By the time Friday came around, Helen and Matthew had reached something approaching civility in their exchanges. He was still angry about Leo’s launch and hadn’t lost an opportunity to make what he thought were subtle digs about it. She was feeling guilty and so countered every one of those digs with what she thought was a conciliatory but noncommittal mumble. When they had first started speaking properly again, on about Wednesday, he had risked kicking the whole thing off for a second time by repeating the invitation. Prepared, this time, Helen had refused to be drawn and had stuck to her story that she was seeing Rachel. It had been tense for a while but, in the cold light of day, neither one was prepared to go into all-out battle. So, Matthew had accepted her excuse but not forgotten his anger about it, as was only too apparent from the odd barbed comment that slipped out.
Helen was on a high – Sandra Hepburn had returned from Kos, and some promising ‘candid’ pictures had been leaked to the Sunday papers. Helen was confident that at least a couple would run the story on their gossip pages. Best of all, Laura had told her that she no longer had to keep her new job a secret, so at Friday-night drinks, Helen had come up with a sure-fire way of letting the coven know without having to speak to them directly, which involved sharing her good news with Helen-from-Accounts in a low voice. Helen-from-Accounts then squealed with excitement and said, ‘Congratulations,’ so loudly that Jenny had been forced to ask her what she was going on about. The stony-faced lack of enthusiasm for her good fortune had given Helen a warm glow.
Matthew had decided to go straight to the restaurant after work, despite the fact that the launch didn’t begin till eight. He’d got it into his head that he could help Leo set things up, which was probably a terrible idea, but at least it meant Helen could go straight home and not have to pretend to be getting ready to go anywhere herself. Of course, there was a possibility that Leo and Matthew would have a fight, and he would come home early and catch her lounging on the sofa in her pyjamas, but she decided it was a risk she was prepared to take. Naturally, she had called Rachel and told her that if Matthew ever asked, they had spent the evening together.
‘Fine,’ Rachel had replied, and then immediately followed it with, ‘Do you think solid silver or antique bone handles for the cutlery?’
‘I have to go,’ Helen had said quickly, putting the phone down. Bone handles? What had happened to her friend? She’d turned into some kind of mimsy Victorian lady since announcing she was getting married. She’d started to use words like corsage and stays and bodice. She found napkins fascinating and could spend an hour weighing up the virtues of different kinds of name cards to go on the table settings. Pictures of veils could cause her to faint with excitement. Helen picked up the phone and dialled Rachel’s number again.
‘Didn’t they have to kill animals to make the bone handles?’
‘Or people, I’m not sure. But it was years ago. No one’s killing anything to make cutlery out of now, don’t worry.’
‘Go for solid silver,’ Helen told her. ‘Bye.’
She dug out her copy of the ‘Women we hate’ list and added ‘Women who have a personality transplant/bypass when they get engaged’. After it, she added, ‘(Rachel)’.
Sophie, Claudia and Suzanne arrived at Percy Street at ten to eight, and the first thing they saw when they rounded the corner from Rathbone Place were the strings of lights from the windows to the tops of the trees and the glow of the space heaters on the front patio. Verano looked stunning. The deep-red walls and rows of flickering candles in coloured jars threw a warm glow out into the street and made it almost impossible to walk past on a bitterly cold February evening like this. Inside, Leo and Matthew – who seemed to be on civil, almost amiable terms – were busy seeing to the finishing touches – in fact, Matthew seemed to have a paintbrush in his hand. Laura was running through the final guest list with a man they’d hired for the night to stand on the door. They were expecting fifty guests, eighteen of them ‘celebrities’, although they were notoriously unreliable. The chef had prepared tapas, which the waiters were going to circulate on trays, and there was a fridge full of high-quality champagne (and some cheaper stuff to open later when people’s tastebuds had got a little less discerning). Leo had managed to persuade a few friends and family to arrive on the dot of eight so that, if any of the promised D-listers did turn up, they wouldn’t take one look and keep moving. He looked pathetically grateful when he saw his ex-stepmother to be and his half-sisters there so early.
Matthew handed Sophie a glass of champagne and the girls an orange juice each and pronounced a toast to Leo and the restaurant, and they all raised their glasses. Sophie looked round the group: this was real twenty-first century dysfunctional happy families – a separated couple, stepchild, half-brother and sisters – all it needed now was for Hannah and Helen to show up to complete the picture, but Hannah was away diving – her latest in a series of new passions since her husband had abandoned her all those years ago – and Helen, of course, had refused to come.
Leo had wanted his mother to be at his big night and was somewhat aggravated when she had announced she was going away, but there was no denying it made the evening less complicated. Just as he resented Helen’s non-appearance but at the same time was grateful for it.
By twenty past eight the restaurant was filling up and, despite the fact that none of the promised celebrities had yet shown up, Leo instructed the waiters to begin circulating with the first of the tapas – tiny bite-sized portions of Verano’s starter menu, delicious anchovies and chorizo and tiny rings of chilli-fried squid. A couple of paparazzi had arrived and were mooching about outside rubbing their hands together to keep warm. At eight thirty there was a sudden flash of bulbs and Shaun Dickinson burst through the doors with a large-breasted blonde following close behind. By ten o’clock a couple of soap stars, a reality-game-show loser, Sandra Hepburn and Shaun’s ex, complete with new footballer boyfriend, had also come through the doors. Most only stayed for half an hour, sampled the food and declared it delicious, knocked back three or four glasses of champagne and then moved on to try and be photographed somewhere else, but the paparazzi got what they wanted. Suzanne and Claudia collected autographs they could show off to their friends about on Monday, and Leo took advance bookings for the following week.
Matthew, Sophie and the girls had gravitated towards each other early in the evening and stayed that way, sitting at a table in the corner watching the evening unfold and bursting with pride for Leo. Sophie knew she was getting curious looks from the representatives from Global, Laura included, but she decided that the only thing she could do was keep her dignity and her distance and not let it ruin her evening. The girls, watching their parents sitting together drinking and chatting, were almost hysterical with happiness.
‘How are things with Helen?’ Sophie managed to ask after a couple of glasses.
‘Better, thanks. At least I think so – I still couldn’t persuade her to come.’
‘Good,’ Claudia chipped in.
Jenny breezed over. ‘Going well, isn’t it?’ She sat down and turned to Sophie, faux innocent smile on her face.
‘Hi, you must be Sophie. We’ve spoken on the phone before. I’m Jenny, Matthew’s assistant.’
Sophie tried to smile at her, feeling humiliated that this young girl must know all her personal business.
‘I’ve been helping Laura organize this,’ Jenny was saying disingenuously, ‘because, you know, it was Helen’s job really, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Sad that, isn’t it, you’d think she’d want to get to know Matthew’s family. Still …’ she said, conspiratorially lowering her voice so Matthew couldn’t hear ‘… she’s a bitch, but I’m sure you know that. We all hate her in the office for what she’s done.’
Sophie had no idea how to respond. She ought to have taken some comfort from the knowledge that her rival was not liked, but she wanted this girl to go away and leave her alone. She looked pleadingly at Matthew who, thankfully, hadn’t forgotten how to pick up her secret signals.
‘Jenny, I think you should go and help Laura keep the guests happy. We don’t want them leaving too quickly, it won’t look good.’
Jenny reluctantly dragged herself out of her chair. ‘Bye, Sophie. Great to meet you at last.’
‘Sorry about her – she’s a bit of a cow,’ Matthew said once Jenny had gone.
‘You’ve got great taste in assistants.’ Sophie managed a smile, which he reciprocated gratefully.
By eleven the evening was beginning to wind down. Sandra, the last of the D-listers to leave, rather the worse for free booze and on the arm of a man she hadn’t arrived with but who may have been one of the waiters, set off another round of flashbulbs as she left, and then the paparazzi went as stealthily as they’d arrived, on to the next event. Laura had come over to Matthew and declared the evening a major success. Sophie had felt as if Laura was avoiding her, probably embarrassed that it was her assistant who had stolen Sophie’s husband, so she made a big effort to smile expansively in her direction and Laura returned the gesture with a look of relief but also, Sophie felt, guilt. Oh god, she thought, please don’t let her be another one of Matthew’s conquests. A cloud briefly settled over their table, but Leo swept it away when, having seen off the rest of the guests, he strode over with a fresh bottle of champagne and began a victorious debrief of the evening. The girls were dead on their feet, but Sophie stayed for one last glass to toast his success before bundling them into a taxi home.
Helen heard Matthew bumping into the hall table at about one o’clock – at least, she assumed it was him and not a burglar, but she was too tired to check. Let him steal Matthew’s toy cars – what did she care? Then she heard another crash and an ‘Oh fuck’ and knew it was definitely Matthew, a bit the worse for wear.
‘How’d it go?’ she asked sleepily when he eventually stumbled into the bedroom and turned on the overhead light, causing her to squint.
‘Fantastic,’ he slurred. ‘A triumph. You should have been there.’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘Was Leo pleased? Did he think it went well? Did he enjoy it?’ OK, stop asking him questions about Leo. Next it would be, ‘Did he look nice?’ or ‘Did he look like he was pining for someone called Eleanor?’ She changed tack.
‘Did any of the celebs turn up?’
‘Great turn-out. Shaun, Janice, Sandra …’
‘Sandra was there?’ For some reason, this made Helen nervous. ‘She did behave, didn’t she? Did you keep an eye on her?’
‘Hardly my job.’
He managed to register her disapproving expression. ‘Don’t worry, she was fine.’
He flopped into bed, socks still on, and turned on to his side, breathing heavily almost immediately, asleep within seconds. Helen sighed and got out of bed to turn off the light.
On Saturday morning Helen was up early and out to the shop to get the tabloids. She was looking for Sandra’s modelling story, of course, but just as eager to see if Leo’s launch had got any coverage. She knew there was no chance he would be in any of the pictures, if indeed there were any, but, in that way that when you’re fourteen you want to keep walking past the house of the boy you fancy even though you know he’s away on holiday with his mum and dad, she just wanted to catch a glimpse of something that was connected to him. She started flicking impatiently through one of the papers as she walked along the street. Nothing. Letting herself into the flat, she sat down on the sofa and began hastily skimming the next one. On page five, there was a picture of Sandra. But it wasn’t the picture she’d been hoping for. There was no headline in the ‘Sandra’s a Model Girl’ vein. The picture was taken outside Verano – she recognized the laurel bush in its pot by the door and the wrought-iron table and chairs. There was no mention of the restaurant by name, or of Leo, because the focus of the piece was on Sandra. Sandra who was hanging on to the arm of an unnamed man Helen had never seen before; Sandra who had a food stain on her seethrough white top; Sandra who was cocking her leg at the paparazzi like a publicity-hungry spaniel to show them she was wearing no underwear. The paper had pixillated the offending area to protect her modesty. The headline read ‘Put It Away, Love.’
Helen broke into a cold sweat. She checked the other two papers – both had gone with the same picture and the captions, ‘Thong Gone’ and ‘Sandra’s No Cover Girl’. There was no mention of Verano anywhere, no one had gone with the pictures of the other D-listers arriving or leaving and, of course, why would anyone use the ‘candid’ modelling shots when they had these. She tried to tell herself that the Sundays might pick up her Vogue story, but she knew there was no chance now.
Matthew flinched when she dropped the papers on the end of the bed.
‘It’s a fucking disaster.’ She showed him one article after another, holding them up to his face as he lay there.
‘You know, this wouldn’t have happened if you’d come,’ he said helpfully.
She lay down on the bed, defeated. ‘I know, I know.’
But Matthew wasn’t done. ‘So now Leo will think I couldn’t handle his campaign. Great.’
‘I’m sorry. But it wasn’t me who invited Sandra. I didn’t know she was going to be there.’
‘True. But let’s face it, Helen, if you hadn’t refused to have anything to do with Leo’s PR, you could have checked who was on the guest list and, failing that, if you hadn’t refused to come last night, you could have kept an eye on Sandra when she did turn up. Stopped her drinking, sent her home.’
Defensiveness was getting the better of Helen. ‘Laura was there. She should have sorted Sandra out.’
‘True, but Laura was in charge last night. She had enough on her plate. And, anyway, she’d given the responsibility for Sandra’s story to you.’
‘Fucking Jenny must’ve invited her. She knew I was expecting the story to go in this weekend. She must’ve done it hoping to stitch me up.’
Matthew lay back on the pillow. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. And do you know what? I can’t be bothered to worry about Sandra. It’s far more important to me that we’ve let Leo down. Shit, I’d better ring him.’
Leo, as it turned out, was not overly concerned by the lack of coverage, because bookings were stacking up and he knew the word of mouth would be positive. He was actually relieved that the restaurant had not been named in conjunction with Sandra’s flashing and couldn’t quite understand why his father was being so overly apologetic.
Laura, on the other hand, was spitting. Helen’s phone practically exploded when she answered her boss’s call.
‘You’ve seen the papers, I take it?’ Laura sounded unlike Helen had ever heard her before, both icy and boiling with anger at the same time, if such a thing were possible. Helen took a deep breath and waited for the worst.
‘There’s no chance she’ll get her nomination now. Absolutely no fucking chance. Jesus, what a disaster.’
There was a brief pause, and Helen, feeling like she was obliged to say something, offered up, ‘I’m sorry.’
Laura wasn’t listening. ‘I mean, being drunk, falling over, that would have been bad enough, but we might have overcome it. But showing her bits. Oh god.’
It crossed Helen’s mind to say, ‘Look, you can take back your offer of a job. I’ll understand,’ but all she could manage was, ‘I’m sorry,’ again, followed by, ‘I’m really sorry.’
Laura had finally taken a breath. ‘What are you sorry for? It’s not your fault.’
‘It is, of course it is. If I hadn’t refused to work on Leo’s account. Or even if I’d have come last night …’
Laura interrupted her. ‘But, you weren’t working on it, that’s the point. Maybe you should have been but you weren’t, and I accepted that. No …’ She paused. ‘… It’s that bitch Jenny. Sandra’s name wasn’t on the list last time I checked it, so she must have invited her herself, knowing that every time she goes near free booze, she makes a fool of herself. I didn’t even realize Sandra was there until about ten o’clock, by which time she was already half-cut. I told Jenny to keep an eye on her, take her out the back door, put her in a taxi home. Fucking hell. I should’ve done it myself.’
‘But it’s still my fault, don’t you see … it’s because she hates me so much. She wanted Sandra to fuck up so I’d look bad.’
‘Stop making this all about you. Of course she did it to get at you, but Sandra’s my client so she’s made me look bad as well, and she’s not going to get away with it. I phoned you for a moan about her, not to tell you off.’
The relief which washed over Helen was almost tangible. She sat down at the kitchen table and forced herself to breathe normally. ‘So, what are you going to do?’
Laura breathed in sharply. ‘Well, if I find out she invited Sandra, then I’m going to take it up with the other directors. Global can’t trust someone who behaves like that.’
Almost as soon as Helen hung up, her mobile rang again. Sandra. Thankfully, the caller ID had told her this because otherwise she never would have guessed from the high-pitched wail that came at her down the phone. It was like being called by a distraught dolphin.
‘You’ve seen the papers then?’
She thought she heard Sandra say the words, ‘my minge,’ amid the crying. Part of her wanted to tell Sandra off for being so fucking stupid: why did she accept the invitation, knowing that there would be paparazzi there and that she had a positive story waiting to go into the papers; if she had to go, why couldn’t she stay sober (silly question) or at least put some knickers on. She was her own worst enemy but, truthfully, she was too stupid and desperate to know any better. Jenny wasn’t.
‘Sandra, calm down.’
‘Eeeeee.’ A noise came back like Flipper trying to alert her to someone in danger.
‘Listen, just lie low today. Don’t answer your phone unless you know who it is. Don’t go out, OK? There’s still a couple of weeks till the nominations are announced, we’ll think of something,’ she said, knowing there was absolutely no chance.
She took the sound which followed as an agreement.
‘Sandra, who invited you last night? I mean, I didn’t know you were going to be there.’
It was Jenny. Helen managed to decipher enough to establish that Jenny had called Sandra just after her return from Kos and told her that Laura thought it would be a good idea if she showed her face at the launch. What’s more, Jenny had refilled her glass several times and persuaded her from leaving when Sandra had had a pang of responsibility at around nine o’clock. That was the last thing she remembered. The waiter – for he had indeed turned out to be one of Leo’s employees – had thankfully slept on the couch and had been very attentive this morning, bringing her Resolve and making her a fry-up. He hadn’t seemed offended at all when she had asked him who the fuck he was.
‘Look, you never know …’ Helen knew she didn’t sound convincing ‘… One of the Sundays might still run the Kos piece and then we’ll capitalize on it like mad. Don’t feel too bad, OK?’
Helen was desperate to run straight into the bedroom and crow to Matthew that it was his precious assistant who had fucked the whole evening up, but she knew he’d just think she was being hysterical. Anyway, better to leave it to Laura to deliver the bad news – let the grown-ups fight it out.