A Perfect Heritage (76 page)

‘Won’t it be lovely though, to have Mummy home when you get in from school?’

‘Yes, well that would be nice – I think,’ said Milly. ‘Although all the people I know whose mothers don’t work say it’s awful, and they have to tell them everything they’ve done and what marks they got and all that stuff.’

‘But Milly, that’s exactly what I mean. I
should
be there asking you all that stuff. You might never have been bullied if I’d been at home.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Milly. ‘I know I said it would, but I really don’t think it would. I’ve thought about it a lot. Anyway, it’s you I’m thinking of. You
love
your job. You love working.’

‘Yeah,’ said Fergie. ‘You’d be miserable at home.’

‘And bored,’ said Milly.

‘She might not,’ said Ruby staunchly.

‘You’re too little to know,’ said Fergie.

‘I’m not!’

‘You are.’

‘And anyway,’ said Milly, ‘we’re proud of you. What you do.’

‘Yes,’ said Fergie, ‘we really are.’

Patrick, listening to his children giving voice to his own misgivings, wondered at their wisdom.

‘It was better when Dad was working for his old firm,’ said Fergie. ‘I do think that.’

‘Well, he can’t go back there,’ said Milly.

‘He could. Uncle Ian told me the other week, when he and Aunt Babs came for lunch, he’d love to have Dad back, they all miss him, says they’ve never found anyone everyone likes.’

Patrick felt a sudden pang of nostalgia for the old days. Yes, they’d been boring quite a lot of the time, but it had been sociable. He considered the trade-off: on balance, he thought, working for Saul still definitely had the edge.

And then his phone rang; he looked at it. ‘It’s Saul,’ he said to Bianca.

‘Oh, what? What does he want, doesn’t he know it’s one in the morning? Forget I said that,’ she said hastily.

Patrick went out of the kitchen and she shooed the children upstairs. She felt rather shaken by their reaction.

Patrick wasn’t very long.

‘What was it?’

‘Well – well, he more or less just gave me the elbow.’

‘He what? But why, how?’

‘Well, Janey is definitely going to Australia. So he’s going too.’

‘He’s going too? That poor woman, what she has to endure. But what about the business?’

‘Well I’m exaggerating a bit. He’s going to open an office in Sydney. And here’s the thing, he’d want me to be available to him there as well as here. Whenever it was necessary. I don’t know how he thinks I could do that. I mean, it’s impossible. Totally impossible.’

‘Maybe,’ she said carefully, ‘maybe it wouldn’t be very often.’

‘Bianca! Of course it would. You
know
what he’s like. I’d be permanently on that plane. I can’t sign up to that, I really can’t.’

‘Darling, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. But if I’m at home . . .’

‘Bianca, I don’t think you should be at home. That was never what I meant. I think the children are quite right, I’m afraid. I think you’d be miserable. And bored.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘well clearly everyone values me really highly.’

‘Darling, of course they do. But they value what you
are
, not what you think you can be.’

She was silent: contemplating the reality as she had not really before, caught up in her vision of herself cast as domestic goddess: of spending her days doing what she absolutely wasn’t good at. It was true, she was a rubbish cook. And even the second trip to Peter Jones had been less enjoyable than the first. And she got very bored reading after a bit. And – well, there was still a lot of work to be done at Farrell’s, building its new image, with no Athina ready at every turn with some booby trap or other, and it would be far less frantic, quite peaceful, really. She’d probably get home at quite a reasonable hour most days and . . .

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it does seem fate is trying to tell us something. Along with our children. But I really don’t want you to feel you’ve got to go back to BCB, Patrick. There must be lots of other jobs.’

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘I’m not grubbing around looking for jobs with other people. I couldn’t, not after working for Saul. And I’m not going to work for some other firm of chartered accountants, am I? So—’

‘Darling,’ said Bianca, ‘you’re jumping the gun. It’s not going to happen just like that, any of it. Let’s sleep on it.’

But she couldn’t sleep; she was too excited by all the other things she wanted to do at Farrell’s, and hadn’t allowed herself even to think about. Like what to do with the rest of the range, how and when to phase it out, what new products she could add to the
Passionate
range, meeting the undoubtedly increased orders for The Collection – and marvelling at Saul and how clever he was. How extremely, extremely clever.

Florence was sitting and listening to her favourite Mozart symphony, the much-lauded Fortieth, wondering how that dreadful thing that was going on at the Palace could possibly be called a concert, and thinking that if bank holidays were bad for single people, double ones were more than doubly so, when her phone rang. She almost didn’t answer it, thinking, just for a second or so it would probably be Athina, complaining about something – and then remembered that it would never be Athina again. It was going to take a while for her to absorb that . . .

‘Hello?’ she said, finally picking it up and wondering who on earth it could be, and ‘Florence?’ a tentative voice came down the phone. A tentative male voice. A voice she had never thought to hear again.

‘Timothy?’ she said, after a long silence, thinking first that his voice had not changed at all, and second that it couldn’t possibly be him, just someone with a very similar voice. A very, very similar voice.

And, ‘Yes,’ he said, sounding delighted, ‘yes it’s me. Do forgive me for telephoning you, I thought of writing, but then I thought a conversation would be better because I saw in the
Telegraph
that Lady Farrell had died, and I wanted to tell you how sorry I was. You must be very sad, a lifetime association over.’

‘Indeed,’ she said.

‘Of course it’s – what? – six years since her husband died. I thought of ringing you then, but in the end my courage failed me.’

‘Your courage?’

‘Well yes. I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me, or worse, tell me to get lost.’

‘Timothy, I shall always remember you,’ said Florence, smiling. ‘You gave me such a happy time. And I am far too well mannered to tell anyone to get lost.’

‘Yes, of course you are. Well, how are you, my dear?’

‘I’m well, thank you, Timothy. The last few days have taken their toll, I have to admit, but yes, very well. And you?’

‘Oh, you know. Mustn’t grumble.’ That had always been one of his expressions, and he never did.

‘Good. Well, it was a long time ago, wasn’t it, Timothy? That we last met.’

‘It was indeed, almost thirty years. You – you never married again?’

‘No, no, I never did. You?’

‘No, no. The opportunity never presented itself.’

There was a long silence; then Timothy Benning said, very tentatively, ‘I don’t suppose that we could – should – meet one day? In town, perhaps, or—’

‘No,’ said Florence and the word came out more sharply than she had intended. But her parting from him had been so painful and so final, and she had recovered from it so totally; and what would be the point of seeing him now? And having a conversation that was merely more of this one: awkward, stilted, peppered with awkward silences. And she remembered him so very fondly, and so vividly, that last weekend, walking with him on the Downs, both of them still so fit and strong, her arm in his, anything now would be a sorry echo of that, two old frail people, struggling to keep up with their memories. ‘No, I don’t think so, Timothy. But – but thank you so much for ringing. It was wonderful to hear from you. Goodbye.’

Timothy Benning said goodbye and rang off; he felt very sad. Had he been another generation, he might have wept. But men of his age didn’t weep. They just got on with things. He had had an almighty struggle, calling up his courage to ring her, had picked up the receiver and put it down several times. And then, reminding himself that she was most unlikely to be there, took a deep breath and dialled her number. Hearing her voice had been the most extraordinary experience: utterly unchanged, still low, musical, and very level. And listening to it, the years had rolled away. It was a terrible cliché that, but it was exactly what they did: like watching a film go backwards and there she had been, smiling at him across his sitting room, raising her glass to him, so pretty and beautifully dressed.

Well, she was probably right: it would only spoil the memories if they were to meet now. She always had been sensible. Far more so than him. He sighed and went over to the sideboard, poured himself a large whisky, and put on his favourite recording of his favourite of Mozart’s symphonies, the Fortieth . . .

Florence put the phone down and felt very sad also. Of course it would never have worked, they would just fumble about, trying to relive the past and fail utterly. Far better to leave things as they were. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a large glass of red wine. It had been good to hear his voice. And to know that he still thought about her. Very good. And perhaps if they – no, Florence, don’t even think about it, as Bertie and Bianca and indeed all the young people would say. You have your life and your work and – and suddenly then she thought of Athina, saw her disapproving face, heard her voice, dismissive and condescending, feeling her almost in the room: ‘For heaven’s sake, Florence, see this man if he wants you to, why on earth not? You won’t have a job much longer, that’s certain, don’t think they’ll keep you on without me, and there certainly won’t be any more men either, so you might as well make the most of this one. Just don’t expect too much, that’s all I can say.’

And she sat for a moment, then stood up and walked across to the phone.

‘You’re right, Athina,’ she said aloud, ‘thank you.’ And she picked it up and dialled Timothy’s number, carved into her memory as it was.

‘Hello?’ he said.

And, ‘Hello Timothy,’ she said, ‘it’s Florence. Look, I’m sorry, I think I was a little hasty; it might be good to meet. What? Well, as soon as possible, I would suggest.
Carpe diem
and all that. Yes, Thursday would be lovely. Tea at the Savoy? Very nice. Four o’clock, yes. Now, there is just one thing, though. If we are to start seeing one another again, there are a few things I need to tell you. What? Well, about myself. Things that you probably would never have expected . . . but let’s see how things work out on Thursday, shall we? Yes, I shall look forward to it very much too. Is – is that Mozart’s Fortieth I hear in the background? I thought so. I have it on too. What a coincidence. A good omen, perhaps.’

‘A very good omen,’ said Timothy Benning. ‘Well, goodbye, my dear, for now. And I can hardly wait to hear these things you are going to tell me. It sounds rather exciting.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Florence. ‘Just a few – what shall we say? – chapters from my own life. Which sometimes, I must admit, actually seems quite a good story now . . .’