The shadow of her cool parting from Lee hung over everything she did. And, more crucially, she couldn’t help feeling that the whole New York experience would have been a thousand times better if he was here. She would have loved to share her first sight of all the great landmarks with him – the first view of the Chrysler Building, the cab ride through Central Park, but much more than that, she thought how much Lee would have loved the little things – the street scenes and interactions between people, the quirky window displays and iconic diners and delis, the fabulous signwriting and typography and the architectural gems you might miss if you weren’t looking carefully. She knew if Lee had been there, he’d be walking around with his camera glued to his eye, snapping picture after picture, sketching and making notes as well.

  She arrived at Verity’s office building about ten minutes early, so she stood outside people-watching and finishing her coffee. It was a typical New York skyscraper, all steel and glass, and the people hurrying through the door looked harried, as if they were going inside to engage in business transactions of great weight and importance. Jo felt scruffy and provincial – she’d worn a smart navy suit and low heels. But her suit was off the peg from Zara, and her shoes were from M&S. The women walking into the building were more groomed and polished than the average London woman, and as one particularly tall model-type ran past her, she caught the distinctive red flash of the sole of her shoe. If these women wore Louboutins to the office, how could she hope to hold her own?

  She gave herself a little pep talk. It’s the value of your proposition they’re interested in, not your shoes, she told herself sternly. What you’ve built is amazing and unique, and whatever happens in this building today, you still have it. They want to do business with you. You don’t need them. She threw her empty coffee cup into the bin, squared her shoulders and marched up to the revolving door. It wasn’t until she was in the foyer of the building that she realised the pep talk in her head had been delivered in Lee’s voice.

  She was directed to Verity’s suite of offices, which occupied two whole floors of the building. She sat in a too-low leather chair in the reception area, keeping her feet flat on the floor so no one would see her non-designer shoe soles. Her appointment was for nine, but Verity kept her waiting until twenty past. She smiled when Verity came barrelling out of her office to greet her. Unbidden, Verity’s long-forgotten school nickname came to mind: Staffie. She was short and wide and she tipped slightly forward as she walked, as if she was quite prepared to ram anyone who stood in her way. Her forceful personality and extreme intelligence had seen her graduate top of the class from their Hertfordshire school and go to study at Cambridge, and then on to a postgraduate qualification at the London School of Economics. At thirty, she was being featured in business publications as one to watch, and at thirty-five, she had relocated to New York, where she bought, built and sold companies with eye-watering ferocity and speed. She and Jo had not been especially good friends at school – Verity didn’t have close friends. But Jo had followed her impressive trajectory in the press, and when she joined the women’s business network, Verity’s was one of the first names she had looked up.

  ‘Jo Morris! How the hell are you?’ said Verity, grabbing her arm and sweeping her along the corridor at speed. Clearly a reunion after twenty-odd years was not a good enough reason to stand still for a second.

  ‘I’m good,’ said Jo, trotting a little to keep up. ‘It’s Jo Hockley now. And how are you? Acclimatised to New York?’

  ‘Couldn’t imagine living anywhere else,’ said Verity, opening her office door. ‘And I am … as you see me. Just the same.’

  She ushered Jo through the door into her enormous corner office, which had jaw-dropping views of Manhattan in two directions. Her rugby-pitch sized wooden desk was piled high with papers and folders, and her MacBook was balanced precariously on top of one of the lower piles. There were empty coffee cups dotted between the stacks, and Jo was pretty sure she could see the corner of a pizza box.

  Verity gestured to the corner of the room, where there was a sofa, three chairs and a low coffee table, which was also covered in files, paperwork and architect’s drawings. They went to sit down.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot to ask,’ said Verity. ‘Coffee? Pastry?’

  ‘I just had a coffee—’ began Jo.

  ‘Well, you’ll need another one. And you’re going to need some sustenance to get you through today.’ Verity went to the door, opened it and bellowed, ‘Sven! The usual – times two – and my extra-hot latte had better not be extra lukewarm or I’ll fire your pretty Swedish arse … again.’ She slammed the door and came to sit down beside Jo.

  ‘Yup.’ Jo smiled. ‘You are just the same.’

  They caught up on the intervening years until Sven, Verity’s predictably blond, blue-eyed and gorgeous PA, brought them coffees and Danish pastries. As soon as they had finished eating, Verity brushed the crumbs from her lapels and was all business. ‘Right, I’ve set up a pretty punishing schedule of meetings and site visits. I know we don’t have long, so we need to cram in as much as we can. Ready?’ And they were off.

  By mid-morning, Jo was profoundly grateful she’d gone for sensible shoes, rather than designer loveliness. By lunch-time, she was praying for a pair of trainers. Verity had whisked her out of the building and into a cab, and they began a recce of children’s boutiques in Manhattan. She reckoned they must have seen every one on the whole island that day – the individual stores began to merge into a Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory-type blur of noise and colour. She took notes frantically in cab trips between the visits, and Verity was like a ninja, surreptitiously snapping pictures with her phone of shop fittings and displays wherever they went. They left the last boutique at about six and raced across town to a smart hotel on the park to meet some investment partners of Verity’s for drinks. Jo was flagging: jet lag meant that for her it was already eleven o’clock at night, and since the pastries in the office that morning, all she had had was a cereal bar and a Diet Coke. Everyone spoke very quickly and asked a lot of questions, most of which didn’t seem to require an answer. She left the meeting dizzy, slightly drunk and not entirely sure whom she had met and what she might have agreed to. She got a cab back to her own rather more modest hotel. On impulse, she popped into an electronics store next to the hotel that was open late, and bought a mid-range digital camera. She got upstairs to her room, kicked off her shoes, ordered an omelette from room service and watched a little TV, and was asleep by nine o’clock.

  The jet-lag fairy had her up by 5 a.m. She felt reasonably refreshed and spent half an hour going through her notes from the day before. They were less garbled and incomprehensible than she had expected, and she typed them up into a useful reference document. Verity had already emailed her all the photographs, so she inserted them into her document too. By the time she finished it was only six thirty, so she put on jeans and trainers, took her new camera and hit the streets. She wasn’t much of a photographer, but she did her best. She didn’t take touristy pictures of the sights: she focused on the little details she had spotted on her walk to Verity’s office – a beautiful cornice on a building, a ray of sun hitting the pavement (sidewalk, she corrected herself) as a shop owner swept the doorstep of his deli. She found some beautiful, faded painted advertisements on the sides of brick buildings, which she knew Lee would love. Then she strolled down to Central Park and took a few shots of people doing yoga and t’ai chi, and a guy jogging with a great mane of dreadlocks and massive headphones. Over breakfast, she went through the pictures, and was frustrated at how badly framed and lit they were. Although she had thought she was being original, they still looked like clichéd tourist snaps. There were only one or two that she didn’t
absolutely hate. She’d have to put photography to the back of her mind now, she thought, swallowing the last bite of her pancakes. Today would be, if anything, more strenuous than the day before.

  They spent the whole day in Verity’s office, meeting with a succession of potential investors, architects, retail-space experts, designers and buyers. Everyone seemed to have an aggressive, very in-your-face style, and Jo finished each meeting rather unsure if she’d been sold to or just bossed around. The phrases ‘what you have to do’ and ‘what needs to happen’ seemed to ring in her ears. She was due to go out with Verity and some of her business associates that night, but she grabbed an hour in the early evening to walk around and snap a few more photographs. These ones, more candid, and catching the yellowy evening light, were more successful than her morning efforts. The awful hollow feeling she had had on her arrival, the missing-Lee feeling, seemed somehow to ease a little when she was out taking photographs. She didn’t quite understand why that was, or what the pictures were for, but she knew it had to do with him.

  The dinner was raucous and late and there was a lot of wine and teasing, and she ended up in a club dancing with two rather gorgeous twenty-something boys, while Verity sat at the bar talking marketing campaigns with their boss. She wasn’t sure whether the boys were straight or gay, and whether they were genuinely flirting with her or being friendly for the sake of the potential account. All she knew was that she hadn’t danced like that since Lee had last DJ’d, and that was … wow … at least ten years ago. She got back to her hotel in the early hours, elated, footsore and wide awake. She saw she had missed a Skype call from Lee, and her buoyant mood was punctured. She fell asleep hugging a pillow, wearing an old T-shirt of Lee’s she’d dropped into her suitcase at the last minute.

  The mad treadmill carried her off early the next morning with a trip to Brooklyn to visit Verity’s warehouse and talk to her stock controllers. The sheer size of the operation terrified Jo. It was so far beyond what she had done and what she had envisaged, but Verity seemed quite at home, wandering between the pallets and pallets and rows and rows of garments. She talked at a hundred miles an hour about economies of scale and amortising cost, until Jo’s head began to spin.