Bad Twins

by Rebecca Chance

  ‘Now fuck off or I’ll call the police,’ Charlotte finished, folding her arms.

  Jade favoured her with a black stare before turning on her heel and limping off down Warwick Avenue.

  ‘Bit harsh there with the kid thing, Lottie?’ Bart suggested, but both Conway and Bella shook their heads in vigorous disagreement, Conway saying that he thought Charlotte had nailed it, frankly. Bart subsided.

  ‘D’you think the old man was actually serious about the whole winner-takes-all thing?’ he asked instead.

  ‘No, Bart,’ Charlotte said, putting a hand on his arm and smiling up at him sweetly. ‘Not at all. He was just teasing.’

  ‘Really?’ Bart’s handsome brow furrowed under his fall of blond-streaked hair.

  ‘No! Of course not! Of course he meant it!’

  Charlotte, much more in touch with her emotions than Bella, had run the gamut that day. Having just unloaded her fury on Jade, she now flipped from sarcasm to intense irritation with her feckless younger brother.

  ‘What, you think he called us all over, which he never does? Just to have a fun family joke while we meet the Slovenian hooker who’s going to be our new Mommie Dearest?’ Charlotte continued.

  ‘Looked more Estonian to me, actually,’ Bart said, with the professional air of a man speaking on a subject in which he is an expert.

  ‘You’re the family joke!’ Charlotte said impatiently.

  ‘Look, enough of this,’ Conway said. ‘I’m going back to work. I’ve got stuff I need to finish today.’

  The siblings paused, looking at each other for a moment at the mention of work. It was no shock that their father had set them against each other like this; they had always been in competition. Not only did all four of them work for the Sachs Organization, but they always had. Taking a job anywhere else would have meant immediate disinheritance. Conway, as CFO, was the most senior, but both Charlotte, in charge of the boutique hotel division, and Bella, who ran the main hotel chain, from which the majority of the Sachs income was derived, could legitimately be considered in the running to take over when their father retired.

  In the minds of Bart’s siblings, it was definitely a three-way race. They were sure he presented no competition to them. No one quite understood what his role at Sachs was: he was some sort of celebrity figurehead, a staple in the gossip columns, bringing glamour and sex to the brand, arranging cross-promotions with his racing car driver and footballer friends, the models and actresses he dated; a fixture at charity balls. He had an office in the building, his title Executive Director for Charity Initiatives. He went on star-studded fundraising expeditions with Prince Toby and Tor Ahlssen, the celebrity explorer; raced in the Dakar Rally, lamenting that it was not, as in the old days, from Paris to Senegal, but across South America; and attended the Pitti Uomo menswear show every year, staggering out of Florentine nightclubs and parties at the Gucci Museum in the small hours of the morning, as draped in beautiful women as the male models on the catwalk were in fashionable scarves.

  So surely, Conway, Charlotte and Bella felt, no one in their right mind would give Bart a company, or indeed anything, to run. Though Jeffrey Sachs might be nearly in his eighth decade, he unquestionably still had the full complement of marbles with which he had been born. It was impossible to know if Bart was aware of his siblings’ opinion as, saying something about having to see a man about a dog, he waved them an amiable goodbye and ambled towards his Aston Martin.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, turning on his heel, having gone a few steps. ‘I’ve been seeing this Italian girl recently. Bit of a cracker, but a brainiac too. She watches a lot of those very slow films in black and white. Ones where nothing much happens, as far as I can see, but apparently they’re hugely significant or something.’

  ‘Oh my God, Bart, I have a life,’ Charlotte said impatiently, sounding like a tween snapping at her brother rather than a grown woman.

  ‘Padre Padrone,’ Bart said.

  ‘What?’ Conway asked, even more impatiently than Charlotte.

  ‘It’s an Italian film about a father who bosses his son around and runs his entire life,’ Bart said. ‘Dad’s a shepherd, so son’s got to be a shepherd too, that sort of thing. The title means “Dad the Boss”. Caterina was watching it the other day and I thought “I must remember that and tell everyone.” So now I have. Padre Padrone. Says it all, really, doesn’t it?’

  With another wave, he unlocked the Aston Martin with a click and levered himself gracefully into the low-slung seat.

  ‘He won’t even remember Caterina’s name next month,’ Conway said, sounding rather jealous. ‘Well! Back to work indeed!’

  He looked from sister to sister, a little smirk briefly playing across his well-shaped mouth, indicating very clearly that he did not see either of them as much more competition to his chances of becoming CEO of Sachs than he did Bart.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Charlotte said briskly, and Bella nodded. With no further words exchanged between them, the three of them separated, heading for their cars. Bart was manoeuvring the Aston Martin out of the tight space, and Conway stood there watching this anxiously, Bart teasing him by almost kissing the cars’ bumpers before spinning the wheel and sending the DB11 zooming out onto Warwick Avenue and away over the canal bridge.

  Muttering swearwords, Conway climbed into his Jaguar and headed off too. He did not notice that his sisters were not following suit; as Bella reached her Audi, turning on the phone which had been silenced during the meeting with their father, she saw a text ping in from Charlotte.

  Hang on till boys go.

  Conway passed Bella, looking ahead, his lips moving; too occupied, presumably, with cursing his younger brother to raise a hand to salute his sister. Bella watched the car turn towards Paddington Basin and disappear around the corner of another exquisite white stucco villa surrounded by high, perfectly maintained hedges. Then she looked over the street at Charlotte, who was leaning against her Range Rover.

  With a tilt of her head, Charlotte indicated that Bella come to her, and though a small voice inside Bella asked her, quite unexpectedly, why, when Charlotte wanted to talk, she should not cross the street to meet her twin rather than summoning her imperiously, old habits are very hard to break. For as long as she could remember, when Charlotte had commanded, Bella had fallen in line.

  ‘What is it?’ Bella asked as she reached her sister, the slimmer, blonder, chicer version of herself, so elegant in her belted greige suede coat dress and matching high heels.

  ‘We need a battle plan,’ Charlotte said intently. ‘Con doesn’t deserve it, but unless we do something drastic, Daddy’s bound to give the company to him. You heard what he said – “Let the best man win”!’

  ‘It’s just an expression—’ Bella started to say. But Charlotte rode right over her.

  ‘It should be one of us!’ she said. ‘One of us twins, I mean. Con’s always so bloody entitled and smug! Did you see that snarky little smile he gave us? He doesn’t think either of us have a chance!’

  She set her jaw resolutely.

  ‘You were going back to the office, weren’t you?’

  Bella nodded.

  ‘I knew it! You’re such a workhorse. Well, don’t. Come back to mine. Whatever you had scheduled this afternoon can’t possibly be as important as having a war council! It’s Friday afternoon. No one has crucial meetings on a Friday.’

  Charlotte stared hard at her twin, compelling her to obey.

  ‘We have to take Conway down,’ she said, ‘and it has to be in a way that he can’t come back from. We need to salt the earth so he can’t get up again. And we don’t have much time, so we’d better get cracking!’

  Chapter Four

  Charlotte lived very near to Maida Vale, just the other side of the Edgware Road, in a small development of modern houses built off-street in a gated private close. Bella followed her on what was barely a five-minute drive from one house to the other. Charlotte was the only child who had chosen to stay so close to th
e area in which they had spent the first years of their lives, the house from which they had effectively been banned.

  Lovely though St John’s Wood was, child-friendly and close to Charlotte’s children’s private school, Bella had always considered it strange of her sister to want to live surrounded by unavoidable memories of a happy childhood turned so sour. But Bella’s attempt to discuss Charlotte’s decision – because it had been entirely hers; Charlotte made all the decisions for her family – had been shut down as soon as Bella raised the question.

  Instead of answering, Charlotte had smiled that bright, beautiful ice-queen smile of hers, which conveyed ‘this subject is not up for discussion’ more effectively than words could have done, and started talking about how much she missed Pang’s Chinese restaurant, to which they had gone very regularly as small children. It had been an iconic place for them all, with its ceiling-high entrance fountain into which they had loved to push their fingers, squealing happily. Children adore repetition and ritual, and all the little Sachses had been addicted to ordering the duck pancakes and lemon chicken, until, out of the blue, one evening over dinner, Jeffrey had laid down the edict that they must try something new: when they protested, he banged the table in fury, sending cutlery flying.

  Of course, in retrospect, it had been nothing to do with their food order. Jeffrey had been in a foul mood and was taking it out on his children. But you never realized that when you were young. All Bella had heard was that her father was angry, and she had dissolved in floods of tears at the thought of never being able to eat lemon chicken again. Jeffrey, hating weakness, had turned his fury on his younger daughter and she had fled to cry by the fountain. The sibling who had followed to comfort her was not her twin, but lovely Bart, who hated anyone to be unhappy. Charlotte had stayed at the table and dutifully picked something else from the huge menu, happy to demonstrate her superiority over her sobbing sister.

  So Bella could not be unhappy that Charlotte was unable to take her son and daughter to Pang’s, following in the old family tradition, introducing a new generation to the lemon chicken, the sweet and sour pork and the sea spice aubergine they had loved so much. For Bella, the family traditions had been entirely corrupted by the contemptuous way in which her father had discarded his first family in favour of the one he had had with Jade.

  Strangely, resentful though Charlotte was of her father’s abandonment, she still seemed to want to recreate their childhood for her own little boy and girl. Pang’s old premises had been turned into an Everyman cinema, and Charlotte’s children were regularly taken there to see live screenings from the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera, curling up on the cinema sofas while eating halloumi burgers and jelly retro candy, washed down with Fentiman’s rose lemonade, brought to them by the ushers who had been summoned by the discreet bell push beside their seats.

  The gates were sliding open. Charlotte’s chauffeur drove the Range Rover into the courtyard. Bella followed, thinking, as she always did, how ugly these new-build houses were, basic square blocks built with jaundiced Imperial London yellow stock bricks. The houses were designed for people who wanted to own a house in this area but could not afford the exorbitant sum they would have to pay for one. St John’s Wood was the first area in London to be built with a preponderance of villa-style housing, rather than terraces, so that rich men could house their mistresses there and be able to visit them discreetly. The elegant, detached villas meant that NW8 was one of the most expensive postcodes in the city.

  Charlotte had not married a financier but a male model, and though she had a trust fund and an extremely well-paid job, their combined incomes were nowhere near those of the Russian, Singaporean and Chinese non-dom bankers who had bought up half of St John’s Wood. Nonetheless, Charlotte had had her heart set on living in NW8, and the modern house was the price she had had to pay. It had cost in the high seven figures, but a villa with the comparable space was easily into the eights.

  Bella got out of her car, watching Charlotte’s chauffeur jump down from the high seat of the Range Rover and open the back door to help his employer down, extending an arm so that she could balance as one high heel after the other touched down to the concrete of the courtyard. Charlotte took it for granted that she would be waited on. Bella didn’t know where she had got it from. Or, Bella reflected, it would be more accurate to say that she didn’t know why she didn’t have it too.

  ‘Come on, don’t just stand there!’ Charlotte called, and turned towards her front door.

  Although the house was boxy and ugly – the outside was very rarely photographed – its modern internal layout was ideal for Charlotte’s needs, enabling her to make it a showplace that regularly featured in architecture and lifestyle magazines. She redecorated very often to keep the design cutting-edge, documenting everything on her Instagram account, which was eagerly followed by hordes of women aspiring to what appeared to be her effortless style.

  A photograph posted yesterday documenting an addition to a shelf in her son’s bedroom, a witty little vase shaped like a toy soldier who was holding a single flower, a bright yellow gerbera which popped with colour against the pale-green wall, had drawn thousands of likes already. Charlotte was well aware of her value not just as a style icon but a wife and mother. Her husband Paul might not be a high earner, but his ridiculously photogenic looks meant that their Instagrams were breathtaking, and Posy and Quant were equally stunning. Charlotte had given them those names because the initials would look so good in her posts; she could cutesily say that she was ‘minding her P&Q’ when looking after the kids.

  With the aid of her young, hip social media team, Charlotte blogged, Instagrammed, Pinterested and tweeted on a daily basis. She was determined to keep building her personal brand, entwining it with that of the ‘Sash’ boutique hotel chain which she had created and oversaw; the Sachs hotels were old and staid by comparison, and there was no question that the chicer, more intimate, hipper Sash brand had given a much-needed gloss to the reputation of the entire Sachs Organization.

  ‘Wow,’ Bella said, stepping inside. ‘Your flowers are amazing.’

  She was used to this by now, the way that her sister’s house was always camera-ready. Architectural Digest or Wallpaper* or Good Housekeeping might be due any minute to document another perfect slice of Charlotte’s perfect life. The whole ground floor was open-plan, with gleaming white surfaces everywhere one looked, dazzling the eye: it was the kind of hyper-groomed interior decoration which made anyone less pulled-together than Charlotte feel instantly scruffy by comparison. The gigantic glass vases in the built-in embrasures were full of a striking white flower Bella didn’t even recognize. They were not arranged in the conventional way, with their stems in water; instead, the flowers were entirely submerged, floating in some sort of pale green-tinted liquid.

  In the centre of the huge space, a glass-sided staircase soared up to the first floor, a dramatic ascent, as the ground-floor ceiling was double-height. It helped to separate the various areas into which the ground floor was divided. A huge, sprawling, elegantly curved lemon velvet sofa, especially commissioned for the house, wrapped around an entire corner of the living area, facing a glass-fronted wood-burning fireplace. Built into the back of it, on the kitchen side, was a pizza oven. Charlotte never cooked, but Paul did, and their photos of him experimenting with gluten-free cauliflower and courgette pizza bases, topped with home-made tomato sauce and buffalo mozzarella, had recently been particularly popular. Especially the shots of ridiculously handsome Paul licking sauce off his fingers.

  ‘I’m changing it all next month,’ Charlotte said casually, dropping her butter-soft Gucci handbag onto the white lacquered console table by the door.

  ‘Really?’ Bella asked as she set her own, extremely sensible square-framed leather handbag down beside Charlotte’s whimsical, light-as-a-feather, highly buckled suede bag whose pale blossom tint would pick up every stain. Not that it mattered, as Charlotte would carry it for only a few months, till th
ere were knock-offs of the design everywhere, and then give it to her cleaning lady or housekeeper, who would promptly sell it on eBay.

  Why, Bella wondered, did she have to be such a contrast to Charlotte? Why couldn’t she go to Knightsbridge or Bond Street and snap up a whole raft of new handbags? But Thomas, her husband, had bought her this bag. He was always so thoughtful. It had a whole series of perfectly designed compartments which helped her keep meticulously organized. And its dark camel leather went with everything, something their mother had taught them. Camel for blondes was like navy for brunettes, a perfect neutral.

  ‘I’m so sick of that lemon,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s like a migraine in sofa form. I was thinking of rolling it out for the Sash sofas, as an accent pillow, but I think it’ll make guests irritated without knowing why. I swear, the kids have been more argumentative since that sofa’s been in the house. Colour is so key.’

  ‘That reminds me – I’ve been asking your office for ages to coordinate with me about integrating some more design elements from Sash into my five-star portfolio,’ Bella said. ‘The last ones were a huge success – did you see the feedback? We did a survey of business travellers that showed—’

  ‘Not now, Bell!’ Charlotte said impatiently.

  ‘I’m just saying, it’s overdue,’ Bella persisted. ‘We need a real push towards integration across the entire hotel collection. Right now we’re months behind on that schedule, which you agreed to, and—’

  ‘Bell! Save it for the office!’ Charlotte threw herself onto the despised lemon sofa. ‘We’ve got half an hour before Paul brings the kids back from the park, and we need to strategize! Just imagine, if Conway takes over everything and he’s our boss – can you picture how obnoxious he’ll be? And micro-managing? Conway’s perfectly capable of cock-blocking me on something as tiny as . . . lemon scatter cushions, for God’s sake, just to throw his weight around! And we’ll be fucked, because we can’t leave Sachs. If we leave, God knows what Dad’ll do in the will, you know? Think about that!’