by Maeve Haran
‘Welcome to your new home. We hope you’ll be very happy.’ Amelia, standing behind her, almost curtseyed.
Mrs Riskov took the bouquet and smiled. She was stunningly blonde and beautiful. Tall and willowy as Maria Sharapova, she was dressed from head to foot in softest black leather, the shoulders alarmingly studded, but clearly the creation of some shockingly expensive designer, a tiny Chanel bag swinging from her shoulder. Although she must have been five foot ten she towered even higher in Louboutin stilettos. She was also startlingly young.
Sylvie wondered how many previous wives Mr Riskov had discarded on the way up. Probably an unsophisticated local one from whichever region he originally hailed from, then possibly an air stewardess or PR girl. That seemed to be the pattern with oligarchs.
Despite her dazzling appearance, Mrs Riskov had a beguilingly sweet smile as she looked around her new home like a child at Christmas.
‘Your wife is lovely,’ Sylvie whispered to Mr Riskov as Amelia held the door open to the enormous bedroom and en suite bathroom.
‘Is true,’ confirmed Mr Riskov fondly. ‘Name Natalya. Was friend of daughter’s.’
Sylvie found herself feeling slightly sick and had to hold back from snapping ‘And what did daughter think of it?’
They toured the five bedrooms with Natalya appearing to be delighted and Mr Riskov appearing equally delighted at her delight.
Sylvie glanced out of one of the bedroom windows. A fleet of black Range Rovers, all with darkened windows, was lined up outside the entrance. She wondered what exactly it was that Mr Riskov did.
‘Does everything meet with your satisfaction?’ she asked when they reached the fifth bedroom.
‘Yes. Is good. Mrs Sutton, can I have word?’
She had to admit Mr Riskov had a certain thuggish charm. Some instinct told her to leave Natalya with Amelia and lead him into the gentlemen’s club of a study.
‘Mrs Sutton. Your husband.’
This was the last thing Sylvie was expecting, but she quickly recovered herself. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Riskov, that you should have been exposed to such a distressing image thanks to our system being hacked. I can assure you we are trying very hard to get to the, er—’ Sylvie stopped herself on the brink of disaster before using the word ‘bottom’, but floundered, unable to think of an alternative.
‘Was very funny. Appeal to Russian sense of humour. But this is not point. You are nice lady. You have made beautiful home for us. Do not deserve such treatment from husband. I have suggestion.’
Sylvie stood frozen to the spot. What on earth was he going to suggest?
‘English authorities do not like simplest solution so I have alternative. Would you like husband to visit former Soviet Union? Is very big place. Husband easily get lost.’ She could just imagine it, with all those Range Rovers to do his bidding. She wondered for the briefest of moments if they’d take Kimberley too.
‘No, no, Mr Riskov,’ Sylvie answered breathlessly. ‘It’s very kind of you. But I can deal with my husband here.’
He bowed. ‘Let me know if you change mind. Is easily arranged.’
‘Thank you.’ She called to Amelia. ‘Time we left Mr and Mrs Riskov to enjoy their new home.’
‘That seemed to go well,’ Amelia offered as they drove back to the office.
She knew Amelia was being thoughtful and she smiled back. Better not to share Mr Riskov’s offer of losing Tony in the Siberian wastes.
‘Wow,’ Amelia added, ‘Mrs Riskov was quite something. Though they struck me as an odd couple.’ What she really meant was that the beautiful blonde wasn’t much older than she was.
Sylvie couldn’t help thinking that it must be a strange life for a lovely girl that age to be a trophy wife. This unfortunately led her down the road to Kimberley and Tony. As if Amelia guessed her thoughts, she leaned forward impulsively. ‘I just want to say, Kimberley really threw herself at Tony. I don’t think he’d even noticed her till she went for him full-on. We all thought it was disgusting.’
Sylvie didn’t know whether to be touched or offended that they were all gossiping about her.
When they arrived back at the office, instead of going to her desk, Sylvie excused herself, pleading a headache, and slipped up to the flat at the top of the building. They had moved to this engaging part of the King’s Road – not as posh as Sloane Square or as Sloaney as Fulham – when the children had left home. ‘No sense in rattling around in a big house when we have plenty of room over the office,’ Tony had suggested. ‘Especially with the price we’d get for a family home.’
Sylvie’s first gesture now was to turn on all the lights. Mad, and bad for the planet, but somehow it lifted her spirits. Sylvie was addicted to light. She made herself a cup of mint tea and sat down in the kitchen. The place seemed depressingly quiet. Tony, she realized, had always seemed to fill the flat with noise. Jazz on the radio, whistling to himself, banging about in the kitchen, singing snatches of Frank Sinatra off-key.
Oh for God’s sake, she told herself, don’t start missing the bastard! Remember what he did to you!
She noticed that there were messages flashing on the answerphone and despite all her advice to herself, her heart leapt. Only Tony left messages there because he distrusted mobiles and thought the landline more reliable.
She was conscious of disappointment when it was another male voice.
‘Sylvie,’ the unfamiliar tone greeted her, ‘this is Stephen Charlesworth, Gwen’s son.’
Funny, she hadn’t heard from her old playmate for years. She supposed Gwen had made him ring and hoped to God it wasn’t out of sympathy. She could imagine Gwen strong-arming him into asking her to do up one of his many apartments just to be kind and she couldn’t bear it.
‘The thing is,’ Stephen’s voice continued, ‘I have this great place in Italy, above Lerini, and I could do with some design advice. I don’t go there much and I was wondering if it would make a boutique hotel.’ And then the truth. ‘Ma and I wondered if you might feel like going out there for a while and enjoying the Italian spring.’
She’d been right. She smiled at the thought of the irresistible force that was Gwen Charlesworth coming up with the suggestion and Stephen, despite his reputation as a tough businessman, not being able to say no.
‘It’s very beautiful out there, sunshine and lemon groves. You might like to think about it.’ And then he left his number.
Sylvie put down the phone. It was dismal in the flat despite all the lights and exotic décor.
Sunshine and lemon groves.
She thought of all those springs she’d spent abroad as a child, from Beirut to the Bosphorus, the nature of the light, quite different from anything gentle and British, and her heart lifted.
Now that the Riskovs were off her hands, Amelia and the designers could hold the fort for a while. It was a tempting offer, very tempting indeed.
Sylvie never reconsidered for a moment once she’d made up her mind, a quality some of her friends loved in her and others deplored.
She half hoped Stephen wouldn’t answer the phone himself and she could just leave a message. His voice would betray his true feelings and Sylvie wasn’t sure she could bear it.
Her hope was justified. There was simply a message saying that if the caller left their number he would return the call as soon as possible.
‘Hello, Stephen, long time no see. Thanks for your’ – she almost said ‘kind’ and mentally changed tack – ‘terrific offer. Sunshine and lemons sound irresistible. Just email me all the details and any thoughts you have for your design scheme. Love Sylvie.’
She put down her mint tea, feeling better already.
She’d go back down to the office and start planning her escape.
Three
‘How are we getting on with our Italian caper?’
Stephen recognized the mischievous glint in his mother’s eye, and wondered quite how it had become their caper, or indeed a caper at all.
He was in Great
Missenden for his weekly duty visit, though he had to admit time spent with his mother was often fun rather than duty. The duty part applied to his father.
Although she would never have admitted it, Gwen also greatly enjoyed being seen by her friends with her tall, attractive son and batted off all their attempts to diminish his unmarried state by telling her about their hordes of grandchildren.
Gwen had opted for lunch at the golf club, golf being her other passion, and it was early enough for her to bag her favourite table in a commanding position where she was able to monitor who came into the bar as well as what was happening on the green.
She had only just settled herself when her arch-rival Mariella Mathieson appeared, in top-to-toe new tweed.
‘Do you know,’ announced Gwen in a low voice, ‘I saw her at the Kimblewick point-to-point last week. She’s not a day under ninety and she and the two bloody boxers were kitted out in brand-new tweed! At a point-to-point! Talk about nouveau riche. Who does she think she is? The queen of the county?’
As this was a role Gwen had indisputably bagged for herself, Stephen held his peace.
‘Oh God, she’s got that dreary daughter of hers, what’s her name, Maureen? Margaret?’
‘I seem to remember it’s Monica,’ Stephen supplied.
‘That’s right, Monica. Dull as ditch water. Maybe she does it to spite her mother. You may be a wicked developer but at least you’re entertaining.’
‘Thank you, Ma,’ Stephen conceded.
‘Oh my God, she’s coming over.’
They watched Mariella’s dowager-like procession, graciously talking to everyone as she passed. ‘Gwen!’ she greeted her rival effusively. ‘Not out on the green? I suppose at your age you don’t want to overdo things.’
‘As a matter of fact, Mariella,’ Gwen replied frostily, ‘I am having a quiet lunch with my son. I see your daughter’s back at home.’
Mariella breathed a gusty sigh. ‘Yes. She is. I know I’m too big-hearted in letting her stay. But you know me, generous to a fault. She ought to be finding her own accommodation, but we do have a rather large house.’
She glanced across at Monica. ‘You know her husband died? Typical Monica to choose a man with a heart defect.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t know he had a heart defect,’ offered Stephen, straight-faced. ‘I expect it came as rather a shock.’
‘Anyway, dropped down dead at fifty-nine. Rodney’s eighty-four and still plays tennis every day. Left her poor as a church mouse. They were both librarians, you know. Librarians! God help us. Monica always used to say it was different because it was a university library. Can’t see it myself. Still stamping books all day. Rodney says she’s never been the same since the Internet. Before that the students used to ask her for help all the time. Now they ask Google. Once the university clocked that, they made her redundant.’
They all glanced round at the unfortunate Monica who sat, round-shouldered and oblivious, nursing an orange juice by the bar.
‘I mean, look at her. Just like that rugby song. No bloody use to anyone. If I wasn’t so kind-hearted I’d chuck her out but she has her uses. She’s looking after the dogs when we go on safari.’
Gwen thought about Mariella’s revolting boxers, all three of them, who had never been trained and jumped up continually, stealing food from your plate while Mariella and Rodney just laughed and said ‘Aren’t they a hoot?’ Suddenly it was too much.
‘Stephen has the perfect solution,’ she announced, avoiding his glance. ‘She can go to his house in Italy to recover from her loss. Just the place.’
‘Oh, she’ll never want to do that, not Monica. She’s a real homebody.’
‘Why don’t we ask her? Monica!’ Gwen called across to the bar, causing the poor woman to choke on her orange juice. ‘Come and join us for a moment.’
Monica reluctantly crossed the room clutching her drink as if it were a talisman.
‘Which would you rather do?’ Gwen asked gaily, ignoring Mariella’s quelling expression. ‘Look after your mother’s dogs or spend three weeks in an Italian villa?’
Monica glanced nervously at her mother, who was regarding Gwen with obvious dislike.
‘The house belongs to me,’ Stephen added gently, seeing her distress. ‘I have a wonderful library. There are some early religious manuscripts I’d really welcome your view on.’
Monica visibly straightened her slouchy shoulders and looked her mother in the eye.
‘I’d rather go to Italy,’ she announced with a firmness that took them all by surprise.
Claire parked her Panda and began to empty the boot, feeling unusually exhausted. The lunch she’d just catered had gone on far longer than the invitation had stated so she and her Portuguese servers had been left standing around unable to finish clearing while the guests drank their way through all the alcohol they could find, including a disgusting chocolate liqueur the hosts had bought on holiday five years earlier. She hoped they were all suffering for it. She carried the first box of dirty plates into her kitchen to find a scene of such devastation that she could hardly believe it. Not only were half the glass bowls she used for baking covered in rapidly hardening dough, but her precious liquidizer was sticky and the tool she had hidden away because it was, of all her utensils, the most difficult to clean – her potato ricer – was white with some substance – rice?
Normally, being the peacemaker that she was, Claire would have steeped the lot in the utility room sink or at least stacked them so that they looked less daunting. Today she simply piled them up on the centre of the kitchen table and wrote a large sign in black Pentel with the words WASH ME on it and placed it on the table.
She then calmly stacked her catering plates and poured herself a large gin and tonic, which she took over to the TV. She switched it on and put up her feet in front of the Antiques Roadshow. That’s what she needed – a bit of that iron fist in the velvet glove that Fiona Bruce possessed.
Half an hour later, Martin returned. He took one look at the kitchen table and demanded what the hell she thought she was doing.
‘It’s called washing-up, Martin. You may not recognize it.’
He put on his superior look. ‘I’m going to answer my emails. What time’s supper?’
Claire took a large sip of her G&T and channelled her inner Fiona Bruce. ‘Whenever you feel like cooking it. I’ve had enough for today. The lamb chops are in the fridge.’
Martin considered her warily as if she might have a case of early dementia.
Once he’d gone, she wondered how she could get in touch with Angela Williams. She decided Angela might well be the type who’d have an account on Twitter. Claire’s son Evan had set one up for her and thought it hilarious that she’d only used it twice. Well, now was the time. She signed up to follow Angela and then sent a tweet asking her to get in touch. Most likely, knowing Claire and technology, Angela wouldn’t even get it.
She was absolutely stunned when Angela tweeted back almost immediately, including her email and phone number. And, staggeringly, five minutes later they were talking.
‘Hello, I’m Claire, the caterer from the other day. I know this will seem unbelievably cheeky, but I wondered if you were going to accept that offer to go to Italy?’
‘Do you know,’ Angela laughed, ‘I think I am.’
‘I just wondered’ – Claire’s nerve almost failed her – ‘if there might be a use for a caterer. I could do the cooking and maybe assess the place and get a handle on the facilities it would need if it was going to be a hotel.’ She hesitated. ‘I mean, you did say maybe I should go too . . .’ she faltered.
‘Do you know, Claire,’ Angela replied, ‘I have no idea if that would be useful.’ Claire’s spirits plummeted. ‘But in my view, there’d always be a place for someone who dumped coffee in that little prick’s crotch. I’m sure you’d be more than welcome.’
If the mystery owner objected, Angela thought, she could always put Claire up in a hotel nearby. And with Clai
re there she wouldn’t be eating alone.
‘Terrific.’
‘I’ll let you know as soon as I get the details.’
Martin put his head round the door. He was actually wearing a pinny. She was about to say it suited him but didn’t want to push things too far.
‘Why are you looking so happy all of a sudden?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Because I may be going to Italy for three weeks, maybe a month.’
‘But you don’t even know anyone in Italy,’ he protested.
‘Oh yes I do. I’m going with my friend Angela Williams from Done Deal.’
‘You don’t know Angela Williams!’ accused Martin, clearly wondering if she really had lost her marbles.
‘Yes I do. I met her through work.’
‘But what about us?’ he asked incredulously.
‘I’m sure Belinda can rustle you up some kale shakes, and maybe even an egg-white omelette.’
Then she poured herself another G&T and waited for the lamb chops to appear. It might be a long wait.
‘So you’re going to go, then?’ Drew enquired, his voice studiedly neutral. Angela had come into Fabric’s head office to make the arrangements for the departure.
‘Yes, why not? Those bastards can get hold of me if they need to. And Fabric will be fine in your entirely capable hands.’
‘They’ll be furious you flew the coop.’
‘Too bad. As if I should care, the way they’ve screwed me over.’
‘So, sunshine, Prosecco, swimming. There’s a pool there, I understand.’
‘Good, and for the record, I hate Prosecco.’
‘It’s a very famous house. Once home to all kinds of stars and celebrities trying to escape.’
‘How appropriate. And who is this mysterious owner?’
‘Ah.’ Drew smiled intriguingly. ‘He wants to remain mysterious.’
‘Very Howard Hughes. It would be easy enough to find out.’
