by Lesley Lokko
‘Try.’
He was quiet for a moment. ‘D’you remember your mother spraying perfume in the air then walking through it?’
Martin looked puzzled. ‘I . . . I guess so. Yes, yes, she did.’
‘Well, she’s like that.’
‘Like perfume?’ Martin looked even more puzzled.
Yves nodded. ‘Yeah. Just like perfume. She’s still on your skin even when she’s gone. That’s what she’s like.’
Martin took another gulp of beer. ‘Better go after her then.’
So he did. And now here he was. He’d been honest with Martin and dishonest with Annick and halfway honest with himself. He no longer knew which was which. A mess. It was all one big, complicated mess.
ANNICK
It took eleven minutes to get from Marylebone High Street to Holborn. She galloped into the building, still tying up her hair as she went. She flashed her card at the security guard, who barely blinked. He was clearly quite used to the late-night comings and goings of Clinton Crabbe staff.
She punched the lift button impatiently, smoothed back the last few strands of her hair and tried to steady her breathing. All the lights were on; the building looked curiously the same as it did in daylight working hours. At the far end of the corridor, she could see the cleaners through the smoked glass, methodically lifting waste paper baskets, and the sound of the industrial hoovers echoing eerily down the hall.
She hurried down the corridor to her office and pushed open the door. Frances was sitting at her desk in pretty much the same position she’d been when Annick left. She looked up as Annick walked in. It was quarter to midnight. For a second the two women looked at each other without saying anything. Annick’s heart was in her mouth.
‘Good evening, I take it?’ Frances said quietly, her eyes returning to her computer screen.
Annick’s face was on fire as she slipped into her own chair. ‘Um, yes, thanks,’ she mumbled, switching on her screen. She pulled the first folder off the stack and opened it. There was silence for a few minutes.
‘Well done for coming back,’ Frances said. She lifted her eyes briefly. ‘Do me a favour, though,’ she murmured.
Annick’s hand stopped halfway through turning over the page. ‘Wh-what?’
‘Just don’t marry him.’
88
ANNICK
London
There was a hushed silence in the Yellow Room at the Old Marylebone Town Hall. Annick swallowed nervously. Her throat was completely parched. Yves was still holding onto her hand. She looked down at her third finger. The solitary diamond sparked brilliant flashes of rainbow-coloured light.
The registrar looked at them both, smiling widely. He cleared his throat. ‘And now,’ he intoned solemnly, ‘I pronounce you man and wife.’
‘Amen,’ Annick said fervently and then clapped a hand to her mouth. The word had slipped out incongruously before she could stop it. Everyone laughed. There was a stifled sob from the front row of chairs. It was Rebecca, of course – so heavily pregnant they weren’t sure she’d actually make it to the registry. Julian stood next to her, beaming as much with anticipation of the imminent birth as the ceremony in front of him. On the other side, Tash stood clutching a bottle of champagne, smiling dazedly, her face partly obscured by a large, rather wonderful hat. Martin, Yves’ best man, was standing next to her, and, surprising Annick at the very last minute by demanding an invitation, there was Frances, Annick’s boss, resplendent in grey Armani.
‘Amen,’ Yves whispered at her side. ‘Once a Catholic, always.’ He squeezed her hand and then bent his head to kiss her. It was done. They were now husband and wife.
Everyone suddenly surged forwards, shaking Yves by the hand, hugging Annick. Rebecca’s stomach got in the way of everything. She half-sobbed and laughed her way through her congratulations. Annick presented her cheek this way and that; even the registrar was kissed and hugged. They were discreetly but firmly shepherded out of the small room with its daffodil-coloured walls and cream-and-mahogany chairs. Another wedding party was waiting. Annick caught sight of the bride as they passed – yards and yards of white lace and tulle, complete with a tiara and a veil. Her own dress, a simple shift of ivory satin, couldn’t have been more different.
‘Vera Wang,’ Tash had said firmly as soon as Annick broke the news. ‘I’m not letting you go down the aisle in anything else.’
‘There won’t be an aisle,’ Annick pointed out. ‘We’re doing it at the town hall.’
‘Even more reason to wear Wang. Trust me. You’ll wear the dress again and again.’
Annick laughed. ‘I’m only planning on getting married once,’ she giggled.
‘You never know,’ Tash said darkly. ‘Trust me.’
‘I do,’ Annick said simply, spreading her hands. ‘I’ll wear whatever you tell me.’
‘Good girl.’
‘Smile, for God’s sake! It’s your wedding day,’ Tash hissed in her ear as they clattered down the steps and emerged, blinking, into the light and noise of the Marylebone Road. There was a photographer waiting, shouting instructions. ‘This way, please, all together now . . . yes, you, too, darling. Great, that’s absolutely fantastic. Fan-tas-tic!’ One of Tash’s many assistants was standing at the bottom of the steps with a gigantic bouquet of white roses. A restaurant had been booked; there were cars waiting to whisk them off . . . Tash, as usual, had left nothing out. Annick climbed into the front car with Yves, holding tightly onto his hand.
‘We’ll meet you at the restaurant,’ Tash shouted through the open window. ‘The driver knows where it is. They’re expecting us. Here, have a glass before we get there,’ she laughed, thrusting the bottle she’d been carrying through the window. ‘And darling, smile! At least for the photographer’s sake!’
‘She’s quite something,’ Yves murmured against her ear as the driver pulled smoothly out into the traffic. ‘She thinks of everything.’
‘Yep, that’s Tash for you,’ Annick said, leaning into him. She smoothed the pale silk of her skirt. ‘She’s even got a change of clothes waiting for me at the restaurant.’ She gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this’ll all be gone, that I’ll have dreamt it all.’
Yves looked at her. ‘Sometimes, chérie,’ he said, sliding an arm round her shoulders, ‘you say the strangest things.’
‘But it’s true,’ Annick protested, smiling. ‘None of this seems real. Even you don’t seem quite real sometimes.’
‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.’ There was a sudden catch in his voice.
She turned to look at him in surprise. He wasn’t the type to openly show what he felt but earlier that afternoon, just after they’d finished signing the registry, she’d excused herself and gone to the bathroom, alone. She sat down in the cubicle, aware of a great pressure building up in her chest and she’d cried a little, relieving herself of some of the unspoken sadness mixed in with the high emotion of the day. She’d waited a few moments until the storm passed, then came out, still dabbing her eyes and composing herself. Tash and Martin had been dragged off somewhere to sign something as witnesses. Yves was waiting for her by the window, looking down over the street. The sheer curtain rose and fell in front of him like a veil in the breeze; he hadn’t seen her yet. She hesitated. There was something in his stance that made her stop. She looked past the face she knew so well to a face she’d never seen on him before, the face of man so deep in himself he was no longer aware of what he might have to conceal. She backed away very quietly, not wishing to be seen. That same expression, she realised now, was on his face again.
She said nothing but held onto his hand tightly. Weddings, like births and funerals, she thought to herself, were family occasions. Just as the absence of her own family produced an ache below her ribs, the same must have been true for him, she realised. They were alone in the world but they had each other. It was more than she’d dared hope for and a poignant reminder of just how far she’d com
e.
PART SEVEN
DROWNING
‘Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.’
Edna Ferber
89
TWO YEARS LATER
TASH
London
She picked up the colour wheel that Niall, the interior designer, had left out for her and quickly flicked through it. Jasmine White. White Chiffon. Lemon White. Frosted Dawn. Timeless. Handkerchief White. She paused and frowned. Handkerchief white? Was that before or after someone had blown their nose? She wrinkled her own nose and put the wheel back down. Her office was the last to be decided upon and under normal circumstances the thought of it alone was enough to make her smile. Not tonight. It was seven thirty in the evening on the last Friday in June. The weather was lovely: blue skies all afternoon, not a cloud in sight. In half an hour’s time, she’d go downstairs with Edith, Colin and James – her most senior staff – and they’d repair to the Orrery for the very last time. [email protected] was moving. After five years, they were moving from their rather cramped premises off Marylebone High Street to a brand-new enormous warehouse of an office in Regent’s Quarter, a new district sandwiched between York Way and the Euston Road. She’d had her doubts when the estate agents first took her there but as soon as the architects Julian had recommended had taken over, she began to see it the way they did – as the most exciting thing to happen in King’s Cross in decades.
Six months after signing the lease, they were almost ready to move in. Tash went to sleep dreaming about their new premises and woke up every morning with paint samples, fabric swatches and layouts uppermost in her mind. She loved every single aspect of the whole process, from sitting with the architects and planners, working out who sat where, who saw whom, who had what views, right down to the choice of mugs in the staff canteen. [email protected] now had a staff of nearly a hundred people. There were days when Tash sat alone in her office, her head in her hands, stunned by the enormity – and profitability – of it all. She’d always known she would make it. She just hadn’t reckoned on making it this big. Or so fast. Turnover for 2009 was close to ten million pounds; in 2010, it jumped to twenty-six million and by although it was only June they’d already hit the forty million mark. They’d just celebrated their 250,000th order and all the indications were that they’d hit half a million before the year was out. Good news all round. Usually, reports like the ones that landed on her desk every day were enough to put a spring in her step and a smile on her face. But not tonight.
She pushed back her chair and stood up. She walked to the window and stood there, looking down at the street. Dozens of the well-dressed, well-heeled women who clicked onto [email protected] every day walked up and down, pausing at Agnès B, Fenn Wright Mason or any of the dozen or so boutiques on either side of the road, occasionally popping in but rarely emerging with more than a bag or two. Tash knew why. It all went back to what she’d said to Julian a few years earlier, when they’d first started out. [email protected] did the editing for them, stopping short of telling them what to buy, what to wear. They made beautiful, seductive, gorgeous suggestions and then let their customers’ fingers do the rest. Their online magazine, Runway, was just as important as the collections they had to offer. Every week, she met with her creative team – Carla, Harriet, Di, Venetia and Stephen, the sole man – to go through the upcoming issue. It was here that the real genius behind [email protected] came into play. Each week, twenty pages of the hottest looks, the sharpest suits, sexiest shoes and most on-trend accessories were put together in a format that took the best of advertising, lifestyle, celebrity culture and fashion and mixed it up, presenting their customers with page after page of the most divine images. The discreet, candy-coloured pop-up buttons that said, simply, GET THE LOOK were sprinkled liberally around the page. It was a simple message and it worked. Women couldn’t resist the combination of stunning clothes, stunning models and celebrities and those buttons. They clicked and bought and clicked and bought. They excitedly told their friends and colleagues, who promptly did the same. A day later, their packages arrived. Candy-coloured boxes, embossed with the words [email protected], wrapped in ribbons – pink for lingerie, yellow for summer outfits, mink for winter and red for shoes – arrived on their desks to squeals and sighs of delight.
‘It’s better than sex,’ the CEO of a multinational declared one week in Grazia magazine. She was more than happy to be featured on the front page of Runway the following week. That gave Tash yet another idea. True to Life. An ad campaign that featured real-life women with real-life careers, making online purchases in between making phone calls, chairing meetings, dropping children off at the school gates and running into their Pilates classes. The week True to Life debuted, sales jumped fifty-six per cent. It was all good, and it was all go. Most of the time. But tonight was different.
It was Annick’s phone call that had set her off. She’d been on the verge of packing up for the day when the phone rang.
‘Tash? It’s me.’ It was Annick. She sounded slightly out of breath. ‘Are you busy?’
‘Me? Never. What’s up?’
‘Well, I hate to do this over the phone but I’m too excited to wait. I’ve no idea when we’ll see you next.’
Tash’s heart missed a beat. She knew what was coming. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Oh.’ Tash swallowed. She closed her eyes briefly, then rallied herself. ‘Oh, Annick. That’s . . . that’s wonderful.’
‘Did you guess? Are you pleased?’
‘Of course I’m pleased! And no, I didn’t guess. I’d no idea what you were going to say. Is Yves pleased?’
‘We’re both over the moon. We’ve been trying for ages and—’
‘You never said you were trying,’ Tash interrupted her, surprised.
Annick gave a short laugh. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you want everyone to know. When it didn’t happen straight away . . . well, you know me, I started to worry. I thought there might be something wrong with me. Anyhow, it’s happened! Finally. We’re pregnant!’
‘How . . . how far are you?’ Tash asked, struggling to remember how to phrase it. And why was it that women always said “we”? Annick was pregnant, not Yves!
‘Two months. That’s the other thing. Yves doesn’t want me to tell anyone until next month – he says it’s bad luck but I couldn’t wait. And there’s something I wanted to ask you, too.’ She hesitated.
‘What?’
‘Will you be the godmother?’
‘Oh, Annick, no! I’m already godmother to Rebecca’s two.’ She grimaced. ‘That came out wrong. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I just meant . . . well, I’m probably the worst godmother in the world, you know that. I’ll forget birthdays and anniversaries and exams and—’
‘Tash, stop it. You’re an amazing godmother. You never forget birthdays; what are you talking about? You threw that incredible party for the twins last year – have you forgotten?’
‘Annabel organised it, not me,’ she protested. ‘I’d never have managed it on my own.’
‘Rubbish. Anyhow, we’re not taking “no” for an answer. You’re going to be godmother whether you like it or not. How could you even think of saying “no”?’
Tash pulled a quick, culpable face. ‘I know. Stupid and selfish of me. No, I’m thrilled you’ve asked me.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ Tash said firmly. ‘And can I ask – boy or girl? Or is it too early to tell? I never know with these things.’
‘Too early to tell,’ Annick confirmed. ‘And I’m not even sure I want to know, to tell you the truth. I just hope it’s healthy.’
‘Of course it’ll be healthy. Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘Well, you can never tell. Anything could happen.’
‘Oh, Annick. That’s what doctors are for. Put that thought right out of your head. Now, the really important question is, when
are we going to celebrate?’
‘Soon. Soon as Yves gets back.’
‘Where’s he gone again?’
‘Singapore. He’s back on Saturday so we’ll organise something. No alcohol for me, though.’
‘You’re French,’ Tash protested, laughing. ‘French women don’t give up a damn thing, or so I’ve heard. Come on, where’s your Gallic spirit?’
‘You’re mad,’ Annick laughed. ‘Look, I’d better go. I’ve still got to work out how to tell Frances. She’ll go mad. She told me not to get married in the first place.’
‘She’ll get over it,’ Tash said drily. ‘D’you know how many of my staff are on maternity leave? Eleven. Ridiculous.’
‘It’s what we do,’ Annick said primly. ‘Anyhow, I’ll call you on Saturday. Don’t work too hard.’
‘Do I ever?’ She replaced the receiver slowly. Godmother. Again. It’s what we do. No, it wasn’t. It was what some women did. Some women had husbands, boyfriends, lovers, children. Tash didn’t. She’d had sex twice in her life – once, at university, with someone whose face she couldn’t even recall and the second time with the father of her best friend, who was long dead. She cupped her chin in her hand. When she met other working women, she sometimes felt like a creature from another planet. Everyone she knew was either married with kids, or divorced with kids, or in what was cheerfully described as a ‘stable’ relationship, though most of the relationships around her seemed anything but. Yves and Annick seemed to be an exception, though on the odd occasion the five of them went out together, Yves’ attention seemed to be claimed elsewhere. She liked him. He was thoughtful and seemed to dote on Annick, which, in anyone’s book, made him the perfect man, but she couldn’t help but feel there was either something more there or something missing.
And Julian? She smiled ruefully to herself. She had to be careful where Julian was concerned. He was her business associate, not just the husband of her best friend. He’d made rather a lot of money out of [email protected] and his business advice was always spot on. Well, almost always. She thought back to the conversation they’d had a few days earlier. They’d just begun discussing a fresh injection of capital into the business. Tash, for once, was reluctant. They were growing a little too fast for her comfort, though Julian put her nervousness down to her desire to micro-manage.
