Secret Keeping for Beginners

by Maggie Alderson

  Meanwhile, he decided, signalling to the waiter for the bill, he was going to pay that money into her bank account anyway, from his private funds. Knowing how busy she was, he was fairly confident she wouldn’t even notice, but he’d feel better knowing she had it.

  After Simon had paid, stopped at three tables on the way out to speak to people he knew and waved at Fergus across the room, they headed back to the office. It was the first overcast day for what seemed like ages, with a distinct dampness in the air, and Rachel didn’t feel nearly warm enough in the sleeveless top she was wearing, wishing she hadn’t left her jacket in the office. She shivered and hugged her bag to her chest.

  Simon noticed and his first instinct was to take off his jacket and drape it around her shoulders, but he stopped himself. He felt closer to her since his frank declaration, but that would be a step too far – she was still an employee rather than a friend – so he forced himself to let her get on with it.

  Walking back along Fulham Road, Rachel stopped suddenly in front of a newsagent’s, staring at the papers on the stand outside. Simon followed her gaze and saw that on the front of several of them was a striking photograph of a man with long black hair and an equally black beard – wearing a wedding dress.

  ‘Chanel’s bearded bride,’ said the headline on the Times.

  ‘Queen Conchita the Second,’ was emblazoned across the Mirror.

  Rachel reached out and picked up the Times. She read the caption and there it was: ‘Serbian male model, Branko Stojanovic, in the Chanel couture show in Paris yesterday.’

  Simon peered over her shoulder for a better look. It was a pretty surprising picture, but something about the bloke in the frock looked familiar.

  ‘It’s my manny, Branko,’ said Rachel. ‘My male nanny. The Serbian guy. He was at Tessa’s place that time we went down for the photo shoot. Do you remember?’

  ‘I thought he looked familiar,’ said Simon. ‘How come he’s modelling for Chanel now?’

  Rachel snorted. ‘That’s a long story,’ she said and he saw her shoulders had slumped and she had that haggard look back.

  ‘Would you like that paper?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, yes …’ she started, but he just took it from her hand and walked into the shop to pay for it.

  When he came out she was holding the Telegraph, which also had a picture of Branko on the front, and looked quite ashen.

  ‘Are you all right, Rachel?’ he asked, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer, tears started to pour down her cheeks.

  Simon’s hand immediately went for his pocket. He passed her his handkerchief and she tried to dry her eyes, but the tears just kept rolling down. All the hurt she had been holding back was finally coming out and she couldn’t stop herself shivering.

  This time Simon took his jacket straight off and draped it around her. While he did it he took a quick look at his watch. It was 2.25 p.m., he really should get back to the office.

  Bugger that.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it, Rachel?’ he asked.

  Rachel shook her head. No. No way. Then she looked up again and something about Simon’s face made her reconsider. There was a frown of gentle concern between his brows and, as she looked at him, he brought his face closer to hers.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Well,’ said Rachel, ‘if you’ve got time, it might do me good to tell someone …’

  ‘Come on,’ he said, putting a protective arm around her, just below her shoulders. ‘We’ll go and have coffee and you can tell me what this is all about.’

  As they walked back along the Fulham Road, away from the office, it felt natural to keep his arm there. He hadn’t planned it as a move. His arm had instinctively shot out to comfort a creature in distress, as it would have to a frightened dog, or a spooked horse. And it had landed at just the right place, not too low on her waist, just lightly below shoulder level. It was a gesture of friendship, nothing inappropriate. But he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t nice to have her so close.

  Rachel was a little surprised that his arm stayed there, as they walked along, but the warmth of another body close to hers was deeply comforting, as was Simon’s jacket. The fabric of the lining was silky soft against her bare arms and it smelled lovely, of fine wool, expensive cologne and a more subtle scent underneath. Male musk.

  When they arrived at a small old-school Italian café – not nearly trendy enough for any of his staff to frequent – Simon took his arm away to hold the door for her. She immediately missed it. How long was it since she’d walked down a street with a man like that?

  She’d had plenty of delicious male contact from Link, but nothing as companionable as that arm had felt. It had always been nought to sixty in five seconds on the sex scale with him and Rachel was starting to understand just how much that wasn’t enough.

  Simon went to the counter to order and Rachel took a surreptitious deep sniff inside the jacket. She found the smell of it quite intoxicating. Simon always smelled nice, not overdone, just a light, fresh aroma that wafted subtly around the building with him, but combined with the fibres of the fabric and his man scent, it had some kind of atavistic effect on her.

  She didn’t ever remember feeling like this about Michael’s jackets. He wore rather harsh aftershaves he bought at duty-free stores. Rachel thought Simon probably bought his in Jermyn Street.

  While he was waiting at the counter he sent a quick text to his PA, saying he’d be back in an hour. No need to over-egg it with a fake explanation. The smiley proprietor offered to bring the coffees over to them, but Simon said he’d wait. He didn’t want an interruption while he was talking to Rachel.

  When he arrived back at the table, Rachel was looking a little better. More collected. As he sat down and pushed her coffee over to her, she picked up the lapel of his jacket and brought it up to his nose.

  ‘Your jacket smells lovely,’ she said. ‘What is it? Something from Trumpers?’

  Simon looked pleased.

  ‘I get it from a little place in Milan,’ he said. ‘I stock up when I go over for the furniture fair.’

  Of course you do, thought Rachel.

  They sipped their drinks and holding the cup up to her chest in both her hands, Simon’s healing jacket pulled close around her, Rachel felt properly warm again. Simon put his cup down on the saucer and leaned in a little across the table, resting his chin on his palm.

  ‘So tell me what’s been going on,’ he said.

  Rachel sighed loudly. Where to start? How far to go?

  ‘Why did that picture of – what’s his name? Branko? – upset you so much?’ he pressed, when she didn’t answer.

  ‘OK,’ said Rachel, sighing, then sitting up straighter. ‘Remember when we were all down at Tessa’s that day for the shoot?’

  Simon nodded. He wasn’t likely to forget it, but at least the memory didn’t make him feel deranged any more.

  ‘Well,’ said Rachel. ‘Branko brought the girls down for me, because we were all going to stay the weekend there and while I was off doing other things, he got chatting with my sister Natasha …’

  Simon remembered Natasha fleeing his offices in tears and wondered if it was related to what Rachel was telling him.

  ‘And she decided Branko would make an amazing model – of womenswear, as per the picture. So she was right, of course. No one gets to model for Chanel a couple of weeks after entering the business, unless they’re pretty extraordinary, especially not a man with a beard. So fair enough, I’m happy for Branko, he’s a lovely, lovely man and he deserves a better life than looking after my kids in return for a place to stay and then working all hours in bars.’

  She took another sip of her coffee before continuing.

  ‘But the thing was, Natasha didn’t think it was necessary to tell me what she was doing and she gaily went off and introduced Branko to one of her model agent pals, who immediately signed him up – and no doubt paid Natasha a nice finder’s fee.’

&nb
sp; As she said that Rachel’s voice had taken on a rather bitter tone that Simon had only heard once before, when he’d told her about giving up the Hunter Gatherer business. It didn’t suit her.

  ‘So then Branko asked me for some time off, to go to Paris for a break, but he was really there to do appointments with the big fashion houses and they all went mad for him. And so I was left without a nanny with no warning, just to satisfy Natasha’s ego that she can create a modelling superstar overnight.’

  Simon considered it all for a moment.

  ‘I can see it must have been very difficult to be left without childcare like that,’ he said, ‘how are you managing?’

  ‘Branko put me in touch with a friend of his, Pilar, so she’s living with us now on the same terms. She’s OK, but she’s not like him, she only does the bare minimum, which is collecting the girls from school each day and staying in with them until I get home. The girls like her, but they really loved Branko, like a big brother, or an uncle. So Natasha wrecked all that without giving them, or me, a second thought. It was all about her, as it always is.’

  ‘But don’t you think Branko should have told you what was going on?’ said Simon. ‘It seems rather dishonest of him to say he was going to Paris for a holiday, when he was really having appointments about modelling.’

  Rachel had mulled that over many times, the rights and wrongs of it going round in her head during the sleepless hours of early mornings.

  ‘I understand that he didn’t want to worry me at first,’ she said, ‘because he really didn’t believe it would come to anything, it was all a bit of a lark, but then when it did take off, Natasha told him not to tell me.

  ‘It was bad enough that she didn’t involve me in the discussions at the outset – and I would have been happy for him, that’s what’s so insulting – but then, even after he knew he needed to tell me and wanted to, she just had to keep control of the situation in a way that suited her. I find that horrible. And there’s more …’

  The colour was back in Rachel’s cheeks and she had something more like her usual energy, but it was a darker, negative version of it.

  ‘When she finally realised that she had to admit what was really going on,’ she continued, ‘she hid behind Mum to do it. She was literally lying on the bed with her. It was unbelievable. And my darling mum, much as I love her, seemed to put Natasha’s feelings ahead of my real, actual needs, which is exactly what used to happen when we were kids. Natasha was the special baby and I always had to make allowances for her. Let her have the last of the ice cream. Give her my toy to play with. Tessa was that little bit older, so it didn’t affect her so much and she was always away with the fairies anyway.’

  She paused for a moment, draining her coffee and then laughed.

  ‘Paging Dr Freud, eh?’ she said. ‘I can see that my middle-child hang-ups are part of it, but I still think I’m justified to be upset about Natasha’s cavalier attitude to my life and my work, whereas we all have to take her work very seriously. She’s done this big deal with OM – you know that huge American cosmetics company – and she’s going to have her own make-up line … boy, did we have to hear a lot about that.’

  Simon held back. She didn’t need to hear his opinion, she just needed to get it out. He could imagine how it must have been going round and round in her head, driving her crazy, thinking the same thoughts over and over again. He knew all too well what that felt like.

  Rachel was looking more serious. She pursed her lips and looked straight at him.

  ‘I sound like a jealous brat, don’t I?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘You sound like someone who has been seriously hurt and put out, by a person you love, and I can see why you feel that way. You have children, Natasha doesn’t and she didn’t understand how much more serious that makes changes to your domestic set-up. Does Natasha have a partner?’

  ‘No,’ said Rachel, ‘that’s a bit of a funny thing about her. She had a few boyfriends when she was young, but never anything serious and as an adult she’s never had what I would call a proper relationship. She’s never lived with anyone. I think she’s married to her work really …’

  ‘A bit like me,’ said Simon.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Rachel. ‘I’d never thought of that before. Why don’t you have a partner?’

  ‘I’ve just never met the right woman,’ said Simon. His stock response. He’d had it off pat for years, so this question could never trip him up. ‘I have, how shall I put it, lady friends, I’m not a monk, but I’ve never met anyone I thought I could really share my life with and I’d rather stay solo than compromise. And I’m a bit of an OCD tidy freak, in case you haven’t noticed. I wouldn’t be easy to live with.’

  Rachel laughed. So he was definitely straight. Unless he was lying, but she didn’t think he was.

  ‘Mum’s convinced that Natasha is having – or had – a long affair with a married man,’ said Rachel. ‘She says she knows the signs of it being constantly on and off, the agony and the ecstasy thing. Mum thinks that’s why Natasha is single. Apart from her mega career, she’s been badly burned by that.’

  Simon glanced at his watch again. 2.55 p.m. This was getting serious, but he still didn’t want to break off. It felt too important for Rachel, and even apart from his personal concern for her, he didn’t want his key member of staff to be an emotional mess, especially not with the Lawn & Stone press trip rushing towards them. She’d need to be on top form for that. So this was work really.

  ‘Are you OK to stay a bit longer?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s more about whether you are, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘I had noticed you weren’t looking yourself, Rachel. I’ve been concerned about you. You’ve lost a lot of weight.’

  Her head slumped down for a moment. It had felt good unloading all this stuff which had been making her feel so strung out and she really wished she could carry on and tell him all the rest of it, but she knew she couldn’t. Not the money thing. That she’d been missing meals so she could feed her daughters. It would make her look like a bad businesswoman. Better to be an emotional nut job, than bad at handling a budget.

  ‘I suppose, this has all been getting to me even more than I realised,’ she said, ‘and stress always puts me off my food.’

  Simon remembered how heartily she’d enjoyed her lunch, but said nothing.

  ‘And now there’s this thing with Tessa, as well,’ said Rachel.

  Simon’s head snapped up.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said, as casually as he could muster.

  ‘Just deciding to cancel the contract with us like that – once again, without consulting me, just like Natasha, although Tessa knew how it would affect me. I’d told her about the bonus, it only seemed right to be transparent about it, in the circumstances. It’s like my sisters are ganging up to try to take me down.’

  ‘But you know that was my decision as much as hers,’ said Simon. ‘You didn’t want to run the account and without your input, I didn’t think the agency was up to it.’

  ‘She still should have discussed it with me, don’t you think? Because I would have taken the account on after all, if you really didn’t think you could, rather than let the company just throw it out.’

  And me lose my bonus.

  Awkward. Simon knew he should probably jump in now and suggest she did take it over after all and the whole thing would be back on. He’d get the business – which he needed – and she’d get the bonus, which she clearly needed, so it would be better for everyone. Except it wouldn’t. Because it would inevitably lead to regular contact between him and Tessa and although things seemed to be OK now, he just couldn’t risk that kicking off again. So he said nothing.

  Rachel felt disappointed for a moment. She had hoped Simon would take the bait and suggest they start the contract up again, with her as the manager, but it seemed not and it was all tainted and weird now anyway. She just had to move on, accept the loss and damn well
bring in some other new business as quickly as possible.

  ‘So you’re pissed off with both your sisters and your mum?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Have you told your mother how you feel? She’s such an amazing woman …’ he checked himself immediately, he had to be careful here. ‘I saw her again when I went down to talk to Tessa about the business, we all had lunch together. She always seems to know what’s going on with people. Wouldn’t it be good to talk to her about it all?’

  Rachel thought for a moment. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘It is really my sisters I’m angry with, not her, and I should tell Mum that. And she’d probably do her best to make it better.’

  Simon smiled. He was sure Rachel would ring Joy now and he hadn’t had to betray either of their confidences to make it happen. That was a good result and it might be a start to healing the rift with Natasha. From what Rachel had just told him, her younger sister had been very thoughtless, but she clearly knew it. He’d seen how distressed she was leaving the office that day. How complicated families could make things.

  He focused his attention on Rachel again. She was smiling at him, quite shyly.

  ‘Thanks, Simon,’ she said. ‘First a great lunch and now a counselling session. I think you might be in the wrong job, but joking aside, I do feel so much better for unloading.’

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to look after my star employee, so you can bring in that new business for both of us.’

  For the briefest moment he wanted to tell her what was keeping him awake at night, but he stopped himself. It might be good for his equilibrium in the short term, but it wasn’t good business practice. Morale would be destroyed if the staff knew what was going on and if it got around town, he’d lose his clients’ confidence. That was the kind of downward spiral that could wreck a business, just what he was trying to avoid by not moving into crappy offices. He had to keep schtum.

  ‘So, shall we go back to the office now?’ he asked her. ‘Are you feeling up to it?’