by Maeve Haran
‘If you could, go left after Selfridges,’ Angela said to Claire, pointing to the turning into Duke Street. Half a mile later they passed The Wallace Collection in its beautiful eighteenth-century home, and just as they were approaching St James’s Spanish Place, Angela pointed out a small mews entrance. ‘That’s me here. I really can’t thank you enough. You saved my bacon. Or should I say pancetta?’ She and Drew climbed out of the car and waved Claire goodbye.
She watched them negotiating the busy road. How weird it must be to be famous. Angela seemed to have so much going for her and yet here she was being hounded and in danger of losing her business.
It was at that moment she noticed the parking ticket tucked under her windscreen wipers. She’d been so busy chatting to Angela that it had escaped her notice till now. Great.
All told, she’d made a loss of about £40. Fighting back the temptation to dissolve into tears she thought about the mysterious man on the phone’s offer to Angela and whether Angela could possibly be serious about suggesting that she could go too.
Two
Sylvie Sutton edged into her chaotically crowded office in a converted pub on the less fashionable end of the King’s Road and attempted to sit down behind her desk.
It always amused her that the road had once been a private one belonging to King Charles II, since he was a king she particularly admired. She adored the transition from puritanism to the louche lust his reign achieved – not to mention those gorgeous off-the-shoulder dresses. In fact, if she had to live in any era but her own, it was the one she would have chosen.
Funnily enough, the pub she had converted had once been the King’s Arms, but that was the only thing the derelict, beer-smelling, damp premises had in common with Britain’s lustiest royal.
The King’s Road had also certainly changed since the hippie days when it had been the epicentre of Swinging London, from the Chelsea Drugstore, immortalized by the Rolling Stones in ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ to The Pheasantry nightclub with its twenty-foot-high Greek caryatids and its wildly exotic clientele. Sylvie repressed a shudder that it was now, of all things, a Pizza Express.
Sylvie herself preferred the chummy Bohemianism of the Chelsea Arts Club down the road with its glorious hidden garden. She’d also loved the now-defunct Queen’s Elm pub nearby, home to literary types such as Laurie Lee of Cider with Rosie fame, who, once, would regularly prop up the bar and give free seminars on modern literature.
Sylvie breathed in so that she could manoeuvre herself more effectively. The room, and indeed the whole building, was part office, part antiques shop, part storage space for her interior design business and also housed the many exotic fabrics that characterized her decorating style. Sylvie liked to think of her trademark style as exotic and extravagant. Partly, this was due to her childhood following her diplomat father to the far-flung reaches of Syria, Egypt and Iran. But it was also good for business. The ‘English country-house look’ was too crowded a market, and though some people – usually foreigners – were still mad for it, Sylvie’s dramatic, opulent, over-the-top look appealed to people who liked a sense of theatre, as if their homes were stages where some exciting event might at any moment be about to unfold. Sylvie abhorred the thousand and one shades of off-white which tyrannized London’s walls nearly as much as she loathed the vogue for shabby chic, which seemed to Sylvie’s eyes to consist of a lot of chipped furniture and ludicrous lace with silly pink tutus draped all over the place as though the occupant were about to dance Swan Lake.
The walls of her own office were in Sylvie’s signature colour – bright cobalt blue – but it was hard to determine this as they were almost entirely covered with photographs Sylvie had taken on her beloved smartphone of anything and everything that had caught her eye. They ranged from silver Moroccan teapots, bits of coloured rope on beaches, goldfinches in the pub garden, orange Penguin paperbacks from the charity shop next door, a dazzling crimson Chinese screen, to the perfect blue of a duck egg.
Her eyes dwelled sadly for a moment on the photograph of her daughter Salome – now determinedly Sal – with the two grandchildren Sylvie rarely saw. Her daughter couldn’t cope with a mother as flamboyant as Sylvie and much preferred her safe and conventional mother-in-law.
And yet, Sylvie knew, her flamboyant manner was her trademark, and helped her in business. It was also a good cover for when she was actually really worried, as she was now.
Sylvie had also found that a dramatic manner was a good cover for when she was actually really worried, as she was now. She could toss her long and curly red hair and clap her hands like the stern mistress of a ballet school and people wouldn’t notice the panic veiled behind her green eyelids. Her current two-million-pound project was a five-bedroom apartment in Belgravia. The owners were from Moscow and were due to return in three days, when they expected everything to be beyond perfect.
Her Russian clients, Sylvie had discovered, preferred every last detail to be completed, right down to the beds being made as if it were an actual hotel rather than their own home. She often wondered, in fact, why they didn’t just move into the Savoy or the Ritz. They liked the feel of a hotel or show home, with every vase filled, every object chosen and every mantelpiece adorned with silver picture frames. In fact, once she had visited a client six months after he’d moved in and admired the photographs of his lovely family only to realize they were actually the models who’d come with the frame. She’d been more careful not to ask questions ever since.
‘Amelia!’ she called to her assistant, who, like their three designers and Frank, their wonderful furniture mover, was sited on the ground floor. ‘Where the hell is Tony?’ Tony was Sylvie’s husband and, when he could be bothered, business partner.
‘I think he went to Belgravia with Kimberley to take some final measurements,’ Amelia shouted up the stairs. ‘Would you like a cup of mint tea?’
Fresh mint tea was one of Sylvie’s minor addictions, though on a very small scale compared to champagne. Most days she had a glass on the stroke of midday, announcing that there was nothing like Laurent Perrier to get your creative juices flowing.
‘What on earth is he measuring for at this late stage?’ Sylvie demanded crossly, picking up her bag and easing her way down the spiral staircase to the ground floor.
‘Kimberley said something about needing a bath mat in the master bathroom.’
‘Oh my God, she’ll probably pick it up in Primark!’ Sylvie ran an irritated hand through her curly hair. ‘And Tony would be far more useful making sure those red velvet curtains are up in the dining room. Frank, can you come with me in a minute? I’ll do it myself.’
Sylvie didn’t like Kimberley, the spoiled daughter of one of their suppliers from Basildon, who would be more at home on The Only Way is Essex than in sophisticated Chelsea. God knows why Tony had agreed to give her an internship. The girl seemed to think interior design was all about sparkly cushion covers and putting frilly cloths on every table she could lay her hands on. Sylvie could almost bet her bedspread at home would be decorated with a pile of stuffed animals. She probably even had ‘Kimberley’ on her bedroom door.
She saw Frank exchange a quick look with Amelia. ‘You don’t need to come, Sylvie. I could do it under water. Didn’t you say something about picking up that red velvet chaise longue from the upholsterer?’
‘Yes,’ Sylvie replied, looking at him curiously, ‘but it isn’t ready till tomorrow morning. Besides, they said they could deliver. They bloody well ought to for that price.’ The chaise longue, an Empire find from the Decorative Antiques Fair in Battersea Park, had cost as much as a whole room set from Ikea, even with her decorator’s reduction, but it would lend the rather oddly shaped dressing room the hint of drama the owners wanted. She suddenly recalled the famous quote from the Edwardian actress Mrs Patrick Campbell about craving the deep peace of the marriage bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise longue. Did Edwardians really get up to hanky-panky on chaises longues? They l
ooked far too uncomfortable.
And as for the peace of the marriage bed, she obviously hadn’t encountered a husband like Tony who considered the duvet his sole property.
Frank brought round their pickup truck, parked opposite the World’s End pub, now a concept eatery, and proceeded to load up his curtain-hanging gear. ‘You look all-in,’ he suddenly said as Sylvie opened the passenger door. ‘Do you more good to hop in there and have a glass of fizz.’ He pointed to the pub over the road.
Sylvie stared at him. If she wanted a glass of fizz, she’d open a bottle herself. Besides, she was too strung out to relax yet. Perhaps Frank sensed this and that explained his rather strange behaviour. ‘Maybe when I get back. Perfection isn’t good enough for these clients. If there’s a smear on the window, they’ll walk straight out and ask for their money back.’
Frank shrugged. ‘Okey dokey. Belgravia it is.’
It didn’t take them long to get there. It was that dead time of the afternoon after the lunchtime drinkers had headed back to work and before the yummy mummies had got out the Range Rovers and top-of-the-range Lexuses to do the school run. Or got the nanny to do it while they worked out at the Harbour Club.
The Riskovs’ apartment was on the first floor, in what used to be called the piano nobile, with a row of magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows that let the afternoon light flood in.
Frank unpacked his stuff while Sylvie searched for her key. On the ground floor the uniformed concierge nodded to them and went back to his copy of the Racing Post.
The lift came at once. The door of the apartment had one of those fancy Banham keys which were supposed to be uncopiable, with a fob that turned off the burglar alarm when you held it up to the mechanism. Police round here insisted on fobs as too many rich people couldn’t remember their 6-digit PIN numbers and made their alarms go off by accident. Strange, the alarm didn’t seem to be on. She would have to tell her staff off for that.
To her great relief the flat looked amazing. All it needed was the red velvet curtains, the chaise longue for the dressing room and fresh flowers from the shop at Bluebird. She might even do them herself if there was time. She had just got out her phone to snap the locations where vases of flowers were needed and to remind herself of the exact colours in each background – this was how Sylvie operated, everything was a snapshot in her mind – when she heard a strange noise emanating from the master bedroom.
Frank was in the huge drawing room, already up a ladder. She padded across the carpet with pile so deep you almost sank to your ankles in it and opened the bedroom door.
She would remember the image that met her for the rest of her life.
Underneath the vast gilded bed canopy, Kimberley, still wearing her jailbait Boohoo dress, lay spread-eagled beneath Sylvie’s husband.
Kimberley stared at her like a rabbit caught in headlights.
Suddenly Sylvie realized why Amelia and Frank had been behaving so oddly. They already knew what was going on and were trying to protect her.
The emotion and fury would come later. For now it was her decorator’s eye that took in the angles, the light and the dramatic effect of the scene in front of her.
Kimberley suddenly screeched and Tony turned, a look of horror on his face, while Sylvie snapped away on her phone.
‘You know, Tony,’ she fought to hang on to her dignity, ‘apart from me, you always did have terrible taste in women.’
Gwen Charlesworth sat down with her usual plate of bacon, eggs and heavily buttered toast and switched on her beloved iPad. She might be well over eighty but she had never believed in all this muesli nonsense. Her husband Neville had eaten it for years, and look at him: always moaning about some ache or pain while she could keep gardening all day. And as for this nonsense about the old not being tech-savvy, she couldn’t imagine the world without Mr Google.
She scrolled through the dull invitations designed for the elderly to invest in annuities, to buy hideous shoes promising comfort for the older foot and her confirmations of orders from Amazon. Amazon was her secret passion. Every day the postman or delivery van brought her a new item – her favourite pens, new gardening gauntlets and unsuitable novels from Black Lace – she viewed each and every one as a present. ‘What is it today, Mrs Charlesworth?’ the postman would joke. ‘Fifty Shades of Grey?’
To which Gwen would enjoy shocking him by quipping back, ‘No chance. I’m too old for all that hanging about. I’d probably die before Christian wotsit got round to seeing to me.’
She was actually hoping for a communication from her son Stephen. He dutifully rang her once a week but sometimes he’d scan a funny cartoon or a piece from the paper he thought would make her laugh.
She thought about Stephen for a moment. He, too, was a successful businessman like that Christian Grey chap, but she hoped he didn’t get up to those sorts of weird goings on. Certainly he’d been a happy child. And now here he was, apart from one brief marriage in his twenties, still single. She didn’t really get it. He was charming and funny and successful. What was the matter with all the women out there?
‘Could you top up my coffee, Gwen dear?’ Neville requested.
Gwen ignored him since being called ‘dear’ particularly irritated her. It made her think of the phrase ‘old dears’, a group in which she definitely did not include herself. Neville repeated his request, wisely losing the affectionate addition, and she refilled his cup.
Ah, there was a message from Sylvie Sutton. She had liked Sylvie ever since, aged twelve onwards, she’d come to stay with her aunt and uncle every school holiday about half a mile from the Charlesworth home. Now there was a girl who’d had a peculiar upbringing, dragged round the Middle East with two selfish parents who clearly saw having a child as a momentary lapse of concentration. Neither of them ever seemed to think that Sylvie’s constant running away from boarding school, or her dressing up in outrageous outfits – clearly to catch their attention – was anything to bother about.
Not long ago, Gwen had called Sylvie in to help her redecorate their drawing room and it had become Gwen’s favourite room in the house, all dramatic velvet and lush sofas – a bit like a Beirut bordello, according to her son – and it had horrified all Gwen’s conventional friends whose taste ran to flowery loose covers.
‘Don’t ever mention the C word to me!’ Sylvie had pleaded when they’d looked at fabric swatches together. When Gwen looked puzzled, Sylvie had dropped her voice and whispered ‘Chintz!’
She wondered what dear Sylvie wanted. Maybe she was going to come and stay and Gwen could get her advice on the front border. Sylvie was so good at colour. Gwen had been contemplating the ruby of Rococo Red tulips and the exotic purple of Arabian Mystery amongst the sea of forget-me-nots which suddenly appeared like wafts of blue clouds in her garden each year. Sex might have disappeared from Gwen’s life a long time ago but at least she still had gardening, and, given the state of Neville’s knees, that was probably a good thing.
The email seemed to be addressed to everyone on Sylvie’s database and simply said: ‘Dear All, thought this would make you smile.’
Gwen was already smiling in anticipation when she clicked on the attachment. Unshockable as Gwen thought herself to be, her mouth dropped open in astonishment at what appeared to be Sylvie’s husband in a compromising position with a young woman.
Moments later, her phone rang. Instantly she recognized her son Stephen’s number. He appeared via Skype, another of Gwen’s addictions.
‘Have you opened the attachment yet?’ he asked with no further explanation.
‘I’m looking at it right now . . . My goodness,’ Gwen demanded at last, ‘what do you think it’s all about?’ Gwen had always liked Tony Sutton, Sylvie’s husband. There was something reassuringly masculine about him. She always pictured him with a moustache, though he had never had one. Besides, he was kind to animals and children. A man who was kind to animals and children was rarely vain enough to be a bounder in Gwen’s experience.
And yet here, right in front of her, was evidence to the contrary.
‘I suspect that Sylvie has captured her husband in flagrante,’ Stephen suggested.
‘Good heavens!’ Gwen studied it again. ‘It looks like one of those awful divorce set-ups from Brighton in the 1950s. But why would Sylvie be sending this round to everyone?’
‘I imagine she must be trying to get her own back. She always was a bit impulsive. I just hope it doesn’t rebound on her. I’m not sure her Russian and Middle Eastern clients are going to think this is funny.’
‘Oh poor little Sylvie!’ The image of a lonely little girl parading before her aunt and uncle’s astonished dinner guests came vividly back to Gwen.
Poor little Sylvie wasn’t exactly the image that Stephen had of Sylvie Sutton, all five foot eight of her. She had always considered him a spineless playmate due to his unwillingness to don tights and a tutu. And, as an adult, Sylvie had seemed well able to take care of herself.
Until now.
‘Stephen, you must call her. She’s obviously in trouble and, as you say, this could be disastrous for her business. Couldn’t she say she was – what’s the word, hacked or something?’
‘Possibly. Except a lot of people might guess that this is exactly Sylvie’s style, if she wanted to get revenge on Tony.’
Gwen paused to think what should be done. She wasn’t the type to sit back and let the people she loved suffer. ‘What about the gorgeous Villa Le Sirenuse? What better place to tempt her away than a holiday on the Med? She can tell all her clients she’s on a little break till all this blows over. I mean, it’s not as if you’ve got a family you need to take yourself.’
She swept on before Stephen could protest at this jibe on his single state. ‘It’s off-season anyway. The Italians don’t even go outside till the beginning of May. They think we’re mad to start taking our clothes off before then and saying it’s spring. I remember when we used to stay in Capri . . .’
Stephen knew that once they got to Capri it would lead to reminiscences of E. F. Benson and Somerset Maugham and his mother would bring up the latter’s bon mot about the Riviera being a sunny place for shady people, which she had decided applied equally well to Capri.