In the rush to get into bed, or at least on it, I had not worried about closing Nick’s curtains properly and so Friday morning announced itself far too early; a golden glow lighting up the room came in from both uncovered windows. Nick lay beside me, belly down, face in his pillows, snoring happily like a baby bulldog. As much as I wanted to wake him up, I let him sleep and settled with sniffing him. We’d been awake most of the night, and not just because I couldn’t keep my hands off him. When I had finally found the strength to put him down for more than fifteen minutes at a time, we started talking and it seemed as though he hadn’t stopped.
He told me all about growing up with an American dad, spending summers in New York that sounded so glamorous and exciting to his friends that he routinely got the shit kicked out of him every September but which, in truth, were lonely weeks spent inside a too hot apartment because his dad didn’t trust him to go out in the city alone. I told him about the summers Amy and I spent hiding in the woods at the back of her house, sleeping through the day, because my parents were arguing so much I couldn’t sleep at night and she was spending every evening watching late-night TV, wondering whether or not her dad was going to come home. He never did come back but there wasn’t anything that Amy didn’t know about Gladiators and every movie that had been on Channel Four after 11.00 p.m. between 1994 and 1999.
We talked about our favourite foods, the first time we got drunk, bad fashion choices and delicious snacks. He told me how he wanted to visit Alaska and Russia and I told him how I’d always wanted to see New York and Tokyo and Australia and we promised to take each other to those places and more. I couldn’t say when I finally fell asleep or what we were talking about when it happened, only that my voice was sore from talking and Nick was down to a whisper, but I woke up happier than I could remember.
The ceiling in Nick’s room didn’t seem as high as the ceiling in my room. I traced a crisscross pattern across the room and started counting the squares above me, trying to fall back to sleep so I wouldn’t be tired later in the day but I couldn’t. Instead, I was playing our conversations over in my head, reliving every last touch, every time he had taken my hand in his and kissed my fingers and every time he had stroked my hair. I memorized every one of his expressions, how his eyes warmed up whenever he talked about travelling, how they burned when he talked about a particular job that he had loved. The way he stared at me when I was talking, a million sparks lighting up his whole face in a different way, every time. There was so much to learn about him and I wanted to know it all at once.
‘Go back to sleep …’ His voice was still raw from its sleepless night when it echoed out from amongst the pillows. ‘It’s early.’
‘But I’m awake,’ I said, running my fingers lightly through his hair, sliding down the back of his neck and making circles on his strong back. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘You clearly aren’t trying,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ll wake you up properly in an hour.’
‘I was wondering, have you spoken with Artie at all?’ I asked, making a silent note of his offer. ‘Since we’ve been here this week, I mean?’
‘Go back to sleep and don’t get involved,’ he said, turning his head away.
I stopped my circling and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
‘Don’t get involved in what?’
Nick growled, the muscles in his back moving under his skin as he turned his head again. With one eye open, he looked at me.
‘What do you know?’ he asked.
‘What do you know?’ I asked.
‘It’s too early for this.’ Nick dropped his head back into the pillows, face down. ‘I’m a writer. I’m here to tell the story. Never get involved in family business, Tess.’
‘So something is going on.’ I scrambled up into a sitting position and kept shoving him until he turned over with a muffled roar. ‘You know something! What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know anything for certain.’ He grabbed hold of my wrists to stop my feeble attack and yawned loudly. ‘But I heard Artie on the phone to a Chinese factory the other night and he certainly wasn’t encouraging them to take his father’s business. And I’ve seen him talking to Warren, the bloke with all the photos of tits on his wall.’
‘He’s the pattern cutter,’ I sniffed. ‘But it’s good to know what you took away from that meeting.’
‘I’m sorry, I have a penis, there were naked woman.’ He closed his eyes again and pressed his forearms over his face. ‘Can you shut the curtains?’
‘I heard someone talking Chinese – was that Artie?’ I said, picking up Nick’s shirt and slipping it on as I went so as not to flash the entire Corso Venezia below. ‘How do you know he was on the phone to China?’
‘I speak Cantonese,’ he mumbled, ‘and some Mandarin. But he was speaking Cantonese and as I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know who you heard but it’s likely. He’s running interference on Al. I don’t know why. Yet.’
‘Why haven’t you told me about this before?’ I pulled the curtains to, reminding my reproductive organs that we were in the middle a very important conversation and that now wasn’t the time to insist he knock me up with genius, Cantonese-speaking babies, no matter how sexy that was. ‘What did Al say? He acted like he didn’t know any of this when I spoke to him yesterday.’
‘I don’t think he does know,’ Nick replied from underneath his arms. ‘It’s fucking tragic. His son is a really nasty piece of work.’
‘Wait, what?’ I held on to the heavy curtains. ‘You haven’t told him?’
He let out an impressively exasperated sigh.
‘No, I haven’t told him,’ he said slowly as if he was explaining to a child. ‘One, I don’t know anything for definite yet and two, I’m the journalist. It’s my job to observe and then tell the story. I don’t get in the middle.’
My hands curled tightly around the curtains.
‘But he’s our friend,’ I said, just as slowly. ‘You’ve got to tell him.’
‘He’s your boss,’ Nick corrected. ‘And I’m a journalist. This is a story.’
I stood in between the two curtains at the window, one leg warmed by the early morning sunlight, the other cold in the shade of the bedroom, and stared back at the bed. Nick was already half-asleep again, breathing steadily and all curled up under the covers. I couldn’t quite process what he was saying.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘You’re telling me you’re not OK with me working in advertising because that’s whoring my creativity to the man, but you’re totally fine with keeping Al in the dark about his own son trying to sink his new business because it makes a good story?’
‘Anything would sound bad when you put it like that,’ he replied without moving.
‘No, it sounds bad because it is bad,’ I said. I didn’t want to lose my temper and shout at him because, for once, I was entirely in the right and if he gave me that patronizing ‘calm down, dear’ look, I was very like to strangle him with his own boxer shorts. ‘You have to tell Al what you know.’
‘I don’t know anything.’ Nick emphasized the ‘I’ very carefully. ‘And you need to calm down. I’m working on it.’
And there went my temper.
‘That’s funny,’ I snapped, ‘because it sounds a lot like you’re letting someone I care about, someone who has been nothing but good to both of us, get spectacularly shat on for the sake of a story.’
‘Tess …’ Nick dragged himself upright and pushed his hand through his messy bedhead. ‘This could be a big deal, not a bit of a family tiff. Will you please stop being so naïve? You do not get involved in things you do not understand. You’re not Lois Lane, you’re not going to rush in and save the day.’
‘This is ridiculous!’ I hated being this angry this early. I hated being this angry at him. ‘You’re not going to tell Al anything?’
‘No,’ he said simply. ‘I’m going to follow the story and report it.’
‘I hope you enjoy your moral high ground,’ I said, scooting around the room and collecting my clothes. ‘I’ll be in my room being naïve and failing to understand how you can look Al in the eye.’
‘I really don’t want to have this conversation right now.’ Nick rolled over, showing me his back and his lack of concern, all at the same time. ‘It’s too early for this.’
‘I don’t want to have this conversation either,’ I said. ‘In fact, I don’t think I want to have any conversations with you for a bit. I’ll let you sleep.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ He didn’t even attempt to stop me from leaving. ‘This is what I do. It’s my job.’
‘Well, I happen to think convincing people to try a new kind of Pot Noodle is less morally compromising than shitting on good people.’ I heard the sting in my heart sound out in my voice. ‘So this is what I’m doing.’
I slammed the door, checked both directions and pulled my knickers on very quickly.
I stomped down the hall and up the stairs to my room, stewing on how easily he’d admitted to all of it and how little he seemed to care. But I didn’t have time to dwell on potential heartbreak – I had to find a way to help Al. He was right about one thing at least: I wasn’t Lois Lane, intrepid girl reporter. Clearly that was him. I was Superman and I was going to save the day.
Somehow.
As if I wasn’t frustrated enough, I couldn’t get hold of anyone when I got back to my room. Neither Al nor Kekipi were answering their phones and Domenico reluctantly informed me that they had all left the house already, Artie too, although obviously not at the same time. I took my rage into the bathroom and fumed in the shower, trying to work out what I was going to say when I did get hold of Al and wondering how much Domenico knew. After all, I had seen him coming out of Artie’s room the other night. Was he involved?
And as for Nick? I lathered up my hair with previously unknown vigour. How could he be so callous? I was starting to think I had made an epic fuck-up. After all this nonsense, what if the whole Nick or Charlie predicament was pointless? The thought that neither of them was right for me hadn’t even crossed my mind until now. Charlie said he loved me, but the girl I was, the girl I’d been for the last ten years, she wasn’t around any more. All the things he loved about me weren’t real. I didn’t love all the same things as he did, I just said I did so he would hang out with me. Coldplay made my skin crawl and, yes, I enjoyed Star Wars as much as the next girl but did he really need to watch it every other week? There were so many other movies out there.
But how could anyone choose to be with a man who was so very happy to go back to bed when a good man was about to get shafted so royally? What would happen five, ten years from now? So sorry, darling, can’t make parents’ evening, I’m very busy selling my mother down the river for a byline in The Times. Give whichever child has done well my love and tell the other one I’ll ruin his life when I get home.
And so it was down to me. Clearly, I couldn’t call the factory in China and have a quick chat with them, and given that my Italian was about as good as my Cantonese, there wasn’t much point in trying to get any information out of the people dealing with the lease on the shop, but there was one person in this mess who did speak English. I could definitely speak to him – as long as he was in his office. And he agreed to see me.
I tied up my hair in my best shit-kicking ponytail, grabbed my bag and marched on my enemy.
‘Buongiorno.’
The receptionist I had already met twice in the last five days stared at me blandly as though she had never seen my face before in her life.
‘Bonjouro?’ I offered. Italian was never going to be my language. ‘Um, hello. I’m here to see Mr Warren.’
I smiled, hoping there was a direct correlation between the number of teeth I showed her and how quickly she let me in.
‘No,’ she replied without even checking her computer screen. ‘No meeting today.’
‘I’m working with Bertie Bennett?’ I said, taking my camera out of my bag and waving it around until she cowered behind her monitor. Because threatening her with a heavy object was definitely going to change her mind. ‘It’s very important.’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘No meeting today. Arrivederci.’
‘Right, I know it’s not in the diary,’ I leaned over the desk, attempting to look terribly conspiratorial, ‘because it’s actually a personal meeting. I’m going to be modelling for Mr Warren.’
The receptionist peered over the desk, looked me up and down and then laughed.
‘No, no, no!’ She gave me a shake of the head as she continued to titter. ‘No model.’
I stayed on my side of the desk, making a note of her adorable put-down and adding her to my list. I’d deal with her later, but right now I had to find a way to get to Warren. There was no way I was skulking back to the palazzo, to Nick, defeated. I really should have woken Amy before I left; she would have been a fantastic distraction.
That was it. What would Amy do in this situation? Thinking about it, Amy would probably charge the reception and leave this bitch hogtied behind her desk. Since I didn’t really fancy that and was running out of time, I opted for a compromise.
‘Excuse me, could I please use your bathroom?’ I asked as politely as humanly possible. I bent my knees towards each other and bent down slightly, a pained expression on my face. Everyone knew that meant you needed a wee, right?
‘Bathroom?’ She kept her eyes trained on her computer monitor.
‘Toilet?’ I said, crouching more.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘My English is not good.’
Her English was fucking flawless. Now I knew she was just being an objectionable twat.
‘I need a wee,’ I shouted across the desk. ‘I’m going to wet myself.’
‘Oh, si,’ she smiled up at me before shaking her head. ‘No, mi dispiace. No, I am sorry, no toilet.’
‘But I’m pregnant.’ I pushed out my stomach and attempted to look sad. Not nearly as sad as I would look if I really were pregnant but I thought I did a pretty good job. ‘Baby?’
‘Oh, bambino!’ Suddenly, she looked delighted. ‘Si, si, si, this way.’
I rubbed my nonexistent baby and bumped her right up to the top of my list, following her across the reception, through a dark wooden door next to lift and waited while she worked away on three different locks.
What did she do when she was desperate? I wondered. Maybe she was never desperate. Maybe she was the only human on earth that didn’t suffer a casual need to pee when she was outside that transformed into an uncontrollable, desperate urge as soon as she had her keys in her hand. Or maybe that was just me.
She waved at the loo like she was offering me the crown jewels before reaching out to press her hand against my barren, echoing womb and sighed happily.
‘Is soon?’ she asked. ‘Baby is soon.’
I replied with a smile, keeping my mouth shut. I’d got this far; blowing my cover by calling her a bitch wasn’t going to help.
Safely inside the bathroom and surrounded by yet more black-and-white photographs of naked women, I turned sideways, checking my bump in the mirror on the back of the door. God help her if she thought this looked like a full-term pregnancy, I thought, patting my jeans, I didn’t even have a food baby. Clearly, if your stomach was not concave in this building, you must be eight months along.
I waited a few minutes, sitting on the edge of the sink, my pulse sounding loudly in my ears. I knew this was a terrible idea but I had to get in and talk to Warren. I had to know why he was prepared to shaft his alleged friend Al on behalf of a boy he had spanked in front of an entire Parisian frow. Nick might be comfortable with moral ambiguity when it benefited his career but I wasn’t prepared to let Al walk out at his party tonight and tell everyone his fashion line had failed before it had begun and not know why.
‘I’ll go in ten,’ I told my reflection, pleased with my Burglar Bill-style black-and-white striped T-shirt, wrapping my hair into a bun and flexing into a couple of low squats in preparation. Badly. ‘Nine. Nine and a half; nine and a third.’
‘Oh, just go.’ My reflection had about as much patience with me as my rubber duck. ‘It’s either going to work or it isn’t.’
Mirror Tess was right. Sucking up a big deep breath, I puffed out my chest, pulled in my belly and gave myself a nod.
‘Don’t be a chicken,’ I mouthed at myself. ‘Be brave.’
This was it. I bent down to my hands and knees and opened the bathroom door as quietly as I could and crawled along the floor, into the lift. At least the disinterested receptionist wasn’t looking for me. What kind of pregnant woman crawled out of a toilet on her hands and knees and snuck into a lift? This kind. The kind that wasn’t pregnant but was in fact a super genius; a super genius, who managed to get herself into a lift, only to find out that it was operated by a key card. Bollocks. The doors I had so cunningly opened, slid shut on me but the lift didn’t go anywhere. I tried pressing all the buttons but nothing. Curled up in a ball, my arms wrapped around my knees, I pressed myself into the corner of the lift, waiting for something to happen. So much for my grand plan; so much for helping Al; so much for sticking it to Nick. So much for – oh, hang on a minute! I was moving.
The journey wasn’t long, only to the third floor, but it was long enough for me to get to my feet and almost compose myself, although I did sort of need the toilet now. I really should have gone while I had the chance. The doors of the lift cracked open to show a red room I hadn’t seen before but given the artwork on the walls, I would have known it belonged to Warren even if he hadn’t stepped into the lift and bumped right into me.
‘Bess,’ he blustered, his hands held out to steady himself and accidentally on purpose grabbing right for my boobs. ‘Do we have a meeting?’
‘No.’
He was not removing his hands nearly quickly enough.
‘Then apologies, but I am on my way to the airport,’ he said, hands still holding up my rack. ‘I have a car waiting.’
I glanced down at the weekend bag in the crook of his arm and the passport tucked into the top pocket of his leopard-print blazer.
‘You’re leaving? I stepped out of the lift, pushing him forward with my ample sweater puppies. It was amazing how well a man could be manipulated with boobs. Mine were entirely covered by my crew-neck T-shirt and still, I could have made him walk into traffic. ‘But it’s the party tonight.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, looking over my shoulder as the lift doors closed. ‘Perhaps you haven’t had a chance to catch up with Mr Bennett. I’m no long working on the project.’
‘I heard, actually,’ I said, channelling every hard-arsed woman I had ever seen on telly. I was Lady Mary and Peggy Mitchell and every character Helen Mirren had ever played, all rolled into one. ‘But I didn’t really understand why.’
‘Creative differences,’ he dismissed. ‘These things happen.’
‘Nothing to do with Artie, then?’
I was trying very hard to hold my nerve but it had suddenly occurred to me what a very silly thing I was doing. No one knew where I was, no one knew what I was doing and I didn’t really know anything about Edward Warren or Artie Bennett. What if he decided to kill me, skin me and wear me around the house like a snuggie?
‘Nothing at all,’ he replied, far too quickly.
I was a tall woman but Edward Warren was an even taller man. My righteous indignation and hugely inflated self-esteem had given me a few extra inches when the lift doors had first opened but now I was starting to waver.
‘Al’s really upset.’ I decided to take a different tack and appeal to his heart. Failing all else, I could always pull up my shirt and then throw his passport out of the window. ‘He doesn’t understand why you can’t work with him any more.’
‘And I can only tell you what I told him,’ he said, sidestepping me and pushing the call button for the lift. The power of my boobs had definitely worn off. ‘I don’t have the time and the designs aren’t up to standard. Having thought about it, AJB isn’t a project I feel I can contribute to.’
He looked away, at the ceiling, at the floor, out of the windows. He was looking at anything but me, boobs included. He was lying.
‘That’s really sad,’ I said. ‘I bet Jane would be really disappointed.’
He shrugged inside his black silk bomber jacket, unmoved. I was about four seconds away from switching to the boob offensive when another idea struck me. Warren’s walls might be covered in pictures of naked women but there was one even stronger influence in his decorating, one thing he loved even more than tits. Himself.
‘And such a shame for, well, everyone. Those samples I saw were so beautiful. They might have been the most amazing dresses I’d ever seen,’ I said, with a sigh, pulling my shoulders back, just in case. ‘And I know Al has tons of journos coming. He was so excited to be working with one of his best friends on this, actually said there was no way it could happen without you. Really, I think everyone knew that you were the most important part of all of this. I mean, you’re the one who really makes it happen, aren’t you?’
‘The pattern cutter is always forgotten,’ he sniffed, flicking his luxuriant black hair away from his face. ‘Artie is right; Albert Bennett is always the story. Al always will be the story.’
Bingo.
‘Artie?’ I crossed my arms across my chest. No more boobs for you, Edward Warren. ‘He said that?’
‘It’s never a good idea to interfere with family, Bess,’ Warren said, brushing an eyebrow into place. Not the first time I’d heard that piece of advice today. Not the first time he’d called me Bess, either. ‘If there is one man on this earth more determined than Albert Bennett, it’s Artie Bennett. How that man came from such wonderful people I will never know but I’m not going to sabotage my own career for the sake of a man I haven’t seen in years.’
‘Surely working on Al’s collection is good for your career?’ I argued, desperate to get to the bottom of this. ‘It’s going to be huge.’
‘It’s never going to happen.’ Warren finally caved, dropping his bag on the floor and ignoring the lift as it chimed its arrival and opened its doors.
I stayed where I was as he strode back towards his desk, my hand hovering over the lift call button in case he was going to grab a weapon and I needed a quick getaway. I really didn’t want to be a skin suit, even if the stitching was certain to be beautiful.
‘And why’s that?’ I asked.
‘Artie isn’t going to let it happen,’ he replied. ‘He’s blackballed Al with more or less every factory I’ve spoken with and he’s done the same with every leasing agent in Milan, probably London, Paris and New York, I shouldn’t wonder. And all Al knows is that his son has his knickers in a twist about stocking his line in Bennett’s. It’s depressing.’
‘He knows you’ve bailed on him,’ I added. ‘I’m really sorry if I’m being stupid but what’s in it for you? You don’t sound that happy about shitting on your friend. Thankfully.’
Warren picked up a long, silver letter opener on his desk.
Oh fuuuck.
‘I’ve been a pattern cutter for a long time,’ he said, fingering the dull blade. Everything was starting to look a little bit Bond villain – and not in a good way. ‘And I have wanted to produce my own line for even longer but no one was interested. Once you’re in your box, you stay in your box. Unless you have Al’s money and name and prestige, of course.’
‘You could start again,’ I said, finger on the button. ‘People can do that.’
‘And people can fail,’ he replied. ‘I am the best pattern cutter in Italy, maybe in the world. You don’t walk away from that. The fashion industry isn’t the friendliest place, they don’t look kindly on failure. If I had brought out my line and it didn’t work, no one would have taken pity on me. Don’t you remember Slimane’s first collection for Saint Laurent?’
I pretended to think hard for a moment.
‘Can’t say I do.’
‘Carnage,’ he replied. ‘Absolute critical carnage. Thank God it sold, or he would have been designing tea towels for M&S by the end of the year.’
‘Everyone seems to be supporting Al,’ I said, really wishing he would put that letter opener down. Didn’t he have something less lethal he could play with? Basket full of puppies maybe? ‘What’s the difference between him and you?’
‘A dead wife and an endearing beard go a long way with a lot of people,’ Warren said, banging the letter opener down. ‘Sorry, that was uncalled for.’
‘Bit harsh,’ I agreed, wondering how true it was. I did like that beard and even though I’d never met her, I did have a huge, wailing girl crush on Jane.
‘Artie offered to help me and stock a capsule collection in Bennett’s.’ Warren sat down and smoothed his hair over his bald patch. ‘So I made a business decision. It was nothing to do with Al.’
I was starting to wonder whether Nick was right about more than I cared to believe. I had thought that advertising was a cut-throat industry but I’d spent seven years cocooned inside one company, getting on with my job and just trying to do the best that I could, while the rest of the world was out there, shitting on each other from as great a height as possible. It was a bit depressing when you thought about it.
‘He’s going to be really hurt when he finds out,’ I said, not sure where else to go. I’d appealed to his heart, I’d appealed to his ego and my ego knew that I’d never be able to appeal to his peen. If the receptionist hadn’t made it clear enough, the photos on the walls did. Nothing over a size two got this man going. He wasn’t even looking at my boobs any more. ‘Didn’t you ever think about asking Al to help you get your designs out?’
‘Have you not been working in fashion photography for very long, dear?’ Warren stood up and rounded his desk, picking up his weekend bag with a new resolve on his face. ‘There are no favours in the fashion world. No one asks anyone for help.’
‘Al asked you,’ I said. ‘And you were really quick to help him out. You don’t think he would do the same?’
He paused and looked like he was considering my question.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But it doesn’t really matter now, does it?’
‘I wish it did,’ I said, stepping aside as he pushed the button for the lift. ‘You won’t change your mind? Talk to Al? See what he can do?’
‘He can’t do anything,’ Warren replied as the lift doors opened. ‘For me or himself. I suggest you take your photos and go home, Bess. Al’s days are done.’
I hoisted my handbag onto my shoulder and watched as the doors closed behind him, relieved I was still alive but devastated that I hadn’t really helped at all.
‘Still,’ I said to myself, calling the lift back up to my floor and half looking forward to the look on the receptionist’s face when I walked out, ‘I didn’t end up as a skin suit so we can call this a win.’