The Decision (12 page)

‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s a very interesting idea. Thank you for absolutely nothing.’ She put the phone down.

Spoilt brat, Matt thought. He returned to his Rolodex. The phone rang again.

‘Matt? It’s another young lady. What you been up to?’

‘Nothing. Unfortunately. Put her through.’

‘Is that Matt Shaw?’ said a voice. A voice he recognised at once; a voice that tipped his world on end, stopped it in its tracks, a voice he could have listened to for ever.

‘It’s Eliza Fullerton-Clark here. I’m ringing about Maddy Brown. Who I work with, incidentally.’

Shit, Matt thought. SHIT! He felt rather sick.

‘I had thought, you know, that I could do two good turns here. Silly idea, it seems. Maddy said you were worse than useless, absolutely no help at all and offensive into the bargain.’

‘I was not offensive,’ said Matt, stung. He’d been perfectly polite he knew, had actually made a suggestion that would save the wretched woman money.

‘Well, I’m afraid you were. By making the assumption that she was some silly girl, with not an idea or a business contact in her head. Just because she was a woman.’

This was so true Matt couldn’t even begin to deny it.

‘Suppose Miss Brown had been Mr Brown? You’d have assumed backing, clients, customers, wouldn’t you? You’d have taken all kinds of details from him, what kind of premises he wanted, where, how many thousand feet was he looking for, what kind of rent was he prepared to pay—’

‘Well—’

‘I don’t somehow think you’d have told Mr Brown to use a room in his flat for a while, until he got going.’ Matt felt extremely sick. So much for impressing Eliza. He’d really blown it.

‘I – that is—’

‘Well, just so you know, let me tell you about the client you could have had. Miss – not Mr – Brown has just got a very big contract from a chain of boutiques. Do you know what a boutique is? A shop, selling fashion to young people. They are absolutely the latest thing at the moment, big, big business. And the people who own them are desperate for young designers to supply them with what they need. And Miss Brown, who I might say left the Royal College of Art with a graduation show that made a lot of the papers, has just got a contract from Girlz – that’s the name of the chain of boutiques, Girlz spelt with a Z, remember that, you’ll hear a lot about them – and backing to the tune of over fifty thousand pounds. More money than you’d ever make in your entire life, I’d say. Pity, you really blew it. Bye then. We’ve got other agents to call, fortunately.’

Matt put the phone down and felt so angry with himself that he punched his desk so hard the knuckles hurt for days.

He couldn’t bear to be in the office, staring at the wall and his own stupidity. He told Mr Stein he was going to meet a prospective client and went for a walk: across Oxford Street, down Regent Street, and along Piccadilly, towards St James’s Park. It was a glorious day, and the city looked young; girls in brilliantly coloured shift dresses strode along, their long, loose hair swinging, men in sharp suits and sharper haircuts bumped into one another, grinning as they turned to stare at the girls. Everyone seemed happy.

But even the long legs and the swinging hair failed to distract him. He dimly heard a newsboy shouting ‘Profumo case latest’ and bought an
Evening Standard
and sank down onto the grass staring at it; photographs of the Minister for War, John Profumo, and Christine Keeler, the call girl he had been sleeping with (and sharing, it appeared, with a Russian naval attaché), covered the front page, along with speculation on a government possibly brought down, a fine political career undoubtedly ruined. The scandal had intrigued Matt hugely; he completely failed to understand how people could risk losing all they had achieved in life for a bit of sexual pleasure. Sex was great; but it wasn’t power, it didn’t show you’d made it. He was unable to imagine any woman, however beautiful or sexually gifted, could be as important as worldly success.

He sat, smoking rather feverishly, wondering if there was anything, anything at all that he could do that would redeem him in the eyes of Eliza Fullerton-Clark; and he decided next morning he would have to apologise. Really crawl. She might not accept it, of course, but it was worth a try. And then he had another idea.

He went into the office early, dialled Woolfe’s number, and asked for the PR department.

‘Hello. Eliza Clark speaking.’

So didn’t use the Fullerton bit at work; Matt wondered why. He took a very deep breath.

‘Miss Clark, good morning. This is Matt Shaw.’

She’d probably put the phone down now.

‘Yes?’ she said coldly. Very coldly.

‘I wanted to apologise. To you and Miss Brown. For yesterday. It was stupid and insensitive of me, and I feel really embarrassed about it. And – and – the thing is I think I might have the perfect space for Miss Brown. As a matter of fact.’

Silence.

‘It’s in Paddington. It used to be a warehouse. The owner’s done a bit of work on it and it’s three floors, about three thousand feet, perfect for storing clothes and – and that sort of thing. And room for an office space and – and a studio if that was required. It’s not too expensive and I’d really like to show it to Miss Brown if you think she’d agree. And if she hasn’t got anywhere else yet.’

Another long silence; then, ‘Well I can certainly ask her,’ said Eliza finally, her voice just slightly less cool, ‘and I don’t think she has got anywhere else, no. I’ll see if I can get her to call you.’

‘Right. And – and if you’d like to come along yourself,’ he said, ‘see what you think about it, that would be fine.’

She wouldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t.

But, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think I might. If I have time. I’m extremely busy.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And Matt, thank you for phoning and for apologising.’ Her voice was more itself now, warmer, smiley even. ‘It was nice of you. We’ll be in touch.’

Perfect happiness doesn’t come often in life. It came to Matt then.

He arrived at the building an hour before the appointed time, walking round and round it, checking every door and window, even every electrical fitting, anything in fact that might prompt a query. He was determined not to be caught out in any particular.

He watched from an upstairs window as they arrived in Eliza’s Fiat. Eliza was wearing a short red shift, long black boots and sunglasses; she looked amazing. Maddy was very pretty too, but looked terribly young: tiny, with long blond hair falling down her back; it was hard to believe she’d got this important contract Eliza had been shouting at him about.

Maddy loved the building, said it was absolutely fab; Eliza had been more practical and indeed critical, had stalked about, peering into corners, out of windows, up into the roof space. She said it needed a lot of money to convert it and that Maddy didn’t actually need three floors; what about subletting.

Matt said he didn’t think that was possible.

‘Could you maybe convert one floor into a flat?’ said Maddy.

Matt said it wasn’t designated for residential use. ‘It would make it far more expensive, you see, entail a completely different rate and rent structure.’

‘Well, I think it really is too big,’ said Eliza, ‘and too expensive. You’d be crazy, Maddy, far too much of an overhead for the business.’

‘But—’

‘Excuse us,’ said Eliza, indicating to Maddy to follow her to the other side of the room; Matt put his hands in his pockets and studied first the ceiling, and then the fit of the windows, even the floorboards, hoping he didn’t look as desperate as he felt. They came back.

‘Suppose we found you a tenant for the third floor?’ said Eliza. ‘A photographer we know, Jerome Blake, is looking for a studio. That would solve all our problems.’

‘That would be fine,’ said Matt, ‘as long as he negotiated through us, of course. I’m sure the landlord would be very grateful for an introduction.’

‘I should think he would,’ said Eliza, ‘I would expect a reduction of your fee, as a matter of fact.’

‘Well I – that is—’

She grinned at him suddenly.

‘I wasn’t serious. Maddy’ll ring you when she’s made a decision. And as you can tell, she does quite like the place.’

‘With good reason. It is a remarkable opportunity.’

‘For whom exactly?’ said Eliza. Then she grinned at him again.

‘Well, I’ll look forward to hearing from you,’ said Matt, hanging onto his professional dignity with an effort.

Jerome Blake (real name Jim Biggs), the photographer, had been very keen to take the top floor as a studio; Matt liked him and he seemed reassuringly red-blooded, not a woofter as Matt had feared. Colin White agreed to a slight reduction in Maddy’s rent, and a deal was struck. Mr Stein was particularly pleased with what he called Matt’s performance.

‘Well done, Matt,’ he said, ‘that’s what I call good business practice. Spotting an opportunity, using your contacts, that’s what it’s all about.’

Matt had no intention of telling him the contacts were actually both Eliza’s.

The whole incident had rather changed his opinion of Eliza. She was gorgeous and she was sexy, but she was very bossy. Not used to being crossed, obviously, or even argued with. It would probably do her good: just as long as it wasn’t him that had to do it.

‘My dear, I was just wondering if you would be able to take tea with me one day either this week or next? I am staying at the Connaught hotel with my son, David. He is here on business, while I am taking in some fun!

Leave a message at the hotel and let me know. Any day will do, except next Thursday.

Yrs affectionately,

Lily Berenson.’

Scarlett had never believed in love at first sight; she had frequently declared it, indeed, to be a load of old toot.

‘You can fancy someone, obviously,’ she would say, ‘think they’re good-looking and sexy and so on. But that can’t be love, it really can’t. You’d have to know someone to love them. Otherwise it isn’t love.’

And she was thus totally unprepared for it, when it came to her, when love walked towards her in the lounge of the Connaught hotel and stood before her, holding out its hand and smiling: love in the form of a tall, brown-haired man with his mother’s green eyes. Beautifully dressed, love was, in a dark grey suit and a light blue shirt, with a deep, slightly drawling voice, and its handshake was firm and warm; and as it spoke her name and told her how delighted it was to be meeting her and that its mother had told it so much about her, she felt the ground shift a little beneath her, felt her knees, only a few moments ago perfectly strong, turn slightly weak, felt a strange, lurching sensation in her stomach and a slow, wondering disturbance in her heart.

She could not have told you what had been said or done over the next hour or so; clearly she had drunk her tea and picked at the smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches and smiled politely at Mrs Berenson and listened to what she had to say and even responded, but all she was aware of was the presence facing her, sitting side by side with his mother, smiling at her, passing her sugar and plates and pastries, jumping up once when a bellboy came into the room with a sign reading ‘Phone Call for Mr David Berenson’ and disappearing to take the call.

During his absence, Mrs Berenson said that wasn’t it lovely she could meet David – ‘he is my firstborn, you know. Always so special to a mother’ – and Scarlett was able to ascertain that David was married, to Gabrielle, ‘a darling girl, a huge presence on the charity circuit’, and that their youngest child was now ten, that David was in charge of the business, and that in so many ways she didn’t know what she would do without him.

‘He seems – very – very charming,’ said Scarlett carefully.

‘Oh, my dear, isn’t he? Of course all the boys are, but I really think David would win the prize. Duncan is maybe a little better looking and I sometimes think Digby is the cleverest – but David – ah, there you are, darling. Who was that?’

‘Oh, the guy I’m having dinner with tonight. Was going to have dinner with tonight.’

‘Did he cancel, dear?’

‘Postponed. Until tomorrow. So – looks like you and I have a date tonight, Mother. I’m relieved actually, I am a little disoriented. Jet-lagged, I believe you call it, Miss Shaw. It must be quite a problem for you.’

‘Oh – no. I don’t do the long-haul flights. I work for BEA. It’s the BOAC girls who fly to your country and even Australia.’

‘Would you prefer the long haul?’

‘Well – yes and no. Of course it’s much more glamorous, and the BOAC girls do see themselves as rather special – but I love my European flights, certainly for the moment. I go to so many different places, and especially in the summer, it’s wonderful, all that sunshine.’

‘And have you always been a stewardess?’

‘Well, yes. Since I was eighteen. Before that I was a—’ Suddenly hairdresser didn’t sound quite glamorous enough. ‘– a beautician.’

‘Oh really? How fascinating.’ He made it sound as if she had said she was a professor or a sculptor. ‘What made you change?’