It was a very long time since Izzie had drunk enough to experience a top-class hangover. And now she remembered why. She felt ghastly. It wasn’t just the ceaseless churning of her stomach, the gritty-eyed bleariness, the blotchy complexion, and puffy face. It was that awful sensation that if she turned round without turning her whole body, her head would simply drop off. Maybe it would be better if it did, though. Then she might be able to get rid of the two little men with surprisingly heavy hammers who were taking it in turns to beat out the rhythm of Ravel’s Bolero on the inside of her skull.
She gingerly made her way downstairs, gripping onto the banisters. She stopped, took a deep breath, and tried to swallow. Nope—still no good. There seemed to be a large egg—maybe goose or emu—lodged in her throat. That would account for the bird’s nest in her mouth. Ah, not far now. She’d reached the landing. Time for a little rest. Her body had evidently decided that it was just not up to the challenge. Perhaps that’s what being forty did to you, or was it simply too much clean living? Oh, yes—that was a warning, all right, and one that Izzie would certainly heed from now on.
Because, despite how absolutely unspeakably hideous she felt right now, it had totally been worth it. It had been the very best fun ever. For the first time in, gosh, years, she had done exactly what she felt like—not counting that thing with Jean Luc . . . she swiftly put that out of her mind—and it had felt bloody marvelous. No worries about Marcus, the kids, the business, the image, the product, the market, the future. For that one glorious evening, she’d shelved it all. Even from the depths of her nausea, she could remember how good it had felt, and she wasn’t going to give up on that now! She’d have to go into serious training—regular lager-champagne cocktails and korma chasers. Seize the day—or whatever. Now she’d rediscovered her inner adolescent, she wasn’t going to let it go again! No siree.
Maddy had thoughtfully left a bottle of chilled Badoit water out for her when she’d left to do the weekend shop, and Izzie glugged it down, pulling a face as she did so. Disgusting stuff, but very cleansing for the liver, or so Jean Luc had insisted in France. Damn that man—what was he doing popping up like that again? She pushed him back down irritably and continued with the liver cleanse as she poked idly through the contents of Maddy’s fridge, hunting out the best hangover cure she could come up with—egg mayonnaise and anchovies in brine on wholemeal—then sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, her head in her hands. This was not good!
About forty minutes later, after a long hot shower and hair wash, trying out all Maddy’s share of the Elements’ haul, she felt almost human again. She sought out a pair of clean knickers—plenty to choose from—and put her Armani outfit back on. Provided she didn’t look at her face, now thoroughly cleansed and generously daubed with balm, she looked pretty darned fine. Forty and proud of it! Turning this way and that in front of the mirror, she finally pulled a hideous face at herself, then blew a big kiss at her surprised-looking reflection and murmured huskily, “You’re gorgeous! Go get ’em, tiger!”
The bang of the front door downstairs and the sound of children running into the playroom alerted her to Maddy’s return, and she trotted down, now starting to feel reasonably human. Maddy looked appraisingly at her and whispered her greetings. She was clearly no stranger to hangover etiquette. “Ooh vertical! All right? Would you rather I didn’t talk for now? We can do sign language if you prefer.”
“No ’sall right. The worst’s over and I’ve had something to eat.”
“Good going! Wish you hadn’t done it now? Any regrets?”
Izzie shook her head experimentally. Encouraged by the fact that it didn’t fall off, she grinned and shook it emphatically. “Not one! Not a single, solitary one! To tell you the truth, Maddy, it was the best time I’ve had in ages.”
Maddy dropped her carrier bags, rushed over, and hugged her gleefully. “I’m so glad you said that. It felt so nice just to be daft for a change. We’ve had to be so grown-up and sensible lately. I was beginning to worry that we’d forgotten how.”
“I know what you mean. It’s so weird when people ask us stuff as if we really know. And inside my head there is this mad urge to say, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, and what’s more, I don’t care. It’s only face cream, for God’s sake. The other stuff is all crap and we’re just making it up as we go along.’ It’s only my deep-seated fear of Pru that stops me sometimes.”
Izzie frowned, then swiftly pushed her eyebrows back up again with her fingers—too much, too soon. “It’s all bull, basically. Do you think they really imagine that we wear cambric undies and live like Bathsheba Everdene? Could they really be that daft?”
It was Maddy’s turn to frown. “Well, I think they sort of believe it and sort of don’t. Maybe it’s like fairy stories. You know that princess could never have really felt the pea through all the mattresses, but you go along with it because it’s a good story and you want to feel good when she gets the prince in the end. Mind you, I always had doubts about that marriage. And the mother-in-law!”
Izzie shrugged and drained her second cup of coffee. “I s’pose. Anyway, I’d better get home before I show my face and check out the state of play. I hope Marcus isn’t going to do his martyr thing.”
“Give him a cordial kick up the arse from me if he is.”
“With pleasure!” Izzie stopped at the front door and turned back to Maddy. “Thanks for everything, mate, and I luuurve my new outfit.”
“You’re more than welcome to toss your cookies in my bathroom any time you like! Happy birthday boxing day!”
In the weeks leading up to the summer holidays, Maddy and Izzie focused on producing a new range of toners and cleansers for different skin types. With media appearances and interviews, as well as fitting in meetings with Pru, Elements, and the other stores that stocked PE, they had very little time for anything else. But they weren’t too busy to notice the changes that were going on around them. Everywhere they went, they found the same thing. Where a year ago, the look had been pared down, hard-edged minimalism, with a dash of po-faced cod-Eastern spirituality, now the press was raving about soft colors, floral patterns, loose and wavy hair, glowing pink cheeks. Far from feeling odd in their outfits, they both began to feel they were in the vanguard of fashion.
“Do you think men really notice fashion?” pondered Izzie one afternoon as they checked a delivery. “I mean, Marcus is more than usually trend savvy, but even he doesn’t pay any attention to what I wear.”
“Yeah, but maybe that’s because you’re his wife.” Maddy ticked off the list on her clipboard. “Men are physically unable to focus on their wives after being married for five years or more.”
Izzie snorted. “I reckon it’s all our fault. It’s misplaced maternal instinct. We turn our men into babies by pandering to their every whim, then get fed up with them when we get real babies that are much cuter. Suddenly we want men that are men again, but by then they’ve lost the knack.” She heaved another box onto a pallet. “If only I’d had a pony to dote on during the early years of our marriage, I’d never have wasted all that time buffing Marcus’s hooves or plaiting his mane, and I wouldn’t have reduced him to this state of gibbering dependence.”
She stopped and stretched. “Anyway, I’m subjecting him to a course in tough love now,” she said smugly. “If he doesn’t buy the coffee, we don’t have coffee. If he puts a red sock in with his shirts, he wears pink shirts.”
“And how’s he responding to treatment?”
“Hmmm. I’m getting a lot of huffing and puffing at the moment. And the specter of the summer hols is looming.”
To celebrate the end of term—or perhaps to placate the kids for the impending weeks when their mothers would have to work full tilt—Izzie and Maddy had planned a party for the children. It was an e-mail from Jean Luc suggesting a visit, his first since their trip to his place in June, that had sowed the seeds of the idea. Izzie had downloaded the e-mail first, and glanced quickly over at Maddy, worried for a moment that he had e-mailed her at work by mistake. Then she realized how stupid she was being. He worked for them, after all! Izzie was very aware that she’d been less than frank with Maddy over what had passed between them that day, but she really didn’t know what to say.
“Oh look, Jean Luc’s coming over! About time too.” Maddy, as usual, was full of ideas. “Let’s have a party right here, and invite all the staff, plus their partners, kids, whatever. Tamasin and Oscar will be starting back here too, so we’ll have them and Janet and Nick the vic. Jean Luc won’t know what’s hit him!”
Izzie could feel anxiety rising. What would it be like when they met again? But Maddy chirped on oblivious, enthused by the prospect of balloons to buy, glasses to order, and sausages to prick. The party animal was in her element.
Marcus, however, was very cool about the whole idea when she broached it at home. “Am I supposed to be honored by this invitation? Do you really want me to come, or would I cramp your style—especially if that bloody Frenchman’s going to be around?”
Izzie turned away quickly and affected an air of nonchalance. “What? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Yes, I think Jean Luc might be coming. Dunno, really. The whole crowd should be there. I just thought you’d like to meet some of these people I keep mentioning. Don’t come if you’d rather not, though.”
He snorted. “Well, don’t overwhelm me, will you? I think I’d better come along. Perhaps I should regard it as protecting my investment, eh?” And he left the room.
The rest of the staff took to the plan with wild enthusiasm, with Karen and Angie coming up with more and more outlandish ideas, including fancy dress, a casino night, a sixties disco, and a tarts-and-vicars theme—this last firmly overruled in view of the Grants—and had to be encouraged to think small. To keep them out of mischief, they were put in charge of food, and came up with the idea of having a hog roast. Izzie, mindful of her daughter’s passion for piggies, quickly volunteered to provide a veggie alternative too.
“Orright,” conceded Donna. “But none of that French cheese, y’hear. Makes me want to ’eave, that does!”
Izzie’s anxieties intensified as the day drew nearer. It finally dawned clear and warm. Everything had been arranged with military precision. Since they planned to start proceedings straight after work, everyone rushed to get through the day’s tasks, and there was a pleasant buzz of industry in the air. The hog roast man turned up good and early, to get the fire going and the unfortunate pig cooked in time for the feast to start at around half past six. As the afternoon wore on the succulent smell wafted into the barn, spurring everyone on to greater efforts, and they had finished an unprecedented batch of orders by the time the last apron was hung up. Donna, Angie, and Co. rushed for the loo with their party clothes, and a lot of ribald laughter could be heard as they effected the transformation from work to play.
Maddy, Izzie, and Lillian stripped off in their office and took turns with the hand mirror Lillian had thoughtfully brought with her. Angie’s boyfriend had arrived, and was soon rigging up armfuls of fairy lights in the trees next to the barn while his brother set up his mobile disco. Plastic dustbins full of ice were produced from the back of a van and tins of lager, many, many bottles of Bacardi Breezer, tins of Coke for the kids, and a few bottles of Australian white were thrust into the icy depths. By this time, Colette had turned up with Will, Florence, and little Pasco, and they were all hurtling round and round the barns with Angie and Donna’s kids in a nonstop game of tag. There was still no sign of Marcus.
“Should I call him?” Izzie asked Maddy, looking anxiously at her watch. “I said any time from six.”
“Absolutely not! It’s not even half past yet,” replied Maddy as she cracked open her first Breezer of the night. “Don’t show him he’s got to you. Just act cool. He’ll be here—the kids won’t let him cheat them out of precious party time, I promise you!” She looked up to a whistle. “Oh look! Here’s Jean Luc at last. Salut, mon gars! Te voilà enfin. Viens boire un coup avec nous. J’ai du vin Australien, spécialement pour toi!”
Izzie’s heart lurched as she saw him. He pulled a face, and made his way toward them, past the bodies gyrating to Car Wash blasting from the disco. He’d had his hair cut and was browner than ever, the sleeves of his washed-out blue shirt rolled up to show tanned forearms with the hairs bleached gold. He smiled broadly and within seconds he had wrapped her in his arms, kissing her softly on her head when she couldn’t bring herself to raise her face to him.
“Hello, my two lovely girls. Now I’ve seen you, the sun has come out. What a crazy idea to have a party outside in your terrible climate. Brrrr. I must stay by the fire all night.”
He turned to Maddy and gave her, too, an enormous hug, muttering endearments in her ear in French. Izzie could hear her teasing reply, and he laughed and seemed to tap her reproachfully on the arm.
“Ça suffit!”
Turning his nose up at a glass of Australian “merde,” he opted for a beer and, as Izzie resolutely tried to avoid eye contact with either him or Maddy, an awkward silence descended among the three of them. She began to make an excuse to move away, when Maddy gamely waded in with some shoptalk which eased matters for a while, until Maddy gave a shriek and dived away. “Pasco! No! That’s not a chocolate raisin. Put it down. Aah! Not in your mouth!”
Jean Luc laughed softly. “I don’t think rabbit droppings will do him much harm, do you?”
Izzie looked down into her drink, and was about to reply, when an increasingly raucous Karen shimmied up to Jean Luc and threw her arms around him. “Bon jewer, gorgeous! Remember me?” Izzie grabbed the chance to step back into the shadows, and watched his perfectly pitched response to the girls. He looked relaxed and amused. How did he always manage to judge it right with people? How did he always seem to stay so controlled?
She melted into the crowd while he was occupied, and chatted with Janet and Nick the vic, then tried to approach Crispin until she saw how engrossed he was in talking to Lillian. Still no Marcus. It was a little later, as she bent down to pick up a discarded hot dog from the grass, that she could sense Jean Luc standing behind her. She went to move away, but he put his hand out to stop her. Gently he drew her away from the rest, and taking her wrist, brought her hand up to his mouth for a soft kiss. “Izzie, we must talk. Please.”
Reluctantly, she raised her eyes to his and sighed sheepishly. “Must we?”
He smiled. “Yes, we really must. You didn’t reply to my e-mails. After what has passed between us, we should not hide anything.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not hiding anything!”
“Oh, Izzie.” His voice was coaxing, and she could feel her defense starting to drop. “Maybe things didn’t happen quite as we expected, but you can’t deny that it was a beautiful moment. It has been so long since I was close with a woman like that.”
“Oh come off it, Jean Luc. I can’t believe that.”
“No, Izzie, it’s true. I don’t take these things lightly, and the memory of what happened has been keeping me warm ever since.”
“But nothing did happen, did it?” she hissed. “I mean, it could have. We both know that. And God knows I wanted it to, but I bottled out, didn’t I? When it came down to it I couldn’t go through with it. And ever since, I’ve been ashamed of myself for leading you on.”
He put his arms around her. “Nooo! I thought that’s what you felt, but you mustn’t. We were both guilty of flirting with each other. And I have no regrets about wanting you—but we both know that stopping when we did was the right thing.” She could smell his warm body through his shirt and when she looked up at him, she could see the paler, fine lines around his eyes where he had squinted in the sun. “When we hesitated just for that moment, it gave us both time to think. Looking at everything, the way our lives are, it would have been a mistake to make love to each other. You’re a passionate and exciting woman, Izzie. But you’re also a married one. Very married, despite what you might think at the moment. You could not do it and neither could I.” He held her out at arm’s length, gazing down into her face, and she could feel the pressure of his fingers on her shoulders. “But I feel very close to you. You will always be more than just a friend to me now. I hope you will feel the same about me?”
Izzie swallowed hard, and felt her body relax. Somehow, by making her talk and by being so honest, he’d made everything all right again, and a heavy shadow passed from her heart. Why couldn’t she and Marcus talk like this? She smiled up at him, her eyes bright with grateful tears. “I do feel the same about you. I really do. I would have just gone on pretending I didn’t care, and I do care. I really do.”
“I know, Izzie. Now, let’s have a drink together and you can teach me how to dance this . . . Macarena that your friends are all doing with so much enthusiasme. I think I will be rather good at it, no?”
She laughed. “I’ll see if I can find you some wine that doesn’t taste of kiwi fruit and fresh tarmac, shall I?” Jean Luc moved toward the fire, rubbing his hands together as the evening cooled. She was almost knocked off her feet as Jess and Charlie threw themselves into her arms, chattering excitedly. So Marcus must have arrived. She looked over and saw him standing in the shadows—he hadn’t noticed her yet—and followed his stare across the crowd. He was looking at Jean Luc with utter loathing. Izzie shuddered as she realized how obvious her attraction for Jean Luc must have been to him. Could she convince him that nothing had really happened? Would he ever understand? She grabbed a beer and walked toward him.
An hour or so later, and the party was in full swing. Izzie surveyed the scene from the safety of the barn door and smiled quietly to herself. She felt happier than she had in ages. The scent of broad bean flowers, an irresistible blend of Nivea and vanilla, filled the air and, in the darkening evening, the lights created a cocoon around all the assembled guests. Strange combination though they were, they all seemed to be rubbing along nicely. Pasco was still awake, wrapped safely in Jean Luc’s big arms, and was watching the party with his huge brown eyes. The older children were starting to get to that disinhibited stage that tiredness can bring, and Izzie knew it would soon be time to leave. Marcus hadn’t been as bad as she had feared; he had made an effort when she’d introduced him to Crispin and Lillian, and Angie and Donna had chatted him up shamelessly. He’d even got into quite a deep conversation with Janet but, she noticed, he’d studiously avoided both Maddy and Jean Luc.
Maddy came over, picking her way carefully past discarded glasses and plates, bearing three plates of carrot cake. “Here you are, doll. Get stuck into that. The frosting is amaaaazing. A real Janet special.”
Izzie took the plate with enthusiasm. “If Janet made it, sign me up. I’m so glad Oscar and Tamasin are coming back to work the summer. I’ve been dreaming about those burrito wraps she does. I can hardly wait.”
To Izzie’s surprise Maddy waved at Marcus as he walked past. “There you are, Marcus! Look, I’ve got you a piece of cake. You must try it.”
Marcus stopped and frowned. Izzie bridled. Couldn’t he even make an effort when Maddy was going out of her way to be nice?
“Er, yes. All right. Thanks.” He put down his can of lager and looked at the cake suspiciously, then tasted just a little. “Hmm. Not bad. Not really my type of thing though. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”
“Oh go on, Marcus. I’m sure even you succumb to temptation sometimes.” Maddy seemed to be gushing. “I’ll tell you Janet’s secret, shall I? What makes the frosting so very special? Can you keep a secret, Marcus? It’s basically cream cheese, with icing sugar of course, then she adds Grand Marnier. That’s the secret. Now don’t go giving that away to any rivals, will you? You can get into awful trouble that way, you know. People have been sacked for less!”
Izzie was staring at Maddy in puzzlement. Was she pissed? She seemed to be talking rubbish. But a snarl of rage from Marcus had her turning back to him in astonishment. He was gazing at Maddy as if he wanted to hit her. Instead, he threw the cake to the ground, turned on his heel, and stalked away. She turned to Maddy, who was watching him narrowly. “What the hell was that all about? Did I miss something? I’ve no idea what’s got into him tonight. Should I go after him?”
Maddy shook herself. The expression on her face was almost one of pity, but she swiftly hugged Izzie. “Maybe you should. I hope I didn’t upset him too much. He really doesn’t like cake, does he? See you tomorrow, mate.”
Izzie scanned the depleting crowd to find Jean Luc and say good-bye before gathering her troops. There he was over by the fire, on his own for the first time that evening. She made to go toward him. He, however, was looking beyond her, over her shoulder and with a fixed gaze she had never seen on his face before. She glanced round to see and stopped dead. Realization dawned.
Glass of wine in one hand, Maddy idly pulled weeds from between the slabs in the terrace and chucked them into the hedge. She straightened up and stretched her back, stiff from crouching. Looking down the long stretch of garden, positively manicured now she could afford a gardener two days a week, she could see the boughs of the apple trees heavy with fruit. This time last year they’d picked them and eaten them right from the trees like real city folk, thrilled by the idea of fruit growing in their very own garden. What a year had passed since then. They’d arrived here, Simon chock full of enthusiasm and intentions for life as a country squire, she resentful that she’d had to pack up life in London and hike out to the provinces. Now here she was, Simon was gone, she’d met Izzie, the quality of whose friendship eclipsed anything she had known before, and they were famous. Famous for some fabricated image based on the countryside she still didn’t feel completely comfortable with.
Her waistband didn’t feel comfortable either. Without the fags—okay, she’d had the odd one—she’d been drawn to the biscuit tin for something to do with her hands and she’d definitely put on weight. Bugger. She’d never get into her size-four capri pants, even if she was ever allowed to wear them again.
“Mum, when’s lunch?” Will came padding out of the French windows in his football socks, swallowing quickly, the telltale smears of chocolate still around his mouth.
She ruffled his hair. “I’m just about to come in and make the gravy. Come and sit on this bench with me for a minute.”
“What are we having?” He slid up next to her on the seat.
“Roast lamb.”
“Yum!”
“But you won’t have room for any if you keep stuffing your face with biscuits.” He smiled sheepishly, revealing teeth coated in chocolate and crumbs.
“I was just looking at the orchard. Tell me”—she put her arm around him and pulled him close—“do you like living here?”
“Oh yeah. It’s cool. There’s lots of places to play.”
“But what about your old school friends?”
“Well, I miss Harry and Dan. But I’ve got lots of new friends.” He swung his legs as they hung over the edge of the seat. “But this house isn’t Daddy.” Maddy felt a lump grow in her throat.
“Do you remember him here?” she asked gently.
“Not really. I think of him in the London garden and at the park. And I think of him on holiday on the beach.” She felt a massive wave of sadness that even these tenuous memories of Simon would eventually fade in Will’s memory and how Florence and Pasco would have nothing to hang on to at all.
“We had fun on the beach, didn’t we? Do you remember him in his scuba-diving gear in St. Lucia? He looked like a frog, didn’t he?” Will smiled wanly. “And rock-pooling on the Isle of Wight. Daddy always managed to find the crabs.”
“He cheated.” Will carried on swinging his feet. “It was always the same one—he just kept pretending.”
Maddy laughed, uncomfortable with her son’s melancholy. “And I thought he’d fooled you, you clever chap. He’d be ever so proud of you, you know. How well you’ve settled into school and all the friends you’ve made.” Will shuffled and she realized she’d gone too far with the emotional stuff.
“I wish you were home more though.” This one took her by surprise. She knew she’d done some very long days at the barn but had really hoped that, once she got home, she’d absorbed herself enough in the children that they wouldn’t really have noticed. How stupid. Of course they would. The guilt made her feel sick.
“I know I’ve been busy, but what Izzie and I are doing is very exciting—and it means we might have enough money to take lots of holidays and have new toys.”
“I’d rather have you here.” She couldn’t speak and simply held him closer.
“Can you make the gravy now? I’m hungry.”
“Come on then, old man.” She heaved herself up off the seat. “Better feed you. Sometimes I think you have hollow legs.” And they walked back into the house.
The next morning, galvanized by guilt, she told Colette she would do the school run and packed Florence and Will into the new car. “Just think, Florence, darling,” she said, trying to work out how to turn off the fan and trying harder to sound as enthusiastic as possible, “by this Thursday, you’ll have done your first full week at school. Isn’t that brilliant?”
“No, hate school. Don’t want to go.” She kicked her feet sulkily against the back of Maddy’s seat.
“Oh, you love it really. Lots of new friends to play with, and Will there to see every day at playtime.”
“Never going to school. Want to stay home and be with you.”
“But Mummy’s never there anyway,” piped up Will. “She’s always at work.” Thanks, thought Maddy to herself. Shatter any illusions I may still have that I’m a half-decent parent.
“Haven’t seen you for ages, Maddy,” chorused Sue Templeton and Linda Meades in unison, striding up to the car like Hinge and Bracket as she pulled into the school car park. “Nice new car,” cooed Linda, peering to have a butcher’s inside as Maddy hustled Will and Florence out, fishing his cap and Florence’s folder from the floor and kissing them both good-bye with a gentle push of encouragement. “Very swish. You and Izzie must be doing well.”
“Didn’t you see them on breakfast telly? They’re frightfully famous,” Sue put in. How was it that she managed to sound so catty even when she’s pretending to be friendly? “Very er . . . ethnic you both looked! Hardly recognized you.”
Linda, clearly more interested in Maddy’s new set of wheels than her burgeoning TV career, was still peering in at the dashboard. “It’s ever so nice. Volvo, isn’t it? Keith and I were looking at one the other day.”
“Oh, well,” said Maddy, sliding past her back into the driver’s seat and looking down on the two women. “It’s the safety element that clinched it for me—you know how important it is to keep one’s precious family safe. And it’s so roomy—a real treat after the Fiesta.” She turned on the engine, shut the door, and pressed down the electric window. “That was so pokey. Know what I mean?” and, winking at Sue, she pulled away out of the car park.
Smiling broadly at her own joke, she belted over to the barn far faster than she should, considering the car was still being run in, and pulled up in front of the doors just ahead of Geoff. Peter’s Mercedes was already there. They’d tried to arrange the board meeting for after the end of the holiday, out of some pathetic delusion that they would be spending that time with their children. Fat chance. She suddenly felt irritable, and not just by Sue Templeton’s cutting remarks, but at herself. Will’s comments had cut deep, and she was struggling to work out the best thing to do.
It hadn’t really been much of a summer holiday, though they’d grabbed the odd long weekend here and there, and Cynthia and Alan had very gamely entertained the children in Hertfordshire for a couple of days—though not entirely successfully by all accounts. Maddy should, she thought, have felt revitalized. All she felt was relieved that they were back at school, and she could shelve her guilt for six hours of the day at least.
She knew Izzie had found the holidays as hard to juggle, but at least she’d had Marcus at home some of the time—however resentfully. She talked little about him, except for the odd gripe, which Maddy found hard not to agree with. The thing she really couldn’t forgive was how Marcus had duped Izzie. It was obvious from her puzzled reaction at the party that Izzie was completely in the dark about the circumstances of his leaving the agency. Marriages may have their little deceptions and, God knows, Simon hadn’t shared his worries with her, but not telling your wife you had been fired and then playing a little game of lies for years? That was hard to justify.
Since the party and that stupid coded conversation about the carrot cake, she’d let things lie to see if Marcus would do the decent thing. He was clearly even more lily-livered than she gave him credit for. Arsehole, she thought to herself as she pulled in beside Geoff’s Jag.
Geoff smiled toothily at her as he climbed out of the car. This was going to be an important meeting, with the figures for the first proper quarter of trading tucked away in his smart leather briefcase. “You look lovely, Maddy.” He smiled at her appreciatively. “It must be your celebrity.” What a creep, she thought, and shuddered. He walked over and handed her an inside page from the day’s Financial Times. “Thought the headline might amuse you.” Maddy peered at the page, scanning the small column of short news stories.
“Sorry, Geoff, I can’t see where you mean.”
He pointed a finger at the main headline at the top of the page. “Luce Women go on Top.”
“Very racy for the FT, don’t you think?”
Maddy barely heard him, as she skim read the news item. “City analysts are predicting Paysage Enchanté, blah blah . . . brainchild of two women, will be looking to expand . . .” She let her eyes run ahead. “Float on the AIM . . . logical move if they are to exploit their success and expand.”
“I wonder if Izzie has seen this.” If Izzie hadn’t, she certainly knew all about it by the time they were all sitting round the table, and had coffee in front of them. Geoff was full of it, and Maddy had strong suspicions who it was that had put the idea into the heads of the City analysts in the first place.
“It’s a logical move, ladies,” he said, pulling his laptop out of his briefcase and rubbing his fingers rather salaciously over the mouse button. “Now,” he said as he found the document he wanted and swung the screen round to face them. “Look at these figures.” Both Maddy and Izzie, once so clueless about spreadsheets, were getting quicker off the mark at working out the sea of numbers. They were both silent for a while, as they took in Geoff’s calculations. Projected profits were one thing, but it was the current turnover figure which amazed them both.
“Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” said Peter to break the silence. “I’m sure it was skill and good judgment, of course,” he added with a smile, “but you undoubtedly made the right move by centering production in this low-cost unit, keeping your employees to low enough numbers, and expanding your product range using very similar ingredients to the healing balm.”
“Well, I suppose it has kept the costs down.” Maddy kept her eye on the figures. “And having Jean Luc doing the boiling process in France . . .” The four of them talked through several distribution points, suppliers who were keen to stock the brand, and about other sources Izzie had unearthed for supplying the rose oil for the new moisturizer, but Geoff kept returning relentlessly to the question of expansion.
“But why would we want to float?” Izzie looked bewildered. “We don’t need to raise any capital, do we?”
“Not if you stay as you are”—Geoff tapped his pen irritatingly on his notepad—“but businesses succeed because they don’t stand still. You need to exploit your popularity now by building on your success, and outlets will be looking for products like yours to back up their poorly performing brands. Old Luce’s notebook must be chock-full of other recipes—can you exploit those? What about products for men? Shaving balms, that sort of thing? I know my barber is always waxing lyrical about such things and trying to get me to fork out for them.” Maddy glanced briefly at his immaculate hair, cropped close to his head but leaving just enough to reveal the slight wave. All a bit contrived.
“Well,” started Izzie hesitantly, “there are quite a lot more, I suppose, and I know Maddy has translated some.” She fiddled with her pencil absentmindedly. Maddy wondered if she was thinking the same thing.
“Shouldn’t we be consolidating?” She could see Izzie nodding her head in agreement. “We haven’t been going that long, and it could all be a blip, just a passing fashion.”
“Well if it is, it’s certainly taken hold pretty firmly.” Geoff passed a sheet of paper across the table from the pile in front of him. “These are the projected quarterly profits for the big cosmetics firms.”
In one column he had put figures for last year next to the names of the biggest players in the industry and, in the next, those for this year. Most, if not all, showed a slight but noticeable dip.
“What does this mean?” asked Izzie, confused.
“It could mean nothing—the economy isn’t brilliant and the FTSE is far from buoyant—but the message seems to be that women are turning away from conventional brands and looking instead for a more wholesome image. Similar earthy brands to yours are showing good sales, but mainstream makeup brands are struggling. Look at this.” Geoff handed over another sheet, showing sales figures for each product, again compared to last year.
“It can’t be anything to do with us, can it?” Maddy found it hard to believe that their measly little pots could have made such an impact in precipitating mascara and eyeshadow wars, and for a moment she had a vision of lip gloss wands and eyeliner pencils doing battle in the aisles at Boots.
“Well, I’ll be blowed.” Izzie was still staring at the figures. “I never imagined when I left university that my contribution to the world would be putting a dent in national hand-cream sales.”
“So, ladies, what do you think?” Geoff as ever was keen to get back to business the minute he thought they were getting glib. “If you are keen, I can put together a proposal for potential shareholders, and we could dip our toe in the waters, so to speak.” He was starting to pull out more papers, sorting them in an efficient sort of way that was beginning to get right up Maddy’s nose. “As a matter of fact I have started to jot down some ideas, not really worked up yet but just the bare bones of an idea. Take a look.”
Geoff’s bare bones looked pretty fleshed out to Maddy’s inexpert eye. He had done a fairly thorough job of forecasts, sector trends, company profile, all laid out in a neat little document with bold headings and footnotes.
Suddenly she felt pushed around. Who the hell had asked him to do this? Things were getting rapidly out of control. If they weren’t careful, Geoff would have them PLCed before you could say Dow Jones Index.
“Just a minute, Geoff.” She smiled as sweetly as she could at him. “This all sounds very interesting and has possibilities, but I think I speak for Izzie when I say we’d like to talk this through a bit more. You know, just see where we want to go from here.” A look of disappointment flitted across his face, and she saw for the first time a steely determination.
“Sure,” he said magnanimously. “I just wouldn’t advise you to take too long. There are lots of people out there who want to invest in an exciting new company with huge potential, and we need to strike while the iron’s hot. My research shows—”
He was stopped mid-flow by Maddy’s mobile phone ringing on her desk. Lillian picked it up, said, “Yes, certainly I understand, I’ll tell her it’s urgent,” and came over to where the four of them were sitting. “Sorry to interrupt, everyone.” Lillian leaned down to mutter in Maddy’s ear. “It’s school. Florence is in floods and inconsolable. They wondered if you would mind going over as soon as possible?”
Panicky, Maddy pushed back her chair. “Sorry, folks, I’m going to have to leave you,” and she grabbed her bag and her phone off her desk, bolted down the stairs, and out to the car.
About a mile down the road toward school, her mobile began to ring again in her bag. By the time she’d pulled it out, she had missed it, and there was a voice message. Keeping her foot down, she pressed the buttons to listen, then slowed right down, a smile spreading on her face.
“Well, the sly old bird,” said Izzie, stirring her coffee in Costa’s half an hour later. “How did she get hold of my mobile?”
“We must have left them on our desks and, when she heard the way the conversation was going, Lillian picked yours up and dialed my number, had a conversation with, well no one really, then came over to pretend the school had phoned. I was halfway there when she sent me a rather frantic voice message—not sure mobiles are quite her thing—saying sorry, but she thought we might want rescuing. She was terribly apologetic, but God bless her. I thought we’d never shut Geoff up.”
Izzie scooped the foam from the top of her mug with her spoon and put it in her mouth. With her unruly hair, pink T-shirt, and army green combats, she looked about twelve. “What do you think about this flotation business? I mean”—she scooped up some more—“I can see his point, I suppose. It would give us some cash to spend, and the figures do look good. And there are lots more recipes still we could do, and Elements are gagging for more stuff, but”—she paused and looked right at Maddy—“it all sounds a bit scary, don’t you think?”
“Bloody terrifying, and what’s more I’m not even sure I want to go there, do you?”
Izzie leaned back in her seat and put down her spoon. “God, I’m so glad you said that. I thought you might be all for it.”
Maddy laughed. “Calm down! I’m not with Geoff on this. Actually, Lillian’s choice of excuse was shrewder than she thought. My first reaction when she said about Florence crying was, ‘I want to get to my daughter.’ Will has said a couple of things over the last few days about me not being at home and Pasco even called Colette Mama. God, that hurt. I don’t want to be some high-flying company director who has to shoot off to meetings and kowtow to shareholders.” She thought what Simon would think and laughed drily. “It’s a joke really, me in that world. I think my sanity depends on being normal and at home.”
“I think my marriage depends on it,” Izzie muttered quietly, looking into her coffee.
“It’s still bad, isn’t it?”
Izzie sighed despondently and scanned vaguely around the room. “Well, oddly enough, he’s been brilliant—ever since the party—but something isn’t right. It seems forced, as if he’s under some tremendous strain. And I’m missing out on family life. He’s having all the fun with the kids—they did Warwick Castle on Saturday and ever since have had lots of in-jokes about what a good time they’d had.” The tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s rubbing salt in the wound of my guilt. As if I didn’t feel bad enough about all this already.”
Maddy felt uneasy. “Have you had a chance to talk to him properly?”
“Not really. He keeps it all very shallow. And when the hell have I got time to talk anyway?”
Maddy picked up her bag. “If this company gets much bigger, we can wave good-bye to parenting altogether. Come on, let’s stall. I’ll ring Peter and get him to tell Geoff to back off a bit.”
As it turned out, Florence hadn’t had a good day at all, and a very miserable little girl greeted Maddy at half past three. “She’s just taking a little longer to settle in,” said Mrs. Rose, her teacher, over Florence’s head. “But it happens sometimes. She’ll be fine,” and she ruffled her hair. “See you tomorrow, dear.”
“I’m not going back,” whinged Florence in the car, and sobbed all the way home.
The following morning Maddy woke to heavy rain lashing against the windows, urged on by a strong autumnal wind. Feeling as lousy as the weather, she used every vestige of her persuasive powers to chivvy Florence along through breakfast and into her uniform, and eventually compromised on a Barbie hair band and pink socks.
“Her teacher wasn’t too chuffed. Silly bag,” she said to Izzie when she got to the barns and shook the rain off her coat. “She looked really disapproving—oh, what the hell, I’m obviously a crap mother anyway.”
“Take a look at this.” Izzie slid the business section of the paper across the table toward her. “Looks like Geoff was right.”
Maddy scanned the story, as she hung her coat over the chair.
Cosmetics giant Falcini Corp. announced today that chairman George Sayer, 52, would be stepping down. Sayer’s resignation comes just as the company announced serious losses for the second quarter in succession. Commentators say the company’s faltering performance comes as a result of being too slow to pick up on the end of the nation’s love affair with mainstream cosmetics and the soaring growth in natural brands. Companies like Elements and the American empire Back to Basics have shown healthy quarterly figures in comparison. “Sayer has been pivotal to Falcini’s success over the last ten years,” said a company spokesperson, “but it is time to move on and grasp the challenges of the new mood on the high street.”
Izzie came and leaned against the desk, her coffee cradled in her hands. “Gripping stuff, hey?”
“Well,” said Maddy, “if the mood really is a swing back to some collagen-free existence somewhere between Queen Victoria and Fanny Craddock, then that can only be good news for us, can’t it?”
Crouching down and lowering her voice, even though the radio was blaring downstairs and Lillian had yet to arrive, Izzie had a serious look on her face. “But don’t you think this means that what Geoff said yesterday makes more sense? I mean, if companies like Falcini are struggling because of some pendulum swing away from liposomes and provitamin B5, then isn’t he right that we should be jumping on the bandwagon?”
Maddy looked at the article again. “From a business point of view he is probably right—he does seem to know what he’s talking about and frankly I trust Peter’s guidance implicitly—but does that make it right for us?”
Izzie fiddled absentmindedly with the pens on the desk. “If we could raise the capital through floating—or whatever Geoff suggests—then maybe we would have enough money to get someone else to do the day-to-day stuff, and we could be more sort of development . . . you know, look at new lines and expand some of Luce’s other recipes. Who knows, it could be diaries and tissue box covers next, in our very own design of tasteful sprigged floral print!”
“Have you talked to Jean Luc about all this yet?”
Izzie looked momentarily startled. “Why would I talk to him about it? I don’t speak to him.”
“Yeah yeah!” Maddy laughed, and before Izzie could reply, Lillian staggered up the stairs, wielding her brolly.
Much of the week was spent on the phone to Elements who, buoyed up by their cracking sales figures, were keen to secure promises out of Paysage Enchanté that new ideas were surging down the pipeline, and dealing with an ongoing tiff between Angie and Karen over pallet loading. Crispin flitted in from time to time, which kept them all cheerful, but didn’t seem to stop Angie discussing in minute detail the problems she was having with her coil and the riveting subject of her seriously heavy periods. Izzie sighed loudly at one point and muttered to Maddy under her breath, “That idea about handing over the day-to-day stuff is getting more attractive by the minute.”
Maddy was the last to leave on Friday evening—Izzie and Marcus were going out to dinner with friends—and she was just about to turn out the lights when the phone rang.
“Hi, Maddy, glad I caught you,” Geoff purred smoothly down the phone. “Bit short notice I know, but I wondered if you would be able to have dinner with me tonight?”
For a moment she was flummoxed and she demurred, but it was what he said next that set the alarm bells ringing.
“I thought a nice bottle of wine, and we might have a chance to talk about the business away from the boardroom table.” So that’s your motive, you slimy worm, she thought.
“I’m sorry, Geoff. Nice thought, but I want to see my kids. And, Geoff, I never mix business with pleasure.”
“He what?” shrieked Izzie when she called her next morning. “What a cheek! And why didn’t he ask me? I could have done with being wined and dined!”
Maddy spent the rest of the weekend uncomfortable with the thought that Geoff Haynes was trying, however clumsily, to co-opt her. And his coolness when she turned him down was disconcerting. He was as quick to turn off the charm as to turn it on. She tried briefly to read a Sunday supplement analysis of the changing mood toward celebrity image, but chucking the magazine to one side, she turned, irritated, to the features section of the main paper, and began halfheartedly to read an article by Germaine Greer. The thrust of the piece was maternal role models, par for the course, but then Maddy began to read it more closely—the woman had clearly lost her mind. To Maddy’s mounting horror, she seemed to be expounding the virtues of the mother role and the very beauty of the maternal lap, from where we should be learning the values of life.
“Oh Christ, the world has finally gone mad,” she squealed, threw down the paper, and went to join the kids in front of a video.
All day Monday there wasn’t time to think, let alone talk. It was all hands on deck to get out a mass of orders, and even Lillian had to come down from her eyrie and the payroll to pot up. They didn’t finish until well after eight, the girls having knocked off at five and, stiff with pain from standing up so long, Maddy almost crawled home, with just enough time to kiss a sullen and taciturn Will, stroke Florence and Pasco’s sleeping heads, and crash out in front of the telly with a glass of wine and a plate of cheese biscuits.
She must have dozed off because she almost leaped out of her chair as the phone rang beside her.
It was Geoff. “Have I woken you, Maddy? I’m so sorry.”
“What time is it?” She felt disorientated, her mouth dry and her head aching. God, he wasn’t going to suggest dinner again, was he?
“About eleven thirty, but I thought you ought to know. I’ve had an approach from Tessutini in the States.”
“Tess who?”
“Tessutini, you know the parent company for Face Facts and Agnès Broussard Cosmetics.” Maddy still wasn’t sure who or what he meant, but she struggled to sit up, and the plate of crackers slid from her lap onto the floor.
“And?”
“They have made an offer to buy Paysage Enchanté.” He named a figure. Suddenly Maddy was wide awake.