by Lesley Lokko
Tash’s heart was beating fast as she inched her way forward. It was the third night of the hottest show in town, the St Martin’s end-of-year student show. Cody Sabin’s eclectic, electric prints were the talk of the style crowd everywhere and she was one of the young designers showing that night. Tash had to talk to Cody face-to-face. Although they’d yet to turn a profit, the signs were encouraging. The website had grown from thirty pages to fifty, there was a monthly online magazine, an editor’s letter, editor’s picks, clips from the shows, three girl-about-town columns and a blog . . . it was all happening so fast. Every day there were at least a handful of sales that hadn’t come from friends and family: word-of-mouth, Edith’s connections, her own contacts, the wives and girlfriends of Julian’s clients . . . all of it had had a knock-on effect that was only just beginning to be seen and Tash was anxious to capitalise on it. She wasn’t big or important enough to warrant her own seat at any of the shows – that would come later, she kept telling herself – but one of the things she did do well was spot what might be coming long before it actually arrived. The fashion pack were already onto Cody, Tash had to strike a deal to make sure her clothes were available online before they were available anywhere else. Only the other day Julian had asked her what she thought they did better than anyone else. She didn’t even have to think. ‘We edit.’
‘What d’you mean?’ He looked at her curiously.
She shrugged. ‘Exactly that. We edit what’s out there so that our customers don’t have to. Look, you’ve said it yourself. There’s so much stuff out there nowadays, most women simply don’t have the time to wade through all the collections, walk endlessly up and down the high street, especially not the women who shop with us. They’re business-women, working women. They’re busy. Time is what they lack and that’s where we come in. We do the legwork for them and we present them with a vision of what they already want before they know it themselves.’
Julian smiled: that quiet, confident smile of his that she’d come to trust. ‘Ah, Tash. That’s what I like about you.’
‘What?’
‘You cut to the quick. You get to the point. No bullshit and you’ve always got your eye on the ball.’
She flashed her invite at the bouncer and was grudgingly let through. Inside, it was pandemonium. Models, dressed in knickers and precious little else, rushed around endlessly, followed by harried-looking stylists and hairdressers, brandishing their tools. The music was deafening. Through the double doors that led to the main hall Tash could see the front-row A-listers sitting waiting impatiently for another show to begin, one skinny leg crossed over the other.
‘Ms Bryce-Brudenell?’ Someone interrupted her. She whirled round. It was Cody Sabin.
‘Cody! Hi . . . hello,’ Tash stammered, momentarily caught unawares. She hadn’t expected to see her backstage. She hurriedly stuck out a hand. ‘Call me Tash, please. Look, is there somewhere we could talk for a few minutes?’
‘Sure,’ Cody said, jerking her head over her shoulder. ‘There’s an office back there. Used to be the vestry, or so someone said.’ She smiled at Tash. She was American, from one of those small towns in the Midwest that every so often produced a genuine genius oddball. ‘Mind your head,’ she yelled over the noise as they made their way through the crowds towards the rear of the church. ‘It’s kinda mad,’ she grinned, opening the door and standing back to let Tash pass through. ‘Insane, actually.’
‘You’ve taken London by storm,’ Tash said as the door shut behind them. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks . . . yeah, it’s been crazy. I never thought it would happen . . . and so fast.’
‘That’s the best way,’ Tash said, smiling at her. ‘Unexpected.’
‘Yeah,’ Cody nodded. ‘So, what did you want to see me about? I got your messages.’
‘It’s pretty simple, really,’ Tash said, opening her bag. She pulled out her laptop. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of us, [email protected]. We’re a new internet-based shopping experience.’
‘[email protected]? Yeah, a couple of the make-up artists were talking about you backstage,’ Cody interrupted, peering at the screen. ‘They seem to think you’re pretty cool.’
‘Thanks. We like to think so too. Look, here’s what we do.’ She pushed the laptop over to Cody. ‘We’re a cross between a magazine and an online store. We provide fashion content, all the latest brands, the latest looks, accessories, shoes, bags, you name it. We’ve been up and running for almost a year now, and we’ve got an amazing customer database. Look, I won’t beat about the bush. I want to sign you to a [email protected] exclusive. I want to offer your collection to our clients before it hits the stores. I want to give them not just a sneak preview, but also the opportunity to place orders before anyone else. I want our clients to be wearing one of your dresses before the average shopper sees it on the high street.’
Cody nodded, still peering at the screen. ‘You want to be ahead of the pack, huh?’
‘Exactly. It’s all about timing. Timing and exclusivity.’
‘Who else have you signed?’ Cody was quicker off the mark than Tash had anticipated.
‘Jessica Harding,’ Tash said quickly, scrolling down the screen. ‘She was the first to sign up and we’re in the process of building pages for Gudrun, and for Hermann and Hesse. That’s the whole point of this section. Hot new designers before anyone else has had a chance to snap them up. There’s no point in offering Michael Kors or Ralph Lauren – everyone stocks them anyway. But someone like you . . . this is about building your profile too, and boosting sales. Like I said, we’ve got an excellent customer database. We ship to nearly five thousand women across the UK already and we’re looking to go global. The US, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand . . . wherever there’s an internet connection and an airstrip. That’s the beauty of the internet. So long as FedEx can deliver, they’ll buy. One click, that’s it.’
Cody nodded again. She quickly scrolled down the pages. ‘How long?’
‘A month. You give us access to your stocks for thirty days before anyone else; we make sure your clothes are featured on the home page. There’ll be an editorial section on you to start with, then hopefully we’ll get some cool shots of women actually wearing your clothes in the streets, at a restaurant, a gallery . . . whatever. We aim to build a ‘look’ around a celebrity or a model and then we invite customers to buy into it. It’s simple. And it’s effective.’
‘Cool. I like it. Thirty days, eh?’
‘Thirty days.’ Tash’s palms were sweating. Cody Sabin didn’t know it, nor did she need to, but this was the first time they’d ever tried anything like it. The pages she’d shown her weren’t actually live – she had James to thank for that – and she’d yet to have the same conversation with Jessica Harding, Gudrun or Hermann and Hesse. She held her breath. Cody nodded slowly.
‘Okay, I like it. Let’s do it.’
Tash let out her breath. She smiled widely. She’d won her round. One down, four to go . . . look, it was a start.
68
ANNICK
Paris
The English newspaper was lying face down on the counter when she arrived that morning at work. She recognised the typeface immediately. It was the Guardian. She hadn’t seen a copy in months. She picked it up, wondering who’d left it there, turning the pages over almost reverentially. Few guests at the Hôtel du Jardin read a newspaper, much less the Guardian. It was the Saturday edition, too, nice and thick. She gathered the loose pages together, smiling to herself, putting it back into some sort of order. She would read it slowly over the course of the morning. The weekend supplement fell out and she stooped to pick it up. It took her a few moments to realise who the person on the cover was. She stared at it. One Click Wonder – The Rise and Rise of [email protected]. Her mouth fell open. Tash?
‘Mademoiselle?’ A voice interrupted her. She put up a hand dismissively. There was a client waiting to check out. He could wait. Her eyes flew across the page.
&nbs
p; A few years ago, women only bought clothes they had seen, touched or tried on. Now, a new business venture seems set to change all that. [email protected]. is the brainchild of young entrepreneur Tash Bryce-Brudenell. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian’s fashion editor, Eve Kindall, Ms Bryce-Brudenell reveals where the idea came from, and what she’s done to make online shopping a destination not just for bargain-hunters, but for women looking for luxury fashion.
‘Mademoiselle?’ The man, sounding more impatient now, rapped on the counter with his pen. She put down the paper, stunned. She sorted out his bill automatically, her mind racing. The client, still harrumphing, walked out, leaving Annick alone with the newspaper clutched to her chest.
Tash? A successful entrepreneur? The longing to hear her voice again washed over her, leaving her weak. She stared at the cover again. Tash, just as she remembered her. The stylist had obviously gone to some trouble to make her look as attractive and stylish as possible – her hair was carefully pulled back off her face and she wore more make-up than Annick ever remembered – but there was no mistaking the stern, rather haughty stare, the way she looked out at the camera with her arms folded defiantly across her chest.
She sat down and devoured the article hungrily. If the journalist was to be believed, Tash was on her way to making her first million. She read it through a second and third time, looking for the tiny details that would give her a few more clues into Tash’s life but there were few. A guarded reference to an absent father, the fact that she’d been brought up by her Russian single mother, schooled at St Benedict’s and the LSE. Finally, after reading it a fourth time, she folded the paper carefully and laid it on the desk, next to the phone. She glanced at it. One call – that was all it would take. But what would she say? It had been more than five years since she’d seen or heard from either of them. Her hand hovered over the phone. So much had happened. Her fingers itched. She could almost hear their voices – Tash’s, full of surprise. ‘Annick? Is that you?’ And Rebecca, calm and measured, as always. ‘Annick? Where the hell have you been?’
The phone rang suddenly, jerking her out of her reverie. She stared at it for a couple of seconds then picked it up cautiously, half-expecting to hear Tash or Rebecca on the other end. It was neither. Just someone enquiring about rates. She gave out the information mechanically, her mind elsewhere. One call. That was all. Just one call.
‘So why don’t you ring them?’ Yves was frowning as he listened to her. ‘What’s the problem?’
Annick shrugged. She pushed her food around on her plate. It had been a mistake to broach the subject. It was one thing to tell him the reasons why their friendship had fallen apart but that would only mean telling him why she’d left London so abruptly, and then that would mean telling him who she was. She bit her lip. There was so much they still didn’t know about one another. Yves rarely spoke about his own background. He’d told her he was a student and she knew he looked after the politician whose name she’d didn’t even know, but apart from that, she knew nothing. He’d told her he was adopted and that he’d grown up somewhere south of Paris but he said very little about his family and she, sensitive in a way he couldn’t have guessed at, didn’t pry. He was a curious combination of openness and secrecy, much like her, so they each trod carefully in the present, an unspoken, mutual agreement that suited them both. But tonight she’d crossed a line. She’d opened a door to her own past that would require more information than she was prepared to give.
She hurriedly swallowed a mouthful. ‘I . . . it’s been ages,’ she said lamely.
‘All the more reason to phone.’
‘I don’t know what I’d say . . . after all this time,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I mean, I haven’t spoken to either of them since I left England.’
‘Like I said, all the more reason to call. What did you say she’d done again?’
‘She started this online fashion business. It’s doing pretty well, I hear.’
‘How do you know her?’
Annick hesitated. ‘We . . . we were at school together. When we were younger.’ She looked down at her hands.
‘That’s what that is, isn’t it?’ He followed her glance. ‘The tattoo. I often wondered.’
‘Oh, that,’ she said, colouring. ‘Yeah. We did it together. Silly, really.’
‘Well, if you were such close friends then, you can be friends now, no matter what’s happened. Phone them.’
Annick was silent, fingering her tattoo. It wasn’t just that she had no idea what to say, she was also embarrassed. The roles had been neatly reversed. There was Tash, with all the disadvantages she’d had to endure – no father, no money, an overbearing semi-alcoholic mother who relied on her for practically everything, and despite it all, she’d not only managed to keep up, she’d surpassed them all. She had no idea what Rebecca was up to but whatever it was, it certainly wouldn’t be working as a receptionist in a seedy Parisian hotel. Aunt Libertine was wrong. The past was the past. It wouldn’t do to go digging around in it, not now. ‘Maybe,’ she said finally. ‘Maybe I will.’
‘Here . . . try some of this.’ Yves changed the subject. He held out a forkful of food. ‘Go on, it’s delicious.’
She blushed and opened her mouth. She chewed the piece of chicken he’d given her slowly, wondering how on earth to bring the subject up and, if she did, how to close it again without giving away too much.
69
YVES
Annick was no fool. He’d known that about her from the moment he first set eyes on her, even though she’d been unaware of his gaze. In fact, that was one of the first things he’d noticed about her. She didn’t have the same self-conscious awareness that most girls did, especially when looked at by a man. She read, her arms folded about her chest or stomach as though she were holding something in as well as at bay. He must have been in three or four times before he spoke to her and she became aware of his presence. He was intrigued by her – so well spoken, such poise. The funny thing was, he didn’t recognise her, at least not at first. She’d put on some weight, he realised. It suited her, though, he thought to himself when he realised who she was. Annick. Of course. Annick Betancourt. He was shocked to see her in that grubby little hotel, of all places, and even more surprised to see that she actually worked there. And then of course, Guido saw her. He recognised her straight off. ‘You know who that is? That’s Betancourt’s daughter! It’s her! I swear to God! Fuck, just wait ’til Big Jacques hears this!’ And that was when it all began to get complicated.
He looked at her now, her pretty face lit up by candlelight and the flush that wine always brought to her cheeks and was again overcome by a wave of emotion – not just pity, but something deeper. He was fond of her. He felt again the sharp, almost painful tug of divided loyalties that had characterised almost every encounter with her. The instructions from Big Jacques had been very clear. Get to know her, get her to trust you, share stuff with you . . . and then get her to lead you to the money. He shook his head slowly. If he didn’t realise it then, he knew it now. There was no money. Whatever Sylvan Betancourt had stolen from the state, he certainly hadn’t passed it on to his daughter. Christ, just look at her! Working as a receptionist in the sort of hotel she probably hadn’t known existed before the coup d’état . . . no, Big Jacques and the others had it all wrong. If there had been money at some point, it was hidden away in one of those Swiss bank accounts whose numbers went to the grave with the holder. Or else some other family member had already got their hands on it. He doubted it. As far as he knew, there was only that aunt in the suburbs who didn’t appear to have a dime. There was no one on the mother’s side who’d have access to state funds, either. If there was any money, it was stored in a vault beneath the streets of Zurich. Before they’d started sleeping together, he’d asked Big Jacques what the point was. All he’d said in response was ‘Keep at her. We’ll let you know.’ That was a year and a half ago and in that time, he’d grown fonder of Annick than he cared to admi
t.
It nagged at him like a toothache. What now? The purpose – to find the millions that Betancourt had supposedly squirrelled away – that had dominated his life for the past five years was suddenly in doubt, and not just because he believed it to be a dead end. Something else had happened. A slow and growing awareness of his own inadequacy had crept up on him. Part of it had to do with Annick, of course, but part of it too was to do with his own intensifying sense of uselessness. If he were to fail in the one task that had defined him for so long, well . . . what then? What next? It wasn’t something he dared admit to anyone, least of all Big Jacques, Gladwell or Guido, or any of the others, but it was slowly beginning to dawn on him that his life lacked direction. He who had had such purpose and clarity for so long. It was enough to make anyone laugh.
‘What’s the matter?’ Annick’s gentle, enquiring voice brought him up against his own thoughts.
‘Nothing,’ he mumbled, spooning rice quickly into his mouth. He shook his head and smiled at her, trying to reassure her. She was uncertain, he saw. Some memory of what his father had been like – all mercurial, flickering moods – flitted across his memory. From the little he knew of her life with Betancourt, he imagined it was pretty much the same. That was another odd thing: for all their differences and the fact that they’d grown up on opposing sides of the political track, they were oddly alike. Both only children born to powerful, overbearing men and beautiful, flighty women who’d disappeared suddenly, leaving little but shadows that still haunted those left behind. It was another reminder of the unintended consequences of a shared time and place. ‘Nothing,’ he said more forcefully. ‘I just think you should phone them, that’s all. Doesn’t matter what happened or whose fault it was. They’re your friends, Annick. You tell me you don’t have a family. So your friends are all you’ve got.’
