The Finishing Touches

  Something about their unashamed sweetness made me melt inside. God knows where they were now, these girls, but the hot toddy would definitely still be on offer. There had been reasons I’d wanted to go to the Academy. It hadn’t all been snobbery and—

  My eye fell on the last signature as I turned the page, and my stomach contracted automatically at the superneat writing.

  The best of luck to you in wherever life takes you next. Best wishes, Adele Yvonne Buchanan

  Adele Buchanan. Blond, perfect, and so cool she could chill your gin and tonic at ten paces—unless you were a man, in which case she could melt the ice in your glass. Adele hadn’t offered anyone her phone number on Lady Phillimore Graduation Day. In fact, according to Kathleen, who told Nancy when she thought I was safely washing up, the only phone number she was interested in was Charlotte’s recently divorced father. He had a helicopter—Kathleen’s undertones were quite carrying—and she’d told someone she wanted a rich man, then a titled man, and then a rock star “before my tits go and I hit the cruise liner circuit.”

  “Betsy! Oh, fiddlesticks!”

  Nancy was standing at the door, a cup of tea in her hand and a worried expression on her round face.

  “I thought you might like some tea…” she began unconvincingly, then put down the cup so she could wring her hands in dismay. “You’ve found the box! Oh, I told Kathleen not to put it in your wardrobe, but she was having one of her tidying fits; you know what she’s like.”

  “Where’s it been until now?” I asked.

  “Frances had it, at home, in her room. Wouldn’t throw it away. When she died, Lord Phillimore thought we might like it. I didn’t know what to do with it, but Kathleen put it in here, evidently.”

  I couldn’t imagine Lord P transporting an old cardboard box down to London just for Kathleen. It was an unexpectedly gentle thing for a man like him to do.

  “Why did you always tell me it had been thrown out?” I asked.

  Nancy squeezed her stout frame past the bed and, with a series of painful clicks, sat down next to me so she could put her arm around me, just like she had when I was small. I let her, even though I towered over her.

  “Look at it,” she said. “Tatty old thing. Would you want to know someone had left you in that?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so. She should have put you in a Moses basket, precious gift that you were. I’ll never forget that morning. ‘Look what the milkman’s left,’ Kathleen says to me…But you don’t need to hear that again.” She stopped and looked embarrassed. “You need to be getting away. Keeping you back, gassing like this.”

  “No,” I said, and squeezed her. “It’s been like old times, having breakfast here with you two.”

  “Did you find what you wanted?” she asked anxiously.

  “Yes.” I picked up the notebooks and put them in my red handbag. “I did. Thanks for hanging on to them.”

  Kathleen pressed a Tupperware box of sandwiches into my hand as I left, and by nine I was in Mark’s office, trying to type up my ideas into a presentation.

  I’d never given a presentation, or even listened to one, unless you counted the desperate sales pitch I endured every year from the man who made organic suede protector in Glasgow—Fiona had made me manager only so she could shunt the polite sales-pitch suffering onto me. Still, I made a list of BBC news-type phrases starting with “maximize demographic” and tried to shoehorn one per sentence.

  Then I realized I was using far too much shoe jargon.

  Paulette stomped up the stairs with the post at half past nine and nearly dropped the wrap of tulips she was carrying when she saw me at Mark’s desk.

  “Jeez! What are you doing here?” she yelped. “I thought you were in the pheasant-plucking class.”

  “Pheasant plucking?” Somehow I couldn’t imagine Venetia up to her false nails in a pheasant. Well, I could see Anastasia making short work of one, but Divinity and Clemmy would surely boycott it on animal rights grounds.

  “Yeah, makes a right mess. They watch mainly because they can only afford one pheasant at a time. Plucking ridiculous.” Paulette grinned cheerfully. “The jokes are the best thing about that class.”

  Eyebrow plucking, though—not a bad idea. I jotted it down underneath the Modern Grooming section.

  “Nope, I decided to skip it,” I said. “I already know all I need to about plucking pheasants. Which is absolutely nothing. Are those for me?”

  “What? These? Um, yes,” she said. “No. They’re for Mark. Well, for anyone really. I like putting flowers round the place, and Miss Thorne gives me the flower budget. It’s only a tenner a week so I’ve got to make it stretch, and tulips are dead cheap.”

  The flower budget wasn’t a tenner a week, I thought, outraged. It was more like fifty quid a week—I’d seen the accounts! That meant Miss Thorne was pocketing, what, a hundred and sixty quid a month?

  But I didn’t let on to Paulette. “I love tulips,” I said. “Are you pricking them, just under the heads, so they last longer?”

  “Yeah…” said Paulette evasively. “I am now.”

  “Morning!” Mark strode into the office, bike helmet under his arm. “Ready to face the only pearl-wearing dragon in London?”

  Paulette giggled. “Ooh, Mark, I’ll tell her you called her that.”

  “Don’t!” I said, then said it again more seriously, because I now knew Paulette was like a human parrot: she repeated everything, to anyone, at any time. “I mean it, Paulette.”

  Mark coughed into his hand. “Absolutely. I was speaking figuratively, of course. Into the Dragon’s Den and all that. I didn’t mean that the fragrant Miss Thorne was in any way fire-breathing. Or ancient history. Or had a scaly—”

  “Paulette,” I said over him, “we’ve got an appointment with Miss Thorne this morning, to discuss some new ideas for the Academy. Can you make sure no one interrupts us?”

  She nodded, eyes wide. “Even if it’s life or death? Or her dermatologist?”

  “Even if it’s Dame Barbara Cartland calling from the other side with advice about ducal proposals,” said Mark.

  “What if it’s Lord Phillimore?” she asked.

  I looked guiltily at Mark. “What do you reckon?”

  “You haven’t managed to get hold of him?” he asked, removing his overcoat. He was wearing a suit today, not as formal as the memorial one but definitely something that said, My proper job’s in the City. I sensed he’d smartened up a notch from yesterday: the shirt was blue and sober, the hair was tamed, and he was freshly shaved. Maybe he felt the need to dress up against Miss Thorne too.

  “What? Overnight? I haven’t had time,” I protested. “I was out late last night—I mean, I was working on this proposal, and I know he’s up in Scotland for the shooting this month, so he won’t have his mobile with him. If he’s even got one. I think his housekeeper looks after it for him.”

  Mark twisted his mouth and slipped into what I suspected was school-cadet-corps mode. “Might give Thorne an opening. We’ll have to play it by ear. See how the land lies once we’re in there. Leave it with me.”

  “Ooh.” Paulette giggled again. “Leave it with him, Betsy. You don’t hear many men say that these days.”

  “I thought it was the Academy motto,” I said, and I hoped Mark noticed my arched eyebrow as I said it.

  “Not anymore,” he muttered, then tapped the desk in front of me, where my notes and papers were strewn. “So,” he said, his eyes questioning but not unfriendly, “where’s this troubleshooting proposal of yours? We have manicure classes to discuss.”

  Miss Thorne made me and Mark wait for five minutes outside her office while she “attended to some urgent calls.”

  We knew she wasn’t attending to urgent calls because Paulette popped out with some coffee and pink wafer biscuits and informed us that Miss Thorne was on hold to the cattery where she was trying to book her Persian cats for her fortnight in Le Touquet.

&nbs
p; “Pink wafer biscuits,” I said, turning one over curiously. “I haven’t seen these in years. You know there are hostess trolleys and coffee percolators downstairs?”

  “You’ll probably find Florence Nightingale if you look hard enough…ah, Miss Thorne!” Mark leaped to his feet.

  “Mark, Elizabeth, so sorry to keep you waiting.” Miss Thorne stood at the door of her office, her small hands open in apology. She was wearing a bobbly collarless jacket that was probably Chanel or, at the very least, something her “little woman behind Harrods” had run up to look like Chanel. It was in the same color scheme as the pink wafer biscuits. “Do come in.”

  Mark and I followed her across the thick pile carpet, and I tried my hardest not to feel as if I’d done something wrong. Mark didn’t seem to be suffering from the same mind-set, though, as he settled himself in the chair nearest her desk and crossed his long legs.

  I noticed he was wearing brown suede wing tips with his suit, and hoped Miss Thorne wouldn’t spot them.

  She did, of course.

  “Brown in town, Mark?” she trilled girlishly.

  Mark affected not to know what she was talking about. “I’m sorry?”

  “Brown in town? Your shoes, dear!”

  He looked at me, for clarification.

  “What Miss Thorne means,” I said, trying to keep my face straight as Mark’s brow creased theatrically, “is that one isn’t supposed to wear brown shoes in town. And not with a gray suit.”

  “Really? And why’s that?” He turned back to her. “Is this to do with stagecoaches? Or does it affect my ability to add up or something?”

  She flapped her hands. “It’s just…taste, dear. A matter of taste. Your dear father would never have worn anything but highly polished black shoes in town. It was a matter of pride.”

  “For my mother,” he added. “She was the one who polished them.”

  “So long as you’re not wearing sneakers,” I said, “that’s fine with me.”

  “Yes, well…” Miss Thorne gave me a sympathetic you wouldn’t know any better look. “That is the modern way.”

  “Which is why we’re here!” said Mark.

  “Yes,” she said, clasping her hands and resting them in front of her. “Quite. I understand you have a little proposal for me, Elizabeth?”

  The hot room turned a degree or two hotter, and I drew a deep breath. Think confidence, I told myself. I could hear Franny saying, “Smile and you’re halfway there.”

  “Yes! I’ve been tremendously inspired in the last few days,” I said. My voice had gone very posh all of a sudden, possibly because I was trying harder than ever to channel the spirit of my notebooks. “I remembered everything I loved about growing up here—the elegance, the magic of adult life, the sense of style—and I’m absolutely determined that the Academy must carry on.”

  “Marvelous!” Miss Thorne paused in her rummaging through the Limoges mint imperial bowl and looked up. “This is going to be a quick meeting.”

  “But to do that,” I plowed on, before she could ring Paulette to show us out, “we urgently need to modernize what’s on offer, to attract a wider clientele. We have to distill that essence of classic Phillimore elegance into a modern, accessible version—like a diffusion line, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do, Elizabeth.” Miss Thorne replaced the mint in the bowl.

  “We need to let in some fresh air,” I said.

  “Literally,” she inquired, “or metaphorically?”

  “Both,” I replied firmly. “It’s basic business sense. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of our potential customer, work out what they want to buy, then offer it. And make sure they know where to get it.”

  “This isn’t Marks and Spencer, Elizabeth,” Miss Thorne reminded me.

  “No,” said Mark. “And good job it isn’t, otherwise the refunds desk would be queueing down the stairs.”

  “But we should offer that quality department-store experience,” I said hurriedly. “Fabulous, useful lessons in everyday elegance, tailored to what a modern girl needs to know. It’s not about social cachet anymore; it’s about knowing how to be stylish. People will always want that.”

  “I agree. It’s about time someone looked at the hard numbers.” Mark slid the pages of my proposal over the desk to her. “What Betsy has suggested adds up. It’s a tool kit for life—everything from handling difficult conversations to ending relationships to getting a pay raise to choosing diamonds.”

  “For yourself,” I added. “Not waiting for a man to present you with one.”

  “And who is to teach these marvelous lessons in…” She peered at my notes. “How to stay chic at an open-air festival? Do you mean the opera at Glyndebourne, dear?”

  “No, the rock music at Glastonbury, Miss Thorne. I’ve recruited a number of volunteers,” I said, crossing my fingers. I hadn’t yet, but I would.

  “Experts in their field? As knowledgeable about…” Miss Thorne glanced back down at the paper. “Minibreaks without Tears as Mrs. Angell is about spun sugar baskets?”

  I had Liv lined up to teach that, though she didn’t know it yet.

  “Even more so,” I said, confidently this time. “What my Minibreak expert doesn’t know about the ins and outs isn’t worth knowing.”

  “I’ve gone through the accounts every way I can think of, and there’s just about enough money left to cover this term,” Mark interjected. He seemed keen to get the meeting over and done with. “For next term to happen at all, we need to sign up about ten new students with deposits before the end of this term. What Betsy has proposed, and I fully support her suggestion, is that we trial these new classes right now, advertise an Open Day to be held in about three weeks’ time—the middle of February—to relaunch the Academy for a new generation, and take it from there.”

  I looked at my hands. I had an ulterior motive for the Open Day that I hadn’t confessed to Mark. Holding an Open Day meant inviting as many people as we could think of—journalists, real estate agencies and offices whose staffs needed people skills, eighteen-year-olds heading off to university, and, of course, Old Girls who might want to give a Secret Weapons of Womanhood course as a gift to their goddaughters.

  Old Girls who might then turn up and reveal themselves for inspection.

  “I see,” said Miss Thorne. She turned the pages of my proposal very carefully, holding the pages between her fingers as if the ink might come off on her hands. “Oh, how sweet! How to buy a house! Adorable. But I have two problems, Mark. First, I don’t think I’d be doing my duty as principal if I let you throw out every tradition we’ve worked hard to establish here, on a whim! Have you spoken to Lord Phillimore, for a start?”

  “No,” I said bravely. “No, I haven’t. He’s away, and I didn’t want to disturb him with this until I knew what your feelings were. I don’t think it would be easy to get hold of him this week, in any case—he always goes up to a friend’s in Scotland, out of reach.”

  “Hmm.” Miss Thorne made a small but meaningful pout with her pink lips.

  “It’s something we were going to raise at the end-of-month meeting,” I added. “If it hasn’t worked by then, then—”

  This time Mark interrupted for me. “I’m confident it will work, and I know Lord Phillimore supports any initiatives to keep the Academy afloat.”

  “I appreciate that, Mark,” said Miss Thorne condescendingly. “But we are bound to offer those girls upstairs the courses in which their parents enrolled them. We have legal obligations.”

  “I don’t think any of them would—” Mark began.

  “We can split it, mornings and afternoons,” I said. I didn’t want to horse-trade with Miss Thorne, but if we didn’t start practicing the new classes, the Open Day would be a shambles or, worse, not be allowed to happen.

  “The second problem?” Mark recrossed his legs. His socks were red. I really hoped Miss Thorne didn’t see those.

  She smiled, catlike in her Chanel jacket, a
nd I knew she had a trump card to deliver. I half expected our seats to hinge and slide us down to the piranha pit beneath. “Well, the second problem is that we already offer classes very similar to these.”

  “You do?” I couldn’t help it. “Where? I haven’t seen any.”

  “Haven’t you? Well, they are more seminars than classes. It’s a form of mentoring.” Miss Thorne was looking positively delighted now. “It’s fairly new, so it isn’t on the brochure, and—this is very much between us, Elizabeth—it isn’t on offer to every girl, only those who we feel will benefit from it.”

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  “We call it Personal Development,” said Miss Thorne. She looked so smug, her eyes nearly disappeared into her apple-y cheeks. “It’s designed around preparing a very specific type of girl for entering society at the very highest international level.”

  “Entering society?” said Mark. “Isn’t that a bit nineteenth century?”

  “Who teaches this?” I asked. I had a sinking feeling that I already knew the answer. How could I have forgotten?

  “Actually, it’s one of our old girls!” said Miss Thorne. “You might remember her—Adele Buchanan. We’re very lucky that she agreed to come and share her considerable knowledge.”

  Of course it was Adele Buchanan. Presumably she was sharing her specialist subjects: Social Leapfrog, and How to Make Friends and Marry Their Fathers.

  I could see my own face in the mirror behind Miss Thorne’s desk, and the reflection was not an attractive one. I also spotted, too late, that I had a coffee blotch on the shirt I’d borrowed from Liv that morning, and while I was trying to maneuver my scarf over it, I somehow missed the gentle hush of the study door being forced over thick pile carpet.

  “Hello, Geraldine…Oh, am I interrupting?”

  I looked up again into the mirror, and this time saw someone I hadn’t seen for fifteen years.

  Adele must have been in her midthirties, but she looked younger than me. Still baby blond, still dressed in head-to-toe camel. Still looking through me with the kind of eyes that read everyone’s social standing like a bar code. She was the only Academy girl who hadn’t joined in the “ooh, you could be a princess!” chorus when I was growing up, preferring to look sad and murmur things about being kind to girls who “fell on hard times.”