A Perfect Heritage (47 page)

‘This is outrageous of you,’ said Cornelius, ‘and I would not have believed it.’

‘Actually,’ said Florence, ‘I think it is your attitude that is outrageous. Outrageously blind, outrageously arrogant. And suddenly I don’t like that. I think I am worthy of more. And I want you to give it to me.’

‘And what do you mean by that, for Christ’s sake?’

‘I mean I want some kind of increased status at Farrell. I want people to know I am more than the wonderful middle-aged lady who runs The Shop. If I can’t have more of you – and I accept that I can’t – I want more of a career. It’s a little late in my life, but I’m sure you can think of something.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Then the articles will start again with a vengeance. I’m sorry.’

‘This is blackmail!’ he said.

Florence looked at him, seeing him suddenly rather clearly, almost as if for the first time, a handsome and charming, but undoubtedly weak man, and smiled at him very sweetly.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’re right. I’m sorry, but it is.’

Two weeks later an internal memo went round the company, announcing the promotion of Florence Hamilton to the board of the company, with particular responsibility for retail outlets.

Bianca was sitting at her desk one early evening, the offices empty around her – and even that seemed to symbolise her overall situation, the phones silent, the emails stopped, desperately trying to summon the energy even to stand up and walk out of it, when her mobile rang. It was Saul. She didn’t answer it, left it to tell him that she was unavailable; almost at once a text came through saying
Bianca, please call me. I’ve had an idea.

She waited for a moment or two, then unable to resist, called him; he sounded most unusually animated.

‘Hi, I’d like to talk to you. About your project. What are you doing right now?’

‘I’m about to go home to my fatherless children,’ she said briskly.

‘I’m sorry? Oh, you mean without Patrick.’

‘He is generally accepted as their father, yes.’

‘Sorry. And sorrier about Hong Kong. If it’s any comfort to you, he was keener about going than I was. He could perfectly well have done it from here.’

‘Not a great comfort, no,’ said Bianca. ‘Rather the reverse.’

There was a silence; then, ‘Well, anyway, what’s important now is this project of yours. It’s too clever an idea to waste, Bianca, you have to do it.’

‘That’s all very well, Saul, but there’s no more money in the pot, the VCs have closed the lid, and everyone, including you, has told me it won’t work without a full complement of outlets, in the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world.’

‘There’s another way. I just thought of it this afternoon.’

‘And?’ Bianca said, torn between irritation and intense gratitude that anyone, and Saul of all people, should be thinking about her problem.

‘Franchises.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Franchises. Look, we should meet. Do you have even half an hour? It’s so important. And I’m very pleased with my idea. You still in the office? I could come there.’

‘Yes, I am. But—’

‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.’

He walked in, in his impatient, swift way, said hello, sat down in the chair opposite her desk.

‘Now, this is what you do—’

She laughed, in spite of herself. He looked at her, clearly mildly hurt.

‘What did I say?’

‘Nothing, Saul. I’m sorry. Very rude of me after you’ve been so kind. Go on, I really want to hear.’

‘OK. You go to your VCs and you tell them you’re going to open shops in every shopping capital of the world and if they won’t give you the money, you’re going to franchise them.’

She felt a stirring of excitement so strong it was almost sexual. ‘God. That is – well, it’s clever.’

‘I know,’ he said, looking like a small child who had just been praised for a piece of good behaviour.

‘But can I do that? Under my contract with them?’

‘I should think so. I’ll have a look at it for you. But the point is, you tell them what’s in it for them.’

‘Which is?’

‘Money,’ said Saul, ‘only thing they’ll care about.’

Mike and Hugh looked at Bianca. Their faces wore identical expressions: irritation.

‘Bianca, we’ve told you too many times. There is no more money. The rent on half a dozen or so shops, in the top shopping cities of the world, would run into millions. Let alone fitting them out, stocking and staffing them. It’s too much of a risk. Sorry.’

‘OK,’ said Bianca, ‘but I have an alternative plan.’

‘Which is?’

‘Franchises.’

‘What?’

‘I think we should turn the shops into franchises. So they will hardly cost us anything. The franchisees will provide the cash. I know it’s feasible. And provided you agree, I’ll give you twenty-five per cent of their profits. Over and above what you’ll get when we sell Farrell’s, obviously.’

There was a very long silence: then Mike looked at Hugh and Hugh looked at Mike and Mike said, ‘Will you excuse us for a moment?’

She sat waiting for them to return, looking alternately out of the window and at her phone. A text arrived from Saul.

How’s it going?

Not sure.

Let me know.

Of course.

She just had time to press send. Hugh and Mike sat down and looked at her in silence for a long moment. Then, ‘It’s another brilliant idea,’ said Hugh, ‘but we don’t think it can work.’

She stared at them, struggling against the absolute defeat she felt. Don’t give up yet, Bianca, don’t . . .

‘Why not?’

‘Because so much is against you. Time for a start. Do you really think you can find six locations, to match your brief, in the time? And then fit them out, equip them, hire staff? Do you think you can find people with that sort of money, to do what you want?’

‘Yes,’ said Bianca firmly, ‘I absolutely do. Look: let me try. None of us will be any the worse off if I can’t find anyone. But at least we’ll know for sure instead of endless conjecturing. In which case I’ll never, ever again mention the most brilliant idea in the history of advertising – until someone else does it. Which they will. What do you say?’

‘I suppose,’ said Hugh, ‘that can’t do any harm. Mike?’

‘I suppose . . . we could think about it,’ said Mike.

Thinking about it was good. Better than – well, not thinking about it. But . . .

‘For how long?’ said Bianca. ‘You just said yourself, time is against us. So if you’re prepared to think about it, then you can’t think it’s an entirely bad idea.’

‘It’s not a bad idea,’ said Hugh, ‘but it can’t work in the time. And you cannot delay the launch. It has to coincide with the Jubilee; we’re all agreed on that. And that certainly isn’t going to be delayed.’

‘But if I could guarantee that, then you’d be prepared to go ahead?’

‘Possibly,’ said Hugh, after a long pause, ‘but you can’t. So—’

‘Hugh! Please! Please think about it. Just a bit longer.’

Mike sighed.

‘OK. We’ll think about that. But if it’s no—’

‘Then I still won’t give up,’ she said.

‘Jesus, Bianca,’ said Mike. ‘Look, just get out of here for a few minutes, will you?’

She left the room, pulled out her phone and texted Saul.

They’re thinking about it.

They’ll do it.

Not sure.

They will.

She knocked on the boardroom door before going in, found herself confronted by their backs. They were looking out of the window. How well they must know that view, she thought, every roof, every brick practically, of every building.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ said Mike, turning round. She smiled at him; he didn’t smile back. Hugh turned too, looking equally serious. It was not a good moment.

‘Bianca,’ said Hugh, ‘we’ve considered it.’

‘And,’ said Mike, ‘we wondered if you have contacts in any of these cities?’

‘Some, of course,’ she said, determined to sound upbeat. ‘New York, Milan. Possibly LA.’

‘Sydney? Tokyo?’

‘No.’

‘Dubai?’

She shook her head.

‘That’s exactly what we thought,’ said Hugh.

‘But I’ll find them.’

‘Not easy. I mean how do you think you’re even going to begin, for God’s sake? Your name means nothing in those places, and Farrell’s certainly doesn’t and you are going to need to generate one hell of a lot of interest if you’ve any hope at all of pushing this through. You’re living in a dreamworld.’

Suddenly she felt angry. ‘I don’t think so. And even if I am, I would like to remind you that cosmetics are a dream world in themselves. You have to think differently, you—’

‘Bianca,’ said Mike, ‘that’s crap. Money is still money. Whichever world it’s spent in.’

She was silent; looked down at her file, her notes, some stuff Saul had said would be sure to persuade them. He’d been wrong about them, about the whole thing. She felt angry with him suddenly, as well as Mike and Hugh. He clearly wasn’t quite the genius Patrick seemed to think.

‘Bianca?’ said Mike.

She looked at him, forced herself to smile.

‘I’ll find them,’ she said determinedly. ‘You can’t stop me doing that.’

‘We wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Hugh. ‘But you really can’t manage on your own. Believe us. Anyway, that’s precisely why we thought we’d help.’

‘Oh,’ she said rather dully. She felt at once too overwrought, too exhausted to take this in.

‘Well, you could sound a little more enthusiastic.’

‘Sorry. I—’ And then it hit her and she stared at each of them in turn.

‘You’ll help?’

‘Yup. Not too surprisingly, we have contacts in many of those places. To be quite honest, we don’t expect much of a response, but we’re up for sending out a few emails, see what happens. How would that be?’

‘Oh my God! That would be amazing! Oh, thank you. Thank you so much!’

‘There probably isn’t much to thank us for,’ said Mike. ‘I’m afraid we remain somewhat sceptical. Meanwhile, so we can act fast, which is essential, we’ll get the lawyers on to drawing up a few agreements, both between you and us, and the company and the franchisees. I’ll send over a draft of our emails to our contacts later, so you can make sure we haven’t missed anything crucial. A photograph of the shop in the Berkeley Arcade would probably help. I’d say you might add its annual turnover, but I don’t think that’s going to tempt anyone to part from their capital. OK?’

‘OK,’ said Bianca. She found herself rather alarmingly near to tears. ‘I’ll – I’ll look forward to receiving those. And of course I’ll send over some shots of The Shop. Do you want a brand policy statement, strategy, anything like that?’

‘Nah,’ said Mike, ‘much too soon. Now look, we’ve got another meeting we’re already late for, so . . .’

‘Yes, yes of course. I’m off.’ And suddenly she did something she had never done before, in her entire working life. She went over to them and hugged first one and then the other, wiping her hand impatiently across her eyes at the tears that were so determinedly making themselves felt, sniffing and laughing at the same time.

‘Sorry,’ she said, standing back, seeing their almost shocked expressions. ‘I’m so sorry, very unprofessional of me . . .’

‘Bianca,’ said Hugh, and he was smiling now, and so was Mike, ‘don’t worry about it. This is actually not a very professional decision!’

Come on, come on, answer, answer, please,
please
.

But the answerphone wasn’t having any of it.

Well she could try.

‘Hi Jonjo, this is Susie. Look, I really need to talk to you. Whatever you heard yesterday morning wasn’t what you think. Give me a call, and let me explain properly. I’m so sorry if you’re feeling bad, which I guess you are. I – well, just call please and let’s arrange something. I . . .’ She hesitated. She couldn’t say ‘I love you’ although she longed to; but she wanted to let him know how badly she felt, how much she cared. ‘Miss you,’ she finished, hoping it wouldn’t sound too pathetic.

She clicked off her phone; that was all she could do for now. If he called, if she could just speak to him, maybe she could talk him round. But if he didn’t . . . She sighed, and decided all she could do now was wait. And distract herself with work.

She had told Jemima about her meeting with Henk, in as much detail as she could. It had assumed surreal qualities, especially the walk along the street, his taking her arm, his kissing her. Henk doing those things, when it should have been Jonjo. God, what a mess.

Jemima was sympathetic, clearly intrigued on a professional level. She’d said it was good that Henk hadn’t been totally opposed to seeing someone, asked how he’d seemed, calm, hostile?

‘Quite calm, actually. And very sure of himself, in control. Is that a good sign, do you think?’

‘I’m sorry, Susie, I don’t know what to think. It’s all so complicated. Everyone’s different, so there aren’t any rules. Was he hostile to you, in any way?’

‘Only a bit. He just seemed – normal. Nicer than normal, even.’ She managed a smile. ‘So – what do I do now?’

‘Wait, I’m afraid. The hardest thing of all. See what he does next. I’m afraid he’s not going to just go away.’

‘No,’ said Susie, with a rather feeble smile, ‘no, I’m afraid so too.’

There was no reply from Jonjo all day. No call, no message, no text. Just silence. And it was horrible. She did all the things everyone did; checked her phone constantly, phoned it from the landline on her desk to make sure it was working, charged it just in case, checked her texts over and over again, and began to hate everyone who called because they weren’t Jonjo. And at the end of the day, she left early – Bianca was tied up with the VCs and there was no one else to notice – and hared home to check her landline. The answering machine had three messages: two were from her mother, one from an old friend. Well, had she really thought he would phone her on that?

Was it possible that he hadn’t got the message? Possible, yes of course. Maybe she could text him, just say
Hope you got my call. Let me know if you didn’t.
It sounded a bit desperate, but she was feeling desperate. And things could hardly be worse. Before she could debate it any further, she sent the text. She had hardly pressed send, when the phone rang. This was amazing. He hadn’t got it! Thank God she’d sent the text! Shaking, weak with relief, smiling, she picked up her phone. ‘Hi,’ she said, struggling to hold her voice steady. ‘Hi, lovely to hear from—’ And then, too late, far too late, looked at the screen.