But now she was a widow and the house was hers, William’s pension was hers, his stocks and shares were hers, and most of his capital was hers; and they would all go into the admittedly small but unpluggable hole in the dyke that was Lloyd’s. The day the letter came, that second April, she went for a long walk, making her way along the beaches as far as Tor Bay. She sat on the rocks there, looking out at the sea, and wondered how much of this treasure of hers she would have to lose. Her happiness was absolutely bound up in this place; in the roaring sea, the rolling surf, the wind, the storms, the huge brilliant skies: it was her lifeblood, she could not survive without it.
She could manage this year; she would have to renege on the school-fees agreement again, and she would have to sell all her shares, albeit at a loss, and perhaps a couple of pictures, but she could do it. But then—what of the next? And the next? How much would they take from her? The land? The house? All her money? Where would she go, what would she do?
Suddenly Flora, inexhaustible lion-hearted Flora, found herself frightened: frightened and terribly tired. She couldn’t lose all this; she really would much rather die.
Chapter 5
MAY 1989
“I’ve decided what I want to do.” Annabel smiled at her parents over the dinner table.
Simon was delighted; some positive steps at last.
“Darling, how exciting. What?”
It had been a difficult few weeks since her expulsion from school. First there had been her tantrums—anyone would have thought it was the school at fault, not her. She’d refused to accept that what she’d done was worthy of expulsion, apologising for upsetting them but insisting that the school was run by a mass of dreary old cows who had never come into the real world. “I’m seventeen, for God’s sake. Why should we all live like nuns? It’s pathetic.”
She had been all for moving in with Dan at first. “He’s got a really nice flat in Pimlico, by the river.”
“Where you spent last Saturday night?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And how long has this been going on?” said Simon.
“You know that, perfectly well, Miss Bollocks—”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Sorry, Miss Balls told you, I thought, when we all had that cosy chat.”
“Annabel!” said her mother sharply. “We’re trying to understand. If you’re not going to cooperate at all, we really will get angry.”
“How would I know the difference?” she said.
It had got better; she had tried to explain how she felt suffocated boarding at an all-girls’ school, how she loved Dan, how he was really special, how she would have told them but she knew they’d disapprove, how she’d felt they didn’t have enough time for her anyway, how she could never talk to either of them properly. Guilt stricken, both of them, they hadn’t even tried to deny it; later she apologised, said she hadn’t meant that, at least, and they told her again how much they loved her and cared what happened to her.
She’d volunteered to get a job, “Pay for my keep,” and she’d actually worked in Jigsaw for a while and hated it, nearly died of boredom. They’d suggested she went to some sort of crammer, so she could take her A levels next year; she said she’d think about it, but she didn’t really want to.
“I just want to get on with my life.”
Simon had said rather briskly that most people had to work in order to get on with their lives, and that more interesting work was available to those with qualifications. They had reached stalemate on that one.
The relationship with Dan had fizzled out; robbed of the glamour of an illicit affair, she had begun to find him boring and even rather silly. Something at least had been accomplished, Elizabeth said to Simon.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” said Simon now. “What is it? Do you want to go to the Sorbonne, like Miranda, or—”
“No. No, this won’t cost you anything at all. The thing is, I want to be a—a…I want to be a hairdresser,” she said, and the words suddenly tumbled out, very fast, as if she was afraid they might stop again if she let them.
“A hairdresser! Annabel, you can’t be a hairdresser.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you just—can’t. It’s not—not the sort of thing you’d—we’d…” Elizabeth’s voice trailed away.
“Not the sort of thing you’d what? Mummy, you make it sound like I wanted to be a prostitute. What’s wrong with being a hairdresser?”
“Well, nothing, darling, of course. It’s just—”
“It’s just what? Look, you should be pleased. I’ve found something I really want to do.”
“How do you know you really want to do it?”
“There was a fashion show at Jigsaw the other night. I was talking to the guy who did the hair, he was great. It’s such a fun thing, I know I’d like it. And I’d be good at it. I love doing my hair and Tilly’s, and I used to do it for people at school—”
“Annabel, you are not going to be a hairdresser.” Simon’s tone was final. “I haven’t spent a fortune on your education so you can spend the rest of your life brushing people’s hair.”
“But it isn’t just brushing people’s hair. It’s making it look good, making them look good, making them feel good. I think it’s a great job and it’s what I’m going to do. It won’t cost you anything, and I just can’t see what’s wrong with it.”
“Darling,” Elizabeth said again, “there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s not a very—very…”
“Very what? Oh, I get it. Not a very socially acceptable job. Is that it? Not something you could tell your friends about. Well, you’re going to bloody well have to, because it’s what I’m going to do.”
“Annabel—”
“You really are pathetic, you know that? You are such snobs. And I don’t see that your wonderful jobs have done you much good. Daddy worried to death about losing everything. Mum worried to death about losing clients and accounts. Listen, the world’s changed. There are loads of hairdressers making fortunes, people like Nicky Clarke and John Frieda. You should be pleased I’m going to get out there and do something, instead of sitting around for another four years studying a load of crap that doesn’t interest me and won’t do me any good at all. Anyway, I’m going to do it and that’s that. I’ve got an interview tomorrow, and if they offer me a job I’m taking it, OK?”
And she was gone, with a slam of the door.
Debbie was just loading up the washing machine with the swimming things when the phone rang.
“Debbie, hello my dear, this is Flora.”
“Oh, Flora, hello. How are you? Do you want Richard?”
“If you don’t mind. I won’t keep him long, I expect he’s very busy.”
“Not really,” said Debbie briskly, looking at Richard who was nodding off over the Monopoly board. “Richard, it’s your mother.”
He got up, took the phone from her. “Hello? Of course not, it’s fine. We’ve just been for a picnic, I’m—Look, let me take this in the study, it’s quieter there.”
He was gone quite a long time, about ten minutes; when he came out he smiled at Debbie rather distractedly.
“Sorry, darling.”
“What was that about then? The summer?”
“No, no, she just wanted to tell me about a meeting she’s going to have. With her Members’ Agent.”
Members’ Agent, like Managing Agent and Names and Syndicate were all words from the Lloyd’s dictionary; Debbie didn’t understand any of them. Richard had told her more than once that everything was better at Lloyd’s now, and that was all she cared about.
“I see. Good.”
“And she did mention the summer, yes, of course. Says she’s looking forward to it. I said we couldn’t wait either.”
Flora was going to have all three children on her own for a week in August; Debbie and Richard were to have a whole wonderful seven days on their own; they were driving up to Scotland. They’d wondered about going to Flo
rence or somewhere, but it would be terribly hot there and expensive, and if anything happened—Debbie tried not to think what that might be, drowning, broken limbs—and they had to make a dash to Wales, it would be much easier.
“She’s not still worried about Lloyd’s, is she?” said Debbie suddenly, pausing in her potato peeling; and there was an imperceptible pause before Richard said, “Good Lord no,” and at that moment Rachel managed to fall off her chair and hit her head on the edge of the table, and Debbie forgot about that pause until much, much later when everyone was in bed; and then decided she must have imagined it and that Richard, who was the most painfully honest person she had ever met, would never be deceiving her about something so important.
Chapter 6
JULY 1989
Annabel had never really thought about her feet before. They had been there to put shoes on, the prettier the better, to get her about; suddenly they were the dominant thing in her life. They ached, endlessly; her heels especially throbbed. They felt as if she had become extremely heavy, not the seven and a half stone of reality; she would look at herself sometimes in one of the salon mirrors, and be surprised to see herself exactly the same, rather pale and tired-looking, perhaps, deprived of fresh air as she was so much of the time, her own hair blonder by the week, as she allowed it to be used as a model for highlighting, caught back in a ponytail. She was dressed in the salon uniform of black and white, the feet, the aching tired feet in white or black jazz shoes from Anello and Davide in Covent Garden.
Her hands were terribly sore with the constant immersion in water, she could only keep a rash at bay with a steroid cream, and her back ached quite a lot of the time as well; and her head too, towards the end of her sessions—nine or ten hours long, illegally long she was sure, but who was counting or looking; she was sure she must be keeping the manufacturers of paracetamol going, she swallowed so much, and when she was really tired her ears buzzed as well.
She had got a job as a trainee at Miki Wallace, one of the top salons in London, and knew how lucky she was; some days she did love it, some days she hated it, but quitting was never an option. In the first place she knew her parents would have been delighted, and in the second, she was determined to make a success of it. She had never forgotten that heady evening at Jigsaw, watching the two stylists twisting and brushing and pushing hair into all manner of wonderful shapes, and how it had transformed the models from fairly ordinary girls into exotic creatures, works of art almost; and at a slightly less dramatic level, how quite plain girls would come into Miki’s and get themselves turned into dazzling beauties for an evening, or a day, or a wedding. Hair, she had discovered, was a powerful statement about its wearer, more important even than makeup or clothes. The styles of the day were so disparate, yet as absolutely and recognisably stylish as the padded shoulders and killer heels of the age; the sleek bob of the career woman, the long layered curls of the free spirit, the big bouffant of the lady who lunches: they all walked out of the salon hour by hour, day by day, perfectly yet imaginatively exercised. One of the most important things she had learned was that a stylist first masters a style, and then personalises it.
The salon was in Belgravia, just off West Halkin Street, small enough to feel exclusive, large enough to get a buzz going, and near enough to the West End to draw its clients from the working community of London, not merely the lunching ladies. One of Miki’s promises was that no one was ever kept waiting for more than ten minutes, and for the most part he managed to honour that.
He was acknowledged to be one of the greats, on a par with Michaeljohn and Daniel Galvin and John Frieda; he was clever and funny and Annabel adored him. He wasn’t very tall, only a couple of inches taller than she was, with rather long dark hair and burning dark eyes, and he had a long-standing boyfriend, but he managed to project something heterosexual at the same time; conversations between Miki and the women lucky enough to be his clients were not giggly and gay and gossipy, but rather intense. The other boy stylists were more flippant and fun; some were gay, some not, but Annabel loved them all.
She was something of a curiosity in the salon, she knew; from the very first day when she had arrived, acutely nervous, and rather formally dressed in a red dress and jacket from Jigsaw, and announced herself in her unmistakably expensive voice, she had been studied closely. For the first few days, she had been sniggered at, and when she had survived that with a display of unshakable good nature, she had been teased relentlessly, called “Posho” or “Sloaney.”
“You sure you’re not a client got into the wrong side of the salon?” Carol, a sharp little thing from Croydon, had asked her; “Quite sure,” Annabel said firmly. “My mum might come here, not me.” She and Carol became best friends, sharing snatched sandwiches, swapping shifts, covering up for each other’s mistakes, practising on each other’s hair; a world apart in background and education, they were identical in ambition, a streak of deviousness, and a capacity for extremely hard work.
Tania, the salon manager in charge of the juniors, tall, languid, red-taloned, came forward and hustled her into the staff room that first day. She had been introduced to the others, then given a crash course in salon behaviour: “Be welcoming, smile, don’t draw attention to yourself, defer to the stylists, do what they say without question,” and “The client is always right and that means always: if she throws a brush at you—and that has happened—just smile and say thank you.”
Tania said she should call herself Bel, that Annabel was a bit of a mouthful, and sent her to change, saying that she’d be in at the deep end, they were three juniors short that day. Dressed in her black trousers and white shirt, she was handed a broom and told to sweep the floor. “But it looks perfectly clean,” she said, staring at it. “Give it ten minutes and it won’t be,” said Tania, and indeed, at the first drops of the waterfall of hair which flowed onto the floor every day, Annabel realised her problem would be keeping up with it, for as fast as she cleared the area round one client, another filled up.
At twelve o’clock, Tania called her over. “I’m going to give you a quick lesson in gowning up, Bel,” she said.
“In what?” said Annabel.
“Gowning up. It’s extremely important to get it right. Here, take this”—handing her a black nylon cape—“and imagine I’m the client. Now you greet me, tell me your name, say you’re taking me to the backwash, or over to whoever the stylist is, and help me into the gown. Make me feel welcome, pleased to be here, be polite but not pushy…”
Annabel smiled meekly; she supposed there might be some people who needed to be taught such things, but it seemed very unlikely. But she could see also that it was absolutely essential not to say so.
Her worst moments were when her friends’ mothers or indeed her own mother’s friends came in and recognised her. “Annabel, darling, what on earth are you doing here?” they would shriek across the salon, often beckoning her over and occasionally and most dreadfully insisting on jumping up and kissing her. This was not only embarrassing and against the rules (“Never kiss or hug a client, even if she seems to want it”), it immediately lost her a great deal of street cred with the others.
“Annabel, dah-ling,” they would chant as she went into the staff room, or “I say, yah, it’s Annabel, sweetie.”
But for the most part, they seemed to like her, and apart from a clear and acute curiosity about how and why she came to be there at all, accepted her. She had planned not to explain about being expelled from school but she confided it to Carol in strictest confidence, who spread it swiftly around. Annabel’s reputation and popularity were immediately greatly enhanced.
Simon was at his desk, engrossed in the Nikkei—the Japanese stock market—and its seemingly unstoppable progress, when the phone rang.
“Simon Beaumont?”
“Yes.”
“Look, you don’t know me, but your wife said you wouldn’t mind me ringing. My name’s Neil Lawrence and—”
“Oh yes, of course. I reme
mber. Nice to hear from you.”
Elizabeth had told him about Lawrence. “I saw him at an advertising bash, that one at the Hilton the other night. Marketing director of Maxwell—you know, the confectionery people. Anyway, he’s normally very buttoned up, but he was terribly drunk in the bar after dinner, and he mentioned that he was having ‘fun and games’ with Lloyd’s. I said you too, and that was it, I couldn’t stop him. Had to sell a lot of shares, and a house in Italy, all that stuff, scared of having to take the children out of school even. He’s desperate. I told him about you and so on, and he thought he might like to talk to you. He’ll ring you. He’s very nice.”
Simon invited Neil to have a drink. He liked him, he was quiet, almost shy, deeply embarrassed at what he had done.
“I can’t believe I was so bloody stupid,” he said, drinking a large glass of red wine at great speed, holding it out to have it refilled. “I came into some money, Father died, met this chap at a drinks party, we got talking, he asked me if I’d ever considered becoming a Name, I was rather—”
“Don’t tell me,” said Simon, “flattered.”
“Well, yes, for Christ’s sake. Totally pathetic.”
“What was his name? Just so I can avoid him. Or alternatively, kick him in the balls.”
“Allinson. Tim Allinson. Classic old Harrovian, Guards, terribly charming. Ever come across him?”
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