Lovers in Their Fashion Read online

  ‘How are the children?’ she asked.

  Marco beamed. ‘Ah, they too are so beautiful. Alessandro dreams of playing one day for Juventus.’

  ‘Will he make it?’

  ‘Sadly, no. Every boy in Torino has this dream. I myself had it. Alessandro will do as his father and sit in the stands at the Stadio Delle Alpi. Never will he take the field.’

  ‘And Maria?’

  Marco leaned forward, body language and rapt expression proclaiming his pride in his daughter. ‘Ah, Maria. She will break hearts, that one.’

  When the waiter came, Alice smiled inwardly as she saw Marco fighting the Italian male’s natural inclination to take charge of the menu. ‘The rigatoni looks good,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure it will be,’ replied Alice. ‘But you can get pasta at home.’

  He nodded. At her suggestion, he decided to start with a tomato and basil salad while Alice chose the asparagus and girolle tart.

  ‘And you, cara?’ he said when the waiter had gone. ‘A lucky man in your life?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘No change, I’m afraid.’

  Marco sighed. ‘Is such a waste. But what man could be worthy of such a…’

  He hesitated as his normally excellent English failed to provide the words he needed.

  ‘Work takes so much time,’ said Alice.

  ‘Ah, work. Work is important, yes. But on its own…is not enough,’ he said decidedly. ‘And still, I should not complain. I owe you so much.’

  ‘You?’ said Alice, astonished. ‘You owe me?’

  ‘But of course. This salad is good, by the way.’

  ‘I’m glad. My tart is delicious. But in what way do you owe me? For what?’

  Marco laid down his linen napkin and raised a finger to point in that expressive Italian way. ‘Alice. You remember when we first did business?’

  Alice nodded. ‘Always.’ She had been newly promoted to senior buyer at the time. ‘Your designs made my name.’

  ‘And you, cara, you saved me.’

  Alice raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Saved you? How?’

  ‘I was struggling with the banks, Alice. And I was losing. When you took my designs, I asked you for cash down.’

  Alice nodded. She had had to fight the board to get approval to meet this unusual request.

  ‘You saved my business. That money kept the banks happy till the end of the season. And by then…’

  ‘You were famous.’

  ‘Not famous, perhaps. Not yet. But established, yes. A name.’

  ‘I’m glad we helped.’

  ‘And now, I have offers from across the world.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘But I never forget what I owe to you. As long as you are there, Alice, House of Pharaoh will always have first refusal on Antonetti designs.’

  Alice raised her glass. ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘Kind? No. But I am loyal. And it is in a spirit of loyalty that I tell you, cara. You have an enemy.’

  Alice laughed. ‘Only one? In the fashion business? I suspect I have made a number along the way.’

  Marco’s unusually sombre expression underlined his seriousness. ‘You joke, but it is true. I met a man who met a man…’ He broke off. ‘But perhaps you are right. It is nothing. We will not speak of it.’

  While Alice and Marco lunched at the Ivy, John Pagan and Cathy – five hours behind – nuzzled each other gently in their large bed overlooking Central Park.

  ‘What would you like to do today?’ John asked.

  Cathy gave him a frankly lascivious look.

  ‘Apart from that,’ said John. ‘I have a meeting this afternoon between two and three. Otherwise, I’m all yours.’

  ‘I have a free day.’ Cathy thought for a few moments. ‘Tell you what. I’ll go back to my room, shower and dress. Then we’ll stroll down to the coffee shop for breakfast. After that, a walk. I’ll meet you after your meeting. And then…who knows?’ She grinned at him, running her tongue over her lips as she had on the plane.

  When Cathy returned to his room, John was fully dressed. Cathy made to walk towards the elevator, but John beckoned her into his room and closed the door. ‘You have something to show me,’ he whispered.

  Cathy, who knew exactly what he meant, put on a puzzled look. ‘I do? What would that be?’

  ‘You don’t like tights. You don’t like suspenders. And you certainly don’t have bare legs. So what are you wearing?’

  She smiled. ‘Sit down and I’ll show you.’

  John sat in the armchair, from which he had to look up a little. Cathy took her skirt in her hands, making sure her slip was caught in the same grip. She inched the skirt tantalizingly up, up, till all became clear.

  ‘Garters,’ John murmured. They were garters in the old-fashioned sense of bands around the tops of her stockings, holding them up, rather than in the American usage of the word for what the British called suspender belts.

  ‘I don’t really need them,’ Cathy said, her voice low and filled with promise. ‘The stockings are stay-ups. They have elastic in the tops. But I like the way I think they make me look. What do you think?’

  John stared at her shapely legs for some time. ‘I think they’re as sexy as anything I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘You don’t think they look tarty?’

  ‘No, my precious. They don’t look tarty.’

  ‘Do you want breakfast? Or would you prefer to linger here a while?’

  John smiled. ‘It’s tempting. But we have hours in front of us. Let’s go downstairs.’

  Cathy took his hand as they walked along the corridor. ‘This is all right, John, isn’t it?’

  ‘All right?’

  ‘I mean, we both know what we’re doing? We’re two grown-up people who’ve lost someone, and we’re giving each other a helping hand. This isn’t a long term thing. Not for me, and I hope not for you. That sort of all right.’

  John squeezed her hand. ‘Yes, Cathy. It’s all right. It’s fine.’

  At the Ivy, Alice looked intently at Marco. ‘Marco, you cannot leave me there. You can’t tell me that you met a man who met a man, and as a result you know I have an enemy. I have to know.’

  Marco was sombre. ‘I don’t know, cara. But…I suppose you are right.’

  At that moment the waiters arrived with their main courses – saddle of lamb for Marco and, for Alice, wild sea trout. Alice seethed with impatience as she waited for them to be finished and go.

  ‘I meet many people,’ said Marco when they were alone again.

  Alice nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘There are groups of businessmen – not all in fashion. We meet to raise money for charity, to get things done.’

  ‘Service clubs,’ said Alice. ‘Rotary and so on. We have them here.’

  ‘Okay. You understand. So.’ He paused to bite into his lamb. ‘This is exquisite,’ he said.

  Alice waited.

  ‘So,’ Marco repeated. ‘Two weeks ago, maybe three, I am talking to this man, Marcello, I know him some years. Marcello’s company makes agricultural machinery. You know, in Italy we value beauty – beautiful cars, beautiful women, beautiful football, beautiful clothes. But also we make the practical things. People forget that.’

  Inwardly screaming, Alice forced herself to wait. He would get there.

  ‘Marcello, he ask me how is business, where do I sell? And when I say London, he asks to who?’

  ‘Whom.’

  ‘Cara?’

  ‘You don’t say “to who”. You say “to whom”.’

  ‘Ah. I did not know that. So I say to House of Pharaoh. He knows the name. How could he not? But this is a tractor maker. You understand. The name is all he knows.’

  Alice nodded.

  ‘So, cara, I tell him about you, and how you helped me, and how you now are House of Pharaoh.’

  Alice made a gesture of denial, which Marco brushed away. ‘It is true, Alice. To me, at least. And so
I say the name Alice Springer and he gets this look on his face. And I ask him why. He doesn’t want to tell, but he does really, he is being, what do you say? hard to get. So I ask him again and he says he has heard things about this Alice Springer. She is not to be trusted.’

  Alice had completely stopped eating. Her heart thudded and there was a lump in her throat.

  ‘Did he say who told him this?’

  ‘Yes, cara. He did. He said it was a man called Planer. Of course, I tell him that this is baloney. That if I hear him repeat it I knock his head off.’

  Chapter 6

  Alice turned the conversation to other things. She had known that Martin Planer would come back into her life one day, and she had dreaded it.

  When lunch was over, she called David. The Mercedes returned and took Marco to Heathrow, while David drove Alice back to the office.

  ‘You’re subdued,’ David said.

  Alice stared out of the window at shoppers and office workers going about their business. ‘Something Marco said,’ she murmured.

  David looked shaken. ‘Marco? We’re not in trouble, are we? We still have a deal?’

  ‘Oh, nothing like that. No, it was a personal thing. He’d met someone who knew someone who’d said something.’

  ‘That’s the fashion business,’ David said. ‘Always someone bitching about someone else.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alice. She didn’t want to say, this isn’t the fashion business we’re talking about. David knew an enormous amount about his boss, but there were some areas she wasn’t prepared to open up to his inspection.

  ‘Will you do me a favour?’ David said. ‘Call your mother and get her off my back. I’m sure she thinks I don’t pass on her messages.’

  Alice’s heart sank. She knew herself to be a strong businesswoman and it annoyed her beyond measure that she could still be reduced to a nervous jelly by any contact with her mother. It was true that David had given her several messages, and it was also true that she had ignored them.

  Alice had told Merrill that she was “just an ordinary girl from an ordinary family in an ordinary town”. That wasn’t quite true. While the town may have been ordinary, Alice and her family were anything but. Alice had always had the potential to be very special and her mother – her mother was something else.

  ‘You don’t get on with your mother.’ It was a statement, not a question, and David kept his voice even and noncommittal as he said it. Alice pondered how much she wanted to say in reply.

  ‘She’s led my father a hell of a dance,’ she said at last.

  ‘Men?’

  Alice laughed. ‘Not men, no. That might have been easier. Money.’

  They drove some way in silence. Then Alice said, ‘I don’t want to go back to the office. Take me to Kew.’

  David parked in a side street near the famous gardens and bought two tickets at the turnstile. They entered and walked slowly along the path leading towards the Lake.

  ‘We brought Katie here,’ said David. Seven year old Katie was the niece of David’s partner, Graham. They spent a lot of time with her, enjoying the things they would never be able to do with a child of their own. ‘We took her to the Evolution House.’ He pointed to a left turn off their path. ‘It’s a fascinating place.’

  ‘Is it, indeed,’ muttered Alice.

  ‘It’s fairly new,’ David said. ‘You walk through three billion years of evolution. They even have the very first plants that adapted to life on land. I can’t remember what they were called. Katie would know.’

  ‘Call her on your mobile, and ask her,’ said Alice.

  ‘She’ll be in school at the…’ David’s voice tailed off as he realized that Alice was teasing him.

  ‘David,’ Alice said. ‘I don’t want to be educated. I don’t want to learn things. I want to stroll along to the Lake. I want to feel a breeze on my face and hear the noises of the ducks on the water. I want to forget about what a horrible little man from my past has been saying about me.’

  David fell silent and Alice was left to her reverie. He hadn’t been a little man, of course. Martin Planer was a big man, and very sure of himself. When he had presented his demands to Alice he had been entirely confident that she would yield.

  Alice’s mother worked in the accounts department at Planer’s company. Alice herself had been in her first job, as a junior in the marketing department of the industrial multi-national where John Pagan was already a rising young star. That was where they had met. She had felt flattered at first by John’s attentions, but was past that and knew she was in love. And then Planer had shown up.

  They arrived at the edge of The Lake. It was always The Lake at Kew – capitalized, as though no other lake existed. They were like that at Kew. A certain arrogance.

  But nothing like the sickening arrogance with which Planer had laid the evidence before her. ‘She’ll go to jail, Alice,’ he had said. ‘This sort of amount over this sort of period. No-one’s ever going to believe it was anything but deliberate theft. Your mother will find herself in prison. Unless you do as I say.’

  And he had laughed.

  David wandered off the path to touch the spongy bark of a great Californian giant redwood. ‘Aren’t these incredible?’ he said.

  Alice nodded. They were, indeed, incredible.

  ‘They can live two thousand years,’ he said. ‘This one was here long before we were. And it will still be here when we’re…’ He turned to look at her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘It?’ Alice said.

  ‘You’re not just my boss, Alice,’ said David. ‘I like to think you’re also my friend. And you’re the person I admire most. When it comes to negotiating, and people, and the fashion business, you taught me almost everything I know.’

  ‘Almost?’

  David laughed. ‘All right, then. Everything. And it grieves me to see you hurting.’

  ‘You think I’m hurting, do you?’

  ‘You were crying yesterday at Gatwick. Yes you were,’ he went on as Alice raised a hand in protest. ‘And you’re sad again today. You can tell me it’s none of my business, but what causes you pain causes me pain, too. Is there something I can do to help?’

  Against her will, tears pricked at Alice’s eyes. She had made herself strong, but kindness always moved her.

  ‘Is it John Pagan?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The man you introduced me to at Gatwick,’ said David. ‘Has he caused you trouble?’

  Alice smiled. ‘No, David. John hasn’t caused me trouble. John is the most wonderful man I have ever known. He and I loved each other. It seems like a long time ago.’

  ‘Oh, you loved each other, did you?’ David stressed the past tense. ‘Well, I’m no expert in love when it comes to men and women. But I saw the way you looked at him. And I saw the way he looked at you. And if you want my non-expert opinion, Alice, I’d say he loves you still. And you love him.’

  Alice stood motionless under the spreading leaves of a noble chestnut. Was it possible? She knew she still loved John, but could he possibly feel the same way about her? After what she had done to him?

  ‘The question,’ David said, ‘Is simple. What are you going to do about it?’

  Alice thought the whole world must vibrate with the thudding of her heart. ‘Please stop,’ she said. ‘Or I really shall cry.’

  Chapter 7

  When she reached home that evening, Alice found two messages on her answering machine. One said that Merrill had taken in a package for her and would bring it up later. Merill had a key to the penthouse, so that she could check on things when Alice was away, but Alice knew that her friend preferred not to let herself in at other times. The other was from Sabine, Alice’s French godchild, thanking her for a birthday present.

  Alice changed from her stylish suit and tights into loose-fitting cotton skirt and bare legs. Then she made coffee and carried it and the telephone out onto the terrace. Her first call was to Sabine and she enjoyed the exchan
ge of news and chat with the nine year old Parisienne.

  After she and John had broken up, Alice had moved to Paris as the only place to learn the fashion business. Without the welcome of Maurice and Millie Charente, she might have left within the month. In fact, she had stayed two years, and had returned to London with priceless gifts. One was the knowledge and contacts that would underwrite success in the career she had chosen for herself. The others were more personal – the close friendship with Maurice and Millie, a godchild she doted on and an absolute mastery in the French language. She had left England with a halting grasp of school French; she returned with a level of fluency that frequently had her taken as a native.

  After listening to Sabine’s happy babbling of school and Maman and Papa there was a less welcome call to make. The phone rang out so many times she thought she might be lucky and be able to leave a message saying she had called, but it was not to be. Her mother answered on the seventh ring.

  ‘Alice! At last! I had begun to think you were avoiding me.’

  ‘Why should I do that, mother?’

  ‘Why, indeed? Think yourself lucky you have no children of your own. You give them everything and all you get in return is grief.’

  This was a complaint Alice had heard many times before. ‘Is there anything you want, mother?’

  ‘Well, let’s see, now. Politeness? Respect? Support? How about those for starters? Are they too much for a mother to ask of her daughter?’

  Support. Alice sighed. ‘How much is it this time?’

  Her mother cut in angrily. ‘Alice. I have never asked you for money.’

  There was a sardonic edge to Alice’s laugh. ‘Does Dad know we’re having this conversation?’

  ‘I never trouble your father about the trivial sums you send me, Alice.’

  Trivial! That was not the word Alice would have chosen to describe the amounts it had taken to get her mother out of trouble over the years.

  ‘Without the care and education we lavished on you when you were a child,’ her mother went on, ‘You would not be enjoying the colossal earnings you have now. I said as much to Martin Planer and he agreed.’

  A fist of ice closed around Alice’s heart. ‘You spoke to…’

  ‘And what thanks do I get? How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.’