Outrageous Fortune

by Lulu Taylor

  And Daisy would clutch on to him, blinking back her tears, praying that Mummy would be well soon, and more thankful than ever that her father was the unchanging centre of her life.

  Now Mummy was in a rehabilitation facility, a very pretty old house with crenellated battlements, set in acres of velvety green lawns. Daisy missed her but she couldn’t help feeling relieved that the house was calmer now.

  Daddy looked suddenly sad.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Daisy asked, putting her arms around him, hating to see him downcast. ‘It’s not just Mummy, is it? Are you thinking about … about the others? About Will and Sarah?’

  ‘No,’ he said gruffly. ‘Of course not. They made their choice and that is that. I don’t dwell on it, Daisy, and nor should you.’

  Daisy knew he was putting on a brave face. How could he not miss his two elder children? She had not seen either of them since that Christmas Day three years ago. The Aston Martin had been returned a few days later, collected by Daddy’s staff, but he hadn’t had the heart to drive it again and it had been sold. Now, all that was left was the echo of her half-sister and brother. It was strange that they had simply been erased from her life, and Daisy missed them, but had no idea how she would ever tell them so. Besides, Will’s outburst on that last day had stayed with her; both he and Sarah had obviously always hated and resented her, thinking that she had monopolised all their father’s attention. But what could she have done to have avoided that? She hadn’t asked to be born, or to be Daddy’s favourite. How could it be her fault?

  Now she was, to all intents and purposes, his only child, the apple of his eye. She knew he spoiled her horribly, with the vast clothes allowance he funded and the credit card with no limit to draw upon at will. She already had a pink Range Rover of her own sitting in the garage, despite the fact she couldn’t drive. When she wanted to go somewhere, she only had to call on the services of Daddy’s driver or his pilot; the helicopter, plane or yacht were always at her disposal.

  But Daisy knew that one day she would be more than just a pampered playgirl. There was a vast family business waiting for her to take over the reins when she was old enough. She would be expected to perform then, and perform better than anyone else. That expectation meant there would always be a core of steel beneath her glossy, designer-clad exterior.

  She didn’t mind that her future had been planned out for her since the time she was small.

  Daddy needs me, she thought. I have to be there for him. I’m all he has.

  10

  THE SOUNDS OF ballet slippers sliding and slapping on the wooden floor could be heard despite the loud piano music that echoed round the studio.

  Chanelle moved as if in a trance, hearing the music somewhere deep inside herself and unable to do anything other than respond. The routine was short but demanding, and she had practised her sautés and pliés endlessly so that she could incorporate them with perfect grace into the dance.

  She finished bent low, one toe pointed in front of her, arms outstretched, head bowed. As the music came to an end, she felt as though she’d floated back into her body. There was silence from the observers for a moment, then the elderly white-haired woman who’d come to watch her nodded sharply and said, ‘Thank you, Miss Hughes. You can go now.’

  Chanelle made the dancer’s curtsey as she’d been taught, and then ran lightly to the swing doors of the studio. She turned long enough to catch her teacher’s eye and see her smile and wink, before she had to leave.

  In the changing rooms, another girl from her class was getting ready, wrapping her veil skirt around her while she anxiously inspected her hair bun in the mirror, making sure that not a wisp had escaped.

  ‘How was it?’ she said as Chanelle came in.

  Chanelle shrugged. ‘OK, I think. We’ll see.’

  The other girl looked sick with nerves. ‘Lucky you that it’s over!’

  Chanelle nodded as she took off her shoes, but she didn’t agree. She would have loved still to be dancing if she possibly could. There was simply nothing else in her life that made her feel that way. It alone had the power to make all the sadness and anger and drabness disappear.

  She was just leaving the dance school, her bag slung over one shoulder, when Mrs Ford came hurrying out after her.

  ‘Chanelle!’ she called.

  She stopped and turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You did very well.’ Mrs Ford was smiling, her eyes shining. ‘Easily the best today. I think you’re in with a chance.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Ford.’ Excitement and pleasure bubbled up inside her.

  ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’

  Chanelle turned away towards the bus stop. On the one hand she was elated. Could she really win a place at ballet school? How amazing would that be? But … on the other … well, there was no way she could get the fees together. Her only hope was a scholarship but the standards were incredibly high. Girls from all over the world competed for the precious free places. She had little or no chance.

  She didn’t know what to fear more – getting a place, or not getting one. One way or another, there didn’t seem to be much hope for her.

  The letter came three days later on a Saturday morning. Chanelle heard the slam of the letter box on the front door and knew that the postman had been. She dashed into the hallway and picked up the slim white envelope with the stamp of the ballet school on the front and tore it open, her hands already shaking and her fingers clumsy with nerves.

  She pulled out the letter and read it, then gasped and sat down on the floor as though her legs had suddenly given way. It wasn’t a scholarship, but it was a bursary. They’d offered her a place with twenty percent of the fees paid.

  Overcome, Chanelle clutched the letter close to her chest, her heart pounding. She was in! She could go! Mrs Ford had warned her not to get her hopes up, and told her that at fifteen she was old to begin her training … perhaps too old. She should have started years ago. But it seemed the school was willing to give her a chance.

  ‘What are you huffing and puffing about?’ Michelle came through into the hall, frowning. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s the ballet school, Mum,’ Chanelle stammered, holding up the letter.

  Michelle took it, read it and then handed it back to her daughter, her face blank.

  ‘Well … what do you think?’

  ‘You know what I think. I think we can’t afford it.’

  ‘But, Mum …’

  Michelle’s face suddenly changed. She scowled, fury flashing in her eyes. ‘I told you not to go that fucking ballet audition! I told you what would happen, but you wouldn’t listen. How the hell are we gonna pay any fees? Ballet isn’t for people like us, I’ve said it over and over.’

  ‘But they’re giving me a bursary!’

  ‘Money off? Money off the twenty grand or whatever it is? What’s left will still be too much. I can’t get that kind of cash together, you know that.’ She snatched back the letter and ripped it to pieces, scattering the bits over the carpet. ‘Forget about it, Chanelle. I should never have let you try in the first place.’

  She watched, horrified, as the pieces of her precious acceptance letter drifted down to the floor. Sobs choked her and despair overwhelmed her. She scrabbled about, picking up the pieces, and jumped to her feet. ‘I hate you!’ she screamed. ‘I hate you.’

  ‘I fucking hate you too,’ retorted Michelle, but Chanelle was already on her way out of the door.

  She ran through the estate. It was a warm day and lots of people were out. She dodged them all as she ran, intent only on reaching her destination. Her breath burned in her chest as she ran, and her thin shoes meant her feet hurt every time she took a stride, but she didn’t care.

  Five minutes later, she stopped at the front door of Gus’s house and pounded on the front door. ‘Gus!’ she panted, her voice barely audible. ‘Let me in!’

  She banged again and the door suddenly opened under her fists. Gus stood on the hall mat, f
rowning.

  ‘Well, well, it’s young Chanelle! What’s all this about? You’d better come in.’

  When she was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, her breath restored, and had managed to explain, he looked relieved.

  ‘I thought it was an emergency,’ he said, bustling about, making them a cup of tea. His half-eaten bowl of muesli was on the table, the milky spoon abandoned beside it.

  ‘It is an emergency,’ Chanelle protested. ‘I got a bursary to the ballet school!’

  ‘Congratulations, young lady. They were right then. You do have talent.’ Gus turned to smile at her, his dark eyes disappearing into the fleshy wrinkles around them. She handed him the pieces of paper, wiping away the hot tears that kept flowing from her eyes, and sniffing. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The letter. Mum tore it up. She says I can’t go.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ He gave her a sympathetic look and started to piece together the shredded paper. ‘Yes, I see. There’s the crest of the school. What a shame. Why did she tear it up?’

  ‘Because we can’t afford it.’ Despair coursed through Chanelle and she started to cry harder. ‘But it’s all I ever wanted! Oh, Gus, you gave me the lessons. You even gave me two more years when you said you’d only give me one. Can’t you pay for me to go to the school?’ It had been her secret hope all along. After all, he’d come to her rescue once before when he’d paid for her lessons and carried on paying for them. Surely that meant that he wanted her to succeed. Why would he only give her the lessons and deny her what she wanted so much? She had nurtured an inner conviction that he wanted to sponsor her dancing career, that he’d never stop making sure she was able to do the one thing she loved and was obviously good at. In her mind, he was the fairy godfather who would make everything right for her.

  He was gazing at her, dark brown eyes inscrutable. He passed her a mug of steaming tea and sat down at the kitchen table opposite her. ‘I’m afraid I may have given you the wrong idea,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t know how much ballet school costs but I suspect that, even with a bursary, it’s going to be several thousand pounds a year. I don’t have that kind of money, Chanelle, and I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I did.’

  ‘But you must!’ she burst out, angry despite her tears. ‘You’re different from the rest of us! You’re rich.’

  Gus stared at the table for a moment, one hand stroking his white whiskers. ‘It’s true that I’m not like many of the people who live around here,’ he said slowly, looking up at her. ‘And I did once have a bit of money. But I don’t now. Not any more. I’m sorry. If I had it, I’d give it to you like a shot. But I’m not rich at all.’

  Chanelle cried even harder, wiping her nose on her sleeve. She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘I don’t believe you!’ she shouted, unable to bear the fact that her hopes were dashed. ‘You’re just like everyone else … you don’t care about me or what I want! You all want to ruin my life. You can all just fuck off!’

  She ran out of the house, weeping, hardly knowing where she was going but desperate to be alone with her broken heart and the dreams that now lay in as many pieces as her precious letter.

  11

  ‘NO SCHOOL TODAY for you, miss!’ Daddy had said that morning when Daisy had come down for breakfast.

  She’d been pleased even though she knew she really ought to be at her lessons with her exams approaching, but one day wouldn’t matter. Besides, the school let Daddy do what he liked now that he had paid for a new library, theatre and science laboratory, named the Dangerfield Wing, all freshly finished and opened by Daddy himself in a grand ceremony marked by the unveiling of a golden plaque. That had not endeared her much more to Keira Bond and her cronies, but who cared? Keira could only gnash her teeth, aware that her plans for revenge on Daisy were coming to nothing. The other girls found the fact that she was starting her own shoe line beyond cool and there was talk that Daisy’s next birthday party was going to be super-amazingly grand, and everyone wanted to be invited.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Daisy had wanted to know, before she rushed upstairs to change.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Daddy had said mysteriously, draining his cup of coffee. ‘Be ready in ten minutes.’

  Daisy had thrown on a smart fuchsia pink shift dress and given it an edge with a studded black leather jacket and some of her own snake-print ballet pumps, and raced back downstairs in time to join her father in the new black Rolls-Royce. The gold one had been retired a few years before and this sleek new one with its snub nose and long back had taken its place. The drinks cabinet had gone, to be replaced by an on-board computer that showed constant updates on news of the financial markets.

  The driver took them to the heart of Mayfair, to the flagship hotel of the Dangerfield empire, the Dangerfield Florey. It had once been simply Florey’s, one of London’s oldest and most prestigious hotels, but had been on its last legs in the eighties when Daddy had pulled off a major coup, buying it from the original owners and turning it into the hub of the Dangerfield business. It had so much more cachet than the string of airport hotels built by Josef in the seventies that had provided the bedrock of the family fortune, and it was grander by far than the high-rise luxury flats that the Dangerfield family had built in the most expensive cities in the world. Owning the Florey had given Daddy more satisfaction than most of his other property deals put together, even if Josef, his own father, had dismissed it as a white elephant. It cost a fortune to run and its profit margins were relatively small, no matter how expensive the rooms were, or how many crowned heads and movie stars ate in the restaurant or celebrated weddings and birthdays in the famous ballroom.

  ‘Are we going to the Florey?’ Daisy said, excited to be rounding Grosvenor Square to the Mayfair street where the grand façade of the Dangerfield Florey stretched along almost an entire block. It had grown gradually from two small hotels in Victorian terrace houses that had been merged together and then come to absorb more and more of the terrace until eventually, at the end of the nineteenth century, the Florey family had realised that the ramshackle design was no longer adequate. They’d had the old hotel demolished and rebuilt along the grand lines necessary for such a prestigious place, with lifts, en suite bathrooms, and marble, gilt and glittering glass everywhere. Now there were two hundred suites, two restaurants, a brasserie, a ballroom, three bars, and a vast ground-floor atrium where afternoon tea was served to ladies weary from shopping on nearby Bond Street, and rich tourists keen to experience the opulence of the famous hotel.

  Daddy smiled and said nothing as the Rolls drew to a halt in front of the entrance, where a red carpet led from the edge of the pavement to the splendid lobby with its revolving door in glistening black and gold. The doorman, resplendent in his black greatcoat with its double rows of brass buttons and red grosgrain trimmings, came striding forward to open the car door, touching his hand to his peaked cap in salute as he recognised the boss.

  Daisy climbed out, happy to see the Florey, her favourite of all the Dangerfield possessions. Above the lobby, the flat roof was covered in plants and bright flowers that looked beautiful against the cheerful red brick of the building above.

  ‘Come along, Daisy,’ Daddy said, taking her hand again. ‘Let’s see what we will see.’

  They went through the door and into the imposing foyer where the black-and-white chequered marble floor gleamed in the light cast by the enormous crystal chandelier set above it. Through two more walnut-and-brass, many-paned doors and a turn to the left, and then they were in a long corridor where discreet boutiques were open for the custom of the hotel guests and visitors: a branch of Loro Piana, selling the finest cashmere scarves, shawls, coats and jumpers; a tiny outpost of Asprey’s stocked with their exquisite bags, leather goods and silver knick-knacks – just the place to come for a gift or an indulgent treat. And, of course, there were several small but glittering jewellery shops, where a forgetful husband could select a wedding anniversary trinket or birthday gift to be wr
apped and presented to his wife in their suite or over dinner.

  Daddy led Daisy along the corridor. They passed the little boutiques and then stopped. Daisy stood and stared, gasping. Above the neatest miniature shop-front, she saw her name in flowing golden script, and beneath that: Fashion for Feet. Then she realised that the windows of the small store were full of her designs: elegant pumps displayed on brass stands and pink velvet cushions, some plain and some bejewelled. Kitten heels and slingbacks were ranged opposite biker boots and a selection of colourful wedges and easy-to-slip-on canvas shoes for the beach or by the pool.

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ Daisy cried, clapping her hands with delight. ‘This is wonderful!’

  ‘Do you like it, darling?’

  ‘I love it!’ She flung her arms around him, laughing with joy. It was perfect.

  ‘Is it a nice surprise?’

  ‘It’s fantastic! Oh, Daddy!’ She turned back to look at her little boutique, her face flushed with excitement. She could see herself reflected in the shiny glass panes, her long fair hair falling about her shoulders, a wide grin on her face. She fizzed with pleasure at seeing her shoes actually available for people to buy – she’d only ever seen samples at home, nothing like this display. The velvet slippers in slate and charcoal, trimmed with sparkling yellow and amber crystals, looked more fantastic than she could have imagined when collected together like this.

  ‘You should be proud,’ her father told her. ‘Now you’ll be in charge of this, Daisy, do you understand? I’ve hired people to work in the boutique and a manager, but she’ll report to you. You’ll be the boss of everything from now on. And if this works, then we’ll look at opening boutiques in other hotels in the group.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. But there’s something I want from you in return. Come on. We’re going back to the car.’