“What went wrong?”
“What didn’t, more like!” Alex turned on her desktop and pulled some files out of her briefcase. Everything hurt—her neck, her head, but most of all her pride. “There I was—two hundred salespeople staring at me expectantly—this super-duper woman from London to tell them all they needed to know and what happens? The bloody presentation fails!”
Camilla put her hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh, Alex, what did you do?”
Alex pulled off her sweatshirt, quickly looked around to see if anyone was watching, and whipped off her T-shirt too, ducking behind the desk and pulling on a new one from a box left over from a promo event. She would dearly have liked a shower and a few hours’ sleep, but a clean top would have to suffice until she had sorted a few things and could get home later. She glanced at her watch. Even though it was nearly nine she knew her mother would still be in bed so she wouldn’t call yet. Owing to the hectic conference itinerary, she’d only managed two calls home in the short time she’d been away and the Bean had sounded very irritable in the first. “This girl is simply dreadful,” she’d shrieked and Alex had had to pacify her and promise that she’d sort the problem out as soon as she got back—as soon as she’d sorted out her own, more pressing disaster, that is. During the second call she’d sounded a bit distracted and it took Alex a while to figure out that Countdown must be on TV.
“Well,” she said, bobbing up from behind her desk, furtively trying to sniff her armpits to check she wasn’t too smelly. “I just had to wing it—and boy, if they were handing out Oscars for bullshit I’d be right up there. God, it still makes me feel sick when I think about it.” She sat down, a vision coming into her head of the awful moment when, after her florid introduction, she had clicked to run the presentation. “Nada. Rien. Bugger all. So I sort of launched into a ‘Well, this is what it looks like and this is what the fabric feels like and these are the colors.’ Thank God I decided to take the bigger box of samples instead. Good thing I ignored you!”
“Well, I just thought…”
“No, you were right, it was heavier, but Lord knows what I’d have done without it. In the end I threw a whole load of those crop tops into the audience so they could have a fondle and ‘feel it like it is.’ ”
“Oh dear,” Camilla laughed. “That sounds a bit haphazard.”
At that moment Peter, Alex’s opposite number in the running-shoe department, loomed into view and tossed a large report onto her desk. “A little light reading for you,” he said dismissively. “Interim sales report.”
“Thanks.” Alex moved it out of the way, annoyed at his interruption.
“How did the trip go? Hear there was a royal fuckup. That was bad luck.” He smiled coldly. “I always double-check my tech stuff before I go.” And he walked away.
“That’ll sink my plot to electrocute him then,” whispered Camilla. “Smug tosser. Why’s he always got it in for you?”
Alex pulled a face at his departing back and shrugged. “I don’t know but he always manages to make me feel stupid.”
“I’d watch him if I were you.” Camilla leaned forward. “I don’t trust him. Anyway, go on. So what happened?”
“Well, do you know, I think they quite enjoyed it? It kept them all awake anyway. Quite a few of them came up to me afterwards and said how much fun it had been and how positive they felt about the product. Easy to entertain, those Canadians.”
“You’re a genius! Looks like you saved the day.” Camilla gathered up the papers from her knee and stood up. “I know you’ll have caught up with most of your e-mails, but Gavin asked me to tell you to look at the updated spreadsheets and he wants a debrief later about the trip.”
Alex turned to her PC and papers. “I’ll go and see him in a minute. I think he’ll be proud of my cunning improvization!” she laughed. “Better call Mum first, though.”
The phone rang for longer than she’d expected. Where could she be? Ella might have taken her out, I suppose, she thought idly. This was the end of the girl’s first week there so she might have started to do things with her mother, but it was odd when she was housekeeper first and nurse second. Alex’s eyes and attention wandered to her screen and she forgot she still had the phone under her chin until it was answered abruptly.
“Hill residence. Can I help you?” Her mother’s voice sounded breathless.
“It’s the Hill residence chatelaine here. You sound as though you’ve been running, Mum. What on earth’s the matter?”
“Oh, it’s you, darling. Just hang on a moment while I sit down. It’s those blasted stairs. An abomination. You should have bought a ground-floor flat.”
“Where have you been? It’s very early for you. Has Ella been out with you?”
“Ella? Good God no… yes! That’s it. Ella. Ella. Very much so Ella. We’ve been out for a coffee on the common. Delightful little place by the deli.”
“Oh, that sounds like a change of heart. When I called you the other day you were ready to murder her.”
“Was I? I don’t think I was. What are you talking about? She’s perfectly marvelous and looking after me beautifully. Aren’t you Ella?” Alex could hear a sort of squeak in the background. “Yes, we’ve done a bit of shopping and went to that little gallery run by the woman with the unfortunate complexion. Terrible shame, but nice pictures. I’ve reserved a charming little oil.”
“Mother,” Alex said slowly. “You can’t go buying more pictures.”
“Oh, don’t be so bossy, dear. One more won’t hurt. Frankie says it’s lovely…”
“Frankie?”
“Frankie? What, dear? No, no. I said, frankly it’s lovely.”
“Oh, Mum.”
“Never mind ‘Oh, Mum.’ ”
Alex felt concerned. “Is Ella doing all the stuff at home she should be before taking off for little shopping trips? I mean, that’s what she’s paid to do, you know.”
“Oh yes, wonderfully domesticated. Sheer genius with the iron. But enough of that, how was your trip? Did you persuade those Canadians about that ghastly nylon PE outfit?”
Alex laughed. Wherever she had inherited her interest in sports from it certainly wasn’t her mother, whose idea of exercise was stirring a Singapore sling. No, her love of sports had been courtesy of her father, who’d been a Cambridge rowing Blue and latterly had a passion for skiing. Together the two of them had tackled black runs while her mother, swathed in furs, got to grips with the glühwein in the mountain bars. She could have done without also inheriting his height and the broad-shouldered physique that came with it, though, and had always thought how unfair it was that the gene pool hadn’t handed out her mother’s petite frame. She could also have done without what he left behind when he died ten years ago just as she was graduating from business school: a demanding mother whom Alex wasn’t inclined to indulge as he had, and a financial mess that she was still unraveling.
What made it all the more painful was how much Alex had adored and trusted him. He’d always made her feel protected, and she had been carried along with his live-for-today generosity, believing it was funded by the investments he mentioned, airily waving away any questions she had. As she had gotten older and begun to understand these things, she had just assumed he had a nest egg because his occasional business deals with classic vintage cars had to be funded from somewhere, didn’t they? They didn’t. The school fees, the shiny red Jaguar E-Type, the holidays in Gstaad had all been courtesy of the bank.
“That ghastly PE outfit pays the mortgage, thanks, and yes, I think they were suitably impressed. Look, I’ve got a few urgent things to sort out here, then I should be home by three. I’m looking forward to seeing Ella again. She sounds even better than I thought.” She must have the patience of Job too, she reflected as she said goodbye and went to find Gavin, who was sitting, feet up on his desk, a pair of prototype sneakers on his feet.
“Phew, you need sunglasses for those!” Alex pretended to protect her eyes from the glare. “Will
it be legal to wear such lurid colors in public?”
Athletically—everyone in the office was athletic—he swung his legs off the desk and stood up, bouncing on his toes, then running on the spot. “These, dear girl, are where it’s at. They are so advanced we won’t so much overtake the opposition as lap them. They are so cushioned they will make running on air seem an uncomfortable alternative.” He gesticulated wildly. “So performance-oriented are they, they will make a Jesse Owens of the most sluggish.” He looked down at his feet. “Isn’t this color awesome though? Fluorescent orange and lime is the new black, which of course was never really explored with sneakers. Though come to think of it…” And he sat down quickly and wrote something down on a pad.
Alex waited. She knew better than to interrupt genius when it struck. Or at least genius was how Gavin perceived it. His thought patterns were at best delirious and everyone in the department knew to indulge his random, flighty nature because one idea in ten was pure gold. The rest of the time they simply structured their own lives and ignored his haphazard leadership. While he jotted down some new spec for sneakers—an idea Alex had a suspicion would be one of his better ones—she looked out the huge plate-glass windows and over the Thames. A pleasure boat was heading upriver, its wash lapping the banks as it passed, and the passengers, Japanese tourists all no doubt, squinted at the tall city panorama, lit up by spring sunshine.
Alex would rather have been asleep.
“So,” said Gavin, looking back at her now. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to Toronto in the end. Bit of a cock-up I hear. Shouldn’t have left you on your own after all, should I?”
“Er…” She was a bit suspicious of the smile in his eyes. Was she really being told off? “It was just one of those things. A technical fault, you know?”
“Mmm.” He leaned down to undo the sneakers. “Feedback seems to have been okay, but time is too short for fuckups, Alex. You know that. We’re only a few weeks away from the launch now and I can’t afford for this not to go right. I’ll be lynched by the top brass if we mess up this range. They want it to be the blast of the decade. Now bugger off.” She turned to go. “Oh, and Alex?” She turned back. “Next time, take a backup PC, okay?”
Her mood by the time she got home was so low—fueled by fatigue, the fact that Todd was back in New York, resentment at the short time Gavin had given her to organize the launch and the prospect of her mother’s litany of complaint—that she did what she had never done before and stopped for a half-pint of lager at the pub at the end of her road. God help me, she thought as she tucked herself into the corner, avoiding the intrigued gazes of the three blokes propping up the bar. It’s teatime and I’m turning into a lush. Put on a beer belly and I’ll be out of a job quicker than you can say “On your marks.” Plumpness was something the company would not tolerate. It wasn’t actually in the contract, but as good as. Muffin-top overhang on your Lycra shorts was a shortcut to a pink slip. She cupped the lager between her hands and thought about the Toronto mess-up. Had she saved the day with her inspirational tactile tactics, or had Gavin been serious with his warning? Was she a marketing executive who couldn’t market? It didn’t look great. She slid even farther down into her chair as she spotted one of the men from the bar picking up his pint and strolling towards her, a smirk on his face.
“Got a light, love?”
“Er, no. No, I don’t smoke. Sorry.” He started to move away but turned back.
“Can I get you a pint?”
A pint? Okay, the T-shirt was bad, but did she really look so butch today that she looked like a pint-woman?
“No, no thanks.”
He looked back at his mates, who were listening with interest, and his smirk broadened. He leaned over the table towards her. “Or are you waiting for your girlfriend?”
Alex shot up from her chair and, picking up her bag, marched out of the pub. “Bet those shoes are comfortable!” was shouted at her receding back.
She slammed the front door of the flat in her anger. Fucking tossers. “That you daaarling?” her mother called from the sitting room. Alex pushed open the door and dropped her bag abruptly on the carpet. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the tableau in front of her. The room was immaculate, every surface clean and ordered. It smelled of a mixture of polish and baking. Through the kitchen door she could see a neat pile of ironing, and her mother was lying down on the sofa, a vision in cream silk, surrounded by plumped-up cushions, hair immaculate and beside her a tray of tea.
“Oh dear, you look simply awful. Get a cup and I’ll pour you some tea. Ella had to leave early to go to the dentist. Would you like one of these?” She held up a china plate of biscuits that could only have been homemade.
Alex smiled. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Chapter 11
Ella softly knocked on Frankie’s door, a mug of steaming tea and a plate piled with whole-grain toast and honey balanced on a tray. She listened for the low groan and cautiously opened the door. “Frankie!” she called gently. “Frankie, I’ve got your breakfast. Just like you said.”
From under the quilt, a long pale arm emerged, pushing back the snowy folds of fabric to reveal her brother’s tousled hair and unshaven face. For someone who was so tragically neat in waking hours, he started each day looking as though he’d spent the night wrestling with a tiger. He pushed his dark hair back from his face and squinted at her. “Oh God, is it that time already?”
Ella smiled sympathetically. “I’m afraid so. Here—have some tea. It might help.”
Frankie levered himself upright and shook his head. “It’ll take more than tea to help. Urgh! Another day to face. I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“I know, I know. And I’m soooo sorry. Really I am. You are absolutely the best brother ever.” She quickly placed the tray on his bedside table and plumped the mangled pillow so he could sit up for breakfast in comfort. “And I’m so grateful. Now, is there anything I can get you today? Have you done a list for the groceries? I’ll pop out at lunchtime. Oh, and I’ve ironed your shirt. Shall I bring it in for you?” She hoped she wasn’t laying it on too thick. She didn’t want to sound insincere.
“Mmmm, please.” Frankie extended his hand and Ella quickly fitted the mug of tea into it. It was the very least she could do when he had such an awful day ahead of him. She left him in peace for a while to brace himself and bustled around getting herself ready, then washed up her own breakfast things as quietly as she could, so as not to disturb Frankie. When he eventually emerged, the sitting room and kitchen were spick-and-span once more, and she darted into his room to retrieve the tray. Wrapped in his wash-as-silk paisley dressing gown, a bargain from the Oxfam shop, he watched in silence as she finished the dishes.
“So,” he sighed eventually. “What have you got on today?”
“Oh, I’m going on an outside broadcast this morning. We’re doing interviews in the park all about what makes people feel like spring is really here, so I’ll have to wrap up. Erm—you?” She looked at Frankie cautiously. She hadn’t really wanted to ask, but it seemed rude not to, and she braced herself for another catalog of misery.
“Same old thing again.” Frankie shook his head and pulled a face. “It’s the same every day, really. Ironing, vacuuming, making endless cups of tea for the Bea—for the beastly old lady.” He turned away and shrugged sadly. “At least it’s regular money—although …”
Ella carefully wiped over the kitchen surfaces and hung the cloth over the taps to dry, folding it carefully first, just the way Frankie always did. God, domesticity was hard work. “Have you managed to avoid Alex all right?”
Frankie rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s another thing. I thought I was going to have to jump out of the window the other day. I was sure I heard her key in the door. Now she’s been back from her trip a day or so I’m much more nervous.” He shuddered eloquently. “And I’m sure the old lady’s going to say something one of these days. I just don’t know how long I can keep
this going. It’s really doing my head in.”
Ella shot out of the kitchen and led Frankie to the sofa, sitting him down with care. “Oh, please, Frankie! Just for a bit longer. I couldn’t bear to give this job up and I don’t know how long they’re going to need me. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really enjoyed. Tell you what—if it’s really that awful, I can phone Alex at work and give her notice. Or tell her I’ve fallen over and hurt myself so I can’t come in anymore.”
“No, no. Er—I think we owe it to the old lady to see it through. And besides, there is that phone bill. Until we’ve made enough to pay that off, I really feel I have to keep this awful job on.”
What a wonderful brother he was! Ella hugged him impulsively. “Frankie, you’re the best. I really do appreciate you being so supportive. Especially when you’re having such a hard time. I’m sorry to have dropped you in it like this. Tell you what, I’ll get you one of those strawberry tarts on my way home. Deal?”
His watery smile tugged at Ella’s conscience as she hefted her bag onto her shoulder and blew him a goodbye kiss and gently closed the door behind her. She was a very lucky girl.
Chapter 12
Frankie got up from the sofa, stretched luxuriously and strolled to the shower. The Bean wouldn’t be up for hours yet, but if he got there early he could get the chores done before she emerged. He shaved with care, surveying his face in the steamy mirror he’d swiped clear with his hand. The Bean had said yesterday that he had a look of David Hemmings in Blowup, and he pulled his hair forward and half closed his eyes, trying to capture the likeness. No good. But if the Bean thought so, he certainly wasn’t going to argue.
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