Breakfast at Darcy's (4 page)

‘I think she might have taken me over there to visit once or twice.’ Some vague memories of boat trips across to an island
come floating into my mind, and just as quickly drift away again. ‘But I can’t just go and live there on my own for a year,
like some sort of recluse.’

‘Oh no, she doesn’t want you to go and live there alone,’ Niall hurriedly explains as I drain the rest of my drink and desperately
look around for another. ‘She wants you to set up a whole new community of people to live there with you.’

‘What! Whoah, just wait one minute.’ This was all becoming a bit much to take in. ‘Niall, let me run this by you again, just
so I’ve understood it all properly.’

‘Sure, I can imagine this has all come as a bit of a shock.’

That’s the understatement of the year
. ‘You’re telling me my aunt Molly has left me and me alone in her will a very large estate?’ I repeat slowly.

Niall nods. ‘Yes. Very, very large.’

My eyes open wide, but I continue. ‘And to inherit any of this I have to go and live on an island for a year with a bunch
of strangers?’

‘You have to set up and run a small community to thrive and prosper over one year. But yes, that’s basically it.’

‘And if I do all this, then what happens at the end of the year?’

‘According to the terms of the will, as long as you’ve lived for twelve months on the island with a community of no fewer
than fifteen people at any given time, then you will inherit all of your aunt’s estate.’

‘And I can do what I like with it after that – the island, and any money?’

‘Yes, I believe so. The will stipulates a clause only for the first year.’

‘And if I choose not to go through with all this … if I refuse to go and live on the island?’

‘Then, Darcy, I’m afraid you will get nothing. The island
will be given to Heritage Ireland, and the rest of your aunt’s money to the charity of her choice.’

I sit back in my chair again, stunned, to think.

‘I don’t wish to influence your decision in any way, Darcy,’ I hear Niall say in a gentle voice, while I’m desperately running
through all the various options in my head. ‘But for your aunt to have put this much thought into her will, it really must
have been what she wanted. We rarely see anything like this in the office. In fact, it would have been my father that helped
your aunt put this together in the first place, so I sort of feel responsible that it’s carried out properly.’

I break from my own thoughts and turn my attention back to Niall.

‘I know, and thank you, Niall, you have carried out everything very thoroughly and properly indeed. I couldn’t have asked
for a better solicitor to explain this crazy situation to me.’

Niall smiles proudly.

‘I promise you I’ll keep that in mind while I make my decision on what I’m going to do.’

Niall’s right. As images of big houses, flashy cars, designer labels and zero credit-card bills race across my mind, the one
thought that keeps returning as it grows ever stronger in my mind – is Molly.

‘For next month’s issue, we need people to cover the following features,’ my editor announces from the comfort of her desk,
as we all stand crowded into her office at the end of our weekly editorial meeting. ‘The top ten haircuts for spring –
Top of the Crops
. The latest beauty parlour, where you can take your designer pooch in for a pampering alongside you –
WAGS to Bitches
. And our regular feature comparing budget and designer products – next month it’s fake tans –
Sun-kissed or Just-missed
.’

‘I thought we were calling that “sun-kissed or just pissed”,’ my colleague Sophie whispers to me as we stand listening to
Jemima preach the gospel of
Goddess
magazine.

I grin at her.

‘Have you got something to share, Sophie?’ Jemima enquires, regarding us over her large tortoiseshell glasses.

‘No, Jemima,’ Sophie calls innocently from the back of the room.

‘Then you, Sophie, shall take the top ten haircuts for spring,’ Jemima narrows her eyes. ‘You look like you could do with
some help with that mop of yours.’

‘I paid ninety quid for this cut,’ Sophie mutters to me, smoothing her hand over her hair. ‘Yes, thank you, Jemima, I’ll make
a start on it today,’ she calls, smiling sweetly across the room.

‘Lucy, you will take the fake tan feature. A bit of colour to that whiter-than-white skin of yours will do you the world of
good. Pale is not interesting, darling, its dullsville.’

I turn to Sophie again, who raises her eyebrows at me in astonishment. Surely Jemima has forgotten that Lucy just returned
to work a few days ago after time away recuperating from donating a kidney to her sister?

‘And you, Samantha.’ Jemima turns her attention now to the person our magazine might have been named after, as she stands,
all five feet ten of her, looking resplendent behind us. Samantha is immaculately presented today, as always, and her cool,
poised demeanour surrounds her like a cloud of exquisite perfume. She could almost be hovering above the ground in her own
angelic glow of perfection were it not for the fact that I know she’s wearing the most fantastic pair of red and black Miu
Miu shoes today. I’d secretly admired them as she glided past me on the way to the water cooler earlier, and I’d immediately
gone on Net-a-Porter to see if I could find out where they were from. Well, I wasn’t going to ask her.

‘You, Samantha,’ Jemima continues, ‘shall take the feature on the celebrity beauty salons. You’ll fit in there without too
much of a problem.’

An enigmatic smile forms beneath Samantha’s perfectly
applied MAC lipstick as she acknowledges Jemima’s statement to be correct.

Great, I think, while Jemima assigns all the other less important jobs for next month. Looks like I’ve been overlooked altogether
this time. I mean, I never expected in a million years to get the beauty salon gig. Samantha always gets the best jobs – one
of the
many
perks of being a niece of one of owners of the multinational that prints
Goddess
– but I’d have expected fake tans at the very least. It’s so unfair.

I realise while I’m stewing in my own misery that Jemima is trying to speak to me. ‘Darcy, are you with us?’ she asks in that
super-sweet yet steely-eyed way of hers.

I nod hurriedly.

‘Good, I was beginning to wonder. Now, Darcy, I’ve saved something extra special for you.’ Jemima smiles, giving us a brief
flash of her new and very expensive set of perfect white teeth.

Now the thing is, when Jemima smiles it isn’t necessarily a good thing. I try to guess by looking at the angle on the curve
of her mouth whether this smile means good news for me or bad.

Jemima pushes back her ergonomically designed chair and stands up.

Definitely bad
.

‘I’d like to start a new monthly feature on the magazine,’ her eyes glint dangerously behind her spectacles. ‘An area we’ve
never ventured into before, but something that’s becoming more and more popular with the masses.’ She pauses for dramatic
effect, while I hold my breath in anticipation of whatever crackpot, anti-ageing, get yourself super-slim in three days
scheme she’s found now. I can guarantee that if she wants me to experience something it won’t be a week in a Champneys health
resort.

‘Holistic healing,’ she announces with a dramatic swish of her hand.

We all stand and stare at her.

‘Holistic healing,’ she repeats, as though we’re hard of hearing. ‘I thought we could start with some of the more well-known
therapies such as reiki, acupuncture and homeopathy, and then move on to things like crystal therapy, and do some real-life
features on people who get spiritual, and even angel healing if we can find some willing volunteers to speak to us.’

I turn to Sophie, my eyes wide.

She grimaces at me in sympathy.

‘So what do you think, Darcy?’ Jemima asks, putting me on the spot.

I can feel my colleagues’ eyes around the room boring into me as they too await my answer. Samantha’s lipstick is a lot less
enigmatic now and a lot more smug as she surveys me from underneath eyelashes that have definitely been enhanced in post-production,
while most of the others simply wince at my discomfort, glad they’re not in my shoes.

‘It’s certainly different, Jemima.’ I’m diplomatic. ‘But do you think it will work at
Goddess
?’ The usual content of our articles about whether a lipstick can actually last all day without being reapplied, or if you
really do burn more calories by eating a stick of celery than there are in the celery itself, are hardly considered thought-provoking.
‘I mean, is it the kind of thing our readers want to know about?’

‘Darcy.’ Jemima removes her glasses, which always means business. ‘Holistic healing is the next big thing; it’s everywhere
right now. Just the other day there was a huge mind, body and spirit event here in London at Earls Court, and they’re happening
all around the country every weekend. One of our sister magazines,
Soul Sister
has a huge, ever-growing readership, and I think it’s about time we incorporated these ideas into the mainstream.’

‘She’s right, you know,’ Maggie, Jemima’s secretary, who is usually silent while she takes shorthand at these meetings pipes
up. ‘I was in Selfridges the other day, and they’ve got psychics in there now. Right in the middle of the shop, not hidden
away or anything.’

Jemima nods at Maggie. ‘Yes, thank you, Maggie. Now—’

‘All the celebs are into cosmic ordering these days, too,’ Daisy, one of our interns dares to add. She hasn’t been here long
enough to realise that you never interrupt Jemima when’s she’s in full flow. ‘I read about it in one of my magazines the other
day. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, even Noel Edmonds, he reckons he got back into TV because of it.’

‘And is that supposed to be a
good
thing?’ Sophie whispers to me.

‘Yes, thank you all for your input,’ Jemima interrupts, holding up her hand before anyone else tries to join in. She turns
to me. ‘So you see, Darcy, holistic healing really is the
in thing
right now. It’s everywhere,’ her eyes flicker briefly to Sophie. ‘It’s even reached daytime TV, it seems, and we must be
the first mainstream magazine to jump on the bandwagon before anyone else does. So I’ve arranged for you to have a
session of acupuncture next week, Darcy, to begin your series of articles with.’

‘Great, thank you Jemima,’ I grimace at the thought. I don’t know what’s more painful to me right now – the thought of having
needles stuck all over my body, or the months ahead having to listen to spiritual gurus in beads, cheesecloth dresses and
sandals chanting and preaching at me to release my inner emotions and breathe in the light. ‘I’m sure that will be an … enlightening
experience.’

After the meeting, Jemima asks me to wait while everyone else files out of her office, so she can give me the names of some
contacts she thinks will help me with my articles. I’m impressed when the names are produced from Jemima’s little black book
– she must be taking this new departure for
Goddess
seriously, I think to myself as I return to my desk clutching the precious information. Before I can sit down, I have to
remove an old copy of the magazine I find propped up on my chair. The bikini-clad model on the front cover has been decorated
all over with coloured drawing pins, and a speech bubble has been drawn in black marker coming out of her mouth, exclaiming
‘Ouch!’

I glance around the room, hoping to spot the guilty party sniggering behind a filing cabinet somewhere. But unsurprisingly,
everyone is suddenly very busy, their eyes glued to their computer screens.
Hmm … this practical joke thing always seems funny when it’s at someone else’s expense
.

Casting the magazine aside, I flop down at my desk. As my hand catches against my mouse, the screensaver of my current favourite
Mulberry bag disappears and I stare at yet another photo of this Irish island I’ve been searching for on Google
Images.
Acupuncture, spiritual healing?
Spending a year on this island is starting to look almost pleasant by comparison.

What has got into Jemima? Our readers aren’t interested in learning about how to heal yourself from the inside – external
beauty is what’s important to a reader of
Goddess
magazine. I’m doomed before I even begin with this one.

This is not what I’d hoped for at all when I got offered the job here. I’d been so excited finally to get a chance to write
for a proper women’s magazine, after years spent writing articles for a trade magazine about DIY tools. It had been so mind-numbingly
boring that I’d actually fallen asleep at my desk one day – just how many words can you write about a screwdriver? Then I’d
subsequently landed a job on a teen girl magazine, and it had been fun until they’d decided I was too old to write for them
any more. Too old! Being informed you’re too old to do anything other than join the Girl Guides at twenty-six takes some getting
over. But then I got my job on
Goddess
almost a year ago now, and I thought all my Christmases had come at once. At last, a route into the exhilarating world of
fashion I so longed for. So what if
Goddess
was more about beauty and health than fashion? I’d done my research, and I knew they had other big glossy magazines in their
family that I might get promoted onto. Then one day, maybe, I’d get a chance to visit a big catwalk show and report on the
latest designer collections. The freebies you got working on a fashion magazine were more likely to be shoes and handbags.
Beauty freebies are a fantastic perk of my job – when they’re actually something we women might use. If companies insist on
trying to sell bright green lipstick, it doesn’t take a genius to work out their market is going to be a coven of witches
on
a hen night rather than your average mum picking her kids up from school. They shouldn’t need feedback from a beauty magazine
to tell them that.