A Perfect Heritage

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Oh, not in that direction at all,’ he said, looking embarrassed, and adding rather belatedly, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Well, nice to talk to you, Bertie. You’re around for a little while, I hope. You won’t disappear up the M1 in a puff of smoke while we’re not looking?’ She smiled, an over-bright smile.

  ‘No, no. I’ll come and say goodbye, of course. When – when the time comes. Well, good to talk to you, Lara. Bye now.’

  ‘Bye Bertie.’

  She stood looking after him as he strode out into the street and walked briskly away. She felt silly and absurdly near to tears. She had had some brush-offs in her time, but that had been quite severe. Well, she wouldn’t try again. Being an embarrassment was not her style.

  Bertie hoped he hadn’t seemed rude but he was rather afraid he had. He would have loved to talk to Lara about the new job, but she had so clearly been avoiding him for weeks, it hadn’t seemed appropriate. As for where he was going – how could he have shared a cab with her and asked to be let out at Lincoln’s Inn which was so clearly legal territory. She was bound to have heard the rumours about his divorce, but there was no way he was going to confirm them so unmistakably.

  He was dreading the afternoon: meeting the solicitor with Priscilla, going through the legal and financial essentials and it would have been wonderful to talk to someone who had been through it themselves and could encourage him, even prepare him a little for what might happen. Perhaps in the old days their relationship would have withstood such complex and uncomfortable matters; but as things were, it would be asking far too much. More and more he felt sure she was in a new relationship; she was looking wonderful, whole lot of new clothes, she seldom worked late, always rushing off somewhere or other – no, it would be out of the question to ask for her advice and even guidance.

  He was having a dreadful time; his mother had taken to giving him regular lectures on the folly of what he was doing, both personally and professionally, reminding him constantly that he had never worked outside the House of Farrell, that he had never been successful within it. ‘Oh, I know you’ve made a fist of this new job, but really, Bertie, hardly a difficult field. Personnel!’ And she continually told him, with considerable force, that divorce was a rough and expensive business and that he had no idea what he was embarking upon.

  ‘Your father and I had our differences, everyone does, but no marriage is perfect and there is a great deal to be gained from staying within it and seeing it through. It’s a miserable business being on your own – I should know. And I hope you’re not harbouring any ideas about finding someone else or starting again, because you’re far too old, and not exactly a catch, especially without the House of Farrell behind you . . .’

  On and on it went, day after day; he was beginning to work with his door shut and leave promptly on the dot of six, but she managed to corner him just the same. And he was forced to continue to live in the Esher house, as did Priscilla, who alternated between outright hostility or, less frequently, a rather uncomfortable display of conciliatory behaviour. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

  The nice girl at Cathay Pacific Airlines had managed to change Patrick’s flight to one twelve hours earlier and so he reached Heathrow in the early evening rather than the following morning. He called Bianca, but her phone was on message; he rang the house and was told that Bianca and Patrick Bailey were unable to take the incoming call, but if he would leave his name and number they would call him back as soon as possible.

  He left no message on either phone, preferring to go home – it would be at least nine, possibly half past before he retrieved his luggage, left the airport and reached Hampstead. The traffic was dreadful, the cabbie told him, and there was nothing more irritating than having to call repeatedly and say he was going to be later and later still. Or indeed receiving such calls.

  It was actually almost ten when he reached the house; it looked extremely dark and still. Damn. He had been sure, foolishly perhaps, that Bianca would be at home; she certainly hadn’t mentioned any possibility that she might go out, rather that she would be very much at home, working either on the franchise aspect of the launch, something that Patrick was most intrigued by, or the Georgian architecture project which was now overdue.

  He called out from the hall, disappointed in spite of himself; Karen appeared from the snug.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Bailey, I wasn’t expecting you.’

  Patrick said, trying not to sound sarcastic, that he was sorry and where was everybody? The children were all asleep, she said, even Milly who had come home very tired after spending the evening with Lucy Farrell at Lady Farrell’s flat. ‘Bianca knew about this of course, was very happy about it.’

  ‘I’m sure. And Bianca?’

  ‘Well, Bianca’s also out. Having a meeting and then dinner with the advertising people. She said she might be quite late, so she asked me to stay. But now you’re home . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. You go, Karen, that’s fine.’

  He made himself a sandwich, feeling foolish as well as rather sad, and after watching TV for a while, decided to go to bed. Jet lag was beginning to hit. He looked at his watch – twelve thirty, for God’s sake. Bianca didn’t do late nights in the week, and she was going to Milan in the morning.

  He rang her mobile; still on message. And he had no idea of the advertising boys’ numbers. He couldn’t even remember their names. There was nothing he could do about any of it.

  Patrick left a note in the hall that he was home, took a sleeping pill and went to bed; in spite of the pill he woke up at half past two, and was amazed to find Bianca still not home, or not in the bed; maybe she had gone into the spare room, so as not to disturb him.

  He padded cautiously along the corridor, peered into an empty guest room, before going, angry and worried in equal measures, down to the snug to wait for her, then going back to bed, still sleepless, and calling her number repeatedly. She did not reply.

  He finally went back to sleep, but his awareness of his own unhappiness and the deterioration in their marriage had deepened sharply and another fear, also subliminal, that he could never have even imagined a few months before, struggled nearer to the surface.

  She was enjoying it so much. If only she’d had something like this to do, when she’d been so desperate. It wasn’t just that it was fascinating watching Lucy work, transforming her from this personality to that, sweet to cool, classic to wild, it was entering this new grown-up world, and such a wonderful one too. The evening they had gone to Lucy’s grandmother’s flat really had been like going back in time: it was clearly exactly as it had been when she first lived there, full of wonderful furniture and ornaments, which Lucy explained to her was deco – all mirrors and bronze figures and fringed lamps. ‘It’s the period she loves best, she says house style has never been so glamorous.’ And then Lady Farrell herself was incredible, very, very stylish, with the most amazing white hair and wearing sort of loose silky pyjamas which Lucy explained were called palazzo pyjamas, and by a very famous designer called Pucci. She’d stood watching Lucy as she worked – apparently she was still so involved with the company that she had to approve every single little thing, which of course included the looks Lucy was creating. Milly hadn’t realised that; she’d thought her mother was in charge of everything.

  Lady Farrell had produced some smoked salmon sandwiches halfway through the session and offered Lucy some of the champagne she was drinking, but Lucy said she really couldn’t because then she’d make a mess of the make up. She didn’t exactly talk to Milly; in fact she treated her a bit like a specimen in a laboratory, studying her intently and in silence for long periods of time and addressing all her comments on the looks to Lucy, not even asking Milly what she thought of them. As Milly would have been petrified to pass any comments at all, this was actually a rather good thing. They were there for about three hours, and when they left Lady Farrell said they could come and work at the flat any time they liked. Milly hoped they�
��d be able to go there again, but Lucy said it was actually easier working in the make-up room at Farrell House, which was kept stocked with every product in every shade they produced and a lot of the competitors’ products; it had a mirror with lights all round it, like actresses had in their dressing rooms, and Milly felt like a film star when she sat there.

  One day next week, Jayce was coming in to have some of the looks done on her, and some new ones created as well; she was so excited, she told Milly, she couldn’t sleep or eat. As this was over a Big Mac and a large strawberry shake, Milly didn’t take too much notice. But she thought it was a good thing Jayce hadn’t got to face Lady Farrell.

  And then there was something else really amazing: Lucy had a friend who did a beauty blog and she might be going to write about the new looks when the launch happened and Lucy said she might do some pictures of how to do it and that was just impossibly exciting.

  It was even helping with the thought of going back to school, which she had decided she must do the following week; it was a bit like falling off a horse, the longer you left it, the more frightened you felt about getting back on.

  Carey and Co had been weirdly silent the first few days she was away, no horrible messages on Ask.fm or sneaky texts – she supposed they must have thought they were about to be in huge trouble – but as the days went by and nothing happened, it started again, slowly at first, with texts saying in the awful code they used that could never get them caught, things like We do miss you, darling Milly, can’t wait for you to be back and then some quite nasty things on Ask.fm, like was she really actually ill or just pretending and was the medicine working and if not maybe she should try taking the whole bottle at once.

  Anyway, that had been two days ago and here she was, in her father’s car – her mother was away – being driven to school because somehow sitting on the bus just seemed too scary, and he was very sweet and kept asking her if she was sure about this, and she had only to say and he’d come in with her. And when they got to school, and she saw everyone walking in, she really thought she might throw up, and she grabbed her father’s hand and said actually, yes, could he just walk in with her. He said of course he would and pulled over, but it was a double yellow and as he started to get out a very large lady traffic warden waddled over to them and said did he realise he was illegally parked and she would have to give him a ticket if he stayed there for more than three minutes or something and he said that was fine by him, and she got out her warden’s camera and her book of tickets, and suddenly it didn’t seem worth it and Milly took a deep breath and said, ‘It’s all right Daddy, I’ll be fine.’ And feeling exactly as she had when she had first dived from the middle board at the swimming pool, not the lower one, she got out by herself and walked very quickly into school.

  Going into the classroom was the worst thing; a complete silence fell, everyone turned to look at her, and then Carey said, ‘Mills! How lovely. We do all hope you’re feeling better!’ And everyone started giggling and Milly sat down at her desk, and started unloading her schoolbag and thought if their plan, hers and Lucy’s, didn’t work, she really would have to give in and find another school somewhere, maybe in the wilds of Scotland. Or outer Mongolia . . .

  Her parents, unbeknown to her, had gone to the school, and confronted the headmistress with what had happened; initially she expressed disbelief, and then some slightly reluctant remorse.

  ‘Of course it must have been dreadful for her, and we should have spotted what was going on . . .’

  ‘As should we,’ Patrick had said. ‘None of us can afford to be complacent.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ said Mrs Blackman, mistakenly imagining she was being let off the hook. ‘And this sort of thing has gone on since time immemorial, as we all know, merely the methods have changed.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Bianca, ‘one would not condone the torture inflicted on innocent people.’

  ‘Well, of course not. But I hardly think this amounted to torture.’

  ‘Oh, but it did,’ said Patrick. ‘The blind eye is a dangerous object, Mrs Blackman. Vigilance is essential, wherever there is so much as a suspicion of wrongdoing. I find it a little hard, for instance, to believe that Milly’s form mistress could not have noticed she was the only child in her form to have no Christmas cards delivered by the school post.’

  ‘Oh now, Mr Bailey, I think that is asking rather a lot of our staff. They are very busy, especially at Christmas, and—’

  ‘Mrs Blackman, you cannot tell me in one breath that we all know that bullying has always existed and, in the next, that you are too busy to look out for it.

  ‘Milly has decided to return to school, showing remarkable courage and determination, and she is absolutely determined that nothing should be said to the girls. We actually promised her we wouldn’t come, but we felt you and your staff should learn something from this whole wretched business. I would personally like to confront the girls and their parents, but Milly insists that would merely expose her to further misery when all the fuss had died down and the girls punished. And I fear, having heard what she was going through, that she is right.’

  ‘I can’t believe that!’ said Mrs Blackman.

  ‘Unfortunately for Milly, we can,’ said Bianca.

  Bianca walked into the house, exhausted after her trip to Milan. Fergie was sitting at the breakfast bar when she walked in, his face dark and moody. God, he was going to be an adolescent soon; could she stand two of them?

  ‘Fergie, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m being picked on, that’s what’s the matter.’

  Not another one, not another of her children being bullied. She struggled to sound cheerful and matter of fact.

  ‘Who’s picking on you, Fergie?’

  ‘Mr Thomas,’ he said.

  It was almost a relief that it wasn’t other boys.

  ‘Really. Why?’

  ‘He says he’s taking me out of the scholarship class if I don’t put more work in. He says I haven’t been working – and I have. He’s sent you an email, he says, but he probably hasn’t. He lies about everything!’

  ‘Well, let’s see, shall we . . .’ She pulled her iPad out of her briefcase. And there it was, an email from Mr Thomas, Fergie’s form master, headed ‘Fergie’s progress’.

  She skimmed through it.

  ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Bailey, Regret to inform you . . . very little effort going in . . . have to withdraw him from the scholarship class unless sustained improvement . . . would welcome a meeting with you both . . .’

  Guilt hit her; she knew she hadn’t taken enough interest in Fergie and his scholastic progress recently. What with trying to sort out Milly and working on Ruby’s Georgian architecture project there had been very little of her ‘quality time’, as it was so enragingly known, left. She had assumed that Fergie had less need of her at the moment; he was always so cheerful and successful and it wasn’t this academic year that he would sit his Common Entrance for God’s sake, and yes, she should have done more, but then Patrick hadn’t been much cop either, thanks to Saul . . . bloody Saul . . . who she hadn’t heard from since— No, don’t start thinking about Saul, Bianca, don’t . . .

  Her mobile rang; it was Patrick.

  ‘Hi. I just got Mr Thomas’s email. Very disappointing. I think we should discuss it. When will you be home?’

  ‘I’m home already,’ said Bianca. It was the only moment of the day she had enjoyed.

  ‘Ah. Right. Well – see you in an hour or so.’

  ‘OK.’

  She put down her phone and gave Fergie a hug; for once he didn’t resist.

  ‘Don’t worry, Fergie, we’ll sort it out.’

  He managed a grin.

  ‘Thanks, Mum, and I will work harder. Promise! Um – all right if I go into the snug?’

  ‘What? And start playing one of your wretched games? No, it is not all right. I just suddenly feel on Mr Thomas’s side. You go up to your room and get on with your homework and we’ll see
you later.’

  ‘Dad home tonight?’

  ‘Yes, he’ll be home in an hour.’

  Ruby arrived back from a playdate; ‘With my new best friend. She’s called Hannah. She’s coming here tomorrow. Karen said that would be all right, didn’t you, Karen?’

  Usually, Ruby would have asked her if she could have a new friend round, Bianca thought. Another sign of the times . . .

  Patrick arrived ten minutes later.

  ‘So – how was the trip?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. Successful, I think. But I’m very tired,’ she said, desperate not to have the conversation about Fergie now.

  ‘Of course.’ His tone was only a little loaded.

  ‘And – yours? Your trip?’

  ‘Oh, it was very good. I’d really like to talk to you about it. Got a bit of a problem. Maybe over supper?’

  ‘I’d – I’d like that, of course. But I’ve got a load of papers to go through – got a very early meeting with the VCs and the lawyers. It’s really important.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Maybe tomorrow? Or the weekend?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He said nothing for a while, poured himself a beer, then sat down looking at her.

  ‘Bianca . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We need to have a conversation.’

  ‘Really? About your trip? I said I’d like to, but not now, not tonight.’

  ‘No, not about my trip. Or yours. About Fergie.’

  As she could have predicted, the conversation about Fergie and his problems was familiar and dispiriting, the blame knocked backwards and forwards between them: not enough attention was being given to the children and their work . . . Fergie and Milly were at crucial stages . . . Bianca hadn’t put in the extra time she had promised . . . and had Patrick put in any time at all? . . . well he was owed a little latitude on that one surely . . . he’d done it all for years and years . . . on and on it went. Finally she told him that she had talked seriously with Fergie, that he’d promised to work harder, and they composed an email to Mr Thomas agreeing they should have a meeting and asking him to suggest some dates – mornings, the earlier the better, are best for both of us – and said they had had a very serious talk with Fergie, who fully understood the importance of what had happened.