Bianca sat and thought very hard for a while about Patrick’s real reason for leaving. It had been hard to establish. Very hard. He hadn’t exactly accused her of anything, except of putting her work before him. Which had happened many times before. It was baffling.
‘We wouldn’t be even having this conversation,’ he kept saying, ‘if you really loved me. You wouldn’t be talking about when you’d give up that job. You’d just do it.’
‘But Patrick, that’s not true. I wouldn’t. I can’t. I simply can’t. Not now. I have huge responsibilities. I’m happy, more than happy, to think about leaving, once the launch is over—’
‘Yes, I’ve heard that one before,’ he said, and his voice was very bitter. ‘There’s always a “when this is over” rider. And then, somehow, always another time, another job, another company.’
‘But you’ve always said you didn’t want a stay-at-home wife. Always. You have, Patrick, don’t deny it.’
‘There’s a difference between your working, however intensively, and what’s been happening recently.’
‘You keep saying that. But what?’
‘I don’t want even to discuss it,’ he said. ‘If you really loved me you’d know what I meant.’
‘But I don’t know what you mean. And I do really love you.’
‘The two things are mutually exclusive,’ he said, ‘unfortunately. Anyway, it’s your decision and I must respect it.’
‘But I haven’t made a decision!’
‘Oh, but Bianca, you have.’ He looked at her, his face almost unbearably sad. ‘And I’m going.’
‘OK. Susie, what I want is an updated update. We’ve got – what? – four weeks to go. I want to know exactly how it’s all coming together.’
Susie studied her surreptitiously as she pulled out her iPad. She knew this wasn’t really necessary; she had been through it with Bianca countless times, and apart from a few very minor details nothing had changed. Of course she was horribly worried and stressed about the launch, who wouldn’t be, but she was also behaving out of character quite a lot of the time, not delegating properly, which was normally one of her greatest talents, fretting over tiny details, calling meetings over absolutely nothing at all. And she looked exhausted every day. Poor Bianca. And – not very happy.
There had been rumours of course, and Jonjo had actually confirmed some of them: Patrick, depressed and non-communicative, even with Jonjo, his oldest friend, had told him that he and Bianca weren’t getting along very well and agreed they needed a bit of a break from each other, especially while she was so busy with the launch. He was shortly going to join Saul in Sydney for a few days; Patrick was checking out a company there and Saul was checking out Sydney property just in case Janey Finlayson did up sticks and settle there, taking Dickon with her. Although, Jonjo had added, she would be a very brave woman if she did.
Anyway, Patrick was spending weekends at the country house and, during the week, was staying at some grotty hotel – of course, grotty by Jonjo’s standards wasn’t most people’s and probably meant it wasn’t five star. Jonjo had said – of course – that Patrick could come and stay at his apartment whenever he liked, but apparently Patrick had looked appalled, and said he really wanted to be on his own.
The whole thing was upsetting Jonjo, who had always regarded Patrick’s and Bianca’s as the perfect marriage and living proof that such a thing existed; Susie, so in love and so happy that she felt as if she was permanently walking a few inches above the ground, and encased moreover in a shiny, impermeable bubble, tried to reassure him.
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. They both live in such total stress it’s bound to affect them, especially at the moment. Bianca is just exhausted, and so worried she doesn’t seem to know what day it is half the time, there’s so much riding on this launch. Once it’s over, and they have time for each other again, it’ll all be sorted out. Try not to worry.’
‘No,’ said Jonjo, ‘it’s more than that, I know it is. I’m going to take him out to dinner, before he goes off to Sydney, try and get him to talk.’
‘But Jonjo – maybe he doesn’t want to talk.’
‘Well, I have to try. I owe him a lot. You, for one thing. Not just meeting you, but he told me to persevere, finding out what had gone wrong with you.’
‘Really? Well, you didn’t exactly do what he said,’ said Susie, kissing him. ‘For two months you never came near me.’
‘I tried that first night, you know, when I saw you and Henk? How was I meant to carry on after that? Anyway, the point is that Patrick really cared about me and the state I was in. If you don’t mind I’ll try and nobble him early next week.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. Anyway, I’m going to be pretty stressed and over-occupied myself. God, I hope it doesn’t affect us in the same way.’
‘It won’t,’ said Jonjo. ‘Nothing could. I love you, Susie Harding. I really really do. I want you to marry me, I want you to have my babies, I—’
‘And I want to marry you and have your babies,’ said Susie automatically. And then she stopped abruptly and stared at him and said, ‘What did you say?’
‘I said I loved you and I wanted you to marry me and have my babies.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Susie. ‘But – but – Jonjo, for heaven’s sake, oh my God, why didn’t you say so?’
‘I just did, you lunatic.’
‘I know, but properly down on one knee!’
‘Yeah, yeah, and up the top of the Empire State or the Shard, or on a remote Caribbean island with a hundred violins going on in the background. I don’t go for all that stuff. Tell it like it is, that’s my motto. At the right moment. Which just came.’
‘How could you think that was the right moment? Early in the morning, when we’re supposed to be going to the gym?’
‘Well, it obviously was. You accepted me, didn’t you?’
‘I did?’
‘Well – yes. So we’re all good. Now we can go to the gym.’
‘Jonjo Bartlett,’ said Susie, her eyes wide with wonder, ‘I just totally can’t believe that you just asked me to marry you.’
‘Well, I did. And of course you can believe it because you just said – oh, this is getting too complicated. Come here and give me a kiss. And maybe a bit more. And . . .’
Later, she said from within an even shinier, more impermeable bubble, ‘So – do you have the other ingredient necessary to become engaged? Other than two people who agree they want to be?’
‘Er – what would that be?’
‘The ring, of course. Has to be a ring.’
‘Well, I have, as a matter of fact. I’ve had it a while now.’
‘What! Where?’
‘In my sock drawer.’
‘Jonjo, that’s ridiculous!’
‘No, it isn’t. It’s safe in there; it doesn’t let the rain in, you weren’t going to find it—’
‘I might have done.’
‘Susie, when did you ever go into my sock drawer? You have been a grave disappointment in one way, I have to tell you. I thought girls got blokes’ socks and shirts and underpants and stuff all washed and ironed and sorted. All you do is unsort my underpants.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’m a professional woman, I don’t have time for laundry work. Can I see the ring?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, Jonjo. Please!’
‘Why does it matter?’
‘It just does.’
‘You’re just like all the others, aren’t you? You’ll be saying you hope it’s a great big rock of a diamond in a minute.’
‘No I won’t.’
‘Well, it is.’
‘Oh what? Please, please Jonjo, let me see it. Please . . .’
‘Not till you sort out my sock drawer. Now where are you going?’
‘To the laundry basket.’ She reappeared, her arms full of dirty clothes.
‘It’s not in the laundry basket. It’s in my sock drawer.’
‘I know but you
’ve made me feel so guilty I’m going to put a sock wash on, then you might give it to me.’
‘That is seriously mercenary. I don’t know that I want to marry you after all. Oh, come here. No don’t, go and have a rummage in the drawer instead. See if you like it. It should fit. I took one of yours to have it sized.’
‘Oh, Jonjo,’ said Susie, standing suddenly very still, staring at him, ‘I do love you and I don’t need some wanky ring. Just you. What are you laughing at?’
‘You. Standing there stark naked apart from an armful of dirty socks clasped to your bosom. Bit of a shame, can’t see your bosom, but the intention’s excellent. Now let me see if I can find this wanky ring you say you don’t want . . .’
‘My God,’ said Jemima the next day, ‘that is some ring. Your actual rock. Where’d you get it from, Ms Harding?’
‘I found it at the bottom of a sock drawer,’ said Susie offhandedly.
She went over the launch arrangements with Bianca carefully, being as reassuring as she could. It had been by far the toughest assignment she had ever had; the combination of an absolute need for secrecy until the last minute and a carefully planned build-up of excitement at the same time – a PR’s nightmare.
And then there was the horrendous balancing act between the bloggers and the beauty editors, so jealous and so wary of one another – in the fashion world now the top bloggers sat beside the fashion editors in the front row. The fashion editors were not overkeen on this . . .
And while it was an invaluable weapon, Twitter had made publicity doubly difficult – some big brand had famously put one of the important beauty directors on the Eurostar to Paris for a sneak preview of some product or other and she had started tweeting about it; the bloggers had got on to it, and been raging for days.
There was also the impossibility of relying on anyone’s discretion. Oh, for the days of exclusives and embargoes: now the slightest leak of anything that might be newsworthy was tweeted across the globe in seconds. Mac had had a policy, for a while, of making the bloggers sign an embargo form, but they had to give it up because it simply didn’t work.
So releasing details of any new product was unbelievably complex: there had always been the problem of the weeklies versus the monthlies, but now there were the weekly glossies with their six-week lead times, and the bloggers as well. It really was incredibly complicated. She had had to do releases and presentations of The Collection, of course, in the standard way, but that was all; and she was aware that although they liked it, and loved the perfume and its story, it didn’t exactly set the Thames on fire.
Of course it would when it was the global online launch – and the Seine, and the Hudson as well, and she yearned to be able to break that story, but she couldn’t risk even a hint about that, although she did of course talk up The Shop and its history and the link between the accession and the Jubilee, but again she couldn’t see any of the press going wild about it. It was sooo frustrating.
It was frightening, too, the tweeting thing: you couldn’t afford the slightest mistake or bit of misjudgment. Nothing got them all on their phones faster than a venue that was less than ice-cool, or canapés that weren’t cutting edge. Or anything less than a faultless service; it was not unknown for plaintive tweets to go out about press office phones not being answered.
But so far all was as well as it could possibly be, and there was, without doubt, a slow, steady build-up of excitement.
After a great many anguished meetings and brainstormings and an acceleration of stress, they had moved the entire launch forward a week. Bianca had come in one morning, white-faced and taut, and said she was very worried about timing; Susie, imagining she was simply concerned about the almost impossibly tight schedule, assured her as calmly as she could that everything was going to be fine, the invitations were printed, the venues booked, she was checking them every few days. Whereupon Bianca looked at her, her eyes dark with exhaustion and said that wasn’t what she meant; she had woken up at four that morning with the deep conviction that the week after the Jubilee Weekend was a mistake. ‘Everyone will be Jubileed out, it’ll be all Olympics, whereas the week before we can ride in on the coat-tails of all the Jubilee stuff which will be reaching a climax and capitalise on it far more effectively. In fact, afterwards there’ll be nothing to capitalise on anyway. We’ll be the carthorse after the Lord Mayor’s show.’
Susie, who had had anxieties of her own along the same lines and crushed them ruthlessly, reckoning Bianca and the advertising boys must know what they were doing and envisaging now the impossibility of changing dates and venues, said helplessly, ‘But Bianca!’ and Bianca had said, ‘Susie, please don’t argue, I spoke to Tod about it earlier and he totally agrees with me, says a lot of people will take the whole week off after the four day weekend anyway and I’ve also talked to Lara and Jonathan and they all agree. So we’ll just have to do it somehow.’
Susie, feeling that if Tod and Lara and Jonathan Tucker were all publicly hung, drawn and quartered outside Farrell House that would be far too good for them, said nothing; there was clearly no point and she was going to need every nanosecond left to her to reorganise her campaign. She merely nodded, said she would do what she could, and went back to her office, pausing only to put her head round Lara’s door and say, ‘Thanks a bunch for that!’
But – somehow she had done it. It had nearly killed her but she had. Well, actually they all had. The reprinting of the invitations was the least of her worries, it was the venue that was the problem; there was no way the ballroom of the South Bank Palace Hotel was going to be available a week earlier. The manager was not going to smile and say yes of course, Miss Harding, no problem at all. What he said was so deeply (albeit understandably) unpleasant, so filled with threats of legal action and massive cancellation fees that Susie found herself weeping into a double brandy that evening, brought to her in her office by Lara, who attempted to comfort her and told her she would go round to the Palace and personally attack the manager in the goolies.
‘It’s not just that,’ Susie said, wiping her eyes, ‘it’s where we’re going to have it. I mean, who will have an even half suitable space available at this sort of notice? I’ve tried everywhere . . .’
‘Well,’ Lara said, ‘no hotel, that’s for sure, or public space. We have to think laterally, Susie. I am so sorry. But it is the right decision. If only we’d all spoken up before – but Bianca wouldn’t have listened anyway – oh Tamsin, not now dear.’
An hour later she bumped into Tamsin in the loo; Tamsin said she was sorry if she’d arrived at a bad moment, but she couldn’t help overhearing what Susie had been saying and she didn’t know if it would be any good, but her parents’ house in Knightsbridge had a massive reception room – ‘They call it the ballroom and my cousin had her coming out dance there. I could ask them if you could borrow it – my dad would love it, I should think, and Mum would go completely mental, she loves anything like that. As long as she was invited,’ she added.
Lara said she was sure Tamsin’s mum would be invited.
And indeed she was; and not only invited, but she and Lord Brownley appeared (at their express wish) on the invitation as co-hosts with Farrell; how much better, Susie thought, looking lovingly at the proofed invitation, for the launch to be held ‘at the home of Lord and Lady Brownley, 1 Sloane Lane SW3’ than in the ballroom of some overblown hotel – and how much more inviting and intriguing for the press. And in fact, when she went with Tamsin to meet them and thank them personally, and see the room – which was lovely, high, arched windows and gorgeous wooden floor – she was made to feel she had done them an enormous favour, rather than the other way round. Lord Brownley was a techno buff and deeply intrigued by the notion of a global online event taking place in his house (it was felt he had to be acquainted with some of the details). ‘Don’t worry, he won’t tell anyone,’ Tamsin said. ‘He’s so not a gossip.’ And Lady Brownley, who had once been a model she told Susie (‘Once is the operative w
ord,’ Tamsin said later) was enchanted by the notion of involvement in what was clearly to be an occasion of some glamour.
‘I am just thrilled,’ she said to Susie. ‘It’s going to be so exciting. Will Athina be there? She and my mother once had a huge fight, they were both godmothers to the same baby, can’t remember who because I wasn’t even born, and apparently Athina was determined to trump Mummy’s present to the baby, and was frightfully withering about Mummy’s at the actual christening. I mean, can you imagine?’
Susie could imagine only too well.
Since then, so far, things had gone brilliantly. Launch Day had now been set for Wednesday May 30th.
‘If it could be June, that’d be better, bandwagon-wise, but the lst is a Friday and London will be emptying fast,’ Bianca explained to Mike and Hugh, ‘and it’s twelve noon for the big Switch On as it’s known in the company. It’s a compromise of course, but for most of the shops it won’t at least be the middle of the night. New York will be awake, at least, it’s perfect for Europe and even in Sydney it’ll be eleven p.m., Singapore eight – not bad.’
The invitations were for eleven, with champagne and canapés and at eleven thirty Bianca would take the stage; the ticking clock would be beside her, projected on to a screen, and at the appropriate moment, she would press a button, the screen would revolve and there would be Jess, in her sequinned dress.
‘It should bring the house down,’ Susie said.
After which, pause for brief press conference with Jess, and then the screens would go on; and ‘Music lights action,’ said Susie, and the Switch On would begin.
They had had a virtually one hundred per cent acceptance rate to the launch. ‘But that doesn’t mean a lot,’ Susie warned Bianca. ‘If it’s a wet morning, or someone gets Sienna Miller or Cara Delevingne to be at their thing, we’ll be dumped, just like that.’ And her fingers snapped.
Bianca said slightly crisply she didn’t need warning – she wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the vagaries of the press.
The ‘something beautiful’ campaign was working – well, beautifully. Susie got endless calls as to what the launch was exactly about, and how it was global, but refused to give more than the mildest hint, telling them they’d just have to wait and see.
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