Queen Bee

by Jane Fallon

  Regret it immediately.

  27

  Stella is on my doorstep, and the two sullen-looking Mini Mes stand behind her, hands on hips like twin teapots.

  ‘Taylor and Amber would like to ask Betsy to hang out with them,’ she says through gritted teeth. I hadn’t anticipated this. I’d hoped for an apology, but I’m not sure I’m happy about my daughter spending any more time than she has to in the company of these two precocious monsters.

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘How nice.’

  Betsy appears behind me like a dog who’s heard the word ‘walkies’. ‘Hi!’ she says eagerly, straightening her wonky glasses.

  The Mini Mes both give her sickly forced smiles. ‘They also have something they want to say, don’t you, girls?’

  ‘We made a mistake; your mum is not a slut,’ they chorus in sulky unison. They’ve obviously been rehearsing. It’s said robotically, completely without conviction, but Betsy takes it at face value and gives them a big grin.

  ‘Can we play in the woods?’ she says, and I immediately jump in with ‘No! Stay where we can keep an eye on you. No further than the gate.’ I don’t trust them not to turn on her once they’re out of sight. I swear, if they make her cry again, I’ll kill them both.

  Luckily, it’s a beautiful day. ‘Can I have your make-up bag?’ Taylor says, and Stella digs in her Louis Vuitton. I look at Betsy and she’s looking excited, so I leave it. So long as it keeps them occupied with something other than being mean, I can live with it. Just about. Stella hands it over. ‘I do need to talk to Laura in private though,’ she says.

  Taylor snatches the bag. ‘We’ll sit on the steps outside.’

  ‘I’m right here if you need me,’ I say to Betsy as they lead her off, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. Stella closes the door behind them and I open it again, just a crack.

  ‘Coffee?’ I say.

  ‘Not that awful instant stuff. I’ll have Pilar make a cafetière.’ She fishes her phone out of her bag.

  ‘No!’ I say, more forcefully than I intended. She’s going to have to get used to not being waited on hand and foot. ‘You can have tea.’

  She perches on the sofa. ‘Do you have any matcha?’

  ‘PG Tips,’ I say, dropping a tea bag into a mug. ‘I can’t afford matcha, and neither can you any more.’

  She’s very pleased with herself when she tells me that she’s signed up for online access to her bank accounts and that the trial PayPal payment just showed up as PayPal and a series of numbers, nothing that overtly linked it to her.

  ‘Of course, if he ever investigated it properly, he’d be able to trace it easily,’ I tell her. ‘The idea is never to make him so suspicious that he does.’

  She nods. ‘OK.’

  ‘Just keep to fairly small amounts for now. We’ll think of a way to do some big ones.’

  More nodding. I put her tea down in front of her and she delves into her bag again. Comes out with a Cartier box. Hands it over. I open it and I’m practically blinded by the bling. ‘Wow!’

  She takes it back from me, slips the ring on to her finger. ‘He gave me this on our tenth anniversary, a couple of years ago. I thought … I could sell it.’

  ‘Won’t he notice?’

  ‘I don’t wear it much any more.’ She waggles a hand full of glittering jewels.

  ‘Great,’ I say decisively, before she can change her mind. ‘We need to find a jeweller’s. That must be worth a fair bit.’

  I can’t help looking round at my things. How much easier life would be if I had a flat full of priceless artefacts to sell, but I’m not sure anyone else would pay good money for the misshapen brown ashtray Betsy made me when she did a pottery class last summer (excellent guidance for children there: encourage your parents to smoke, kids!) that David and I nicknamed – behind her back, of course – the flat turd. It’s one of my most precious possessions. ‘How does he seem … Al?’

  ‘Like normal,’ she says, taking a sip of her tea and grimacing.

  ‘Did you want more milk in that?’

  ‘No. It’s just … it’s fine.’ She puts it back down. ‘That’s what makes this whole thing so hard to believe. It’s not as if we’re fighting … less than usual, even.’

  Because he no longer cares enough, I think. I know that one. That’s one of the sure signs it’s terminal.

  ‘Maybe you’ve got this all wrong …’ she says hopefully. ‘It might just be wedding nerves …’

  I raise my eyebrows at her. ‘I wonder how many men buy a secret bolthole and strip out their joint account because they’re nervous about getting married.’

  She looks at me, eyes watery.

  ‘I don’t mean to sound harsh, Stella, but you have to start believing it’s true. You’ve only got a limited time to sort yourself out, and who knows what he might do next. Did you tell the nanny you don’t need her any more, by the way?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I was waiting till after the holidays. She’s doing extra hours in the afternoons while the girls are off …’

  ‘Tell her today. Then take all the cash out that you would have paid her and put it in your new account, OK? They’re very quiet out there, by the way.’ I walk over to the door and peer out. Three little faces look up at me, one of them – my daughter – made up like a pantomime dame. Amber is painting Betsy’s fingernails a vivid red and Taylor is scraping her hair back so tightly with a brush it looks like her eyes might pop out of her head.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I only look at Betsy. I know I’ll be able to tell from her expression if she’s under duress. But she gives me a big, lipsticky smile.

  ‘Cool,’ Taylor says, insouciant.

  ‘Cool,’ Betsy parrots.

  I tell myself just to be happy she’s still in one piece.

  Betsy is on a playdate. I drove her down to Michaela’s this morning so that she and Zara could spend the day gawping at the animals in the zoo. They’ve taken their sketch pads and packs of coloured pencils in their little backpacks and they’ve each made a list of their own ‘big five’ to immortalize. In Betsy’s case: meerkat, warthog, lion, crocodile and tarantula. Michaela invited me to stay for a coffee, so we sat in her warm, messy, cosy kitchen.

  ‘Where are the little ones?’ I asked, when I suddenly realized it was suspiciously quiet in the flat. Michaela stretched her arms above her head, a sliver of soft, creamy skin appearing at her waist. She’s one of those people who are totally comfortable in their own body. She sometimes reminds me of a cat in that respect.

  ‘Staying with my mum and dad for a few days. It’s bliss, but don’t tell anyone I said that.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know how you cope with three on your own.’ I’m always curious about where the kids’ dad is, but I never feel I can ask. It’s none of my business. She laughed. ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  Now, with a free day when I could be catching up with work before this weekend’s marathon clean (of the four companies that share a building near Lord’s Cricket Ground), I am standing outside a jeweller’s near Hatton Garden waiting for Stella to show up, already late for our eleven o’clock appointment. I don’t really have time for it, but she begged me to come along, as she’s never had to do anything like this before (‘Like I have either,’ I said to her) and she’s nervous she’ll get bamboozled and accept way too low a price. And I have to admit I’m curious to see how it works, let alone find out how much she’ll get.

  I see her striding towards me. A model on her catwalk. She turns heads, not just because she’s stunning – tall and slender in her skin-tight jeans and three-inch Louboutins, giant sunglasses covering half her face – but because she commands it. She walks like she’s entitled to attention, and so she gets it. She’s a self-appointed superstar. If there were a random paparazzo around, I guarantee they would jump out and take her picture. Just in case.

  ‘We’re a bit late,’ I say as she gets close. We’re actually nearly fifteen minutes late, but I don’t want to put her in a ba
d mood by having a go. She waves a hand as if to say, What does it matter?

  I ring the doorbell beside the heavily armoured glass door, peer through the decorative iron defences. A buzzer sounds and I push my way in. It’s a tiny shop, rammed with display cases overflowing with boxes of twinkling diamonds mounted on rings, necklaces and bracelets, and with an equally tiny elderly man sitting behind one of them. Stella told me one of her friends sold something to him once and talked about him as being old school, always fair. I wait for her to speak. This is her rodeo, after all. She says nothing.

  ‘We have an appointment,’ I say. ‘Stella Thornbury.’

  He sticks out a hand for me to shake. ‘Ah, the ring.’ I nearly laugh because when he says it he’s a dead ringer for Gollum, but I manage to hold it together. ‘This is Stella,’ I say. ‘It’s hers.’ I feel as if I’m acting as her manager, trying to set up a deal on her behalf. Maybe she just doesn’t like dealing with the little people. Gollum looks at her expectantly.

  ‘Show him,’ I hiss. She slides an elegant hand into her bag and slowly produces the Cartier box. Everything is a performance for her. Whereas for this old bloke, I imagine it’s just another day in the office. He’s about a hundred and ten, has probably worked here since he was fourteen. Even with one speculative valuation a day, five days a week, that would be, well, let’s just say, a lot of valuations.

  He spends an age looking over the box. Finally opens it and peers in. He takes out the ring and puts a little tubular magnifying glass to his eye, holding it this way and that. Then he weighs the whole thing on his old-fashioned scales and examines it all over again. Exhales loudly.

  ‘Well?’ Stella says rudely. She really does need to learn some common courtesies.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ he says, peeling the magnifying tube from his eye. I half expect his eyeball to follow.

  ‘My husband bought it for me,’ she says.

  ‘Been married long, have you, love?’

  She huffs. ‘We’re not actually … Why is this any of your business?’

  I’m holding my breath, waiting for the big reveal. Maybe it’s a rare find. Some kind of priceless treasure. Maybe this ring alone will help Stella set up her new life. The old man gives a hacking sort of laugh, showing his (mostly lack of) teeth. ‘Don’t like you much, does he?’

  ‘What?’ I say. I think I must have misheard, or he’s making an ironic joke. Stella says nothing. She still has her giant sunglasses on, but I imagine she looks as confused as I am underneath.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs, these are fake. The ring is eighteen carat, though, probably worth fifty quid, and I imagine the box set him back a tenner.’

  Stella’s top lip curls menacingly. ‘You must be mistaken.’

  ‘Expert, are you?’ he says. ‘If you think I’m saying this so I can rip you off, don’t worry. I’m not interested in making you an offer. If I were you, I’d go and get a second opinion from one of the others. But I guarantee they’ll say the same as me.’

  Stella grabs the box from the counter, sticks her hand out for the ring. Gollum holds it out and she snatches it from his fingers and stomps out. He chuckles. I imagine he’s seen this whole scenario many times before.

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ I say apologetically. ‘She’s just a bit upset …’

  ‘Who can blame her? No problem, sweetheart.’

  I follow Stella out on to the street and find her a few shops along, pacing up and down furiously. ‘What does he know?’ she spits as I get close.

  ‘Quite a lot, I imagine. Let’s go and ask someone else, though, just to be sure.’

  ‘It’s a scam,’ she says.

  ‘Stella, a scam would have been him telling you it was fake when it wasn’t and offering you a fraction of what it’s really worth. He didn’t offer you anything. He didn’t want it.’

  ‘He’s probably already phoned round all the others telling them to back him up so we go back there, tails between our legs, and accept a fiver for it.’

  ‘Already? All of them?’ I say, looking round at the countless other shops. She’s being ridiculous, but I understand. It’s embarrassment as much as anything else. Humiliation. ‘Come on, let’s just pick one at random.’ I take hold of her arm and pull her along the street, stop about eight jewellers along.

  ‘They might not see us without an appointment, but it’s worth a try.’ I ring the bell before she can tell me not to. Whoever is inside obviously decides we don’t look like a pair of armed robbers because they buzz us in immediately. We go through the whole rigmarole again with another tiny, wizened man. This time, Stella is a bit less imperious, trying to charm him, as if that might affect his opinion.

  ‘Well, it’s definitely not Cartier,’ he says before he even examines it closely. ‘Is this the box it came in?’

  ‘It is,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it, Stella?’ She nods reluctantly.

  He goes through the whole production number with the magnifying glass. He’s just as thorough as Gollum, turning it over and over, looking in different lights.

  ‘Can’t help you, I’m afraid,’ he says eventually. ‘The diamonds aren’t real.’

  ‘Would you give us anything for it?’ I say. Stella shoots me a look. I ignore her. It’s a test. If he offers us a pittance, then there’s a possibility her scam idea could be true. I think I know what’s coming, though.

  ‘Not worth my reputation, love. Sorry.’

  ‘I understand. Thanks, anyway.’

  I avoid saying I told you so to Stella once we’re back on the street. Instead I try to sound upbeat. ‘OK, what else have you got?’

  ‘I’m going to kill him. How could he humiliate me like that?’

  I assume she means Al, and not the jeweller. ‘I’m guessing it never occurred to him that you’d try to sell it.’

  ‘Fucking cheapskate,’ she snarls, hurling the Cartier box into a nearby bin.

  ‘Hey! Get that back. That first bloke said the gold is worth fifty quid.’

  She looks at me as if I’ve completely lost my mind. ‘What use is fifty pounds to anyone?’

  ‘Did you really just say that? What do you mean, what use?’ I find myself raising my voice. She’s so spoilt, so entitled. ‘For some people – a lot of people – fifty quid would mean the difference between eating for the next couple of weeks or not.’

  ‘Well, bully for them,’ she says.

  She’s unbelievable. ‘You need to drastically change your attitude to money, Stella. You can’t swan round acting like a spoilt princess any more.’

  She flares her nostrils, a sure sign trouble is brewing. ‘Well, if a few pounds means so much to you, you have it.’

  I stomp over to the bin. ‘You know what, I will.’ I root around. Somehow, the box has worked its way down into a mire of god knows what. I finally find it, hold it up like Excalibur. There’s a homeless woman sitting on the corner with a sign asking for money. I open the box and hand her the ring. She looks at me as if I’m mad.

  ‘The diamonds are fake, but the gold is real. If you take it to a scrap place, you should get a few quid.’

  I turn and walk away before she says anything. I head back in the direction of the meter where my car is waiting. I don’t even look back to see what Stella is doing.

  28

  I’m actually relieved to be working all weekend. I take Betsy with me first thing and assign her a job taking leather-bound books off the shelves at the solicitors’, the first of the four companies we’re tackling. I tell her how important it is that they all go back in the correct order, but they’re all numbered volumes, so it’s hardly rocket science for one of us to put right if she mixes them up. I’m happy it’ll keep her occupied till her dad comes to pick her up for the afternoon at twelve. She’s beyond excited. She’s wearing her short dungarees with red leggings underneath and has tied her hair up in an old blue bandana of mine from when I tried (and failed) to pull off some kind of Stevie Nicks chic, so she looks ridiculously cute. She’s been on cloud n
ine since Thursday, chatting away about Taylor this and Amber that. I can’t bear to think they might be about to reject her all over again.

  ‘Oh good, the child labour’s arrived,’ Angie says, giving her a hug. ‘We can send you up the chimney later.’

  I already know that the mysterious envelope on Al’s desk has disappeared without a trace. Once Betsy is out of earshot and we’re in the kitchen making everyone a coffee, I collar Ange about it again. Of course, it might be nothing. An over-officious business acquaintance trying to make their correspondence look important. But the overkill of ‘Strictly Private and Confidential. To be opened by recipient only’ has piqued my interest. I may be pissed off with Stella, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s going on.

  ‘It’s not in the drawer. Maybe he took it home. Maybe it wasn’t anything he didn’t want Stella to know about after all,’ she says, getting the milk out of the fridge.

  ‘Must be,’ I say, trying to remember who has sugar and how much in this morning’s team – Paul, Tomas, Catriona, Sharon and Amita.

  Angie takes the spoon from my hand and deftly finishes the job. ‘How’s she behaving now?’

  ‘I have so much to tell you. But not now. We need to get on with it.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ she says, picking up four of the cups.

  Luckily, we’re not home enough all weekend for Betsy to wonder where her new friends are, but on Monday morning, once I’ve dragged myself out of bed, every limb aching, and I’m sitting with my laptop working out the wages for the past week, she announces her intention to call on Taylor and Amber. I haven’t heard a word from Stella since Friday, and I haven’t tried to contact her either. Her attitude shocked me. I know she’s used to having whatever she wants whenever she wants it, but she needs to grasp that that’s not going to be the case from now on. She needs to learn how the other half lives. Or not. It’s nothing to do with me.