A Perfect Heritage (32 page)

‘I do? Perhaps they will think I am him, with a glamorous new film star girl friend. I love that dress, Florence. It suits you so well.’

‘Thank you.’

She had hesitated about its purchase from Jaeger; cream bouclé wool, sleeveless, gently shaped to her body, it had been terribly expensive, eight guineas, but she had decided it was an investment rather than an extravagance. She had acquired some sunglasses herself, wandering around Grasse the previous day; they were large, with tortoiseshell frames, Jackie Kennedy-style, and gave her a slightly exotic air. Several people had stared at them, as they sat, drinking aperitifs and smoking, making up their mind what to order.

After eating, they moved to the terrace to drink their coffee.

‘People dance here in the evening, it’s very chic,’ he said.

‘Could we come back? I do love dancing. And it’s our last evening.’

‘Of course. I have a meeting with the
parfumier
first though, so we should have to go back to Grasse.’

‘Oh, well then don’t let’s waste time driving backwards and forwards.’

‘Florence, with you beside me, driving is a rather erotic pleasure.’

‘Good heavens. But still – I have another erotic pleasure in mind and I think we need to leave a lot of time for it.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said, raising his coffee cup. ‘And now, listen to me very carefully, Little Flo. I have made some arrangements for you, which will keep you safe for ever, should I suddenly shuffle off this mortal coil. I love you and I worry about you, and I want to know you are assured of a secure and, I hope, happy old age. So this is what I have done . . .’

And when he had finished speaking, she sat staring at him, in awe of his generosity and his thoughtfulness.

‘You can’t do that, Cornelius,’ she said.

‘Oh, but I can,’ he said. ‘In fact, I already have.’

Chapter 32

She seemed to be on a downward spiral. It had begun with Athina’s name for the new range, which everyone had loved, and now Athina seemed to be taking over the cosmetic departments of all the major stores in the country, with her absurd roadshow. The formulations of the new brand were lovely, but she still wasn’t satisfied with the packaging, and she sensed an impatience in Hugh and Mike. She tried to talk to Patrick about it, but he was distracted and only kept telling her that she was always like this halfway through an assignment. Bianca knew this wasn’t true. She’d had moments of doubt, but not weeks on end of the stuff. And Ralph Goodwin seemed to have stalled on the perfume, in spite of what she could only describe as florid phone calls, and said that his board had pronounced the Farrell numbers too low, which had been a blow; but then he had suggested, over a rather expensive lunch, that he had managed to talk them into a different arrangement, a fee upfront and then sharing the development costs.

‘I want to work with you, I think we can do something quite wonderful together, so if you could see your way to doing something like that?’

Bianca, desperate for a success of her own, paid him an advance of three thousand pounds.

And she was increasingly anxious about Milly, who was clearly unhappy but stubbornly refused to tell her why.

Bianca tried to persuade herself that it was a phase and it would pass, but she couldn’t convince herself and it was an awful thing to watch.

And Patrick – well, Patrick seemed to be in love with Saul Finlayson. They hadn’t had sex for weeks; mostly owing to the fact that Patrick was either working terribly late, or ploughing through endless documents, even at the weekends, and had rejected her advances to him just once too often, wrecking her confidence still further; she wasn’t going to risk that again.

She often thought of Saul, and his advice not to look down, and reflected miserably that she was falling now, rather than just looking, struggling to scramble up.

And in spite of her finding the shop in Paris, Mike and Hugh had refused even to consider any more outlets.

She was sitting at her desk, one dark December morning, trying to summon up some enthusiasm for the sales conference at the end of January and wondering what exactly she would be presenting, when her phone rang.

‘Mrs Bailey? Lady Farrell here. Mrs Bailey, I would like to speak at the sales conference. Many of the people there will expect to hear from me, and the new people need to realise how deeply I am involved in the company still and, of course, the relaunch.’

‘I’m sure they’re very well aware of that, Lady Farrell,’ said Bianca crisply, ‘how could they not be, indeed?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Because you keep—’ Telling them so, she had been about to say, then thought this would sound childish and changed it to, ‘Doing your wonderful roadshow in the stores.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s very kind of you to say so.’

‘I’ll – I’ll think about the conference.’ And then, with a huge effort, ‘And of course you’re right, people will love to hear from you. What did you imagine you might want to talk about?’

‘I just told you that,’ said Athina, ‘my involvement in the relaunch and—’

‘Yes, well, that’s the basis of my own presentation, and we don’t want to overlap.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Athina, ‘but I think I can avoid that. I shall have further-reaching things to say, the legacy of the Farrell past, that sort of thing.’

‘Well, I do think that would be very interesting.’

‘Of course. So very much more interesting, indeed, than simply talking about a lot of products.’

Bitch, thought Bianca, putting down the phone. Bitch bitch bitch.

And then . . .

‘Susie?’

Susie looked up. Bianca was standing in her doorway.

‘Yes, Bianca?’

‘Have you seen the
News
today?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then listen: “Athina Farrell, still one of the great doyennes of the cosmetic industry, talked to me today of her comeback from the golden days of the House of Farrell, in the 1950s”.’

‘What?’ Susie reached for the paper but Bianca held on to it; her expression was not friendly.

‘It gets worse. “Sitting in her stylish drawing room, with its art deco furnishings, she talked with huge enthusiasm about her work. ‘I find I still have so much to offer,’ she said, ‘despite there being a number of new, young people at the company. Time and time again I sit in meetings, making suggestions, proposing campaigns, which are almost invariably accepted. I feel very fortunate that at my age, I can still be a vital part of the company’.”’

‘Oh what?’

‘Exactly. When did she give this bloody interview, when was it arranged?’

‘Bianca, I don’t know.’

‘Well, you should. You’re in control of publicity here. We can’t have this anarchic approach.’

‘Yes but—’

‘And listen to this. “ ‘Of course, when my husband and I ran it together it was such fun and a huge success, but since he died, I have found it difficult to work and consequently the brand has suffered. Now, however, I feel revitalised. Only the other day I solved a problem which had been defeating even our dynamic new chairman, Bianca Bailey. For whom I have the greatest respect and with whom I enjoy working very much. We will be relaunching the brand next year and it’s wonderful to know I am at the heart of that.’” I mean, really Susie, what is going on? I simply don’t understand why this journalist didn’t check with you!’

‘Bianca, Lord Fearon, the chairman of that group of papers, is an old friend of Lady Farrell’s. She must have called in a favour. And you know, this sort of story, family dynasties, all that stuff, people do love it.’

‘Yes, well clearly they do. And I know we’re going to capitalise on it, but not yet. Oh, God!’ Bianca looked very tired, Susie thought, her usual vibrancy muted. ‘The old witch! I could kill her. A whole lot of stuff about the old days with Cornelius as well, exactly what we wanted her to do and she refused. And she has me totally painted into a corner. I can’t deny any of it because it will look like sour grapes. God, she’s buggered up everything, our timing, our story – I could
kill
her!’

‘I’m – well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I wish I could . . .’

Susie’s voice faded into silence.

‘Yes, well it’s got to be stopped. I’m going to see her right now. Is there anything you can do to counteract this, Susie, get something out on Twitter or on our Facebook page?’

‘Yes, of course I will. I’ll get on to it straight away. Except—’

‘Except what?’

‘Well, short of saying she’s a liar in that she’s not responsible for it all, I don’t think there’s much we can do. We
are
going to relaunch, we
are
—’

‘Susie,’ said Bianca, ‘something has to be done, OK?’

And she was gone, the door shut rather too firmly behind her.

Susie felt panicky. Just as she was redeeming herself, she had thought, in Bianca’s eyes, working late and early, entirely focused, coming up with ideas for the launch, this had to happen. Making her look seriously incompetent. She’d lose her job if she didn’t do something.

Maybe she could persuade a journalist to do a life in the day of the House of Farrell, something like that. That would show rather more clearly exactly how much influence Lady Farrell actually had. But would Bianca consider that weighty enough to counteract the dreadful
News
article? And if Athina knew a journalist was in the building she’d be bearing down on her, talking herself up.

Shit. Shit shit shit! Life was so bloody difficult. And she was getting emails from Henk, day after day, telling her how sorry he was and he missed her and—

Her phone rang. It was Sadie Bishop, assistant to Elise Jordan, the legendary beauty editor of
Tomorrow
, cooler-than-cool lifestyle magazine.

‘Hi, Susie. How are you? Long time no speak.’

Yes and whose fault is that, thought Susie, recalling months of unanswered emails and unreturned calls.

‘I’m good, thank you. Lovely to hear from you. How are you?’

‘Fine, yes. Look, Elise saw the piece in the
News
this morning, about your boss.’

‘My boss? Oh, you mean Lady Farrell. She’s not really my boss, she’s pretty remote from all the action, really. My boss is Bianca Bailey.’

‘Doesn’t sound that way, from the article. Lady F sounds pretty hands on. And seriously cool. Anyway, Elise would like to talk to her about an exclusive on the new range, wondered if she’d like to have lunch with her next week, at The Ritz.’

‘Oh. Well, Sadie, I’m sure she’d absolutely love to, but it’s a bit soon really, we’re not ready to talk about the relaunch yet.’

‘Never too soon to sign up for an exclusive, Susie. When I say exclusive, I mean preview, of course. And serious coverage, guaranteed. Double-page spread, that sort of thing . . .’

Susie’s head spun. Now what did she do? A guaranteed product exclusive in
Tomorrow
magazine – incredible! The Holy Grail of PR. But – all the others would be hugely displeased.
Vogue
,
Tatler
,
Elle
,
Red
,
Style
magazine in the
Sunday Times
,
You
magazine – and the influential weekly magazines too,
Grazia
,
Stylist
;
she needed them all. It was hideous. She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘It sounds wonderful, Sadie, but it really is too soon, there’s not very much to talk about yet. Lady Farrell has just slightly—’ She stopped.

‘Just slightly what?’

‘Well, jumped the gun.’

‘Really? So are you saying no? You
don’t
want Elise to meet Lady Farrell?’

‘Not quite yet. I’ll – I’ll have to ask Bianca.’

‘Bianca?’

‘Bianca Bailey, my boss. The CEO of the company.’

‘I see.’ Sadie’s voice was cooling. ‘We very much had the impression here that Athina Farrell was in charge of the company overall. Elise will be very disappointed. She doesn’t offer this sort of thing very often, as you know. I think you would be unwise to turn this down. The lunch, at least, with Lady Farrell to discuss it.’

‘Yes, of course. Of course. And I’m terrifically excited about it, naturally, about Elise’s interest. Sadie, let me get back to you. I promise I won’t be long.’

Slowly, reluctantly, Susie walked down the corridor and asked Jemima if she could see Bianca.

‘Bertie, hi. Got a moment?’

It was Lara with her efficient, determined face on. Not the ‘shall we have a drink’ one. Pity, it had been a few weeks now. And he had never felt confident enough to initiate anything himself.

He said he had a moment, of course, and indicated for her to sit down.

‘I want to discuss the sales conference. It’s only two months away now, and I’d like your opinion on a few things. And of course you’ll have to do a presentation.’

‘Me!’ Bertie looked appalled. ‘Lara, I couldn’t possibly. I’d be hopeless. Especially with you lot of pros. Anyway, my mother wouldn’t allow it.’

‘Bertie,’ said Lara, genuinely shocked, ‘your mother is not going to dictate who speaks at the sales conference.’

‘Want a bet?’ said Bertie.

‘Bertie, I’m sorry, but I want you to do this and I want you to start thinking about it now.’

He sat looking at the closed door when she had gone. She was so extremely attractive. Far too attractive for him, of course, even if he had been single; he knew his place. And anyway, he wasn’t single, he was very much married. And he was at least fifteen years older than Lara; she must see him as an old man. Or certainly getting on a bit. She was very kind to him, of course, and she hadn’t actually seemed to mind when he’d kissed her after their dinner. Bit rash that – he wasn’t quite sure what had come over him. But she hadn’t responded, and she would have done, he was sure, if he’d been more her type.

Lara, back in her office, sat staring out of the window and thinking about Bertie. He was so very sweet, and charming, and gentlemanly. She’d really liked it when he’d kissed her; she’d longed to respond properly, but then he’d have been frightened off. And he was probably just being friendly.

He wasn’t exactly available either; long and dutifully married to the dreadful Priscilla – and anyway, she was sure Bertie hardly considered her as a sexual being. It was absurd, there was no way he regarded her in that way, found her attractive. Completely absurd.

It was the invitation that made her realise she couldn’t go on, that it was worse than how things had been before – or certainly as bad.

Such horrible things, those invitations. That as good as said you were a loser, that you hadn’t got your life together and, moreover, that everyone knew it. She sat there at her desk, staring at it,
Susie plus one
and burst into tears.

It wasn’t true that it didn’t matter, that there was more to life than men and having your own: it mattered horribly. She’d tried everything – and she was more ashamed of that, of the desperation – than of the trying. She’d done speed dating, internet dating, answered small ads. Nothing worked, everything was disappointing.

It really was the end of a perfect day; there’d been an advertising meeting she hadn’t been invited to, and Sadie Bishop had emailed to say sorry, but Elise had decided that she really couldn’t be expected to wait for several more weeks before planning her spring schedule and so was cancelling the lunch with Bianca Bailey. Susie had had to break that to Bianca, who had been unfairly hard on her – ‘I thought you said it was a definite arrangement, Susie? I cancelled two other things for that. Could she make it brunch?’