He raised a hand without turning round. ‘Be seeing you, Honey,’ floated back up the stairwell.
I was left watching Jonathan’s navy rear view disappear while my heart rate began to return to normal. Then I went back into the flat, plugged the phone back in, and with trembling hands cleared away every last sign that I’d been there.
My gamble had come off, but my nerves were jangling, and not just because of Jonathan. Thank God he hadn’t needed to visit the bathroom – it would have been full of Daddy’s shaving stuff! I couldn’t ever risk doing this again. Even though he wasn’t here, my father was still managing to complicate my affairs and wind me up into a state of hypertension.
Still, I thought, as I sponged the sofa clean, I’d pulled it off pretty well so far. I smiled, then quickly crossed my fingers so as not to jinx myself.
There was something about Jonathan Riley that made it very easy for me to play the confident, flirtatious, capable Honey role – but at the same time, really rather complicated.
10
Since half my days were spent hauling scruff-bags round the centre of London and the other half setting up those meetings, I soon got very good at spinning out cappuccinos in cafés while I worked on my file cards and made calls. There was no point going home, because I only had to pop out again straight away, and besides, while Nelson wasn’t actively dissuading me, he wasn’t trying to hide his disapproval of my new career either.
All that Honey-Melissa double-think was absolutely exhausting, especially since I was switching between one and the other all day long, depending on which of my phones was ringing. Once or twice I forgot which I was, and gave Nelson quite a shock when he called to ask what we were doing for supper.
Thankfully, I was never tempted to be Melissa with Jonathan, which was just as well. In his first few weeks in London he called me non-stop, wanting advice about restaurants and where to get his hair cut and the like. I supposed Cindy had done that kind of thing for him in the past, so I patiently reeled off everything he wanted to know, while he made humming noises and took notes. Before long, I was seeing him several times a week for coffee and informal seminars on various aspects of London life.
Being Melissa simply wouldn’t have cut it with Jonathan: bar the occasional flash of tension, he was a model of professional control. It made me want to be professional and controlled too, even when I’d just squeezed my feet into Honey’s stilettos and wiggled all the way down Knightsbridge because the stupid bus stopped in the wrong place.
The only downside of self-employment, I soon found, was that I really did miss the office: the gossip and the teasing and the free coffee and email. Mind you, Gabi was on the phone so often that we might as well have been in the same room. She certainly had a lot to get off her chest since the merger. We started meeting for lunch in Green Park since it was only a ten-minute walk from Camp Kyrle, as she’d taken to calling it.
If Jonathan was brisk but courteous with me, he didn’t seem to be quite so much fun around the office. Quite the reverse.
‘It’s just no fun without you there,’ she said, stabbing her fork into a Pret a Manger pasta salad. ‘There’s no one to take the piss out of people with. They’re either too po-faced or too brown-nosed. And half of them don’t even realise when you’re taking the piss in the first place.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said automatically. I was in the middle of sorting out my file cards – one card just wasn’t enough for some clients.
‘I thought the Sloaney pony-girls were bad,’ Gabi continued. ‘But they’re nothing on the new American PA Jonathan’s brought over. Nothing! Patrice, her name is. You know how the King’s Road lot smiled at you because they didn’t get the joke? Well, this one smiles, even though she does get the joke, and you can see it going on her mental checklist of reasons to hate you.’
I jotted ‘Patrice’ on Jonathan’s card, then stopped filing abruptly and checked my watch.
Gabi waved a chunk of pasta at me. ‘And you know what the worst thing of all is?’
‘What? Actually, hang on a second, just something I have to do.’ I flicked through the cards and dialled a number.
‘Can I come and work for you?’ pleaded Gabi. ‘Please? You so need a secretary. You’re dead busy!’
‘I am, yes. Would you excuse me a moment?’ I said, squashing the phone into my neck while it rang.
Gabi popped the pasta into her mouth and chewed it unhappily.
‘Hello? Is that Warick?’ I barked, when the call was picked up at the other end. ‘It is? Well, get those fingers out of your mouth this moment! Yes, right now! Do you want to get infected cuticles?’
Then I hung up and put the phone back in my bag, so I could give Gabi my full attention. ‘Sorry,’ I apologised, ‘what were you saying?’
She looked stunned. ‘Who was that?’
‘Warick Howard. Have you met him? He’s a friend of Tassie Morley, from school. Been trying to stop biting his nails for years, so now I’m phoning him at random, twelve times a day, to remind him to stop. Apparently frightening him is the only way.’
‘And you just yell at him and hang up?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he’s paying you to do it?’
‘His girlfriend is. Very well, actually. I’m thinking of offering it as a new package – nail-biting, smoking, nervous eating . . . That sort of thing.’
‘Wow,’ said Gabi, raising her eyebrows and digging into her pasta again.
I had reached Jonathan’s section in my index. He already had three full cards packed with details, including two mobile phone numbers, various nuggets of food information and a cryptically abbreviated family tree. He’d had such a tough time that I was determined not to put my foot in it.
‘How’s Jonathan settling in with the boys?’ I asked, as casually as I could manage.
‘You tell me, girlfriend,’ replied Gabi, sliding her head from side to side like a Ricki Lake guest. She had many enviable TV-learned skills.
‘I’m not his girlfriend,’ I said, shuffling his three file cards awkwardly. ‘Honey is. I need to talk to you about that, anyway.’
‘Yeah, right, you’re not his girlfriend.’ Gabi looked frankly disbelieving. ‘I doubt the man’s capable of forming lasting human bonds. Which is a shame, since I can see how, if you just saw a picture of him, you might think he was quite a dish, in a stony-faced sort of way. Tragically, he has the warmth and interpersonal skills of Joseph Stalin. Can you work on that? I could tell him you’re a trained horse whisperer.’
‘No. Absolutely not. Listen, Gabi, you must stop telling him stuff about me,’ I said firmly. ‘He doesn’t know me. He only knows Honey, and that’s the way I want it to stay. The less he knows about my real life, the better.’ I gave her a stern look. ‘Repeat after me, Gabi: Jonathan is seeing a woman called Honey.’
‘Yeah, yeah. They’re all talking about it, you know,’ she cackled. ‘Jonathan’s mystery woman. Mainly Carolyn, as it happens. I have to warn you, she is not one happy bunny about it.’
‘And that’s another thing. No one at work must even suspect that it’s me – it’ll ruin everything!’
‘Why?’
Really, Gabi could be very dense sometimes. ‘Well, if everyone at work knows it’s me he’s dating, they’ll realise it’s all a big front! And they’ll let the cat out of the bag completely – you know what Hughy’s like with gossip. I once mentioned in passing that Charles was flogging a mews house in Chelsea, and three hours later Carolyn’s demanding to know about this S&M brothel on our books! No, the whole idea is that they have to believe he’s got some gorgeous, out-of-their-league blonde so no one’ll try to set him up with anyone else.’
Gabi gave me one of her dark looks. ‘There are self-flagellating monks in Tibet with higher self-esteem than you. I don’t know why you bother with this Honey stuff. You know you’re everything a man like Jonathan would want?’ Gabi waved her fork at me. ‘English rose, well-connected background, keen on horses, good with
feeble-minded relatives . . .’
I turned red and nearly choked on my sandwich at the thought of Jonathan finding out about my father, not to mention my mother’s spell in the clinic, or Allegra and Lars’s internet art experiments. ‘Well, precisely! I especially don’t want Jonathan to know about my feeble-minded relatives. Or my chequered past. Or—’
Gabi sighed. ‘You’re a fool to yourself, Mel. Can I have the tiniest taste of Nelson’s apple pie, please?’
I handed over the Tupperware, my appetite severely checked.
Jonathan and I had a meeting the next day to discuss his Welcome to London party. My father had returned from his Euro cheese freebie and although he wasn’t in town – as far as I knew – I didn’t want to risk another meeting in Dolphin Square. Jonathan had demonstrated a marked (professional) interest in my prime Embankment location, but I’d manged to keep him away by insisting that meetings taken near his office, in delis and coffee shops, would fuel the rumours about his new girlfriend.
Our appointment was in Harvey Nichols’ fifth-floor restaurant, somewhere I’d been dying to try for ages. I’d pretended I could just squeeze him in if we made it a lunch, then cursed my own stupidity, and spent the next twelve hours panicking that I’d be expected to pay and, if so, would I have enough credit left on my Visa card.
As it turned out I didn’t need the sixty quid cash I’d coaxed from Nelson because Jonathan insisted on paying from the moment we sat down. My coat (vintage belted macintosh, to go with the rest of my Young Miss Marple look) had barely been taken before he was scanning the menu and brushing aside my polite murmurs about who should ‘host’ the bill.
‘No, really,’ he stressed as I attempted to insist in an unconvincing manner. ‘You’re tax-deductible. It’s essential to my business life that my private life is professionally managed, so I’ll be claiming all this back.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How romantic!’
He gave me an unsettling direct look. ‘If only all women could be so cost-effective.’
Obviously the flirty mood wasn’t on the menu today.
I clamped down on the flutter of disappointment and I reminded myself that this would make everything much easier.
Jonathan dispatched his carpaccio and a glass of mineral water, then got straight down to the agenda for today.
‘I took a call this morning from an old girlfriend of my mother’s who lives in Holland Park – she wants me to go round for dinner because she’s got some god-daughter who’d love to introduce me to London life.’ He tapped his fork handle on the table tetchily. ‘This match-making nightmare’s started sooner than I’d hoped and I need to get this party in motion so we can nip it in the bud, yes? ASAP.’
I stopped playing with my asparagus. The galling thing about eating out in a nice place with Jonathan was that my appetite seemed to vanish. Normally I rampaged through a menu like a ravening wildebeest but when I was being Honey I didn’t seem to put away food in quite the same hearty manner, even though I always ate at places I could never afford otherwise. It was a skill I wished I could transfer to my real-life dates.
‘Well, quite,’ I said, running through my mental party checklist. ‘Did you have some dates in mind? You’ll have to give people a little notice at this time of year.’
‘I was thinking next Saturday.’
‘Oh?’ I swallowed. Jonathan’s face had assumed a non-negotiable expression, the strong lines around his mouth tightening. I took out my new notebook and wrote the date carefully at the top of the page. ‘Um, that’s quite soon, Jonathan. You might find people can’t make arrangements that quickly, what with holidays and such like.’
‘Can’t they? Surely they’re either free or they’re not?’
I acknowledged that this was true. ‘OK, then. How about an afternoon do? That way you’re not competing with prior evening engagements and you can give it a lovely English afternoon tea theme?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Sounds fine.’
‘And you’ll have it at your house?’ Jonathan had moved into one of the nicest rentals Dean & Daniels had ever had on its books: a riverside property in Barnes with a magnificent sweeping lawn.
‘I think so, yes. Might as well get some publicity for Kyrle & Pope, don’t you reckon?’ He gave me a brief flash of his dazzling American dentistry, but it vanished before I could smile back and his usual, slightly stony air reappeared. Jonathan had an unfortunately grim resting expression.
He broke up some bread as if he’d lost interest in the topic. ‘I’ll leave the details to you, if that’s all right. It’s not my area of expertise. Guest list, food, drinks, you know. Whatever. You’ve got my address book, haven’t you? Charge what you want, but don’t bother me with napkin details.’ He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it up. I noticed it had a bit of a curl to it, something he must work hard at taming. Then he smoothed it down again, absent-mindedly. ‘Just make sure it’s perfect, OK. I don’t want any screw-ups.’
‘Is business very hectic?’ I asked, wanting to nudge him onto more comfortable conversational ground. ‘You must be rushed off your feet.’
He looked up, as if surprised that I’d noticed. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it is. I seem to be on call twenty-four-seven.’
Jonathan came alive much more when he was talking about his reorganisation of Dean & Daniels. Getting everything in smooth working order was obviously something of a mission for him. But though I kept up a steady stream of light chit-chat about resident parking restrictions around Wimbledon and where to take clients for drinks after the corporate hospitality stuff, the Rolodex in my head was whirring round, thinking of interesting people I could invite for Jonathan to meet: friends of friends, old clients, party acquaintances, work colleagues . . .
Work colleagues. I stared blankly at the halibut that had arrived in front of me.
How was I going to get away with being Jonathan’s on-show girlfriend if the entire Kyrle & Pope/Dean & Daniels entourage was going to be there? If the point of the party was to show Honey off to everyone, then I’d have to meet Hughy and Carolyn and Quentin.
‘You’ll be inviting everyone from your office, I suppose?’ I ventured.
Jonathan was already halfway down his dish of mussels. He stared at me, his chunk of rye bread suspended in mid-air. ‘Yes, I will. Don’t you think? Show them I’m human, fill them with free drink, that sort of thing? Isn’t that good politics?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course it is.’ I made a conscious effort to rein myself in. What were you going to say next, I chided myself. Don’t invite Carolyn? She’s a cow? I wasn’t even meant to know who she was!
No, of course they all had to be there, and so had I. I took a deep breath. I was just going to have to be clever. And so glamorous that they wouldn’t recognise me if I wore a T-shirt with my name and address on it.
‘Lovely,’ I said, with more conviction than I felt. ‘Well, on the invitations, I’m going to suggest that everyone brings you a little present to welcome you to London – that always focuses people’s minds for a party – and we’ll serve strawberries and cream, with champagne and Pimms. I know the best little string quartet, an old school friend runs it, does all the nice Cambridge balls. We’ll just have to pray for a fine afternoon.’
‘You can’t organise that too?’ he asked drily.
‘I can have a word.’ Jonathan had very stern grey eyes, but I was determined not to be fazed. I’d seen scarier appearances than that over the breakfast table, at home with my parents. Plus I had a very confidence-inspiring tummy-flattening suspender-belt on. ‘You are asking to be welcomed to London, after all. And a spot of rain does get a party going. We can always play sardines in that huge house of yours!’
‘Honey, I haven’t the faintest idea what that is, but coming from you it sounds almost enticing,’ said Jonathan – finally with a little more charm. He popped the last piece of bread in his mouth, swept the napkin off his lap and mopped the corners of his lips with it. Then he scrumpled it onto his plate and mot
ioned for the bill. ‘Listen, sorry to eat and run, but I’ve got to shoot, got a viewing in Brompton Cross. You stay here and have a coffee, some dessert. I’ll settle up with the maître d’.
‘I’m sorry to cut it short.’ He made an apologetic grimace. ‘See? We’re like a married couple already.’
I smiled. ‘Almost.’
‘Call me if you hit any snags.’ He leaned over the table to sign the credit card slip and I got a good whiff of his cologne. Creed. The one Cary Grant wore. I was impressed.
‘Invite some cool people,’ Jonathan instructed, adjusting his tie, ‘but no one that’ll expect me to join their social circus. I’ve done all that and I don’t have time to do it again here. Especially not here.’
I looked at him curiously. His words were rather harsh, but the expression on his face, which I could just about see while he bent over the bill, was sad. Sad, and definitely not so tough.
How miserable it must have been for him, to come here on his own and start again, I thought suddenly. Marriage break-ups were grim all round. And just when he needed real friends, he was having to make brand new, almost pretend ones, starting with a pretend girlfriend he was having to pay, and staff who already hated him for being a tough cookie.
I wasn’t so sure about the tough cookie thing myself, despite Gabi’s continued grumblings.
‘Jonathan, I will make sure that come what may, you’ll have a very pleasant afternoon,’ I said fervently, and I meant it.
He looked up, surprised. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I hope we will.’
When Jonathan’s back view was gliding safely out of sight on the escalator I ordered a double espresso and a chocolate mousse, and consumed them both slowly, and with great relish. It felt rather naughty, sitting in Harvey Nichols wearing silk stockings, eating a chocolate mousse paid for by someone else. And I really felt I’d earned it, cracking Jonathan’s stern exterior, even just a little.
Then I got a grip, ordered a peppermint tea for my digestion, and started making a list of things to do.