by Jenny Harper
Feeling more positive, she kept her thoughts to herself.
‘Nothing. Does his family know?’
‘I don’t think so, not yet. I’ll have to trace his sister’s number. You have a key to Cobbles, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I was covering for him on Saturdays.’
Lexie’s lips began to tremble again. She was helping Pavel, he was meant to get through this. Death was not in the plan.
‘He said his sister despised him.’
‘Still. Families are complicated things.’
His voice became very gentle.
‘Death is a complicated thing, Lexie, you of all people know that.’
The pieces of her life rose before her like a cloud of shredded paper caught by the breeze. They swirled and descended, and formed a jumbled pattern – life with Patrick, the accident, the row, life after Patrick, but not necessarily in that order. She became confused and the distress returned. She stood up.
‘I think you should go now. Look at you…’
She couldn’t go on, because she did look at him and, disconcertingly, found this unkempt, concerned, slightly vulnerable Patrick desperately attractive.
He rubbed his chin.
‘I must look a sight. I hope you don’t mind my coming.’’
Lexie shook her head dumbly. She couldn’t find the right words to tell him how much she appreciated what he had done because there was too much baggage between them.
‘I’ll find the key for you,’ she managed to mutter.
The day that began with tragedy, continued with disappointment. Shortly after eleven, Neil called from the Emporium.
‘We didn’t get it.’
Preoccupied with Pavel’s death, Lexie didn’t focus on what he was saying at first. ‘What?’
‘The tender for Fleming House. The Home Farm fit-out.’
‘What? How come?’
‘No idea. I just got a letter from the interior-design company, saying we had been unsuccessful. Want me to read it?’
Lexie swallowed hard. The day was shot already, this distraction was almost welcome.
‘No, I’ll come in.’
Julie slouched out of the big oak doors under the Gordon’s Furniture Emporium sign as Lexie approached. Rain started to splash noisily onto the pavement in big globules that threatened to soak hair and clothing and footwear.
‘Hey, Julie, where are you off to?’
The girl swung round, her expression sulky.
‘Told him I wouldnae hang around another minute in there. Place is like a fuckin’ funeral parlour.’
‘You’re leaving?’
‘S’right.’
She pulled up her collar and hunched her back against the torrent.
‘You should stick it out. The job might become permanent, then you’d get off benefits, have some spending money.’
Julie looked at her incredulously.
‘You’re joking me. On what I was bein’ paid? You dinnae need an assistant in there, anyway, what you need is a fuckin’ bomb.’
She stamped through a puddle, sending a spray of water down Alexa’s shins.
‘Bye then,’ Lexie called after the retreating back.
There was no answer.
‘Show me,’ she said to Neil as soon as she got inside.
He handed her the letter, which she read aloud.
‘Dear Mr Gordon, blah blah blah, sorry to inform you blah blah, your tender has in this instance been unsuccessful. If you would like feedback on your bid, please call me on… ’
All that planning and research – and hope – for nothing. There would be no cash flow fillip. Worse, there would be no boost to reputation, no interested chatter – ‘Who supplied these terrific tables? Really? I didn’t know they did anything as stylish as this’ – no further enquiries, no altered image. She realised that she’d been banking on this work coming in for Gordon’s – foolishly, perhaps, she’d expected their keen pricing, rock-solid delivery guarantees and excellent sourcing to land the contract.
‘I don’t understand. Our prices couldn’t have been beaten. Everything was first class.’
‘I’ll phone the woman and try to find out why we were unsuccessful.’
‘Morag will be relieved, she never supported us on this. Outside her comfort zone.’
‘Tom, too, I expect.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Lexie was quick to defend her father. ‘Dad saw the point.’
‘Maybe.’
Neil picked up the phone, checked the number on the letter and started to dial. ‘You go on.’
It was not a comfortable meeting.
‘We lost on price,’ Neil’s mouth was set into a grim line.
‘Price? How’s that possible? We cut our costs to the bone.’ Tom’s bushy eyebrows twitched. He took off his glasses and peered at Neil. ‘Are you sure?’
Neil produced a document, which Lexie recognised instantly as their tender. He passed round three copies. Puzzled, she opened hers and examined the costings.
‘This doesn’t look right.’
‘It’s not.’
‘But – I don’t understand.’
‘These are not the figures we agreed. They’ve been changed.’
‘Changed?’ Tom’s normally level voice sharpened. ‘By whom?’
Neil said, ‘Lexie?’
‘Not me. I just dropped in all the text you gave me and made sure the formatting was right. Then I passed it to Morag to print and bind.’
All attention swung to Morag, who looked defiant, her eyes round as currants in grey dough. Her face reddened and her frizzy hair quivered with righteous indignation. She warbled, ‘There was no profit, the way we had it. I only changed them a little bit. In this challeng—’
‘Don’t you dare,’ Neil cut in, his voice icy. ‘Just don’t you dare.’
Morag squeaked to a halt, her self-defence punctured.
Lexie stared at her, appalled.
‘We were trying,’ Neil hissed between clenched teeth, ‘to rescue this establishment. We were trying to win a key bit of business. We are on the verge of bankruptcy and this was important. Now, because of you, Morag Ferguson, we’ve lost—’
Tom cut in. ‘Thank you, Neil. Morag, please will you leave us?’
The bookkeeper picked up her papers and stalked off. Lexie’s emotions were ratcheted out to breaking point. They could never have assumed they would get the contract, but to lose it in this way was infuriating. Did this make a difference to her painting? Would she have to stop working for the exhibition and come back to Gordon’s? The thought was unbearable, but she looked at her father and the stress he was under made her want to weep for the second time that day.
‘She’s the bookkeeper, for heaven’s sake,’ Neil hissed. ‘She should not be making policy.’
‘Morag knows, more than anyone, how difficult things are for this business.’
‘But she should not have tampered with our strategy for setting it right. She has to go.’
‘She’s been here for years. She shouldn’t have changed the figures, but she did it with the best of intentions.’
‘Either she goes or I go.’
Tom looked shocked. ‘I don’t like blackmail, Neil.’
‘It’s not meant like that. I just can’t work with her any more. I don’t trust her, and I don’t think you should either.’
Lexie, torn in two, watched them bat the arguments to and fro. Gordon’s couldn’t be allowed to fail, there had been too much disaster in her family – but she was appalled by the thought of giving up on her career for a second time to attempt yet another salvage operation.
‘Neil’s right, Dad,’ she said at last. ‘Tampering with figures, however you look at it, is dishonest. You need to regroup and I don’t think you can go forward with Morag as part of your team.’
As Tom hesitated, Morag solved one problem by reappearing and sticking an envelope into his hands.
‘My resignation,’ she said in a quavering voice, and le
ft.
Tom, Lexie and Neil looked at each other in silence. At length Neil said, ‘Well. Two fewer staff on the payroll in one day can’t be bad, in the circumstances.’
Lexie wandered along the High Street. She called Cameron, who was on a quad bike somewhere in a field, where the signal was terrible.
‘Pavel’s what?’
‘He died last night.’
She had to half shout and she grew uncomfortable. Passers-by were staring at her. It didn’t seem right to be shouting this news.
‘He’s dead? What happened?’
‘Heart attack.’
‘Oh Lord. Hey, doesn’t that leave you up shit creek?’
‘It wasn’t quite my first reaction to the news but yes, you’re right.’
‘What’ll you do?’
Cameron wasn’t smart, like Patrick, and he didn’t do subtlety, but he was pretty good at hugs.
‘Right now, I don’t know. Can I see you?’
‘Love to, sweetie, but when I finish here I’ve got that darts match down the pub. Remember I told you? You can come if you like.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
Crowds, banter and noise were the last thing she felt like. She dialled Molly’s number.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey.’
‘You sound really down.’
‘Are you busy?’
‘We’ve got a Midsummer Ball on tonight, it’s mental here. What is it?’
She couldn’t bear talking about Pavel on the phone, not again.
‘Nothing. Tomorrow maybe, when you get up?’
‘I’ll buzz you, OK? Listen, got to go, there’s another call coming in, I’ve been waiting for it. See you tomorrow, chin up.’
‘Bye then.’
But Molly had rung off already. Lexie stared at her phone. All the energy had seeped out of her. She was drained by carrying burdens.
Chapter Twenty-one
Catalogue number 32: embroidered Chinese shoes, three inches long. Donor, Alice Redmond, London. ‘My great grandparents were missionaries in China and brought these shoes back to London. Foot binding was a sign of beauty and wealth, as the barbaric practice of breaking toes to shorten the foot meant that women were unable to walk more than a few yards. Working was thus impossible. Over time, some poor country girls were also subjected to the practice, in the hope that they might catch a wealthy husband.’
In the Western world, black is the traditional colour of mourning. It has been so for a long time, maybe not for ever, but probably since the Romans began to don dark togas to mark their respect for the dead. But Lexie, who had gone back to Fernhill on the night before Pavel’s funeral, needing company, scanned her eclectic wardrobe and remembered how Pavel had loved bright colours – his mustard moleskin waistcoat, his burgundy velvet smoking jacket, his favourite candy-striped blazer.
Black wouldn’t do. Black was for seduction, for evenings under the stars with a lover, or for dancing the night away in a ballroom scattered with shards of silver light.
‘This one, darling girl,’ she could hear his voice as he pulled a dress off his rack for her, a little affected but full of warmth. Or, ‘This could have been made for you, Lexie.’
Loss stabbed at her. The funeral would be hard, the first she’d had to attend since Jamie’s. Her parents wouldn’t come. They didn’t know Pavel well and their grief for their son was still too raw. But she had to go. It was unthinkable not to go. She reached out and grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on her dressing table, stuffed them into her clutch bag. She would wear the last dress she bought from him, the one intended for her date with Cameron. It slipped over her head and across her hips, the vivid scarlet roses scrunching up and growing deformed, then reshaping as the dress settled into place.
She missed Pavel dreadfully, hated walking past Cobbles and seeing the sign on the door turned to ‘Closed’. Anger surged through her, briefly – why hadn’t he gone to the doctor, as she’d pressed him to? His death was so unnecessary. She pursed her lips at the familiar feelings. After all, surely Jamie hadn’t needed to die either.…
Enough. Roaming down cul-de-sacs in a maze would get her nowhere. Time to go.
Cameron had borrowed his uncle’s car for the drive to the crematorium in Edinburgh. Lexie was grateful for the company.
‘I’m glad you were off today, I really appreciate this.’
He shifted into fifth gear and laid a hand briefly on her thigh.
‘No problem. Couldn’t have you going on your own. What’s the form?’
‘There’s a short service, then tea and cake at some hotel nearby.’
‘Not back to Hailesbank?’
‘Apparently not. Pavel’s sister has come up from Slough and didn’t want the extra travel out to Hailesbank.’
‘It’s only half an hour.’
‘Half an hour too far, apparently.’
Cameron lapsed into silence as he negotiated the roundabout that connected the A1 to the city bypass. Safely back on the dual carriageway, he said, ‘Will there be a good turnout?’
Lexie thought of Pavel, hidden away in his small shop, surrounded by his marvellous collection of antiques but essentially alone for long hours.
‘I doubt it.’
But she was wrong. As they walked from the car park to the waiting area, she realised that there was a sizeable throng. Patrick, inevitably, was the first person she saw. It was impossible to miss him – he was so tall he’d stand out in any crowd, not to mention his flowing hair and the way he carried himself. Lexie looked for the tall woman she had come to associate him with, but he seemed to be alone. There was Bessie Brown from across the road, with some of her cronies, all dressed for the occasion, dark as a coven of witches. She recognised a handful of shopkeepers from Hailesbank and the young reporter who’d written the piece on Pavel for the newspaper. There was a large group she found hard to place, but decided they must be dealers from the antiques trade. But most surprisingly of all, there was a sizable group of teenagers. Lexie was puzzled, then realised they must be new fans, kids who’d only discovered Pavel in the last couple of months. They’d made a connection with Pavel, they’d warmed to him, and wanted to pay a tribute.
The knot in her throat started to swell uncomfortably. How was she going to get through this?
From the back of the crowd in the waiting room, Patrick watched Lexie, scowling. She was with that rugger-bugger type again. He couldn’t be right for her. He was an oaf. He had no manners. He couldn’t understand Lexie, surely? He couldn’t be equipped to appreciate the subtleties of thought that directed her hand and eye, nor the skills she possessed.
The man – Cameron? – laid his arm across Alexa’s shoulders. She turned her face up towards him and Patrick could see the anguish painted there. Driven by some deep protective instinct, he started to move towards her, but a crowd of kids dived towards each other to huddle over someone’s phone, blocking his path. When he looked up again, Lexie and Cameron had been swamped by the throng.
He felt a touch on his arm. ‘Is everything ready?’
It was Pavel’s sister, Hanke. She was about as unlike Pavel as might be imagined – completely round, with curranty eyes, her hair scraped back from her face and pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She was wearing a black dress that hung like a tent from her shoulders and fell over heavy breasts and even wider hips – hips that wobbled as she walked and settled a moment after she stopped, like a jelly carried from the kitchen and thumped down onto the dining table. She was also, as Patrick had already discovered, as oblivious to beauty and elegance as her brother had been sensitive to such qualities. It seemed that Pavel’s instructions for his funeral had been well laid out, and that they involved some organising because Hanke, following the notes, had called Patrick.
‘Do we have to do this? It seems so tasteless,’ she’d asked, explaining his wishes.
Patrick had struggled not to laugh at the directions.
‘We must,’ he manag
ed to say solemnly. ‘It’s almost legally binding.’
And good on you, Pavel, old darling, he’d thought, amused. Trust you to have the last laugh.
Now he simply said equably, ‘Yes. All set up.’
‘We’d better go in then. Get this over with.’
He followed the jelly body and her jelly children into the chapel and thought that it was no wonder that Pavel and his sister had not got on.
Lexie cried all the way through the short service. She cried for Pavel and for Jamie, she wept for her own mistakes and for all the wrongs of the world. Beside her, Cameron sat stolidly, sang lustily, and offered her a grubby hankie when her own tissues were completely sodden. As they got up to leave, a guitar riff rang through the chapel. It was almost deafeningly loud. The crowds, already shuffling along the pews and filing down the aisles, stopped moving. There was another riff. It was unmistakeable. Some people were starting to smile. Then the voice of the young Paul Scotland rang out, high-pitched but true.
‘Baby boy, naughty boy, give it to me straight. Baby boy, naughty boy, I love your blooming cheek.’
Cameron started to laugh. Lexie, disbelieving at first, giggled. Everyone was laughing. Some of the youngsters had switched on their phones and were filming. Soon clips would be on You Tube and tweeted round the world, and Pavel Skonieczna’s funeral would become legendary.
Pavel, Lexie thought, thank you. Thank you for this. But I’m going to miss you so much.
The wake was a sorry affair, with tea and sparsely filled sandwiches that curled at the edges. Lexie didn’t feel Pavel here, he had been obliterated by his thin-lipped, doughy-faced blob of a sister. She tried to talk to her. She was desperate to know what was going to happen with Cobbles, and particularly with the room that was being prepared for her exhibition, but when she raised the subject, tentatively, Hanke shrugged her bulky shoulders and said something about lawyers and wills. It was impossible to push it. She had to rely on her belief that Pavel would have taken care of everything.
