And work they did! Easter wasn’t until the end of April. The nights were light and the days wonderfully warm—just as well, because the Blackcote Farm barn was unheated, and there was always a slight feel and smell of damp. No wonder the agent had discounted the rent!
Izzie and Maddy would arrive by seven, and the others by eight, bundled up in layers of jumpers, fleeces, Nepalese hats with earflaps, only to cast them off bit by bit into amorphous colored bundles around the walls as the sun rose higher outside. By lunchtime, they would all go and sit on the staddle stones ranged along the back wall, looking out over the swollen stream and the farmland beyond as they munched their lunch.
One of their staunchest workers proved to be Oscar Grant, who had shuffled up to Izzie one afternoon in Ringford. Looming over her in his school uniform, he’d looked vaguely menacing and at first she didn’t recognize him. His friends’ slightly timid jeers obviously unnerved him and he shifted from foot to foot, his bent head swaying like a mild-mannered dinosaur searching for tasty greens. “’Lo, Izzie,” he’d mumbled. “All right?”
“Hi! Oscar!” Izzie was relieved and went slightly over the top. “Great to see you. How’s, er, things? Been skateboarding lately?”
She wished she hadn’t asked, but at least it gave him a chance to overcome his embarrassment. He waxed lyrical about Ollies and goofyfooters; and, no idea what he was talking about, she nodded enthusiastically. “Right! Gosh—really? That sounds er . . .”
“So anyway, I’m saving up for new wheels, and they’re pretty expensive, so I was wondering if you might have any work going during the Easter holidays—not full-time, ’cos I’ve got to do some revision too but—”
“Oscar, that would be tremendous. We’ve been worrying about getting all the orders ready, so any time you could give us would be welcome. Why don’t you call me?” She rummaged in her bag for a Post-it note and pencil, then wrote down both her own and Maddy’s numbers.
“You’ve pulled, Oz!” came a muffled catcall from the bus stop, but Oscar didn’t blush this time. He glanced over at the tumbling pack of teenage boys with quiet superiority. “Wrong. Got meself a holiday job.”
The assorted groans and sullen mutterings of “Jammy bastard!” were encouraging. Oscar was still hovering. “Erm, could I tell Tam that you might have some work for her too?” He glanced uncertainly at Izzie.
“Would she want to? I got the impression she thought the whole thing was too trivial for words.”
“Oh, no. Tamz is dead keen, only she . . . she doesn’t like to ask. She’s been cutting out all the stuff in the papers about you and Mrs. . . . Maddy. And she’s stopped dying her hair.” He trailed off. “She’d kill me if she knew I’d told you that . . .”
“Don’t worry, Oz.” She glanced at him mischievously. “It’ll be our secret!”
So along with themselves, Oscar and Tamasin, Lillian half on admin and half on labeling, Crispin half on deliveries and pick-ups and half on pot filling, they were managing to keep up with the orders. They were even set up for the summer term, when three mums from St. Boniface’s would be starting. Now that had been an interesting conversation. Izzie, skulking in the playground at pickup time, had been surprised as they had approached her. She knew them by sight, of course, but had never had more than a nodding acquaintance with them.
“You’re Charlie’s mum, en’t you?” said the one in the middle, with her hair cut into a mullet and the most visible piercings.
“Yeees.” Were they going to complain about that awful rhyme Charlie had been chanting—that one that started: My friend Billy . . . ?
There was a pause. The one on Izzie’s left with the growing-out perm tied into a tight ponytail chipped in. “My Jade’s on the same table as your Jess.”
The third of these three graces was short and fat. “I got Sam ’n’ Adam in wi’ Charlie. We was wonderin’ if you and that friend of yours needed any work doin’—casual like. You got that place out on Blackcote, en’t yer?”
Now how did they know that? The answer was not long coming. “My sister’s ex-boyfriend’s mate was doin’ the plumbin’ and he saw you goin’ there. So we knew you was goin’ big, with that face cream stuff. We’ve been workin’ down the plant nursery, potting up and loading the orders, only they said we had to work durin’ the ’olidays. Seeing as you’ve got kids an’ all, we was thinkin’ you’d understand ’bout that. We could start soon as they go back.”
Izzie recovered her composure. Things were desperate and this could be ideal, but how would Maddy react? She’d have to run it past her. “Why don’t you come over and see us at the barn, tomorrow maybe, when the kids are at school, and we’ll try to work something out?”
So the Easter holidays were far easier than Izzie and Maddy had dared to hope. With Colette back, Maddy’s kids and therefore Maddy were well and happy. She’d even got to grips with the computer, sending e-mails with the best of them, and she’d overcome her reservations about employing the school mums, Angie, Donna, and Karen (perhaps it was the association of those last two names that swung it).
It was sad, as term resumed, to say good-bye to Oscar and Tamasin. Tamasin, despite Izzie’s fears, had proved herself invaluable within an hour of starting work. She had caught on so quickly to what was needed that, by the end of her time with them, she’d often completed tasks even before Maddy or Izzie had thought about asking her to do them. Her new natural look suited her much better than the Goth too, although she’d cut her hair ludicrously short herself, to avoid the two-tone effect as she grew the dye out. “We’ll carry on at weekends though, won’t we, Oz? And at half term too, if you want us.”
With the three graces, Karen, Angie, and Donna, taking over, the atmosphere changed radically and Izzie heard some jokes that shocked even her, but productivity increased. The new workers’ disrespectful attitude to the product also endeared them. “Load o’ bloody crap, all this though, ennit? Soap and water my mum always used, an’ ’er skin were smashing. And best part of thirty quid? They want their ’eads lookin’ at.” This was the judgment of the triumvirate, endlessly mulled over, along with a fairly limited range of other topics including sex, kids, the lottery, and a bloke called Shane. But in spite of their feelings on the product, the three were clearly used to hard work and, grimly cheerful, they operated as a well-oiled if rather noisy unit, with Radio One playing loudly all day.
Having regular staff also allowed Izzie and Maddy to get on with strategic planning. Maddy had already been working on one of Luce’s other recipes. A moisturizer, called Crème Rosée du Soir. “It’s evening dew cream,” she translated. “I think it sounds rather romantic. It’s got the weed extract and rose petals infused in oil—we’d have to get some stonking rose essential oil and, maybe, almond oil and wax—if we haven’t made all the bees in the country homeless, that is!”
Lunchtimes were also rather different. Without the tabbouleh, pan bagna, or chili bean wraps, sent in by Janet and shared generally—once Tamasin had got over her embarrassment at her mother’s pebble-dashed offerings—they had now relapsed into sarnies, crisps, loads of diet cola purchased from the lunchtime van, and Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers by the score.
But Pru had been livid. Immaculately groomed as always on one of her rare visits north, and in stark contrast to the gear she’d insisted they should wear, she had counted off the list of dos and don’ts on her French-manicured fingers. “No ciggies, no booze apart from French wine, French mineral water, no takeaways, no ready meals, no sliced bread, no processed food, no supermarket for preference. I was wondering about going veggie, but I think if we stick to . . . oh I don’t know . . . guinea fowl, capons, and mutton, you can go on eating meat.”
“What, no sausages?” Izzie squeaked, imagining the mutiny she’d be faced with at home.
“Saucisson de Toulouse, of course—but nothing less recherché. Unless you can find a little place that does homemade organic, of course.”
The list went on and on. Fluoride-free toothpaste, hemp towels, strictly nothing in black, no Lycra, and emphatically no eyebrow plucking or waxing . . . “What?” Maddy and Izzie had rejected that one simultaneously.
“Pru, you can’t.” Maddy was outraged. “You remember what my eyebrows were like at school. It’s just not sensible.”
Izzie was aghast. “You haven’t seen my legs without attention. I have this pelt—it keeps me warm in winter—but it has to come off, or I’ll stifle in the heat once summer comes.”
Maddy gazed at Izzie with new respect. “You mean you go all winter without waxing your legs? How revolting! Go on—show us.”
Izzie managed to hold her patchwork skirt down round her ankles, despite Maddy’s tugging. “But what about our families? You can’t expect the kids to change their lifestyle to fit in with our new image. And as for Marcus . . .”
Pru steepled her fingertips together and leaned toward them. “Girls, if I’ve got this right—and believe me, I’m never wrong—it’s not just going to be your families doing all this. It’s going to be a good forty percent of ABC1s in the twenty-five to thirty-nine bracket, with spin-off going much, much further. In fact, if one’s kids aren’t eating mulberry bread with wild mushroom pâté, they’re going to be complaining that everyone laughs at them in school.”
She also briefed them on what to expect from Elements. “They are big hitters, I warn you, and they have an extremely well-defined image, so they’ll have put in lots of work on this presentation.”
Izzie rubbed her hands together. “I was thinking, we want to make a really professional impression, so do you think we should scrap all the cambric and go for really natty little suits?”
Pru was indignant. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying? You are the brand. You have to carry this through with conviction or it won’t work. Natty suits is what they wear—you and Maddy stick to the plan.”
It was harder explaining Pru’s policy document and the need to stay “on message” to Marcus. He shook his head in exasperation. “Look, I understand that you’re working very hard and long hours and everything, and it’s great to have some money coming in . . . although I think you ought to have a better fix on just how much you’re making . . . but you just haven’t considered my feelings in all this. Does it really matter what I do? You’re the main story here.”
“I’m not really enjoying all of this either. There are days I could murder a packet of prawn cocktail crisps.” Izzie crossed her fingers under the table. “But surely it’s not too much to ask? You can drink lager at home, if you like. Just don’t do it in the pub.” She moved closer, put her arms round his unyielding body. “We need to be a bit careful that we maintain an image. We can’t afford to be caught out. And think of what we stand to gain. I need you on board, Marcus.”
He stood stiffly, frowning and distant. “Do you? I wonder sometimes.”
Between the meeting with Pru and the planned meeting with Elements, the May issue of Country Lifestyle magazine came out. Izzie arrived at the barn with her copy, hot off the press—well, off the shelves of the Ringford newsagent anyway. She and Maddy had agreed not to peep until they were together—it felt a bit like opening A level results.
“Ready?” They eyed each other anxiously, then, opening the magazine boldly, they both gasped. The photographs were nothing less than amazing, with a dramatic quality that had nothing to do with the weather on the day of the shoot.
“How did he manage to make those clothes look sexy?” Maddy examined the pictures more closely. “You look like Cathy waiting for Heathcliff. I can’t imagine what lens he must have used to give you a cleavage like that—telephoto perhaps?”
“Well, look at you—you’re positively Demelza-ish in that one. And what are you doing to that carrot?”
Maddy had flipped to the next page. “Look at the kids! Who says the camera never lies? They were being little sods that day, but he’s made them look angelic—all rosy cheeks and pearly teeth.”
The copy was even better, gushing on about “the idyllic environment” and “a secure homestead which manages to keep the excesses of the twenty-first century at bay.” “Both women work hard,” it effused, “to provide for their families on their own terms; in a context where glass ceilings and boardroom wrangles are irrelevant.”
Izzie clutched her head. “Oh no. What’s Marcus going to say when he reads that?”
Marcus didn’t say anything. In fact, he barely glanced at the feature when she showed it to him enthusiastically. As predicted, the coverage resulted in another prodigious surge in sales. There was now a kind of momentum building up, with articles appearing quite regularly and little mentions here and there. One R&B diva claimed that she had been using nothing but Paysage Enchanté for years, and had been a fan long before anyone else had caught on. Maddy and Izzie both chuckled at this one.
Buoyed up by this excitement, they marched confidently a few weeks later into the achingly trendy Spitalfields offices of Elements, although they felt decidedly out of their element in their swirling skirts and frilled shirts. “Just as well we didn’t go for the natty suit option,” Izzie hissed as they swept upward in the steel and glass lift. “They seem to be cloning those types here. We might have got lost and never found each other again.”
“God, they’re scary. I’ve never seen so many people like this before in one place. If they’re creatives, why do they all dress the same?”
“Relax.” Izzie held up a reassuring hand. “These are my people. Remember, I used to live in North London.”
Waiting to greet them in the conference room—yin-yang balanced no doubt, for the most positive energy—were a range of identikit designer types. Black suits, white T-shirts, clunky shoes, and neo-brutalist haircuts—and those were just the women! The only splashes of color came from the hair—dyed an alarming range of very non-natural colors. Finbar, a postmodern Irishman who seemed to be their leader, got them off to a flying start.
“We’re very excited to be working with Paysage Enchanté.” Izzie tried to avoid Maddy’s eye. It did sound funny in a Belfast accent. “We feel that the brand truly enhances our current range-set, introducing an excitement-facing urban-rural dialecticism that we think will upscale selling outcomes of both identities in a kind of counterbalancing way.” What? “By comingling, as opposed to intermingling, PE with our other more future-here brands, we think we’ll create an incrementalized dynamic, producing an almost”—he did air quotes and both women shuddered visibly—“ironic tension between the old and the new—with the deliverable of course being”—he smiled around at his colleagues, who were all nodding in agreement—“exponentialized client take-up across the board!”
Maddy looked around in confusion. Izzie was frowning. “Hold it right there, Finbar. Can we just ‘unpack’ that?” Izzie air-quoted and Maddy turned her splutter of laughter into a coughing fit. “If I’m interpreting correctly your vision of our brand identity, you see it as validating your current image in a Rousseauesque rural juxtaposition that springs entirely from the contemporary—in other words, externally.”
The clones were gripped.
“I couldn’t agree less,” Izzie went on. “PE’s integrity is entirely autoreferential.” They were eating out of her hand now. Some of them were even taking notes. “We propose a dedicated PE zone in each of your outlets, spatially contiguous with, yet distinct from, your base range area. A kind of syncretic concatenation with all the imagery that implies. I’m thinking green, gray-green with cobalt éclats. Sepia, concealed lighting to create a wash and tonally matched to Provence at two thirty on an afternoon in early June.”
Finbar’s mouth was hanging open and he nodded fast. “I’m with you! I’m totally there. I can smell the garrigue.”
“I knew you’d get it, Finbar.” Izzie smiled at him warmly, and they went on to finalize details with figures, she realized in horror, that would mean more than doubling their output. If only she could double the number of hours in a day. When she mentioned the proposed new rose moisturizer, Finbar almost wet his knickers with excitement and wittered on about “creating a synergistic lifestyle experience.”
“I can smell something, but it ain’t garrigue,” muttered Maddy as they passed round Pantone swatches for the point of sale. “I didn’t know you spoke fluent bullshit.”
On the way out, the drones and clones were deferring to Izzie as though she were the queen ant, and she took the adulation in her stride. She was particularly pleased with herself for having requested about three hundred pounds’ worth of their existing cosmetic ranges, to help her with the concept, naturally. Finbar hugged them both like old friends.
“It’s wonderful to work with clients who have such a clear vision. Ciao, ciao!” he gushed as he closed the taxi door, then waved until they were out of sight.
“Phew—I’m glad I was able to put a stop to that.” Izzie sighed with relief. “What a bloody nerve—they wanted to put our stuff next to their existing products as a sort of contrast, old and new. But I reckon our stuff is so different in every way, and is giving out such a different message about lifestyle, that it has to stand alone.”
“You were fab, girl. Did you make all that up on the hoof or had you been thinking about it before?”
“I suppose I was thinking how the pots could be presented. They would have looked terrible on those glass shelves with the shiny pots—all country mouse and town mouse. But when that awful Finbar started I just saw red. He probably assumed we’d be country bumpkins. What a patronizing gobshite!”
Maddy started to chuckle. “Well, you must admit, Madame Cholet, we do look a bit like yokels.”
Izzie looked down at her unshaven legs and pin-tucked blouse, and giggled. “Yeah, but sexy as hell!”
Really irritated now by the time André, Ringford’s most sought-after hairdresser, was taking, Maddy made it plain she was ready to go, paid the bill (£35—compared to London charges, a snip at the price!), and left as smartly as she could.
She’d promised to meet Jean Luc in town when she was done. He’d arrived late last night, had been in bed before she’d got back from Blackcote Farm at about one in the morning, and he’d still been asleep when she’d left for her nine o’clock hair appointment.
“I’m shorn,” she said when he picked up his mobile after several rings. “Where are you?”
Five minutes later she tracked him down in Costa’s. The Saturday papers were spread all over the table, except for a small space opposite him where he had placed her steaming cupful, and his head was bent over them intently. He had always loved the weekend broadsheets; it was about the only compliment he ever gave the British. She crept up behind him before he could see her and whispered “boo!” in his ear. Starting with shock, he twirled round and gabbled in rapid French. “Merde, don’t do that to me. My heart’s already racing from the amount of coffee I’ve . . . Good God, Maddy, you look fantastic.” He stood up and enveloped her in his arms. He smelled wonderful and felt so warm and strong, and for a few moments she let him hold her as he buried his nose in her hair, not unaware of the interested looks they were receiving from the other people in the café.
“You smell of coconuts.”
“Must be André’s secret shampoo. What do you think of the cut?” She sat down in the chair opposite and twisted her head around exaggeratedly like a hairspray model.
“You look like you did when we were fifteen—all that fake blond gone at last.” His eyes were sparkling, and Maddy went quite pink under his scrutiny. “I like you better this way.”
“Well”—she took a gulp of the strong, hot coffee—“not bad for the provinces. Did you have a good sleep? I hope Colette was hospitable and you didn’t flirt too outrageously with her.”
“She’s a lovely girl but a bit young even for me! You must have got in late.” He offered her a cigarette.
“I’d kill for one, but I’m down to two a day and even those I have to have surreptitiously upstairs in my bathroom. I can’t afford to have anyone see me with a fag in my mouth. This coffee is subversive enough.” She fiddled with the handle of her cup. “I have to say it’s bloody hard, and most of the time I feel like I could kill someone. I’m going to be the first psychopathic hippie ever.”
He put his hand over hers. “You sound pretty fed up with it all, ma chère.”
“No.” The warmth of his hand felt good. She’d missed the feeling of a man touching her even if it was just Jean Luc. “Just tired and generally crabby and nicotine deprived. Izzie says if she’d known how horrible I was in real life, she’d never have bothered with me!”
“How is she?” he said on cue.
She filled him in on Izzie’s bravura performance at Elements. “She just rose to the occasion, and by the end we were dictating what we wanted from them.”
“I can’t imagine that of her.” He stubbed out his cigarette and knocked back the last drops of his coffee. “She is usually so gentle and sweet. What’s that great expression?” he said in English. “Wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”
“She seems to be getting stronger all the time, but I only hope she’s using some of her newfound confidence on that husband of hers. He’s not really handling her success very well, and I could give him a kick up the arse. She needs the love of a good man.” She looked right at Jean Luc, a smile in her eyes.
“How could any man resist that?” He laughed.
“Now I’ve got a job for you to do.” She too finished her coffee and picked up her bag. “We’ve got a meeting with some designers from Oxford on Monday and, darling, I haven’t got a thing to wear!” Jean Luc snorted. “I know. I know. But it’s all the wrong stuff. The new me has to be in sprigged cotton and au naturel. I want you to be my consultant. If you tell me I look nice in something, I’ll know it’s the last thing I should buy.”
Confused, Jean Luc followed her out of the café, and they spent the next hour browsing the poor selection of Ringford clothes shops for the poorest selection of clothes. By shop three he was getting the hang of it. “This is it,” he yelped with glee, selecting from the rail a drop-waisted dress with a tiny pattern of roses and blue nondescript flowers, which, when she put it on and paraded around the shop, looked hardly less shapeless on her than it had on the hanger.
“You look like a sack of potatoes,” he said, in French so as not to offend the shop assistant. “Perfect!”
The rest of the day was fun, much of it spent with the children, something Jean Luc, for a childless man, had an aptitude for. His grasp of cricket was pitiful, but he gamely had a go for Will’s sake, and the two of them bowled and batted for what seemed like hours on the lawn, until Jean Luc had to plead exhaustion and retire.
“I won, Mummy,” Will crowed, rushing into the sitting room where she was sewing with Florence, his face glowing with fresh air and pleasure. “He’s not as good as Daddy, but I showed him what to do.”
“Wait till I take you on at pétanque, my boy,” said Jean Luc, collapsing onto the sofa beside Maddy. “I need a drink. What on earth are you doing?”
“Making a blanket for Florence’s Barbie horse, of course. Shouldn’t every self-respecting horse have one? Listen, I’ve had an idea. Why don’t we see if Izzie, Marcus, and the children are free for lunch tomorrow? She’d love to see you.”
“Yeah cool, Mum, can we?” pleaded Will, and before Jean Luc could protest—well, he was bound to be a bit unsure about meeting Marcus—she was in the kitchen dialing the number.
The children played up horribly at bedtime, not helped by Jean Luc getting Will thoroughly overexcited. Maddy left them to it, settled Pasco into his cot, read Florence a story and plaited the tail of her Barbie horse, then went to have a bath, taking care not to muck up her new hair. But by the time she had slipped on her pajama bottoms, a T-shirt, and Simon’s old fleece, Jean Luc was already on his second glass of wine and was cooking steaks at the Aga.
“That was quick. How did you manage to settle him?”
“I taught him how to count to fifty in French, then said I’d give him five pounds if he could say it backward by breakfast.”
“No sleep there then!”
He gave her outfit the once-over. “Very chic, darling. If it wasn’t for the hair, I’d say you were in grave danger of losing your grip completely.” He handed her a glass of wine, and kissed her on the top of the head. “You smell clean though. Now sit down. Supper is nearly ready. This cooking machine of yours is about as useful as a huge radiator. It simply doesn’t get hot enough to fry these steaks.”
But of course they were tender and delicious. Maddy simply sat there, waited on hand and foot, and ate like a pig. “That was perfect,” she said, mouth still full and wiping the juices off her plate with some bread. “God, I love being cooked for. Most evenings I eat the children’s leftover sausages or something you can stick in the microwave.” Jean Luc winced.
They finished their pudding and talked shop. Maddy told him about the new product line they were going to develop, and between them they tried to work out the volumes of centpertuis they would need.
“You know it would be much cheaper if I could get the weed distilled at home. I think I could help you.”
“Oh, Jean Luc, that would be brilliant. Then we don’t have to cope with huge volumes of greenery. The barn is beginning to look like a giant compost heap. Could it come in sealed containers?”
“I’ll look into it.” Maddy sat back in her chair, picking raspberry pips out of her teeth, and they fell into a companionable silence.
Jean Luc took away the plates again, wiped the table, and refilled her glass. “Thank you for that.” She sighed contentedly. “Simon always used to cook me supper at weekends. He made a mean Spanish omelet and could do wicked things with a bag of pasta and a tin of tomatoes.”
Suddenly she felt a wave of sadness. “I think I miss his company most. He was always such fun to be around. You remember how he used to hold the floor at a party, telling everyone indiscreet anecdotes. Giselle loved it, the way he would tease her about her flower-arranging class and her shopping trips—she used to blush like a schoolgirl, which on the face of it, is quite remarkable. And that time when we all met up for the match at the Parc des Princes, and he insisted we all wore red roses—you two almost came to blows!—didn’t France win anyway?” On she nattered, and Jean Luc simply sat there drinking his wine and listening.
“Peter seems convinced that Workflow Systems wouldn’t have worked out.” Jean Luc raised an eyebrow. “He said Simon was too unrealistic. It hurt so much when he told me, but I suppose he was right—Simon was always so positive about everything—and the more I think about those last few weeks the more I realize he tried to protect me from the inevitable.”
“That could have been pride.”
“Maybe, but I think he just didn’t want me to know how bad the situation was.” She paused, hardly bearing to say what she had thought but never dared to voice. It was something that had flitted into her head at her most desperate moments, but she had pushed it firmly into the background. “You don’t . . . you don’t think he took his own life, do you?”
Jean Luc leaned forward and put his hand over hers. “God, no, Maddy. No man would do that and leave a beautiful wife and three gorgeous children. Nothing, no problem, is insurmountable.” He rubbed his hands gently over hers. They felt rough and solid. “He may have been unrealistic, but he wasn’t stupid.” His words made her feel slightly consoled, but she wasn’t sure she would ever get the notion out of her head. She just wanted to have Simon sitting here, to be able to ask him what had happened.
“Come on, my girl. It’s time you went to bed.” He put the mugs in the dishwasher and started to turn off the lights.
“For the last few months, both you and Izzie have been so wonderful looking after me,” she said, getting up from her chair. “I feel a bit like a small child at times.”
He came over and stood in front of her for a moment, then leaned down and kissed her gently on the cheek. “No, darling. You are certainly not a child.”
Izzie looked glorious when they all piled out of the car the following lunchtime. She was wearing pink linen cropped trousers and her top was flowery and feminine, but clung to her in all the right places. She’s got quite a figure, when she’s not wearing combats or saggy skirts, Maddy thought. The colors suited her dark hair and pale skin, and she was positively glowing.
The look on Marcus’s face was cautious as he came round from the other side of the car with a bottle of wine gripped tightly in his hand. It suddenly struck Maddy that he’d never been to the house before, and the whole package of the children greeting each other and rushing upstairs with excitement, her playing the grand hostess, Jean Luc embracing Izzie warmly, and Izzie as familiar here as in her own home must have been quite intimidating for him. She prepared to give him the benefit of any doubt.
“Hi, Marcus, lovely to see you, and glad you could come at such short notice.” She leaned forward to give him a kiss on the cheek but the response was cool and distant. He shook Jean Luc’s hand and muttered a greeting. What a curious little vignette it was. Marcus shaking the hand of the man who clearly fancies his wife.
She bustled about finishing laying the table, while Jean Luc opened a bottle of wine and Izzie, unconsciously, put on an apron and started stirring the gravy bubbling away on the Aga. They were like a slick ménage à trois. Jean Luc handed Marcus a glass of deep-red wine. “I’d rather have a beer, if you don’t mind.” The atmosphere suddenly went cold.
“I’ll have the wine,” said Izzie, quickly taking the glass. “I think there’s some beer in the utility room.”
Without speaking, Jean Luc went to find some, and Izzie shot a brief glance in Maddy’s direction. “I thought we’d be eating in the dining room?” she asked finally, to fill the silence.
“The table’s covered in papers,” Maddy replied quickly, fishing out the gravy boat from the bottom oven and omitting to add that there wasn’t actually a table as such or chairs. “And besides, Pasco would do his best to massacre it, so I thought it would be cosier in the kitchen.”
“Quite a place you have here, Maddy.”
“Glad you like it.” She wasn’t sure Marcus was being entirely complimentary. “It’s not finished yet, but once we have some more money coming in—”
“Yes, soon you’ll both be the Rothschilds of Ringford. We won’t be worthy. We’re barely that now.” Fifteen love to Marcus. Why was he being so obnoxious? Couldn’t he make the effort even for Izzie’s sake?
Thankfully the constant chatter of the children over lunch dispelled the atmosphere, and Jean Luc started them all off in a general knowledge quiz, which involved questions like “Who has more clothes, Barbie or Mum?” or “Who designed the pyramid at the Louvre?”
The children giggled at him. “All right, clever clogs,” said Will. “What’s the name of the captain of the English cricket team?”
Marcus let Jean Luc struggle for a moment, then dryly replied with the correct answer. Thirty-love, thought Maddy, not sure that he wasn’t playing singles to Jean Luc and her doubles.
“Who cares?” countered Jean Luc, looking at Will teasingly. “The English are terrible at cricket.”
By the time they had finished their rhubarb crumble—“home cooked,” Maddy was keen to point out to Izzie, “I’m not entirely hopeless”—the score was about deuce, until Marcus was dragged away by Charlie who wanted to show him the great tree he could climb in the orchard. When he had left, pursued by the rest of the children, the three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence. Maddy took one of Jean Luc’s proffered cigarettes, and Izzie got up to put the kettle on.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her back to them. “He’s being vile, and it’s not really like him.”
Before Maddy could answer, Jean Luc stood up and put his arm around her. “Izzie darling, it’s okay. He must find it a bit strange—”
“Pasco’s fallen on the path . . .” Marcus burst in, a crying Pasco in his arms, and stopped as he saw the scene at the Aga. Jean Luc hastily dropped his arm from around Izzie’s shoulders, and Maddy went to take her son from Marcus.
“Do you want some coffee too, darling?” said Izzie quickly.
“Only if you are not too busy,” he said. Looking at her hard, he turned on his heel and left the room.
By the time he came back the three of them were on safe ground, discussing the more efficient pot supplier Jean Luc had traced in Reims and the fact that it was cheaper to have the centpertuis strained in France, and Izzie was outlining enthusiastically her vision for the point-of-sale signs for Elements. Marcus collected his coffee, now tepid, from the Aga and sat down at the end of the table farthest away from them.
“Marcus, darling, you are better at this sort of thing than me. He does this all the time,” Izzie said to Jean Luc. “He’s brilliant on design ideas. Do you think greens and grays on the backing boards will be too dour?”
“Don’t ask me.” He poured himself the last of the wine from the bottle and took a chocolate from the box Izzie had brought. “It sounds as if you have it all under control already.”
Izzie wouldn’t let it drop. She got up from the table and went round to sit beside him. “Oh, please, darling, you’ve got such a great eye.” She put her hand on his unresponsive one. “Don’t you remember that brilliant campaign you devised for that Swedish paint company? Maddy, you must remember it—with the room reflected like a forest in a lake—it won loads of awards—”
Marcus pulled his hand sharply away, leaving hers limp on the tabletop, and stood up. “Look at the time. It’s getting late—I’ve got important things to do for tomorrow,” and walked out of the room to rouse the children. Game, set, and match to Marcus, thought Maddy.
Jean Luc had to leave shortly after too. Maddy felt curiously disappointed as he put his bag down in the hall, and went to say good-bye to the children. It was like that awful Sunday-night feeling you got before you went back to school. He put the bag in his car, then gave her a huge, bearlike hug. “You’re doing great, Maddy my darling. I’ll call you when I get back, and we’ll arrange shipping once you have a clearer idea of quantity.” He started to get into the car, but paused. “You know I’m really quite enjoying being your French coordinator. It’s a long time since I worked for someone else. Why don’t you come over at half term—all of you—and you can meet the suppliers and charm them with your smile?”
“That’s a great idea. The kids will love it. I don’t know how long it is since Izzie has been away either.”
“Yes . . . yes, Izzie. I think she needs you now as much as you needed her. Call me.” And blowing her a kiss, he drove off.
Monday morning and Maddy didn’t feel any better. Leaving Colette with Pasco and a huge list of things that needed doing, including a new pair of shoes for a boy who was shaping up to be built like his father, she dropped the other two at Little Goslings and Eagles as quickly as possible and was at the unit by quarter to nine. Izzie had only beaten her by five minutes.
“The heat’s on this morning,” she said without preamble. “Elements have e-mailed to say they want first delivery by Wednesday and we are already two hundred pots behind schedule.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Sorry—good morning, and thanks so much for yesterday. Marcus was a prat and I told him so, not something he was thrilled to hear, and it was just lovely to see Jean Luc again. Has he gone?”
“Yeah, he left shortly after you. But fear not, lovesick maiden,” she added, as they went up the stairs to the office, “he’s invited us to go on a suppliers’ trip over half term.” Izzie’s face lit up, and she kept bringing the subject up as they worked like maniacs alongside the team.
It was the only highlight of a long and tedious morning. The electric kept tripping out, and waiting for the electrician wasted precious time. By twelve they were up and running again, and by half past two had six hundred perfect little pots in boxes on a pallet, with the Elements delivery addresses stamped on them, waiting to be collected at three. Five minutes to and the forklift was ready to roll. Maddy and Izzie watched with excitement as the distribution lorry backed into the large doors, and the forklift slid the forks under the boxes and picked up the pallet. Perhaps he hit the wrong lever. Perhaps he lost concentration. Perhaps he was put off by the little group watching him in anticipation. But as if in slow motion, in sickeningly slow and terrible motion, six hundred perfect little pots packed in their boxes slipped off the pallet and went crashing onto the concrete floor.
Maddy’s immediate thought was not that their first order for one of the most chic shops in the country had just bitten the dust. It was that she was due to pick the children up in half an hour and that Josh Templeton was coming back for tea. Ignoring the need to phone Elements and explain the delay, she immediately rang Colette to get her to dive into the car and get to school. “Disaster has happened here, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she rattled down the phone. At about the same time, Izzie came off her mobile to Marcus, who’d agreed to collect Charlie and Jess. “Bloody working mothers,” she muttered under her breath. It then took nearly an hour to work out which jars were salvageable, to wipe them down and repack them into new boxes. Three hundred passed muster, but Izzie had to peel the labels off another hundred and fix on new ones. The rest of their hard work was chucked unceremoniously into the wheelie bin.
“It’s the quality really,” said Maddy in her most assertive voice down the phone to the Elements head office shortly afterward. “We really weren’t happy with the shipment of lavender oil this time, and the beeswax had a couple of tiny flaws which worried us. Being such an exclusive product, we are very, very, particular about the quality of the ingredients we use. We’ll send you a proportion of the consignment, if you can bear with us on the rest . . .” She listened to the cool response of the woman at the other end of the phone. “Forty-eight hours?” She looked at Izzie across the desk, panic-stricken. “Yes, I’m sure that will be fine. We’ll have the delivery with you by Friday at the very latest.”
“Oh, bloody, bloody hell,” moaned Izzie when she put down the phone. “Panic stations. We won’t have enough for the other orders now. We’ve just about enough centpertuis,” she was dialing as she spoke. “You call Crispin and see if he can do a mercy dash to the commune in Wales, and I’ll . . . oh hello, it’s Isabel Stock from Paysage Enchanté. Yes. Me again. Now I need your help . . .”
It was nearly six before Maddy finally got home, to find Colette coping brilliantly and the children seated around the table having supper, though Will and Josh were busy discussing the meaning of the word vagina.
“It’s an island in the Mediterranean,” said Maddy without missing a beat and dropping her bag on the side. She took the cup of tea Colette held out to her. “Oh just what I need. It’s been a bit of a day. I can’t wait to put my feet up.”
“Yoo hoo! Anyone home?” Sue Templeton. This wasn’t what she needed. She put down her tea before she had even managed to put it to her lips, and went into the hall. “What a lovely place, Maddy,” Sue gushed, trying to peer into the rooms. “Mind if I have a peep?”
“No, Sue, go right ahead.” Maddy followed Sue into the sitting room.
“What lovely curtains!” Sue stood in admiration. “I do think terra-cottas are so restful, don’t you? That’s why I put them in our lounge. Do tell me where you found such super things. Blacks and creams. What an unusual idea, but then you have such a great room to work with. Are the others all like this?”
“Most of them, yes. Would you like a cup of tea? I’m just having one.”
“Oh there’s me nattering on and being nosy, but I do love snooping in other people’s houses. They give one such good ideas.” Maddy urged her into the kitchen. “Oh isn’t this super! So modern and contemporary. Is it Magnet? I keep telling Gary we need to do ours again.”
“Mum, we’ve only just had a new kitchen,” said Josh, astonished.
“Oh, sweetie, that was years ago.” She ran her hands over the wooden work surfaces. “This would look super in our house.”
“Now, you lot,” said Maddy briskly, “when you’ve finished your ice cream—Will, that’s enough chocolate sauce—you can have five minutes’ play. I’m sure Sue has to get home, and, Will, you have reading to do.” With the children bundled off, she refreshed the pot of tea and invited Sue to sit down. Sue did so seamlessly without drawing breath. “I love your new look, Maddy. So peasanty and earthy. Quite a change from the sort of things we used to see you in.”
Maddy was too weary to even try and make conversation, which was fortunate as Sue was making more than enough for both of them. “So have you got your holidays planned? We’re off to Provence this summer. I do so love France, all that effortless style. Gary likes to do the vineyards, to stock up our little wine cellar, so we tend to take a villa and go native. I think next year we might do Portugal again—Gary loves the golf—and the seafood is so good, don’t you find? Of course I can’t complain. We have just had a super skiing holiday. The chalet was simply marvelous and Arabella, our chalet girl, made the most delish suppers.”
“Maddy?” Crispin called from the back door. She heard him kicking off his boots, and he appeared, grubby and disheveled. “What time did you tell that hippie lot I’d be—?” He walked into the kitchen and stopped short. “Sorry, I didn’t know you had company. Hello.” He glanced briefly at Sue, and then he looked again. “It’s . . . Sue, Sue Pilbeam, isn’t it? Haven’t seen you for years.”
Maddy was pretty confused by the speed at which Sue left her half-drunk tea, picked up her bag, dragged Josh away from his game of dreadnought power fighters on the landing, and, pleading a “huge list of things to do,” was out of the drive like a frightened rabbit. Maddy came back into the kitchen, where Crispin was still standing in his stockinged feet.
“Well, bugger me!” he said, awestruck. “If that wasn’t Pokey Pilbeam. She’s poshed up a bit but still got that magnificent chest.”
“Pokey Pilbeam?”
“That’s what we called her at school. She was a right goer, was old Sue Pilbeam. Think I had a snog with her once at a school disco, but that wasn’t all she was offering, as I recall. Hence the Pokey bit. Hardly recognized the old slapper . . .”
It took Maddy at least ten minutes to stop laughing long enough to phone Izzie with this enlightening news.