Goodbye, Jimmy Choo

by Annie Sanders

  “She seems to be getting stronger all the time, but I only hope she’s using some of her newfound confidence on that husband of hers. He’s not really handling her success very well, and I could give him a kick up the arse. She needs the love of a good man.” She looked right at Jean Luc, a smile in her eyes.

  “How could any man resist that?” He laughed.

  “Now I’ve got a job for you to do.” She too finished her coffee and picked up her bag. “We’ve got a meeting with some designers from Oxford on Monday and, darling, I haven’t got a thing to wear!” Jean Luc snorted. “I know. I know. But it’s all the wrong stuff. The new me has to be in sprigged cotton and au naturel. I want you to be my consultant. If you tell me I look nice in something, I’ll know it’s the last thing I should buy.”

  Confused, Jean Luc followed her out of the café, and they spent the next hour browsing the poor selection of Ringford clothes shops for the poorest selection of clothes. By shop three he was getting the hang of it. “This is it,” he yelped with glee, selecting from the rail a drop-waisted dress with a tiny pattern of roses and blue nondescript flowers, which, when she put it on and paraded around the shop, looked hardly less shapeless on her than it had on the hanger.

  “You look like a sack of potatoes,” he said, in French so as not to offend the shop assistant. “Perfect!”

  The rest of the day was fun, much of it spent with the children, something Jean Luc, for a childless man, had an aptitude for. His grasp of cricket was pitiful, but he gamely had a go for Will’s sake, and the two of them bowled and batted for what seemed like hours on the lawn, until Jean Luc had to plead exhaustion and retire.

  “I won, Mummy,” Will crowed, rushing into the sitting room where she was sewing with Florence, his face glowing with fresh air and pleasure. “He’s not as good as Daddy, but I showed him what to do.”

  “Wait till I take you on at pétanque, my boy,” said Jean Luc, collapsing onto the sofa beside Maddy. “I need a drink. What on earth are you doing?”

  “Making a blanket for Florence’s Barbie horse, of course. Shouldn’t every self-respecting horse have one? Listen, I’ve had an idea. Why don’t we see if Izzie, Marcus, and the children are free for lunch tomorrow? She’d love to see you.”

  “Yeah cool, Mum, can we?” pleaded Will, and before Jean Luc could protest—well, he was bound to be a bit unsure about meeting Marcus—she was in the kitchen dialing the number.

  The children played up horribly at bedtime, not helped by Jean Luc getting Will thoroughly overexcited. Maddy left them to it, settled Pasco into his cot, read Florence a story and plaited the tail of her Barbie horse, then went to have a bath, taking care not to muck up her new hair. But by the time she had slipped on her pajama bottoms, a T-shirt, and Simon’s old fleece, Jean Luc was already on his second glass of wine and was cooking steaks at the Aga.

  “That was quick. How did you manage to settle him?”

  “I taught him how to count to fifty in French, then said I’d give him five pounds if he could say it backward by breakfast.”

  “No sleep there then!”

  He gave her outfit the once-over. “Very chic, darling. If it wasn’t for the hair, I’d say you were in grave danger of losing your grip completely.” He handed her a glass of wine, and kissed her on the top of the head. “You smell clean though. Now sit down. Supper is nearly ready. This cooking machine of yours is about as useful as a huge radiator. It simply doesn’t get hot enough to fry these steaks.”

  But of course they were tender and delicious. Maddy simply sat there, waited on hand and foot, and ate like a pig. “That was perfect,” she said, mouth still full and wiping the juices off her plate with some bread. “God, I love being cooked for. Most evenings I eat the children’s leftover sausages or something you can stick in the microwave.” Jean Luc winced.

  They finished their pudding and talked shop. Maddy told him about the new product line they were going to develop, and between them they tried to work out the volumes of centpertuis they would need.

  “You know it would be much cheaper if I could get the weed distilled at home. I think I could help you.”

  “Oh, Jean Luc, that would be brilliant. Then we don’t have to cope with huge volumes of greenery. The barn is beginning to look like a giant compost heap. Could it come in sealed containers?”

  “I’ll look into it.” Maddy sat back in her chair, picking raspberry pips out of her teeth, and they fell into a companionable silence.

  Jean Luc took away the plates again, wiped the table, and refilled her glass. “Thank you for that.” She sighed contentedly. “Simon always used to cook me supper at weekends. He made a mean Spanish omelet and could do wicked things with a bag of pasta and a tin of tomatoes.”

  Suddenly she felt a wave of sadness. “I think I miss his company most. He was always such fun to be around. You remember how he used to hold the floor at a party, telling everyone indiscreet anecdotes. Giselle loved it, the way he would tease her about her flower-arranging class and her shopping trips—she used to blush like a schoolgirl, which on the face of it, is quite remarkable. And that time when we all met up for the match at the Parc des Princes, and he insisted we all wore red roses—you two almost came to blows!—didn’t France win anyway?” On she nattered, and Jean Luc simply sat there drinking his wine and listening.

  “Peter seems convinced that Workflow Systems wouldn’t have worked out.” Jean Luc raised an eyebrow. “He said Simon was too unrealistic. It hurt so much when he told me, but I suppose he was right—Simon was always so positive about everything—and the more I think about those last few weeks the more I realize he tried to protect me from the inevitable.”

  “That could have been pride.”

  “Maybe, but I think he just didn’t want me to know how bad the situation was.” She paused, hardly bearing to say what she had thought but never dared to voice. It was something that had flitted into her head at her most desperate moments, but she had pushed it firmly into the background. “You don’t . . . you don’t think he took his own life, do you?”

  Jean Luc leaned forward and put his hand over hers. “God, no, Maddy. No man would do that and leave a beautiful wife and three gorgeous children. Nothing, no problem, is insurmountable.” He rubbed his hands gently over hers. They felt rough and solid. “He may have been unrealistic, but he wasn’t stupid.” His words made her feel slightly consoled, but she wasn’t sure she would ever get the notion out of her head. She just wanted to have Simon sitting here, to be able to ask him what had happened.

  “Come on, my girl. It’s time you went to bed.” He put the mugs in the dishwasher and started to turn off the lights.

  “For the last few months, both you and Izzie have been so wonderful looking after me,” she said, getting up from her chair. “I feel a bit like a small child at times.”

  He came over and stood in front of her for a moment, then leaned down and kissed her gently on the cheek. “No, darling. You are certainly not a child.”

  Izzie looked glorious when they all piled out of the car the following lunchtime. She was wearing pink linen cropped trousers and her top was flowery and feminine, but clung to her in all the right places. She’s got quite a figure, when she’s not wearing combats or saggy skirts, Maddy thought. The colors suited her dark hair and pale skin, and she was positively glowing.

  The look on Marcus’s face was cautious as he came round from the other side of the car with a bottle of wine gripped tightly in his hand. It suddenly struck Maddy that he’d never been to the house before, and the whole package of the children greeting each other and rushing upstairs with excitement, her playing the grand hostess, Jean Luc embracing Izzie warmly, and Izzie as familiar here as in her own home must have been quite intimidating for him. She prepared to give him the benefit of any doubt.

  “Hi, Marcus, lovely to see you, and glad you could come at such short notice.” She leaned forward to give him a kiss on the cheek but the response was cool and distant. He s
hook Jean Luc’s hand and muttered a greeting. What a curious little vignette it was. Marcus shaking the hand of the man who clearly fancies his wife.

  She bustled about finishing laying the table, while Jean Luc opened a bottle of wine and Izzie, unconsciously, put on an apron and started stirring the gravy bubbling away on the Aga. They were like a slick ménage à trois. Jean Luc handed Marcus a glass of deep-red wine. “I’d rather have a beer, if you don’t mind.” The atmosphere suddenly went cold.

  “I’ll have the wine,” said Izzie, quickly taking the glass. “I think there’s some beer in the utility room.”

  Without speaking, Jean Luc went to find some, and Izzie shot a brief glance in Maddy’s direction. “I thought we’d be eating in the dining room?” she asked finally, to fill the silence.

  “The table’s covered in papers,” Maddy replied quickly, fishing out the gravy boat from the bottom oven and omitting to add that there wasn’t actually a table as such or chairs. “And besides, Pasco would do his best to massacre it, so I thought it would be cosier in the kitchen.”

  “Quite a place you have here, Maddy.”

  “Glad you like it.” She wasn’t sure Marcus was being entirely complimentary. “It’s not finished yet, but once we have some more money coming in—”

  “Yes, soon you’ll both be the Rothschilds of Ringford. We won’t be worthy. We’re barely that now.” Fifteen love to Marcus. Why was he being so obnoxious? Couldn’t he make the effort even for Izzie’s sake?

  Thankfully the constant chatter of the children over lunch dispelled the atmosphere, and Jean Luc started them all off in a general knowledge quiz, which involved questions like “Who has more clothes, Barbie or Mum?” or “Who designed the pyramid at the Louvre?”

  The children giggled at him. “All right, clever clogs,” said Will. “What’s the name of the captain of the English cricket team?”

  Marcus let Jean Luc struggle for a moment, then dryly replied with the correct answer. Thirty-love, thought Maddy, not sure that he wasn’t playing singles to Jean Luc and her doubles.

  “Who cares?” countered Jean Luc, looking at Will teasingly. “The English are terrible at cricket.”

  By the time they had finished their rhubarb crumble—“home cooked,” Maddy was keen to point out to Izzie, “I’m not entirely hopeless”—the score was about deuce, until Marcus was dragged away by Charlie who wanted to show him the great tree he could climb in the orchard. When he had left, pursued by the rest of the children, the three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence. Maddy took one of Jean Luc’s proffered cigarettes, and Izzie got up to put the kettle on.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her back to them. “He’s being vile, and it’s not really like him.”

  Before Maddy could answer, Jean Luc stood up and put his arm around her. “Izzie darling, it’s okay. He must find it a bit strange—”

  “Pasco’s fallen on the path . . .” Marcus burst in, a crying Pasco in his arms, and stopped as he saw the scene at the Aga. Jean Luc hastily dropped his arm from around Izzie’s shoulders, and Maddy went to take her son from Marcus.

  “Do you want some coffee too, darling?” said Izzie quickly.

  “Only if you are not too busy,” he said. Looking at her hard, he turned on his heel and left the room.

  By the time he came back the three of them were on safe ground, discussing the more efficient pot supplier Jean Luc had traced in Reims and the fact that it was cheaper to have the centpertuis strained in France, and Izzie was outlining enthusiastically her vision for the point-of-sale signs for Elements. Marcus collected his coffee, now tepid, from the Aga and sat down at the end of the table farthest away from them.

  “Marcus, darling, you are better at this sort of thing than me. He does this all the time,” Izzie said to Jean Luc. “He’s brilliant on design ideas. Do you think greens and grays on the backing boards will be too dour?”

  “Don’t ask me.” He poured himself the last of the wine from the bottle and took a chocolate from the box Izzie had brought. “It sounds as if you have it all under control already.”

  Izzie wouldn’t let it drop. She got up from the table and went round to sit beside him. “Oh, please, darling, you’ve got such a great eye.” She put her hand on his unresponsive one. “Don’t you remember that brilliant campaign you devised for that Swedish paint company? Maddy, you must remember it—with the room reflected like a forest in a lake—it won loads of awards—”

  Marcus pulled his hand sharply away, leaving hers limp on the tabletop, and stood up. “Look at the time. It’s getting late—I’ve got important things to do for tomorrow,” and walked out of the room to rouse the children. Game, set, and match to Marcus, thought Maddy.

  Jean Luc had to leave shortly after too. Maddy felt curiously disappointed as he put his bag down in the hall, and went to say good-bye to the children. It was like that awful Sunday-night feeling you got before you went back to school. He put the bag in his car, then gave her a huge, bearlike hug. “You’re doing great, Maddy my darling. I’ll call you when I get back, and we’ll arrange shipping once you have a clearer idea of quantity.” He started to get into the car, but paused. “You know I’m really quite enjoying being your French coordinator. It’s a long time since I worked for someone else. Why don’t you come over at half term—all of you—and you can meet the suppliers and charm them with your smile?”

  “That’s a great idea. The kids will love it. I don’t know how long it is since Izzie has been away either.”

  “Yes . . . yes, Izzie. I think she needs you now as much as you needed her. Call me.” And blowing her a kiss, he drove off.

  Monday morning and Maddy didn’t feel any better. Leaving Colette with Pasco and a huge list of things that needed doing, including a new pair of shoes for a boy who was shaping up to be built like his father, she dropped the other two at Little Goslings and Eagles as quickly as possible and was at the unit by quarter to nine. Izzie had only beaten her by five minutes.

  “The heat’s on this morning,” she said without preamble. “Elements have e-mailed to say they want first delivery by Wednesday and we are already two hundred pots behind schedule.”

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Sorry—good morning, and thanks so much for yesterday. Marcus was a prat and I told him so, not something he was thrilled to hear, and it was just lovely to see Jean Luc again. Has he gone?”

  “Yeah, he left shortly after you. But fear not, lovesick maiden,” she added, as they went up the stairs to the office, “he’s invited us to go on a suppliers’ trip over half term.” Izzie’s face lit up, and she kept bringing the subject up as they worked like maniacs alongside the team.

  It was the only highlight of a long and tedious morning. The electric kept tripping out, and waiting for the electrician wasted precious time. By twelve they were up and running again, and by half past two had six hundred perfect little pots in boxes on a pallet, with the Elements delivery addresses stamped on them, waiting to be collected at three. Five minutes to and the forklift was ready to roll. Maddy and Izzie watched with excitement as the distribution lorry backed into the large doors, and the forklift slid the forks under the boxes and picked up the pallet. Perhaps he hit the wrong lever. Perhaps he lost concentration. Perhaps he was put off by the little group watching him in anticipation. But as if in slow motion, in sickeningly slow and terrible motion, six hundred perfect little pots packed in their boxes slipped off the pallet and went crashing onto the concrete floor.

  Maddy’s immediate thought was not that their first order for one of the most chic shops in the country had just bitten the dust. It was that she was due to pick the children up in half an hour and that Josh Templeton was coming back for tea. Ignoring the need to phone Elements and explain the delay, she immediately rang Colette to get her to dive into the car and get to school. “Disaster has happened here, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she rattled down the phone. At about the same time, Izzie came off her mobile to M
arcus, who’d agreed to collect Charlie and Jess. “Bloody working mothers,” she muttered under her breath. It then took nearly an hour to work out which jars were salvageable, to wipe them down and repack them into new boxes. Three hundred passed muster, but Izzie had to peel the labels off another hundred and fix on new ones. The rest of their hard work was chucked unceremoniously into the wheelie bin.

  “It’s the quality really,” said Maddy in her most assertive voice down the phone to the Elements head office shortly afterward. “We really weren’t happy with the shipment of lavender oil this time, and the beeswax had a couple of tiny flaws which worried us. Being such an exclusive product, we are very, very, particular about the quality of the ingredients we use. We’ll send you a proportion of the consignment, if you can bear with us on the rest . . .” She listened to the cool response of the woman at the other end of the phone. “Forty-eight hours?” She looked at Izzie across the desk, panic-stricken. “Yes, I’m sure that will be fine. We’ll have the delivery with you by Friday at the very latest.”

  “Oh, bloody, bloody hell,” moaned Izzie when she put down the phone. “Panic stations. We won’t have enough for the other orders now. We’ve just about enough centpertuis,” she was dialing as she spoke. “You call Crispin and see if he can do a mercy dash to the commune in Wales, and I’ll . . . oh hello, it’s Isabel Stock from Paysage Enchanté. Yes. Me again. Now I need your help . . .”

  It was nearly six before Maddy finally got home, to find Colette coping brilliantly and the children seated around the table having supper, though Will and Josh were busy discussing the meaning of the word vagina.

  “It’s an island in the Mediterranean,” said Maddy without missing a beat and dropping her bag on the side. She took the cup of tea Colette held out to her. “Oh just what I need. It’s been a bit of a day. I can’t wait to put my feet up.”