“M’S IN THE SOUND room,” said Jo as Stephanie came into reception. “We’ve got a bit of a rush on!”
Patsy, perched on the edge of Jo’s desk, applying lipstick, smiled. “It’s the warmer weather – brings out the rabbit in all of us.”
Samantha appeared with two cups of coffee and a petulant expression. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said sulkily, handing one of the cups to Jo. “I couldn’t hear what she was saying.”
“You should have thrown the bad-signal switch and cut her off. She was calling from her mobile, wasn’t she?” Jo took a mouthful of coffee. “Never mind, M will smooth it.”
“It was only the daughter,” Samantha said. “She’s only about ten.”
Jo raised her eyebrows. “Kids are very cute these days. You don’t want to underestimate them.” Stephanie glanced at her. Jo wasn’t that old herself. Though she was so confident and assured in a way Stephanie had never been in her twenties. Or was now!
“Pain in the bloody arse mine are, far too precocious,” put in Patsy, taking the coffee Samantha was just about to drink. “You can go and make another one, can’t you, darling?”
“Well this one just sounded like a little kid,” argued Samantha, looking put out.
“And why was she calling?” rapped out Madeleine who had appeared without warning. “Because her father had asked her to!”
She shook her head disapprovingly at the idea of any man having the temerity to question his wife’s whereabouts and strode in the direction of her office. Stephanie and Samantha looked at each other and followed.
* * *
Madeleine gathered up some papers from her desk and slid them into her briefcase. “You obviously need some more training,” she said coldly to Samantha.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” she asked Patsy, who had now transferred herself to the edge of Madeleine’s desk and was flicking through Hello.
“Going home to soak my body. I’ve got a very hot date tonight.” She winked at Stephanie. “Oh dear look at this – she looks all droopy since she had a baby.” She held up a picture of a radiant-looking actress. “Wouldn’t mind a go with him though. I do like my men toned…”
“Where are you going?” Madeleine asked. “Have you cleared it with Jo?”
Patsy didn’t look up. “No need.”
“Just remember what I said.”
She picked up her jacket and headed for the door, addressing Samantha over her shoulder. “I’ll be back about four. Till then, for God’s sake just help Stephanie with the filing.”
“I suppose she’ll make me work late again now,” Samantha, said when Madeleine and Patsy had gone. “And I’m supposed to be meeting Jed at seven. I never wanted this job anyway.”
“What are you doing it for then?” Stephanie asked kindly, picking up the tray of invoices she was putting in order.
“My mother was going on and on. She wanted me to work in an estate agent’s!” Samantha pulled a face. “And then Auntie Monica said this would be more glamorous.” She rolled her eyes to show how ill-informed her godmother had been. “So she fixed it with Patsy. I hate it. Mum thinks it’s just recruitment, of course.”
“What would you like to do?” Stephanie glanced sideways at Samantha. She was supposed to be eighteen but she seemed more child-like than Charlotte.
“An actress or model or something. Or on a magazine. Someone like Lady Victoria Hervey. Or Normandie. Jed, my boyfriend, he does stuff for all the newspapers in London. He says it’s just a matter of knowing the right people. Once he’s made it, he’ll get me a job on the fashion pages no problem. You just need the right face in the right place, he says. I don’t want to be stuck here for ever with all these sad old bags trying to pretend that they have a boyfriend, like they’re still young.”
Wince. Stephanie tucked two theatre tickets into a folder full of restaurant receipts. “No, well, I expect it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
Samantha flicked back the silky blonde hair from her perfect, unlined face and curled her lip in distaste. “Well, I think it’s disgusting. What did they get married for if they can’t even be faithful?”
Stephanie picked up another cardboard folder. She hadn’t done anything yet. A kiss didn’t count, did it…?
She guiltily pushed down memories of how passionate it had become. She’d forgotten how a kiss could be. That electricity between them, how their bodies had cleaved together. But they’d stopped. She’d stopped. And if she didn’t see him again…
Samantha was still talking. “It’s like that Andrew and Harriet say on the telly – it’s a commitment. You can look at someone else but you don’t do anything about it.”
Stephanie grimaced. What was it with the youth of today? Charlotte was bizarrely fond of the sanctimonious and sickeningly-happy Andrew and Harriet, with their homilies each weekday morning, and had to be prised away from the TV with threats of no breakfast.
“I’d never cheat on Jed,” Samantha said. “When we get married it will be for ever.”
“That’s nice,” said Stephanie, securing a thick wad of hotel bills with a bulldog clip. Yes, well they all started off like that. “Is the wedding soon?”
Samantha fiddled with her hair. “Oh, well no, we haven’t planned anything. We need some money first you know.”
Stephanie nodded. Yes, she knew…
Money. The root of all the rows she and Troy ever had. Before the mixing desk fiasco – last in a line of back-crushing financial straws – there’d already been endless spats over allocation of funds (hers) with Stephanie putting in a fervent bid for the electricity that was about to be cut off and Troy nodding and gaily coming home with a drum kit. Or once – memorably – a telescope he’d bought for an incredible knock-down price from a bloke in the pub where he’d gone to spend the month’s water rates. “We can look at the stars,” he’d said appealingly. “That whole incredible galaxy out there.” It had been covered in dust at the back of a cupboard when Troy moved out.
She’d shouted, she’d begged, she’d cried. Today, she almost smiled, remembering him rushing from the flat where she sat weeping over her overdraft, returning with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates he’d spent her very last twenty pounds on to cheer up her up!
Now she marvelled. He had a job and a house and paid school fees.
“What shall I do with these?”
Stephanie looked at Samantha blankly. “Sorry?”
Samantha held out the pile of photographs. “I don’t know where to put these.”
“Oh – I don’t know. Sorry, I was miles away there for a moment.” Steph leant over and looked at the pictures Samantha was shuffling. They all seemed to be of men. “Um put them in that box – it’s all stuff I need to ask Madeleine about. I think she said they needed coding or something.”
“Need shooting, by the look of them,” said Samantha. She held a photo up for Stephanie to see. “Look at this old codger!” Stephanie looked. He was about forty.
“How old’s Jed?” she asked.
“Twenty-two,” said Samantha happily.
Troy had been twenty-two when they’d started living together. She was nineteen. She’d stayed over in Troy’s bed-sit the night he moved in and never went back to her college room.
Her mother had been horrified by the smallness and the damp, by the very idea, but Cora had given them jugs and ornaments, brightly coloured bedding and frayed towels to tide them over. Troy had come to London to make his fortune – make enough fortune for both of them. When Steph finished college she’d only need a job for a while – just till his money came rolling in. From the paintings, the music, the fabulous ideas, the amazing inventions. Troy was going to conquer the world. “He’s so talented,” said Cora.
“So what exactly does Jed do?” asked Stephanie. “He’s a journalist is he?”
“Well he writes articles, and sometimes he takes photographs too.”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” said Stephanie politely. “Which papers?”
“Well you know that Eleanor wotsit – the one who was in EastEnders as the dentist’s mother?”
“Sort of,” said Stephanie, none the wiser.
“Well when her liposuction went wrong he caught her leaving the clinic in bandages and then he got one of the nurses to tell him how many stitches she’d had and everything,” said Samantha proudly. “He sold it to the News of the World.”
“Did he really?” asked Stephanie, feeling sorry for the unfortunate Eleanor whoever-she-was and feeling very glad she wasn’t famous enough to warrant a Jed hanging about when she and the Facelift Club went under the knife.
“But most of all he wants to get a permanent job on the Daily Detail. That’s where the top blokes are, he says. He’s done a few bits for them but the editor’s a woman – and a real hard-nosed bitch. A real man-hater.”
“Oh dear.” Stephanie sorted the pictures Samantha had handed her into a neat pile.
“He’s working on something now,” said Samantha. “He says it’ll be a real exclusive. But he won’t tell me what it is. It’s something big though,” she lowered her voice, “because he keeps staying out ever so late.”
That’s what he tells you anyway, said Stephanie silently and immediately recoiled at the thought. What had happened to her? A couple of weeks working here and already she was assuming the worst of everyone.
“Then we’re going to get a flat in London,” said Samantha eagerly. “Get out of this dump.”
Stephanie smiled to herself. It didn’t come much more exclusive than Edenhurst, with its rapid train link to town. Half the city-working population would dream of a home here with its leafy lanes and stockbroker houses, celebrity homes and ladies that lunch. Or – as it turned out – spent their time in other ways.
The phone on Madeleine’s desk rang again and this time continued to ring. “Shall I?” Stephanie raised her eyebrows at Samantha.
“I shouldn’t,” said the girl feelingly. “Jo said they were all going through to her. Madeleine went mad when I answered it when I wasn’t supposed to.”
But Jo came into the room and the phone carried on ringing. She spoke to Stephanie. “What time did Madeleine say she’d be back?”
“About four, I think.”
Jo looked at her watch. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Well I hope she hurries up. Not quite sure what to do about this one. Client’s turned up,” she nodded in the direction of the reception area. “She’s in a right old state!”
“Can’t you call Madeleine on her mobile?”
“Er no – not really.” She looked sideways at Samantha who was still digging about in one of the filing cabinets. “Hotel la Ruche,” she mouthed at Stephanie.
“Ah,” said Stephanie, not having a clue what this meant. The phone on Madeleine’s desk abruptly stopped and then began to ring again. “I’ll take it out there,” Jo said. “Can you look after Mrs V for a minute?”
Stephanie followed her out to reception where an anxious-looking woman of about thirty-five was sitting on the edge of one of the sofas clutching a mobile phone. She jumped as Stephanie approached. “Mrs V? Would you like to come and have a coffee?”
“Will Madeleine be back soon?” The woman looked at her beseechingly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“We’re expecting her any minute.”
Stephanie led her to a chair in the office outside Madeleine’s. “I won’t be a moment.”
“He just phoned out of the blue,” Mrs V leant up and grabbed at Stephanie’s arm as she tried to move away. “Said he’d found them.”
“Who? Found what?”
“The photographs. A whole heap of them. Gary took them and now Donald’s found them. And I haven’t got a thing on!”
“Oh God.” Stephanie sat down suddenly beside her.
“What am I going to do?” Mrs V sank back down in to the chair herself and put her head in her hands. “He said I’ve got to go straight home and tell him who he is!”
“What did you say?” asked Stephanie, aghast.
“Nothing! I pretended my battery had run out like Madeleine says.” She held out the mobile to Stephanie like a child. “Can you do it for me?”
“What?” Stephanie took the phone, bewildered.
“Oh, I’ll deal with that,” Jo reappeared. “We’ve got a machine,” she explained to Stephanie. “Discharges them. Makes it all look authentic.” Turning to Mrs V she said, “I’ve spoken to Madeleine. She’s on her way – and it’s all going to be cool.”
“Is it?” the woman looked at Stephanie wide-eyed. “I thought of telling him I’d had them taken for him – you know, professionally, as a surprise – but they were all Polaroids.”
Stephanie shook her head not knowing what to say. How on earth could Madeleine sort naked photographs? “I’ll, um, make you a coffee,” she said.
When she came back Mrs V was staring manically into space. “Will she be here soon? Oh!” She leapt up as Madeleine strode in. “Oh, thank you.”
“Right, don’t panic,” said Madeleine.
“He’s waiting for me at home. There’s about six of them. In one I’m –”
“When’s his birthday?”
The woman looked startled. “January.”
“Right. Wedding anniversary?”
“November.”
Madeleine frowned. “Hmmm. Still a bit far off, isn’t it? What else have you got coming up? Any celebrations, milestones, landmarks?”
“No. Nothing.”
Madeleine tutted impatiently. “Come on, come on, think! The children done anything special? The dog died?”
“No.” The woman shook her head miserably.
“How long have you lived in your house?”
Mrs V looked up, surprised. “Um – ten years I think, yes, nearly ten years.”
“When did you move in? What month?”
“End of May I think – yes 27th May!”
“Excellent!” Madeleine said triumphantly. “And you’ve been so happy there haven’t you?”
“Well…”
“You have been so happy you have organised a very special present for him to mark the occasion of having lived in this lovely home of yours for ten years. Not a boring domestic family present but a special romantic just-for-him present to remind him of how you were all those years ago when he carried you over the threshold…”
“I don’t think he –” the woman began uncertainly but Madeleine swept on, clearly warming to her theme.
“You wanted something to last forever the way your love will. And what better than the ageless, timeless gift of an oil painting of you nude!”
The woman gasped. Stephanie felt her own mouth drop open. “Go home now and tell him they were taken by a female painter. Then cry! Sob how disappointed you are that the surprise has been ruined. Weep with hurt at him thinking the worst of you when you’d put so much effort into his celebration.”
Mrs V gulped.
“Jo, call up YK – she’s some sort of artist – get her to rustle up a half-finished oil – doesn’t have to be much good. And you –” she said, turning to the shocked Mrs V, “can get round there in the morning, get your kit off and show your face so she can make sure it looks vaguely like you.”
“But the sort of positions I was in…”
“No problem,” said Madeleine airily. “Tell him to think Tracy Emin rather than Holbein. Say she was experimenting to see how the light fell. Then get her to knock you one out with your legs crossed if you’re worried what the neighbours will think when it’s hung in the dining room.”
Mrs V paled. “Well, if you’re sure it will work…”
“Of course it will. Jo will give you the number to call. He can speak to YK direct if he doesn’t believe you. We’ll call her Arabella – nice arty name. Then when she turns up in a couple of days with a half-finished canvas, he’ll be begging forgiveness. You’ll probably get a lavish present yourself.”
“Oh thank you so much, I’m so grateful.” Mrs V took a step towards Madeleine and for a moment Stephanie thought she was going to kiss her. “But next time,” Madeleine said severely, stopping the woman in her tracks, “don’t leave things like that lying around.”
“I thought they’d be safe. They were in my knicker drawer.”
“In that case,” said Madeleine when Mrs V had gone, “I think she could find Donald’s got a secret or two of his own.”
Stephanie giggled, feeling slightly hysterical. “Well she won’t do that again anyway, will she?”
Madeleine poured a little whisky into the mug of coffee Jo had brought her. “She certainly won’t when she sees the bill.”