by Fiona Walker
By then, she was wound too tight and felt too worked up to keep a lid on her anger.
‘I really enjoy working for you, Conrad,’ she’d blurted. ‘But I didn’t deserve that.’
He said nothing, staring out of the window at the plane trees as they crawled along Holland Park Avenue.
‘You were the one who told me to drop flirtation from my CV!’ she raged.
A long silence followed. Just as Legs had convinced herself that she’d just blown her career chances, he said quietly, ‘I miss you flirting.’
Conrad had also consumed a great deal of champagne over that lunch. The sleeping policemen which lined back roads to their Green Park offices had continually thrown them together, finally dislodging the scales from his eyes. For many weeks his male colleagues had all been lamenting the fact that lovely young Legs was engaged; such a sweet, sexy thing. Conrad had barely spared her a thought. Yet that day, observing her under attack at lunch, his attraction towards her was so sudden and overwhelming that his libido soared like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
He’d fixed her with his sexy, heart-battered green gaze. ‘I think you’re having serious second thoughts about getting married, Allegra.’
That Conrad had the guts to say it out loud, as well as the perception to see it when all her family and friends seemingly remained blind to it, won her runaway heart yet more. It might have been a lucky guess, but it had hit target with total accuracy.
‘I am,’ Legs had said in a small voice, hardly daring to believe she was admitting it.
‘Stay behind later and let’s talk about it.’
But Conrad was not a believer in talking. He might love the passion of written words, but he was a man of physical action. That evening, after all their colleagues had left the office, he wasted no time in kissing Allegra by the water cooler, the heat between them so scorching that it threatened to boil its contents clean away, blister the partition walls and melt the office block’s atrium roof.
‘What about the glass ceiling?’ she’d asked helplessly, knowing that if the earth moved this much when he touched her, the roof had already begun falling in on her life.
‘You’re in the executive lift now,’ he had assured her.
From that day on, Conrad walked taller and Legs floated on air.
A year later, Conrad now rented a huge townhouse just off Wandsworth Common with rooms for each of his children that they used regularly, and he’d even taken a holiday with his entire family including his estranged wife. On the surface all was civilised calm. The divorce petition had been dropped when Mrs Knight realised how much money they both stood to lose by formalising the arrangement, and she now even wanted them to attend marriage therapy together, which Conrad wouldn’t countenance. The children were reportedly struggling to cope with their parents’ separation and believed, as their mother did, that the marriage could still be saved. Only Conrad maintained that it was the end of the line, which was ironic given that he hadn’t been the one to pull the plug in the first place. But he certainly kept quiet about the fact that he had a girlfriend fifteen years his junior, and remained reluctant to introduce Legs into his family life, or to spare more than one Saturday in four, which was why today was so special.
*
They parked on West Carriage Drive and found a quiet spot beneath a chestnut tree overlooking the Long Water. Unfurling a checked blanket with a matador’s skill, Conrad stepped back as Legs stretched out luxuriously upon it as eagerly as a sunbathing cat. His dark glasses slipped along his nose as he gazed down at her, so that two roguish green eyes glittered above the wire rims.
Even after a year, he remained the most stomach-tighteningly sexy man she had ever encountered. That rare mix of old-fashioned machismo with a poet’s soul got her every time. To be adored by a man as powerful as Conrad Knight was utterly hypnotising.
Glowing in the glory of his company, backed up by the sunshine and a hamper full of iced cakes, she lay back on the checked blanket and gazed adoringly across at him as he mixed freshly squeezed orange juice with Prosecco. Her father, the drinks snob, would disapprove enormously, having always claimed buck’s fizz no better than an alcopop, but right now she could think of nothing she’d like to drink more. Dorian North disapproved of everything about Conrad – his age, his pushiness, his rough-diamond charm, and the fact that he had destroyed what Dorian believed to be his daughter’s greatest chance of happiness in marrying her childhood sweetheart.
Conrad was everything Francis wasn’t; an ambitious gambler with a quick temper, a steel-framed ego and a super-fast corporate brain. A self-made man, he had a fearsome reputation as a brilliant business mind in the ivory towers of literary fiction publishing, and it was said that he had single-handedly dragged renowned old agency, Fellows Howlett, into the twenty-first century. Since being head-hunted from top London publishing house, Clipstone, to take over the directorship from the last of the Fellows family, he had signed a succession of radical new literary names with commercial appeal while pensioning off the worst of the dinosaurs. Literary snobs had accused him of selling out at first, but with more Booker, Orange, Pulitzer and Nobel winners currently on his books than the Athenaeum Club membership list, Conrad had proved his worth. His were high-grossing, chart-topping authors, as well as being critically acclaimed thoroughbreds with good pedigrees and perfect fetlocks, and he saw himself as the leading London trainer. Legs had noticed that the only time he became touchy was when it was hinted that his real success could be attributed to just one author, the legendary Gordon Lapis with his Ptolemy Finch series, a multi-million-selling runaway success that appealed to children and adults alike and had spawned four smash-hit movies, huge global merchandising and a brand name as recognisable as many fast food chains, fizzy drinks brands and football teams.
Having discovered Gordon in the agency slush pile, Conrad held the claim of creating a megastar, but he regularly complained that this meant he took all the shots from Gordon’s legendary short temper. He was increasingly using Legs to draw the fire away from his busy days.
Even now, he read a message on his BlackBerry with lowered brows. ‘Gordon is trying to contact you. Why would he think I can help on a Saturday?’
Fumbling to turn on her own phone, Legs cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘He might think we work some weekends. He does, after all.’
‘He works every day. He has more creative energy than Hollywood.’
Legs found a new email from Gordon waiting for her: Would Julie Ocean fight for justice at any cost? If so, would she favour martial arts or firearms?’
‘Is it about “the Reveal”?’ demanded Conrad, trying to read the message past the sun-blinding screen glare.
‘No.’ She hastily typed Tai Chi and pressed send. ‘Just research he’s doing. He always refers me back to you about that. You are his earthly portal, after all.’
Gordon’s royalties alone accounted for eighty per cent of Fellows Howlett’s not inconsiderable annual profit, but pandering to Lapis’s increasing eccentricity had started to vex Conrad, who preferred his authors bibulous and biddable. He’d told Legs that he thought her more cheerful, informal manner might calm the hermetic scribe. It seemed this was not happening.
‘He’s being impossible about the Reveal,’ he sighed now, handing her a plastic flute of Buck’s Fizz before lying back on his elbows and tipping his face up to the sun.
Conrad was rightly proud of his golden literary find, and he remained crucial to its success, providing the only link between the super-famous boy hero, his enigmatic creator and the real world. But like the man with the goose that laid the golden egg, he constantly wanted to cut through the feathers and see what lay beneath.
Tai Chi is non contact, Gordon had replied to Legs. There is no point continuing this conversation as it is no longer constructive. P.s. Tell Conrad I remain resolute.
‘He remains resolute,’ she told him.
‘He’s infuriating!’
Legs admired the t
hrust of Conrad’s square chin, and the Grecian profile. She’d always thought he looked more a rugby player than a literary connoisseur, which was possibly why he rampaged through the publishing world like a prop forward tackling the scrum. He adored the cut and thrust of deal-making, but delicate negotiations frustrated him, and Gordon Lapis was an author who required a great deal of sensitive handling, more now than ever. The author had recently and very reluctantly agreed that it might be time to reveal his identity at long last, not least because the tabloids that had been threatening to do it for many years now appeared closer than ever, and the media man-hunt was reaching feverish proportions. Conrad saw the release of the next Ptolemy Finch book as the perfect cue for an unveiling.
But Gordon’s Reveal was not proving easy to plan. At first, he had changed his mind endlessly about the time and place, the stage management and the pomp and circumstance involved. An exclusive deal with a national newspaper had been mooted then dismissed, followed by failed discussions with Oprah’s production team, Hay Book Festival and Alan Yentob. Most recently, he’d settled on a venue that was laughably unrealistic.
‘He’s absolutely fixed on the Farcombe Festival idea,’ Conrad sighed.
On hearing the familiar word, Legs swallowed a blade of dismay and dread. The most elitist arts festival in the UK, notorious for its snobbish selection process, Farcombe would no more want Gordon on their programme than an end-of-pier Punch and Judy act. For all Conrad’s Booker nominees and literary grandees, he rarely ever had a client that matched up to the Farcombe entry mark. It was widely rumoured that they’d once turned down a request from the Poet Laureate to appear at the small, cherry-picked annual September festival because the role was deemed too mainstream.
‘But they’ve already said no, haven’t they?’
‘Emphatically,’ he sighed. ‘However, Gordon won’t let it drop. I even spoke with the new festival director personally last night, some old bag called Hawkes.’
‘Yolande,’ Legs groaned in recognition. Yolande Hawkes had been known as Bird of Prey when working in the Square Mile because she made grown men fall to their knees and beg for mercy. She had now turned from hedge funds to high culture with the belief that a brutal pruning of all but the purest art forms was required.
‘Any luck?’ she ventured, although she already knew the answer.
‘Turned down flat.’ He looked predictably offended. ‘She refuses a face-to-face meeting. She won’t even put it to the committee; saying the list is closed.’
‘It is mixed arts,’ Legs pointed out fairly. ‘They can only have what, eight or nine writers appearing each year, most of those poets. It’s predominantly music and visual art.’
‘No doubt Gordon’s deliberately suggested it as a venue because he’s convinced we’ll never get him a slot,’ Conrad said, draining his glass and straightening up to fix her with that intense, green-eyed stare that always had such a seductive effect on her, her bra practically undid itself. ‘But we have a secret weapon, of course. You know Farcombe very well indeed.’
She nodded carefully. ‘Hector and Poppy Protheroe are old friends of the family.’
‘Think you can swing it?’
Legs stared at him wide-eyed. ‘Hector is Francis’s father.’
‘Exactly! You two were together for years. You must be practically like a daughter to the Protheroes. You speak their language. Talk to them, Legs. Make them see what a huge benefit this could be for them. The event will be a sell out; the television coverage alone will be priceless.’
Legs thought about Hector, six foot four of white-haired patronage and idiosyncrasy. He would love crowds flocking to his beautiful coastal retreat; he’d play his bassoon to the long queues of Ptolemy Finch fans like a busker and chat up all the prettier women. Hector was unbothered by the festival’s content apart from the music, which he selected himself. But his wife Poppy was different. Legs doubted she would allow Gordon across the threshold unless he’d paid for his own ticket.
Then Legs thought about Francis, remembered his handsome, fallen-angel face just before he’d turned to leave their shared flat a year ago, the hurt and betrayal that pinched every muscle tight and drained his normally golden skin of colour. It had been the first time she had seen him cry since he was fourteen. And she had wept too; she sometimes still did. The sense of guilt never left, and it could still render her breathless with regret when caught unawares.
Returning Conrad’s challenging look, Legs shook her head. ‘I won’t do it. It’s not worth trying.’
‘C’mon, where’s the fighting spirit I love?’ he goaded.
‘I’m done with fighting,’ she said wearily, thinking of all the rows, the tears and recriminations of the previous summer. ‘And I wouldn’t be welcome. Francis is living at Farcombe again now; he manages the farming side.’ She looked away, alarmed that her eyes were already itchy with impending tears. Despite his academic bent, Francis had always loved the stock-rearing and land management of Farcombe, largely because it was an element in which Hector and Poppy had no interest whatsoever and didn’t interfere; it also suited his solitary nature to spend swathes of time alone on the land there, quoting Eliot and Joyce at the flock. He liked to joke that he put the culture into agriculture, which was quite witty for Francis, she remembered fondly.
‘At least call him,’ Conrad urged.
‘He won’t want to speak to me.’ The familiar Francis had long gone in her mind, replaced with one part ogre whipped up by self-justification, two parts lost soul conjured by her guilt and one part dashing blond playboy as depicted by the media who had latched onto the heir to the Protheroe fortunes in recent months, branding this son of famous, maverick businessman Hector an ‘eligible bachelor’.
‘Go down there for the weekend,’ Conrad was suggesting.
‘Are you kidding?’
‘Your family still have their holiday cottage, don’t they? Take a long break next weekend and see how the land lies.’
The thought of Spywood Cottage brought a pang of familiar yearning, the desire to revisit it never far from the surface. But Legs knew that to go there again would cause ten times the pain stored in the photograph albums that she kept hidden in the ottoman at the foot of her bed, and which contained more than half a lifetime of shared memories sealed in their plastic pages.
‘My mother’s there; she spends all summer painting.’
All the more reason to visit.’
‘We’re not that sort of family – she likes to …’ She drew back her lips in a pensive smile. ‘It’s complicated.’
It was never going to be easy to casually mention the fact her mother, for all her apparent middle-class, middle-aged conservatism, liked to be naked. Lucy North wasn’t a conventional naturist and shunned shared nudity; a group ping-pong game in a seaside camp was her idea of hell. Yet she adored her solitary painting holidays in Devon, liberated from the constraints of clothes in the tiny hideaway cottage and its secluded clifftop garden. At one time, the Norths would have all gathered at Spywood for August, but since Legs’ break-up with Francis, Ros had used her and Nico’s church commitments and Dorian his shop as the excuses that freed Lucy to enjoy her unfettered water-colour breaks. These days, the family felt increasingly awkward about intruding.
‘I’ll never understand the English,’ Conrad laughed, always at his most South African when he was Brit-bashing. ‘You have these little bolt-holes just a couple of hours away, and you never use them.’
‘Farcombe is Francis’s family home.’
‘We’re not living in a feudal society any more!’
‘Actually, Farcombe still basically is. The estate owns most of the village.’
Tucking her knees beneath her chin, Legs crammed a scone into her mouth and then found her eyes watering as she struggled to eat it whole, cheeks bulging and crumbs flying.
This conversation was starting to really annoy her. Aside from the fact that he’d procured cucumber sandwiches on a sundrenched blanket,
Conrad was being about as romantic as he would be on a Monday morning desk briefing over a Starbucks skinny latte, and just as ruthless.
‘I want you to get Gordon onto the Farcombe Festival bill, whatever it takes.’
It took a great deal of effort to swallow the scone as she coughed and spluttered, ‘Are you seriously asking me to try to build bridges with my ex for Gordon’s sake?’
‘Why not? Look at Madeleine and me. We’re professional about our friendship now. We’ve moved on.’
‘You might have moved on. She still wants you back as the head of the family.’
‘Rubbish.’ He rolled over onto his back. ‘We’re co-parents, and have business interests in common. We have to be adult about things.’
‘Francis and I have no children or business interests in common.’ She could cringe when she remembered their youthful dreams of setting up in publishing together, of raising a huge, clever family at Farcombe.
‘This is business, Legs. You hold the key to releasing Gordon in a controlled environment, and keeping Ptolemy Finch as a national treasure. And you have Gordon’s trust now, which gives you a very rare power indeed; don’t abuse it.’
There was a long pause while Legs angrily demolished the rest of the truffle chocolate brownies, still barely able to believe that he would ask her to do this. Gordon Lapis was an exasperating sod, she reflected; he controlled them all with his big money wizardry. Having his trust felt more like a curse than a gift as it increasingly impinged upon her personal space. Yet his books were so magical, he was already engraved into her imaginative world. She only wished she shared Ptolemy Finch’s ability to see into the future.
‘What if Francis still has feelings?’ she asked quietly.
Conrad selected a miniature pink-iced cupcake with strawberries arranged prettily on the top. ‘And you?’
‘I’m with you.’ It was all too easy to say. They shared the present tense for all its occasional tension; Legs lived for the moment; Conrad, with his immediacy and drive, made every moment count. Although her feelings for Francis remained painfully complicated, she survived by keeping the two entirely separate.