A Perfect Heritage

by Penny Vincenzi

  He had been told repeatedly that he could face legal action as a result of this; he merely shrugged and said he would take the law on, or this particular aspect of it, and fight it – if necessary, to the death. So far he had not been required to step up to that particular plate; he had avoided it carefully. He interviewed potential employees rarely, and potential female employees of childbearing age never. His HR director was brilliant at making any senior position sound impossible, stressing regretfully the inevitability of domestic disruption, impossible hours, and an inhospitable workplace environment. Any woman prepared to take such horrors on were generally extremely young and childless. Bianca, however, had fascinated him in her ability to crash through the ceiling, encumbered as she was by her three young children; but she had had the unarguable and immense asset of the one person capable of satisfactorily replacing those children’s mother: their father. And Saul had deprived her of that asset by removing him – and turned her world upside down. For which he had felt some degree of remorse; although, of course, Patrick had chosen to work for him of his own free will. And he knew, moreover, he had rather underplayed the demands the job might make on Patrick’s time; for which guilt was added to the remorse.

  He read the text twice, Hello. I hope your visit is successful, in whatever way you wish. I collected Dickon last night from judo and he seemed very cheerful. Patrick is coming to Sydney as of course you know. He’s left me, which you may not. He wants a divorce. Please be kind to him, please listen to him carefully. And keep me posted. xx

  Saul had booked Patrick into the Langham as well. There was a company in their sights, a burgeoning tin-mining complex in Darwin, its value soaring on the stock exchange by the day; its boss, with the absurd cliché of a name of Doug Douglas – how could he entrust the future of his child to a people who coined such names? – was coming to Sydney to meet Patrick and then fly with him up to Darwin to show him exactly what he would be missing if he advised Saul against investment.

  But not for twenty-four hours; in the meantime Patrick could brief Saul with what information he had already garnered and his consequent instincts, which were almost entirely positive.

  Patrick would arrive at Kingsford Smith airport late that night; Saul had arranged a car to meet him and intended to be, theoretically at any rate, asleep when Patrick arrived, leaving a note in his room inviting him to brunch with Doug Douglas, rather than breakfast in his suite. Patrick would then be as clear-headed as possible for any discussions that might take place, not only with Doug Douglas about the tin mines, but with Saul about his marriage.

  It was against his inclination and out of character and he dreaded it; but the acknowledged sense of responsibility he felt towards the Baileys had just been increased considerably. Something had to be done; he must try to do it.

  ‘So,’ said Patrick to Saul as they settled down to talk, the fairly dreadful Mr Douglas dispatched to his own hotel, mercifully on the other side of the harbour, ‘how much longer are you staying here?’

  What he was asking in a code that he knew Saul would crack at once was the situation vis à vis Dickon; he was aware not only that Saul might want to talk about it – and would remain silent if he didn’t – but that for some reason he had become one of the few, the very few, people that Saul appeared to be willing to talk to at all.

  He had no idea why this should be; he was the opposite of the touchy feely male who normally prompted such confidences, but perhaps that was the reason. Perhaps Saul found his public-school reticence reassuring.

  ‘Couple more days,’ Saul said. He looked at Patrick’s scarcely touched plate; his own was already inevitably empty. ‘I want to look at the school Janey and this Bernard French have suggested. And I’m checking out the area where he proposes they live. That’s crucial.’

  ‘You sound – well,’ Patrick corrected himself, ‘does that mean it’s looking more – more likely?’

  ‘It’s a possibility I have to face,’ said Saul. ‘I’m still intending to fight it, obviously. But the more knowledge I have the better equipped I am to do that. And if the neighbourhood is bad, it will provide me with increased ammunition.’

  Patrick felt this was unlikely; the man in question was a rich successful advertising executive, scarcely likely to be moving to some dodgy area of Sydney.

  ‘Any idea where it is?’

  ‘Mossman.’

  ‘Mossman’s extremely nice,’ said Patrick, ‘big houses, very expensive, lovely beaches.’

  ‘Really? Well, I still need to check it out. How do you know Sydney so well?’

  ‘We had an extended family holiday here about four years ago. Bianca had an aunt here, and we stayed with her. It was – it was a very nice trip,’ he said, and the memory of this visit was surprisingly vivid, endless days on sunny beaches, body boarding with the children, cooking fish on the barbecues so thoughtfully provided on almost every beach, exploring the Blue Mountains in a campervan, watching the surfers at Bondi flying in on the huge waves, going to a rock concert at the Olympic stadium, and a children’s concert at the Opera House, climbing the Harbour Bridge with Bianca – that had been amazing – catching sight of the whales far out at sea off the Northern Beaches . . . it seemed, in retrospect, a time of infinite, sunbleached happiness, entirely devoid of care. He remembered thinking he had never been happier and when Fergie, just seven years old then, had begged that they move out there to live, he was, momentarily, tempted to at least consider it. Bianca, driven partly by several glasses of wonderful oaky, Ozzie chardonnay, had even said why not, they could give it two years, enjoy it while the children were young enough.

  But common sense had prevailed; and they had returned home to jobs and schools and duty, to Bianca’s career and his own guaranteed, gilt-edged future – and he cursed common sense now, for having brought them to the wretched present.

  He looked at Saul, aware he had been silent for a long time. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘That’s OK. That’s fine.’

  Another silence; then Patrick said and was astonished to hear himself say it, ‘How bad is divorce?’

  ‘Pretty bad,’ said Saul.

  ‘I – I’m considering it.’

  ‘Because?’

  He was so – so calming to talk to. No commiseration, no surprise. It was why working for him was good. He just – what was the expression? – cut to the chase. Anything else was dismissed as irrelevant. And of course there was his famous inability to tell a lie . . .

  ‘Because it doesn’t work any more. The marriage.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s the only reason that’s ever valid, I suppose. I’m sorry. Bit surprised. You seemed good together.’

  ‘We were,’ said Patrick, ‘very good. But – she’s changed.’

  A silence while Saul considered this.

  ‘Is it her job? It’s pretty full-on. I don’t know that I could cope with it.’

  ‘Yes, that’s got a – a lot to do with it.’

  ‘But she’s always been like that, surely.’

  ‘She has. But this time is different. It’s hard to explain. I feel she’s, well, put it first. In a big way. Instead of giving it equal billing, so to speak.’

  ‘The job’s different maybe?’

  ‘A job’s a job,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Really? Do you feel that about working for me?’

  Patrick panicked. Had he offended Saul, would he feel his job dismissed?

  ‘No! Of course not.’

  ‘Good,’ said Saul.

  A long silence, while Patrick gulped down several mouthfuls of the excellent Shiraz that Saul had ordered.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I think she might be – no, is – having an affair,’ said Patrick abruptly. And he heard his own voice, almost unrecognisable, very flat, very hard, as he said it.

  ‘I see,’ said Saul, his voice still entirely calm. ‘Well, one does always know.’

  ‘Does one? It’s never happened to me before.’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, I see. You’re lucky. And do you know who with?’

  ‘No. No I don’t. Although I’ve got my suspicions.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Saul. ‘Well, the thing is, Patrick – God, this is difficult – the thing is, I know she’s not . . .’

  Up in his room, Saul called Bianca.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello. You all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. I can’t be long, I’m talking with Patrick.’

  ‘I can’t be either. Is – is Patrick all right? What happened?’

  ‘Quite a lot,’ said Saul. ‘Now listen. And we do need to talk some more when I get back to London because it’s quite – complicated.’

  If it hadn’t been Saul who had told him, Patrick wouldn’t have believed it. He would have thought either it was a fruitless attempt to make him feel better or a rather clumsy piece of covering up, of something he knew about that Patrick did not. But everyone knew that Saul never lied. He was incapable of it. There were too many stories about it, this legendary inability, of would-be clients put off at the first meeting, of affronted flirting women, of angry exchanges with employees, of instantly curtailed interviews with journalists, all confronted by the same abrupt, stark response to what others might have considered perfectly reasonable questions or approaches or even obligatory social exchange.

  And Jonjo had told Patrick of it, and Patrick had observed it for himself, time and again.

  So if Saul said Bianca wasn’t having an affair, had told him she never had, indeed, then she wasn’t. Of course, Bianca might have been lying to Saul, but given the rather intimate nature of the conversation, that was extremely unlikely. Her rather odd observation that she would not have had the time, apart from never wanting to, gave the whole story great authenticity. It was so peculiarly typical of her attitude to life, so much the sort of thing she would say; and although perhaps mildly insulting, Patrick thought wryly, it was reassuring for more than one reason.

  It was an admittedly odd conversation she and Saul had clearly had; he would not have expected her to have talked about the state of their marriage, and nor would he have thought that Saul would ask her if she was having an affair – it seemed to imply an intimacy between them that in itself was disturbing. But be that as it might, Bianca was not having an affair; she might be guilty of all the other things he had accused her of, but not that. And now he didn’t know how he felt about her, or whether indeed he loved her still: and nor did he know what to do.

  He sat on the plane on his way back to England, his laptop open on his table, his files spread around him on the floor, apologising endlessly to people who walked over them or kicked them into disorder, patiently sorting them out again, returning to the figures Doug Douglas had supplied him with, struggling to find distraction from his misery. But he didn’t; the files and the laptop and the figures failed him, and all he could think about was what he was going to say to Bianca when he saw her, and what she might then say to him.

  That very morning, Tod Marchant was taking a rare day away from the increasingly frenetic global launch of the Farrell empire. He was already totally overspent time-wise on this ad, but he knew the shock and awe, so to speak, that it created would do the agency infinitely more good than a careful adherence to budgets and time sheets and devotion to other clients. However, one of the other clients, a chain of small supermarkets, was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the media schedule in particular, and Flynn Marchant in general, and the boss of the chain, one Neil Fullerton, had told Tod that if he didn’t get his arse in gear and thence up to Leicester where its head office was, then he might find that he was minus one client.

  Tod agreed to travel to Leicester two days later, and instructed his PA, a highly efficient girl called Paddy Logan, to mind the shop in his absence and if anything cropped up that seemed even remotely important, to confer with Jack Flynn.

  However, all things great being bound up, as is frequently observed, with all things small, not only did Jack’s new baby decide to start teething that night, but his mother developed an extremely unpleasant stomach bug and told Jack there was no way she could take care of the baby for at least twenty-four hours and just for once he’d have to put his family first, rather than as a very bad second to the agency, and stay home and face up to his responsibilities. Jack, who was exhausted by a bad night, and imagining this was the easier option, agreed.

  Since they were the only two people in the agency with any knowledge of the complexities of the Farrell global launch, and who knew what and to whom that could be told, it was not surprising that Paddy Logan did exactly what she was told when Lady Farrell, who sounded very grand and rather terrifying and was clearly in a position of immense authority at the House of Farrell, called her and asked her for details of the advertising campaign.

  ‘And I don’t want it sent over down the line or anything ridiculous like that; I want it to be on a piece of paper, several pieces of paper, I imagine, and sent over to me by messenger without delay. Is that clear?’

  Paddy Logan said it was quite clear.

  The messenger arrived at Farrell House just before eleven. Christine picked the package up from reception and handed it to Athina.

  ‘Oh, yes, thank you, Christine. Perhaps this will clear everything up . . . but I do feel confused, I must say . . . Heavens above, what is this? What is this?’

  For what it was made no sense to her at all and seemed to imply that the entire media schedule for the Farrell relaunch – perfume excepted – consisted of an online presence starting at noon on Wednesday May 30th, and continuing indefinitely . . .

  Some of it could no doubt be explained, she thought, by the ticking clock countdown which of course she knew about and understood, but the rest? Totally inexplicable.

  What did it mean? And why had no one taken the trouble to make it explicable or even to discuss it with her? And what it might mean in advertising terms? Pain and outrage swept over Athina in equal measures; she felt belittled, discarded and, above all, underestimated.

  She called Susie Harding on the internal line but Susie was not there. The publicity assistant, Vicki Philips, said she’d be back in an hour. Vicki was an English graduate who regarded the job as just a little beneath her.

  ‘I’ll get her to call you, Lady Farrell.’

  ‘Please tell her to come up to my office. But no later than eleven, please, I’m going out to lunch with Lord Fearon. He’s a very important and influential newsaper owner, as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Vicki, who knew no such thing. ‘But I’m not sure if she will be back by then.’

  ‘Well, I would advise you to get her back by then. If she wants to keep her job. Meanwhile, do you have any kind of detailed rundown of the PR launch? In my day, it would have been widely circulated and comment invited long before this.’

  ‘Of course, but you see, because this is so different from any other launch—’

  ‘Different? In precisely what way?’

  ‘Well, with the very tight window, time-wise, and the blogging aspect being so crucial—’ Vicki stopped suddenly. She knew the bare minimum about the launch campaign herself, except that it was to run entirely online, was hugely confidential, and wasn’t to begin for another week. It irritated her profoundly that Susie clearly didn’t consider her of sufficient importance within the team to entrust her with its details, and she had been told repeatedly that the little she did know was of the strictest confidentiality and not to be shared with anyone within the company.

  But surely Lady Farrell herself must know everything there was to be known? She was, after all, still the head of the company, whatever people like Jemima might say. Vicki was one of the few people in the company who was not in awe of Jemima and indeed considered herself as her intellectual superior. Jemima’s degree in psychology from Nottingham could hardly compare with her own in English from Oxford. And her claims that Bianca was the overall numero uno at the House of Farrell, and not Lady Farrell, i
ts founder – and living legend within the industry – seemed to her more than a little arrogant.

  ‘If you will just excuse me a moment, Lady Farrell, I know Jemima has the full details of the PR campaign. I’ll ask her if she can join us and put you completely in the picture. I’m sure it’s merely an oversight that you haven’t already had the information you want.’

  ‘Miss Philips,’ said Athina, using the iciest of tones, ‘I do assure you that I am not accustomed to being overlooked. Nor will I tolerate it. And nor will I be put in the picture, as you call it, by a pair of secretaries. I will wait for Miss Harding to return. Please send her immediately – absolutely immediately – up to my office. Thank you.’

  Journeying to Farrell House that same morning, Lara reflected on her extreme happiness. Like Bertie, she was not too familiar with proper, five star, grade A happiness; and it was just – just lovely, that happiness. It accompanied her, wherever she went. She woke up with it and went to work with it and attended meetings with it and went shopping with it, and went home again with it and cooked supper for herself and Bertie with it, and went to sleep with it, and it was like carrying around a piece of treasure, of infinite worth, and nothing else seemed nearly as important. She was still a little surprised by it.

  Of course they had a long way to go yet; his divorce was in the early stages and Priscilla was being as difficult as possible. And for the time being they were to be separated during the week. She had tried, and failed, to persuade Bertie to stay in London; he said it was the first time he had got a job on his own merits, rather than because he was a member of his family, and that it was therefore hugely important to him. And Lara had to concede this.

  And, of course, it could be that they might not continue to find one another as perfect, as ideal, as they did at the moment. Honeymoon periods they were called. But she didn’t actually believe that.

  Honeymoons, the genuine articles, were not something she allowed her thoughts to stray any way near. There was no way Bertie Farrell was going to marry her. That really was unthinkable. How would Lady Farrell, for a start, react to that? She’d be horrified, try to forbid it. Caro wouldn’t be exactly delighted either. Or that rather distant, superior husband of hers. But God, the wedding would be fun.