Little White Lies (37 page)

The warmth that sitting at the table with Claudette and her family produced stayed with her all evening. It was overwhelming to sit at a table without being made to feel that she somehow had to earn the right to be there. Raoul, once he’d dragged his eyes away from the television screen and had had a glass of wine, turned out to be more interesting than she thought and her two daughters were a delight.

The girls all crowded into Claudette’s room after the meal was over, helping their mother bring out a selection of dresses – no, too fussy; tops – too colourful; and scarves – yes, okay, a
possibility
– for her to look at. They arranged the clothes on the bed, arguing over which might suit her best.

‘Look, Maman. Annick’s got a
tattoo!
’ Fatima and Rawia pounced upon her hand as though they might eat it. ‘A tattoo!’ Fatima breathed reverentially.

‘
We
want to get one but Maman said she’d kill us,’ Rawia giggled, looking triumphantly at her mother.

‘
Qu’est-ce-que c’est que ça?
’ Claudette peered at Annick’s hand. ‘I’ve always wondered what it was. You don’t seem like the type of girl . . . well, it seems a bit strange, that’s all. What is it?’

Annick fingered it self-consciously. ‘It’s just . . . it’s just something I did . . . a long time ago. There were three of us . . . my best friends . . . just something silly we all did.’

‘Did it hurt?’ Rawia gazed at her.

Annick shook her head. ‘No. Well, a little bit. Anyhow, it was all a long time ago.’ She turned her head and concentrated on the shirts spread out in front of them. Getting the actual tattoo wasn’t what hurt . . . losing Rebecca and Tash had been infinitely more painful. It still was. ‘What about this one?’ she asked, pointing to a pale-blue blouse, determined to change the topic.

‘
Non, celui-là
,’ Fatima shook her head firmly, pointing to an orange, green and cream flowered blouse. ‘It’ll go great with your hair.’

Annick looked at it doubtfully. ‘Isn’t it a bit loud?’

Claudette chuckled. ‘Louder the better,’ she declared. ‘I don’t know why you always wear black. So depressing. You should wear colour,
chérie
, lots of it!’

Annick was silent. There was a time she’d have agreed with Claudette, but not now. She eyed the shirt nervously. Aside from the usual anxiety over whether or not it would fit, now a whole host of new anxieties were beginning to surface. How should she do her hair? And what would they talk about? And should she offer to pay?

Claudette and her girls listened to her with looks of incredulity. Her teenage daughters appeared to be more clued up than Annick was about how to behave on a first date. ‘Just be yourself,’ Claudette advised finally. ‘Just be yourself.’

Annick looked at her blankly. She’d forgotten how.

TASH
London

Tash put down the phone and stared at her hands. They were trembling. Her heart was pounding. She ought to lie down. For a bit. Just to let it all sink in. She got up and walked over to her sofa. She sat down. Her hands were still shaking. She locked her fingers together and shoved them between her knees. Two million pounds. Two
million
pounds! That was how much Julian and his colleagues were willing to invest. ‘We’ve looked at it from a number of angles,’ he said. ‘Charles thinks you’re mad. It’s only been a few years since the bubble burst on the dotcoms and online businesses haven’t picked up as quickly as everyone hoped. If you’d come to me five years ago I could’ve raised triple that . . . but, still, two million’s a start.’

A
start?
It was almost twice as much as she’d dared hope. She stared at the phone. Whom should she call first? Rebecca, of course. She pressed her fingers together even more tightly. Her mother. What would she tell Lyudmila?
How
would she tell her?
I’ve just been given two million pounds
. Well, it wasn’t quite true. She’d been given two million pounds of someone
else’s
money in the hope that she would make it back. And more, of course. She unlaced her fingers and ran a hand through her hair, pulling it back ever more tightly. She rubbed her eyes. Then she got up, walked to the refrigerator and quickly poured herself a glass of cold white wine. She looked around uncertainly. ‘Well,’ she said out loud after a moment. ‘Here’s to you, Tash Bryce-Brudenell.’ She raised her glass to herself. ‘Here’s to your
idea
.’ She laughed self-consciously and brought the glass to her lips. She’d just been given two million pounds. She raised the glass again and polished it off. She looked at her watch. It was nearly four o’clock. It was time to get down to business. Her own.

There were four of them around the beautifully laid table at the Orrery. Herself, Edith, James and Colin, one of James’s closest friends from university and an authority on all things internet. All three were staring at Tash.

‘Just like that?’ James’s eyes widened to the point of bursting. ‘He gave you two million quid . . .
just like that
?’

‘Why not?’ Edith asked mildly. She was nearly sixty; she’d been in the business long enough to have seen investments of this scale, including her own. ‘It’s a good idea. A bloody good idea.’

Tash smiled. It wasn’t like Edith to swear. She raised her glass. ‘Well, it wasn’t quite “just like that”, but yes, we’ve got two million quid of other people’s money to play with, starting now. So, here’s to
[email protected]
. We’ve got four months to get it up and running.’

‘You say “we”,’ James said cautiously. ‘What exactly d’you have in mind? Where do we come in?’

Tash nodded slowly. ‘Okay. So here it is. Here’s what I’m thinking.’

It took her thirty minutes to outline her vision for the new company. Fifteen positions, ranging from admin to sales, fifteen people working out of her tiny Bloomsbury flat and four directorships, offered to each person at the table. Of the four, only Edith had anything other than ambition and passion to contribute – she’d offered three hundred thousand pounds of her own money to get
[email protected]
off the ground.

‘I know you’ll never leave Eden,’ Tash said, looking directly at her when she’d finished. ‘But if you’d consider coming on board not just as an investor, but as a director, I’d . . . well, I’d sleep easier at night,’ Tash said, laughing nervously. ‘I’ll be completely honest. I need your fashion savvy, not just your contacts list. You know better than almost anyone what sells, what’s hot, what’s not. I
could
do it without you; I’d just rather not have to.’

It took Edith a few minutes to answer. There was a faint but discernible tremor of emotion in her voice as she spoke. ‘I’m sixty-one years old,’ she said, looking around the table at the three young people sitting there. ‘I’ve been in the fashion business for nearly forty years and I’ve enjoyed every moment. But it hasn’t been the same since Seth died. Oh, the shop’s still going . . . we’ve got such a loyal group of customers. But it’s not the same. I don’t have the appetite for it anymore. Our two sons aren’t interested . . . it was never their thing. If we’d had a daughter, maybe . . . who knows?’ She stopped and took a small sip of her wine and looked directly at Tash. ‘I’m in. Properly in, I mean. You need an editor-in-chief, it seems to me. And you need somewhere a little bit nicer to work. Working in your flat’s all very well if you’re trying to save money, which we should do, no question. But there’s a perfectly good shop on Moxon Street going . . . why don’t we work from there?’

Tash’s mouth dropped open. Aside from the stunning news that Edith had fully bought into the new venture, what was she saying? That she was about to close Eden’s down? ‘But . . . you can’t,’ she spluttered eventually. ‘You can’t close Eden’s.’

‘Says who?’ There was a sparkle in Edith’s eye that was entirely infectious. Everyone around the table was smiling, even the rather reserved Colin. ‘It’s my shop. I can do what I like.’

‘I think it’s a bloody marvellous idea,’ James said slowly. ‘I’ve always rather liked that end of town.’

‘Good sandwich shops.’

‘Lots of boutiques.’

‘Easy to find.’

‘Good address.’

‘Close to the tube.’

‘Lots of taxis.’

‘Okay, okay . . . I get the point,’ Tash said, laughing. ‘Edith . . . are you sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

By the end of the meal, it was all decided. Tash would be CEO of
[email protected]
. Edith was editor-in-chief. James would be the director of e-commerce and IT and Colin would be operations director. In addition to their small salaries, each would receive a fifteen per cent share. Julian had recommended a lawyer; the next job would be to draw up the formal legal documents that bound them to their vision and to one another. The premises had been found; fifteen positions had been created . . . they had four months to pull it off.

She
had four months to pull it off, Tash thought to herself as she waited for the bill to arrive. It felt good – no, it felt marvellous – to have such a talented, passionate team behind her. She trusted Edith and James implicitly and Colin, despite the fact that she hardly knew him, seemed the perfect antidote to the flamboyance and gregariousness of the other three. But in the end, it was down to her. She would be the one to hold it all together; it was her baby. Hers. She signed the credit-card slip with a flourish, savouring the rush of pride that swept over her as the waiter deferentially handed her card back. At just under three hundred pounds, it was more than she gave Lyudmila in a month. If she played her cards right and worked all the hours God sent, she would, one day, be able to give her mother far more than three hundred pounds a month. She wanted to be able to give Lyudmila everything she’d ever wanted and so spectacularly failed to earn for herself.

REBECCA

At about the same time that Tash was walking back to Marchmont Street along the now-deserted streets of Soho, Rebecca was lying next to Julian listening to how he’d given her best friend two million pounds. Rebecca was shocked. Not by the amount but by the fact that neither Julian nor Tash had said anything to her about it.

‘When did she come to you?’ she asked for the umpteenth time.

‘I told you, darling. About a month ago.’

‘And you didn’t say a word to me?’

‘It’s business. That’s the way it’s done. It would’ve been premature to talk about it until I’d put the whole deal together.’

‘But she’s my best friend! I can’t believe the two of you didn’t talk to
me
about it!’

‘Why should we?’ Julian sounded genuinely baffled by Rebecca’s anger. ‘It’s business, Rebecca, that’s all. It’s not like I was seeing her for any other reason. God, no,’ he gave a short laugh.

‘Why d’you say it like that?’ Rebecca pounced on him.

‘Like what?’

‘The way you said it just now. “
God
, no.” As if the very idea—’

‘Rebecca, you’re being unreasonable. It was a business deal; that’s all there is to it. And yes, the very idea of there being anything more is absolutely ridiculous. Aside from the way she
looks
, she’s your best friend, as you keep pointing out.’

‘What’s wrong with her looks?’

Julian sat up. It was dark; Rebecca couldn’t see his expression properly, which was probably just as well. His voice, when it came out of the darkness, wasn’t a voice she’d heard him use before. ‘I’ve had enough. Deal with whatever ridiculous insecurities you have, Rebecca. I’m sleeping next door. I’ve got a six a.m. flight. I can’t be bothered with this.’ And with that, he slid out of bed, picked up his dressing gown from the back of the door and banged it shut behind him.

Rebecca lay where she was, too shocked to move. What had she done wrong? She’d only been asking a question! She could hear him pulling out the sofa bed in the study. Should she go after him and apologise? He’d got it all wrong. She hadn’t meant to insinuate that there was anything between him and Tash that wasn’t strictly business – it was just that she felt left out of the loop. A very important loop, too. Suddenly she heard his voice; he was on the phone. She struggled upright. It was just after midnight. A cold, unreasonable wave of fear swept over her. Who was he talking to at this time? She strained to hear – was he talking to Tash? No, don’t be silly, she admonished herself severely. Why would he be talking to Tash at midnight? It was probably just another business call – Julian seemed to do most of his business with people on the other side of the world – Shanghai, Bangkok, Tokyo. His phone was always at his side, always going off at odd hours. It was only natural that he’d be talking to someone at midnight. It was in the middle of the working day in Tokyo.

She lay back, her heart beating faster than usual. She felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable. She was envious, she realised with a growing sense of shame. Jealous, even. She was jealous of the way Julian talked about Tash. What was the expression he’d used? “She’s got balls, your friend. Cool as a cucumber. She’ll make it, mark my words.” Who would ever say that about
her
?

She slid out of bed and almost ran to the study. Julian had just hung up the phone. He looked up at her, puzzled.

‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted out before he could speak. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ She found, to her amazement, that her cheeks were wet. ‘I d-don’t know what came over me,’ she stammered.

‘Hey . . . it’s nothing,’ Julian got up and came towards her. ‘It’s nothing. Not worth crying over, at any rate. Rebecca . . . it’s nothing.’

She was crying openly now, unable to stop herself. What was the fear that had broken out all over her like a light sweat? That Julian would find her disagreeable? She turned her face into his chest, felt his arms tighten across her back. She breathed in deeply, desperately seeking some reassurance in his broad, still oddly unfamiliar body that she hadn’t ‘blown’ it – a phrase and sentiment from her schoolgirl days. ‘Julian?’ she whispered. ‘Are you angry with me?’

He shook his head vigorously. His chest heaved, as though he were laughing. ‘Angry? Whatever for?’