Daughters (8 page)

But here was the thing. This situation was nothing new. Discomfort was axiomatic to her working life, and a daily discipline. Everyone she knew, and rated, endured the same. Rowan talked and talked, and she flicked up the Vegetalès account, rechecked the huge amount of money they owed the Branding Company and encouraged him to let it all out.

After a few more minutes of heavy-duty abuse, she realized she would have to deploy treachery. Not
something she enjoyed. She cast her eye over the adjacent office. David, her assistant, had gone home and could not, therefore, be witness to his own crucifixion.

‘As it was so early in the game, we allowed my assistant to brief the journalist. She assured him she was on side. Obviously, she changed her mind.’ She gave Rowan a moment to absorb this. ‘It does happen. But once we get going, and the creative team are still working on it, there will be dozens of favourable articles.’

‘Pay a journalist to bad-mouth the opposition.’

‘No.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen all the time.’

‘It doesn’t work, Rowan.’

‘Take that idiot off my account, then. Results, Jasmine, results.’

As if she didn’t know. ‘Bad feedback is part of the story. We discussed it, if you remember. The creative team are working night and day on the package.’

That set him off again.

He really was very old-fashioned. ‘Jasmine, are you listening?’

‘Absolutely, Rowan.’

But she wasn’t.

Over the years, she had developed skills. Top of the list was manipulating cranky men, ‘The ones who are congenitally bad-tempered and demanding, plus the ones born with an assumption that the world is arranged to suit them,’ she explained to Duncan, when he was wooing her.

‘And women aren’t like that?’

‘Can’t tell. Not enough of them around in top positions.’

‘You are.’

She smiled at him over the table in the
luxe
restaurant to which he had taken her. ‘It’s a mystery how these people get up in the morning.’

He smiled, revealing beautiful teeth. ‘I’ll tell you how,’ he said, ‘When we’re alone.’

Clever Jasmine
, Duncan often said – because he was generous with praise and proud of her achievements. He had, like her, a quicksilver understanding of what it took to rise from a modest background into a pole position (in his case) at the bank. From time to time, they discussed meritocracy and questioned if they had benefited from it. Jasmine was inclined to a romantic view of how society helped those who wanted to make their way. Duncan was sceptical: ‘It’s probably every man and woman for themselves.’

She pulled her thoughts back into line. ‘Rowan, please listen to me. It’s important that no one suspects you’re rattled. It’s not good for the image. I’ll phone the team later and see if we can do some damage limitation.’

On she talked, finessing Rowan Saunderson into acceptance, until he went away, leaving her with merciful silence and the slight hiss of her conscience over David. Quite soon, that subsided too.

She got up and went over to the film-editing unit, extracted a CD from the safe (nothing was kept on easily hackable computers) and snapped it into the machine. The image of Vegetalès’ latest moisturizer, packed in
eco-green and gold, accosted her on her screen, and beside it the flawless face of a top model. In the bottom left-hand corner, deftly tucked into the line of peripheral vision, was the logo. The ad moved on, executing a progression of shape-shifting illusions, all promising beauty that – the underlying message ran – could only be relished alongside social responsibility. ‘Enhance your world,’ invited the strapline.

Question: how could they persuade women to take Vegetalès’ skin-care products
to their hearts?

The obvious answer: by telling them to buy products that made them better-looking, and cared for the environment.

She knew, the team knew, everyone knew that creating demand did not work in a straightforward manner.

She had written the paper for a trade
magazine.

Women buy into the illusion
with their eyes open
. They know that Model X or Y does not look like her image and, if she did, it would almost certainly not be due to the products. However, offer female focus groups the chance for a product to be sold them in a more honest manner, they decline it roundly. If they are asked whether being sold products by the thin and beautiful makes them feel miserable and inadequate, they agree, but not to a change in approach. The conclusion has to be that women do not wish to be reminded of the realities of the female face and body.

The ad ended and she saw her own reflection in the computer screen.
Pale, raven-haired avatar
. She loved the images summoned by those words, envisaging herself floating through star-studded space …

Back at her desk, she speed-dialled. ‘David, sorry about this but you’re off Vegetalès. Don’t ask.’

‘You dropped me in it?’ He wasn’t pleased but, since she was his boss, he moderated his response.

‘I did.’

‘You owe me.’

‘I do. Claim it one day.’

It was late but she spent a further fifteen minutes or so constructing the ‘to-do’ list. On inspection, it appeared sparse and she cast around to add to it. ‘Ring
FT
and enquire who on diary, etc.’ Irrational, she knew, and indicating anxiety, but this type of housekeeping steadied her.

Shut down computer. Wipe desk top with the cloth she kept in the drawer. Check cupboards shut. Adjust window blind. All ninety or so staff of the Branding Company had left.

Silence.

No one was talking to her. This was the moment when her chest loosened, and the tension that was frequently her companion through the day said, ‘So long, see you tomorrow.’

So quiet she could hear her breath.

Office solitude was peerless. It made her feel lonely, deeply so, but it was soothing. She had earned it. My God, she had.

After a while, she pushed back the chair (Aeron, top of
the range) and reached for her bag (a Birkin, donated by a client but accepted after the account was terminated. As if that made it better!) Catching up her jacket, she turned off the lights.

Duncan’s flat was by the canal, a new-build shimmering with chrome, glass and boldness. A child-free destination dwelling for people with no ties, the childless affluent could perch here for a while, then move on. Yet all was not entirely well in this glossy and fashionable Eden: the fountains in the central square never functioned properly, the plants died, the bolder flourishes of the architecture often leaked or fell apart, and arguments raged between landlord, management company and occupiers.

She let herself into his flat. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ His voice was just audible over the rugby match on the television.

Duncan was in his usual unassuming armchair from his family home. He was surprisingly attached to it for (he maintained) his taste was modernist and untraditional
.
‘You can’t take the suburbs out of the man,’ she teased him – for he had grown up in one of the ugly, sprawling overspills of Greater London.

He had not bothered to change, and was still in his suit with the waistcoat unbuttoned and the jacket flung to one side. His sleek, dark otter head rested against the back of the chair. She squinted at him. More than one beer in, she guessed.

She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. He reached up and caught her hand. One, two … She took a few seconds to assess whether he would pay her further
attention or not. No. This was a match night. ‘Food?’ she asked.

He gestured to the kitchen. ‘Picked something up from Castello’s.’

Duncan’s kitchen had been fully and lovingly stocked. Since he rarely cooked, and seldom ventured into it anyway, she found his delight in pots and pans rather touching, if mystifying. ‘All hat and no cattle,’ she had teased, when he had first brought her to the flat. Then she had surveyed (with astonishment) the stainless-steel cooker and full
batterie de cuisine
. He hadn’t appreciated the tease (Duncan could take himself a little too seriously) and she had not been invited over again for some time. Even now when they spent the nights together it was, more often than not, at her flat.

‘Why haven’t you moved in with him?’ asked her friends and Eve. This was touchy. She didn’t want to say, ‘We haven’t discussed it,’
because the next question would inevitably be ‘Don’t you want to?’

The fridge contained a lasagne, Dijon chicken, a bag of salad, a bottle of vodka, the disgusting remains of some blue cheese, half a tube of tomato paste and a large bottle of Gaviscon for his stomach. Which meal would take less time to cook? She consulted the instructions on the cartons of (supposedly) homemade food. Was there a disconnect here? Could it qualify as homemade if the person who had made it had no idea about the one who ate it?

She made her decision.

Forty-five minutes later, she set the Dijon chicken in front of Duncan. He perched on the bar stool and ate heartily. ‘Good day?’

‘One or two glitches.’ She outlined the Rowan Saunderson conversation and, since she was a natural mimic, captured his tone, which made Duncan laugh.

Actually, the conversation she would have liked to hold was a different one.

Jane rang up today. She’s four months pregnant.

Great.

Duncan … don’t you think?

The chicken was tangy and creamy, which diverted her. Duncan poured more wine. ‘I’ve got a big deal coming up in the spring. Twenty-four-hour shifts, I imagine. Awful.’

‘You love it. You’re the original adrenalin junkie.’

He grinned, but didn’t deny it. They talked about the things that interested them. Work. Deals. A little bit of politics. That was what she liked in particular about their relationship. He never bored her.

She said. ‘You won’t miss the engagement party, will you?’

‘Lordy, Miz Scarlett, I don’t think I can stand another word about this wedding.’ He raised his eyebrows quizzically. ‘What’s going to happen when it’s over? What
will
we talk about?’

Tricky men. Tactic Number Forty-two. Jasmine looked out of the window on to the fountains that didn’t work. ‘On second thoughts, it might be easier if you don’t come. Then I won’t have to worry about you.’

‘As if.’

As if.
Duncan was one of Andrew’s closest friends.

He finished his plateful and pushed it away. ‘Apart from anything else, you want me there to make a point.’

She wasn’t going to make it easy for him. ‘A point?’

‘The wedding point.’

‘Oh, the wedding point. Why would I do that? I know your view.’ It ran along the lines: what difference does a piece of paper make?

‘I stick by it.’

‘Then the engagement party can’t be a high priority. Even for Andrew’s sake.’

His mouth twitched. ‘Wrong. Affection and friendship have a higher priority than principle.’ Her feelings must have registered, for he reached across and took her hand. ‘Shall we stop?’ She returned the pressure on her fingers, and he frowned. ‘Andrew tells me the whole thing is hell.’

‘Does he?’

‘He reckons Eve’s only doing it the way she is to please Lara. She wants the big shindig.’

‘Then Andrew doesn’t know Eve. Lara has nothing to do with it.’

‘I think she has plenty to do with it.’

Along with the chicken, the sleepy atmosphere had vanished. The protective shield was raised – as it always was at the least hint of criticism of Lara. ‘Lara has been very careful not to let on what she thinks or wants. She’s good like that.’

‘For someone so clever –’ He stopped and started again. ‘None of you can see the influence she has on you. It’s extraordinary.’

Lara’s face, with its anxious, maternal expression, flashed across Jasmine’s mind, stirring up both tenderness and, if
she was truthful, irritation. ‘What can you see that we don’t?’

He did not answer directly. ‘
Her
marriage wasn’t much of a salvation. Shouldn’t she be warning you not to make the same mistake?’

Trust Duncan.

‘Your logic’s muddled. It wasn’t marriage that was at fault, but the relationship.’

‘She over-mothers you.’ Duncan smiled to take away the sting.

‘Despite everything, my stepmother – our mother – held us together. That’s
not
over-mothering.’

He grew serious. ‘You girls always stick up for her.’

‘Not always. We often hate her. She can be as irritating as you.’

‘Child-speak for “We love her really.”’

‘Lara only wants what we want.’ Jasmine got up, rinsed the plates, stacked them in the little-used dishwasher, then handed out a slice of melon.

‘Don’t be cross, Jas.’

Since she had her back to him she could hide her little smile. ‘I’m not cross.’

‘YES, YOU ARE. Cross Jas.’

They ate the melon in silence. Then she laughed and shoved a tea-towel at him. ‘On your feet.’

That night, Duncan was both tender and a little rough. ‘Isn’t it enough?’ he whispered into her ear.

‘What?’

‘This.’

Still later, he said. ‘I love you, Jasmine.’

Lara had always pushed them, all three of them. ‘You might meet someone, Jasmine/Evie/Maudie,’ she tended to say, if an invitation was extended to one of them. ‘Knowing people helps.’

‘Helps with what?’ Jasmine wanted to know.

‘The job, influence, life …’ She made the annoying fluttery gesture with her hands – which was Lara’s way of trying to hoodwink people into thinking she was less acute than she was. A totally unnecessary attempt at camouflage, both Jasmine and Eve agreed. It was as if Lara’s generation was still in shock as to how successful their feminist achievements had been.

Would Lara be disappointed if she knew how little her maternal pushing and shoving had influenced Eve and herself (Jasmine couldn’t vouch for Maudie)? What might cheer Lara was the reach of her subtler influence. The I-am-watching-over-you kind of love that
I will never give up
on
. It had bathed them all, from head to foot, and sent them out into the world dressed in its garments.