Chapter 1
‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name when we were being introduced upstairs.’ My neighbour at the dinner table gave a thin, bored smile.
‘Susannah Forbes,’ I said, slightly annoyed. Our hosts, Ginny and Maynard Wilson, had sent a guest list very properly, for the avoidance of any festering vendettas, and it seemed reasonable to expect him to have slotted me in. I turned my place-card his way for emphasis and leaned to peer unnecessarily at his. ‘And you’re Godfrey Croft, I see.’
I’d absorbed from the list that Mr Croft was married – to Hilary – and a senior player in a private equity firm. He had the comfortable girth of good-restaurant living, close-cropped grey hair, disinterested eyes; he fitted my idea of the City stereotype. Not so surprising then that my name with the tag of ‘interior designer’ hadn’t made it onto his radar when international banker might have registered.
‘Do you have . . . is your husband here?’ He looked vaguely up and down the table.
‘No, the last two died on me.’
‘Oh.’ Godfrey sat up a bit. ‘So your name . . .’
‘Is my own, not my last husband’s.’
‘And is that Forbes, as in the Rich List?’ He smiled, showing a little more interest, sneaking a glance at my diamond ring.
‘Yes, and some might say I’m rich, but I’m not on the List and no relation,’ I twinkled at him with more warmth. That must have sounded very arch. An almost reverential gleam had come into his eye with the mention of the Forbes List, but I wasn’t on it and he wearily offered me the butter dish with a muttered whinge about olive oil being a healthier option. ‘Butter has lots of vitamins,’ I said cheerfully, digging into the pat. ‘A, D and E.’
Some people could be boring in an interesting way but not, on present evidence, Mr Croft. It was too soon to write him off, though. He could be an impressive academic sort of banker, a recovering alcoholic, a demon in the sack; no one was irredeemably dull.
‘Did you think of the Forbes List as a way to log in my name like the Americans do?’ I asked. ‘Like thinking of belly to summon up Kelly, say, with someone overweight?’
‘Oh, no, not at all. I’d be very bad at anything like that.’ He gave his thin smile.
‘Me, too,’ I agreed sympathetically, ‘and I’d probably only remember the prompt!’
We relapsed into silence. The wine and the first course, a salad with warm smoked duck, were being served. Godfrey was certainly making me feel my age.
His wife, Hilary, was opposite, friendly-faced, countrified-looking; conventionally dressed in a turquoise silk dress and jacket. She was studying her plate rather forlornly, stuck between a Brazilian businessman and a rascally, acerbic theatre critic called Bertrand Joseph, whom I knew. Bertie looked despairing, trapped, his mouth in a downward droop. It wasn’t the wittiest of seating plans. Maynard and Ginny Wilson were seasoned diplomats, after all: whatever had they been thinking of?
They were at each end of the Tonelli, black-glass table. Maynard was next to the voluble Greek wife of a government minister who was speaking fast, waving her arms about, and he had the frozen smile on his face of someone who’d lost the thread and was trying to avoid being found out. Ginny, on the other hand, was busily turning it on for the French Ambassador, overdoing the flutter-eyed charm.
Bertie made no effort to entertain poor Hilary Croft; I watched him trying to attract the attention of Ruth Travers, a much-loved actor, quick-tongued and idiosyncratic, seated further down the table on my side. Ruth’s face was as wizened as a lizard’s, yet it had the sort of strong-nosed ugliness that has its own attraction. She dressed with great style and was wearing a ruby-red crushed velvet number tonight, with a dramatically upstanding collar.
‘Hey, Ruthie,’ Bertie called across. ‘I saw that talentless old ex of yours finally kicked it the other day. Did you go to the poor bugger’s funeral?’
‘No,’ she drawled, eyeing him lazily from under hooded lids. ‘In fact, I rather regret going to the wedding.’
It had been said before, but her delivery was perfect. Half the table had smiles.
‘But it can’t, in fact, be very easy, can it – going to an ex’s funeral?’ Hilary Croft said, taking it seriously. ‘Embarrassing for the grieving relatives, I imagine, especially if they’d taken sides. Awkward for any new partner, too . . .’ She tailed off as her remarks fell leadenly and everyone nearby stayed silent. She looked agonised.
‘Susannah went to one of her exes’s funerals,’ Ginny piped up with her usual bitchiness. ‘Max’s, wasn’t it, Susannah? I remember the pictures in the newspapers.’
‘So, not one of your weddings you’d regretted then?’ Bertie threw in waspishly. ‘And did that air-head new little wife of his look daggers at you through her tears?’
The Brazilian’s wife on my neighbour Godfrey’s other side peered round him with a fascinated stare, hanging on my answer, but Maynard benignly came to my aid.
‘I go to so many funerals and memorials these days,’ he said. ‘More of my friends seem to die than give dinner parties!’ A few awkward titters rippled round, though I felt the joke had a slightly callous ring. ‘And I’m surprised how often they’ve minutely planned their own,’ Maynard continued. ‘An elevated friend of mine, who shall be nameless, made it his express wish that a man he’d loathed all his life be asked to give the address – to savour the thought of him squirming with embarrassment, I suppose, feeling unable to refuse.’
Plates were being cleared, claret poured. Godfrey was discreetly picking at a back tooth with his little finger, the chewy smoked duck giving problems. I eyed the young woman on my other side, Daisy Mitchell, who had an appealing profile. She wasn’t a beauty, but had a lively mobile face with a generous mouth and clear light skin. Her striking sea-green eyes would hold anyone captive, and she had an enjoyable way of bubbling-over; I’d seen her talking to Maynard before dinner, tossing back her light-brown hair. She was in a flame-red dress with criss-cross straps, short and sassy.
Daisy was wearing a wedding ring, and the absent husband, if she wasn’t divorced, must be a diplomat or business friend of the Wilsons’, I presumed. It was a bit of a raw deal for her tonight, stuck between an older woman and the overweight fogey on her other side. An opera singer, a single man who would have evened up the sexes, had cried off apparently with a sore throat.
Godfrey was sipping the claret with a dubious expression and I said, trying to be friendly, ‘You look like a serious connoisseur.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ he replied with unconscious immodesty, swilling the wine in his glass with calculated care, ‘although strictly entre nous, I do find this Pichon Lalande a touch insubstantial.’ He smiled. ‘But then I’m more of a burgundy man.’
‘Oh dear, that shows how little I know! I’d thought it rather smooth and good. Only because of having it with a friend, though, I expect, whose son’s in the wine trade. He loves the job, has finally found his niche, to his mother’s relief. He’d tried to get into insurance, but when asked at interview what appealed to him about the business, he said he felt it had a rather romantic side. They didn’t take him on! Still, top marks for originality, don’t you think?’
‘Not really,’ Godfrey said, speaking as patiently as he would to a child, instead of a neighbour at dinner who’d been weakly attempting a bit of levity. ‘I’d want people who skipped the romantic waffle and saw the appeal of the profit-making side. I mean, don’t you rather enjoy having money?’
I smiled but didn’t reply, with no desire to start arguing about creativity, job satisfaction and community spirit. His lip would have curled.
An elderly waiter was patiently holding out a vast oval dish of small pink lamb cutlets. His hands had a tremble and I hurriedly took a couple of cutlets and watercress. It was a natural break, time to swap sides, which I did with a relieved parting smile. Godfrey had smugly enjoyed having the last word, while I thought he was a chauvinist prat.
‘I’ve be
en dying to meet you,’ Daisy Mitchell said. ‘I’m such a huge fan from all the fabulous pictures I’ve seen of your interiors, the spreads and features. There’s so much I’d love to ask, about your past amazing career as well, but I’m sure it’s the last thing you need.’
‘Of course not, ask away. I’m only sorry you’re stuck with me and not next to some dishy attentive young man.’ I let my eyes roam the table. ‘Though where you’d go for that sort of honey tonight . . .’ Daisy gave a little giggle. She inclined her head towards the person on her other side. ‘Not there,’ she whispered. ‘He’s pickled in aspic. I didn’t know guys like that still existed. He thinks the glass ceiling is made of cellophane and we “gels” don’t cut it. He’s such a throwback.’
‘Not to me, I know a few.’ I knew her neighbour for a start, a pompous twerp who headed a family packaging business. ‘Tell me about yourself, Daisy. Are you working?’
She grimaced. ‘Kind of. Not enough. I write a cookery column and occasional stories for magazines. I need to do more, but I’ve just got divorced, all very messy and tacky, and it’s impossibly hard to focus. I’m so in awe and envious of your fantastic new career. It’s brilliant!’
‘Pure luck, more like – a friend who had a few clients with bottomless bank balances giving me a break. But you could change course, too. Any interests aside from cooking?’
‘I love art and design, but I’m not trained and doing a course would cost money, which is a bit tight right now. My ex-husband had a good lawyer.’
‘Children?’
‘Twin boys of nineteen; they’re non-identical, different in every way.’
‘But you can’t be out of your thirties yet,’ I said, with genuine surprise.
‘Almost,’ Daisy said, looking pleased. ‘I’m nearly thirty-nine. The boys are from a very brief early marriage – this is my second divorce, I’m afraid. You married young too, didn’t you, the first time?’
‘Yes, I was eighteen. My daughter from that marriage is older than you. Things were bad, but I hung on. Divorcing in those days took serious legal perseverance.’
‘You were a top model so it must have been extra hard, being in the public eye. You worked in New York as well, didn’t you? Did you take your daughter with you?’
‘Sure, she was only a year old. I’d had a nanny in London and took her, too. She was a cantankerous old bird, never out of her brown Norland Nanny uniform and neurotic about her age; she refused ever to let me see her passport. Manhattan wasn’t her natural habitat; she wheeled a stately second-hand Silver Cross pram around town, looking suspicious and disapproving like a grumpy old Mary Poppins, yet I grew very fond of her over time. But how do you know so much about my past? It’s prehistoric!’
‘There’s been a lot written. And my mother kind of followed you and kept articles from magazines.’ Daisy blushed sweetly, reddening the more as she dug in deeper, trying to flatter me. ‘She was a bit older than you, of course. She’d have been seventy this year.’
‘Your mother died young?’
‘Twenty years ago, of breast cancer. My father’s remarried and I’m good with my stepmother. I like her – she’s French and grew up in a château. My dad runs a health farm in Sussex.’
The dessert was served, a medley of mini-puds: a pink mush in a thimble-thin glass, a split strawberry, a blob of green ice cream and a teeny chocolate tart.
‘Too catered-looking,’ Daisy murmured. ‘I think the food for dinners at home should look as if there’s a nice comfortable cook downstairs, a Mrs Patmore of Downton Abbey.’
Daisy was fun with her green-eyed sparkiness. She went into raptures about the dining-room décor; she must have known I’d had a hand in it. Ginny had wanted help with a wall-colour, but soon had me doing the whole room – for love, which I didn’t feel. The walls were now deep crimson; shiny black bowls of white tulips stretched all down the table, and two life-sized statues, elegant armless ladies, stood at the window end of the room. They’d been unseen, gathering moss in the unused, paved back garden and I’d persuaded Ginny to bring them indoors. Along with Maynard’s abstract paintings, his Wendy Lehmans, they added a touch of class.
Ginny rose to her feet and tinkled a glass. ‘Coffee upstairs,’ she said bossily, smiling then, as if to convey it was all about consideration for the staff. ‘Let’s go on up.’
With much scraping of chairs – Godfrey radiating pique – we did as we were told. In the sitting room, where trays of coffee and herbal tea were circulating, Hilary Croft sought me out, to my surprise. She seemed nervous and took sips of black coffee before speaking, as though internally phrasing her words.
‘I, um, wanted to apologise for that silly, unfortunate remark about funerals,’ she said. ‘I’d been feeling so out of my depth and was trying to appear a little less than inadequate, I suppose, though it had the opposite effect. Do forgive me.’
It was warm and generous and I assured her that nothing could matter less.
‘I had a very enjoyable time with Godfrey,’ I said, being shamelessly disingenuous, ‘though I suspect he was humouring me a little when we talked about money.’
‘He thinks of nothing else. I despair.’ Hilary sighed bitterly, revealing the stresses of her marriage. She gave a wan smile. ‘Better go. We’re driving back to Hampshire and I can see Godfrey’s impatient to be off. Bye, then – and thanks for being so understanding.’
‘Time I was off too,’ I said, grabbing my chance. ‘I’ll leave with you.’
We started a stampede. Everyone took their cue, milling round to say goodbye, and I had to wait to thank Ginny, mentally drumming my fingertips as the French Ambassador bade her a flowery farewell. The Crofts were already out of the door.
Daisy came alongside. ‘I’ve so loved meeting you, had such a cool time,’ she said. Then, hesitating: ‘I don’t suppose – I mean, could you ever bear to come and have lunch one day? I’m just over the bridge in Battersea, not very far.’
‘Love to,’ I said, fishing in my bag for a card. ‘Thanks, that sounds great.’
She gave me a quick hug like one of my children, and darted off, bouncy and breezy as ever. ‘Bye, Ginny,’ she called out blithely, over the smooth dark head of the diminutive French Ambassador. ‘Lovely party!’
There were a couple of messages on my voicemail. I played the first while kicking off my shoes. It was from Charles Palmer, one of my oldest and dearest friends, a biographer who lived in rural North Norfolk and was writing a book on the zoo owner, John Aspinall. Charles hadn’t been to London in weeks. It was partly the cause of my edginess. What was the point of having a friend and long-time occasional lover if he never showed? He could get in his car . . .
I listened to his message resentfully. Charles sounded miffed, too. ‘Where are you? Why don’t you ever pick up? Call me, late as you like. I’ll have to open another bottle of whisky.’
I loaded up my face with another useless miracle cream. In the past Charles had asked me to live with him, to move into his subzero, rambling Queen Anne home that was a rat-run for every gusting gale. Climbing into bed, I visualised the house with its symmetry and distant view of the sea, the wind howling like a demon possessed, windows rattling in their sashes, draughts extinguishing the flame on the ancient boiler, hardly in functioning order on a good day. As regularly as Charles had asked, I’d refused.
I shifted up in bed to lean against the headboard and dialled his number, stretching pleasurably in anticipation, always ready to hear his resonant voice. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I was only at a Wilsons’ dinner party – for want of anything better to do. How’s the writing going?’
‘Don’t ask. I’ve had a stream of callers, no chance of an uninterrupted flow. The postman’s dusting off his caravan, but his wife thinks the weather has to turn. Mrs Selling came about a good cause and talked about her tits – the garden variety; I kept remembering a line in a play, about a woman getting her tits stuck in the letter box. Then my neighbour Mr Hetherington turned up, very full o
f a clue in yesterday’s crossword.’
‘Which was?’
‘“Primate”. He’d thought of “chimpanzee” which fitted and been chuffed with himself, but discovered today the correct answer was “archbishop”! So how was it at the Wilsons’, as balls-aching as can be expected? I’d go a long way not to have dinner with Ginny.’
‘All the way to Norfolk?’
‘Don’t be sarky.’
‘It could have been worse. I had an invitation to lunch.’
‘Oh. Don’t tell me you’ve found another Clive.’
‘Why always assume it’s a man? It was from a girl, almost half my age. She must want something, which isn’t rocket science since she’s broke, done over in a recent divorce. I think I’ll go, though; she was refreshing and fun, plenty of chutzpah. She writes a cookery column too, so the food shouldn’t be bad.’
‘Don’t be in a grump,’ Charles said. ‘I miss you all the same, though.’
Why didn’t he do something about it then?
I said a chilly goodbye while feeling a warm burn of contact. Charles was like a sip of the finest brandy, in many ways.
I played the second message.
‘It’s Warren Lindsay. You may not remember, but we met at Jimmy Rose’s, quite a while ago now. I loved what you’d done to his penthouse and took your card. I’m just passing through, on an early plane tomorrow, but I’m anxious to talk to you about doing up my house on Long Island. I’d be grateful if you could call; any time up until about one tonight is fine. I’m on a different time clock.’
It was twelve-thirty. I debated it for a moment, but decided to call.
Warren described the house in detail: eight bedrooms, large reception rooms, pool, sundeck and more. Some house . . . Warren explained that he was finally divorced and wanted a clean break. ‘No reminders, no stick of furniture, no hammock on the deck, you’d have a complete free hand.’
Tell the Girl Page 2