I have to keep on the right side of Jen as, in the future, there’ll be more and more of these shows to go to. The next one coming up is Paris Fashion Week, which I’ve arranged to go to with Tod, and I’ll be begging for her help again then. ‘I can go in late-afternoon instead. Catch them after the lunchtime rush. I haven’t seen Phil or Constance properly for ages.’ Apart from a two-minute handover last night on Constance’s part. ‘Do you mind?’
‘No. It’ll do you good to see them again.’
But his arm drops from my shoulders nevertheless.
At four o’clock, Olly takes Petal home and I swing into the arcade that houses Live and Let Fry. I throw open the door and, for a brief moment, have a rush of sensation that says
‘I’ve come home.’
‘Nell,’ Constance cries out. ‘Our Nell’s here!’ She completely abandons the customer who she was serving with his late lunch and comes to hug the life out of me. I don’t remind her that she did the same thing to me just last night.
Phil also wipes his hands on his apron, peels it off and comes to wrap his arms round me. Only Jenny hangs back.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘I’ve missed you all.’ I feel as guilty as hell that I’ve neglected these guys recently in my quest for fame and fortune. ‘It’s been weeks since I’ve seen you.’
‘We’re still here, Nell,’ Phil says with a shrug. ‘Nothing much changes.’
‘Business good?’
‘Booming,’ he confirms. My handiwork still looks great, even though I say it myself.
‘We’ve got someone to replace you,’ Constance continues.
‘Chloe. She’s a darling. All the customers adore her.’
‘Oh. Great.’ But, for some reason, I feel piqued about that.
Chloe, eh? I’ve only been gone five minutes and, so soon, someone else has taken my place. I get the feeling that I’m disconnecting with my old life once more. I want to tell them all about my work, work that they helped me start, a career that without them cajoling me, I never would have had the courage to contemplate, but I feel that they wouldn’t understand, that they wouldn’t be all that interested. And who could blame them? But I’ve barely got my toe in the fashion world, so I’ve no one I can talk to there. Once again, it makes me wonder exactly where I do belong these days.
‘We’ve heard from Jen that you’ve been here, there and everywhere. Haven’t we, Jen?’ Constance shoots her a look.
‘Yeah.’ Finally, Jen steps forward and hugs me. But there’s a tightness about her body, a reluctance to touch me that I haven’t felt before.
‘You’re my angel,’ I tell her earnestly. Then to Phil and Constance, ‘I honestly don’t know what I’d have done without this woman.’
A slightly dark look passes between Phil and Constance. Fleeting, ever so fleeting, but I catch it anyway.
‘Sit down. Sit down.’ Phil clears one of the tables and we all slide into chairs.
I notice that Phil and Constance sit together and there’s a growing closeness between them that’s more than their usual familiar banter. I smile to myself. It would be nice to see them properly together as a couple. They’ve both been alone for too long. Perhaps it’s nice that they’re taking their time to edge closer together rather than rushing headlong into something that could spoil the relationship they’ve built up over many years. You need to be careful not to upset the status quo. Yeah. Look who’s talking.
‘Jen, love. Get that kettle on,’ Phil says. ‘Will you have some chips, Nell? Of course you will.’
‘As if I’m going to refuse! I’ve been pining for your fries.’ But I’m ashamed to say that in reality, I’ve hardly given my old mates a second thought in recent weeks. I have no excuse other than I’ve been ridiculously busy and that work occupies my every waking moment.
‘Jen! Bring some chips too.’
‘She’s been brilliant,’ I tell them both. ‘Really. Petal adores her. I wouldn’t be able to go away half as much if it wasn’t for Jen helping out.’ Suddenly, I feel as if I’m defending her, defending myself. Their faces are impassive. ‘What?’ I ask. ‘What do you know that I don’t?’
‘Nothing,’ Constance says.
Phil pats her leg and slides out of his seat. ‘I’ll just go and see how Jen’s doing.’
That leaves me and Constance alone.
‘Well?’
‘It’s nothing, love,’ my friend says. ‘Nothing at all. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Now I am worried,’ I tell her.
Constance’s hand covers mine, which is always a bad sign. ‘Just be careful,’ she says.
‘About what?’
‘It’s all very well running round the world with your new business but don’t forget about your home, love.’
I bristle. ‘I don’t.’
Constance looks embarrassed.
‘Has someone been saying something?’ I ask. ‘Has Olly complained?’
‘No, no,’ she assures me. ‘It’s just a silly old woman and her fears.’ She pauses, clearly trying to choose her words carefully.
‘Men like to be at the top of the list though, Nell. Not near the bottom.’
‘All this is for Olly. And Petal.’
‘I know that. You know that. But does everyone else?’
‘Who?’
‘Sometimes people are jealous of success, Nell,’ she tells me.
‘Don’t take your eye off the ball, love, or someone might come in and steal it away from you.’
Phil comes back with a big plate of chips piled high, and Constance falls silent. Jen follows with a tray of cups and a big pot of tea.
Now I’m wishing that I hadn’t called in at all. Clearly something isn’t right and I’m the only one who’s completely oblivious to it.
Jenny starts to pour out the tea. ‘I’ll be mum.’
The penny drops. Maybe that’s what Jenny thinks she’s going to be doing at my house! Maybe she thinks she’s going to take over as mum there.
She sploshes the tea into the cups. ‘Help yourself, Nell,’ she says.
I wonder if she’s been doing that too.
Oh, God. I feel sick. Have I missed any signs? Olly moans that I talk about Tod a lot, but he never says anything about Jen. I didn’t even think he liked her all that much.
What to do? Perhaps I should confront her, confront Olly? But what would I say? I only have Constance’s suspicions to go on.
Then a thought pulls me up short. I can’t afford to upset Jenny. I can’t afford to rock the boat. I need her to look after Petal while I’m away. My daughter loves her. That worries me even more. Jenny’s the one who spends more time with her than me at the moment. But I’ve got Paris Fashion Week coming up. That’s mega-important. I can’t not go and yet it’s too short notice to find someone else to look after Petal.
I grit my teeth. Jen had better watch it though. I’ll be keeping a close eye on her from now on. I know that sacrifices have to be made for my career. But I don’t intend my marriage to be one of them.
Chapter 48
Petal is puking up again. No one told me when I signed up for motherhood that part of the deal was regular and inappropriately timed bouts of vomiting. When I decided that I’d like to have a child, I really had no idea that they could produce that much sick. Now, after four years of practice, that I can deal with. What’s more worrying is that Petal is also covered in livid red spots. She’s not had those before.
‘Chicken pox,’ Doctor Olly pronounces as I wipe her down with a flannel.
‘Is this a guess or are you sure?’
‘Google,’ Olly says. ‘I’m pretty sure.’
‘Oh, God.’ I am due at the Eurostar terminal in less than an hour to catch a train to Paris. If I don’t go soon, this minute, I won’t make my connection. And this is Paris Fashion Week. This is a big deal. The biggest deal.
Olly must read the bleakness on my face. ‘Go,’ he says.
‘You go. Jenny and I will look after her.’
I
don’t like the way that statement slips so easily from his tongue. Jenny and I. I’m still not sure if there’s anything going on between them and, coward that I am, I haven’t had the courage to ask.
‘I can’t leave my sick child,’ I protest.
‘Think how much this little jaunt is costing,’ he says bluntly. I ignore the fact that he calls my important business trip ‘a little jaunt’.
‘We can’t afford to just lose that money. Petal will be fine. How long does chicken pox last? A week? Ten days?’
Better check with Google again. ‘Suppose it’s meningitis?’ I know I’m probably fretting unnecessarily, but you hear so much about it now. And it always seems to be misdiagnosed.
‘It isn’t. I’ll stake my life on it. This is a common childhood illness, Nell. She’ll be over it by the time you get back. You see, she’ll be better by then.’
That doesn’t make me feel better.
Olly sighs with exasperation. ‘What choice do we have?’ He’s right. At vast expense my train tickets are booked and my hotel too. I’m not exhibiting out there, but it’s a fantastic opportunity to network, to show that I can play with the big boys. I’ve only managed to secure a ticket, which are like gold dust, through Tod’s contacts. And he’s probably wondering where the hell I am right now. I’m supposed to be meeting him at St Pancras station and, knowing Tod, he’ll be there already. He’ll be sitting in a coffee bar looking immaculate and unflustered with newspaper in hand, enjoying a leisurely cappuccino. He won’t be dealing with impromptu puke and a severe attack of guilt.
I can’t not turn up today. It would certainly damage our working relationship if I left him in the lurch now. Tod, I’m absolutely sure, won’t understand that I can’t bear to leave my sick child. These are not considerations that he has in his life. How can I let him down at the very last minute? Particularly when he’s pulled so many strings to get me a ticket. But in not letting Tod down, I’m letting Petal down. I feel as if I’m being ripped in two.
‘If you don’t go now, you’ll have wasted the opportunity,’ Olly says. ‘Just go.’
He’s right. I have to.
‘I’ll call you the minute I get there,’ I say. ‘Ring the doctor as soon as the surgery opens. Tell him you’re worried it’s meningitis.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘Then tell him I am. Keep her cool with flannels. If it is chicken pox, don’t let her pick any of the scabs when they start to form or she’ll get scars.’
I think of how my mum was when I had chicken pox – sitting with me all day long, spooning me homemade soup. That’s the sort of mum I wanted to be. Not the sort who’s halfway out the door with a suitcase, glibly throwing out not-picking-scabs advice.
Guilt-stricken, I go to kiss Petal but Olly holds up a hand.
‘Don’t kiss her,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to spread this around the supermodels.’
‘Mummy loves you,’ I say. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
I look at Olly and his face is dark with concern. I don’t want to leave him either.
‘See you next weekend,’ my husband says with a resigned shrug.
‘I’ll be thinking of you both every minute,’ I promise. His face says that he doubts it.
I fly out the door, picking up my case as I go. It’s filled with sample handbags for me to show to people if I get the opportunity and it weighs a ton. By the time I get to the front door, I’m already out of puff and sweating. I run barefoot to the station, shoes in hand, coat streaming, fully loaded wheelie case banging along behind me.
Is this how women in business are supposed to behave? Can you see Anna Wintour doing this? She probably has a host of minions to live the boring bits of her life for her. She probably has chauffeur-driven cars and private jets. How does everyone else who runs a company manage to keep all of these balls in the air?
I make the Hitchin train by the skin of my teeth and then text Tod to tell him that I’m running late and that if I’m not there by the time he needs to clear security, then I’ll meet him on the Eurostar. I hope.
Thankfully, my train is on time and a short while later, I’m racing through the concourse at St Pancras, red in the face and perspiring profusely. This is not the image I ever envisaged for myself.
The restaurants are brimming with people enjoying a leisurely breakfast, a chocolaty snack or a nice cup of tea. Oh, to be one of them! My stomach growls in protest to remind me that I haven’t eaten at all this morning. But there’s no time to stop now. I’ll have to grab something extortionately priced on the train.
I’m held up at the security screening for the Eurostar as the guard wants to examine all of my handbags in minute detail as they’ve clearly shown up on the scanner as something highly suspicious. If a terrorist was going to make a bomb, would they really do it in the shape of a handbag? I don’t voice this opinion just in case he decides to clap me in irons and throw me in jail. The clock ticks on relentlessly. When he finally deigns to let me through, I bolt to the gate. Upstairs on the concourse, people, even at this early hour, are sitting at the champagne bar enjoying a convivial glass or two of fizz. How do they do it? How does everyone else seem to run their lives better than I do?
As the guard is blowing the whistle, I throw myself on the train. Then, as it pulls away, I set about the task of finding my allocated seat. Three compartments along, I see Tod sitting there, reading the Guardian, sipping a latte in an oasis of calm. I throw myself into the seat opposite him, wheezing like an old steam train while the sleek, modern Eurostar slips silently towards France.
Tod looks up in surprise. ‘Nell?’ His face brightens and I’m so grateful for that. ‘I didn’t think you were going to make it.’ Me neither, I think. But what I puff out is, ‘Can’t speak.
Can’t speak.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Tod takes my hands in his.
Then I cry and cry and cry. I cry all the way through the Kent countryside. I cry as we whizz through the pitch blackness of the tunnel. And I cry until we emerge into the peace of the rural French countryside and we’re well on our way to Paris.
Chapter 49
Tod and I take a taxi from the Gare du Nord terminal. Impressively, Tod rattles off where we’re going in French to the driver. I’ve never been here before. I’ve never travelled much at all, unless you count a couple of weeks in Majorca every few years when the need for some sunshine became too desperate. And Olly and I haven’t even been able to do that since Petal came along.
I’m glad that I’m here with Tod so that he can show me the ropes, as I might not have had the nerve to come on my own. I guess if he’s got a house in France – he did tell me where, but it meant nothing to me – then he’s probably been over here quite a lot.
The sun is shining and I know that Paris in the springtime is something special to write about, but summer doesn’t seem too shabby either. It’s an amazing city and I think that at any time of year, it would look absolutely stunning to me. We pass the Eiffel Tower and I gaze longingly at it. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to visit it on this trip, but it’s apparent that we have no time to linger now. So the sights of Paris whizz by the window and I can only press my nose against it.
As soon as we reach our destination, Tod and I throw our cases into the quaint, little backstreet hotel that he’s booked for us. Oblivious to the cost of international calls, I phone home.
‘How’s Petal?’
‘She’s fine. She’s stopped barfing now and is asleep.’
‘Is she asleep or unconscious?’ I want to know.
‘Asleep, Nell. I’ve got it all under control. Stop panicking.’ Olly’s calm reassurance does help turn down my stress levels down a notch. I know that he can manage without me and that should make me feel better than it does.
‘I love you,’ I say. ‘I’ll call later. Have to dash.’
I hang up. Then, without further ado, Tod and I jump into another taxi and rush headlong to the first event to which we’ve been
invited. It’s a trade reception for the up-and-coming designer, Freya, who’s the daughter of well-known rock star, Tommy Blood, and has a huge budget behind her. I hate her already.
The reception is being held in the small and indecently trendy Galerie d’art Claude. Outside, bright young things in eye-catching clothing hang around just waiting for someone to take pity on them and slip them a spare invitation. To think that, but for Tod, I could have easily been one of them.
Inside the inner sanctum, it’s all white and classy. A crush of beautiful people mingle, talking loudly, sipping cocktails. I recognise the rock star’s daughter from across the room. Freya’s laughing and being sparkling. A photographer is following her every move. Bet she didn’t have to cope with a puking, chicken-poxed, borderline-meningitised child at dawn.
‘OK?’ Tod asks.
I want to tell him that I’m fine, that this is all old hat to me now – but he and I both know that this sort of thing doesn’t come easily to me. I’ve discovered that I’m not a natural mingler. When I was working in the chippy, I was somehow able to be gregarious and knew all of the regular customers by name. That was fine. Perhaps I felt I was on a level with them. I have no idea. Here, I know no one and feel hideously out of my depth. They all seem to be so superior to me, so much wealthier, so much cooler. I wish I didn’t have the tendency to turn into a wallflower, but I do. As usual, I attach myself to Tod like a limpet.
Ridiculously thin models, with hair piled high and eye make-up like carnival masques, work their way through the crowd, showing the designer’s clothes, turning this way and that.
Across the room, much to my surprise, I see someone who I recognise instantly. He’s leaning against the wall, foot up on the pristine white paintwork. He’s dressed in a smooth grey suit and white shirt and looks every bit as handsome as I remember.
I tug at Tod’s sleeve, just like Petal does to mine. ‘It’s Yves,’ I whisper to him. ‘Yves Simoneaux. The French agent I told you about.’ The somewhat elusive French agent. I didn’t know that he was going to be here, not just at this event, but at the show in general. But perhaps I should have guessed as it’s on his home turf.