by Susan Lewis
The really big news for the editors was that Eva – Angelina – had agreed to be photographed after the show with the models who’d come to help promote Perdita’s exclusive designs. However, she was insisting that each of the designers whose creations she sold at her shop should also be photographed, and that Livvy, whose amazing flamenco dress was the highlight of the show, must be given as much credit and coverage as her own small collection, if not more.
‘Are you sure you’re ready to be famous?’ Eva had teased her on their way here.
‘Bring it on,’ Livvy had declared. ‘Do I have to give interviews as well?’
‘For the trade press, certainly.’
‘What about the tabloids and OK! and all that?’
‘If you want to, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to have you.’
‘Because I’m your niece?’
‘For now. Later, you’ll have your very own spotlight. In fact, if it’s what you want, I’m going to make sure of it.’
‘OMG, this is soooo cool,’ Livvy cried in rapture. ‘And we’re definitely working on opening more shops?’
‘In time, if things work out. Bobbie’s already on my case to start one in London, but that might be a tad ambitious for now. I thought we should start looking somewhere more like Brighton, or Bath – big, but not too big, and definitely glam.’
‘I am so with you on this,’ Livvy told her earnestly. ‘And now we’ve got Coral pretty well trained up, we can think about hiring another part-timer to help out while we’re busy taking over the world.’
Only wishing she was able to make it happen as fast as Livvy would like, Eva started to thread her way through the crowd to go and check on proceedings backstage. Her journey was constantly interrupted by friends and strangers, all wanting to wish her luck on what many assumed was her very first show as a designer. In comparison to the more intimate affairs she’d held up to now in local hotels, or the arts centre, she guessed it probably could be seen that way, so she accepted their enthusiasm graciously and promised to catch up again later.
‘Aha, here she is!’ a familiar voice cried as Eva squeezed her way between two clothes racks into the changing room.
Seeing her gorgeous friend Carrie-Anne, Eva’s face instantly lit up. ‘You’re here!’ she cried, holding out her arms. ‘How did you get in without me seeing you?’
‘I saw that you were busy out front so I came round the back,’ Carrie-Anne told her, hugging her hard. ‘I haven’t seen Bobbie yet. I take it she’s here?’
‘Oh, she’s definitely around somewhere. Carrie, I’m so thrilled you could make it.’
‘So am I, sweetie,’ Carrie-Anne assured her, her smoky blue eyes melting with affection, ‘but it was touch and go thanks to those flaming air-traffic controllers in France. You know, this show is going to be sensational, I can feel it in my bones.’
‘It will be now you’re here,’ Eva informed her, standing back to get a good look at her. With her flawless caramel complexion, wicked sloe eyes and shamelessly pouty red lips – not to mention the stunning figure that had graced every high-end catwalk, magazine cover and specialised TV advertisement – she could have been put on the earth for the sole purpose of selling, and now designing, her own range of supremely classy and wildly exotic lingerie.
‘I’ve always said we should do a show together,’ Carrie-Anne reminded her, ‘and now you’re getting into the game we’ll make sure it happens. God, I’m going to enjoy this one, I just know it. I’m assuming I have a front-row seat.’
‘Where else?’
‘Next to you?’
‘Actually, next to Bobbie, because I’ll be back here bossing everyone around.’
Carrie-Anne hit her forehead. ‘Of course, you’re the designer – and I’ve got to tell you, some of this stuff, Angie – Evie – is simply to die for. You’ve got some serious talent going on here, girl.’
‘Not just me,’ Eva reminded her, stepping aside to make room for someone who was struggling to open up an ironing board.
There were so many bodies in here – models at mirrors, stylists primping dummies, hairdressers coiffing wigs, make-up artists creating high-concept art – that there was hardly any room to move. However, the atmosphere was electric, and the gales of girlish laughter, yells from the wings, and sudden bursts of music prepping for the show, were making it feel so like the old days that Eva was starting to sink into a wonderfully strange warp of time. It seemed everyone was thrilled to be here, as much for her as for Bobbie, and the fact that she’d never previously met any of her models, or the technical team, didn’t seem to be mattering one bit. They’d already established a wonderful rapport during last night’s rehearsal, and if the way that had gone was any indication then Carrie-Anne was right, the guests who’d journeyed here from all over really could be in for a sensational show.
‘Well, everything seems to be nice and chaotic in here,’ Eva remarked, glancing at the clock and feeling her stomach churn with nerves. ‘Just how we like it,’ she quipped, knowing it was time for the guests to begin taking their seats.
‘What can I do?’ Carrie-Anne offered. ‘Put me to use any way that helps.’
Loving her more than ever, Eva said, ‘Actually, you could go and start rounding everyone up. The press are going to be thrilled that you’re here, but please don’t let them hold things up. We have to be out of the place by five so they can set for another function at eight.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Carrie-Anne told her.
‘Before you go,’ Eva said as she started to leave, ‘can you stay over tonight?’
Carrie-Anne pulled an apologetic face. ‘I really, really wanted to, you know that, but I just can’t get out of the dinner I told you about. The clients are too big.’
Crushed, but managing to hide it, Eva said, ‘Not to worry. We’ll just have to make sure we get together next time I’m in London.’
‘You bet.’ Then tilting Eva’s face to look into her eyes, she said, ‘I know Bobbie has to rush back too, so please don’t tell me you have no one to celebrate with.’
‘Of course I do,’ Eva tried to laugh. ‘There’s Livvy, and Coral who’s been helping out at the shop. Actually, Livvy designed the flamenco dress for her, but she’s recut, lengthened, straightened, flounced, you name it, for one of the girls.’
Carrie-Anne’s eyebrows were raised. ‘Off the subject,’ she told her.
‘OK, I was about to say I’m sure Coral will be free – actually, you’ll probably meet her out front. She was going to model today, before we grew to where we are now. It’s really floating her boat to know that the star creation was originally designed for her.’
‘We don’t say floating the boat any more,’ Carrie-Anne told her gently, ‘and we’re still off the subject.’
‘And the subject was? Oh, yes, tonight. There’s Livvy, probably Coral, and Jasmine, Don’s daughter, who’s also around here somewhere.’
Carrie-Anne’s eyes became more intense. ‘And the man himself?’ she prompted.
Eva shook her head. ‘Please don’t let’s go there. I’ll catch up with you before you leave, OK?’
Still regarding her closely as she backed away, Carrie-Anne said, ‘Count on it.’
A quarter of an hour later, as the last-minute arrivals were taking their seats, and Bobbie prepared to go onstage to deliver the welcoming speech, Eva met her old agent’s eyes across the dressing room and felt her heart flood with affection. There was no way in the world an event this size could be happening without her, and when she considered how kind, yet unobtrusive Bobbie had been over these last few weeks, not to mention what a pivotal and supportive part she’d played in her life, it made her feel quite emotional. Sometimes things could be said without words, and garrulous and loud as Bobbie often was, today she was being her much more subtle and sensitive self. She hadn’t even mentioned the fact that Jake had met Nick at the Ivy, proving that she was as committed to their pact of never mentioning Nick as Eva was.
Feeling Livvy and Jasmine come up either side of her to link her arms, Eva continued to gaze into Bobbie’s eyes as she mouthed the words, ‘Time to sing.’
Bobbie gave a choke of laughter, since it was what she always said to her girls before a show, reminding them that there were more difficult things to do in life than parade up and down showing off clothes. Or, in her case today, make a welcoming speech.
‘Are you OK?’ Jasmine whispered, as Eva hugged the girls’ arms.
‘Great,’ Eva whispered back.
‘I feel sick,’ Livvy muttered, staring glassy-eyed at the vista of an incredible future.
‘Don’t worry, she’s not serious,’ Jasmine assured Eva.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Eva told her.
With an embarrassed laugh, Jasmine said, ‘Where else was I going to be today? We’re in this together, us three, all the way to the stars, so no way was I going to miss blast-off.’
Immediately feeling guilty for thinking that this evening was going to be an anti-climax with only Livvy and Jasmine to celebrate with – and possibly Coral – Eva pressed a hearty kiss to Jasmine’s forehead as she said, ‘I have a lot to thank you for.’
Colouring, Jasmine said, ‘Not really.’
‘Yes I have, but we’ll save it for later.’ She wanted desperately to ask if Jasmine had told her father about today, and what, if anything, he’d said, but she restrained herself. Nor had she given in to the urge to ask Livvy about Patty, though she knew they must have discussed the show, probably endlessly, as it was such a big deal for Livvy. She imagined both girls – or certainly Livvy – had received a text by now wishing them luck, but her own phone had stayed silent from both quarters. She’d never admit how desperately she wanted it to ring, nor would she dwell on how much she was missing Patty today, who’d always been there for every major event in her life. She was simply going to carry on smiling and applauding as Bobbie, looking disgracefully scrumptious in a fruity-patterned kaftan with matching bandanna, strutted grandly on to the stage.
It was as Bobbie started to speak that Eva felt her mobile starting to vibrate, and if she could have been sure it wouldn’t break into a ring, as it sometimes did, she’d have left it. As she couldn’t, she quickly pulled it out of her pocket and was fumbling for the off switch when she realised it was simply a text.
Thinking of you today. I know it’ll be great. Miss you Px
Hastily shutting the phone down, Eva forced herself to go on listening to Bobbie, who was telling everyone how thrilled and honoured she was to be introducing Perdita’s first major show.
‘Of course you all know who’s behind the name,’ she was saying with her best mischievous smile, ‘it’s one of the most courageous and beautiful young women I know. Many of you will remember her as Angelina, and you’ll no doubt also remember just how brightly she used to light up the world. From the moment I first set eyes on her when she was only seventeen years old I’ve always found there to be a very special quality about her, one that defies words – or at least my ability to capture them – but anyone who knows her will understand what I’m saying. Every time you meet her you seem to come away feeling that something good has just happened to you. It might not have been anything she said, or did, in fact it might very well have been nothing more, or less, than the way she looks at you. I’m sure you all know the look. It’s the one that seems to touch you with a kind of magic and makes you feel a little more important than you actually are. It’s the look that made her famous, and in its way it transcends even her extraordinary beauty.’
As everyone started to applaud she turned a page, and the wattage of her smile decreased as she said, ‘We all know what Eva went through, sixteen years ago …’
Eva stopped listening. She had no desire to be reminded of that time when all it meant to her now was the terrible reality of losing her son – a son most people in the room had no idea even existed. His sixteenth birthday had come and gone several weeks ago, with no word from his adoptive parents to say that they’d received the card she’d sent. Patty had contacted her that day, with much the same sort of message as the one she’d just sent, in spite of the fact that she’d told Patty over and over that she wanted no more contact with her. She wasn’t sure what Patty was expecting by trying to stay in touch, but if it was to keep a link going, maybe even soften her enough to send a message back, then she should prepare herself for a big disappointment. Eva had no intention of acknowledging this text any more than she had the last one. Nor was she going to allow her lying, cheating sister to ruin this special day that Bobbie had made possible, with reminders of how those who were supposed to be closest to her had so bitterly betrayed her.
‘Any word from Livvy?’ Don asked, passing his coat to a waiter as he sat down at the corner table, opposite Patty.
‘Not yet,’ she replied, fighting the urge to touch his hand as he laid it on the table between them. They still never indulged in any public displays of affection, indeed it was rare for them even to be seen out together, but they’d decided to chance coming to the Riverside tonight since Eva and their daughters were all the way over in Bournemouth. ‘Have you heard from Jasmine?’ she asked.
‘No.’ His eyes locked with hers, and seeming to sense what she was thinking, he said, ‘It’s all right. Let everyone stare, to hell with them.’
‘Someone is sure to tell Eva.’
‘It’s not as if she doesn’t already know.’
Accepting the truth of that, Patty looked down at the papers she’d been reading before he came in, and scooping them up slipped them into her bag.
‘Did you send her a text?’ he asked.
Patty nodded. ‘I haven’t heard back.’
He was still watching her closely. ‘We’ve still got a long way to go,’ he reminded her gently.
She knew that, but it never helped much to hear it. And the fact that she’d attempted to put Eva first when she’d tried to give him up – the day she’d told Eva about their mother – hadn’t achieved any kind of reconciliation. How could it, when Eva had rejected him and refused to have anything to do with either of them ever since?
Patty couldn’t explain why Don meant so much to her, he just did. She only had to think about him to want him, to look at him to love him. He made her feel to a depth she hadn’t even known was possible before, both physically and emotionally. He said it was the same for him, and she had no reason to doubt him considering what he’d given up for her, and how powerfully he always responded to her. There was something special between them, something holding them together so tightly that neither their consciences nor their judges could tear them apart. Yet the terrible price she was paying might eventually do that, because losing Eva was starting to feel like losing a vital part of herself.
‘You’re the only person I can say this to,’ she’d told Elaine when they’d met for lunch at the weekend, ‘but she feels like the only link to our mother – well, of course she does, because she is. I don’t understand why, after all these years, that should matter the way it seems to.’
‘It always matters,’ Elaine had responded kindly. ‘And between you I think you’ve created something more powerful than the bond sisters normally share, perhaps even more special than the one we have with our mothers.’
Patty had often wondered about that herself, but this was the first time she’d ever spoken of it. ‘I’d never admit this to Eva,’ she’d said, after a while, ‘but there are times when I’ve felt so jealous of her. We’ve all loved her so much, Daddy, me, Don … She’s always mattered so much to everyone, more than the rest of us, and sometimes it’s as though … Well, sometimes I’ve been left feeling as though I hardly matter at all. How self-pitying is that?’
Elaine’s tone was exceptionally gentle as she said, ‘The way you feel is perfectly understandable, my dear. In fact, I’m sure there are some who wouldn’t blame you at all if you hated your mother, or Eva, for the way you were left to cope with everything. It seemed to be assumed that
you’d take it all on, your father’s devastation, your baby sister’s upbringing, never mind her sense of abandonment, and you were only twelve when you lost your mother. Very young indeed, but old enough for it to have shattered your world. So it’s all credit to you that you aren’t burdened with resentment or anger, or any of those horrible, negative emotions that accompany a sense of lack.’
Patty’s eyes went down as she said, ‘Sometimes I feel full of them.’
‘Of course you do, we all do at times, but the point is you don’t act on them.’
‘Don’t I? Wouldn’t you say what I’ve done with Don was acting on them?’
‘If you didn’t love him, I might think so.’
Swallowing dryly, Patty said, ‘I lied to Eva about the letter Mummy left. I still have it.’
At that Elaine had seemed flustered, and extremely dismayed. ‘Are you going to do something about that?’ she’d asked, making it clear by her tone that Patty must.
Patty shook her head. ‘I know I should, but if I do she’ll know … Everyone will …’
‘Know what?’ Elaine prompted.
Patty took a breath. ‘Like I said, Eva’s always meant so much … I just can’t help wondering if my mother thought about me at all when she took her own life.’
‘Whatever she thought about, you have to remember the state of mind she was in – and then you must tell yourself that the past is the past, and in spite of how difficult and lonely it must have been for you at times, trying to fill your mother’s shoes while you missed her so much, you only have to look at how you’ve turned out to feel proud of who you are and what you’ve achieved.’
