A Perfect Heritage (6 page)

Florence felt anxious suddenly. For all Bianca’s charming appreciation of The Shop, she had clearly been appraising it very carefully. And Florence was a realist; she could see quite clearly that, defend it as she might as an important jewel in the Farrell crown, the economics really did not add up. And then what would she do?

Chapter 5

It caused excitement in some of their employees, trepidation in most, the news – or rather rumour – that Farrell’s was about to be taken over, or bought. Nothing had been confirmed, but neither had it been denied. The Farrells were utterly tight-lipped about it, so everyone was edgy, unable to concentrate, and both those who were excited and those who were trepidatious discussed the prospect endlessly, at water coolers, in wine bars and even in the lift and the lavatories.

The rumours that Bianca Bailey might be joining the company had sent Susie Harding googling her frantically; she was clearly a star, had relaunched the toiletries company PDN with great success and before that had done the same for an interior design company. It would be great to work with her; it would certainly make it worth hanging on.

Marjorie Dawson was one of the more anxious staff members waiting for news; in the world in which she lived, that of the beauty departments in the big stores, gossip moved with great speed. She didn’t really have any good friends at Rolfe’s of Guildford, where she was based these days – once she had been the Farrell queen bee at Selfridges – but she still pricked up her ears as she walked into the staff dining room.

Marjorie was fifty-five and had worked for the House of Farrell since her twenty-second birthday when it had still been a very respectable member, if not one of the stars of the cosmetic firmament. She had done well from the beginning, her weekly figures always among the top five accounts; Lady Farrell had picked her out quickly, appreciating the irresistible combination of sweet-voiced prettiness and a steely determination to reach the top. At the age of thirty-five, she had been put in charge of consultant training, visiting all the stores on a regular basis, often dropping in unexpectedly. The occasional young consultant, caught gossiping while a customer struggled to attract her attention, never repeated the offence again after a few to-the-point words from Marjorie.

She was also an invaluable source of information about the brand and its customers, reporting as she did to the Farrells on a twice-monthly basis; Marjorie could tell them not only which colours were selling best, and which promotions had worked, but how the customers actually felt about the latest advertising campaign or counter card.

But that was the peak of her career; as the eighties drew to a close and brash colours and intense, chemically based perfumes took over the market, one by one the Farrell consultants found themselves sidelined, smiling brightly and hopefully by their endlessly tidied counters while women walked past them unseeingly, lured by the hard, sexy sell of what was forever to be known as the shoulder-pad era.

Gradually the accounts in the big stores were closed down; the successful, clever girls, like Marjorie were moved on to smaller, less glamorous establishments, the less fortunate dismissed. Countrywide there were now only twenty-eight department stores with Farrell counters – and only a handful of them, Marjorie knew, justified their space. She was no fool; she had spent her life in the cosmetic business, and she knew that in spite of its fluffy image, its heart was as hard as nails. It was big business; and big business had to pay. As one of the gay make-up artists – there seemed to be more and more of them, these days – who did events at Rolfe’s said to her over several very jolly glasses of wine, ‘Marjorie, darling, it don’t mean a thing if it don’t go ker-ching!’ Ker-ching being, of course, the music of the till.

Rolfe’s did not do badly; she had a loyal clientele who had always used Farrell products, but sometimes she read of the millions of pounds annually turned over in the top stores and felt quite sick and anxious because she was the family breadwinner. When Marjorie walked out of the house in the morning she left behind her a husband who hadn’t worked for fifteen years; he had been a scaffolder in his youth, a handsome young man called Terry, who had won Marjorie’s heart, and for a time they had been a rather dashing young pair, with what looked like a very promising life before them. Then a horrible fall had crushed his spine and left him in a wheelchair. His disability allowance was smaller than ever thanks to ‘the cuts’, and they were fairly strapped for cash, as Terry put it. Marjorie’s income was essential: without it, she had absolutely no idea what they would do.

Patrick looked round the incredibly cool bar Jonjo had brought him to, all glass and mirrors and black and white. He’d ordered a gin and tonic, which Jonjo had clearly found quite amusing, and was listening to Jonjo telling him about his new job. As usual, he didn’t really understand much of what he was saying. He’d googled the company Jonjo now worked for which was called MPR, and learned that it provided brokerage services, trade execution trading platforms and other software products, and that its revenue in 2010 had been 702 million dollars – which he more or less understood. Jonjo was a foreign exchange trader.

‘We’ve got some very blue chip companies,’ Jonjo said now. ‘It’s high pressure, of course, but it’s a genius set-up, all the guys on the desks are really cool, so good to work with. I’m having a great time. How about you?’

‘Oh – you know,’ said Patrick, deliberately vague, ‘more of the same, really.’

‘Yeah?’ Jonjo looked at Patrick rather intently. ‘You still enjoying it?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Patrick, trying to sound convincing. ‘I mean, it’s nothing to get really excited about, but I have a lot of good clients, my colleagues are great, and I more or less write my own job spec.’ He wished it sounded just slightly more exciting.

‘Yeah, well I suppose you would. It’ll be yours one day.’

‘Possibly,’ said Patrick primly.

‘Oh, P, come on, you know it will – it’s a family firm and you’re the only one of your generation. Anyway, that kind of brings me round to what I want to talk to you about.’ He hesitated, looking mildly embarrassed; Patrick was intrigued.

‘Well, come on, spit it out. You don’t want me to cover up for some woman do you?’

‘Patrick! Would I?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick and grinned at him. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘I know, but I’m not married any more. God, which reminds me. I can’t be much longer. I’ve got a hot date with a sculptor.’

‘A sculptor?’ Patrick struggled not to sound astonished.

‘Yeah. Thinking of buying one of her – er – what are they called?’

‘I could make any amount of suggestions,’ said Patrick, with a grin, ‘but the word I think you’re looking for is pieces. What are her . . . pieces like, then?’

‘Oh lord, no idea. Bronze, I think she said. A good investment anyway. Want to come along? It’s the private view. Quite fun. Cork Street.’

‘I’d love to,’ said Patrick, and it was true: he rather liked private views with their heady blend of attractive people and pretentious chatter, ‘but I can’t. I’ve got a hot date with a history project.’

‘Yeah?’ Jonjo’s expression veered between boredom and – what? Sympathy? It depressed Patrick.

‘Come on, then,’ he said, ‘you’d better tell me what this proposition is. I don’t want to keep you from your sculptor’s pieces.’

‘Right,’ said Jonjo. ‘Now, I don’t know if you’d ever even consider it. But, well, it goes like this . . .’

‘Bertie, I think we should move.’ Priscilla Farrell’s deceptively good-natured face wore its most determined expression. ‘This house is too big for us now, with the children both away most of the time, and I never wanted to live out here, it was purely for their benefit.’

She made it sound as if Esher was the Outer Hebrides.

‘And mine,’ said Bertie carefully. ‘I like it here, very much. And
I
have to do the commute, after all.’

‘But look at the performance every time we want to go to the theatre or a concert, for instance. Do we take the car, where shall we park? When I look at people like Margaret and Dick, just walking into the Barbican – so much easier. And I’ve just taken on this new charity, it’s London based and I shall be forever on the train—’

‘Priscilla, I really don’t want to move,’ said Bertie, trying to sound decisive. ‘There’s enough upheaval in our lives at the moment, with Farrell’s being taken over, and God knows what will happen – I could be out of a job for starters.’

‘You’re the financial director! Of course you won’t be out of a job. I talked to Athina about it and she said all your positions would be absolutely unchanged, that you’d still got your majority share—’

‘I don’t think
anything
will remain unchanged,’ said Bertie. ‘These deals don’t allow for it.’

‘Well, I’d back your mother against a venture capitalist any day of the week,’ said Priscilla. ‘And anyway, if you’re right and you might be in a less certain position, all the more reason to move now, into something smaller and cheaper, rather than later on in a panic. I really think a flat at the Barbican would suit us very well and I thought you’d like the idea.’

‘Did you really? I can’t think why. And what about the children, where are they supposed to live in the holidays?’

‘Oh – we can get one with two or three bedrooms.’

‘Which will cost as much as this house. Priscilla, I love it here. And I love the garden – you know what it means to me. What would I have at the Barbican? A window box at best.’

‘You can grow herbs in window boxes,’ said Priscilla, swinging as always into a well-informed attack. ‘I was reading about it in the
Sunday Times
only last weekend. Or flowers, of course; whatever you like. Anyway, I’ve asked some of the local agents to come and do a valuation, but as a rough guide we should get at least three million for this house. Which, if you are going to be out of a job, will come in pretty useful. Bertie, I really want you to give it some serious consideration.’

‘I will consider it,’ said Bertie. ‘Of course. Now I’m going to go outside and have my gin and tonic on the terrace. Such a lovely evening.’

Bertie fixed himself a very strong gin and tonic and went out into the lovely March dusk. It had been an incredible spring, with temperatures at a record level, and the garden was thick with birdsong, the great clumps of daffodils he had planted years ago seeming to shine through the half-light. The magnolia tree was heavy with its hundreds of pink candles, the camellia studded with white stars, and he felt, as he always did on such occasions, the garden enfolding him, soothing his ever-present sense of anxiety. Esher might be laughably suburban to the metropolitan dwellers; to him it meant peace, the place where all was right with the world.

Priscilla’s desire to move was intensely worrying. She was so very good at getting her own way.

As was his mother. For the two of them, negotiations could only mean one thing: winning.

‘Mr Russell, no.’ Athina’s voice was icy. ‘It’s unthinkable. We cannot run the House of Farrell from an office in some squalid area in South London. I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it. It would seem to indicate a complete lack of grasp of the cosmetic industry. We
need
to be in the West End. Revlon are in Brook Street, Lauder in Grosvenor Street. Are you really suggesting the House of Farrell has an address in
Putney
?’

‘Lady Farrell, Putney is not squalid. It’s extremely pleasant. Boots are there, in—’

‘Boots!’ Athina’s voice would have withered a row of vines. ‘Well, there you are. That makes my point.’

‘In magnificent offices on the river,’ Mike continued, without drawing breath, ‘probably at a fraction of the cost we are paying in Cavendish Street. I’m sorry, Lady Farrell, but you have to think about it. You can’t afford not to. Looking at alternative office sites was agreed in the Head of Terms – and I intend to put into the contract that when your lease expires, in January 2014, there will be no question of renewing because the rent will probably quadruple then. As will the rates. You’ve been very fortunate to have it for so long at the level you do. Now, I would also like to propose we dispense with your personal chauffeur—’

‘Out of the question! Colin Peterson has driven us for thirty years. There is no way I am going to tell him he is out of a job.’

‘Well, that is your prerogative, Lady Farrell, but I’m afraid you will have to pay him yourself.’

‘But Mr Russell, not only has Colin Peterson worked for us all his life, his father did so before him. What do you suggest I say to him? That he has to go on the dole?’

‘
You
won’t have to say anything, Lady Farrell: we will of course negotiate with Mr Peterson. It may be that he can come up with some proposal himself. But the current situation is financially untenable. I’m sorry.’

‘And do I understand that I am now to pay rent on my flat? A property owned by the company?’

‘I’m afraid so, Lady Farrell.’

‘I think that is probably the most outrageous of all your proposals.’

‘Well, I’m sorry. But you see, what is happening now is against current tax laws. It’s forming a tax-free component of your income. And that is simply wrong.’

‘But Bernard Whittle has always said it was perfectly ethical.’

‘Lady Farrell, this is not the first time that I have found Mr Whittle to be under some very erroneous impressions. Now, either you must pay rent for the apartment, or it must be set as a taxable benefit against your income. One or the other. I’m sorry.’

Athina was perfectly sure that he was not sorry at all. She drew herself up as she asked her next question.

‘And what is this about a new chairman? I’ve spoken to Walter Pemberton and the rest of the family and none of us recollect any such suggestion being mooted. I am the chair of this company and intend to remain so.’

‘Lady Farrell, the chairman will be a non-executive position. That is to say, he will not have shares in the company, he will only be in attendance two days a month, let us say, and he will certainly have experience of the cosmetic industry, so he’ll know what he’s talking about—’

‘Are you suggesting I don’t?’

‘No, no of course not. No one understands the industry better than you. But we need someone to run the board.’