by Carmen Reid
‘You sign this to say photo is mine,’ she insisted.
Sye reached down to the largest flap pocket on his trousers and brought out a rolled-up sheet of paper.
‘Model release form,’ he explained.
They exchanged papers, Elena found another pen and signed hers. Sye read over his typed sheets carefully, pushing his hair thoughtfully from his face.
For a moment his hand hovered over the page and she felt a little flutter of worry. Maybe he wasn’t going to sign.
But then the pen hit the page and he signed with a flourish: ‘All yours, baby. You’re worth it. Perfect Dress is going to be big, better believe me.’ He smiled at her and winked, delighted that he knew something about this that she didn’t know yet. But she would. She was going to find out very soon.
‘Now …’ He rolled up his form, tucked it into his pocket and handed Elena hers, together with her pen. ‘Formalities over, I think we should go to your friend’s hotel and be very, very informal.’
Elena took the silver pen between her fingers. Sye leaned back, untucked his shirt and lifted it just far enough to reveal a glimpse of taut, tanned stomach. ‘Could you sign just here as well?’ he asked, pointing down to the gap between waistband and shirt.
‘Oh yeah.’ Elena smiled foxily at him and, reaching down with her pen, she too used the words: ‘All yours, baby.’
Harry, home from work, had padded all over the four floors of Svetlana’s Mayfair mansion in a bid to find his wife.
He’d seen Maria and the boys, who were very busy with their whole bedtime routine upstairs in the attic rooms.
Maria had been rubbing Michael dry with an enormous white towel as Petrov, in blue and white striped pyjamas, brushed his teeth.
‘Mrs Roscoff downstairs, in the study, still working,’ Maria had informed him with a shrug of her shoulders, as if she couldn’t understand what all this working silliness was about. She still fully expected it to come to an end just like the other fads Svetlana had adopted and then abandoned: the all-raw diet, golf lessons, learning Arabic and so on.
‘Mrs Roscoff?’ Harry repeated with a smile. ‘You know you are the only person who calls her that.’
‘Is her name!’ Maria said with some indignation. ‘And you much nicer husband than last one.’
‘Thank you,’ Harry told her. ‘Boys, I’ll be up in ten minutes to read to you.’
This news produced two cheeky little grins, which Harry found exceptionally rewarding.
Entering the chic little study room all the way back down the stairs in the basement, Harry saw that Svetlana was sitting at the desk in front of the computer. Her back was to him and she was deep in conversation.
He couldn’t resist the temptation of tiptoeing up from behind and wrapping his arms lovingly around her.
Unfortunately, this made her scream with fright. Mid phone call. ‘Aaaargh!’ she shrieked and dropped her handset.
She turned to see what was attacking her and when she saw her husband, she pulled a furious face at him.
Not exactly the welcome he’d been expecting.
‘I’m busy,’ she hissed. ‘Very, very important call.’
‘Sorry!’ he whispered back and took several steps away from her, hoping she would finish soon.
Svetlana retrieved the handset and put it back up to her ear.
‘Sorry, sorry … I just … ummm … spill my coffee … No, nothing serious. So? What do you think of our offer?’
Now Svetlana had to take a little breath and be quiet.
She had to wait. There was nothing more she could say and nothing more she could do.
She had the head buyer of Bloomingdale’s in New York on the other end of the line. So far, Elena and Svetlana had sold a total of forty dresses in the UK. But this woman on the line from Bloomingdale’s was wanting to buy fifty. All in one single order. Provided she got a good price.
Svetlana felt the enormous pressure of making a good decision without her business partner. She wanted to do very, very well and go some way towards making up for the terrible disaster she had caused with Patrizio.
Bloomingdale’s! Svetlana knew this was a great store to start in New York. From Bloomingdale’s the American invasion of Perfect Dress could begin.
‘What about your advertising campaign?’ the buyer was asking. ‘I take it you have an image we can use? For posters? Maybe even billboards?’
‘Oh yes,’ Svetlana answered without hesitation; in front of her on the computer screen was the breathtaking photo of Elena with the silvery-grey dress sliding from her shoulder. ‘I have a fabulous image, I send it to you right now.’ With that she attached the photo to an email and hit send.
‘I’m going to say yes,’ the buyer said. ‘Congratulations, you’ve got yourself a deal.’
‘Fantastic,’ Svetlana breathed down the line. ‘But how did you hear about the dresses?’ she had to ask. ‘Did my partner Elena contact you?’
‘No, as a matter of fact I saw photos from the show. My son is a photographer, he was the one who liked the dresses so much and flagged them up to me.’
‘And who is your son?’ Svetlana asked, trying to remember some of the photographers she’d met on the day of the disaster.
‘Sye Westhoven,’ came the reply.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mick at the door:
Thick blue cotton trousers (ship’s chandler)
Blue cotton reefer jacket (same)
White shirt (tailor in Hong Kong)
Rubber-soled boots (Dr Martens)
Total est. cost: £120
‘How are you doing?’
‘Come in?’ Annie hissed at her mother. ‘Well, I don’t think he can just come in!’
She stood sentry at the doorway to her mother’s flat, one arm holding the door jamb, a barrier against this man.
‘No, it’s OK,’ Fern said calmly, ‘let him in.’
‘No!’ Annie insisted. ‘He can’t just turn up here and walk in.’
‘Yes, I’m going to let him in.’
Annie turned and glared at her mother.
‘Annie!’ Fern said, glaring straight back.
Mick cleared his throat. ‘Should I come back another time?’ he suggested.
‘Why didn’t you phone? Or email? Or, you know …’ Annie floundered, ‘look us up on Facebook or something? I mean you can’t just appear on our doorstep like this. I think you should make an appointment and … and right now you should go away!’ She tried hard to sound as angry as she possibly could to disguise the turmoil in her mind.
She was angry; she was outraged, in fact. How dare this man just turn up without any warning? What was he trying to do? Shock them into some sort of forgiveness? He was a louse. A useless husband and a useless dad, who’d not been any good to any of them: his wife or his three daughters.
They’d kicked him out back then and they should just kick him out again, right now.
They should.
But despite her fury, Annie could feel all sorts of questions bubbling up in her mind. Where had he been for all these years? What had he been doing? Had he missed them? Had he even thought of them? What was bringing him back now? Was there something he wanted to tell them? Had he spoken to that magazine? Was he ill? Was he dying? Was he sorry?
Was he sorry? That question jammed in her mind.
Was he sorry that he’d been such a bad husband and bad father?
When Annie thought of how great Roddy had been with his children and how much effort Ed was putting in, her contempt for this man inflated again and she just wanted to slam the door in his face.
‘Annie,’ Fern said gently at her shoulder, ‘let Mick come in.’
There was a calmness to Fern’s voice that Annie found almost shocking. She looked at her mother and wondered for a minute if she was clouding over, but Fern looked totally alert and normal.
Finally, Annie stood back and watched as Mick came in through the door.
He held out his arms to F
ern, and Fern, to Annie’s horror, allowed herself to be hugged.
‘How are you doing?’ Mick asked Fern kindly.
‘Oh, holding up. You must know how it is at our age.’
Mick gave a little laugh at this.
‘Annie,’ Mick held out his hand for Annie to shake, ‘I’m pleased to meet you. It’s been a long, long time. Too long, I know.’
Annie considered for a moment, then stuck her hand out stiffly. She certainly wasn’t going to let him hug or kiss her. He didn’t deserve that privilege.
‘Tea, Mick?’ Fern asked as she led them back into the sitting room. ‘Or something stronger?’
‘Oh, I brought something for the occasion …’ he answered and lifted up the bag in his hand.
A few moments of awkward silence were filled with Mick searching through his shoulder bag and then bringing out an expensive-looking bottle and holding it up for approval.
‘Madeira,’ he said.
Annie insisted on going for the glasses because she didn’t want to be left alone with him. She also wanted a break from scanning the brown, wrinkled face, looking for traces of the man she only so vaguely remembered.
The way memories were rising up to the surface of her mind was making her feel uncomfortable. There were unhappy memories of listening to her parents row but perhaps more unsettling were the happy memories, which Annie realized she had worked so hard to repress.
No one really gets over the disappointment of their darling dad turning out to be a big fat fraud: someone who makes your mum cry and cry, someone who doesn’t come back for weeks, then months on end, someone who is finally sent away and doesn’t make any effort to return … or even keep in touch.
He could have been dead! They could have been dead! And he wouldn’t have known and he obviously wouldn’t have cared, otherwise he might have made some tiny effort to keep in touch.
‘How did you find us?’ Annie demanded as she came back into the room with the glasses and watched Mick extract the cork from the Madeira bottle. ‘Is this because I’m on TV now? Is this something to do with that magazine tracking you down?’
‘What?’ Fern turned to Annie. ‘Why didn’t I know anything about that?’
‘Well, I don’t know much about it myself,’ Annie replied.
‘I have seen you on television,’ Mick admitted. ‘I didn’t know your new surname, but I had a feeling it might be you. Then a journalist tracked down someone I know, he put her on to me … I asked her for your address. I thought I should speak to you before you read about me.’
‘You’ve cut it fine,’ Annie exclaimed. ‘Doesn’t the piece come out in a day or two?’
Mick gave his apologetic smile once again. ‘This has been a difficult decision,’ he said. ‘I kept changing my mind.’
‘What have you told the journalist?’ Fern asked with concern.
‘Not a great deal,’ was Mick’s reply.
‘So are you back in Britain, Mick? Or is the ship just in port? Sit …’ Fern instructed and Mick perched himself on the edge of the armchair. Fern also sat down, but Annie busied herself with the pouring of two small glasses of Madeira.
She didn’t want to join them.
As she handed the glasses out, she saw that her hands were shaking.
‘Well, I’m thinking about retiring,’ Mick began, ‘from the full-time malarkey anyway. So I’m looking into maybe buying a place. Essex – that’s where we always wanted to go, wasn’t it?’ He risked a smile. ‘A bit of countryside, but not too far from the ol’ smoke.’
Annie recognized his voice, she realized. But it had been so long since she’d heard him it was almost like listening to the dead speak.
‘I live in Essex,’ Fern said.
‘Clever girl,’ Mick told her.
‘I’m just here temporarily,’ Fern added. ‘So you’re going to retire?’
‘Yeah, I think so, I’ve put a bit of money away—’
‘That doesn’t sound like you,’ Fern said with a laugh.
‘No …’ Mick had to say.
For several moments they looked at their glasses, at each other, and didn’t say anything.
It felt almost comfortable, Annie couldn’t help thinking. How on earth could they be sitting there feeling comfortable? Fern was smiling, as if she was finding it amusing.
‘So where have you been all this time then?’ Annie heard herself snap.
‘Working … travelling … living …’ Mick replied slowly. ‘Regretting some of my worst decisions.’
Annie didn’t say anything; she just let his words hang in the air.
There was a rap on the front door. Annie’s family was probably looking for her and she suddenly felt panicked about whether to let them in or not.
Did she want them to meet Mick? Instinctively, she felt no. She wanted to protect them from his callousness, his ability to walk away so easily from those he was supposed to be closest to.
There was another rap; then the door opened and Ed was in the doorway with a twin on each arm.
‘Annie?’ he asked, catching sight of her with her mother and this strange man in the sitting room. ‘I saw you arriving and I just wondered if you were going to come and see us soon. Hope I’m not interrupting.’
‘Ed …’ Annie turned her face towards him and suddenly felt as if she wanted to cry.
He saw the look and hurried over to her. ‘Are you OK? Is everything OK?’
To Annie, it all seemed too ridiculous, but she blurted out: ‘Ed, meet my dad. Dad, meet—’
There was another silence. Annie found that her throat had closed up and she couldn’t continue. Wordlessly, Annie held out her hands for her babies and Ed passed over Minnie.
Fern intervened. ‘Hello, Ed, love, we’ve just had a bit of a shock here. This is my ex-husband, Mick Mitchell. He’s just turned up out of the blue. He’s Annie, Nic and Dinah’s father.’
For a moment, Ed just stared as Mick got to his feet, said hello and offered his hand.
Ed moved Micky round to his left arm so he could shake the hand that was offered.
‘So are these your children then, Annie?’ Mick asked. ‘They look very like you when you were …’ He tailed off.
Annie felt relieved that he hadn’t used the word grandchildren. She didn’t feel he was entitled to use that word. He’d done nothing to earn it.
‘These are my two youngest,’ she answered stiffly, ‘my older children are upstairs.’
As no invitation to meet them followed, the room fell silent and awkward again.
Ed stood close to Annie, understanding that she needed him to be right beside her, supporting her and protecting her.
‘Fern, I have something else for you,’ Mick began. He started to pat down the pockets of his jacket to relocate whatever it was.
‘Oh,’ Fern said, taking a little sip from her glass and wondering what on earth was going to come next.
Mick finally found the relevant pocket and brought out a small velvet bag.
With a lurch of her stomach, Annie realized at once what this was. She could see the astonishment written across her mother’s face as well.
‘This is yours,’ Mick said, handing the pouch over to Fern. ‘I’m sorry I’ve had it for so long. I always meant to return it to you, but I never seemed to find … er …’ He cleared his throat. ‘… the right moment.’
Fern took the pouch from him, loosened the drawstring at the top and pulled out a beautiful, heavy gold bracelet. It was woven into a chunky chain pattern and as Fern wrapped it tenderly around her wrist, Annie could see the obvious quality of the piece.
‘Oh …’ was all Fern could manage as she fastened the bracelet into place. ‘Oh, I’ve spent so long … I’ve wondered where this was for all this time. I hoped so much I would have it again.’ She brought her wrist up to her face to look at the bracelet more closely. ‘My freckly old arm looks just like I remember Mum’s! Thank you, Mick. Thank you so much!’ She gave Mick a smile much more kind, warm and
generous than he deserved.
‘He’s just returning what was yours,’ Annie pointed out angrily. ‘If he hadn’t taken it in the first place, you wouldn’t have missed it for all these years! So you were finally able to get it back from the pawnshop, were you? I’ve never heard of any pawnshop keeping anything for twenty-five years.’
‘I’ve had it for a while,’ Mick had to admit sheepishly.
‘Mum isn’t well,’ Annie blurted out. ‘She forgets things, she gets confused. She’s spent entire days recently looking for that bracelet because she remembers that it’s missing but she can’t remember why.’
‘I’m very sorry, Fern,’ Mick offered.
‘I’m just glad to have it back,’ Fern said with a contented smile that Annie wanted her to wipe off. Why was she being like this? Why wasn’t she much, much more angry with him?
Mick turned to Ed, hoping to move the conversation away from the bracelet. ‘So what are these little people called?’
‘This is Minnie, short for Minette and this is Micky—’
‘Short for Michael, just like Mick,’ Mick jumped in, smiling with obvious pleasure.
Annie could have kicked him.
‘Ed’s dad was called Michael too,’ Annie pointed out. ‘He was a lovely family man and Ed always wanted to name his son after him. Your name is an unfortunate coincidence,’ she added.
Mick’s eyes were cast down. ‘Well, yes, I can see that would have been awkward. Your husband wanting to use the name and you wanting to use anything but …’
‘Not really,’ Annie told him defiantly. ‘I’d so nearly forgotten about you that I didn’t think it would matter. And Ed is not my husband. I had a husband but … oh never mind!’
Now Annie could feel tears choking the back of her throat and stinging behind her eyes. She was just so furious with this stupid man. He’d missed whole chunks of her life. Huge things had happened since she was thirteen. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have had a great dad by her side through some of those times? Someone to talk her through teenagehood from a dad perspective. Someone to teach her how to drive, or help her pick out her first car. That was the kind of thing dads were good at.
