She wasn’t looking forward to Christmas much. They were breaking with tradition and staying in London. This was partly down to Patrick, who had been the one – astonishingly – to suggest it. He usually loved the whole country thing, the Boxing Day meet, the halfway hike as they called it, across the fields on Christmas Day in between main course and pudding, decorating the house. She became less astonished by his change of heart when he announced that he had invited Saul and Dickon for Boxing Day supper.
‘You don’t mind, do you, darling? Christmas is clearly grim for him because Dickon spends it with his mother and Saul’s on his own. Boxing Day they go to Kempton Park and, you know I’ve always been sad missing that, and he suggested we should all go.’
‘Patrick,’ said Bianca, ‘I am not going to spend Boxing Day at a race meeting, OK? Milly and Ruby would hate it!’
‘They might not – Fergie’s very excited about the idea and—’
‘What? You’ve talked to Fergie about this before you talked to me?’
‘He and Dickon chatted about it after judo, apparently. Dickon said it wasn’t that much fun going alone with his dad and I just thought it would be great for him – and Saul, of course. Anyway, Milly said only last year that she’d like to spend Christmas in London sometimes, see her friends.’
‘Milly doesn’t seem to have any friends at the moment,’ said Bianca rather sadly.
‘Really?’
‘Patrick, I keep telling you! Not one Christmas card from school. She pretended she’d left them behind but I know that wasn’t true.’
‘I don’t remember you telling me that.’
‘I expect you were thinking about your friend Saul at the time.’
‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous,’ said Patrick. ‘I’d have heard you saying that. Unless you tacked it on to the end of a long diatribe about how the VCs wouldn’t let you have any more money for your shops and how short-sighted that was. I do tend to drift off after half an hour or so of that . . .’
‘Oh, shut the fuck up!’ said Bianca.
Patrick left the room, closing the door very quietly. She looked at it, startled. She almost never swore, and certainly not at Patrick. What was happening to them all?
‘I just called to say thank you for the invitation.’ It was Saul. ‘Dickon’s over the moon.’
‘You’re very welcome.’
‘I hope so.’ Long silence.
‘I probably won’t be coming to the race meeting though,’ she said, ‘or the girls.’
‘Oh really? That’s a pity.’
He rang off as he always did, abruptly. Bianca sighed; he wasn’t going to be exactly a fun addition to their table.
She went upstairs. Milly’s door had a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it but she could hear her voice going on and on, and occasionally a giggle. Well, at least she wasn’t lying there weeping.
She tried Ruby; her door was open, but she was completely engrossed in the last Harry Potter book.
‘Mummy! Can’t talk now.’
Fergie’s door was shut; she knocked on that.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Mum.’
‘What do you want? I’m busy.’
So this was where it all led, all those years of exhaustion and caring and worrying and mess and a love that was as unconditional as love could be: to closed doors and an instruction to go away. She wanted to cry.
She went downstairs again, very slowly, reflecting upon herself, and the mess she was making of just about everything: her family, her marriage and the company she had taken on so blithely and hopefully and which was getting the better of her, it seemed, day by day. It seemed almost alive to her at that moment, the House of Farrell, not just a collection of products, of offices, laboratories; not merely marketing tactics, balance sheets, business plans; but another wilful child, draining and hideously dependent.
But it was all down to her; she alone had to save it, make it work again. If she failed, a great deal would be lost; not just millions of pounds, but professional reputations, personal pride, and indeed, people’s very livelihoods. It was those people who mattered, above all, lured by her vision and her promises, all to be flung into the wilderness of unemployment if she failed.
And so – she couldn’t. She had to hold on. And she had to win.
This was bad. People had definitely started to notice. There really was nothing worse, she thought, than being apparently stood up in a public place. Especially in a place where appearances of every sort were majorly important.
She’d been early, and settled into a deep sofa in the Square Bar at Shoreditch House. That was fine, it wasn’t exactly full and the only other people there were also on their own and clearly waiting for friends. She pulled out her phone and started checking on her emails and then switched to Twitter. God, what did people do in this situation, before there were smartphones?
She ordered an Apple Cooler and sat sipping it as slowly as she could, sat back, trying to look relaxed. She’d dressed with huge care; chic but not showy – cream skirt (Zara) and brown knee high boots (Office) and a very pale pink silk shirt (Hugo Boss), with long full sleeves and a floppy collar, cut quite wide at the neckline. She’d gone out and bought it at lunchtime, not for tonight, obviously, just because it would be so useful over Christmas. Then she’d noticed the pale grey sweater she was wearing looked a bit worn, and she wanted to look – well, nice for this evening, so she decided to wear the shirt, which told the world its wearer knew exactly what was what, without trying too hard. Her hair was at the perfect stage too, a week out of being trimmed, highlights perfect; that was lucky.
All she needed now was someone sitting on the sofa with her . . .
The place began to fill up. Mostly newspaper journalists from Wapping; she recognised several people, including Jane Moore from the Sun. She’d met Jane once or twice; she was really nice. She waved at her slightly nervously; Jane waved back, said, ‘Hi, lovely to see you. Just going upstairs.’
Susie hoped she’d thought someone was getting her a drink from the bar . . .
A text arrived from Jonjo; she’d taken the precaution of swapping numbers with him earlier. Just as well: Sorry running bit l8 order a drink cu 6.30. She texted back Fine and reached for an Evening Standard someone had abandoned.
‘Susie, hi. Lovely to see you.’ It was Flo Brown, the lovely woman’s editor of the News; she was really friendly, sat down for five minutes, chatting, asking how things were. Susie could have kissed her. Actually, she did kiss her. Flo’s actor boyfriend joined them, briefly, and then two more friends: please, Jonjo, arrive now while I’m looking cool and popular. He didn’t. Then they left to go upstairs and eat. Please, please, Jonjo don’t arrive now, while I’m looking such an obvious no-mates. He didn’t.
It was almost seven. Bloody Guinevere. Had to be her fault. Had to. Although she was feeling quite irritated with Jonjo as well now.
Maybe she should go to the loo; that would pass five minutes. She slipped her phone into her bag, stood up: as she did so she heard a text arriving. No doubt to say they were going to be even l8-er. She was fumbling for it, when: ‘Susie! I’m so sorry. Got stuck in hideous traffic and I ran the last quarter mile.’ He did look quite flushed and was breathing heavily. ‘Guinevere’s given up, got to meet some critic, she sends her apologies. God, I’m sorry, really rude – what are you drinking?’
He looked even more amazing today in his City suit and white shirt, dark hair ruffled. He really was – well, something else. Lucky, lucky Guinevere.
‘You needn’t have worried,’ she said, kissing him briefly on the cheek, wondering what kindly god had seen off Guinevere for her, even if just for an evening. ‘Honestly I’ve been quite happy, chatting to people.’
‘No, well, it was bad,’ he said, ‘specially as we invited you and after what you did for Guinevere. It’s been tweeted round the world, that picture. What are you drinking?’
‘It was an Apple Cooler, but I’m a bit tired of it.�
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‘How do you feel about champagne cocktails?’
‘I feel great about champagne cocktails,’ said Susie, laughing.
‘Me too. They do good ones here. Look – you grab those two seats over there, I’ll get the drinks.’
‘So – how’s it working for Bianca?’ said Jonjo when they were settled. ‘She and Patrick are my best friends – well, Patrick really, but she’s been so kind to me too. I love her.’
‘She is great. And she’s wonderful to work for. Of course.’
She could hardly tell him how totally bloody it was.
‘And were you there before her, or did she bring you in?’
‘She kept me in,’ said Susie, grinning. ‘I was leaving and she persuaded me to stay.’
‘Cool.’
‘Yes, and it’s all very exciting. Relaunch of the brand coming up, lots to do.’
‘I don’t know much about cosmetics,’ said Jonjo, ‘except the size of the market of course. Mega.’
‘Yes, bigger than the car industry, I believe. Well people, women anyway, will pay anything for dreams. Dreams and promises.’
‘Promises? Not the actual thing, eternal youth and all that.’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ said Susie, laughing.
‘Oh, OK. Must be fun, though, your job.’
‘Oh, it is. Huge fun.’ Liar, liar! ‘How about yours?’
‘Well, I like it. It keeps me awake through the day.’
‘And what exactly do you do? I mean, I know you’re a trader, but . . .’
‘I’m a foreign exchange trader. We speculate on the fluctuation values of currencies – it’s all a big gamble, really. I love it. It’s high pressure, very much non-stop, quite exciting at times. And we have a lot of fun during the day, lot of laughs, bit boys own, all totally politically incorrect of course.’
‘Yes.’ Susie had heard about this. ‘I imagine you don’t have any girl traders?’
‘A couple. Hired for their looks rather than their brains, though. Feminists keep out. You a feminist?’
‘Um, yes, of course,’ said Susie primly.
‘You don’t look like one,’ said Jonjo.
‘Is that a compliment?’
‘Yeah, course.’ He grinned again.
‘Thank you.’
‘Guinevere is a feminist. Or thinks she is. She talks the talk anyway. Not sure about walking the walk. Want another?’
Susie’s glass was still half-full and her head was beginning to spin – the champagne cocktail had been extremely strong on top of the Apple Cooler, and she hadn’t eaten anything since a Danish on her way to the office.
‘No I’m fine,’ she said, ‘thank you. But could you grab some nibbles, nuts or something?’
‘Sure. Oh God!’ He looked at his phone. ‘Guinevere. I’m probably meant to be somewhere – oh, no, hang on – oh, right – she says this critic is taking her out to dinner. I’m not allowed on those gigs.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m a complete retard when it comes to art. Don’t know anything about it. Don’t know the words, don’t know the people, don’t know the galleries even. I got into awful trouble the other night because they all started talking about the Prado and I said I’d got some really cool trainers from them, went on about how special they were, the America Cup ones, you know, they’re patent leather, and they all just stared at me.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Susie, giggling, ‘you thought they meant Prada!’ This struck her as quite extraordinarily funny.
‘That’s it. I mean, honestly you’d think I’d killed a puppy, the evils I got. None of them spoke to me the rest of the evening.’
‘It’s all so stupid, that snobbery,’ said Susie. ‘It goes on in my business as well, the girls from the glossies can hardly bring themselves to speak to the mass market weeklies and then there’s the totally unbridgeable gap between the magazine journalists and the bloggers. I mean, none of them are exactly curing cancer, are they?’
‘Unlikely. Well I’m glad you’re not shocked. Guinevere was.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I almost wasn’t allowed to come to the party, forbidden to even mention anything that wasn’t about champagne or where to put coats. I’m glad you think it was funny.’
‘I think it was hilarious.’
‘That’s really nice,’ he said. And then he just looked at her, smiling, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners the way George Clooney’s did – he did look a little bit like George Clooney, actually, a young George Clooney . . . Get a grip, Susie, what are you like?
‘You know what, I’m so hungry,’ he said suddenly, ‘and I know you are. Look, would you’d like to get a bite to eat? Seeing as I’ve made you so late.’
Oh my God. How amazing. She opened her mouth to say she’d love to, that it would be really nice, and then stopped – didn’t it look a bit sad to have nothing on, to be totally available all evening, a week before Christmas?
‘I’m all right for a bit,’ she said cautiously. That was always a good one. Late dates looked excellent.
‘That’s fine. We could eat here. Or grab a cab, head up West. Where’ve you got to be later?’
‘Oh – oh, sort of Chelsea way.’
‘OK. Well maybe we’d better go there. Come on, I’ll get them to call a cab.’
While they were waiting she went to the loo, checked her phone. Still on for 8? Well, she wasn’t; it was almost that now. She texted back: Sorry, thing’s going on forever. Maybe 9.30–10.
Then she could text again later – if necessary . . .
Alone in a bar, Henk went into the gents and punched the door violently.
She came out, smiled at Jonjo; he was looking at his phone.
‘This is fine; she’s at the Bluebird with those creeps. Oh, did I say that?’
‘You did.’
He looked stricken.
‘OK, what I meant was those critics. Here we go, here’s our cab, after you.’
She’d slung her coat over her shoulders and it slithered off as soon as she sat down. He tried to help her pull it up again, failed; somehow his arm remained over her shoulders. Just casually. She smiled at him. Just casually . . .
Susie, think what you’re doing. He’s not yours, he can’t be yours, he’s the property of a very important high-profile person and anyway, your boss’s husband is his best friend.
He looked down at her suddenly, grinned, and kissed her cheek. Just her cheek.
‘This is turning into a fun evening.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes it is.’
He studied her face, started at her mouth, moved up to her eyes, then her hair.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘you are totally gorgeous. I—’
And then his phone rang; he rummaged in his pocket.
‘Excuse me. Guinevere! Hi. Yes. Yes, I see. Oh, but – sorry? But – Guinny – sorry, sorry, Guinevere, you don’t like me being with those people. I – what? But actually I’m sort of fixed up for the evening now – what? Oh, just – just . . .’
Just me, Susie thought, just me, the PR who was useful to his girlfriend, and who he was spending the evening with because his own plans had changed.
‘It’s fine,’ she mouthed at him.
‘Well, all right. But it could be a bit difficult. Well, it looks quite – rude. Yes, I know those people are important, but—’
Susie waved at him, mouthed, ‘Go, go.’
‘Yes, all right, Guinevere. Yeah, I’ll come over right now. To the Bluebird. Could be a slow journey. Yes, of course I’ll do my best. OK. OK. Bye.’
He switched his phone off, looked at her remorsefully.
‘I’m sorry. But the original idea was we should spend the evening together. Her and me I mean, so . . .’
Which she then cancelled, Susie thought. Bitch. And now maybe the art critics weren’t important enough, or were too dull.
‘Honestly, Jonjo,’ she said, ‘it’s fine. Fine. I have to meet th
ese people later, anyway.’
‘Yes, I know. But still, I was looking forward to our little supper.’
‘You’ll have a much nicer one at the Bluebird.’
‘Not necessarily. And you won’t be there. So where can I drop you? Where do you live?’
She looked out; they were already zooming across Holborn Viaduct. Damn. Too quick. ‘I live in Fulham. But I don’t want to get all the way out there. Listen, drop me in Sloane Square, presume you’re going that way?’
‘Sure.’
They sat in silence, the fun fractured, an odd sadness, disproportionate to the nature of their parting between them. They reached Hyde Park Corner, the back streets of Belgravia absurdly easily – where was the bloody traffic, come on, just a little jam somewhere, please!
‘OK,’ said Jonjo, as they drove down Eaton Place. ‘Well, sorry again. And thank you again. It’s been really nice. I . . .’ And then he did it. He leaned over and kissed her, hard, on the mouth. It was surprising. And lovely. And very, very sexy. And there was something else too, that wasn’t just sex; something new to her, a sense of being close to where she had always wished to be, somewhere warm and calm and absolutely in accord with her, the real her, not the cool flirty person she pretended to be.
And then he pulled away and said, very quietly: ‘I think it’s just as well we’re not going to have dinner together. It would have been quite – dangerous.’ And then he kissed her again, only this time more thoughtfully, exploring her mouth, his hand in her hair, pushing through it, his tongue working on her – his other hand now moving up her leg, under her skirt, stroking her, pushing at her, and she felt herself filling up with sex. It was the only way she could describe it, leaping, lovely, yearning, sweeping sex. She felt she would have done anything at that moment, taken her clothes off, done it there and then in the taxi, in the middle of Sloane Square; she had never wanted anyone so badly in her life.
‘You are very lovely,’ he said. ‘Very, very lovely. The best thing that’s happened to me for a long time. I – oh God!’
‘Sloane Square, mate,’ said the taxi driver, sliding back his window with a sadistic flourish.
And Susie pulled down her skirt, hauled her coat from where it had fallen on the floor, shook her hair back, and then, getting out of the taxi rather slowly, said, ‘Bye Jonjo, and thank you . . .’
A Perfect Heritage Page 36