True Colours (20 page)

‘Hairline fractures in children heal very quickly,’ she told me reassuringly. ‘Harry is concussed and he has a lump on his head and a black eye that will last a week or so but he’s already making a good recovery.’

She found me a comfortable chair and a blanket and I sat by his bed for the rest of the night. I slept fitfully on and off and during my waking moments I made a number of decisions, the first of which was that Harry would return to St Eldred’s over my dead body.

I woke at about five o’clock to find Harry awake and looking at me.

‘Mum?’

‘Hello darling. How are you feeling?’

He frowned. ‘I wondered if you were really here or if I was dreaming. When they brought me here everything looked sort of funny.’

I got up to sit on the side of his bed. Switching the overhead light on, I could see now that the sister had been right. One eye was puffy and swollen, the skin red and already darkening to purple, and above his ear was a sizeable lump. I stroked his hair back from his forehead ‘Mr Masterson said you’d had an accident. What happened?’

Again he looked puzzled. ‘I can’t remember it very well but they were trying to get me to slide down the banisters.’

‘Who’s “they”, Harry?’

He frowned. ‘Some of the other boys; they called me a chicken and a wimp. I tried to climb on to the banisters but my foot slipped or something. I don’t know what happened after that till I woke up in here.’

I pictured the staircase at St Eldred’s and the tiled floor of the hall beneath and shuddered. If Harry had fallen over the banisters the other way he could have been killed. He was looking at me. ‘Mum, do I have to go back to school? Can I come home with you?’

‘Of course you can,’ I said taking his hand. ‘It’s not long now till Christmas anyway so you won’t miss much school.’

‘Do I have to go back to St Eldred’s after Christmas?’

‘Not if you don’t want to. But don’t worry about that now.’

He brightened visibly ‘When can we go home?’

‘When the doctor has checked you over again later this morning.’ I watched as he yawned. ‘It’s not quite morning yet, why don’t you try to go back to sleep now?’

He allowed me to straighten the bedclothes and plump his pillow. ‘You won’t go away, will you?’ he asked anxiously.

‘No. I’ll still be here when you wake up.’

He closed his eyes and in seconds he was asleep again. I drifted off soon after, relieved that he didn’t seem too bad after all.

Later, while he was having his breakfast I took the opportunity to go downstairs and ring our landline at home. There was no reply. Charles’s mobile was still switched off too, and when I switched my own mobile on there were no missed calls. As soon as it was nine o’clock I rang the office and asked to speak to him. His secretary told me he wasn’t in yet.

‘When he does arrive would you ask him to ring me on my mobile please?’ I asked her. ‘And tell him it’s extremely urgent.’ Then suddenly I had a thought. ‘Could you tell me the name of the client he was with all day yesterday?’

There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry. Mrs Grayson but I wasn’t aware that he had an appointment yesterday,’ she said at last.

‘Well could you look in his diary, please?’ Again a pause. Was the girl trying to pull the wool over my eyes? I pressed the point. ‘As I said before it is extremely urgent that I speak to him as soon as possible.’

‘Could you hold please?’

I waited impatiently for her to go through to Charles’s office and locate his diary. At last she spoke. ‘Mrs Grayson, there are no appointments in the diary for yesterday,’ she said. ‘None at all.’

Frustrated, I rang Adam and told him I wouldn’t be in this morning, explaining the circumstances. He was sympathetic.

‘Don’t worry about a thing, Frances,’ he said. ‘I’ll cover for all your appointments and I hope Harry is better soon.’

‘Thank you.’ I had a sudden thought. ‘Adam, could you give me a number for Ms Celia Woodley.’

‘The woman who complained about you, your husband’s
ex-wife
?’ He sounded surprised.

‘Yes. It’ll be in my work file but that’s at home and I’m at the hospital now.’

‘Why do you need it, Frances?’

‘I can’t locate Charles and I have a strong feeling that’s where he is,’ I told him.

‘I see. Are you sure this is the right way to go?’ he asked cautiously.

‘I don’t really have any choice, Adam. I have to find Charles to tell him about Harry. If he’s with Celia then so be it. If not I’ll have to think again. Don’t worry, I’ll go about it tactfully,’ I added.

‘Right, if you’re sure.’ He gave me the number which I jotted down. ‘Let me know how things go, Frances. I hope you manage to get in touch with Charles. Harry must be asking to see his father.’

It suddenly occurred to me that not once had Harry actually asked for Charles.

‘And don’t worry about work,’ Adam went on. ‘Take as long as you need.’

I arrived back in the ward to find a young doctor was examining Harry. He glanced up as I arrived.

‘Mrs Grayson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I have a word?’ He turned to grin at Harry as he straightened the bedclothes. ‘Right, young man, if you’re very good we might let you go home later this morning.’ He glanced at me and I followed him out into the corridor, anxious about what he was about to tell me. He looked very grave.

‘Mrs Grayson, your son has a number of bruises on his body, some old and some quite new. Not all of them can be attributed to falling down the stairs. Can you throw any light on that?’

‘He’s been at boarding school since September,’ I told him. ‘I saw bruises when he came home at half-term. He wouldn’t say much but I suspect bullying.’

‘And yet you sent him back?’

‘I didn’t want to but my husband refused to take it seriously. He went to the same school when he was a boy. He made light of it, said it was a toughening up process.’

He looked shocked. ‘It looks more like sadistic violence to me. I’d advise you to find him another school, one with a less Victorian
attitude towards nine-year-old children.’ He looked at me disapprovingly. ‘Take him home and look after him, Mrs Grayson. By the look of him he’s had three months of sheer hell.’

I watched as he strode off down the corridor, fuming that I had had to take the flack for what had happened while Charles was oblivious to it all.

Harry had another nap after breakfast and I went downstairs. Standing outside I dialled Celia Woodley’s number. She answered at once in her usual imperious tone.

‘Celia Woodley.’

I’d thought carefully about how to approach the situation and decided that the best approach was to be as devious as Charles. ‘Good morning. Grayson Electronics. Mr Grayson’s secretary speaking. Can I speak to him, please?’

She made no reply but a moment later Charles’s voice replaced hers. He sounded uneasy. ‘Laura? How did you get this number?’

‘It’s not Laura, Charles. It’s Fran. Unfortunately I had to resort to subterfuge in order to get to speak to you.’

‘Look, Fran, I can explain,’ he blustered. ‘I—’

‘I’m not interested in your explanations, Charles,’ I interrupted. ‘I guessed where you were. Celia told me you and she had been seeing each other.’

‘Celia did? Look, Fran – we have to talk.’

‘I’ve been trying to reach you since last night to tell you that Harry was involved in more bullying at school yesterday,’ I told him. ‘This time it was serious. He’s in hospital with a fractured skull.’

‘Oh.’ He sounded maddeningly unruffled. ‘How is he?’

‘It could have been a lot worse,’ I told him. ‘He was being forced to climb on the banisters and he’s lucky not to have fallen forty feet on to a tiled floor.’ There was silence at the other end of the line and I went on, ‘I’m to be allowed to take him home today,’ I told him. ‘So if you’re interested and you can bear to tear yourself away, Harry and I will be at home. Oh, and Charles; you’re right. We do need to talk. We need to talk long and hard.’

I found it hard to get up on Monday morning after the three of us had been down to Dorset, but as I rushed round getting ready for work I couldn’t help smiling as I remembered what Fran had achieved with support from Sophie and myself. I was so glad that we went with her. Who’d have thought that meek and mild little Fran could have socked it to her nasty aunt like that? Surely that old bat who’d pretended to be her mother wouldn’t have a leg to stand on now, and Fran’s relief to find that she wasn’t the daughter of a scheming old cow was a treat to see.

It was a freezing morning and I only just caught the bus by the skin of my teeth. It was only as I sat gazing out of the window at all the other hurrying commuters that I remembered that I’d vowed to take the bull by the horns today myself and sort out my own pressing problem. The difference was that I was going to have to do it all by myself. No one could help me out of the mess I’d made of things. It was all down to me and my stupid vanity. The sky looked even greyer when I reminded myself that by the end of this week I’d probably be unemployed, more than likely homeless too. I’d never be able to afford the rent of my larger flat without a job and someone else had moved into my old one. I tried hard to be philosophical about it, telling myself that maybe it was no more than I deserved and I should learn a lesson from it.

As we were in the run-up to Christmas we were enjoying a run on evening and party wear, both selling and hiring out, and when I
arrived at Fantaisie Imogene was already pulling the covers off the rails and preparing to open up for the day. We were busy all morning and even busier through the lunch hour which is the time when the office girls tend to pop in to see our latest stock.

As I said, I’d made up my mind to throw myself on Imogene’s mercy today, to tell her about the tempting offer her ex had made me and how I’d been fool enough to fall for it. Imogene is not exactly famous for her tolerant forgiving nature and I fully expected fireworks and more likely than not, the sack, but I reckoned that she couldn’t manage without me at least until Christmas and probably until after the January sale. She was a business woman after all so at least I was safe until then. On the other hand she could be pretty hellish to work with when she was miffed about something and the days ahead threatened to be difficult to say the least.

It was almost closing time before we had a minute to ourselves. As I tidied up, putting dresses back on hangers and slipping them on to the appropriate rails, Imogene looked at her watch and smiled at me wearily.

‘Don’t know about you but I’m knackered,’ she said. ‘Put the kettle on for a cuppa, there’s a love. I didn’t get a drink at lunch time and I’m spitting feathers.’

As I filled the kettle and switched it on, the butterflies in my stomach went into their version of the Highland fling. Reaching into the cupboard I pulled out the box of chocolate biscuits a regular customer had brought in for us last week and picked out all the wafers – Imogene’s favourites.

‘Tea up!’ I called as I carried the tray through to the office.

She came through and sank down gratefully on her swivel chair, kicking off her shoes. ‘Ah, that’s better.’ She looked at me. ‘Thanks, Katie. Pull up a chair and have yours. We’ll leave the door ajar then we’ll hear if a customer comes in.’ She picked up one of the wafers and nibbled it. ‘Mmm, yummy!’ She looked at me. ‘So, tell me about your weekend.’

I knew I was only putting off the evil moment but I described my day out to Dorset with Sophie and Fran, leaving out the part about the blackmail as I reckoned that was Fran’s private business. She smiled.

‘Sounds like quite an eventful day.’ She drank the last of her tea
and began to slip her feet back into her shoes but I held up my hand.

‘Imogene, hang on a minute. There’s something I need to tell you.’

She stood up. ‘Can’t it wait till tomorrow? All I want is to get home to a warm bath and my supper.’

‘It can’t wait, Imogene,’ I said. ‘I have to get this off my chest and it’s now or never.’

‘Oh dear!’ She looked at me and slowly sat down again. ‘Sounds serious.’

‘It is.’ I cleared my throat and prepared to deliver the speech I’d been rehearsing for days. The trouble was, now that the moment had arrived it had completely gone out of my head. ‘I’ve done something awful,’ I began unceremoniously.

‘OK, spit it out.’ She sighed. ‘You’ve been at the petty cash? Or am I going to get sued because you’ve pinched some top designer’s creation?’

For an instant I was sidetracked. ‘
No
! I’d never do that.’

‘OK, so what is it?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Some weeks ago this guy came into the shop while you were out. He said he’d seen a wedding dress designed by me and been really impressed. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to find out where to contact me.’ I looked up to see how it was going down so far but Imogene’s expression was just vaguely bored. I went on, ‘He was attractive and, well,
nice
and he asked me out a few times, then he said he could get me a job with a top designer,’ I cleared my throat. ‘We got on well. He seemed to be really clued up about the world of fashion. I liked – I
trusted
him.’

‘So some guy wined and dined you with the promise of a job.’ She looked at me, one eyebrow raised cynically. ‘And you’re telling me you fell for it and went to bed with him?’

‘Yes –
no
, at least not the bed bit. But that wasn’t all. He got me an interview with Rosie Sams.’ Her eyebrows shot up. She was well and truly hooked now and I hurried on, ‘But there wasn’t a job at all, at least not the kind of job he’d promised – not as a designer, only as some kind of runner and general dogsbody.’ I swallowed hard. ‘But I’d believed him, you see and before I went for the interview I left a letter of resignation on your desk. He – this guy –
had insisted on that. I was going along with it, Imogene. I was going to let you down. I’m ashamed and I’m really sorry.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘But what if there
had
been a job, Katie? What would have happened then?’ I bit my lip and felt my face flushing. There was no answer to that. But to my surprise her expression suddenly softened. ‘OK, so you were flattered. We’ve all been there and I’m no exception. What happened to the letter by the way?’

‘I rushed back that afternoon and found it still unopened, so I tore it up.’

‘Well, maybe you learned your lesson. Next time you’ll be less trusting.’

I shook my head, wincing inwardly.
It wasn’t over
. She hadn’t heard the worst bit yet. ‘N-no,’ I stammered. ‘There’s more. It’s
worse
than that.’

She frowned. ‘How much worse can it get?’

‘
Much
worse. While I was looking for my letter in the office that afternoon I found your wedding photo in the drawer and….’ I didn’t need to go any further. She’d already guessed the rest. With a groan she covered her face with both hands. Through her fingers she hissed the name. ‘
Andrew
!’

‘Honestly, Imogene, I didn’t have a clue. He told me his name was Drew.’

‘The devious, conniving
bastard
!’ She dropped her hands into her lap and looked up at the ceiling. ‘He was determined to see me go bankrupt,’ she said. ‘And when he got wind of the new business you and I had embarked on he worked out this evil scheme to scupper the whole thing.’

‘I promise you, Imogene, I had no idea who he was until I saw that photo in your desk drawer.’

She focused on me again, almost as though she’d forgotten I was there. ‘I’m not blaming you, Katie. I know my ex-husband and I know how cunning he can be – and how persuasive. He didn’t give a damn about humiliating you just as long as he could get back at me.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not at all sure I couldn’t sue him for this.’ She looked at me thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘Katie,’ she said at last. ‘Just how committed are you to Fantaisie? I know you’re ambitious and I want you to be honest with me.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m – er – not sure what you mean.’

‘I mean how would you like to be a full partner?’

I swallowed hard. ‘That sounds great but what would it really mean?’

She leaned forward. ‘The lease of the shop is due for renewal. As I told you, Andrew’s name is still on it. He and I are tied together and it’s my guess that he planned to force me out of business so that he could take over and run his own business from here. What do you say we let him think he’s succeeded?’ She grinned gleefully, but I was no closer to understanding what she was getting at.

‘I – don’t quite see,’ I mumbled.

‘What if I were to drop out and
you
took on the lease?’

Suddenly the penny dropped. ‘Oh, I see. But you said you and he were tied together.’

‘Not if I let him think I’m going out of business. He’ll run a mile from letting himself in for my unpaid debts.’ She chuckled at the thought, but I wasn’t laughing.

‘But I don’t have any money to put into the business,’ I said quickly.

She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t have to pay a penny.’

I looked at her doubtfully. ‘Imogene, are you sure this is all legal and above board?’

‘Yes. Naturally we’d have it all legally arranged.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to move to another shop?’

She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing else to let anywhere near here. We’d never get anything in as good a position as this. Besides, our customers are used to coming here.’

‘I see. And you trust me enough to go ahead with this?’ I asked. ‘After what I almost did.’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said positively. ‘Look, Katie, to be totally frank, I think you’ve learned now that getting a job with one of the big designer houses isn’t on for you. Staying here and designing for us is your best bet, which you’ll have to agree about when you’ve had time to think about it. You and I would be full partners, share the profits and the outgoings. But it would be your name on the lease. In other words we’d be throwing in our lots together. So….’ She looked at me, her head on one side. ‘What do you say?’

‘Would that mean I could throw you out any time I liked?’ I asked cheekily.

She gave me a warning look. ‘Don’t push it, Katie.’

The butterflies that had played havoc with my stomach began to flutter again. ‘Seriously, I like the idea very much,’ I told her.

‘No need to say right now. Obviously you want time to think about it,’ Imogene said. ‘Look, what are you doing for Christmas?’

I shrugged. ‘Spending it alone as usual. Just me and my individual pudding and turkey burger.’

‘Well I’ve booked myself into a spa,’ she said. ‘Nothing to beat a bit of pampering. Why don’t you join me? Call it my Christmas present. You’d have plenty of time to mull over my proposition and if you want to go ahead we could start making plans.’ She looked at me expectantly. ‘Are we on?’

Smiling, I nodded. ‘OK, we’re on!’