Choral Society

by Prue Leith

  City go-getter or not, Joanna knew she had done a good job for the company in the past few weeks. She had been lucky: the warehouse and factory staff had known for months that the firm was struggling and were relieved to get their redundancy packages in full – they’d feared bankruptcy and no wages. The remaining staff – and she and Alasdair had tried to keep the best – had worked like slaves to get the new regime working.

  Joanna had had some doubts about giving Caroline’s cousin Alasdair the acting CEO job, but there was frankly no one else, and she knew he understood the business. But she thought he’d refuse because he’d been so disappointed when Caroline and her father had torn up the supermarket contracts that he had sweated blood to gain. She had thought he would walk – he was a clever chap and could get a job anywhere. But in the event he’d chewed the inside of his cheek, frowned down at the desk for a long minute then looked up, smiling.

  ‘Sure,’ he’d said, ‘I’d love to. I’ve been dying to get my hands on this company.’

  ‘But I thought you were wedded to growing it with the supermarket contracts? The current plan is still the Caroline “family business” one, which will never make the returns we both planned a year ago.’

  ‘I know, but things have changed. First, the market has moved. People want local stuff now, not just organic. And we are perfectly placed to do more of that. Caroline – I have to hand it to her – has always been ahead of the public. She has an instinct. And secondly’ – a boyish grin suddenly split his face —’you and my Uncle Stewart are not as greedy as Innovest, so’ – he’d tapped the papers before him – ‘the budgets are more achievable.’

  He’d looked directly at Joanna and she had waited, knowing there was more.

  ‘And I won’t have to work with my manic cousin. I may admire her, but she is pure hell as a boss.’

  They had smiled at each other, acknowledging what they could never say openly when Caroline was in charge.

  ‘And finally,’ he’d said, ‘who wouldn’t jump at the chance to run a company with potential? I’m only twenty-eight. I’m raring to go. Can’t wait.’ He’d looked confident and excited. ‘I am determined to surprise you. If I make a fist of it, will you change that acting CEO to plain CEO?’

  They had discussed this, and Joanna had agreed to give him two months. If he hadn’t made his mark by then, she would start head-hunting for a replacement.

  As he’d stood up he’d suddenly put out his hand to take hers. ‘Thank God for you, Joanna. Stewart would never have bitten the bullet without your bullying him.’

  When the door had closed Joanna put her hands briefly over her face. He was right of course. She had done the company a huge favour by getting rid of Caroline. But he was also right that she had bullied Stewart. What he did not know was just how much that had cost her.

  Now, six weeks later, she was about to confirm Alasdair in the job, and resign herself. Stewart was contractually bound to buy her out at a fair return. She could put the money into Pencarrick.

  Her job at Greenfarms was essentially done. Alasdair was turning out to be a really good boss: thoughtful, consultative and very clear about what he wanted – as unlike his cousin as one could imagine. He had motivated the staff, who were now working in a great atmosphere with a lot of laughter, he’d made all the savings they had planned for, and, to her surprise, had already landed two new contracts to deliver produce to schools. They were local authority catering contracts, and with any luck they would end up supplying most of the state schools in the county. Stewart, surely, had got to be pleased.

  She looked at her watch. It was the gold Patek Philippe Stewart had given her in their heady days. She loved it. It was a touch ostentatious, not because it was vulgar – it was anything but – but because it was so recognisable as a classic. She liked the soft sheen of the gold bracelet against her skin and she was proud of it. It felt like a trophy of love. Maybe she should have given it back? She told herself that one day she would do that. Maybe today.

  When Stewart walked into the boardroom, Joanna was already there with Alasdair and several executives. She stayed seated, but looked up, determined to be professional and friendly. Stewart came round the table and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Morning, Joanna,’ he said, then nodded to the others and said to Alasdair, ‘Well done, lad. Good set of figures.’

  The meeting went well and the decision to confirm Alasdair as CEO was unanimous.

  At the end, Stewart made a speech.

  ‘That completes the business of the day, but before we adjourn I want to say a few words if I may.’

  He looked across the table at Joanna and for the first time met her gaze directly. He smiled and she felt that familiar melting of the gut that only he could produce.

  ‘Joanna, you have done a wonderful job for Greenfarms, and on behalf of the board, I must thank you. You have had a hard row to hoe, and there must be few jobs in your distinguished career more difficult than sorting out this company.’

  Joanna smiled and shook her head, a lump forming in her throat. It was not that she would miss Greenfarms. She wouldn’t. But she was severing her only remaining connection to Stewart. What hope would she have of him ever coming back to her once she was right out of his life?

  Stewart was still making his speech.

  ‘To pull any company round is hard but having to sort out a family business, where business matters get muddled up with personal issues and professional relationships are clouded by family considerations, is doubly so.’

  Yes, thought Joanna, and ten times more so if you are in love with the chairman. She lifted her head and swallowed. She didn’t want anyone thinking she was going to blub at leaving a company board.

  Stewart continued. ‘Joanna, you have navigated your way through this company and this family skilfully, sensitively and rightly. All your advice has been good. All your decisions have been successful. Some of those decisions have been very tough, and I have not always supported you strongly enough, but you battled on and today we have a company with a real future, and we have a family that is united and happy.’

  Baloney, thought Joanna, Caroline cannot be happy. Stewart, detecting some unconscious sign of disbelief on her face nodded at her, smiling.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘and we have a surprise for you. He looked towards the door, and Alasdair got up to open it. Joanna thought, Oh Lord, they are going to give me a bunch of flowers or a Greenfarms hamper of organic veg which I will have to lug home on the train.

  It was a bunch of flowers, but the surprise was that it was carried in by Caroline.

  Joanna stood up, bemused. She looked from Caroline to Stewart and then to Alasdair, wondering what was going on. Were they going to reinstate Caroline five minutes after they’d accepted her, Joanna’s, resignation?

  Her smile felt glued to her face.

  ‘Joanna,’ Caroline began, ‘I owe you an apology, and I thought I should give it to you in person. You were dead right to get rid of me, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me.’

  Joanna looked at her, her eyes wide and mouth open. She was so used to Caroline’s face fired with fury, or closed in resentment, or wretched with misery as she’d been that day in hospital, that she could not take it in. She stuttered something unintelligible and Caroline cut in,

  ‘I’m really happy, Jo. I got a job almost as soon as I came home from Switzerland with Dad. It is with Sense and Sustainability, a company that helps growers and farmers go organic. I just love it. I don’t have to organise people, or worry about budgets, or satisfy greedy shareholders. And I’m doing what I really care about.’ She leaned over the flowers and kissed Joanna’s cheek. ‘So thank you!’

  Joanna smiled foolishly at her and was struck by how very different she looked. She was always good looking: even when angry she was striking, but now her tumbling hair framed a face more relaxed and open.

  Caroline handed her the bouquet – a glowing orange and red arran
gement of rowan berries, Michaelmas daisies, rugosa rose-hips and trendy grasses – all British autumn flora and innocent of air miles. Joanna dipped her head, pretending to smell the bunch – but really she was playing for time, determined not to cry. Then she looked up, and put her arm around Caroline.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said. She looked at the others. ‘Perhaps while we are making speeches I should say a few things too. This company, Greenfarms, and the family, are truly exceptional, and have taught me a lot about what fundamentally matters in business. So much so, in fact, that I am about to go in for a lifestyle business myself and run a small hotel in Cornwall with a friend. And with no other shareholders to worry about. The truth is, that having found myself talking Innovest out of two of their investments, I realise that I have changed – I’ve lost the appetite for venture capitalism. I no longer think that deals and coups are what make the world go round. I think good people do, like you lot. Thank you for that. I mean it.’

  Then they all had a glass of champagne before Joanna had to race for her train. She again had that brief fantasy – perhaps champagne induced – that Stewart, who had said goodbye in a friendly but formal manner, would repeat his earlier exploit and follow her on to the train. But no. The train pulled out with almost no one in the compartment. So Joanna extricated her blow-up neck cushion, which she would never, ever, use if she were in any danger of being seen by anyone she knew, and tucked down to sleep until they reached King’s Cross.

  *

  Joanna had agreed to have supper with Rebecca to talk about her designs for Pencarrick. Rebecca had been reinstated as chief interior stylist, but on a much tighter budget.

  But Joanna, in spite of some sleep on the train, was just too tired. She rang Rebecca to cancel, explaining about her exhausting day, resigning from Greenfarms, seeing Stewart again, his straight-bat professional act and Caroline’s conversion from enemy to friend.

  ‘It’s emotional overload,’ Rebecca said, ‘that’s what it is. What you need is a shoulder to cry on. I’m a great shoulder.’

  ‘You are. I know that. And I’m sure you’re right about the emotion, but there’s nothing that a good night’s sleep can’t cure, and I’m too tired to even talk about it. I think I’ll take a pill and hit the sack.’

  She did take a pill, or rather two. Not sleeping pills though – they made her wake up groggy. A couple of paracetamol washed down with a glass of whisky may not be recommended by the doc, but it worked wonders.

  She filled the bath with a mixture of magnolia bubbles and lavender oil, and put on Sir Ernest Hall playing Chopin Nocturnes. She sank down into the warm water, whisky in hand.

  It was unmistakably Stewart’s voice and he was saying what she wanted to hear more than anything else, so it must have been a dream. His voice was low and steady.

  ‘The truth is, I love you, Joanna.’

  Joanna opened her eyes, reluctant to leave the dream, and realised three things at once: she was in the bath, the water was cold, and someone was in the bathroom with her.

  She jerked up and looked round wildly.

  Stewart was sitting on the loo seat, to the right and slightly behind her head. She swung round, momentarily angry.

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Oh Joanna, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I only wanted—’

  ‘But … How did you get in?’

  ‘I’ve still got your house key,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to keep it, if I may.’

  She could not bear it. She looked dreadful. She had no make-up on, the bubbles had gone, leaving the water murky, her skin was goose-bumpy and she was wearing her ancient shower cap that made her look like a relic of the fifties.

  She shouted at him, ‘Stewart, how could you? How could you?’

  ‘What? How could I what?’ He sounded genuinely confused.

  She struggled up, flinging off the shower cap and reaching for the bath towel. To her distress Stewart tried to help wrap it round her. She pushed him away.

  ‘OK, OK. I’m sorry. But Joanna, ssshh-ssshh. Just listen to me.’

  ‘Don’t ssshh me! How could you come in unannounced when I’m feeling old and ugly? How could you be so formal and cold with me all day? How could you just walk in here as if you own the place when you buggered off for six weeks without a single word that wasn’t strictly business?’

  As she spoke her anger rose. She blundered past him and out of the bathroom. He followed her into the bedroom.

  ‘Darling Joanna. Please, will you listen! Didn’t you hear me? I love you. Will you marry me?’

  This was ridiculous. He did not want to marry her. He just liked drama and excitement and having her on a string.

  ‘Yes I heard you,’ she shouted. ‘But I am not stupid and you don’t want to marry me.’

  He came up close and took her by the shoulders. She held the towel tight round her body and tried to back away. But he would not let her go. And then what he said sunk into her.

  Marry him! He just said he loved me.

  ‘Did you say, I love you?’

  ‘I did. Darling Joanna. I do. I love you. It has taken six weeks away from you to work that simple thing out.’

  Joanna was still struggling with disbelief. She shook her head.

  But the anger had somehow blown away. She stood still, looking into his face. His eyes earnest and unblinking were locked on hers.

  Before she gave in completely, she told herself, she had to understand. ‘But you just abandoned me. No explanation. No apology. Nothing.’

  ‘Darling, darling, I know. I know. I behaved like a perfect bastard. But I just could not bear Caroline’s distress … her constant accusations, voiced and unvoiced, of abandonment, betrayal … I told myself I could learn to bear life without you, but I could not live with Caroline on the point of suicide. I knew she was unreasonable, wrong … but …’

  Stewart’s words I love you, will you marry me? were drumming in her head and were demanding attention. She could not speak beyond a few unintelligible buts and whys.

  ‘What has changed?’ she managed to say.

  ‘Mainly, I realised that I had to be with you. And so I told Caroline and instead of shrieking and crying, she said good for you, Dad. And that she would get used to it. She’s been in therapy you see, and I think it’s helping. Anyway, she accepts that I love you and that I won’t abandon you again.’ He held her tighter. ‘I won’t, darling. I’ll never, ever, leave you again.’

  She became aware that her face was one elated smile, while tears of relief were somehow running down it.

  They stood there, holding on, and Joanna wanted the moment to last for ever. Then he asked again,

  ‘Do you love me, Joanna?’

  She nodded and buried her face in his chest. He held her tightly, kissing the top of her head, and when she lifted her face, he kissed her brow and cheeks, her mouth.

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To love and to marriage?’

  She pushed him away a little, just enough to smile at him, more confident now. ‘To love, absolutely,’ she said.

  His face registered surprise, and offence.

  ‘But not to marriage? Why would you not want to marry someone you love?’ He was still holding her, still speaking softly.

  She shook her head. She did not want to think of marriage now. It was enough that he loved her.

  ‘I don’t know. I might,’ she replied.

  Stewart’s puzzlement deepened into a frown. He was not used to contradiction or opposition. She tried to explain.

  ‘I’m scared of marriage. My parents have been married for over sixty years and it’s been a life sentence for them both. Marriage might spoil it all.’

  ‘But ours will be wonderful!’

  She looked up at him, and she could feel her lip trembling.

  ‘Yes, it might be.’

  ‘It will be.’

  She pulled away a bit.

  ‘Oh Stewart, first things fir
st,’ she said. ‘Let’s settle for love – I do really really love you.’

  He kissed her then. ‘You know, you looked wonderful in that bath.’

  Joanna started to protest but he rode over her.

  ‘No really. You looked so relaxed and beautiful, like a mermaid. You should not have been so cross.’

  ‘I was beyond cross. Furious more like it. First I got a fright, and you can’t just come in unannounced, it’s such an invasion—’

  ‘Whoa, whoa! Let’s not go there again. Darling, I’m very, very sorry.’ He kissed her shoulder and said, ‘But I have seen you naked before, you know …’

  ‘Not without my consent! Or without my knowing you were looking at me!’

  ‘Agreed. And next time I’ll warn you. And knock. And ask permission! I promise.’

  He was teasing her but she didn’t mind. She leant her head against her chest and he said, ‘Like now. Can we take the towel off do you think?’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was a month since Rebecca had been reinstated as Pencarrick’s interior designer, and she had worked fast. The work was to be done over the winter when the hotel was closed, and it was already October. She was on edge, partly because Bill and Angelica were coming to Pencarrick. She wanted both of them to see the place, and she needed to show Bill her refurbishment plans and her progress so far. She hoped to persuade him to recommend her to any clients that he was too busy to take on himself. But that was not the only reason: she wanted to prove to him that she could be a hot-shot decorator, not just a part-time shop assistant.

  Angelica would stay the weekend, though Bill had refused. Of course he had to get back to the faultless Jane and their darling sons. Mad to do Cornwall in a day, but still, at least he was coming, so she’d be grateful.

  Rebecca dressed carefully in a black T-shirt with long sleeves against the October chill, and a low round neck that showed off her tan (assiduously kept up in the tanning shop), cream linen trousers and brown loafers. She added a heavy wooden necklace of brown, cream and white beads and saluted her reflection with a nod of approval. Botox had done wonders for her face and her hair, shiny clean, was fashionably untidy.