by Lulu Taylor
There was a minuscule pause and then Vicky murmured, ‘That is rather a lot.’
‘Is it?’ Flora laughed at herself. ‘I mean, I know it is but … I don’t really know how much other houses cost. Sometimes I feel as though I’ve just come back to civilisation after living on a desert island for years and years. Nothing makes sense to me.’
‘I’m sure Octavia knows what she’s doing.’
‘Well, that’s just it. Does she? She doesn’t have much more experience of the world than me but she’s running at it as though she did. She decided to buy the house and we’d only been in it five seconds. She’s so impulsive.’ Flora shook her head. ‘But it’s extraordinary to think we could live in a house like that. We have no idea how to do it!’
‘What do you mean?’ Vicky said, frowning.
‘Vicky, we’re living in The Connaught at the moment. We don’t have to do a thing for ourselves, which is lucky because we can’t. Imagine if we were living in a house on our own. I honestly don’t think Octavia knows how to boil a kettle, or make a cup of tea, let alone cook a meal. And nor can I! We’ve never learnt. We don’t know how. I might be able to make a profiterole if you put everything in front of me, but I don’t know when that will ever come in useful. As for using a washing machine …’ Flora rolled her eyes. ‘We haven’t so much as picked up our own clothes in our lives. Do you see what I mean?’
Vicky laughed. ‘Yes, I think I do. Oh, dear, you really are like a couple of princesses, aren’t you? I expect if I put a pea under your mattress, you’d bruise like a peach.’
‘I know it’s funny,’ Flora said, smiling a little sadly, ‘but it’s also ridiculous. We need to be looked after but I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about even finding someone to do the cleaning.’
Vicky picked up her cup again, put her head on one side and looked at the surface of her tea. ‘It’s a shame,’ she said idly. ‘I’m so busy at my job, I won’t have time to help you. I know what you need to do – I even know of some good agencies where you can find a housekeeper and a cook and people like that. But I don’t know how I’ll spare the time.’
‘That’s a nuisance!’ Flora said crossly. ‘You’re just the person to help us.’ She rubbed her hands together anxiously. ‘I can’t think of who else could. Perhaps the lawyers …’ Then a wonderful idea occurred to her. She leant forward in excitement. ‘Vicky, do you like your job?’
‘Well … it’s all right. Being a trainee accountant was never exactly my life’s dream, but it will do for now, I suppose.’
‘Then give it up!’ cried Flora. ‘Come and help us instead.’
‘That’s all very well to say,’ Vicky said with a smile, ‘and I can’t think of anything nicer, but some of us do have to pay the rent, you know …’
‘Oh, I’ll pay you!’ declared Flora. ‘What are you earning now? I’ll double it. I’ll triple it! You can tell me what you think is right, and that’s what it will be. It makes sense! And you could live with us too, so you wouldn’t need to pay rent to anyone. You should see this enormous house … you could virtually have a floor to yourself. And there’d be a car, of course.’
There was a pause while Vicky considered, her forehead creased in a frown. ‘What would Octavia think?’ she said at last. ‘I wouldn’t want to put her nose out of joint.’
‘Don’t be silly, she’d be as pleased as I am. Besides, she’s chosen the house. I think I should be allowed to make a decision as well. You’re the perfect person and we’d simply love to have you with us.’ Flora looked pleadingly at her cousin. ‘Would you consider it? Please, dearest Vicky …’
Vicky laughed. ‘Sometimes talking to you is like being trapped in a Jane Austen novel. You sound so old-fashioned, it’s hilarious. Look, you won’t have heard of things like handing in notice and P45s and so on, but I reckon I can swing it, if you mean it.’
‘Oh, I do,’ breathed Flora happily. This really was the ideal solution. Vicky knew how the world worked. She would make sure everything ran smoothly. ‘I do. Thank you, thank you, thank you!’
6
The private apartment at The Connaught was a cool, stylish and relaxing penthouse, decorated in muted tones of dove grey and soft blue, high above the Mayfair streets. Self-contained and removed from the hurly-burly below, it was the perfect place to relax and be completely looked after.
Octavia was already in the drawing room when Flora got back from her tea with Vicky. She had clearly hit the shops again after she’d left the Chelsea house. The room was littered with carrier bags from smart boutiques, tied with all manner of ribbons, rainbows of tissue paper spilling out of them. Flora could see carefully wrapped packages and shoe boxes peeping from within.
‘Who is that monster outside the door?’ she said, throwing down her bag and going over to the sofa. She was glad to be back inside the safety and quiet of their apartment, but the great man mountain standing guard outside had given her the shivers, even though he’d stood back in a docile way to let her through.
‘Oh, that’s Jared,’ Octavia said. ‘The lawyers sent him. He’s our bodyguard.’
‘He looks very scary.’
‘That’s the idea, hon. He’s supposed to deter any would-be kidnappers,’ said Octavia, unwrapping a box from the Chanel boutique and taking out a camellia brooch in white tweed.
‘But no one knows we’re here, do they?’ Flora cast a panicky look at the door as though she was expecting someone to burst through it that moment.
Octavia didn’t hear her, she was too busy looking at a set of stacked rings, each decorated with a little enamel camellia or the Chanel interlinked double Cs. ‘Aren’t these pretty?’ She slipped them on to her finger and held out her hand to be admired. ‘I got you a set too. So we can match.’ She grinned over at Flora. It was a tradition that they received identical jewellery at Christmas and birthdays – charm bracelets and necklaces with their names on when they were little, and then pearls and diamond studs as they got older. ‘Would you order some drinks? I’m dying for a lime and soda.’
Flora sat down and picked up the phone to call the apartment’s butler. ‘Thirsty from all that shopping, by the looks of it.’
Octavia looked up at her with shining eyes. ‘Flo-flo, it’s amazing out there. You wouldn’t believe the be-oootiful things that are everywhere! All these years I’ve only been able to see these things in magazines, and now I can actually go and touch them and buy them. I can have whatever I want! All those years of being controlled by Aunt – our clothes chosen by her, our diets dictated by her, all our friends, every minute of every day … I’m going to make up for it now, I can tell you that.’ She watched as Flora gave the drinks order and when her sister had put the phone down, said, ‘Why don’t you do some shopping? You’re still wearing your old clothes.’
Flora looked down at her clothes. They seemed fine to her: a white shirt under a plain navy cashmere V-neck, and a pair of bootleg-cut jeans worn with sensible flat penny loafers. Why would she dress up to look at houses? But … She glanced over at Octavia who looked fantastic in a jagged-cut navy-blue mini-skirt and a slouchy blue-and-white striped top, belted with a collection of twisted gold chains hung with gold discs.
Her sister considered every day an occasion to dress up. It seemed to Flora that there was barely a moment when Octavia wasn’t either getting dressed or considering what she was going to wear the next time she got changed. She’d always devoured fashion magazines, clipping out her favourite pictures and sticking them up all over the walls, sometimes creating her own version of a paper doll and pasting different pictures of outfits over it, so she could see how a different top would look with a certain pair of trousers, or whether a pair of boots would transform an outfit in the way she wanted.
If she had ever gone missing – which she had, from time to time, even though she’d known what the punishment would be – she could be found in the nearest boutique or clothes market. And now she had her freedom, and her own money, it was quite ob
vious that one of the biggest spending sprees in history had just begun.
‘By the way,’ Octavia said, ‘the lawyers want us to go in and see them tomorrow. Honestly, they never leave us alone for a second. It’s all talking to this person or that person about investments and all that nonsense. Such a bore. I might not show up.’
‘We ought to go,’ Flora replied, feeling that she must be the sensible one. Octavia was still so enraptured with the world outside Homerton. They had stayed at their aunt’s for only one week after receiving the inheritance while Octavia had arranged their departure. There were formalities that meant they couldn’t leave before then, but that last week had been so strange: their aunt and uncle were barely to be seen. It felt to Flora as though the girls had simply been ejected from the only life they had known since they were tiny. Suddenly all the rules vanished. There was no timetable enforced; they could eat what they liked, do whatever they wanted. When the time came for them to go, it was almost as if Aunt Frances were relieved. There were no tears or pleas for the girls to stay in touch. Instead there were cool, almost stiff, goodbyes and a formal handshake. It was Maggie who’d cried and kissed them, and told them they would be missed.
As they were driven away with their few suitcases, Octavia had been full of excitement and hope. Flora had felt as though she’d been pushed from an aeroplane without a parachute, but she tried to hide her panic; she didn’t want to spoil Octavia’s pleasure. Since then they had moved from one hotel to another, wherever Octavia felt like going, until they’d settled here at The Connaught. Now the swooping terror only came to possess Flora from time to time, at night, and when she was alone. Only Octavia could make it go away.
It wasn’t as if they were totally alone in the world, she reminded herself. There were plenty of people on hand to help. So far there had been several meetings with lawyers and accountants, and a trip to the private bank where the twins’ money was deposited. It had been a bit like some kind of royal visit, Flora had thought, with everyone bowing and scraping and sucking up like mad. She had realised then for the first time that she and Octavia really did have a lot of money, an amount that the outside world viewed as important and impressive. They had been presented with their credit cards in beautiful leather wallets gold-stamped with their initials: pale pink for Octavia and pale green for Flora. Then they’d been introduced to their personal bankers who were available to them at any hour, just in case the girls wanted to manage their accounts in the middle of the night.
‘We’ll need to see the lawyers, and the bankers, I expect, so you can tell them about this house,’ she reminded Octavia.
‘I suppose so.’ Her twin brightened as she thought about their new home. ‘I can’t wait to get there! How long do these things take, do you think? One week? Two?’
‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps Vicky will know.’ That reminded Flora of what she and Vicky had agreed that afternoon. There was a discreet knock at the door and the butler came in with a tray of drinks for them. Flora watched as he set them out on the table and said casually: ‘By the way, I’ve offered Vicky a job.’
‘Oh?’ Octavia had pulled out her iPhone and was scrolling through her messages. She glanced up at her sister and raised an eyebrow. She bent forward, picked up her drink and sipped it as she looked back at her phone.
‘She’s going to be our assistant. Is that all right with you?’
Octavia shrugged. ‘Sure. I expect she’ll be quite good at that.’
‘I thought she could come and live with us, if we move into the new house. She’s living in a poky flat miles away at the moment, and sharing with some people she says are really awful.’
Octavia made a face. ‘Why on earth does she need to do that? Can’t she just come in if she’s needed?’
‘I think she’s going to be needed quite a lot,’ Flora said, and sighed. ‘I don’t think you realise at all how difficult it’s going to be for us to live on our own.’
‘It’ll be easy-peasy,’ said Octavia with a wide smile, putting down her phone. ‘Everything’s going to be easy from now on, you’ll see.’
It is easy for her, thought Flora. Why is she so at home in the outside world, when I find it all so difficult? She adored her sister, which was perhaps why these fluttering feelings of fright kept starting inside her. She’d only ever known life with the two of them together, and now she was anxious that Octavia was taking flight, about to disappear off into the great blue sky, leaving her alone.
Octavia stretched out one long leg. ‘I’m so pale,’ she muttered discontentedly. ‘Everyone else is tanned and gorgeous. I must see what I can do …’ Her phone beeped and she glanced down at it. ‘Oh! Gerry is downstairs, he wants to go browsing with me. Apparently I’ve got an embarrassing dearth of serious jewels and he thinks we should go down Bond Street and look at some sparkles.’
‘Tavy, please be careful,’ Flora said with a note of pleading in her voice. ‘Don’t go mad out there.’
Octavia laughed and tossed her long golden hair, now restored to its real colour since the party platinum had been replaced. ‘Calm down! It doesn’t matter how wild I go. Don’t you understand, Flora? We’re rich. We’ve got enough for several lifetimes. We can spend how we like, so let’s just enjoy it. Why don’t you come too?’
Flora shook her head. ‘I don’t really like shopping like you do. And that man Gerry makes me nervous.’
‘Everyone makes you nervous,’ Octavia said with a smile. Then she went over and gave her sister a hug. ‘You’ll be fine up here. Have some more tea and watch some telly, and I’ll bring you back a nice surprise.’
‘You’ll be back for dinner, won’t you? I don’t want to eat on my own.’
‘Of course I will. We’ll have something terribly naughty off the menu and eat it cosily up here, just the two of us. Isn’t Monday a green day? Well then, let’s have steak!’
They both laughed and then Octavia straightened her skirt and patted her hair. ‘Now, I’m off to bash my credit card … Got to give my personal banker something to think about, after all!’
She grabbed her jacket and bag and headed out of the door. Flora knitted her hands together and watched her go.
7
‘You mean it’s all going to be done by the end of the week?’ Octavia said into her phone as she walked down the street. It had been almost three weeks since she’d made an offer for the house and she was getting impatient.
‘Yes, we’re confident we’ll be able to complete,’ the lawyer replied, his voice a little muffled by the traffic passing by.
‘You said that last week.’ Octavia sighed. ‘Why is it taking so long?’
There was a short pause and then the lawyer said, ‘It’s been quite swift by most standards. But I do understand your anxiety, Miss Beaufort. We’ll move heaven and earth to make sure you can move into your new property as soon as possible.’
‘Thank you.’ Octavia ended the call and frowned. Surveys, environmental reports, legal matters … It was all such a bore and she didn’t understand it. She wanted her house now and she had the money, so what was the problem? They’d been living in The Connaught for a couple of months, and while she enjoyed it and liked being only moments from the goodies on offer in the West End, she also felt the need to put down some roots. Besides, Vicky had already started working for them while she finished up her notice at her old job, and had been coming round to the hotel in the evenings to show Octavia and Flora websites and magazines with furniture and household goods that they might like to buy for the new place. The owner of their house had agreed to leave a few things behind but now Octavia wanted lots of new ones.
We need a place of our own, she told herself as she continued walking down Beauchamp Place, stopping to stare into the windows of the smart shops there when something caught her eye. A proper home. That poky little hotel apartment isn’t big enough for us.
It wasn’t big enough for Octavia’s burgeoning wardrobe, that was for sure, even though it had its own walk-i
n dressing room lined with wardrobes, drawers and shelves. Her things were already overflowing into her bedroom. For almost three months she’d been shopping to her heart’s content. She only had to walk into Dior or Yves St Laurent now and the shop girls came scurrying over to her, practically prostrate in their eagerness to welcome her and present their most desirable goods. It was an amazing feeling to sit there and watch as they brought out the most exquisite gowns, shoes and bags, and then say, ‘I’ll take this, and this, and this …’
She could happily play dress-up for hours, oohing and aahing over the gorgeous things, putting a creamy silk pussy-cat blouse with a pair of skinny jeans, or adding a snakeskin belt to a silk linen skirt and assessing the effect.
‘You’re a natural, sweetheart,’ Gerry declared, applauding her as she spun in front of him on some Louboutin killer heels. ‘You have a perfect eye.’
Gerry was with her almost all the time, urging her on, making her spend the most incredible amounts of money. Sometimes, even she felt a shiver of something a bit like fright or dread when the assistant, carefully blank-faced, said something like: ‘That will be eighty-five thousand pounds’, and Octavia handed over her platinum card. But Gerry’s exuberance and the way he implied that this was quite normal in his circles helped her to overcome her doubts and shake off her vague sense of guilt.
She might not yet have had an occasion to wear a £20,000 dress made of peacock feathers, but she undoubtedly would have, at some point.
But even though Octavia knew that her ravishing designer dress was hanging in the wardrobe at The Connaught, ready for a suitable occasion, it didn’t stop her longing for something else, or hold her back when she saw another sublime gown. At this rate, she’d have enough clothes to go out to some glamorous function every week for the rest of the year …
She lingered outside the window of a swimwear boutique, admiring a hot-pink beach sarong and a straw beach bag.
