More Than You Know (17 page)

“Matt! Matt, hallo, what a lovely surprise. Maddy said she was going to invite you. You couldn’t get me a drink, would you? I’m desperate.”

It was Eliza. She was wearing a black shift with a large hole cut out of it where her midriff was—in fact, he could actually see her navel—Christ, why were girls allowed to do that sort of thing?—and thigh-high black boots. Her bangs were so long he could hardly see her eyes.

“Course,” he said, and disappeared into the throng, then realised he had no idea what she wanted. He picked up a glass of red and a glass of white wine and made his way back to her, half expecting her to have moved on to another group. But no. “Oh, thank you, Matt; I’ll take the white if that’s OK. Are you having a good time?”

“Oh … yeah … well, you know.” He took a large gulp of the red. “Don’t know many people, but … yeah, I met someone you probably know, Suki someone—”

“Suki! Suki Warrener?”

“Not sure. Probably.”

“Was she stoned? She always is. Cigarette, Matt? No, no, have one of mine. Mad as a hatter, Suki is—talking of hatters, did you meet Esmond?”

“Oh—sure, yes. Very nice bloke.”

“Isn’t he? Oh, Maddy, darling, hallo, fab party—sorry I’m late; God, look at Simon Butler; God, he’s such a tart; bit early to be carrying on like that, I’d have thought—tiny bit reckless too. And how many Maddy Brown dresses are here?”

“Oh—quite a few. Yes. Oh, God, Suki’s passed out; I’d better go.”

Eliza drained her glass and smiled at Matt. She did seem to be feeling really friendly.

“Want another of those?” he asked.

“Umm … yes … no … oh, listen, it’s ‘She Loves You,’ absolutely my favourite at the moment, Matt; dance?”

And she took his hand and led him into the dancing.

She danced well, really well. And she knew it. It began as a performance, and entirely by her; she moved into the music, ignoring him, her head thrown slightly back, her body bending, twisting, turning, her hair flying, her eyes shining; she had a smile on her face that was part pure pleasure, part look-at-me self-confidence. And Matt simply followed where she led. But then—for he knew he too danced well, really well—he began to perform too, oddly sure of himself suddenly, and she recognised it, her smile now for him, not her audience, her eyes fixed on his, her body following his, every move, every twist, every turn, pushing double, treble beats into every one; slowly everyone else stopped, staring at them, caught up in what was a virtuoso display, and at the end, when the music momentarily finished, when the beat changed, they seemed quite alone together, the evening briefly but entirely theirs, and Eliza stood there, staring at him, her eyes huge and shining, breathing heavily, and he stood too, neither of them moving, caught in a kind of sweet shock, frozen in time.

And then, of course, the music went on; everyone began to dance again, people talking, smiling at one another; and there was a shout of, “Eliza,” and a tall, blond man was waving at her from the door, and she leaned forward and gave him a quick, half-embarrassed kiss and said, “Sorry, Matt, I’ve got to go; we’re only just looking in,” and the magic was gone and it wasn’t the princess in the story who had changed into a raggedy kitchen maid, but the prince become a nobody once more.

But Matt didn’t care; he left quite soon after that, having thanked Maddy, shaken Esmond’s rather cold white hand, and even felt emboldened to kiss Suki, who was sitting on one of the sofas, weeping helplessly—he had no idea why—and drove most happily home.

He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but he felt as if things had changed. As if he was—or might become—a rightful person in Eliza’s life, rather than someone she was rather self-consciously nice to; and as if she was a rightful person in his, rather than someone impossibly out of reach. He didn’t quite understand it, but there was sex in there somewhere; that was for sure.

She couldn’t be—could she? Surely, surely not. They’d been so careful; she always was. She had never allowed any man to take the responsibility, however much they might assure her it would be all right.

But here she was, more than two weeks late, with boobs so sore she could hardly bear to touch them.

“I did tell you,” the gynaecologist said slightly reprovingly, “it’s not one hundred per cent. Nothing is.”

“So … what can I do?”

“One of two things. Have it. Or not have it.”

“I can’t have it,” said Scarlett. “I really can’t. Do you know anyone who could … well, help me?”

“My dear girl, of course I don’t. It’s illegal. And if I did, and I told you, I could be struck off.”

“Old bat,” said Diana. “And I bet you anything she’s had a couple of abortions herself. Oh, Scarlett. I’m so sorry. You poor thing.”

“Yes, well. My own fault, I suppose.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Are you quite sure?”

“ ’Fraid so. The lady toad has laid her eggs.”

“So bizarre that, isn’t it?” said Diana absently. “To think our pee can make a toad ovulate. Sorry, I’m not helping, am I? What bad luck. Oh, dear. You can’t … well, you know—”

“What?” said Scarlett.

“Well … might he … marry you? If you told him?”

“Unlikely,” said Scarlett. “He’s married already.”

“Ah.” Diana was silent for a moment, then said, “What have you tried?”

“Oh, you know. Castor oil. Gin. Gin and castor oil together. In a very hot bath. But … no good. I spent the night on the toilet, and in the morning—right as rain. Or rather the baby was. Don’t know what else I can do.”

“Look, I’ll ask around,” said Diana. “Some of the girls are pretty clued up, you know. I know Amanda got preggers once. She swore it just sorted itself out, but I never believed her.”

Scarlett’s heart lifted just a little.

It had been Eliza’s idea, their Paris fashion feature. It was something Jeremy said that gave her the idea; she had told him that she would be going to Paris as Fiona’s assistant and he had said, “Several of my mother’s friends go to the collections to order their clothes for the following season. Most couturiers spend their time dressing middle-aged women, once the razzmatazz of the press shows are over. It must be quite depressing for them, I always think.”

Eliza had reported this to Fiona the next day, simply by way of a distraction after another tear-inducing session with Jack Beckham, and she had sighed and said yes, it was true, but there were a few young women, “mostly film stars,” who famously bought couture. “Like Catherine Deneuve, for instance, and Elizabeth Taylor, and, of course, Audrey Hepburn is Givenchy’s muse.”

“Are there any young ones who aren’t film stars, do you think?” asked Eliza, and Fiona said yes, she supposed there must be, millionaires’ third wives, that sort of thing.

“Well, maybe we could find one, follow her round all the collections, feature what she liked …”

Fiona stared at her in silence. Then: “Eliza, you are a genius,” she said. “Whiz over to the picture library and get out all the files on the best-dressed women, that sort of thing. Photocopy any you think look really good, and let’s have a look.”

Eliza came back with a bulging file.

“There aren’t many young ones,” she said, “mostly older people, like the Duchess of Windsor and Diana Vreeland. There’s poor Jackie Kennedy, of course—oh, and Princess Grace of Monaco.”

“No, none of them would do it, and anyway, Jack would say they were too obvious,” said Fiona distractedly—and then suddenly: “But here, Eliza, look at this woman; she’s gorgeous. Who’s she?”

Mariella Crespi gazed at them from the fading pages: a dazzlingly chic brunette, thirty-seven years old, married to Giovanni Crespi—“he’s much older than her, gosh, over seventy; clearly she’s an old man’s darling”—one of Italy’s richest men. Mariella, who had been a debutante, according to the cuttings, and had worked in the art world, had
married him on her thirtieth birthday. She had never quite made the top spot on the best-dressed lists, but had appeared on several for the past four years. According to
Women’s Wear Daily
, fashion was her religion and the salons of Paris, Milan, and New York her places of worship.

“One day I will make it,” she was reported as saying, “right to the top. It is my big ambition.”

“It’s worth a try,” said Fiona. “She might think it would be fun, and it would up her profile a bit. Let’s send her some copies of the magazine and a grovelling letter, and FedEx them off absolutely straightaway.”

Fiona wrote and rewrote the letter seven times, and it was parcelled up with the magazines to go to the villa on the shores of Lake Como, which was the Crespis’ main residence.

“I’m not very hopeful,” said Fiona, handing the package to Eliza to dispatch, “but you never know. And it’s terribly short notice.”

“I think she’ll do it,” said Eliza. “I just feel it in my bones.”

Mariella Crespi was in bed eating her breakfast of brioche and caffe latte when her maid delivered the package from England. She read the letter swiftly, then started to leaf through the magazines. As she read, her expression became increasingly enthusiastic; after half an hour she pulled on a robe and went to talk to her husband.

He was in his study, dictating letters to his secretary, as he had been for over an hour already, for he still ran his industrial empire with great energy and enthusiasm.

Mariella adored her husband, as he did her; she was well aware that people assumed she had married him only for his money, and the assumption was wrong. Of course, the money was very nice, but she also found him interesting, thoughtful, concerned, and, of course, admiring. He was also, even in his seventies, an extremely attractive and beautifully dressed man; she was proud to be seen on his arm.

The story told in the newspaper cuttings of a lovely young debutante who had met Signor Crespi at a ball was not entirely correct; she was not in the least aristocratic, but the youngest of five sisters who had grown up in a two-bedroom apartment in a poor area of Milan. When she was sixteen, her widowed mother, Nina, had looked at the treasure in her midst, the olive-skinned, dark-eyed, full-bosomed beauty, with
her mass of shining hair and deep, throaty laugh, and entered her in a local beauty contest. Mariella won, and then another and then another, and at the age of nineteen she was competing at a national level.