by Claire Frost
‘Maybe, although possibly not for much longer.’ Millie grimaced, immediately wishing she hadn’t mentioned the centre’s fate after the exhausting evening Bell had already had. ‘Louis was talking about getting him into a football academy locally, which would be good, as it means he could make friends with other kids who aren’t at his school. Although sorting that out would require King Louis to actually be in the country and thinking about his son, rather than swanning off to Marbella with some pumped-up-lip-pouting bimbo!’
Bell was silent for a couple of seconds. Then she pulled her friend to a stop on the street. ‘Are you okay, Millie? Because you really don’t sound like you are. Why don’t you take a step back from the fundraising committee and just help out when you can so you’re not under so much pressure?’
‘But I want to be involved!’ Millie said, stamping her foot in a way she recognised Wolf did when he was frustrated and angry. ‘Oh god, listen to me, I sound like such a dickhead!’ She started giggling and then found she couldn’t stop – and that Bell had started shaking with laughter too. ‘Make it stop, my stomach is actually hurting!’
‘I know, but “bimbo”? I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that word since 1995, but it is amazing. Oh god, you’re actually hilarious!’ Bell tried and failed to control herself and had to grab on to the wall behind her to steady herself she was laughing so hard.
‘But it’s so apt! I’m totally bringing back the word bimbo,’ Millie said, wiping her eyes. ‘Thanks, Bell, that was actually just what I needed.’
‘What, hysterical laughter? Well, it might not solve any of our problems and has given me a nasty stomach ache, but, you’re right, it’s exactly what I needed, too.’ Bell tested a smile to see if she could keep the hysterics under control, and thankfully it seemed both of them had managed to get a grip. ‘In all seriousness, Mills, come to the meeting on Saturday, but let’s go for a coffee in the café first and between us we’ll try to get Wolf to open up. Maybe a huge hot chocolate and some sweets will fill him so full of sugar he won’t be able to stop talking.’
Millie smiled. ‘Well anything’s worth a try.’ She pulled Bell into a quick hug and kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks for being such a good friend. God, I really had better get back and check Bridget is okay. I’ll see you on Saturday.’
Bridget was dozing lightly when Millie got home and managed to throw warm tea all over her chest when she abruptly woke up at Millie’s hello. Once she was mopped up and packed off with another packet of lemon shortbread biscuits in her bag, Millie watched as she walked down the road, raising a hand goodbye when she reached her front door.
It had been a long day and Millie sighed as she made herself a cup of soothing lavender bedtime tea, sank down into the sofa and opened her laptop, balancing it precariously on her knee. She didn’t have much to report on social media, but scrolling through her feed and seeing the amazing days everyone else seemed to have had, she felt she should add her own voice to the crowd. Lacking inspiration as she certainly wasn’t going to mention her run-in with Wolf’s school and she didn’t have anything concrete to post about the fundraising efforts for the centre, she picked up her phone and clicked into her photos app looking for a recent picture that would pull in the lovehearts. Eventually, her thumb landed on an image of Wolfie looking particularly cute as he grinned at the camera with a cheeky glint in his eye. She added a couple of filters and cropped into the shot to get rid of the mess in the living room behind him, then added the caption:
This little boy tho. My heart bursts with love for him every time he laughs mischievously, giggles as he’s telling me one of his jokes, or smiles shyly when he comes home from school with a certificate for being the best-behaved in his class. Please can he stay five years old for ever?! #thisisfive #myangel #love #mumandson #mummyblogger
Millie pressed Share and picked up her tea already feeling lighter and happier.
Chapter Nineteen
Bell
Bell stared at the fifty-seven unread emails that had appeared in her inbox since she’d been in her half-hour meeting with the rest of the marketing team. What with constant brainstorms, catch-ups and presentations, plus her magically refilling inbox, she wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to find time to actually do any work. And even with her whole team at full stretch, there was still a load of that to get through.
‘Get your gob around that,’ came Suze’s dulcet tones from behind her as a large cup of milky coffee landed on her desk. ‘Productive meeting?’
‘If productive means realising we have even more to do than I’d thought, then yes,’ she answered. ‘Thanks for this, though, it’s the only way I’m going to get through this afternoon.’
‘Well, that and the lure of a big glass of red at Smithie’s this evening maybe?’
‘I would, but I’ve just got all this to do.’ She waved her arm towards her computer and the pile of reports on her desk she hadn’t even started to look at.
‘Pleeeeeease, Bellster?’ Suze implored, and then added a little more quietly, ‘I could really do with a chat. Me and Els have been a bit funny lately and I’m not sure why.’
Bell softened almost immediately. ‘Okay, Smithie’s it is then!’
‘Yay, bring on the wine!’ Suze whooped. ‘I have an off-site at three o’clock so I’ll see you there at six, yes?’
‘Fine,’ Bell replied, turning back to her screen and clicking open email after email and adding more and more items to the to-do list on the pad of paper in front of her.
Bell’s day only got busier, to the point that she realised she was absolutely bursting for a wee and hadn’t got up from her desk for the last two hours. She hobbled across the office to the loos and only allowed herself a quick glance in the harshly lit mirrors that made her appear pasty on a good day and this afternoon turned her into a vampire with huge bags, before taking a deep breath and returning to the office.
‘Ah, Bell, there you are, I was beginning to think you’d run off home!’
Bell took a second to wonder if Emma, Style It Out’s head of finance, had been guarding the door of the loos, ready to pounce with her claws fully extended as soon as she emerged.
‘Ha! That’s funny, Emma, I was just about to come and find you.’ Emma raised her eyebrow as if to say ‘Hmm, really?!’ but Bell knew she had to keep the spiel coming now she’d started. ‘I was going to say that I know you’re still waiting for those figures and you’ll definitely have them by lunchtime tomorrow.’ She smiled brightly at her.
‘Unfortunately, I need those figures plotted into a graph to add to my presentation for Marian tomorrow morning,’ Emma said, her mouth curling upwards. ‘If you could send them over this evening, that would be great.’ She turned on her two-inch block heel (so last season, Bell thought uncharitably) and marched off back to her domain.
Back at her desk, Bell set to work on her spreadsheet of numbers, crossing her toes that the totals would all end up matching. They didn’t. She had no idea why, so had to start from the beginning and try to work out which calculation was wrong. Eventually she located the offending cell and managed to fix it, but not before swearing loudly that whoever had set up the document in the first place had caused the error.
She looked up from her screen to ask which of her team had been half-asleep when they created it, only to find the office was almost completely deserted. She picked up her mobile, which had been lying face down on her desk, and immediately it lit up with a plethora of missed calls and messages from Suze.
‘Shit!’ Bell cried out loud, before quickly jabbing the call button next to her friend’s name. ‘Suze, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise the time and I’ve been stuck here trying to figure out this spreadsheet that some dimwit has fucked up, but Emma needed the figures this evening. Are you okay, are you still at the pub?’
‘I had a drink on my own and then gave up on you,’ Suze said through a haze of traffic noise that from its volume Bell recognised as the main road out of town. ‘Loo
k, don’t worry, I know what the Fat Controller can be like.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, okay.’ She ended the call and Bell stared at the phone in her hands, feeling both guilty and pissed off.
She fired off a grovelling text to Suze repeating her apologies, threw her phone on to her desk and pressed Send on her email to Emma. Everything else could wait, she decided; that promised glass of wine was definitely calling, as was her sofa. She’d have to deal with both her emails and Suze’s disappointment tomorrow.
Just as she was about to shut down her email, a message popped up at the top of her unread list.
‘Could today get any more annoying?’ she sighed into the empty office. She clicked on the email’s subject line, Just to keep you up to date, and began reading.
Dear Bell
I hope you’re well and looking after yourself properly.
I wanted to give you a heads-up that my solicitor has emailed your solicitor to reiterate that in order to proceed, you do need to accept the higher valuation we were given on the property or we will have to consider selling the house on the open market instead of you buying me out of my share as you have formally requested.
I hope you understand that I’m merely being fair about the situation, and that we can bring it all to a close in a mutually satisfying way.
Regards,
Colin
As she made her way home, Bell wasn’t sure which part of Colin’s message made her want to punch him in the face most: the part asking if she was looking after herself ‘properly’, the line about giving her a heads-up (so kind!), or the thinly veiled threat that he would make life really difficult if she didn’t cave in and do exactly what he wanted. How could she have spent ten years being in love with a person who was both so patronising and so, well, dickheadish in his messages?
She pulled her phone out of her pocket to look at his email again, and once she’d realised it didn’t get any better with a second or third reading, she clicked on WhatsApp and tapped out a message to Cosette.
Today I’ve doubled my to-do list, been told off by finance and been patronised by stupid Colin. Oh, and I’ve still not got any idea how to raise £25k for the community centre and I’ve managed to piss off Suze. How’s your day been?
Less than a minute later, Cosette replied.
If it’s any consolation, the kids have been at each other’s throats all evening after Oli told Soph he was going to put her in detention if she annoyed him as he’s HEAD BOY, don’tcha know (God, we SO know, thanks, Oli). Rich decided he wasn’t going to help referee and left me to calm them both down on my own. I found him half an hour later conked out on the bed. Lucky him, eh? Wanna swap?! I’m sure you and Suze will be fine, and tell finance to fuck off! What’s Colin done now?
Just being a dick about the house – same old! Bleugh, tell the kids Auntie Belly wants them in one piece when she next sees them otherwise she won’t be able to shower them both with sweets and presents. And then give the monkeys a kiss from me xx
Once a dick, always a dick. I’ve shouted at the kids again and blown them your kisses (they are being so vile I don’t want to get too close, to be honest). Chin up, Bell, tomorrow is another day and all that xx
Bell’s persistent alarm signalled that tomorrow had turned into today, not that she’d been able to get much sleep what with worrying about Colin’s threats, upsetting Suze, Millie’s anxieties about Wolf, plus how much work she had to get done, let alone how much money she seemed to be in charge of raising to make sure the local community were able to keep the centre. As lovely as it was that Sue, Sheila and the committee had so much faith in her, she was seriously beginning to wonder whether they had a hope in hell of pulling off the rescue attempt.
She massaged her forehead as she sat up, rolled her shoulders back then tipped her head from side to side. She wouldn’t have been surprised if a maelstrom of jumbled-up thoughts had whooshed out of her head and into a puddle on her pillow, but there was no such luck and she was stuck with the whirlwind of disconnected ideas, worries and snippets of information that showed no sign of abating or even turning into more of a breeze.
She’d planned to get into the office early to make a start on her to-do list, though the bus driver seemed to have other ideas as he trundled along at 10mph.
Despite the delays, Bell was still the first person in the office, other than the cleaning staff, who loved to catch up with each other’s news at foghorn volume over the noise of their Henry vacuum cleaners. Bell couldn’t really blame them – if you had to do the hoovering, you might as well have a good old gossip at the same time, after all – but the din wasn’t particularly conducive to productivity.
She peered at the list in front of her, trying to figure out what on earth she’d meant by ‘CHP’ and ‘FSH’ in her notes the previous day. When the best she could come up with was that she’d been daydreaming about fish and chips, she realised she should just cut her losses and treat herself to a coffee and croissant at the bookshop café down the road.
‘Morning,’ she smiled at Suze when she returned half an hour later, and held out a flat white and a paper bag. ‘Coffee and pain au chocolat as a peace offering?’
‘Don’t mind if I do! Thanks, Bellster. Are you okay, you look like you’ve barely slept?’ she asked with her mouth full of flaky pastry.
‘Yeah, fine.’ She grimaced. ‘Other than this place, the small issue of raising twenty-five thousand pounds in six weeks and Colin being annoying again.’
‘Oh, well, nothing to worry about then,’ her friend deadpanned.
Bell smiled despite herself. ‘Last night he told me he was digging his heels in about the price. I’ve already explained I can’t stretch to what he wants so I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to achieve by doing it. We’ll just have to sell the house and I’ll buy some rundown two-bedder on the wrong side of town.’
‘Er, no you won’t,’ Suze said to her sternly. ‘Right, what’s your solicitor said about it? I’ll take it from that look that you haven’t actually spoken to her about it, yes? Well get on the phone now and make sure it’s her top priority. Come on, stop sitting there like a wet weekend and start dialling!’
Thankfully, Bell’s solicitor Gloria was in kick-ass mode and told her she would get on to Colin’s people immediately and tell them to start managing their client’s expectations more efficiently, and assured her she would get the matter sorted for her. Bell already felt lighter by the time she ended the call and didn’t even throw her computer mouse at Suze when she gave her an obvious ‘I told you so’ look.
She whizzed through a load of emails and was feeling quite pleased with herself, until she refreshed her inbox to find another long list of new messages waiting for her. She scanned them, checking for anything that looked urgent, and her eye snagged on one from Marian with the subject line, Can I see you in my office at 12, please? Bell glanced at the clock in the corner of her screen, which just at that moment flashed over to 12:00.
‘Shit, I’ve been summoned to see Marian!’ she hissed at Suze as she smoothed down her dress and slipped her feet out of her flip-flops and into some wedge slingbacks under her desk.
‘I’m sure it’s fine, she doesn’t bite, remember!’ Suze replied, giving her a reassuring smile. ‘As long as you didn’t nick anything from the new rails when you were home alone here last night then you’ve got nothing to worry about, right?’
‘Right,’ Bell answered, sounding unconvincing even to her own ears. She teetered off across the floor, her legs not quite used to the heels after being treated to flats all morning.
‘Hi, Marian,’ she fake-smiled after knocking and entering her boss’s office with as much pretend confidence as she could muster.
‘Bell! Thanks for finding the time, I won’t keep you long,’ Marian said, as she graciously slid her chair away from her desk and gestured for Bell to join her at the low table and two sofas in the opposite corner of the small room. Bell automatically sank down on to the couc
h and instantly had to inch her way towards the edge so she didn’t become consumed by the soft cushions. She was sure Marian always made her prey sit on the squishy seating so she could perch ladylike on the second, harder sofa and have the upper hand before any conversation had even started. She was clever like that.
‘Now, Bell, you know that despite some success stories over the past few months, trading conditions are still tough for us and we’re having to cut costs wherever we can.’
As Marian started talking and her face lost its smile and became more and more serious, Bell’s stomach plummeted. She knew things were tight at Style It Out – and across all fashion retailers – but the figures she’d sent Emma the previous evening hadn’t seemed that bad. If she lost her job it would definitely mean losing the house, as without her monthly salary there was no way she could pay even the current fairly modest mortgage on her half of it, let alone on the whole amount. Hopefully, there’d be some kind of redundancy payment, but it would only last a couple of months at the most. She could feel her tummy swirling and her heart was pounding so hard it sounded like it was about to explode out of her ears.
‘You know how much I value what you do for the company and how hard you work, but – Bell, are you okay, do you want a glass of water? Don’t worry, this isn’t about any of your team losing their jobs or anything. I know how invested you are personally as well as professionally in your protegés.’
Bell took a couple of deep breaths of Jo-Malone-filled air and gulped down the butterflies that had fluttered into her throat. ‘Yes, I’m very invested in them,’ she managed to reply. She just hoped Marian was as invested in Bell herself.
Marian nodded and carried on. ‘As I was saying, we have to think very carefully about our spend in certain areas, which is why I don’t think we’ll be able to pay Ade to do our next shoot, I’m afraid. I know how much you rate his pictures and enjoy working with him, but I wondered, now that you’ve got some experience behind the camera yourself, whether you’d like to take some test shots for the next lookbook for us. I saw a few of your images on social media and they looked great. What do you think?’