A Perfect Heritage (46 page)

Susie looked at Henk. They had been chatting fairly easily for about half an hour. She had persuaded him to tell her about his work, what he had to do. It was a bit menial, she could see that, but it was impressive he was doing it, and he said he was actually learning things, about lighting, reworking his portfolio. It all sounded rather sensible – and he seemed rather sensible too. If he would now agree to see a therapist, even if she did have to go with him, maybe he would make real progress. Into what she wasn’t sure.

‘And this flat you’re in now, how’s that?’

‘Oh, bit of a tip but they’re all being very supportive.’

‘Of you?’

‘Yes. Of course. What did you think I meant?’

The aggression resurfaced suddenly and she shivered mentally.

She looked at her watch.

‘Henk, I have to go. I’m sorry.’

‘I thought you’d – we’d have longer.’

‘No, I broke off what I was doing, haven’t nearly finished.’

‘Oh, OK. So I have to be satisfied with my ration?’

‘Henk, please. Don’t spoil everything. It’s been so nice, hearing you talk about your work and everything, seeing you looking better than I expected – I was so worried about you, Henk.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s something. That you cared whether I lived or died.’

‘Henk, of course I care about that, don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Good,’ he said, ‘that’s all right then. So – what do we do now?’

Suddenly she was frightened, out of her depth again. She didn’t know what to do or how she was supposed to do it; but she needed to get rid of him.

‘Well,’ she said and it took all her willpower to sound normal, ‘well, right now I have to go home. Sorry.’

‘OK,’ he said sounding genuinely regretful. ‘Fine. But we can talk again?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Well, thank you for coming. I’ll walk you home.’

‘Henk, no, there’s no need.’

‘No, but I want to. See you safely to your door, like a gentleman. Don’t worry, I won’t try to force an entry.’ He smiled at her, a genuine, rueful smile. He stood up, held out his hand to her. She took it reluctantly.

It was very cold outside; she pulled her coat round her, tied her scarf.

‘Right, let’s go,’ he said. He took her arm and she let him. It seemed harmless. They walked along together.

‘What – what are you doing tomorrow?’ she said.

‘Oh, big fashion shoot. Very humble role for yours truly. But it’ll be interesting. It’s for
Now
magazine.’

‘Really! I’m impressed. Wish I could come along.’

‘Well, you play your cards right and I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. He smiled at her and she couldn’t help smiling back.

‘Thanks for coming, Susie.’

‘It was fine. Honestly. And you will think about what I said. About – about seeing someone?’

‘I will. As long as you promise to come with me.’

‘I – I said I would.’

‘Thanks, babe.’ They’d reached her front door. She stopped, terrified he’d try to come in, but he didn’t. He smiled at her, let go of her arm, and bent and kissed her, very gently on the mouth. She tensed, tried to relax, and after a few moments pulled away.

‘Night, Henk,’ she said, ‘take care of yourself.’

And let herself into the front door, ran upstairs, and into her flat and double-locked the door, leant against it, her eyes closed in relief. She had done it; and it hadn’t been too bad. It might even have done some good.

Jonjo, whose cab had been travelling very slowly along the street while he tried to establish which house number 82 was, had suddenly seen Susie, leaving a wine bar with a man. He had told the cab to stop and then sat there, watching the man take her arm, watched them as they walked along, chatting and smiling at one another: and then watched as the man bent and kissed Susie on the mouth, and then unable to bear it any longer had half shouted at the driver to take him straight back to Canary Wharf.

‘Cost you a bit, guv. That’s all the way back where we been and more. Looking at, like, eighty, hundred quid. Want to give me something on account?’

Jonjo hurled a couple of twenty pound notes at him and sank back into the corner of the cab.

Henk walked down the street, smiling to himself. Silly bitch. Silly, silly bitch.

This could run and run.

Chapter 42

They were having the most terrible rows. Day after day, saying cruel, horrible things to one another, that neither of them deserved, things that could not and would not ever be forgotten; Cornelius felt more wretched than he could ever remember, abused, discarded, misjudged.

He knew why it was, of course; it was because the House of Farrell was failing. From being admired and copied, they were almost sneered at. Their counter space had been cut everywhere, there was less money for promotion, the staff were demoralised and Athina was in a permanent state of outrage.

Florence was the only good thing in his life, and he wondered frequently what he would have done without her. At the same time it was harder even than usual to find times when he could see her; but when he did, she was always happy, encouraging, and loving. She was an extraordinary person – so generous with herself, so undemanding, so supportive. He often thought that if he had not had her, he would have long left Athina; and would then reflect rather wryly on how that fact went against every theory, every philosophy of a successful marriage.

She was also extremely clever: one of the few successful promotions Farrell’s had done in that miserable decade, a double-textured lipstick, a firmer outer shell encasing a softer glossy one, had been her idea. She had ventured it in a product development meeting, and Athina had pooh-poohed it, later re-presenting it as her own. When Cornelius had rather boldly said he thought the idea had been Florence’s, Athina said of course it hadn’t and, most unusually, Florence had stood up for herself and said she distinctly remembered proposing the lipstick – by then named Soft-Hearted lipstick – whereupon even the sales manager supported her.

Athina was reduced to saying that it might have been something Florence said that inspired her, but it certainly had been her idea, as had been the name, adding witheringly, and illogically, that she was surprised that anyone should care whose idea it was, as long as it was successful. Cornelius managed to remain silent, knowing he would be lighting the blue touch paper for a very big rocket indeed if he defended Florence; but he managed to invent a store manager who needed taking out to dinner that evening and arrived at the little house in Pimlico with a huge bunch of red roses, and a declaration of love for Florence so clearly genuine that she told him, he hoped truthfully, that the whole miserable business had been worthwhile.

‘Beloved Little Flo,’ he said, kissing her tenderly. ‘You are so good a person, so true, so brave, I don’t know what I have done to deserve you.’

There was a general downturn in the Farrells’ personal fortunes as well: the Hove flat had finally been sold, as had some of the paintings that had hung on its walls and the extremely good furniture it had contained, Athina’s new clothes were no longer couture, but bought off the peg.

It was not a happy time; and into it came the threat of greater unhappiness still.

Athina, lying in the bath one night, discovered a lump in her breast. Wretched months of treatment followed, radiotherapy to shrink the tumour, followed by a partial mastectomy, followed by brutal chemotherapy. She was brave, of course, but her behaviour was otherwise impossible, for she regarded it as an outrage, meeting it and everyone near her with anger and vindictiveness. Cornelius, being the nearest of them all, fared the worst.

She shouted, she ranted, she abused him; and when he did see Florence, soothed and eased by her quiet, comforting presence, guilt consumed him to such an extent there was little pleasure in it for either of them. Florence was, for the most part, patient and understanding, but one particularly dreadful evening she told him that if all he was going to talk about was Athina and how brave and how impossible she was, she would like him to leave and not to come back.

‘I can see how hard it is for you, Cornelius, and we are all concerned for Athina, but I do not wish to hear, on the very few occasions when we manage to be together, exactly how many things she has thrown at you in the past seven days, both literally and metaphorically. Nor indeed, does it give me any pleasure to hear how your admiration for her courage is beyond description.’

He did his best to placate her, saying he was under a great deal of strain and begged her forgiveness, but she said she was under considerable strain herself, and was getting nothing from him to make her feel it was worth enduring.

A row followed and he left in a state of rage and despair, pacing the streets for hours, unable to face either going home or back to Florence to ask her forgiveness. It was weeks before a truce was declared between them, and that because he not only begged for her forgiveness but told a journalist that the idea for Soft-Hearted lipsticks had not been Athina’s idea, or indeed his, but Florence’s. This found its way into the beauty pages – mercifully at a time when Athina was so weakened by her chemotherapy she was hardly reading or indeed taking anything in, but it assuaged Florence’s wrath as perhaps nothing else could have done. It also served to make her realise, with some surprise, that she was more competitive than she would ever have believed; she sought Cornelius out in his office, and not only thanked him, but apologised for her own recent hostility.

He left Athina’s hospital room earlier than usual and spent the rest of the evening with Florence; it was not only an emotional reunion but a physical one, and quite wonderful. They both admitted afterwards that not only had they not thought of Athina, they had felt no guilt whatsoever the entire evening.

There were other problems created by Athina’s absence; products had to be approved, copy written, showcards produced; Cornelius was doing his best, but struggling with much of it. Finally, but with considerable anxiety as to the ultimate outcome when Athina came to hear of it, he asked Florence if she would mind taking on some of the work. Florence accepted and, tentatively at first, then with growing enthusiasm, embarked on her new role.

She found a dreadful loss of morale; the decline of the company combined with a total lack of leadership was not only depressing but disturbing the staff.

Florence, initially only required to approve or reject, found herself increasingly looked to for decisions and inspiration, especially from the lab: Maurice Foulds, the chief chemist, took briefs and comment from her with relief, rather than resentment as she had feared, as did the design studio. The result was a more ordered and straightforward chain of command than anyone had known for years; Florence was instinctively communicative, partly as a result of her years in the shop, dealing with the public, and a meeting with her was not the complex, and frequently humiliating affair conducted by Athina Farrell. She spent an increasing amount of time in the Farrell offices, working at the temporary desk a rather tight-lipped Christine Weston had had set up for her in the boardroom; this gave her a status and authority greater than she had ever looked for and made Cornelius even more nervous, while thankful at the same time that his own job was considerably eased.

Everyone remarked upon the greatly increased simplicity of their daily lives and work, and how much more they were enjoying both; and indeed, when Cornelius ended one meeting with the announcement that Athina would shortly be returning to Farrell’s, albeit only for half-days initially, there was a lack of enthusiasm so distinct that it was hard to imagine how Athina might ever recapture her authority. Indeed, it was only a day later, when Florence heard two of the younger members of the company chatting over their lunchtime sandwiches about how much more pleasant life had become and they wished Miss Hamilton could carry on running things, that she realised just how much she was, albeit unwittingly, playing with fire.

There were further repercussions from the Soft-Hearted lipstick affair, too; the women’s editor of the
Sketch
, Thea Grantly, a sharply intuitive journalist, decided there might be more to the story than lipstick formulation and telephoned Florence and asked her if she might interview her about her work at Farrell’s.

‘I know your primary role is running that lovely shop,’ she said, never having visited it, but having been carefully briefed by her assistant, ‘but clearly you do a lot more, and it would make such a nice piece for our readers to hear about how you have become involved in other, perhaps more crucial issues, in the company.’

Florence’s first instinct was to say no, recognising the huge potential for trouble if she said yes, but Soft-Hearted lipstick was doing rather well, better than any other product launch for years, she was hugely proud of it, and in spite of Cornelius’s lavish remorse, she was still smarting from Athina’s original denial of her involvement.

And so she invited Thea Grantly to The Shop, took her upstairs to her parlour, where she plied her with pastries from Fortnum’s and Earl Grey tea and, as lunchtime approached, a glass of champagne, and talked lucidly and amusingly for over an hour about the brand and her work, mainly in the past, but touching more than once on her present involvement in Athina’s absence. Thea Grantly, who had interviewed Athina a couple of years earlier and disliked her intensely, was charmed by Florence and asked if she might send a photographer down to The Shop; Florence, faced with a temptation beyond endurance, said of course she might but that the next day might be better.

She spent the rest of the afternoon at Leonard of Mayfair, having her hair carved into a thirties-style bob, and the evening sorting through her wardrobe. She was aware that, under the circumstances, a Chanel suit seemed a little dangerous, not something an employee could possibly afford, but having tried it on three times, alternating with more modest labels, more in tune with her supposed situation, she decided a black-trimmed white bouclé jacket, adorned with a gardenia brooch, and a simple swinging jersey skirt of exactly the right length to show her still-perfect legs, were unbeatably flattering and wore them. The resulting photographs of her, smiling at the door of The Shop, captioned
The stylish new face at the House of Farrell
, occupied, together with Thea Grantly’s interview, a double-page spread in the
Sketch
and caused a great stir in the industry, leading among other things to conjecture that in the light of Athina Farrell’s illness, Florence might be taking her place.

Cornelius, now quite literally shaking with terror that a copy of the
Sketch
might find its way into Athina’s sick room, went to see Florence and begged her not to give any more interviews. Florence, enjoying her brief sojourn in the sun, smiled at him sweetly and said she was sorry, but she had imagined it would be helpful to keep the House of Farrell in the public awareness, in Athina’s absence. ‘And don’t forget, Cornelius, we all agreed that there was a danger that the trade might regard her illness as a serious threat to the brand itself.’

‘Of course, of course, but I need hardly tell you how important it is that her own profile remains unchanged. I fear she might regard this as something of a – a takeover bid.’

‘Oh Cornelius, don’t be so ridiculous,’ said Florence, her smile sweetly innocent. ‘How could one article in one newspaper possibly change the public’s perception of Athina and her place at Farrell’s? And besides, I did mention her many times and how she had given me my job all those years ago and therefore how much I owed her and indeed what a legend she was in the industry.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said distractedly, ‘it’s just that she is particularly vulnerable at the moment.’

‘Of course. And I should have thought to ask you before agreeing. I’m sorry. But it’s all wonderful extra publicity for Soft-Hearted lipstick and sales are reflecting that. So it’s not entirely bad, surely?’

‘Of course not,’ said Cornelius.

But this was not the end of it either; Thea Grantly was not the only journalist to recognise Florence’s extraordinary grasp of the industry, and indeed her overview of several decades of it, and this, combined with her charm and undoubted style, led to requests for further interviews; Florence sweetly but firmly turned them down, but was to be persuaded – without too much difficulty, it must be said – into giving quotes over the telephone on such disparate matters as Princess Diana’s make up and the change in women’s attitude towards their own bodies since the fifties: thoughtful, to the point, and often amusing – usually accompanied by the picture from the
Sketch
. Cornelius was beside himself, and when the final crunch came, in the form of an invitation to be interviewed on
Woman’s Hour
, he went to see Florence again and, visibly angry, told her the whole thing must stop.

‘I’m sorry, Cornelius, that is all very well for you to say, but they all have this number and I will not be rude to them. And short of sending me on a six-month holiday, I cannot imagine how I am to obey you.’

Cornelius glared at her. ‘I would not have believed this of you, Florence.’

‘Oh really? You mean after thirty years of absolute discretion, of obedience to your rules, of unswerving loyalty, not only to you, but to Athina, and really, if we were to be honest, very little benefit accruing to me, I am expected to step back once again into the invisibility that suits you both so well?’

‘That is grotesquely unfair,’ he said, ‘and you know it. You have always said you loved me, as I love you; you have always known I could never leave Athina or acknowledge our relationship; I’ve been fair and honest, and done everything I could for you that was within my powers.’

‘Is that really so, Cornelius? Did you never stop to think of what I might have liked, beyond the usual baubles handed to the mistress?’

‘Be careful,’ he said, ‘be very careful.’

‘Cornelius, the truth is not always a careful commodity. Yes, of course I love you, and I do not resent devoting my entire life to that, hard as it has often been. But there are other things that might have consoled me in my loneliness, in Athina’s arrogance, in your complacency that I would always be there when required . . . and it hurts me very much that this has never occurred to you. You should really be able to see how sweet these last weeks have been to me, to be valued, listened to, even admired. And I find I do not want to give that up. Not entirely. And I also find I don’t intend to.’