Playing by the Rules

by Rosa Temple

  ‘I’ll tell Anthony you’re here,’ I said. ‘Please just take a seat in my office.’ On the landing I gestured to my open door. Once Niles was inside I jumped as if I’d just got an electric shock and ran to Anthony’s office. I burst in and found Anthony, jacket off, feet on the windowsill behind his desk and sketching the view from his window.

  ‘Cool,’ I said looking over his shoulder at the pencilled replica of the hotel and sky outside. ‘You’re really talented at this.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said with pink cheeks, spinning back round to face me. ‘It relaxes me. I thought it would help me prepare for the meeting I know nothing about with a man I’ve never heard of.’

  ‘Well I hope it’s worked, because he’s here. In my office. If you’re ready I’ll send him in.’

  ‘He’s early,’ said Anthony, putting his jacket back on. I rushed over and helped fix his tie. He sighed and I felt a lovely wave of coffee breath float by me.

  ‘Don’t worry, Anthony. You’ve got this. Would you like me to sit in?’ Not that I’d know what to say.

  ‘Er, perhaps I should learn how to handle a meeting on my own. I’m sure that’s what my dad would do.’ Anthony looked at me questioningly and I was sure that if I’d told him not to worry, carry on sketching, I’ll take the meeting, he would have let me deal with Niles.

  ‘I’ll show him in,’ I said.

  When Niles entered Anthony’s office and they shook hands, I saw the ten-year-old Anthony again. His jacket sleeves were so long he had to roll them up to shake hands and he tripped on the extra long trousers of his suit as he tried to climb back into his high leather chair. I offered Niles a coffee, which he declined. Closing the door behind me I shook my head, knowing that Anthony was probably about to make a complete idiot of himself.

  I had my office door open and heard Niles about to leave half an hour after he’d arrived. I popped out into the hallway to offer to see Niles to the door and saw that the colour had drained out of Anthony’s face while Niles was strutting like a peacock. Niles almost bowed to me as he left the building and gave me a look I couldn’t fathom – a certain smugness wrapped in fake charm, perhaps. I legged it back upstairs to find out what he’d come for and ignored Cassandra calling after me.

  Anthony was at the window when I arrived, opening it wide and loosening his tie.

  ‘Everything all right, Anthony?’ I asked.

  He turned slowly to me, still looking pale.

  ‘Magenta, I need you to arrange a meeting with the finance department with me for tomorrow morning. I need to look at our sales figures and … well I need to know what’s going on with this company.’ He crashed down onto his chair.

  ‘Is … is something wrong?’ I said, walking up to his desk.

  ‘Well if what Benson has just told me is true, this company is on the verge of going bankrupt and he’s just offered to buy us out.’

  I leaned my knuckles onto the desk and mouthed: Oh my God! in slow motion.

  ‘I know,’ said Anthony. ‘Dad said we had hit a bump but he never told me it was an iceberg and that we were sinking.’

  ‘It can’t be true. I spoke to your dad for ages, yesterday. He didn’t say a word.’

  ‘You did? Did he call to check up on me?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I just needed to fill some time so I thought I’d pick his brain a bit.’

  Anthony pursed his lips and then exhaled with a sigh. ‘I think he’s testing me, Magenta. He wants to see if I can get us back in shape. That man has spent his life trying to make me as business-minded as he was and his father before him, especially since my older brother, Michael, went into medicine. He should have taken over the company but he was adamant he didn’t want to follow in Dad’s footsteps. So that just left me – the pushover. Dad knows I won’t want to let the family business down and now he’s landed me right in it.’

  ‘Perhaps this Benson guy is bluffing,’ I reasoned with him. ‘Maybe he sees you’re new at this and he’s chancing his luck.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. Look, Magenta, organise that meeting for nine tomorrow morning. I need to get my father on the phone.’

  I backed out of the room slowly, taking in Anthony’s drooping shoulders and the solemn way he tapped in his father’s number on his mobile phone.

  I closed the door behind me and went about organising the meeting. When I spoke to the finance section they sounded rather as if they were expecting this day to come. It wasn’t looking good for the company and it wasn’t looking good for me. I’d managed two days. Two. And already it looked as if I’d be out of another job before a month was up. But I refused to let my ideal job be taken away from me. I wasn’t sure what I would do to avoid the inevitable but I would try. In many ways, it wasn’t just about me. Anthony also had something to prove and I wanted to be the one to help him prove it.

  Chapter 7

  That same evening I was expected to attend a family dinner. Mother, in her wisdom, had decided to throw the dinner in honour of me finding a job so quickly. She’d called that morning when I had just jumped out of the shower, slippery wet with water and Nivea Body Oil, and running a few minutes later than I wanted to be for work. With the timing of a super sleuth, Mother knew just when to catch me on the hop and to surprise me with arrangements I wasn’t quick enough to wriggle out of.

  ‘The whole family?’ I’d said pulling up a thong that got held up around my thighs because I wasn’t quite dry yet.

  ‘Yes, the whole family. It’s the only day everyone could make it,’ she said.

  ‘But if the dinner is in my honour don’t you think you should have checked with me first?’

  ‘Don’t be difficult, Magenta; I’m trying to be nice.’

  ‘So is Father coming?’

  There was a deafening silence on the other end of the line. Mother had several types of silence ranging from the: I’m not happy with this conversation so I need a way to end it silence, to the: Are you too stupid to work that one out for yourself? silence. This silence said: I told you before, Magenta, I don’t want to talk about your father.

  ‘If it’s for the whole family then Father should be there too,’ I persisted.

  ‘Well of course he’s invited.’ Meaning: your father’s number was deleted from my address book years ago; I got one of your sisters to call him. ‘I’m not sure if he’ll show up. You know what he’s like.’ Meaning, this divorce was all his fault and I don’t see why I should have him in my house.

  My parents had argued bitterly for years before they finally divorced. After the divorce my mother went on to become a vegan who did yoga three times a day and my father gained a stone and took up with an African woman twenty years his junior and who claimed to be a princess in her country. Whenever I saw either of my parents on their own I could tell, quite easily, that they were both miserable and missed each other terribly.

  Their competitive natures meant they could never agree on anything. My father worked hard on his property management and hotel business and my mother threw herself into the lingerie company. She resented any advice from Father about her work and vice versa. But my secret wish was that they could just get over themselves, admit they were still in love and live happily ever after.

  Dinner with both of them at the same table was going to be interesting to say the least and dinner with the whole family would be yet another opportunity for them to tell me what a mess my life was. At least I had a job and I could be spared the constant questions about when I was going to find one. But there was every chance they’d gang up on me about other issues in my life they couldn’t get their heads around, like the amount I spent on clothes and shoes and the number of parties I went to in the space of a week. For that reason I needed to bring backup to defuse and deflect their accusations about my lifestyle choices.

  ‘Fine, Mother. I’ll see you at seven,’ I said. ‘Oh, and Anya is back so I’ll bring her.’ She was the best backup I had.

  L
uckily Anya was free that evening. I refused to enter the house until Anya’s taxi arrived and she met me at the top of the road so we could walk in together. Mother still lived in the family home, a massive house in the suburbs of St John’s Wood with eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and grounds all around. Visiting Mother was like escaping to the country while still being in London – but without the sheep.

  I’d always loved our house. It was where I’d grown up and I was glad Mother stayed when Father left. Our house was the heart of everything I’d known and everything I did as a young girl. Nana Clementine had her own extension and that was where I’d spent a lot of my adolescent years, sitting in Nana Clementine’s sitting room and listening to her stories of when she was a young girl. Nana was the person I told all my problems to back then and she was the one with all the answers.

  ‘You look different,’ Anya said to me as we entered the gates to the driveway of the house.

  ‘I’m a working girl now; of course I’m different. I’m mature and I pay taxes. Well I will if I last long enough to get a wage slip.’ I laughed but the truth of that statement was too close for comfort.

  ‘It isn’t that.’ Anya eyed me suspiciously as we made our way to the door. I searched my bag for the key with Anya’s eyes penetrating me and was relieved when Mother flung open the front door.

  ‘Anya!’ Mother cried and threw her arms around my best friend. Anya patted my mother’s back and pulled a face at me. Mother always acted as though Anya had just learned the news that her parents had both died in a car crash even though they both lived quite happily in Surrey with a Shiatsu and a cat. Because Anya and her parents were estranged, Mother always felt the need to compensate for this loss in Anya’s life, while Anya seemed to be coping with it fine from what I could see.

  Anya shoved the enormous bouquet she’d brought for Mother up in between them to force Mother off her and to back up a bit.

  ‘These are just beautiful,’ said Mother. ‘Come in, come in. Tell me all about your latest shoot. I bet it was exciting. One day you must be the pin-up for one of our new lines.’ Mother said this to Anya every time she saw her. True, Mother could afford Anya’s rates but the fact was that Anya was more than a little flat-chested. It would have been awkward for her to model anything from a lingerie company without needing some stuffing of the bra area.

  Anya and I grinned at each other as Mother led us to the sitting room. My two elder sisters had arrived, without their husbands in tow. Amber’s two children spent their day with the au pair and Indigo refused to have children. A choice she’d made when I turned two and, from what she saw of me, decided that children were not for her. I still didn’t get what she meant. I’d seen pictures of me at age two and I was adorable.

  I decided to make cocktails for everyone while Mother fussed over Anya. My sisters both talked business. Ebony arrived shortly afterwards and started downing the long cocktail I handed her like it was the last glass of water in the desert.

  ‘Tough day?’ I asked her. She held out a finger and didn’t answer until the last drop.

  ‘Something like that,’ she replied and gestured for me to make a refill.

  ‘Ebony, you work too hard,’ Mother said with concern in her voice. ‘You’ll make yourself ill.’

  ‘Only following in your footsteps and you did just fine,’ Ebony said and slumped onto a sofa.

  ‘Let’s go through.’ Mother headed for the dining room.

  ‘But Father isn’t –’ I began.

  ‘He’s late,’ Mother snapped and we all trailed after her in silence. My sisters rarely spoke about one parent in front of the other; it was usually a recipe for disaster. I, on the other hand, did the exact opposite, telling Father what Mother might be up to and vice versa in the hope they would start having regrets about being apart.

  Just as we all sat at the dining table and just as the caterers began to serve starters, the doorbell sounded. I noticed Mother’s shoulders rise with tension in her white, silk top. We all looked at each other. It was always hard to gauge what might happen when Mother and Father were under the same roof, but the fact that he’d bothered to show up was a good thing in my opinion.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ I said in a happy voice. Secretly I was hoping that a happy occasion, such as me getting a job, might instigate the start of the reunion between them I’d been longing for.

  At the front door I had to do a double take. Father hadn’t come on his own. He was with her. Suma, the African princess. What the f –. But I couldn’t finish the thought because Suma hugged me in a tight embrace so that her face was plastered against my chest and her African headdress was thrust up my nose.

  ‘Congratulations on your new job, Magenta,’ Father said and pulled the clamp-like Suma away from me. He handed me a present.

  ‘Oh, you didn’t have to do this.’ I reached up to kiss him and looked down at the neat packaging.

  ‘It’s a necklace!’ Suma exclaimed clapping her hands together. ‘Carl and I chose it together. Where is everyone?’ She had already started walking along the hallway, peering around doors, and when she heard the chatter coming from the dining room she marched her way through. I looked at Father. He shook his head.

  ‘I tried to put her off,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘You brought her here?’ My eyes bulged.

  ‘She insisted. She’s only ever met you all briefly and she loves you girls and wanted to get to know you better.’

  ‘But here?’ I said in a loud whisper, grabbing his hand and heading for the dining room before Suma could attack anyone else with her headgear.

  Suma was pinching Ebony’s cheek when we got to the dining room. Ebony’s cheek was pink and Mother’s face and neck were like her name – scarlet red.

  ‘This was supposed to be family only,’ Mother said looking daggers at Father. ‘Not you, Anya dear.’ She reached to pat Anya’s hand. ‘But you know what I mean, Carl.’

  ‘Scarlett, don’t make this any more awkward than it needs to be,’ Father said as he sat down and pulled Suma’s hand away to stop her from stroking Ebony’s hair.

  ‘You girls are all so beautiful,’ Suma gushed. ‘I wonder what our children will look like, Carl.’ Suma picked up a water glass and started to drink, not noticing the deathly silence that had hit the room. At age forty-two, Suma was childless and obviously had plans to rectify the situation but I was quite certain that at sixty-two, there was no way Father wanted to travel that road again. One look at him confirmed that. Beads of sweat sprung to his brow and he hastily got the caterers to serve him and Suma up a starter each. I didn’t dare look at Mother but I did cast an eye at all my sisters after Suma dropped the ‘children’ bomb.

  Amber had just put food into her mouth, which promptly fell out because she forgot to close it. Indigo had leaned her chin on her hand, elbow on the table and gawped at Father. Ebony was trying not to either laugh or cry – I couldn’t tell which – and Anya was taking some of her starter off her plate and putting it onto her bread dish.

  I lifted my wine glass.

  ‘To me,’ I said loudly. ‘To my new job. To my wonderful little sister for sorting out the job for me and to Anya for shipping me over a Ferrari.’

  They all raised their glasses and the clink of crystal never sounded more like tumbleweed rolling down a deserted street. I drank the whole glass in one hit. Mother just stared into hers.

  ‘You are very lucky, Magenta,’ said Suma. ‘To have a little sister who is doing so much better than you and can help you out in such a situation. I mean, a quarter of a million pounds is a lot of money.’

  ‘Yes, I realise that,’ I said, looking at Father.

  ‘Magenta is a talented artist you know?’ he said turning to Suma. ‘If she wanted to she could go far with her art.’ We all knew that was bullshit but I was thankful to Father for trying to make me appear less of a hopeless case in Suma’s eyes.

  ‘But you don’t want your younger sister t
o surpass you,’ Suma continued, tucking into the starter and not pausing to finish her mouthful before blundering on. ‘You know, both your older sisters are married and you should be next but at this rate your little sister will beat you to it.’

  ‘I have no intention of getting married,’ Ebony piped up.

  ‘But do you have a boyfriend, Magenta?’ Suma persisted. ‘Ever been in love?’

  How could I answer that at this strained dinner table? I’d need a week to tell Suma the story. I simply smiled, shrugged my shoulders and stabbed at a prawn. My mind went back to the night I met Hugo. That first long walk with him was a revelation. At eighteen, I didn’t know what a soulmate was but I knew Hugo was mine. I discovered he was a musician. He played the drums. His band was doing fairly well on the indie circuit.

  I had always had a weakness for men in bands but that wasn’t the reason I went back to his place and made love to him that very night. No, there was something else, something more, and I thought I would find it in the unmade bed in his warm bedroom, the sheets falling onto the floor, my arms and legs wrapped around Hugo’s body.

  We slept with our bodies in a neat knot all night and in the morning I discovered a million and one missed calls and texts from the friends I’d been out with the night before. They wanted to know if I was still alive, kidnapped, savaged by wolves or abducted by aliens. Either way, could I fucking well call or text back. I couldn’t wait to tell them I had been entranced by a tall stranger with broad shoulders, a slim face, a scraggy goatee and spiky hair. After a morning of hungry sex I texted them furiously from his bathroom and told them all I was in love. I didn’t leave Hugo’s flat for three days.