In the event of this not working out, of course. Which is a pretty depressing thought she’s obviously having, only forty-eight hours before we plight our troth. But then, she’s never made a marriage work herself, so it goes without saying that she has a pretty cynical view of the whole enterprise, even if she’s gamely hiding it behind traditional mother-of-the-bride strops.
‘Send him my love!’ she adds, gushingly. ‘Tell him I’m looking forward to seeing him for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow!’
Which reminds me, as I hang up, that I need to send a quick reply to Cass.
Cass for the last time Joel’s best man is not I repeat not also a billionaire
‘Hey!’ I greet Joel with a hug and a big kiss (possibly not up to scratch in terms of the wifely duties Mum’s thinking about; I imagine Mum would rather I greeted him with a freshly mixed cocktail in one hand and my knickers in the other) and inhale the slight aroma of helicopter fuel from his jacket.
Yes, this is how ludicrous my life has become since I accepted Joel’s proposal two months ago: I can now correctly identify the smell of helicopter fuel.
Though I still don’t see exactly why he has to take the helicopter quite as often as he does, to be perfectly honest – I know we joked about it once, just before we first got together, but seriously, I’m sure Skype or some sort of cutting-edge video-conferencing would more than meet some of his needs – but I’m not about to say anything of the sort. Joel is surprisingly defensive about the helicopter. Actually, he’s surprisingly defensive about quite a few of the things he claimed to shrug off as the silly trappings of his fabulous wealth. My suspicions about this were cemented only a couple of weeks ago, when I caught sight of the eleven-thousand-pound invoice for a new suit he’d had made to wear to the annual Christmas party he throws for his UK staff’s children. I was only teasing him about it at first (I mean, eleven thousand pounds. For a suit. How can anyone say that with a straight face?), but he got so irritable in defending himself that we ended up having a Proper Row about the whole thing. Ridiculous of him, really, to get quite so defensive, seeing as – as he reminded me repeatedly during the course of the row – it’s not like he doesn’t give thousands of times that amount to clothe destitute kids through his Foundation every year – but defensive he certainly got. And not just defensive, but aggressive, because he somehow segued on to a whole thing about how I should start giving more serious thought to my own wardrobe needs, ‘because people will expect certain things from you, Libby, now that you’re marrying a man like me.’
We made up later, and he assured me that he adores the way I look, and that he wasn’t – as I think most right-thinking women would instantly assume – telling me I needed to get on with losing a stone. The trouble being that this came along with an assurance that he’s quite happy for me to spend whatever I like ‘when’ I need to kit myself out with some sumptuous gowns for ‘all the events we’re going to have lined up, once we’re married’.
(By events, by the way, he doesn’t just mean parties. When Joel does an event, it’s something far more akin to what a celebrity might call a Personal Appearance. There’s a lot of glad-handing, a lot of back-slapping, and – more often than not – he’s called upon to make a speech. I know this because I’ve been to a couple already, and was frankly wildly under-equipped from the moment I got there. I mean, if only Joel had warned me, in advance, that I’d be expected to make scintillating small talk about Anglo-US trade agreements, and be able to hold my own in a champagne-fuelled debate about Nicaraguan politics, I’d have holed myself up with Wikipedia for three days before the event and genned up as much as humanly possible.)
‘Hey,’ he replies, now, kissing me back. ‘You look more stressed than I do, and I’ve just got back from a particularly shouty two-hour board meeting in Luxembourg.’
‘You know, just family stuff. Weddings don’t bring out the best in my mum or my sister.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I don’t think weddings bring out the best in women, full stop.’
‘Hey!’ I glance at him, sharply, as he sits down on the nearby leather sofa, pulling out his ever-present iPad to start checking his emails (a procedure he conducts roughly once every two minutes, annoyingly; but then, I suppose you don’t have the luxury of a few consecutive minutes of downtime when you’re responsible for the employment of seventeen thousand people worldwide, and for countless more shareholders). ‘That’s not fair! To me, or to women in general!’
‘OK, OK, sorry. I just remember my ex getting really stressed out right before our wedding, too. And I’ve already had my own mother on the phone for most of the ride back from Luxembourg, asking all kinds of crazy questions about what your mum is wearing for the rehearsal dinner, and what colour she’s wearing at the wedding itself … I mean, this is a woman who spends her days administering emergency tetanus vaccinations to children in disaster zones, or organizing the hand-out of food parcels to famine victims! And now here she is trying to find out if she’ll clash with the bride’s mother if they both wear purple!’
Fleetingly – unimpressively – I wish that Joel didn’t have to mention his mother’s saintliness every single time he mentions her at all. But this is probably mostly just my own acute nerves talking: tomorrow evening, after all, his mother is going to meet my mother for the first time, and the comparison between them is going to be odious. Joel’s mum all good deeds and selfless devotion to the wellbeing of others and Mum all … not.
Frankly I’ll be quite happy if the two of them do both wear purple, as it’ll give them one teeny-tiny thing in common for the course of the day.
Not to mention the fact that I haven’t actually met Joel’s mother in person yet, so my nerves really are sky-high on that front.
‘Well, I’m not stressing out,’ I say (OK, I fib), ‘so you can leave your sweeping generalizations at the door. I’ve missed you,’ I add, sinking down to squidge in beside him on the (not all that squidgy) sofa. ‘You’re here now, right? Until the wedding, I mean?’
‘I’m right here.’ He slides an arm around me and kisses the top of my head. ‘I just have a conference call this afternoon for a few hours, and then a meeting with my lawyers tomorrow morning. But that’ll be right here – in fact, we’ll probably keep that pretty casual and have a round of golf at the same time – so I really am absolutely here now, Lib. You don’t have to worry that I’m going to abandon you to my family and friends and staff in the run-up to our day.’
I’m secretly relieved, because this is a little bit what I’ve been worried about. Not so much Joel’s friends, because they’re not arriving until tomorrow evening, and not even so much his family (although the saintly mother and the Treblinka-surviving grandmother are a pretty intimidating prospect), but, if I’m honest, the staff.
He has a lot of … people.
Here at Aldingbourne Abbey, Joel’s – soon, I guess, to be our – house in Sussex, for example, are twenty-two full-time staff. Gardeners, groundsmen (these are, apparently, two different things), a housekeeper, a small army of cleaners … Then, of course, wherever Joel goes also go one of his three personal assistants: Savannah, Rachael and Rebecca. I’m never sure exactly what the difference between their precise jobs is and, to my shame, I’m often confused about the actual difference between Rachael and Rebecca themselves. There are also, thankfully only occasionally, personal security guards like Esti, who pop up when one of the death threats that Joel receives, on Twitter, roughly a hundred times a week (some people really don’t like billionaires, apparently, not even when they donate millions to charity and champion the rights of oppressed women and children across the world) sounds less like the rantings of a faraway nutter and more like an actual plan to do him in when he least expects it. There are the foundation staff, who often travel wherever Joel goes like some kind of medieval court with its king, and who number anywhere between five and fifteen, depending on what event is coming up. There’s usually a lawyer or two in the background
, and these are generally accompanied by an exhausted-looking accountant or two …
Is it any wonder, really, that we both wanted to keep the wedding as small and simple as humanly possible? The thought of some sort of wedding-planning team lurking about the fringes of our lives, on top of all the others, is just too horrifying to contemplate.
It does give me one of my frequent twinges of sadness, thinking about it, that I can’t ask Grace Kelly how she planned to handle the invasion of her life by a phalanx of Staff. She, no doubt, did a way, way better job of it than I do. I mean, I just find the whole thing so horribly embarrassing, and live in such fear of accidentally saying something that could be interpreted as remotely rude or high-handed that I probably come across as the meekest of church mice ever to have existed.
‘Actually, talking of staff,’ Joel goes on, ‘Savannah was with me just now on the way back from Lux and she was wondering if she could have a few minutes with you today. Just for a general discussion about the next couple of days, and who needs to be where, when, and how she can help you out with anything you need.’
‘Oh, that’s really nice of her. Do you think she’s willing to take on the job of managing my mum and sister for the duration of the festivities?’
Joel grins at me. ‘I don’t think I pay her quite enough for that. But she likes you, so she might be willing to cut you some sort of deal.’
It’s pretty surprising to hear that Savannah likes me, because she has such a stern and forbidding aura that I’ve never imagined she cares for me any more than she’d care for a bout of head lice.
‘Actually, if you and her do get to know each other a bit better over the next few days, Lib, you might like to think about taking her on yourself.’
‘Taking her on?’ This sounds faintly alarming. Is he talking about some sort of competition of strength? Speed? Endurance? It doesn’t really matter: Savannah would quite blatantly beat me, hands down, at all of them. ‘What do you mean?’
‘As your assistant.’
‘For work? Er, I don’t know if you remember, Joel, but I don’t really need an assistant at the moment.’
This, by the way, is because Libby Goes To Hollywood is, in name, at least, no more. After all that drama with Elvira, Ben and I (relatively amicably) agreed to part ways several months ago, but the fact that I’d once foolishly given Ben sixty-five per cent of the company in return for his investment means he’s effectively walked away with what was left of it. I could – according to Joel, should – probably have used the expensive lawyers Joel was offering me, on tap, to fight and win, but using Joel’s money to fund the battle was the last thing I was ever going to do. But needs must – I mean, I want to relaunch the business one day, with my own money – so I’ve swallowed my pride and taken on the consultancy work with Pressley/Waters. Which, I have to admit, is actually turning out really well. Yes, Joel was the one who engineered our first meeting, but they absolutely love the stuff I’m designing for them, and they’ve just suggested renewing our consultancy agreement for another year beyond the original six months. I’m learning a lot from them, too, and it’s been lovely to get to know everyone else in the office … and really, the fact that there’s not been so much of a sniff of a vintage-style bridal tiara in my life for months now is just refreshing beyond belief.
‘Not for work!’ Joel takes his eyes off his iPad and tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear. ‘What are you doing with your hair for the wedding, by the way?’
I’m slightly taken aback by the non sequitur. ‘Bogdan’s coming down this afternoon – he should be here any minute now, in fact – to try out some different up-dos. That’s why I’ve grown it a bit for the last couple of months. Why?’ I put my hand to it. ‘Don’t you like it longer?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t love it. I mean, it’s a tiny bit more … unkempt than it used to be, don’t you think?’
‘Well, no, actually, I’ve been quite enjoying—’
‘Anyway, an up-do will look gorgeous on you … look, obviously you don’t need an assistant for work, Lib, but don’t you think you might want someone to help out with everything else?’
I actually giggle. Because he’s joking, right?
‘Joel, I can’t so much as put down an empty glass of water around here without someone materializing out of the woodwork and spiriting it away! How much more help do you think I need?’
‘Yes, Libby, I know.’ His voice tightens, ever so slightly. ‘I know you don’t like all that.’
‘It’s not that I don’t like it,’ I say, carefully, because this has been a sore point between us before. ‘It’s just that you said you liked to come down to Aldingbourne to get away from it all … and we seem to keep bringing It All with us.’
‘Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Libby, but we are putting on a wedding here the day after tomorrow! Besides, part of the reason I can get away from it all here is because everyone keeps the place running so smoothly. I mean, you and I have had some fantastic times here, haven’t we, without having to worry about boring day-to-day crap?’
‘Yes,’ I say, drily. ‘It’s like having your own personal luxury hotel. But what were you just saying about me needing more help?’
‘Admin!’ Joel says. ‘And the social side of things! Isn’t it going to be a big weight off your mind if Sav can take over most of that?’
‘Oh, you mean … um, events and stuff?’
‘Yeah, events and stuff …’ He smiles at me, wryly. ‘And obviously you’ll be wanting to take on a much bigger role within the foundation itself, Lib. That’s going to take up an awful lot of your time.’
‘Er … sorry, am I going to want to take on a bigger role within the foundation?’
‘Why wouldn’t you? There are all kinds of projects within it that are right up your street. Sav is the one who’ll be able to tell you much more about it all, but I know we’ve just started up a project in Madagascar to bring about decent working conditions for the sapphire mining industry. And for a long time we’ve run a campaign to end child exploitation in Indian diamond mines … actually, you can discuss that with my mother when you meet her tomorrow, because that’s really been her baby for the last three or four years.’
‘And that’s all amazing, Joel.’ I’ve learnt, with Joel, to choose my words quite carefully. When he’s a little bit stressed, as he obviously is with the wedding approaching, and tired, as he obviously is when he’s been up at four a.m. to fly to Luxembourg, having only got back from New York at eleven last night, he tends to get tetchy if he feels he’s being misunderstood. ‘But I don’t know the first thing about international development or anything. I wouldn’t even know where to begin on stuff like that. And it’s all a bit too serious for someone like me to just blunder in and screw it up!’
‘So, you’d learn. That’s sort of the point,’ he adds, ‘of asking Sav to take on the job of helping you. She’s worked on this kind of thing for a while now. And I’d have thought,’ he says, tucking another strand of hair behind my ear, ‘that you’d be really pleased with the prospect of being a part of it all.’
‘Well, sure. And I’m glad you think I can contribute. But I don’t want to drag Sav away from all the important stuff she does for you just to help me tinker about on the sidelines.’
‘Lib, I don’t want you to tinker about on the sidelines!’ He slides his arm off my shoulders, so that he can look at me properly. ‘I’d really love it if you were hands-on with some of these projects! I mean, you have no idea of the satisfaction of really getting to grips with this stuff on the ground. And it’s so much more impressive, for the donors, if my wife is out there in the field sometimes, putting their money where our mouths are, if you like. I mean, I can just see you,’ he goes on, nuzzling into my neck, ‘looking all sexy and dynamic in some khaki cut-offs and a Panama hat, meeting and greeting the workers at the Madagascan sapphire mine …’
I pull away, because he is actually turning me on here, and I think this is a co
nversation I’d better have while in full command of all my faculties. ‘And while I’m only too happy to try to fulfil as many aspects as possible of this, er, fantasy of yours, how am I supposed to fit in these far-flung field trips around my own work?’
He stops nuzzling. ‘What work?’
‘Pressley/Waters?’ I’m a tiny bit worried that the late night and early morning have given him some sort of amnesia. ‘I’m working full time for them, now, remember?’
And very happily so, I should add, especially now that I’ve relaxed about the whole Joel connection. Because, as Caroline Pressley has impressed upon me almost every time we’ve ever spoken about it, she really did know about me, and admire my work, before Joel ever mentioned my name to her. Joel’s mentioning my name simply brought me to the forefront of her mind, she assures me – and, having got to know her a little better these last few months, and seen how passionate she is about seeking out new talent, I believe her.
‘Oh, that! Oh, well, sure, but that can come secondary to the foundation work, Lib, I don’t think anyone there would mind.’
‘I would.’
‘OK, so if you’re worried about how you’ll fit it all in, then you can just tell them you don’t want to renew the consultancy arrangement at the end of the six months.’
‘Joel, I already renewed for another year … I told you about this on our Skype call the other week, when you were in Tokyo.’
‘Oh, yeah, that rings a bell. But again, Libby, I don’t think that’s a problem, honestly. I mean, even if you cut it back to a day a week with them, and the rest of the time you can give to the foundation—’
There’s a knock at the door and, in response to Joel’s brisk Come in, Rachael pops her head round. Or it might be Rebecca. Either way, I didn’t know all the assistants were here now.
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 23