A Perfect Heritage (33 page)

‘No, I already tried that,’ said Susie. It was a lie, but she knew there was no way Elise was going to meet Bianca now. She was hugely offended by what she perceived as a snub: and nobody
ever
snubbed Elise Jordan.

‘Susie, hi! You all right?’ It was Jemima, smiling her lovely smile. Gosh, she was nice, Susie thought. How did people get to be like that? Even Jemima’s private life was totally and sweetly perfect: she had a lovely husband called Jim who was a solicitor, they’d been married for five years and seemed to live in a state of perfect harmony. No doubt any minute she’d produce a perfect baby. ‘I’m going now. Saw your light was still on. Don’t work too late.’

‘How – how did the advertising meeting go?’

‘Oh, all right I think. Not fantastic. But they’re getting there, Bianca said.’

‘Good.’ It seemed to Susie that it was getting a bit late, if they were going to do any press ads, which she presumed they were. Thank goodness that wasn’t down to her.

‘Well I’d better go,’ said Jemima after a pause, ‘we’ve got people coming to supper.’

She even managed that: working till – what? Half past seven. How were other people so – so together?

‘Bye, Jemima. Have a nice evening.’

‘I will.’

Susie started packing up her things; saw the invitation and started crying again. It was actually rather nice, just giving in to it, being miserable. She’d go home, have a bath, wallow away in it all; and then – then what? It would still only be nine o’clock. Another DVD? Another early night . . .

Her phone rippled: text message. It was Henk.

Hi babe. How about a quick drink? Just one. I need to talk to you. Pleeez!

She wouldn’t. She mustn’t. She’d be letting herself down so badly. She’d come this far. She must stick to her resolve. And . . .

It was like looking at someone else’s phone, reading the words that appeared on the screen.

She must be the most amazing actress. That she should be going through this and nobody thought there was anything wrong. Really, properly wrong. How could that happen?

Her mother was clearly worried, of course, always trying to get her to tell her what the matter was; but if she knew, her mother would go to the school, demand Milly’s tormentors were brought to justice, and that would just make things ten times worse. Or a million times worse. When her mother had been at school and bullies were disciplined and expelled they were never heard from again. Now, they could still get at you online, through Facebook and Ask.fm, and Carey would put the photograph of her up, she really would. So she had to keep it to herself and pray that the attention would switch to someone else. She felt bad for wishing what she was going through on some other unfortunate girl, but she knew it was the only way it was going to stop.

If she could just get to the end of this term, she’d have a break from it all.

Carey was going skiing immediately after Christmas and taking Sarajane and Annabel with her. They talked about it all the time, really loudly. Well, at least the rest of the class was left out of that. Then, on the last day of term, Carey arrived with a mountain of invitations to the ice rink at Somerset House and then tea at the café afterwards.

‘To make up for not taking you all skiing. Sorry! Wish I could.’

Only one person didn’t get that invitation. Milly.

Then the class post box was opened; everyone got a huge pile of cards. Except Milly. She didn’t get any. Not one.

She sat there, head bowed, her fists clenched, eyes wide open, staring at her desk, to stop the tears as everyone’s piles grew, unable to believe it; how had Carey done that? But she had.

Later she got a lot of texts: they all said the same thing, more or less.

What a shame, no cards for you. So sorry. Never mind.

And then when they were exhausted, another lot:
So sorry you can’t come to the skating party
.

She sat in her bedroom, staring at her phone, and now she did let herself cry. She could never remember feeling so alone. And once she started, she couldn’t stop. The house was empty, she could let herself go. What could she do, what was there to do?

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She decided she had to get out of the house. It seemed to be suffocating her. She walked down to the O2 Centre at Swiss Cottage and sat down in the public area and started crying again, the tears rolling down her face, silently.

‘You OK?’

It was a girl, about her own age, not particularly nice-looking, in fact rather the reverse. She was quite – well, not thin (Milly had been carefully trained in non-references to people’s weight), and she had very greasy hair and spots. But her face was concerned and her eyes were kind. Milly managed to smile at her.

‘Yeah, fine thanks.’

‘You don’t look it.’

‘Yes, well – I got a bad report,’ she lied. ‘My parents are really cross.’

‘That’s awful. You on your own?’

‘Yes.’ And freshly reminded of her predicament, of always being on her own, Milly started crying again.

‘Oh, look, it can’t be that bad. They’ll get over it. Here, want a doughnut?’

She produced a box of six brilliantly coloured iced doughnuts. Of all the things she shouldn’t be eating, this poor overweight spotty girl, Milly thought, a doughnut was probably the worst. She shook her head.

‘No thanks.’

‘Oh, go on, they’re really nice. I can’t eat them all.’

‘No, no really.’

‘Anything you would like?’

‘No. Well – yes. Maybe a cup of tea.’

‘OK. Let’s go to Maccy Ds. I’ll come with yer – I haven’t got anything to do.’

Inside the comforting familiarity of McDonald’s, and at least not on her own, Milly felt better.

‘This is really kind of you. Do you want one?’

‘I’ll have a Coke, please. And I might have some chips.’

‘Fine. I’ll get them. You go and bag us a table.’

She bought the drinks and the chips, went and joined the girl at the table.

‘Thanks. Want some money?’

‘No, no of course not. You’ve been so kind – what’s your name?’

‘Jacintha,’ said the girl. Never did a name seem less suited to anyone. As if reading Milly’s thoughts the girl added, ‘But everyone calls me Jayce. What about you?’

‘I’m Emily. But everyone calls me Milly.’

‘Cheers,’ said Jayce. She raised her drink to Milly. ‘Want a chip?’

‘No thanks.’ But they did look awfully good. ‘Maybe just one.’

‘Where do you go to school, then?’

‘Oh, nowhere near here. St Catherine’s.’

‘Where’s that then? Private?’

‘Yes,’ said Milly reluctantly.

‘Thought you was posh,’ said Jayce with a certain amount of smugness. ‘D’you like it there?’

‘No. I
hate
it,’ said Milly and was surprised at the violence in her voice.

‘I hate mine and all. Lot of cat fights at yours?’

‘Well . . .’ Milly considered this. She’d heard of the playground fights between girls, spitting, scratching, kicking, hair pulling. But what she was enduring was surely as bad. If not worse.

And to her horror she started crying again. Jayce looked at her consideringly, her plump face soft with sympathy.

‘You being bullied?’

‘Yes,’ said Milly simply, ‘yes, I am.’ And then added, blowing her nose on a McDonald’s scratchy napkin, ‘But not – not like that.’

‘Oh, OK. On your phone and that?’

‘Yes,’ said Milly. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s awful. I get that. Very bad it got last year, but then someone else with, like, really bad spots who talked a bit lah de dah – like you – she arrived and they started on her instead. She was fat and all,’ she added. ‘It’s horrible, that. I’d hate to be fat.’

Milly realised that Jayce clearly didn’t see herself as fat. She supposed she wasn’t, not really. Just – big.

‘Did you – did you tell anyone?’ asked Milly. ‘When it was going on, I mean?’

‘No!’ Jayce’s expression was horrified. ‘Course not. They just get back at you. In the end, she drank some bleach, this girl. Not enough to kill her, but she had to be, like, rushed to hospital.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘It got worse. She did tell, and the girls got a massive bollocking. Didn’t do no good; one of them texted her and said
Next time have a bit more on us
.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Milly.

‘Yeah. So then her dad saw it, and went to the school and the girls was all suspended for a week. And she went to another school.’

‘I – hadn’t thought of that,’ said Milly.

‘Yeah, well, you could try it. But they find yer just the same, and if they’ve got friends in the new school, they’re like, there as well.’

Suddenly there was a loud cry of, ‘Milly! Hello. Oh, you’ve got a new friend. Aren’t you going to introduce us?’

It was Carey with Annabel and another girl Milly didn’t recognise. They stood, looking at her, giggling, whispering to each other. Milly sat staring at them, like a rabbit in a trap. Then Carey produced her phone.

‘I must take a picture of you. Smile for the camera, girls!’ She snapped away. ‘Lovely. Just one more, to be sure.’ And then they were gone, still giggling.

‘Nice!’ said Jayce, her tone heavy with disdain. ‘Them your friends?’

‘Not,’ said Milly. ‘They are
so
not my friends.’

Later, shaking, she looked at Carey’s Facebook page. Sure enough, there it was, a photograph of her and Jayce, Jayce looking enormous and very plain, and her looking petrified.

Milly’s got a new friend
, it said.
Nice! here they are, sharing some doughnuts. Not too many, Milly! Happy Christmas both of you
.

Milly lay down, pulled the duvet over her head, and started crying again.

Chapter 33

Wow! Now
he
was good-looking. And really, really cool, great clothes – black shirt, really well cut dark grey trousers, and fantastic two-tone brogues. Close-cropped dark hair, rather heavenly brown eyes, just exactly the right amount of five o’clock shadow. And he was actually walking toward her . . .

‘Hi! I’m Jonjo Bartlett. And you are . . . ?’

‘Susie Harding.’ Pity, he was well and truly taken. No future there. Nice thought. ‘I work for Bianca.’

‘Oh, you’re the publicity director. Great. It’s so nice of you to come. Glass of champagne?’ He plucked one from a tray.

‘Thank you. It’s not nice of me at all, the alternative was sitting in front of a boxed set of
Mad Men
.’

‘Well, I hope this trumps it.’

Just about. A champagne-fuelled party, in a penthouse suite on the Chelsea stretch of river, and all she had to do, she’d been told, was smile a lot and look at some sculptures.

She’d been going through her emails when Bianca came into her office and asked her what she was doing that evening.

‘Oh – nothing that can’t be cancelled.’

‘Well, how’d you like to come to a party? Or rather, an exhibition. Patrick has this old school friend, Jonjo he’s called, Jonjo Bartlett. Cityboy, you know the sort of thing, bit flash, loads of dosh, you’d like him.’ Susie wasn’t sure how to take that. Was she really that shallow? She smiled carefully at Bianca. ‘Anyway, Jonjo’s girlfriend is a sculptor, and it’s her exhibition. Most peculiar stuff, I think, but she’s very successful and very A-list. Turns out some other artist is having an exhibition tonight and a lot of the critics and at least half the A-list and quite a lot of Bs are going to that. So she’s thrown a hissy fit, says she’s facing a public humiliation. And instructed Jonjo to find a few extras so at least the place isn’t empty. He rang and asked if I could bring anyone suitable. And I thought of you.’

‘Bianca, I’m not very A-list. More like D.’

‘Well, me too – but you know lots of journos and stuff, you can talk yourself up. I asked Jonjo and he was very keen. I’m taking Jemima as well, partly because she’s so beautiful and also her father’s a well-known expert on Pre-Raphaelite painting, and she can talk about him, so I thought that might be impressive. Oh, and if the sculptress talks to you, just say how amazing they are and she’ll do the rest. She’s not exactly a shrinking violet. You don’t have to come, but I’d be very grateful. And so would Patrick.’

‘I’d love to,’ said Susie, and now she sipped her champagne and cased the room. The incredible-looking creature with blond ringlets and a dress that looked as if she should have bought the next size must be Guinevere Bloch. She was standing next to an extremely phallic-looking object, at least four feet high, made of marble, with a stiff net ballet skirt fastened round where its waist might be, if it had one. The exhibition was called Where Worlds Collide and this was clearly the centrepiece. Guinevere was talking very fast and laughing manically, her enormous blue eyes constantly roving the room.

The dress code was varied; from the hyper chic – one woman had on a black tube of a dress, the collar snaking up into her hair where it turned into a gold coronet, another a white tuxedo suit, the long skirt dangling not from the wearer’s waist but below her hips, revealing a good stretch of brown, toned flesh in between – to the near fancy dress. Her own pale pink tux suit seemed very dull.

Bianca arrived, looking wonderful in a long black silk dress, utterly simple, with sleeves just to the elbows and a wide red belt. Susie decided she should go to greet her, and was about to set out through the throng, but Jonjo had appeared at her side.

‘Hi. Guinevere sent me to bring you over.’

She followed Jonjo, managing somehow not to knock into people’s glasses and the sushi they were waving about.

‘Guinevere, this is Susie. Who works with Bianca. Susie’s a PR, so she knows everyone in the press, all the critics . . .’

‘How marvellous,’ said Guinevere, her eyes resting very briefly on Susie. ‘I wonder if you could fix an interview this evening? It’s such a good moment, and it would make fascinating reading, especially as this is my apartment. We could even do some pictures, or I have some ready of course, I – oh look, Jonjo, lovely tweet from Graham, said he’d love to come, but he had to get to the studio. Anyway, Susie, what do you think, good idea?’

‘Um – really good idea,’ said Susie, wondering if the Graham who had to get to the studio could be Graham Norton, and decided it was perfectly possible, ‘but possibly not this evening. It would be so hard for you – and the journalist – to concentrate on what you were saying. All these people—’

‘Oh, nonsense. I can talk about my work wherever I am. It’s quite literally a part of me. Who do you actually know who’s here?’

‘Well . . .’ Susie looked desperately round the room, ‘. . . no one just now. Maybe they haven’t arrived yet. I do love your work though. It’s marvellous.’

‘Isn’t it?’ It was Bianca’s voice. ‘Hi, Susie. Hello, Guinevere, what a turnout you’ve got. So exciting. Patrick’s on his way.’

‘Oh good – yes. Jonjo, look, Those people look a bit lost, do go and see to them. Oh my God, Marcus! How amazing, how wonderful of you to come.’

Dismissed most thoroughly, Susie and Bianca smiled at one another and slithered across the room.

‘Sorry,’ said Bianca, ‘should have warned you.’

‘You did,’ said Susie, ‘and I’m enjoying myself. Truly. It’s fascinating. Oh my goodness, there is someone I actually know! How exciting.’

‘Who’s that, then?’

‘Caitlin Meredith. She’s the beauty editor of
In Fashion
. She’d love to meet you and she’s really nice.’

‘Well, as long as she doesn’t ask to interview Athina Farrell, that’s fine,’ said Bianca, laughing.

Caitlin did seem quite pleased to meet Bianca; she said that a relaunch was always such good copy, adding that she was addicted to The Cream. If Susie had rehearsed her, she could hardly have done better.

‘I’ve got to try and talk to this sculptor lady,’ she said, ‘get a quote from her. I’m moonlighting for the
Sketch
gossip column. Don’t tell anyone. And do either of you know her?’

Susie and Bianca’s eyes met in a perfect understanding; then, ‘Susie does,’ said Bianca, ‘she’ll get you an intro.’

‘That was amazing,’ said Susie next day. ‘Look Bianca, here it is. Main picture in the diary. And here’s what Guinevere said about her centrepiece: “The phallus embracing
haute couture
. It’s what life is all about, clothes and sex? And I adore both.” It takes a certain talent to dream up a sentence like that.’

‘It does indeed,’ said Bianca, laughing. ‘Anyway, she’s very pleased, according to Jonjo. And speaking of the devil,’ she said, looking at her phone, ‘he’s just sent a text: we’ve all just been invited to have a drink with them tomorrow evening at Shoreditch House, to say thank you. I can’t go, and one evening of that lot is enough, thank you, but if you can face it . . .’

Susie thought of the dazzling Jonjo Bartlett, and the schmoozing she could do at Shoreditch House if she got there a bit early, and said she thought she could face it.

‘You are coming to the conference, aren’t you?’ said Bianca. She was having a Christmas drink with Mike and Hugh. ‘It’s going to be quite something.’

‘Try and stop us,’ said Mike.

She hoped it would be quite something. It needed to be. But they were hardly up to speed and with Christmas eating into schedules it was going to be touch and go to get everything together. They would, of course, but the price would be high.

She wasn’t looking forward to Christmas much. They were breaking with tradition and staying in London. This was partly down to Patrick, who had been the one – astonishingly – to suggest it. He usually loved the whole country thing, the Boxing Day meet, the halfway hike as they called it, across the fields on Christmas Day in between main course and pudding, decorating the house. She became less astonished by his change of heart when he announced that he had invited Saul and Dickon for Boxing Day supper.

‘You don’t mind, do you, darling? Christmas is clearly grim for him because Dickon spends it with his mother and Saul’s on his own. Boxing Day they go to Kempton Park and, you know I’ve always been sad missing that, and he suggested we should all go.’

‘Patrick,’ said Bianca, ‘I am not going to spend Boxing Day at a race meeting, OK? Milly and Ruby would hate it!’

‘They might not – Fergie’s very excited about the idea and—’

‘What? You’ve talked to Fergie about this before you talked to me?’

‘He and Dickon chatted about it after judo, apparently. Dickon said it wasn’t that much fun going alone with his dad and I just thought it would be great for him – and Saul, of course. Anyway, Milly said only last year that she’d like to spend Christmas in London sometimes, see her friends.’

‘Milly doesn’t seem to have any friends at the moment,’ said Bianca rather sadly.

‘Really?’

‘Patrick, I keep telling you! Not one Christmas card from school. She pretended she’d left them behind but I know that wasn’t true.’

‘I don’t remember you telling me that.’

‘I expect you were thinking about your friend Saul at the time.’

‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous,’ said Patrick. ‘I’d have heard you saying that. Unless you tacked it on to the end of a long diatribe about how the VCs wouldn’t let you have any more money for your shops and how short-sighted that was. I do tend to drift off after half an hour or so of that . . .’

‘Oh, shut the fuck up!’ said Bianca.

Patrick left the room, closing the door very quietly. She looked at it, startled. She almost never swore, and certainly not at Patrick. What was happening to them all?

‘I just called to say thank you for the invitation.’ It was Saul. ‘Dickon’s over the moon.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

‘I hope so.’ Long silence.

‘I probably won’t be coming to the race meeting though,’ she said, ‘or the girls.’

‘Oh really? That’s a pity.’

He rang off as he always did, abruptly. Bianca sighed; he wasn’t going to be exactly a fun addition to their table.

She went upstairs. Milly’s door had a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it but she could hear her voice going on and on, and occasionally a giggle. Well, at least she wasn’t lying there weeping.

She tried Ruby; her door was open, but she was completely engrossed in the last
Harry Potter
book.

‘Mummy! Can’t talk now.’

Fergie’s door was shut; she knocked on that.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Mum.’

‘What do you want? I’m busy.’

So this was where it all led, all those years of exhaustion and caring and worrying and mess and a love that was as unconditional as love could be: to closed doors and an instruction to go away. She wanted to cry.

She went downstairs again, very slowly, reflecting upon herself, and the mess she was making of just about everything: her family, her marriage and the company she had taken on so blithely and hopefully and which was getting the better of her, it seemed, day by day. It seemed almost alive to her at that moment, the House of Farrell, not just a collection of products, of offices, laboratories; not merely marketing tactics, balance sheets, business plans; but another wilful child, draining and hideously dependent.

But it was all down to her; she alone had to save it, make it work again. If she failed, a great deal would be lost; not just millions of pounds, but professional reputations, personal pride, and indeed, people’s very livelihoods. It was those people who mattered, above all, lured by her vision and her promises, all to be flung into the wilderness of unemployment if she failed.

And so – she couldn’t. She had to hold on. And she had to win.

This was bad. People had definitely started to notice. There really was nothing worse, she thought, than being apparently stood up in a public place. Especially in a place where appearances of every sort were majorly important.

She’d been early, and settled into a deep sofa in the Square Bar at Shoreditch House. That was fine, it wasn’t exactly full and the only other people there were also on their own and clearly waiting for friends. She pulled out her phone and started checking on her emails and then switched to Twitter. God, what did people do in this situation, before there were smartphones?

She ordered an Apple Cooler and sat sipping it as slowly as she could, sat back, trying to look relaxed. She’d dressed with huge care; chic but not showy – cream skirt (Zara) and brown knee high boots (Office) and a very pale pink silk shirt (Hugo Boss), with long full sleeves and a floppy collar, cut quite wide at the neckline. She’d gone out and bought it at lunchtime, not for tonight, obviously, just because it would be so useful over Christmas. Then she’d noticed the pale grey sweater she was wearing looked a bit worn, and she wanted to look – well, nice for this evening, so she decided to wear the shirt, which told the world its wearer knew exactly what was what, without trying too hard. Her hair was at the perfect stage too, a week out of being trimmed, highlights perfect; that was lucky.

All she needed now was someone sitting on the sofa with her . . .

The place began to fill up. Mostly newspaper journalists from Wapping; she recognised several people, including Jane Moore from the
Sun
. She’d met Jane once or twice; she was really nice. She waved at her slightly nervously; Jane waved back, said, ‘Hi, lovely to see you. Just going upstairs.’

Susie hoped she’d thought someone was getting her a drink from the bar . . .

A text arrived from Jonjo; she’d taken the precaution of swapping numbers with him earlier. Just as well:
Sorry running bit l8 order a drink cu 6.30
. She texted back
Fine
and reached for an
Evening Standard
someone had abandoned.