by Karen Swan
‘I know, Mum. Thanks,’ Tom nodded and a small muscle flickered in his left cheek. At the sight of his childhood tic, Clem’s stomach contracted. Tom was on the verge of losing it, and she couldn’t bear to see him cry. She’d always been able to bear anything but the sight of her big brother crying.
‘Amazing eggs, Daddy,’ Clem exclaimed, desperately trying to move the conversation on to safer ground for him, but earning a roll of her mother’s eyes in the process.
‘Goose,’ her father replied delightedly. ‘Pink-footed genus from Iceland that winters here, so you can only get them at this time of year. I found a chap from Worcestershire who travels over every week, so I’ve struck a deal with him for a regular order. Pricey, but worth it I’d say.’
‘Oh yes, definitely,’ Clem said eagerly.
Mrs Alderton took a deep breath and smiled, her eyes still on Tom. ‘Well, Daddy and I have something for you that might cheer you up.’
Clem felt a pinch at the bottom of her lungs as her mother got up and took two wrapped packages off the side table, which Clem had spotted the moment she’d entered the room. It was why this breakfast was happening: the New Year Alderton tradition – at least, since Tom had turned twenty-one and Clem nineteen – where their parents ‘gifted’ them each a possession with significant emotional value on New Year’s Day (although this had had to be shifted to the day after once it became apparent that Clem was rarely ever home in time for breakfast on New Year’s Day, and even if she was her hangover precluded eating or socializing in any form). Tom insisted it was a sweet bonding exercise that created heirlooms and knitted the generations of their family together. Clem argued that it was a way for them to divest their estate, piecemeal, without having to pay inheritance tax. She dreaded this annual event, not least because she knew that coming her way, one day, would be the evil-eyed mink tippet that had belonged to her great-grandmother.
Her mother placed this year’s package on the table in front of her. Clem accepted it with a nod and a half-smile – the best she could manage. The parcel was large and firm, but with give in it, and as her hands moved slowly over the tapered, boxy shape, her brain automatically trying to guess the contents, her heart gave a little defiant skip as a thought came to her. Surely not. There was no way her mother would give this up . . .
Breath held, she broke the wax seal – always imprinted with the crest on her father’s signet ring, one of his foibles – and pulled apart the brown packing paper. The vivid orange dust bag glowed like an orb of sunlight in her hands.
Clem gasped involuntarily as she pulled out the Hermès bag, the deep jet colour enriched with age, the brass-tipped straps fastened and secured in defiance of the accepted norm to leave them hanging.
‘Your Birkin?’ Clem croaked, her hands running softly over the crocodile leather. She had coveted the bag since childhood – ever since she had used it as a bed for her Sindy doll and long before she had known about its value or the years-long waiting lists to buy one. Listening to the love story that accompanied it had been one of her favourite childhood rituals – she would sit on her mother’s lap, her small hands playing with the clasps as Portia told her how her father had met one of the master craftsmen at Hermès whilst they were honeymooning and bought the bag from him. But it wasn’t just any old Birkin. Aside from the ultra-rare leather and colour combinations, it was a Shooting Star Birkin, identifiable by the shooting star motif embossed below the logo; only the top artisan in each year is allowed to make one, and only one per year is made, driving up the rarity value and rendering them collectors’ pieces. Naturally, most of the craftsmen give them to their wives. But being a widower of long-standing, this craftsman had made it purely as a personal challenge in the pursuit of perfection, and when Edmund Alderton had crossed his path, he had bartered it for an untitled symphony – which happened to be gloved in Edmund’s briefcase at the time – to be named after his wife instead. It was little wonder that Tom and Clem had inherited a love of all things leather.
Clem would have her mother repeat the story to her at bedtime each night, as they stroked and smelled the leather, and Clem had honed her fine motor skills fastening the clasps. The bag had become not just an emblem of her parents’ love but also hers and her mother’s. But things had changed since then. ‘I . . . I don’t know what to say.’
Her mother shifted position, a slightly frozen expression on her face. ‘Yes, well, before you get carried away, it was your father’s idea.’ Her hand fluttered tenderly over the bag, not quite daring to make contact with it, as though it was a sleeping baby. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that your father bought this for me on our honeymoon. It’s not just any bag.’
Clem nodded in silence, wounded that her mother had clearly forgotten how beloved their ritual had once been. Anger began to surge through her, the precious bag tainted now that it was being given here, like this. It was her mother’s insidious way of trying to make amends for what she had done, papering over the devastation she had caused, throwing money at the problem.
Clem swallowed the feelings down, as she always did, and rose to kiss her mother, her lips meeting one velvet-smooth, perfumed cheek before settling back in her chair, her polite movements belying the fact that her heart was drilling like a jackhammer in her chest.
It was Tom’s turn now, so all eyes were off her for the moment, and she took several deep breaths as their father handed over a small parcel the size of a matchbox. Tom opened it, his eyes lighting up with their familiar sparkle at the sight of the car keys lying there.
‘Your MGB GT? But Dad you can’t! You love that thing!’ The flash of old Tom – lively and happy – made Clem relax a little. It freaked her out to see her big brother so subdued and diminished.
Edmund Alderton smiled sadly. ‘Pah. It’s too much of a beggar for me to park now without power steering. Besides, it’s a young man’s car. No one wants to see an old duffer like me haring around in one of those things.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Tom said, handling the keys. ‘It just seems too much. That car’s your most treasured possession.’
‘No, you two are our most treasured possessions,’ Edmund Alderton corrected. ‘Family’s all that matters in the end. Your mother and I don’t need anything but you two, and for you both to be happy.’
Clem felt her pulse skyrocket again at his words – his eyes were on her – and she looked out into the bald, damp grey garden, blinking hard. It was no good, though. Tom could buy into this, but she never would. Talk was cheap, these gifts a joke. She pushed her chair back roughly so that it grated harshly across the floor. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she managed.
‘Clemen—’ her mother started, annoyed.
‘A meeting I forgot about—’ Clem pointlessly dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, trying to make her excuse look genuine.
‘What meeting?’ Tom interjected suspiciously; it was the first time he’d looked at her all morning.
‘Thanks for breakfast,’ Clem continued, placing her napkin with forced care across her plate. ‘No, stay sitting, Dad. I can see myself out. I’ll call you soon, OK? Laters.’
Astonished silence followed her all the way down the hall, but she was no stranger to that in this house. She slammed the door behind her and stumbled down the steps, her hand gripping the wrought-iron handrail so tightly her knuckles glowed white. Her breath was coming fast and heavy as she marched blindly down the street towards the market, which was already filling up. It was all a lie, all of it, and she was the only one who would face it. She pushed herself amongst the bodies, letting herself be jostled and carried along by the current, gradually feeling herself relax as she was swept into anonymity down the road, getting lost in a crowd where even Tom couldn’t find her.
Chapter Four
‘Happy New Year, Clem!’ trilled Pixie, the diminutive pink-haired receptionist Clem had suggested Tom fire on more than one occasion, not just because of her name but also on account of her relentlessly chirrupy
demeanour, which only ever escalated Clem’s hangovers.
‘Oh, has it brightened up now then?’ she asked chirpily clocking Clem’s Tom Ford blackout glasses and leaning across her desk to peer out at the sky, which was hanging as low as an overloaded washing line, bruised clouds buffeting the London rooftops like dirty sheets. ‘Oh.’
Clem sloped mutely past, wearing yesterday’s clothes and bumping straight into the corner of a desk. She swore under her breath, and not just from the pain – Tom was already in.
‘Morning,’ she muttered, straightening up abruptly at the sight of the Birkin bag sitting in the middle of her desk.
‘You forgot that yesterday,’ Tom said in a quietly accusing voice, his eyes fixed on his computer screen.
‘I . . . was in a hurry,’ she murmured, scarcely able to tolerate the sound of her own voice, much less his. Her hangover was epic, even by her standards. She collapsed into a slump in her chair, her fingers massaging her temples, her eyes anywhere but on the bag.
Tom glanced over at her as he picked up his coffee. ‘Mum’s gutted; she was almost in tears after you left. She thinks you don’t want it.’
Clem managed a shrug. ‘It’s just . . . fake.’ Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
Tom spluttered on his flat white. ‘Fake? Are you bloody mad? Do you know what Dad—’
‘No, I don’t mean the bag. I mean that whole . . . rigmarole.’
‘It’s a tradition, Clem, nothing more! Why do you always have to make such a thing about it?’ Tom was almost shouting, a tremble of barely controlled rage in his voice.
Clem squeezed her eyes shut, grateful for the shield of her sunglasses, and nodded in silence. There was no point in arguing with him. She waited for the shouting to continue, but everything fell into a taut silence, and after a couple of moments, she opened her eyes and looked across at him. He was sitting behind his desk, staring at her, a devastated, lost expression on his usually happy-go-lucky face.
‘What is it, Clem? What’s the story?’ he asked quietly, aware that Pixie had gone into overdrive licking envelopes by the door, trying her best not to look like she was listening. She wasn’t very good at it, just like she wasn’t very good at pretending she wasn’t in love with her happy-go-lucky boss.
Even if Clem had had an answer to give him, she couldn’t have replied. Simon, their production bod – a Scottish red-haired numbers genius with a penchant for sideburns and practical jokes, particularly at Pixie’s expense – sauntered in, a coffee in his hand.
‘Oh, is this a domestic?’ he asked delightedly at the sight of them. ‘Because I can make myself scarce.’ Clem and Tom both knew his definition of ‘scarce’ meant hiding behind the photocopier.
Tom sighed. ‘No, it’s fine.’ He sat up straighter, cricked his neck and looked back at his computer. Clem could see the tension hard-wired through his shoulders and wondered how long he’d been here for. Had he pulled another all-nighter? He looked even worse than he had at breakfast yesterday, and from the looks of things, she wasn’t the only one in stale clothes.
Simon threw his bag across the back of his chair and sat down, his eyes lingering on Clem across the way. He spotted the Birkin. It was quite hard not to. ‘Is that . . .?’
‘No,’ Clem replied quickly, shooting a warning look at Tom. ‘Fake.’ Hermès in this office was like the Holy Grail.
‘Shame.’ A sly grin crossed his pale face. ‘So what happened to you yesterday?’
‘Me?’ Clem echoed innocently. ‘I had the day off.’ Dammit. She remembered too late that she’d told Tom she had a meeting. She could tell by the way he stopped typing that he’d heard.
‘Make the most of it, did you?’ Simon chuckled, taking in her enormous sunglasses.
‘You know me. Seeing in the new year is a three-day event,’ she quipped.
‘What did you get up to last night?’ Tom asked casually from across the way. ‘Stella popped by for a drink.’
‘Oh, did she?’ Clem asked innocently. That was that alibi blown.
‘Yeah,’ Tom said levelly. ‘So where were you?’
She tapped her shades. ‘The pub, obvs.’ She flashed him a fake grin.
‘With?’ Tom wouldn’t be deterred.
Clem looked at her computer screen officiously, even though it was still turned off, aware that everything had gone quiet. She could sense Simon’s eyes swivelling left to right and left again as he listened to the verbal volleys between brother and sister.
‘Josh.’ Even from across the room she felt the tension stiffen like a flexed board. ‘And before you say anything, he’s a lot better now. He’s officially back on the wagon.’
‘If you say so.’ Tom spat the words out as if they were nails.
‘I do . . . and it’s not like I need your permission anyway,’ she muttered.
‘Children, children,’ Simon interrupted, as amused as ever by their squabbling. ‘As much as I do love a good bitch fight, if I’m to officiate you’re going to have to clue me in. I thought Josh was the do-gooding teetotaller?’
‘He is,’ Tom sneered.
‘Then why the long face?’
‘Said the bartender to the horse, boom, boom,’ Clem finished in a low voice.
‘It’s a long story,’ Tom said, opening a drawer and pretending to look for something.
‘Must be,’ Simon shrugged. ‘I mean, I’d come to accept that Clem was incapable of finding a functional, committed, virile man like myself irresistible. You weren’t supposed to like her boyfriends; that was the point. But now she’s dating Mr Perfect and you hate him? What’s with you people?’
Clem and Tom each cracked reluctant smiles at the twisted logic, just as Tom’s phone rang. Simon wagged his finger at Clem, as if to say ‘behave’, but Clem just stuck her tongue out at him.
The doorbell buzzed – the first of the deliveries for the new year – and Pixie jumped up as if she was on springs. Clem rolled her eyes at the sheer bounce in her body.
‘I’ll help you,’ Simon said, getting up and holding the door open for her. Clem watched him, bored.
Tom had taken his call into the conference room – in reality, a tiny box room with a skylight and a plug socket for a laptop – and Clem sat in the office, alone and silent until her eyes found an anomalous shape resting on the wall behind Tom’s desk. It was shrouded with a white sheet, but she knew what it was.
Getting up, she pulled off the cover and gasped to see – in the harsh light of day – exactly how wounded and diminished the bike was. Contrary to her daydreams of owning a bike like this, she saw clearly now that this was not a bike that could ever have been chained to a lamppost outside the pub; this bike was for people who wanted to cruise round their vast country estates when the Bentley was too big and the Ducati too fast. And she had trashed it at a party.
One hundred and thirty five thousand pounds? Once maybe, but not like this and not in this condition. They’d struggle to sell it at a car boot sale now, and Clem felt a wave of nausea grip her as she took in the full scale of the damage. The caramel and baby pink woven leather handle grips had come loose and untucked in several places where cigarette burns had caused the leather to fray and pull apart; the diamond-studded leather casings on the top and upright tubes looked like they had been tie-dyed with red wine; and the rare, peachy hide they’d used for the saddles – the foreskin of a blue whale was it? Or was that just the punchline of a joke she’d heard in the pub? – had been defaced with an obscene cartoon in red biro. Only the gold bell inset with a pink diamond and surrounded by hundreds of yellow pave diamonds shaped into petals had escaped unscathed – probably because the revellers had assumed it was fake. She opened up the leather panier, which had been whip-stitched by elves (or by hand, same difference) and opened out, tailgate-style, to reveal a Fortnum’s-stocked picnic – only someone had popped the bottle of Tattinger and the tin of foie gras was missing altogether, a crushed packet of Marlboro Lights having been popped in its place.
C
overing the bike again, she turned away, depressed, and her headache getting worse – the two ailments possibly weren’t unrelated – and stepped towards the window to stare down into the street below. The Christmas lights were still strung up between the lampposts, criss-crossing the street, but they looked sad rather than festive now and Clem hoped the council would take them down quickly, along with the Christmas trees lying upended outside every house or flat, littering the pavements and making it difficult for residents with hangovers to get to work. She just wanted Christmas and New Year to hurry up and be forgotten for another eleven months, so that life could go back to just drifting along again, without this overbearing need to mark time.
Below her she saw the flashing hazard lights of the white delivery truck as Simon signed for the shipment, saying something that made Pixie laugh, and Clem grudgingly admired her shoes – shiny raspberry-pink ballet flats with the bow fashioned to look like Minnie Mouse ears.
She watched as elderly residents came out early to do their shopping with tartan trolleys, dogs being walked on short leads by owners holding small black bags; office workers standing by doorways smoking, a cup of coffee in hand. It wasn’t the glitzy, razzmatazz image people conjured when they thought of Notting Hill and the famous Portobello Road market. It was greyer, damper, messier than that, and still in the kind of morose hibernation that comes from three days of solid rain. It only really looked the way the tourists imagined in the summer, when the pastel-painted houses baked like cookies in the sun and the faded shop awnings were rolled out to throw shadows on the ground, when the pub gardens overflowed with revellers and geraniums, when men – old and young alike – wore panamas and shorts, and girls cycled the streets on rattling boneshakers wearing vintage petticoats.
She watched as an elderly Jamaican man bought a hand of green bananas from Bob Ashley, the grocer – her father’s most trusted fig supplier; a troop of teenage girls, not back at school for another week and all identically dressed in a junior version of her own outfit – bleached skinny jeans, swing jumpers and studded ankle boots – slunk past on their way to Trudie’s café, where the coffee still only cost a pound and you got a bourbon biscuit for free. She smiled as she saw Katy her florist friend, put together a beautiful spray of ranunculus roses and pussy willow, tying a blowsy hemp bow expertly around the stems as she chatted and laughed with relaxed familiarity to the customer, a well-dressed lady with white hair and a tweed coat and gloves. An orange-clad street sweeper was making slow progress down the road, pushing his cart in front of him and clearing chip wrappers and blue-striped polythene bags with his long-handled grabber, meaning he never had to so much as bend his knees – which was just as well since he was sixty-four and had been sweeping Portobello for forty-seven years. His name was Bert, and Clem had known him her entire life.