‘I’m beginning to see that.’
‘I asked around about him last night, Nell, but no one seemed to know who he was.’
I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. ‘I feel such a fool.’
Tod tuts. ‘I should never have left you alone with him. This is my fault.’
‘It’s mine,’ I counter. ‘I should have made sure I checked him out more thoroughly.’ And hadn’t simply agreed to everything because I was blinded by his flattery. Stupid, stupid me.
The waitress brings us fresh coffee, so strong and black that it will either kill me or cure me. She also puts down a basket of croissants and a dish of creamy butter. My stomach rolls.
‘Eat,’ Tod instructs. ‘We have a busy day ahead of us.’
I can hardly bear the thought of it. I want to go home. I want to run back to Olly and Petal. I want to be with people who love me and don’t want to do bad things to me.
‘We are going to track that man down,’ Tod informs me as he tucks in. ‘Whoever he is.’
‘We are?’
He whips out his programme like it’s a weapon of mass destruction and, while I force myself to nibble at a croissant, he trawls through the listings.
‘Right,’ he announces eventually. ‘I’ve got some shows marked down where he might be. Up for this, Nell?’
‘Yes.’
Tod fixes me with a gaze. ‘I don’t want to find him only for you to go all nice on me.’
‘No,’ I agree. ‘I can do not nice.’
‘Excellent. Then let’s go and get the bastard.’ Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Chapter 52
I see the Louvre from another taxi window, and then Tod and I go to three different shows back-to-back on the hunt for Monsieur Yves Slippery Simoneaux. We see some nice stuff, but not the elusive trickster/agent. The last show of the morning is for a new accessories designer, Marie Monique, and Tod reckons that this might well be a good place for Yves to rock up. I sincerely hope so.
This venue looks like a disused factory and is called Espace Blanc. Inside, it’s all industrial with concrete floors and exposed pipework. A central, galvanised steel staircase comes down from a gallery to join a runway that’s flanked by rows of chairs. It’s sparsely populated, at the moment, but filling up fast. Tod and I take the last remaining seats in the front row at the head of the runway. Despite the soothing music, a prickle of apprehension runs through me.
Sensing my discomfort, Tod says, ‘OK?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong. I just feel a bit funny.’
‘Not sick?’
‘No.’ Something like a sixth sense. Yves will be here. I know it. I can feel it in my bones, in my water, in the hairs on the back of my neck.
Scanning the rows though, I can’t see him anywhere.
Five minutes later and the music racks up several notches, announcing the start of the show. The chill-out sound of Groove Armada’s mellow song ‘At the River’ fills the room. The models high-step down the staircase, a precarious move in canvas sandals with towering wedge heels. They’re dressed only in white skimpy bikinis and floppy hats and wear brightly coloured beach bags in different styles slung across their bodies to sit low on their hips.
‘Nice,’ Tod whispers to me.
I can’t argue with that. But I’m distracted and can’t help but keep looking round in search of the elusive Mr Simoneaux.
The mood changes and a drum and bass version of ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ pumps out. The models wear red playsuits and black stilettos. The handbags are glittering silver box shapes with red satin hearts attached. Cute.
The music changes tempo again and it’s M People singing ‘Itchycoo Park’. This time the models are dressed all in white with cropped T-shirts, pedal pushers and ballet flats. As they hit the runway in front of us, my heart stops, my limbs freeze and my eyes pop. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Or maybe I can.
The handbags that the models are wearing are as familiar as the freckles on my child’s face. These are my handbags. The ones that I had sketched out when I was in my shop in Hitchin. The ones with the pop art inspired, psychedelic designs. The ones that Yves Simoneaux had lifted, just as I suspected.
Tod turns to me instantly. I nod. ‘They’re mine.’
‘You don’t need to tell me. I’d recognise them anywhere,’ he says.
I knew that it was bad. But I had no idea quite how bad.
‘That slimy French bastard has stolen your designs.’
He has. My God, he has. I don’t know what I thought he was going to do with them, but I hadn’t, in my worst nightmare, thought that he would do this.
Tod and I sit there mesmerised as my nicked handbag designs are paraded before our eyes. The applause is louder than for any other part of the collection and that’s with two people not clapping at all.
‘What can I do?’ I whisper to Tod.
‘This is a nightmare,’ he hisses back. ‘We can try to make a legal case against him, but it will be long and lengthy.’
Not to mention expensive, I suspect.
‘How can you prove the designs were yours, Nell, if you don’t have any record of them?’
Bloody hell. All I had was my original sketches. Yves knew exactly what he was doing, the sleazebag. He knew I was green and keen. It must have been like taking candy from a baby.
‘But they’re mine,’ I say, sounding exactly like Petal would.
‘They’re mine.’ The people are going crazy for them and they’re mine.
‘Don’t worry,’ Tod says, looking worried. ‘We’ll think of something.’
But we stay pinned in our seats, immobile and watch the models strut with goggle eyes.
The show finishes and still Tod and I don’t move. At the end of the last catwalk run, as is customary, the models escort the designer to the front for them to take their bow from the audience. From the gallery above us, Marie Monique appears and I’d recognise her anywhere too. It’s the woman in white who was at the gallery show yesterday – with Yves Simoneaux.
She’s dressed all in white again today. A bodycon dress teamed with killer heels. Her hair is in a long, black plait. The woman who is passing off my handbags as her own designs struts up to just beside us. She’s wearing one over her shoulder, dangling it in my face. She looks serene, sophisticated, a woman used to adulation. A battery of cameras flash. Striking a pose like a seasoned model, she takes her applause, basking in the praise and the cornucopia of cameras capture the moment.
My anger is boiling away inside me. A red rage is rising that I didn’t know I was capable of. Marie Monique turns and smiles. She holds out her hands and from the side of the stage, at the back of the audience, Yves Simoneaux steps up onto the runway and takes her into his arms. They kiss each other warmly. The applause doubles. The cameras flash again.
Looks like they are rather well acquainted and are, more than likely, in this together.
‘We’ll grab him as soon as they’re off that runway,’ Tod says through gritted teeth. ‘Though goodness only knows what we can do. I’ve a good mind to knock that slimy bastard to the floor.’
Something inside me cracks. Where there was rage there is now a cool calm. I’m out of my seat and on to the runway before I know what I’m doing.
‘These are my handbags,’ I say in a very loud, clear voice.
‘They’re my designs. And you’ve stolen them.’
The cameras flash. There’s a collective gasp from the audience. Marie’s face blackens instantly. ‘Go away,’ she spits. ‘Go away. I do not know who you are.’
‘Maybe not,’ I say. ‘But he does.’
Yves has the grace to look panic-stricken.
‘Nell,’ he says in a placating tone. ‘There is a mistake. We can sort this out.’
A reporter pushes a microphone close to us and more cameras move in.
‘They’re my bags,’ I repeat more firmly and I hear it reverberate round the busy hall. I don’t sound
unhinged or hysterical. I simply sound like a woman who knows she’s been wronged. ‘You both know that they are.’
Marie pushes me. She pushes me in the chest. ‘Get out of here,’ she says. ‘Get out of my show.’
She goes to turn away, to dismiss me as irrelevant, and the red mist descends on me once more.
I grab the bag on her shoulder and she pushes me again. As I snatch it from her, she swings round and tries to claw my face, spitting insults in French. She punches me in the eye, which hurts like hell, but still I hang on. Then, while she is screaming obscenities, I take aim and thwack her one back with my rescued handbag. It hits her with a resounding thud. A volley of camera flashes follow the action.
‘This is my handbag,’ I say again. ‘I’m Nell McNamara and this is my handbag.’
Marie, not looking so serene or sophisticated now, makes a lunge for me, but I sidestep her and somehow grab her long, luxurious plait. It takes me back to the playground when I swing her round by it and, I have to say, it feels great. She topples off her stilettos and falls to the floor. Yves swoops in to help her. Marie lies cowering beneath him.
‘You’ll stop making those handbags right now,’ I say, wagging my finger in her face. ‘And you, you swindling bastard, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.’ Said with the bravado of a woman who doesn’t actually have a lawyer or the wherewithal to pay for one.
Then Tod is beside me leading me off the runway. Marie, still on floor, is swamped by reporters.
‘Whoa!’ Tod says as we move away from the commotion on stage.
‘That wasn’t “too nice”, was it?’
Tod laughs. ‘That wasn’t nice at all. Let’s hope she doesn’t sue you for assault and battery with a handbag.’
‘Let her try.’
Now all the cameras are focused on me. I’m breathing heavily, but I feel powerful, victorious. The journalists swarm towards me.
‘It’s my bag,’ I say to no one in particular and I see a dozen pens scribble it down. ‘Marie Monique has stolen my designs.’ Just in case anyone didn’t catch that.
‘Your name?’ someone shouts. ‘What is your name?’
‘Nell McNamara,’ I reply.
Tod leads me outside. ‘You’ll be all over the trade papers,’ he says.
‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity,’ I remind him. I can only hope that I’m right.
Chapter 53
Olly kissed Petal gently. ‘It’s late. You should be asleep, young lady.’
‘I’m trying,’ she replied. ‘But it’s not that easy, Daddy.’ Tucking her myriad toys around her, he said, ‘Well, I’m going to work now, so you be a good girl for Jenny. Don’t play up.’ He got her ‘whatever’ face in return for that. The minute he turned his back, she’d be up. That and the Pope being Catholic were two certainties in life.
Back in the living room, Jen was watching television. Her feet were up on the sofa. There was a glass of wine in front of her on the coffee table and she was watching some costume drama. She looked very at home.
When he closed the door to Petal’s bedroom, she looked up at him and smiled. It was a very cosy routine that they’d fitted into. Jen was easy company. A bit like Petal in a way. So long as she was warm, fed and watered and there was a modicum of entertainment to amuse her, she wanted for little else. It was nice having her around. She made no demands on him. Didn’t criticise his every move, question his every motive and he was quite worried that he felt like that.
‘I’d better be off,’ he said. It was so tempting to phone in sick – something he never did – and spend the night at home instead. That was all he wanted. A cosy home, someone to share it with. Instead his wife was off in Paris trying to make her fortune, turning their lives upside down, when really it had been quite pleasant as it was before.
Jenny pulled a little face. ‘Gonna miss you,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ They’d fallen into a simple, domestic routine of bathing Petal and putting her to bed together, then Jenny would rustle them up some dinner. He’d expected not to see much of her due to her shifts at Live and Let Fry, but she’d taken the whole week off as holiday so that she could be around for them both. It was very touching. Surprisingly, he found out that they had a lot in common. They liked the same food, the same films, the same comedians. The only thing Jen didn’t share was his love of all things sixties, but he was trying to educate her and she seemed to be a willing pupil. In fact, they’d laughed a lot across the dinner table and hadn’t talked about handbags or business once. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Nell had done that.
Olly sighed inwardly. Tonight, he’d rather have his own eyeballs grated than go and stand for eight hours making pizzas. He might insist to Nell that he was happy in his work, but it wasn’t all true. He liked the people. The pay was reasonable. But no one in their right mind could truly say that they’d found satisfaction in doing something so crushingly boring for the rest of their lives.
Picking up his coat, he shrugged it on and then bent forward to peck Jen on the cheek. As he did, she turned her head away from the television and their lips met. He tried to pull back, but Jen took hold of the lapel of his jacket and held him firm. Her lips were warm and soft against his, full, inviting. The temptation to stay there and enjoy the sensation was over-whelming. The tip of her tongue slipped into his mouth and found his. It frightened him to think that he could easily stay here, throw off his coat, throw off his clothes, throw caution to the wind and make love to Jen. It would be so easy, so very easy.
Only the thought of Petal just down the hall prevented him from doing so. The thought of Petal. Not Nell. He pulled away.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen.’ The smile on Jen’s face said that she, however, did.
‘Got to go,’ Olly said. His knees, his hands, his heart were shaky. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Jen’s smile didn’t fade. ‘See you tomorrow, Olly.’ She blew him a kiss as he scurried out of the door.
He couldn’t concentrate at work. After ten years with Nell and not a moment of unfaithfulness, not even a thought of it, he’d kissed another woman.
Tonight the line was churning out mushroom and pepperoni pizzas. Virtually the whole process was automated and it just took a handful of them to supervise the making of thousands of frozen pizzas. His role was to sit on a stool next to the conveyor belt and just re-sort any of the toppings that hadn’t landed quite accurately on the pizza. A tiny human cog in a great, big, unstoppable machine. Already he knew he’d let several go by without even noticing them, as he was lost in a world of his own.
Thank goodness that Nell was coming back tomorrow, and then Jenny’s services could be dispensed with. But what happened when his wife was off on her next business jaunt? What could he say? Could he really tell Nell that they shouldn’t use Jen again? Not because she wasn’t brilliant with Petal, but because he couldn’t be trusted to be alone with her. Who would they get to come in and help then? Jen had been bloody marvellous – up until the unfortunate kissing incident – they couldn’t have asked for someone more willing or helpful. Petal thought the sun shone out of her. He was pretty impressed himself, he had to admit. There was a gentle, easy-going domesticity to her that he hadn’t noticed until she’d moved in. Until then, she’d just been Nell’s slightly loud, borderline annoying, single friend. Nothing more. But there was a lot more to her than that. She was thoughtful, caring, easily pleased. She’d make someone a great wife. Olly wondered now whether there was an ulterior motive behind her willingness to take on him and Petal, seemingly out of the goodness of her heart. Perhaps Jen had seen herself slipping quietly into Nell’s shoes. But maybe that was being unkind. Maybe this had all been done without thinking what was in it for her, and the kiss was just the heat of the moment, an overstepping of the mark. Who knows? He had always thought that he understood Nell, women in general. Now he realised that he really didn’t have a clue.
The pizzas continued to
slide by him on the conveyor belt.
Mindlessly, he fiddled with the mushrooms, the pepperoni, reorganising, rearranging. He could do this job in his sleep now. Other people counted sheep – he only needed to think about the regular hum of the conveyor belt, the soporific action of the pizzas sliding by and he’d be off in dreamland. Though sometimes in his dreams, he did find himself hand-decorating pizzas.
What was Nell doing now? he wondered. Was she having a fabulous, carefree time in Paris? Was she thinking of him and of Petal and what she’d left behind? Did they feature in her thoughts at all? Or was she glad to break away from the drudgery of the domestic routine? He knew that she was with Tod and that always rankled. Perhaps his wife would be better off with someone like that. Someone who was powerful, ambitious, driven. Someone who didn’t work in a pizza factory.
‘Meyers!’ His supervisor’s voice barking at him, snapped him out of his reverie. ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’
Olly looked up as his red-faced supervisor slapped down a tray of pizzas on the stainless steel surface with a certain amount of venom.
‘Every single one you’ve done tonight has been like this. Get your coat and don’t come back. There are plenty of people who can do this job better than you. The whole run will have to be scrapped.’
When he got over his shock and looked at what was making his boss froth at the mouth, he saw that every pizza was bearing two pepperoni eyes and a sad, downturned mushroom mouth.
Chapter 54
I could cry with relief when I walk up to my shop, my flat. I’ve never been so happy to come back from anywhere. You can keep Paris as far as I’m concerned. For me there’s no place quite like home. All I want is for Olly to take me in his arms and to see my darling daughter. I feel like lying on the floor and kissing the pavement. Which I probably would do if it wasn’t raining and the pavement wasn’t very wet.
Instead, I haul my wheelie case through the shop door, which chimes my arrival. In the workshop, I can see Olly sitting at the desk tapping away at the computer. At his feet, Petal is sitting on the floor with crayons and a pad. He looks up as I come in and his face lights up. My heart literally soars.