The Little Lady Agency

Brittle posh abandoned bird.

  ‘Mel? Are you in the bath again?’

  No one would ever want me. I might as well spend the rest of my life organising weddings for more attractive, more desirable women.

  ‘Mel?’ Nelson knocked briefly and then barged straight into my room. I couldn’t summon up the will to lift my head.

  ‘Oh, no. Melissa,’ he said, crouching by my bedside. ‘What happened?’

  I still couldn’t move, but I managed to croak, ‘Daddy.’ And then, ‘Money.’

  Nelson let out a long, cross sigh. ‘Right. Get up.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  I’ll draw a discreet veil over the way Nelson manhandled me back to life, but he marched me into the kitchen, sat me down at the table, and cut me a large slice of carrot cake, which I toyed with unhappily.

  ‘Eat it,’ he ordered. ‘Where’s your chequebook?’

  ‘In my bag.’

  Nelson slammed the chequebook in front of me. ‘Write that cheque to your bloody father,’ he said. ‘Give him the bloody money. You can make it again.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to,’ I said. Then the tears started falling. ‘I don’t want to . . .’ My voice trailed off, but the voice in my head finished the sentence for me, ‘. . . fall in love with one of my clients again.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mel, you’re like one of those perpetual tear miracle statues. You never used to be like this.’ Nelson searched his pockets for a hanky. ‘I don’t have a hanky.’ He looked in my bag again and took out Jonathan’s cotton square. ‘Here, you look like a miserable panda.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I buried my nose in the hanky, breathed in a very faint trace of Jonathan’s Creed, which set me off again.

  ‘Here,’ said Nelson. ‘You dropped this.’

  He handed me a hairclip: a large gold one with a red vinyl Chanel flower. I sniffed, and looked at it in surprise. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘It fell out of your hanky,’ he explained. ‘Not really you, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘But this isn’t mine,’ I protested, turning it over. ‘I can’t afford stuff like this!’

  Nelson gave me a dark look. ‘Did you shoplift it?’ he asked sternly. ‘You’re not turning into one of those deranged spinsters who start by nicking bridal magazines and end up stealing babies in prams from outside Boots?’

  ‘No.’ I turned it round and round in my hands. It must have come from Daddy’s flat.

  Had he thought it was mine?

  And why did it look so familiar?

  Then I remembered where I’d seen it before.

  Stuck in Bobsy Parkin’s stupid Horse of the Year Show mane.

  23

  Between juggling the final details of Emery’s wedding and wrapping literally hundreds of tiny boxes for clients, early December rushed past in a blur – which was no bad thing, as it left me precious little time to dwell on Jonathan, Daddy’s carrying-on or Gabi and Nelson’s increasingly ‘dinner for two’ lifestyle. If it wasn’t for my chocolate Advent calendar I wouldn’t have had any idea what day it was.

  I was in the office on 7 December (chocolate star), fiddling with silver rosettes when the entryphone buzzed. I panicked slightly as I wasn’t in my full Honey regalia. I had no appointments – as far as I knew – so my skirt was unzipped for comfort and my stilettos were kicked off and lying under my desk.

  I was still wearing the wig and a pair of seamed opaque stockings, however, just for fun.

  I grabbed the receiver. ‘Hello,’ I said, sticking the rosette on my hand while my feet hunted for my shoes. ‘The Little Lady Agency?’

  ‘Hello,’ said a distracted female voice. ‘This is Miss Emery Romney-Jones. I am looking for Miss Melissa Romney-Jones.’

  I stared at the receiver in shock.

  ‘Hello?’ said Emery again. She seemed very confused by the button and kept pushing it on and off. ‘Is . . . Romney . . . am . . . for Melissa . . . Jones.’

  What the hell was Emery doing here?

  I shoved my feet into my shoes and pressed the entry button. ‘Emery, it’s me, come on up.’

  While she was coming up the stairs, I scrabbled around in my mind to find an explanation as to why I had offices and what they were for. It didn’t have to be that credible – it was only Emery – but she was bound to repeat it to someone who might ask more questions. Like my father. I’d managed to keep my new career from my family, and with their customary self-absorption, no one had been interested enough to ask.

  Temping. I would have to be running a temping agency, not just working for one. It wasn’t quite a fib, after all, was it? I was temping . . . sort of.

  While my mouth dried with panic, I looked round the office for any incriminating evidence: I whisked a dry-cleaning bag of Jeremy Wilde’s new suits into a filing cabinet and stuffed the bags of presents into the spare room. Then I rushed out to the top of the stairs to welcome Emery in, remembered at the last moment that I still had my blonde wig on, and was rearranging my hair as Emery floated up into sight.

  ‘All ready for me?’ she asked with unusual enthusiasm. ‘You know, Mel, I never really enjoyed this whole wedding malarkey until you got involved. Oooh, nice shoes!’

  I followed her into my office and closed the door behind us. ‘Um, Emery, it’s not that I’m not happy to see you, or anything,’ I said, ‘but . . . what are you doing here?’

  She stared triumphantly at me, thrilled to have caught me out for a change. ‘My fitting, you idiot. Had you forgotten?’

  ‘Tomorrow, Emery! We said Thursday.’

  ‘Did we?’ Her face fell. ‘I’m sure we said Wednesday.’

  ‘No, we didn’t.’

  Emery looked totally crestfallen. ‘Oh nuts. I thought I’d been so organised for once. I’ve come up to town specially. I’ve even got matching underwear on.’

  I glanced over at my desk diary. There was nothing in it for the rest of the day, since I’d planned to pop out for some cakes and then crack on with my wrapping.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ I said, giving her an encouraging smile. ‘You’re here now. We might as well do it anyway.’

  ‘It’s really, you know, nice in here,’ said Emery, looking around. ‘Is this where you’re living these days?’

  That was a good point. ‘Emery, who told you to come round here?’ I asked.

  She looked blank. ‘Oh, I called by your house, and Nelson told me to try round here.’

  ‘Nelson?’ What was Nelson doing still in our house at ten in the morning? And more to the point, what was he doing telling Emery my secrets! ‘He told you to come round here, did he?’ I demanded.

  ‘Well, to be fair,’ she said quickly, ‘it was actually Gabi who told me to come round. Nelson was umming and erring a bit.’

  ‘Gabi!’ No! ‘What was she doing round there?’

  ‘Oh, they were going house-hunting, she said. Taken the day off specially. She reckoned Wednesdays are good for viewings.’

  Nelson hadn’t mentioned that when I left for work this morning. In fact, he’d gone very quiet on the whole subject of Gabi; when I’d tried to raise it tactfully, he’d just given me his Grade One Latter-Day Saint look, and told me I should be more supportive of her, and did I know she had given a whole load of her old clothes to a charity shop? They always seemed to be deep in private conversation, and clammed up suspiciously whenever I tried to join in. I tried to be Christian about it, but to be honest, I felt like both my best friends had been poached – by each other.

  My face must have been a picture, because Emery added, ‘Are they seeing each other these days? They seemed quite chummy to me. They had their heads together over Time Out when I arrived.’

  ‘No,’ I said weakly. ‘Well, I don’t really know what’s going on there.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Emery smiled. ‘So is that why you’re living here? Have you split up, you and Nelson?’

  ‘Emery, for the millionth time, Nelson and I are not going out,’ I said heavily. ??
?We’ve never been going out.’ There was nothing for it. I would have to make a clean breast of things. Well, clean-ish.

  Emery looked at me, an expectant look on her face.

  ‘Look, this is my office,’ I said. ‘I’ve started my own temping agency. I haven’t been doing it long, and I didn’t want to tell Daddy until it’s all up and running, because he’s bound to stick his nose in and ruin everything.’

  Emery nodded sympathetically at that point. ‘He’d want to vet your staff, I expect.’

  ‘Quite. So keep it to yourself, OK?’ I pleaded.

  ‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ said Emery vaguely, her attention distracted by a new lipgloss I’d left on my desk. Luckily, curiosity wasn’t one of her failings.

  ‘Would you like to get yourself a cup of coffee while I get your dress?’ I asked, edging backwards out of the room to check she didn’t start poking about in my absence.

  Emery’s dress was on my dress-making dummy in the spare room and I was struggling through with it when the phone rang.

  To my horror, Emery picked it up – probably the first time in her life she had failed to ignore a ringing telephone.

  ‘Hello?’ I heard her say, then, ‘Oooh, no. I don’t think so. Who? Who? No, not here. Are you sure you have the right number?’

  I gestured furiously to her, as best I could with an armful of cathedral-length train.

  ‘Can you hold for a second?’ asked Emery politely, while looping a finger around her temple and rolling her eyes towards the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ I said breathlessly, wrestling the receiver out of her hands. I’d been hoping Jonathan would call for ages: typical that he’d ring now, when there was no chance of a proper conversation.

  ‘Honey, it’s me. Bryan.’

  My heart sank. It was bloody Bryan Birkett again. I shifted the dummy under my arm.

  ‘I need to make an appointment to see you,’ he whined, self-importantly.

  ‘Well, what’s the problem?’ I said, briskly. ‘This is a very busy time.’

  ‘I think I’m having closure issues about Camilla,’ he sighed. ‘I think I need to see you again, just to talk them through. Perhaps if I could take you out for dinner, I could use that as a way of moving on from her . . .’

  ‘Bryan, I don’t think you need me to move on,’ I said. ‘But you may need to discuss this with a trained counsellor. Have you considering going to Relate?’

  ‘No, I think you’re much better,’ he said, obviously enjoying the nannying tone. ‘You drive all thoughts of Camilla from my mind. I think . . . I think . . .’

  ‘Bryan, you’re obviously thinking too much,’ I said. ‘It’s not always helpful to think too much about relationships.’

  ‘I feel my love life would run more smoothly if I had nicer clothes,’ he insisted. ‘Can I make an appointment for a wardrobe consultation?’

  ‘Call me in the New Year,’ I said, casting anxious looks in Emery’s direction. Lipglosses could occupy her for only so long, so I nudged a wedding magazine in her direction. ‘We can talk about the sales.’

  I put the phone down on Bryan’s protestations.

  ‘Ooh, Mel,’ said Emery without looking up. ‘You are tough on the phone. I wish I could be so strict. Where did you learn it?’

  ‘I didn’t learn it anywhere,’ I said. ‘It’s just normal.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said, finally looking up. ‘You sound just like Daddy. And who’s Bryan?’

  ‘A client,’ I said, switching on the answering machine and turning the volume right down so she wouldn’t hear any messages.

  ‘He must be a very good client if he calls you honey,’ she observed.

  ‘Something like that,’ I said, taking refuge in bossiness. ‘Now, put that coffee well out of the way, yes, right up there on the bookshelf, and try this dress on.’

  It started drizzling, then raining, and as the rain lashed down outside, Emery and I passed a quiet hour or two fiddling with her frock, listening to Christmassy music and grazing on sugared almonds. She wasn’t a fidgeter, so I was able to get some useful adjustments made while she stared into space and occasionally made some comment about her wedding list, or William’s latest annihilation of the company squash ladder.

  ‘You’ve made a super job of my dress, Mel,’ she said, looking at the dummy after a protracted pause. ‘You’re really good at sewing, aren’t you?’

  I looked up at her, my mouth full of pins. I couldn’t remember anyone from my immediate family saying anything complimentary about my dress-making before, despite the fact that I rarely went home without being cornered to sew on a button or tack some hem. A warm glow of sisterly love filled my heart – although it could have been the coffee.

  ‘Thank you,’ I mumbled, pinnily.

  ‘I wish I had sexy dark hair like yours,’ she mused. ‘It’s so gorgeous. Like molten Nutella. Or treacle.’

  I ran a self-conscious hand through my thick mane. Really, Emery said the oddest things. ‘It needs a wash, Em. But thanks.’

  ‘Should I dye my hair black for the wedding?’ she mused. ‘To match you and Allegra?’

  ‘No!’ I reined in my alarm. ‘No, I mean, you have such lovely hair, Emery. Don’t do anything to spoil it.’

  Emery cocked her head towards the door. ‘Is that someone on your stairs?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t be,’ I said, shaking my head confidently. ‘They have to buzz to get in.’

  As if in answer, there was a knock on my front door.

  Visions of Bryan Birkett, armed with a knife and an emergency wedding licence crowded my mind. I struggled to my feet and jabbed the pins into the pincushion on my wrist. ‘Must be the postman,’ I gabbled. ‘Or one of the girls from downstairs wanting a button stitched on or something. I’ll get it. Don’t move.’

  I looked at Emery. The skirt of the dress was hitched up round her waist while I adjusted her underskirts, and she’d loosened the buttons ‘for comfort’ so her milky shoulders and what cleavage she had were on display.

  ‘Do you want to . . .’ I gestured around my own shoulders. ‘In case they have to come in?’

  Emery looked blank, then giggled at me. ‘Melissa! You’re such an old prude! Don’t be silly!’

  Prude, eh, I thought, walking towards the door and feeling my Honey suspenders slide against the inside of my thighs. Like she knows the underwear I have on right now. And it’s not even a dressing-up day!

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, opening the door.

  I wasn’t expecting to see Jonathan there, holding a large bunch of orange roses and gleaming red berries. Too much exposure to wedding magazines meant I identified them immediately as Naranga roses and his dripping black umbrella as a perfect thank-you gift for ushers at winter weddings.

  ‘Ah, so Fiona the receptionist exists, after all!’ he said, with a courteous nod.

  I froze.

  Too late.

  Jonathan took a closer look at me. ‘Honey?’ he said.

  ‘No, Fiona,’ I insisted with a brave smile. ‘Honey’s just popped out for . . .’

  ‘Melissa!’ barked Emery. ‘Stuck! I’m stuck!’

  ‘Melissa?’ Jonathan’s mouth twitched and he craned his neck round the door.

  ‘Melissa,’ I said, grasping at straws. ‘Yes, I’m Melissa, the new receptionist who . . .’

  ‘Now, hold it right there,’ said Jonathan sternly. The twitch turned into a most ambiguous expression, and I couldn’t tell whether he was amused or angry or disappointed or what. ‘You can’t pull this stunt on me. I’d recognise those brown eyes, with or without the blonde fringe.’ He clicked and pointed at me. ‘Hey . . . So Honey’s real name is Melissa! Well, well, well. I thought I’d never find out the truth.’

  I lifted my eyes from the floor and met Jonathan’s grey-eyed gaze: his eyes were flashing with extreme amusement, and I felt my insides go warm and gooey, even though my skin was crawling with embarrassment at being caught out with manky hair and my fourth-best ski
rt on.

  I was too stunned even to tell him off for pointing and clicking. I’d imagined this moment often in daydreams, but I’d always been freshly coiffed and definitely not so gormless.

  ‘Score one to me, finally!’ he cackled. ‘I’ve caught you out! Melissa! You, Honey and I have an appointment for lunch and shopping? Or had that slipped your mind too?’

  I thought fast. Damn. We did have that appointment – how could I have forgotten to put it in my diary? What was going on with me – first Emery, now Jonathan! That’s what came of being too busy for your own good. I tried to rally as best I could while still in near-shock.

  At least he didn’t seem too horrified at my brunette appearance, I reasoned, but that was as much of my mask as I could let slip. I certainly couldn’t let him meet Emery.

  ‘OK,’ I said, wedging myself in the door so he couldn’t see round, even though he was trying. ‘So now you know I’m not a natural blonde.’

  ‘But I like it a lot!’ he interrupted, then confided charmingly, ‘I did guess it might not be your own hair. Not with big brown eyes like that.’

  I filed that compliment away for later, while I struggled to reset my brain into Honey gear. I wasn’t sure I could deal with the situation otherwise. ‘Um, it’s rather embarrassing,’ I said, with a winning smile, ‘but would you mind awfully walking to the end of the street and coming back again? I’m afraid I’m right in the middle of . . .’

  I felt the door being tugged and swung round to find Emery standing right behind me, half in and half out of her wedding dress. Twelve years at boarding school had left me chronically body-conscious, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect on her. Then again Emery had a lot less body than me.

  ‘So sorry to interrupt . . . Melissa, can you undo me?’ she said, offering her back to me, then her head swung round in a classic double take. ‘Well, I never!’

  ‘Hello, Emery,’ said Jonathan. ‘What a surprise!’ He covered his eyes politely.

  This was getting worse and worse.

  I slammed the door, undid her buttons, then hissed, ‘Right. Tell me how you know him. And no flannel, Emery.’

  ‘Jonathan’s our estate agent,’ she said, surprised. ‘Turns out William’s best friend from law school – Darrell – was at high school somewhere out in the sticks with Jonathan.’ Her smooth brow creased. ‘Near Boston? I think that’s right. It’s quite complicated. Anyway, I’ve invited Jonathan to the wedding so they can have a bit of a reunion.’