The Finishing Touches

by Browne, Hester

  I told myself not to be such a bitch and concentrated on the positive side of things. Lord P was looking so much better than he had at the memorial—in a new suit, cut narrower, and with a sparky red carnation in his buttonhole. His face was brighter, he stood up straighter, and his whole attitude was more involved and interested.

  That’s good, I thought, and tried not to notice that his hair had turned a shade or two darker silver and that Adele was patting his arm.

  Patting his arm!

  “Now, we’re not going to monopolize you, but Pelham wanted to say hello,” she cooed.

  “I wanted to say more than just hello! I wanted to say well done, Betsy,” he said, his face bright with pride. “What a transformation! I can’t think why we haven’t had one of these Open Days before—wonderful idea! I’ve just been talking to Maureen McGregor and she says she can’t wait to get started on these new courses of yours. Happy Homeowning! Dealing with the In-Laws, indeed! Marvelous!”

  “Mm,” said Adele pointedly. “Although Betsy will need a little help with the in-laws class, won’t you, hon? Not having had any personal experience on that front.”

  “I thought you might have some suggestions,” I replied, keeping my face neutral. Adele’s marriage schedule did involve racking up about four sets of them.

  “Oh, I do.” Adele nodded and glanced up at Lord P. “I’m such a great fan of marriage. It’s the natural state for everyone to be in. Don’t you think, Pelham?”

  “Absolutely. I’m sure you ladies are all pitching in.” Lord P beamed, and I wasn’t sure if he’d caught her hint. “Just like the old days, seeing the place full of life. Full of laughter. Frances would be so proud.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Adele quickly, with a melancholy sigh. “Weren’t we just saying, what a very special day Frances made the prize-giving? She always wore such devastating hats, and found a prize to give to even the most uninspiring girls…”

  As Lord P’s eyes misted over with nostalgia, I noticed that Adele wasn’t looking nearly as sharp today as she had last time I had seen her. Instead of the tight pencil skirt and skinny heels, she was wearing a softer jersey dress, with several long strands of pearls. Even her hair seemed less power-dressed than before and was swept up into what was almost a soft bun at the back.

  I watched, mesmerized, as Adele’s varnished nails tapped up and down on his sleeve. They were a subtle pale pink today, and her massive sparklers had vanished in favor of a simple signet ring. My mouth opened as the penny dropped. Adele was morphing into Franny in an attempt to bag the second engagement ring of the term!

  She saw my reaction and gave me an unmistakable filthy look that Lord P couldn’t see, thanks to Paulette appearing at his side with a tray of champagne.

  “Take one from the left,” Paulette advised him. “That’s the quality bubbly. We’re running a bit short, so I’m giving the cheaper stuff to people who look like they can’t tell the difference.”

  “Paulette! Don’t say that!”

  “I’m sure all our guests can tell,” said Adele with a reproachful glance.

  I thought quickly. “If anyone notices, tell them it’s part of a course we offer, on wine tasting or something. But don’t let them take two glasses,” I added, imagining Mark prising the second flute out of a guest’s hand.

  “Not for me, Paulette,” said Adele, patting her tiny stomach. “I mustn’t!”

  “Why? You up the duff?” she inquired.

  “What? Goodness, no! I don’t drink during the day!” Adele looked affronted, then checked with Lord P to see if he’d noted her abstemiousness.

  She was wasting her time there, I thought. He liked a woman who could hold her claret.

  “In recovery, are you?” Paulette went on.

  “Thank you, Paulette.” I steered her away firmly. “I’ll catch up with you later,” I called to Lord P, who raised his flute to me in thanks. Adele fiddled with her unfamiliar hairpiece while she thought no one was looking and then resumed her expression of sweetness when he turned to ask her a question.

  Paulette and I had barely got into the hall when Divinity came rushing up, her hair quivering with excitement.

  “They’re here!” whispered Divinity.

  “Who?”

  She waved her guest list at me. “Your VIPs! Three arrived together—I watched them getting a drink.”

  I grabbed the list off her and checked: Coralie, Sophie, and Emma-Jane had been grouped together by Divinity’s gold pen and ostentatiously ticked off. She’d clearly learned her door policy from years of queueing outside clubs, having made her own VIP list, which I was sure she’d be letting guests catch a glimpse of.

  The breath caught in my throat.

  “There was some confusion about the names,” Divinity went on. “They’ve got, like, millions of surnames, and one of them’s brought her daughter, she says…”

  “Her daughter?”

  Divinity seemed puzzled. “Are you OK? You’ve gone dead white.” She went into bossy Liv Stylist mode. “Here, you need blusher—”

  “No, that’s sweet, but I’m fine.” I scanned the room, hoping to spot Nell so she could introduce me, but she was nowhere to be seen. “I’ll…I’ll go and say hello.”

  I squeezed my way through the guests, catching faint snatches of sales pitches about email etiquette from Mrs. Angell and jump-starting a flat battery from Mark, until I spotted an unlikely trio standing by the champagne table.

  Nell’s photo, taken in almost that very place, flashed up in my mind—languid blond Sophie, fiery Coralie, and naughty Emma-Jane with the Shetland pony bangs—and I tried to overlay that with the spooky Stevie Nicks lookalike, the white-haired matron in drapey clothes, and the bouffant newsreader peering at the caviar-topped blinis Anastasia’s mother had sent by the truckload as a thank-you for sorting out her daughter’s feud with the parking wardens.

  I swallowed and counted to ten, but my heart was racing. Was one of these three women my mother? Was this it? How did I ask?

  There was nothing in Franny’s notebooks about how one was supposed to flush out a runaway parent without actually asking directly. That was presumably why the upper classes invented charades—for practice.

  One of them—Sophie, by the look of the blond hair—spotted me staring at them, and then I had no choice but to dive right in.

  “Hello!” I held out my hand and let my manners take over while my brain kicked into gear. “I’m Betsy,” I said. “Betsy Phillimore. Thanks so much for coming along this morning—I hope the new ideas meet with Old Girl approval?”

  If I was hoping for a Hollywood-style double take of realization and a flurry of strings and paper hankies, it didn’t arrive.

  Emma-Jane stared at me as if she were translating what I’d said into a different language in her head, while Coralie smiled in a terrifying manner that showed expensive white teeth but no laugh lines. A creeping sensation ran over my skin; I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of any of these women revealing herself to be my parent. I didn’t really fancy any of these genes turning up in me in later life.

  I pressed on anyway.

  Sophie shook my hand; it was a limp shake—what the Academy used to call “a brittle bones society special.”

  “Hi,” she said. She smelled strongly of patchouli and menthol cigarettes. “Sophie Townend-Gooch. Are you Betsy Phillimore? As in…” She dropped her voice and swiveled her hooded brown eyes like a spy. “The baby we weren’t supposed to know about?”

  I nodded uncertainly. As maternal opening gambits went, that wasn’t very promising.

  “My secret love child?” Coralie added, throwing a stray layer of grayish drape over her shoulder.

  My pulse stopped for a second. Only a second, though, because Sophie gave her a ferocious nudge that sent her champagne spilling.

  “My secret love child, you mean, you cow!” Sophie insisted.

  I looked between them. “I’m sorry?”

  Coralie opened her eyes so wide I cou
ld see the inner rims. She had a touching eighties loyalty to electric-blue eyeliner. “I think you’ll find I was the bad girl of the year!”

  “I don’t think so!” retorted Sophie. “I was the one who led you all astray with my naughty marching powder and cheap highlighting kits!”

  “Months in rehab?” demanded Coralie and put her hands on her jutting hips.

  “How many husbands?”

  “Mine or someone else’s?”

  Emma-Jane snorted, or possibly honked, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Are you joking?” I asked in a wobbly voice. It was so hard to tell with seriously posh people. Their sense of humor was borderline verbal assault by any normal standards.

  Coralie and Sophie looked at me as if it hadn’t occurred to them that I might be serious.

  “Darling,” said Coralie, furrowing her brow as far as it would furrow, which was not far at all, “there’s no way Sophie’s your mother, because her own dear mamma had her on the Pill at the age of fourteen after a near-miss with their gardener.”

  “Gardenerszzz, thanks,” Sophie corrected her. “And if Coralie here had managed to pop out a sprog in between Duran Duran videos, she’d probably have left it with the cloakroom attendant at Limelight, rather than Lady Frances.”

  I looked between them, bickering and shoving happily as if I wasn’t there, and felt a sudden surge of relief that I didn’t share a genetic link with either of them.

  “Not me either,” added Emma-Jane out of nowhere, then honked again. “I’m more of a cat person.”

  “Would you excuse me?” I said, although they weren’t listening. “I’ve got some other people to talk to.”

  I couldn’t find Nell, or Divinity with the list, before another key workshop started in the Lady Hamilton Room: Liv’s What to Wear When discussion.

  Liv was busily transforming a nervous volunteer’s jeans-and-top combo into a fashion-forward evening look with an array of scarves and belts, while Divinity held forth in a voice that could probably be heard in the next street about the accessories she was using and in which shops “brilliant knockoffs” could be found for a fraction of the price of the designer originals.

  I leaned against the door frame, finally confident that my dress wouldn’t get covered in cobwebs. A lot had changed in an incredibly short space of time. The house was cleaner, the rooms seemed more alive, the girls seemed almost happy to be here…

  But was I the same? My nerves were still jangling from seeing those faces from Nell’s photograph, here, in real life. They were real women, and so was my mother, wherever she was. I wasn’t sure, now, whether I wanted her to be here or not.

  I felt a light touch on my shoulder and knew without turning round whom it belonged to. The musky cologne gave it away. Mark smelled of good old-fashioned soap and secondhand tweed, not fancy scent.

  Also, he didn’t do light touches. He was more likely to clap me on the back.

  “Hello, Jamie,” I murmured. “Can I help?”

  “Maybe. Cup of tea?” murmured Jamie in my ear. “Unless you’ve got one of your lovely charges teaching a cocktail class?”

  I turned and let him escort me down the stairs toward the tea table, where Anastasia graciously furnished me with a cup of tea and “as many biscuits as you vould like vithin reason because they are high in fet,” and then we went out into the garden, where a few people were milling around in the crisp February sunshine.

  I made a mental note to teach a Smoking without Fire etiquette class.

  “Sorry I didn’t have some flowers for you earlier. I should have thought ahead. But here you go.” Jamie leaned forward to pick an early daffodil from the border. “Congratulations. That’s not what it means officially, by the way. Just in my language of flowers.”

  “Thank you,” I said, coloring as I took it. “Daffodils actually mean ‘the sun always shines when I’m with you.’”

  Jamie pulled an amazed face. “What do you know? I’m fluent in the language of flowers. I couldn’t have chosen better,” he said with a look that made my teacup rattle embarrassingly in its saucer.

  “I suppose we have been lucky with the weather,” I said, fumbling for words.

  “That’s true, but it’s not what I meant.”

  I couldn’t think of anything smart to say, so I just smiled, and actually it was nicer.

  “So, can we take it you’ll be staying on?” he asked. “Now you’ve sorted out the Academy for next term?”

  “I suppose so,” I began. “I hadn’t really thought…”

  I didn’t want to think about what to do next, not when he was standing quite close to me and I was getting an even better view of just how nice his shirt looked against his tan.

  “Should I be sabotaging Liv’s freezer?” he asked. “Make it seem like she needs some more intensive help?”

  “I hope you wouldn’t sink so low…” My heart thumped in my chest. Jamie really had moved very close, and the way he was leaning on the wall meant his arm was technically behind me. In a moment, if I moved to one side, it would be around me.

  “How low would I have to sink before you absolutely couldn’t forgive me?” he inquired. His face was serious, but his eyes twinkled. “Just for future reference.”

  “Jamie! So glad I could catch you!”

  It was Adele, and she leaned over me to kiss Jamie’s cheek as if I wasn’t there.

  I stared at her, hoping the shrieking inside my head wasn’t audible to anyone else.

  “Didn’t want to chat while Pelham could hear—it’d totally spoil the surprise!” she gushed. “But just to touch base with you about this party—can we talk numbers?” Adele had dropped the sweet Sloane inflections and had gone back to her usual brisk rat-a-tat delivery. “I need to get the STDs out.”

  “STDs?” My jaw dropped.

  Adele smiled sympathetically. “Save the dates, darling. You have to, when you’re inviting the sort of people I’m after.”

  “Are you having a party?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “God, Betsy, Party Guest 101—wait to be invited! Yes, I’m having a surprise birthday party for Pelham, I hear it’s a ‘big one’”—she made the hook signs in the air—“and I want it to be special. I think I can make it memorable for him.” She paused, then added, “I mean, with Jamie’s help!” Adele fluttered a hand to her chest. “God! Not any other way! What do you take me for!”

  Jamie suddenly found his teacup very interesting, so I turned back to Adele.

  “Is Jamie organizing a party for you?” I asked, rather hurt. Why hadn’t he told me she was hijacking Lord P’s birthday? I knew for a fact that he didn’t want a fuss made.

  “Betsy, darling, this isn’t Clue! But yes, absolutely!” She bestowed a triumphant smile on me. “Who else would I get but Party Animals? Jamie,” she added, “remind me to remind you about dietary requirements—Pelham tells me he’s not very keen on shellfish, and I want to get his cholesterol under control. It’s about time someone looked after that poor man.”

  I glared at Jamie. “You didn’t mention you were planning a party for Lord P,” I said rather pointedly. “Did it slip your mind?”

  “I only really found out we were doing it today,” Jamie admitted. “Douglas was the one who took the booking—”

  “I had to have Jamie,” Adele interrupted. “He’s the best, and he knows everyone. It’ll be amazing. And if any other little announcements have to be made…” She let the horrendous idea hover in the air between us. I was reminded of the awkwardness that ensued when Lord P’s Great Danes broke wind—no one liked to point it out for fear they would seem to be making excuses.

  “Shall I send you an STD, Betsy?” Adele inquired. “It’ll have the dress code on, so you’ll know what to wear. You can pop it in your diary.”

  “I think I know when his birthday is, Adele,” I said through gritted teeth. “I haven’t missed one yet.”

  “Oh, my Ghhhod, you’re offended!” She gasped as if it hadn’t occ
urred to her that I might be, and turned to check that Jamie saw too. “Oh, no! Betsy, sweetie! It’s only because you’re so busy with this place—I thought I’d be helpful and step in with my experience. I organized so many bashes for Edgar, and everyone said they were just wild…”

  I gazed at Adele and wondered if she actually remembered telling me that her second husband had to have a title, but the third and fourth didn’t matter so much.

  Jamie hurried to smooth things over. “Betsy’s probably got lots of great ideas about what would go down well, haven’t you?”

  “Best to leave it to the experts, don’t you think, darling?” Adele pouted her pink lips and tipped her head.

  I stared at the pair of them, as Adele started wittering about how big a cake one could transport in a Range Rover. I wondered, in horror, if she planned to jump out of it.

  But Jamie was nodding politely, and my chest throbbed with disappointment. He’d gone out of his way to help me organize the day. He’d magicked up hundreds of glasses and pulled in favors and made everything sparkle, including me. But if he was doing the same for Adele—well, how special was it? It was something he was good at. Parties. People.

  I looked at his handsome face, listening to Adele with all the appearance of someone listening to a rational conversation and not the drivelings of someone with peroxide poisoning.

  “Pelham through the ages, you know, with sixties finger food, and waitresses in hot pants, or maybe waiters in hot pants! Something for everyone! Who knows! Ha ha ha…”

  I silently handed him my daffodil back and walked into the house. Adele lifted her fingertips without looking round, but she didn’t even pause for breath before launching into her firework requirements.

  “Betsy!”

  Mark was waving his long arm at me over the heads of several groups of guests as I went back into the main hall. I could only assume he’d been made over by Anastasia—either that, or he was prepared for a “before” look. He’d been stripped of his sober shirt and was suffering in a fashionable purple number and more gold jewelry than most women would pile on for New Year’s Eve. But he was bearing it with surprising grace, given that his previous wardrobe color palette was based on the shades you might paint a camouflaged battleship.