Christmas at Claridge's (16 page)

It was his version of a slap back, and she swallowed at the rebuke. Not friends after all, then. A great day this was turning out to be. Just great: a guilt trip from her father, and now a guilt
trip from him.

Pulling her phone from her bag, she texted Stella:
‘Surprise bounty of complete hides. Will explain later but must meet. Mine, 6 p.m. tonight? It’s urgent. Don’t blow me
out for luvaboy.’

Tom came off the phone, replacing the handset with something approaching a flourish, and both Simon and Clem looked back at him quizzically as he stared at it intently, lost in thought.

‘What?’ Clem asked, able to discern that he was trying his best to suppress the kind of warrior yell that had been the hallmark of their childhood. ‘Who was that?’

He looked up, as though startled to find them all watching him, and an enigmatic smile flitted across his face like a phantom. ‘Possibly . . . only possibly, a new client.’

Clem gasped in excitement.

‘Hold it! Don’t celebrate! It’s just a meeting,’ Tom warned her, worried by her instant happiness. ‘It’ll probably come to nothing.’

‘I bet it won’t!’ Clem gushed excitedly. ‘You’re Mr Charisma, you are. The bummer’s been the phone not ringing. As soon as you get someone face-to-face and
start on your spiel, they’re goners every time. They love you, big brother.’

‘Actually, this might come down to whether or not they love
you,’
Tom said steadily.

‘Me?’ Clem was stunned. She was never allowed near the clients. Hadn’t she proved time and again that she couldn’t be trusted to play with the grown-ups?

‘They’ve asked that you come to the meeting, too.’

‘Why me?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Hopefully because they heard there’s a good-looking chick on my staff and they want something pretty to look at whilst they spend vast sums of money.’

Clem tutted and threw a biro lid across the room at him.

‘Care to share?’ Simon asked, abandoning his position at the shredder and walking past Clem’s desk without acknowledging her. ‘What’s the project?’

‘A private house in Italy. Ligurian coastline.’

‘Nice!’ Simon nodded. ‘Big house?’

‘Big enough that it’s got a boathouse with . . . a boat,’ Tom said casually, his lips curling into a smile. ‘A sad and bedraggled boat that needs to be completely
redesigned and reupholstered.’

‘A
boat!
’ Simon shouted. ‘Say you’re not messing with me.’

‘I’m not messing with you,’ Tom replied, thoroughly amused by Simon’s reaction – he knew full well this was Simon’s dream commission. Tom’s, too, albeit
for different reasons: a marine project was up there in the prestige stakes with the supercar market, and would not only save the business, but propel it into the next level, just as they craved.
Bugatti might have been lost to them, but they weren’t dead in the water yet.

‘Obviously, the boat’s going to require all manner of technical compliances, so I’d like you to get on it, Si. Research everything. I want to go to them with something
innovative. We’ll give them navy and white over my dead body.’

‘Unless they want navy and white,’ Simon said sternly, arching an eyebrow.

‘Exactly.’ Tom laughed.

Clem smiled to hear the sound – so rare in recent weeks – she could almost see the stress lifting off him like a heat cloud. Would Clover be so happy, she wondered, to learn that the
business might be viable after all?

And what about her collection? Was it even going to be needed now? She wondered as she watched Tom and Simon talk earnestly and eagerly, heads bowed together as Tom directed orders and Simon
took frantic notes.

Her phone buzzed with a new text and she looked down to see Stella’s reply:
‘Sure. Intrigued, haters.’

Timing!

Clem watched as the boys high-fived each other. So much for not getting carried away!

She felt a kernel of nervousness harden in the pit of her stomach, anxious to see her brother so clearly investing all his hope into this one meeting in spite of himself, even though, as
he’d said himself, it could all come to nothing.

She bit her lip thoughtfully. Well,
she
wouldn’t take the risk. For once, she’d be the one playing it safe. The hides were being delivered later and Stella was free to come
over – things were already in motion anyway. The best thing she could do was to carry on as though their world was falling apart and she alone could save it.

‘You’re under my feet, girl,’ Mercy said, flinging the Hoover alarmingly towards Clem’s bare feet as she painted her nails a deep, glittery shade of plum.

Clem lifted her legs in the air, letting Mercy pass by, the Hoover in one hand, a glass of red wine in the other. Mercy had had to switch her hours because of another, awkward employer who
refused to negotiate on either times or wages, and she was now often here in the evenings when Clem got back from the office. It suited them both. With Tom so rarely around, Clem enjoyed the
company, and the confrontation with Clover had been a powerful bonding exercise. They chatted easily about anything and everything, and Mercy not only didn’t bat an eyelid at Clem wandering
around half-clothed, which was the true litmus test of whether they could be friends, half the time she joined her.

Clem admired her glossy, dark-disco toes. ‘Like?’ she asked.

‘They look bruised if you want my honest opinion,’ Mercy said, planting a hand on her hip and fixing Clem with a sceptical stare. ‘Like a truck ran over them.’

‘Good, that was
just
the look I was after.’ Clem giggled, delighted to be so contrary, pushing the rolled-up tissue paper further between her toes.

The slam of the street door told them both Stella had arrived, and Clem got up to open the door for her, walking in a peculiar fashion on her heels to keep her nail polish from smudging.

‘Good look!’ Stella grinned up at her from the stairs as Clem stood by the door in a vest and knickers.

‘It’s boiling in here, I’m warning you,’ Clem said, kissing her friend on the cheeks as Stella unwound her signature metre-long Aran-knitted scarf. ‘Fuck knows
where the thermostat is. I think Tom’s taken it with him. Or Clover’s hidden it.’

Stella stopped dead at the sight of Mercy hoovering vigorously in Clem’s bedroom. With her spending so much time with Oscar of late, the two women hadn’t met yet and Clem
couldn’t tell if she was stunned by the shocking tidiness of the flat, or the fact that Mercy was wearing just her jeans and a fuchsia-pink bra. Mercy, sensing she was being scrutinized,
stopped hoovering and straightened up.

‘Stell, this is Mercy. Mercy, this is Stell,’ Clem said calmly as the two buxom women quite literally sized each other up. A hug was going to be out of the question: they’d
never get near enough.

‘I’ve heard lots about you,’ Mercy nodded as she coiled the wire along the back of the Hoover, ignoring the fact that Stella couldn’t take her eyes off Mercy’s
chest. ‘All bad.’

The comment jogged Stella out of her trance and she laughed, albeit nervously. ‘All right?’ Stella nodded in greeting as Clem hobbled back to the sofa to pour her a glass of wine.
Stella followed, sporadically looking back at Mercy in amazement. ‘Why is your skin brown? Mine looks like porridge.’

Clem shrugged. ‘My father’s genes; nothing to do with me. Besides, you’re a lot cleaner than me. I don’t wash as much as you.’

‘Mmm, I guess.’

Stella went to collapse on her usual place on the sofa opposite Clem when she caught sight of the heap of pink and blue-green hides draped across the back of it. ‘Holy cow!’ she
cried.

‘Well, quite,’ Clem quipped. ‘Only the holy ones are pink, you know.’

The three of them laughed.

‘Is that what you meant when you said, “bounty”?’

Clem nodded.

‘And it bloody is. Is this really for us to use?’

‘Mmm hmm.’

‘But where did it come from? Can you be sure of the quality? You know we can’t scrimp on that.’

‘It’s top-notch, direct from the Alderton Hide factory. Simon got it for me. It had already been ordered for the Perignard account before everything . . .’ She ran out of
words.

‘Was Clemmed?’ Stella offered, gently fingering the leathers. ‘God, these are gorgeous.’

‘I thought you’d like them. Now we’ve just got to spend tonight figuring out what to make them into.’

‘Isn’t it a bit risky doing it here, though?’ Stella frowned. ‘What if Tom comes back?’

Clem sighed. ‘He never comes back mid-week any more. Next time I’ll see him here will be Saturday morning, when he comes over for his rugby kit.’

‘Has he properly moved out then?’

‘Not formally. I think he’s been staying with her so much to “acclimatize himself”’ – she made quote marks in the air with her fingers – ‘for the real
thing.’

‘How’s all that going? Many viewings?’

‘Don’t be daft! It’s not even on the market,’ Clem replied indignantly. ‘I bared my teeth and Clover ran for cover, didn’t she, Mercy?’

Mercy gave a solemn nod, taking a sip of the red wine from her glass on the worktop, a duster in her other hand.

‘She won’t step out of line again, I can tell you,’ Clem said, with a little diva-ish waggle of her head. ‘What?’

‘You obviously haven’t seen this,’ Stella murmured, tapping something into her iPad.

‘What?’ Clem took it, frowning, before jumping up in horror and smudging her toes. ‘The devious bitch! I can’t believe she’s done that!’ Clem cried, staring
at the estate agents’ website, which featured a lovely picture of the very room they were standing in.

Mercy shook her head, tutting away. ‘Pushy that girl.’

‘Pushy’ had become the dirtiest of all words.

‘Sorry, hon. I thought you knew,’ Stella said.

‘My own home’s on the market and I didn’t even
know
?’ Clem raged. ‘That’s such a shitty thing for Tom to do! I can’t believe he didn’t
tell me. I thought we’d cleared the air.’

‘He’s under a lot of pressure, remember,’ Stella counselled. ‘Don’t be too hard on him. It’s probably the last thing he wants to talk about.’

‘Yeah, because he knew what I’d have to say about it!’ Clem stomped off into the bathroom to find some nail polish remover and cotton wool balls. She wanted to be understanding
and selfless, she really did, but she couldn’t help but wonder whether Tom wasn’t deliberately punishing her for what she’d done. This was, after all, entirely her fault. If the
meeting did come to nothing and he had to sell up against his will, it was because it was
her
fault. She wiped her toenails clean, but didn’t bother reapplying the varnish. It
wasn’t like they were going to be going out tonight anyway.

She wandered back into the sitting room to find Stella had her top off, too, and was comparing hers and Mercy’s industrial-strength bras.

‘Blimey!’ Clem laughed, forgetting her upset for a moment. ‘Mrs Crouch’ll think we’re having an orgy in here tonight,’ she said, making no move to go to the
window and close the shutters.

‘It’s so tropical in here you could grow mangoes,’ Stella said distractedly, closely examining Mercy’s bra straps. ‘Anyway I reckon there’s still a gap for
seriously gorgeous bras in bigger sizes. It’s just a nightmare, isn’t it, Mercy?’

‘Most of mine look like they could double as hammocks for baby hippos,’ Mercy replied seriously.

‘We should talk,’ Stella said, eyes slitted in deep concentration.

Clem, who, being a B-cup, knew nothing of such woes and most of the time went bra-less, walked over to the heap of hides and dragged the topmost one into the centre of the room. ‘Another
time maybe. Right now we need to decide what we’re going to do with these,’ she said, sitting next to the hide cross-legged and lightly stroking the pile.

Stella joined her on the floor and Clem could see from the intensity on her face that her mind was already whirring. ‘Well, the first thing I’m thinking is a jumpsuit – you
know, biker-style, really tight and sexy, tab closures–’

‘Oh! Adore!’ Clem interrupted excitedly, clapping her hands. She loved watching Stella at work.

Stella dragged the rest of the hides over and began counting and measuring them, writing down dimensions in a small Orla Kiely notebook. ‘And I really love this green. Imagine a pencil
skirt in that.’

‘I so can,’ Clem said dreamily, accessorizing it in her head with her vintage Fifties Roger Vivier stilettoes. There were such great benefits to being Stella’s friend.

‘Imagine the dry-cleaning bills,’ Mercy quipped on her way through to the kitchen, the Hoover trailing behind her. ‘And you’ll need sharp needles for sewing that or
they’ll snag.’

‘How’d you know that?’ Stella called after her.

‘Worked in a factory making tents once. I can stitch a straight line like you wouldn’t believe,’ Mercy cackled.

Stella grinned back, her smile fading as she looked at her notebook. ‘The thing is, Clem, this is all gorgeous, but is there going to be enough profit margin in these pieces to make it
worthwhile? You can’t charge for a pair of trousers what you’d charge for – I dunno – lining a wardrobe with the stuff, even if you end up using less leather and less man
hours. It’s just a different market, different mark-up. I’ve done costings for all the other pieces we’ve made so far, and I reckon that even if we sell everything, we’re
still only going to pull in twelve grand.’

Clem looked at her, appalled. ‘But that’s nowhere near enough!’

Stella shrugged. ‘It’s a tough business.’

‘Can’t we whack twenty per cent on everything?’

Stella looked at her doubtfully. ‘There’s a recession going on, remember? If we can get the punters into a bit of a shopping frenzy we can apply a small premium – you know,
it’s a one-off opportunity, limited edition and whatnot – but they’re not fools. People won’t pay just anything. These hides will obviously help bump the profits up. We can
maybe get up to . . . what, twenty grand?’

Clem visibly deflated. ‘Still not enough. How are we going to really make some proper money?’ She leaned against the sofa, her long legs crossed at the ankles, one foot jiggling
anxiously. She had to think. There had to be something they could do that would bring in the amount they needed. If the entire collection couldn’t do it, then it would need to be one
incredible item. One standout, special piece that money couldn’t buy—