The Decision (44 page)

Eliza thought of the loving family she had grown up in and wondered for the hundredth time if they really cared about her at all.

Not even the Marchants could come; they were away visiting relatives in Washington.

‘But thrilled to hear about the baby,’ Anna wrote, ‘and as soon as I get back, we must celebrate, the four of us. Enjoy being pregnant, darling; I never managed it, as you know.’

Eliza was rather sadly trying on her shoes the night before, and trying to decide whether to wear white tights or cream ones, when the phone rang.

‘Darling? It’s Daddy.’

‘Oh – Daddy. How lovely to hear your voice, you’re all right, are you?’

‘As all right as I’ll ever be again.’

‘Oh, Daddy. I’m so sorry.’

‘Yes, well, this call isn’t about me. It’s about you. Listen, sweetheart, you have a lovely day tomorrow and I would give anything, anything, to be able to be there and walk you down the aisle. Who’s going to do that, for you, Charles?’

‘Um – yes,’ she said quickly, unable to face explaining that there wasn’t any aisle.

Charles had actually offered to ‘escort her in’ to the room, and she had accepted gratefully. It would be at least someone of her own.

‘Good, good. Well, make sure there are lots of photographs.’

‘I will, Daddy.’ She smiled into the phone.

‘And now, don’t you worry about your mother. She’ll come round. I like your young man, I think he’s rather interesting and obviously going far. Take care of yourself, darling, and God bless. I love you.’

She took those words into the room with her next day.

She took other things too: a sense of absolute happiness, and of rightness; and a heart so overflowing with love that when she looked at Matt, smiling at her rather tensely, it was all she could do not to rush into his arms there and then before any more of the ceremony took place.

The lunch at the Arethusa was great fun; Louise, who proclaimed herself honorary best man, made a very funny speech full of affection, Charles made a very touching one, saying how much he loved his sister and how he had always regarded her as his best friend – Juliet’s smile at this point became slightly strained – and Pete got very carried away, and made a completely unexpected unrehearsed speech, saying what a lovely girl Eliza was and how proud he was to have her in the family. At which point even Matt was seen to look distinctly moist-eyed. And when Matt himself stood up and declared that he simply couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be marrying a girl who was ‘so completely special and who I love so completely much, nothing more to be said really’, Eliza burst into tears and sobbed for at least a minute on a slightly bemused Pete’s shoulder. It wasn’t a conventional wedding and nor was it large or lavish; but it was, in the end, an extraordinarily happy one.

He kept reading it, thinking it would seem better as he got used to it. It didn’t.

‘Dear Mr Fullerton-Clark,

I felt I should bring it to your attention that your current account is now overdrawn £2,500. This is, as I am sure you must be aware, a very large sum, and goes far beyond the £500 limit we initially agreed, and even the temporary extension to £1,000 which you assured me would be settled within thirty days. Please make arrangements to come and see me as soon as possible to discuss repayments, and in the meantime I regret I shall have no alternative but to return any cheques written on your account. As it is a joint account please inform Mrs Fullerton-Clark of this also.

Yours sincerely,

John Winston

Manager, Sloane Square Branch.

Christ, now what did he do. Two and a half grand, that was an awful lot of money. An impossible amount. How had he done that? Mrs Fullerton-Clark of course had a great deal to answer for in the matter; that cocktail party she’d insisted they gave, not to mention the endless tedious dinner parties, her bloody Harrods account, the holiday she’d booked ‘as a surprise’ on the joint account, flying – flying for Christ’s sake and First Class, to Venice for their wedding anniversary, and then, oh God, the deposit on the house Juliet had found and fallen in love with near Guildford, maybe he could do something clever with the mortgage, now there was an idea. It just crept up, month by month, the odd saving of ten or twenty pounds here and there hardly worth making, so he didn’t, but the worst thing was that insane gamble with those shares, which everyone had said were a dead cert – fifteen hundred bloody quid, worth just about a tenth of that now – anyway, he had to think of something. And talk to Juliet.

‘But I just don’t understand. We’re so careful, don’t live at anything like the rate of our friends, hardly ever go out to restaurants, still haven’t joined the Ad Lib or the Saddle Room—’

‘Juliet,’ said Charles, ‘we are not careful. We’ – he longed to say you – ‘are quite extravagant. Every month it’s the same, spending over what we can afford, I don’t want to spell it out—’

‘Well, I think you’d better. Otherwise I’ll never understand—’

He spelt it out; she listened.

Then, ‘Well, you’ll have to ask your father. He can make you a loan.’

‘Juliet, my father has no money whatsoever. I wish you could understand that.’

‘I don’t, to be honest. Living in that great house with your mother’s grand family—’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. That great house is falling down. There is no money to patch it up. My mother never even puts the central heating on, she doesn’t even have a cleaner any more, they’re stony-broke.’

She stared at him. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Of course I mean it. I don’t know where this idea came from, that there was money in my family, I’ve told you often enough.’

‘Well, obviously you didn’t make it clear. I don’t know what Daddy will say.’

‘I don’t see what it has to do with your father.’

‘Of course it does. You’re his only son-in-law, he’ll be so disappointed in you. And if you’re going to start buying shares, you’d better consult him, he’s really clever at it, made a lot of money, although I’d have thought with you being a stockbroker, you wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake.’

‘Oh, go to hell,’ said Charles and walked out of the house.

He made an appointment to see the bank manager two days later; he asked Juliet, who didn’t seem remotely remorseful, to go with him. She refused.

‘I don’t see why I should put myself in such an awful, humiliating situation. It’s not my fault.’

Mr Winston was sympathetic. ‘I know how easy it is for young people to get into this situation. But I can’t allow this to go on, Mr Fullerton-Clark. I’m afraid I’ll have to take a charge on your flat.’

‘But – it’s on the market,’ said Charles. ‘I’ve put down a preliminary deposit on a house.’

‘Cheaper?’ said Mr Winston hopefully.

‘Er – no.’

‘Well, you’ll have to take the flat off the market again. In any case I couldn’t possibly give you any kind of guarantee to a building society. My advice to you would be to look for something cheaper, use the difference to pay off your debts. You can’t go on like this.’

‘Now I want you to listen to me very carefully.’ Jack Beckham glared at Eliza.

‘Yes. I’m listening.’

‘I’ve decided that I – I was mistaken the other day.’

‘Yes?’

‘I perhaps shouldn’t have said what I did.’

‘Right—’

‘And – well, I have decided that we’ll leave things as they are. That you can stay in the job.’

‘Well, that’s very nice of you Jack. Er – what happens if I don’t want to?’

‘Of course you bloody well want to,’ he said.

There were, he said, conditions. ‘I don’t want to hear anything about you being tired. I don’t want you to be away. I—’

‘Er, excuse me,’ said Eliza.

‘Yes?’

‘Do we convert my office into a labour ward?’

‘What?’

‘Well, if I can’t be away – I mean this baby’s got to come out sometime.’

‘Don’t be so fucking ridiculous. You know perfectly well what I mean.’

‘Ah. So I can have a day or two off?’

‘You can have a week,’ he said, grinning at her, ‘possibly with an extension for good behaviour.’

‘Right. OK. Well – thank you.’

‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘you’re the best fashion editor in London at the moment. Everyone says so. And if I want you here, I suppose I just have to put up with your – your condition.’

‘I suppose you do.’

‘Now what do I do?’ she wailed to Maddy. ‘I’ve got my job back and I’m over the moon of course, and Matt won’t let me do it.’

‘Has he said so?’

‘What, since Jack told me? Of course not. I – well, I haven’t told him.’

‘You haven’t told Matt! Eliza, you know what he’s like, he’ll be even more livid when he does find out.’

‘Yes, all right. I’m just waiting for the right moment,’ said Eliza irritably.

The fact of the matter was that she couldn’t bear to, in case he simply forbade her to accept. Her job defined her; it was what she was all about. She adored Matt, and she was incredibly happy about the baby: but if she was deprived of her work, a large piece of the jigsaw that was her would be missing.

When Jack had told her she was the best fashion editor in London, she felt literally that she could have flown; she savoured those words, went over and over them in her head, she felt stroked and sleek and dizzy with them. They made sense of it all, the endless pressure for ideas, the tedium of looking at racks and racks of dull, unsuitable clothes, the fights with the art director, the battles with photographers, the absurd demands of models, the racking fear that a session wouldn’t go well, that the photographs wouldn’t do her ideas justice … suddenly none of that mattered. She had done it, she had made it all on her own, she was that most elusive, sought-after, fought-over thing, a success. It was a prize beyond anything she could have imagined. She could not, she would not, give that up. She would manage Matt somehow. Somehow …

Mariella was coming to London on a shopping trip, not merely for her, but for Giovanni. Eliza was rather charmed that he bought his clothes in London – it was, Mariella explained, because he was not an aristocrat.

‘The old families dress in Italy and the new ones in England. That is how it goes. He has his shoes made in Lobbs, he buys his suits at Henry Poole, he has his shirts made in Savile Row. His ambition is to look like an English gentleman.’

She invited Eliza and Matt to join them for dinner. ‘We are staying at the Ritz. I need to meet your husband. Shall we say Wednesday?’

‘Wednesday would be lovely,’ said Eliza, trying and failing to imagine Matt dining with the Crespis.

It was a surprisingly successful evening; even though Eliza could tell that Mariella was struggling not to compare Matt unfavourably with Jeremy. She herself was very taken with Giovanni, who was tall, charming, and elegant, with thick silvery-blond hair and sculpted features. He was tactile without it being remotely disagreeable, frequently kissing Eliza’s hand, putting his arm round her shoulders and at one point patting the tip of her nose when she made him laugh. He told her that their villa on Como was always available to her if she was working in Milan; Matt had mercifully gone to the Gents at this point.

Giovanni clearly adored Mariella and was to be seen constantly blowing her kisses across the table. He spoke perfect English, and had the stamina of someone twenty years his junior, suggesting a nightcap in the bar after dinner and would have, Eliza was sure, taken her up on her offer of a visit to the Saddle Room if Mariella had not reminded him gently that it was already almost midnight and he had an appointment with his tailor at nine.

But the real love affair of the evening was between Giovanni and Matt, who formed a mutual admiration society, trumping each other’s stories of early successes, of risks run and dangers confronted, and agreeing that business was the most potent drug in the world.

‘Nice chap,’ said Matt as they sat back in their taxi. ‘Don’t know what my dad would say, me consorting with wops.’

‘Matt!’ said Eliza. ‘Honestly, you are so dreadful. Sometimes I think you do it on purpose.’

‘Course I do,’ he said and grinned at her.

‘My dear Scarlett (wrote Mrs Berenson),

I do hope you are well and might consider again a visit here. It is so very lovely and you could meet our newest family member! David and Gaby’s daughter, such a beautiful little girl and named Lily, after me. Such an honour! I was just so thrilled, you can imagine. Do come, we would all love to have you.’

This hurt so much that Scarlett, after a sleepless night, called David in his office and told him she needed some more money. She actually didn’t, but frightening him was the only way she could find of getting any kind of revenge. It wasn’t much but it was something.

Her project was going well; she was doing her research whenever she could and wherever her schedule took her, and had already signed up several small hotels, mostly in France and Italy. In a few weeks, she was returning to Trisos to do the same there.