The Finishing Touches (6 page)

“Think today went off well?” he asked with a touching nervousness.

“I do,” I said. “Franny would have been so thrilled at the turnout.”

“Excellent, excellent.” He stepped nearer the empty fireplace and fidgeted awkwardly with the back of a leather armchair. “I appreciate the help, you know. It’s good of you, when you’re so busy. How
are
things at the moment? Expect you
have a new year rush as all the Christmas bodge-ups come to light and you have to charge in and sort them out! Eh?”

Now it was my turn to start fidgeting with a chair.

Despite my fertile imagination, I was a terrible liar. Terrible in that I really wasn’t very good at it, having been assured from an early age by Nancy that magpies pecked out fibbing tongues. Had I been even a mediocre liar, when it came to covering up my stuck-in-a-rut shop job, I’d have made up a glamorous career that I actually understood, instead of letting Franny—and hence Lord P and Kathleen and Nancy—create their own impression that I was a hotshot management consultant.

The only silver lining was that they had slightly less idea of what management consulting involved than I did.

I wasn’t a management consultant. I managed the designer shoe shop in which I’d done my holiday work as a student. It was a very smart shoe shop, admittedly, but somehow, after five years, I was still there. The misunderstanding had come about because, in my
very
selected highlights of what I’d been up to, I’d told Franny about Fiona’s hopeless filing system and how I’d halved her tax bill and set up a loyalty card scheme. Maybe I’d overstated it a bit, because somehow Franny got it into her head that I’d stormed in, with my calculator blazing, as a professional troubleshooter, not a helpful assistant manager. She’d been so proud of me that I’d never had the heart to point out I was window-dressing shoes, not overhauling multinationals.

The painful thing was, it wasn’t so far off what I actually wanted to do. My ambition was to have a business of my own, something that was all mine—what, though, I wasn’t quite sure. I’d really enjoyed sprucing up Fiona’s accounts, as well as her stockroom, but how can you set yourself up as a business spring cleaner when you haven’t any actual experience? Liv said
I should just make up some references and go for it, but, as I say, lying convincingly wasn’t my strong suit.

Lord P was looking at me, waiting for me to say something professional about “my workload.” I swallowed. Now probably wasn’t the best time to clear up the confusion. “I’m dealing with some very well-heeled clients,” I managed.

“Good, good,” he said again distractedly, and rubbed his hands together as if applying invisible gel cleanser. “Good.”

“Should we sit down?” I suggested. It was my top tactic in the shop. Once you had customers sitting down, I told the salesgirls, they relaxed and felt more inclined to try things on. And buy things.

Lord P’s face brightened, and he sank into one of the leather armchairs across from the empty marble fireplace. I sat on the edge of the one opposite, knees and ankles somehow clamping neatly together in a proper manner, and we faced each other.

He took a deep breath. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. As…family.”

My heart bumped, and I wondered, with a thrill, if he was about to tell me Something Significant. Maybe this was going to be the moment he admitted Hector was my father. Or tell me that my mother had been in touch, seeing Franny’s obituary in the paper? Maybe there had been something in Franny’s will: “six months from my death…” or something. It was coming up to that now. From the tooth-pulling expression on Lord P’s face, it had to be something emotional.

“Really?” I said, trying to keep calm. “Go on.”

Lord P smoothed his silvery hair back with his left hand. “It’s about the Academy.”

“What? I mean, oh.” My heart stopped bumping and plunged with disappointment. “What about the Academy?”

“I need a favor, Betsy,” he said, fixing me with an honest look. “I don’t mind telling you that I sat down last night and
thought to myself, what would Frances do? And I knew she’d ask you.”

My defenses had risen at the sheer nerve of being asked to do a favor for the snotty “not for a girl like you” establishment, but then I thought of Franny, needing me, and heard my voice say, “Of course I’ll help.”

The expression of sheer relief on Lord P’s face, though, made me wonder if I should have waited to hear the favor first.

“So long as I can,” I added pointedly. “I mean, I’m not exactly an expert on finishing schools, am I?”

Lord P didn’t seem to catch my meaning. “Which is precisely why I’m asking you,” he went on. “I’d very much appreciate it if you take a look around. I think the Academy needs…what’s the right way to put this? A spring clean, if you like.”

“You want me to
clean
it?” I blurted out in horror.

Lord Phillimore’s smile evaporated. “
Clean
it? Good Lord, no! Whatever gave you that idea? No, it’s…I need your
professional expertise
, Betsy. I need some good, honest business advice. Miss Thorne’s been doing her best, I know, but enrollments are down, the overheads are terrifying, and there simply isn’t the money to keep it going as it is. If we don’t get some more girls for next term, then…”

He raised his hands, then dropped them on his knees with an empty slap. “Place is falling down round our ears—that’s why we can’t let the guests upstairs, you see. Buckets in the ballroom.” He managed a wintry smile. “Roof’s been leaking so badly even the mice have water wings.”

“Oh!” I was taken aback by how upset I felt, not just for Franny but for the big house itself. How humiliating to go from glamorous society beehive to a creaky old wreck. Buckets in the ballroom! Franny would be mortified. The ghosts of
high-society Lady Phillimores past would be clutching their pearls in shame.

Lord P sighed. “Between you and me, Betsy, time’s running out. What the Academy needs is something new, some…
oomph
. I’d get one of those fancy consultancy firms in, but I can’t bear the thought of some smart-arse Soho johnny in German spectacles running round the place, totting up the assets.” He rubbed his nose. “No offense!”

“God, no,” I said, then remembered he was talking about me. Would it make him feel better to know he was getting a pretend consultant, for free? I thought not.

“I know Franny would trust you,” he said solemnly, “not just to work your business magic but to set the Academy on the right lines. So we can carry on into the twenty-first century, have something she’d be proud of. Otherwise…” His voice trailed away.

I started to nod in a wise, management-consultant fashion, but then a cold chill settled on me as the enormity of what he was asking sank in. The Academy was in real trouble, serious trouble, and I had even less idea of what to do to help than they did! Lord P needed real help. Proper advice. Not me pretending.

I tried to backtrack as calmly as I could, given the way my insides were now twisting with guilt. Nancy was right—little liars
did
start big fires.

“I’m honored that you think I could help, but I’m not a teacher,” I stammered. “I don’t know where I’d start.”

Lord P waved a dismissive hand. “Miss Thorne can take care of any teaching. Frances wasn’t a teacher—she just had her good ideas of what young girls should be told, what they needed to know to set them up in life.”

“I know,” I agreed, thinking of the things she’d taught me,
the trade secrets of womanhood that were so much more useful than marriage proposal lessons. Prompt thank-yous written on funny postcards; Vaseline on the inner heels of stiff new shoes; apples as emergency breath fresheners. Little touches had got me jobs and good friends. Far more important than giving someone the wrong fork.

Lord P was gazing hopefully at me. “I know you’re busy,” he said, “but I really would appreciate your view.”

I had to give it a try, I told myself, for Franny. Maybe there was
something
I could do. It was just a shop, after all—one selling manners.

And, I thought with an illicit twinge, I might find out a few more things about the 1980 girls and their outrageous boyfriends. Not that I would mention that to Lord P. Not yet, anyway.

“What would you want me to do?” I said. “I mean, it’s not a normal, er, productivity assessment.”

Lord P seemed impressed. “Well, no. I suppose you’d need to see some lessons, talk to the staff and the current students…” His face brightened. “I’d leave it up to your professional experience, Betsy.”

“Oh, good,” I said faintly. “Fair enough.”

“It’s always been a peculiar business for a chap to be involved in,” he went on, “but it’s been in the family since the year dot, and I don’t want to be the one in charge when the ship goes down. Frances poured her heart and soul into—well, I don’t need to tell you how she felt about this place, now, do I?”

He managed a weak smile, and I suddenly saw that it wasn’t just the Academy he’d be losing if it closed but the happy days of his marriage: the glittering cocktail parties they’d thrown here for London friends, the graduations and presentations, the balmy summer evenings in the garden. The days
I’d
spent
with Franny, playing in the roses. Up until her illness had taken hold properly, she’d spent hours and hours here during term time, guiding and advising and roaring with infectious laughter, the one unladylike thing about her. Franny
was
the Academy.

“After all she did for me? Of course I’ll do what I can—for her. And for you,” I said impulsively, and leaned forward to grab his hand. It felt thin but strong, and his signet ring dug into my palm.

Lord P’s eyes met mine, and I was surprised, as I always was, at how bright blue they were in his baggy face. They were still young, even if the rest of him looked a hundred, with stress and grief.

“Thank you,” he said simply. “I’d be very grateful for whatever you can do.”

We held the moment for as long as his Englishness could stand it—about five seconds—then he coughed and said, “So, when could you start? Do you have clients to postpone?”

I thought quickly. I had quite a lot of holiday stored up, and I was off so rarely that Fiona could hardly protest if I pleaded for some compassionate leave.

“What if I come back at the beginning of next week?” It was the third week in January, and Fiona’s sale was drawing to a close. I couldn’t leave her in the middle of the second markdowns. That was when her prices were almost reasonable and the shoving got serious.

“Marvelous,” he said again. “Of course, you must invoice us—wouldn’t expect you to do it for nothing!”

I started to protest, then remembered that the property tax bill was due, along with my post-Christmas credit card bills. Franny had left me enough money in her will to pay off the mortgage on my minuscule flat, but my budget still required
skillful juggling each month. And doing it for nothing would
totally
give away the fact that I wasn’t a self-employed professional.

“Whatever you like,” I said. “But I can’t make any promises.”

Lord P gave me a sad smile. “So long as you do your best, Betsy, that’s all we can ask.”

That’s what Franny would have said, I thought.

In my absence, the crowds around
the refreshment table had swelled considerably, and Liv had joined Kathleen and Nancy at their gossip station by the tea urn. They were hanging on her every word, and Nancy was sewing a button back on Liv’s gorgeous, probably vintage Dior jacket.

“And then I said, ‘Finn, please stop sending the flowers, I’ve got no more vases!’ So—this is so ridiculous—he sent me a tree. A tree. What am I meant to do with a tree? Then I realized it had this necklace on it…”

I’d heard this one earlier in the week, but with much juicier details. It was the tale of her most recent boyfriend, Finn, the last wealthy banker in Europe, whom she’d met on the Eurostar train when her suitcase got stuck in the overhead compartment and he’d gallantly unjammed it. One short Channel hop later, he was filling her sitting room with orchids for five
days straight until she’d agreed to have dinner with him—in Rome.

“Heavens above, Liv!” Nancy bit off the thread and sighed with delight. She had a terrible weakness for Regency romances. “You are
just
like a Regency heroine!”

“But without the corsets,” said Kathleen pointedly. “You should be wearing a camisole under that, Olivia. You’ll catch your death.”

Kathleen and Nancy couldn’t get enough of Liv’s endlessly entertaining romances, because she lived the kind of bodice-ripping existence that Nancy literally couldn’t hear enough about and that, if I hadn’t been witness to, I’d suspect her of making up. She’d been engaged five times, for a start. Liv looked cool but was surprisingly old-fashioned underneath, and she found it easy enough to say no to everything except a proposal, to which she felt obliged, out of politeness, to say yes. It helped that she also attracted the kind of men who could lay their hands on Cartier solitaires at short notice.

My love life, in comparison, was more like a series of short stories. Funny stories, with some unexpected twists, but so far lacking in happily ever afters. Liv (or rather, Liv’s advice books) said I didn’t invite romance into my world, which was sort of true; I loved the
idea
of men dropping at my feet, like they did for her, but when it actually happened to me, I panicked. Literally panicked. I didn’t know much about my mother, but I got the feeling that I’d probably inherited a weakness for unsuitable charmers, along with whatever philanderer genes runaway Hector had donated. I wanted to fall in love, more than anything, but I was terrified of it turning into the sort of love that ended up with babies abandoned on doorsteps.

Not that it stopped me trying. Over the last few years I’d had several short, uneasy-making flings and a couple of long, reassuring, but actually quite dull relationships, and, of course,
a long-standing crush on the most unsuitable man of all—Jamie.

“Betsy!” Nancy spotted me and waved. “Have you heard about Liv’s new fiancé?”

“There’s a ring,” said Kathleen meaningfully.

Liv looked shifty and tucked a long strand of blond hair behind one ear. “I accepted it as a
friendship
ring. I told him I’m having a break from serious relationships right now.”

“Weren’t you engaged to that
last
fellow?” asked Kathleen. “That chap with the fancy car that blew up?”

“It didn’t blow up; I just didn’t—” Liv’s blond hair fell over her face. “I didn’t put the right petrol in it. Or I forgot to, or something. Anyway, no, that’s off.”

“But you kept the ring?” Nancy inquired anxiously. “Or was it his grandmother’s again?”

“Or his current wife’s?” I couldn’t help it. I’d had to disentangle her from the would-be bigamist myself, and it hadn’t been pretty, pretending to be my best friend’s psychiatric nurse.

“Er, let’s not talk about me,” said Liv. “What we really want to know is what happened in the library. Let’s go back to Kathleen’s and you can give us the goss.”

“I should really say my thank-yous to Miss Thorne…” I said, looking round for the principal or any of the teachers, but they were nowhere in sight. Someone had cleared the room with top-drawer-hostess efficiency. I couldn’t even see Mark Montgomery, let alone Nell Howard and her Pucci print dress.

I felt suddenly bereft, as if I’d come very close to learning something important but now it was slipping away from me and I had no idea how to get it back.

“Come on, we’re dying to know,” Liv added, tugging my arm. “You were in there ages. Was there a will, with conditions? Have you been set tasks before you can claim your massive inheritance?”

“And what sort of tests do you think Franny would have had in mind?” I inquired. “Running an etiquette assault course around Knightsbridge? Arranging the dinner tables at a fourth marriage?”

“Catering a reception using only one white loaf and a jar of peanut butter?” Liv pulled a face. “Can you have a word with those caterers, by the way? I went to get some food for Kathleen and Nancy and that grumpy bloke acted like I’d just tried to shoplift the silver. I only took two sandwiches!”

“You were lucky you got two,” I said. “He’s got a measuring jug for the wine. Seriously. I found it next to the tea urn.”

“Hello, Mark,” said Kathleen meaningfully, over my left shoulder.

I spun round, embarrassed. Mark Montgomery was standing there with four ten-pound notes in his hand.

“Here,” he said, “from petty cash. Forty quid.”

I thought of what Lord P had told me about the echoing Academy coffers and blushed. I wondered if by “petty cash” he meant his own wallet. “No, honestly, it’s fine—”

“Please, take it,” said Mark, thrusting it at me. “I’ve just been trying to get it through to Miss
Thorne
that balancing the books does not mean walking round the ballroom with Chambers
bloody
English
bloody
dictionary on your head. Paulette got a receipt.”

I wondered what had happened to make Mark so cross. Any faint traces of good humor that had emerged over the sandwich making had now vanished, and even his garish tie seemed to be quivering with barely suppressed irritation. He looked less like a wholesome Scotts Oats advertisement and more like he was about to take my head off with a caber. Whatever conversation he’d just had with Miss Thorne had made his mouth go very thin, but not, I noted, in an entirely unattractive way.

“OK,” I said slowly, and pocketed the notes.

“You’re not going to count them?” Mark glowered at me, and I realized that some of his irritation seemed to be directed at me. I took an involuntary step back, nearly knocking over a flower arrangement. “I wouldn’t want you to find any problems in the
audit
,” he said, and nodded politely to Kathleen and Nancy before turning on his heel and marching off.

“Ooh,” said Liv. “You don’t normally see flouncing like that in a suit. No wonder he’s got vents in his jacket—plenty of room for the stick up his—”

“Liv!” said Kathleen. “Manners!”

“Sorry,” she said, looking about as far from sorry as it was possible to be.

“You can tell
you’re
not a Phillimore lady,” said Kathleen.

I tried not to catch Liv’s eye. Or Nancy’s.

Liv and I went back to Kathleen and Nancy’s for a cup of tea. Every time I tried to quiz them on the state of the Academy, though, they went very evasive and dragged the conversation back to how much I was eating, whether I’d met a nice young man, whether any of Liv’s nice young men would do for me, and so on. It was very frustrating, and I didn’t really understand it; they’d both been retired for nearly twenty years, and although Nancy was generous to the point of lunacy when it came to giving the benefit of the doubt, Kathleen usually had no trouble speaking her mind.

“I’m just glad poor Frances retired when she did” was all Kathleen would say, and then, promising I’d be back soon, Liv and I left.

I didn’t see enough of Liv, being up in Edinburgh, so staying with her in Clapham was treat enough, even without the enormous Chinese banquet she insisted on ordering for us on
our way back from one of the four restaurants she had on speed dial. Liv never let anyone pay for anything, unless she was on a date, but with her allowance she could afford to. Since Rina and Ken’s divorce, Ken had devoted much of his time to making sure his princess wanted for nothing. Consequently she had more spending money than Paris Hilton, mostly in used notes held together with an elastic band.

“I should warn you, the place is a bit of a mess,” she said as we approached her house, down one of the pretty terrace streets near the Common.

“A mess? Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoffed, already mentally sinking into one of her deep cream sofas. “You’ve got the only flatmate in London who’s in some kind of competition with your cleaner.”

“What, Erin? No! Didn’t I tell you? She’s not here anymore—she got a promotion—some law firm in Chicago headhunted her.” Liv made the sort of bunny ears with her fingers that Erin liked to make, usually when referring to their quote-unquote “housekeeping schedule” or “shared cleaning responsibilities.” “Packed up her shredder and moved out about three weeks ago.” She fumbled in her bag for her keys, looked cross, pulled out a fancy gold lipstick, looked pleased, then looked cross again, then dumped the bag on the step while she scrabbled with both hands.

“You never said! Did she give you notice?”

“Well, I reckoned you had more important things to be worrying about than my flatmate leaving. Bloody hell! Where do keys
go
?”

“You know, you should clip your keys to the inner pocket zip,” I pointed out. “Then no one can steal them, and you always know where to look.”

“Yeah, yeah, send it to
Good Housekeeping
,” said Liv, still searching. “Aha!” She waved the bunch at me. They were on
the huge diamond-ring key ring I’d given her on the basis that her magpie eye would be drawn automatically to a giant solitaire. “And,” she added, letting us in, “can you believe this for timing? Erin bailed on me the same week
Joan
handed her notice in too. Retired!”

“Joan
retired
? How are you managing?” I said, now genuinely concerned. Erin’s mania for bills and schedules had just about contained Liv’s domestic oblivion, but saintly Joan was the only thing preventing full-on chemical warfare breaking out in the fridge. She’d cleaned for the O’Hare family for years and was the sort of Heritage cleaning lady even Kathleen would approve of.

“I’m not managing,” said Liv. “I never thought she’d retire. She said she wanted to go on hoovering someone’s stair runner to the end. Die on the job, mop in hand.”

“Although there was always the risk that you might finish her off, with your mess,” I added, following her into the kitchen.

A faint whiff of unemptied bin cut through the scent of the white lilies on the counter. It was a gorgeous kitchen, all reclaimed retro units and steel work surfaces, with a bold, square window looking out onto a tiny patch of green garden. Ken’s crack squad of Polish builders had knocked it off in a fortnight between conversion jobs and had transformed the grubby seventies back room into the kind of space you could do fashion shoots in. Just as well, since now Erin had gone, there’d be no cooking going on.

“Well…she was eighty, you know? And then Dad’s gone to Spain…” Liv went on, opening and shutting drawers in search of a corkscrew.

This really was getting surreal now.
Ken? Spain?
With his freckly skin and innate suspicion of foreign water? I balanced myself against the huge table and kicked off my crippling new
shoes. I’d forgotten to soften the heels with Vaseline. “I thought he hated abroad.”

“Yeah,” said Liv. “I thought that too. But you know what he’s like…Maybe he’s found some villas going cheap. Oh, sorry, the oven’s not working,” she added, seeing me putting plates in to warm up before the takeout arrived.

I turned it on at the wall switch, where Erin had probably turned it off for safety reasons. “When’s he back?”

Liv stared at the oven as if I’d performed some magic trick on it, then shrugged and opened the wine. “Dunno. He just said, ‘off to the sun for a few weeks, princess,’ then handed me the usual roll of fifties.” She did an eerily accurate Ken O’Hare wink, then smiled, untroubled. “Told me not to get into any trouble, or get engaged to anyone he didn’t know. Tsk! As if!”

I frowned, my imagination already running amok. Liv was Ken’s princess, and Ken usually left his princess with very detailed instructions about his whereabouts, in case she needed Emergency Dad Assistance. “But I thought he’d just been away for Christmas? Did he leave a number?”

“He’s got his mobile! Honestly, Betsy, you’re such a drama queen. You should know us better by now: ‘Don’ arsk,’ that’s the O’Hare family motto.”

I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again. Apart from the stream of suitors and the handbag collection, that was the main difference between me and Liv. I was constantly wondering whether I was doing the right thing, or imagining what could go wrong next, whereas Liv never did. She had faith in things sorting themselves out, or at least someone leaping in to sort them for her.

Then again, I reasoned, if I had men falling over themselves
sending me trees with necklaces on them, I probably wouldn’t waste time worrying about stuff either.

Liv saw my brow furrow, and she did what she always did when she saw me worrying—she rolled her huge eyes goofily and changed the subject. It made her look like a duck with killer cheekbones. “God, what am I like? I should know how to turn the oven on, shouldn’t I!” she said. “Do you have any idea where Erin left the manuals for the…kitchen stuff?”

“You don’t need manuals, Liv,” I said. “There are pictures on the appliances. You just need to get some practice.”

“Is that something they teach at that Academy, then? Ovens and whatnot?” She poured us each a big glass of Chablis. “Maybe I should go there for a bit. Get myself some stirfry skills now that Erin’s packed up her work and left me to the mercy of Takeout Alley. Will you let me in, now that you’re in charge?”

“It’s all canapés, really,” I said, trying to remember what exactly they
had
taught in the cookery classes. I’d learned my proper cooking from Kathleen, downstairs. It involved a lot of potatoes and had been my savior during many a budget-strapped week at uni. “Meringue swans and hard-boiled eggs in aspic…Nothing you’d really want to
eat
. I mean, I don’t know what they do now.” I took a sip of wine. “Besides, I’m not going to be in
charge
. I’m just going to…look round. And…advise.”