More Than You Know (68 page)

“Course I will,” said Eliza, and then, struck by a thought: “Have you got a TV?”

“You’re joking! No, of course we haven’t.”

“Right. Well, we’ll be there straight after school.”

Emmie said she didn’t want to go to Coral’s house; it smelt.

“That is not Coral’s fault, and she and Heather need our help. Oh, and how would you like to give Coral our old TV, the one in your playroom? She hasn’t got one. We can get you a new one.”

“I would. It’s a nice idea.”

Heather was so overcome at the sight of the TV she burst into tears.

“I can’t take that, Eliza.”

“Of course you can. We want you to have it; don’t we, Emmie?”

Emmie nodded. “Yes, we really do—”

“It will make such a difference,” said Heather, wiping her eyes. “One of the reasons Coral gets teased at school is because she doesn’t know about all the programmes. She’ll love it so much. But … oh, dear, Alan will go mad. And he’ll go on about the licence. He’s always said we couldn’t afford that, even if we got a telly.”

“I’ll pay for the licence; tell him it’s all for Coral’s benefit. You haven’t found anywhere, I suppose?”

“No, of course not. We’ve decided to go to Alan’s mum; we’ve got no choice.”

“Oh, Heather. I’m so sorry. Oh, don’t, don’t cry. Emmie, take Coral into the bedroom; start a game of snap; we’ll join you in a minute.”

“Come on,” said Emmie, holding out her hand to Coral. “Let’s go next door. How’s Amanda Jane?”

She seemed far ahead of Coral now in every way, and they had been born the same week. That didn’t seem right either …

“Matt, have you got any cheap flats? I mean really cheap?”

“To buy or to let?”

“Oh, to let.”

“Shouldn’t think so for a moment. Why?”

“Well … I’ve got this friend. She’s living in this awful place in Clapham, her and her husband and their little girl, and she’s having a baby in a month or so. And they’ve got to get out, and they can’t find anywhere. There’s a few months left on their lease, but after that … it’s pretty hopeless. And it seems to me what the landlord is trying to do is make their lives so impossibly awful they’ll have to leave anyway. Like he’s not mending a blocked loo, stuff like that. I just thought you might know of somewhere. Even for a bit. It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Who are these people?”

“Oh … a girl I met at the clinic. When Emmie was a baby, actually.
You haven’t been listening to me. I’ve told you about Heather before. She … she’s been a really good friend to me. And I’d so like to help her.”

“You’re asking the wrong person. Sorry. Now I’ve got to go; I’m late already.”

“Bastard,” said Eliza aloud as he closed the door.

That afternoon, she had to go to the dentist. Sitting in the waiting room, she reached for a newspaper someone had left behind. It was the
Daily News
.

She sighed and flicked through the pages. Jack was doing a brilliant job. The news coverage was superb, and there was now a full page of analysis called “NewsWatch” added onto both home and international events.

Very good gossip column—Jack had always had a penchant for gossip, and knew its importance to even the most cerebral paper—and, God, this was a fascinating article: “A Tale of One City,” it was called, written by a journalist called Johnny Barrett, who was billed as the paper’s “man of property.” It was feature-based, about two families living on what Barrett called either side of the cultural divide, the intellectual Georgian squares of Islington and the more traditional, old-money scene of the mews and mansion blocks of Chelsea. She could see Jack’s hand in this too, but she loved the way Barrett wrote: sharply and perceptively, catching the nuances of the two different styles of talking, dressing, entertaining. This was what property was about: people, and what they made of it, and it of them.

It was that very hour, while the dentist was drilling agonisingly into a tooth that he had declared nerveless, that the idea began to form …

“Susan,” said Matt. “Get Andrew Watson on the phone, will you?”

“Yes, Mr. Shaw.” She had replaced Jenny and was more efficient, less irritating, and considerably less gorgeous.

“And let me have any lists of letting agents on file, as well. The bottom end of the market.”

“Yes, Mr. Shaw.”

“Hallo, Louise. How are you?”

Eliza was meeting her mother for lunch in the Trattoria Terrazza, the just-still-fashionable Italian restaurant in Romilly Street.

Louise was sitting at a table with a man: a young, rather attractive man. Good. Maybe she’d found someone to replace the perfidious Barry Floyd.

“Oh … hi, Eliza. Yes, great, thanks.”

“How go the hotels?”

“Oh, pretty good,” said Louise. “Planning permission’s the big bogey, but I’m sure you never stop hearing about that from Matt.”

“Unfortunately not,” said Eliza. She looked slightly questioningly at the young man and smiled; he smiled back at her.

“Johnny Barrett,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Daily News.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Louise. “Johnny, this is Eliza Shaw. Married to my ex-colleague, Matt, you know?”

“I do indeed,” said Barrett. He had a north-country burr to his voice, and very direct grey eyes. Eliza liked him. “How is the great man? I’m always trying to persuade him to do a proper interview, but he hates the press. As you probably know.”

“I do, I’m afraid. He’s fine, thanks. And you won’t believe this, and I know it sounds really corny, but I was reading a piece of yours the other day. About the great divide, North and South London. I thought it was awfully good.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind. I like to inject some personality into my stuff, brings it to life a bit.”

“Yes, it certainly works. I know Jack Beckham very well,” she added, lest he should think she was some kind of fawning groupie. “I used to work for him, long ago.”

“Really? That was in his magazine days, I presume?”

“Yes. He—Oh, there’s my mother; I’d better go and meet her. Lovely to see you, Louise,” she said. “Give my regards to Roderick.”

“I will, Eliza, thank you.”

“And … lovely to meet you,” she said to Barrett.

“Likewise. Here.” He rummaged in a scruffy, overloaded wallet. “Here’s my card. If you can ever persuade your husband to do an interview with me, just let me know.”

“I will,” she said, smiling, “but I know he won’t. Bye.”

It had been a sweet revenge to hear him stuttering out an apology and practically begging her to come in to see him after all—clearly Jeremy had asked how the lunch had gone—and part of her still wanted to say that she really wasn’t interested and put the phone down. But instead she heard herself agreeing to go in to see Rob Brigstocke at KPD in a week’s time, bearing her cuttings book.

Advertising agencies were very different from magazines, she thought, following Rob Brigstocke down a light, bright corridor, thickly carpeted, with stylish prints on the wall and firmly closed doors labelled things like “Creative Resources,” “Library,” and even “Executive Meeting Room 1” and “Executive Meeting Room 2.” She thought wistfully of her first glimpse of
Charisma
, and the long corridors there, but with paint peeling and scuffed lino floors and doors opening onto untidy offices. She wasn’t ever going to feel at home here.

Not that it mattered, because she certainly wasn’t going to be here.

“Right. Here we are. This is my office.”

He opened the door. This was better, more familiar even: a huge window overlooking Grosvenor Square, a blessedly cluttered black desk, one of the new tractor-style chrome chairs, and in one corner a huge plan chest, in another a Grant Projector—the near-magical machine by which pictures and type could be projected, made bigger or smaller, and moved around a dummy page at will—and every available bit of wall covered with posters, notes, campaign spreads, framed award certificates, Polaroid photographs.

“Oh,” she said, smiling with sheer pleasure, “this is lovely.”

She moved towards a set of photographs. “I made a collage of all my covers from the Polaroids,” she said. “One of my most precious possessions.”

“Yeah?” he said. His voice was amused, even friendly. “I did the same with all my campaigns that didn’t make it.”

She laughed.

“That’s a nice one. Like it?”

He liked her cuttings; she could tell. He didn’t appreciate, of course, the logistical triumph of the Paris all-in-one picture spread, but he liked the haunted house, liked the Mariella feature. “This is brilliant,” he said,
smiling at her. “I love it. God. The magazine should have hung on to you. It’s nothing like this now.”

“Thank you,” said Eliza. She reflected on how swiftly dislike could reverse; she was even finding Rob Brigstocke at that moment quite seriously sexy.

He took her out round the office to meet some of the creative people, told her what accounts they all worked on, and which she might find herself involved in. There was a cosmetic account, a very stylish flooring account—“This needs serious fashion input”—a perfume account, and a hotel.

She felt herself getting excited, having ideas; she liked the people, funny and fun and infinitely serious about what they did, all the things she missed so much.