Christmas at Claridge's Page 18

  The commotion downstairs had moved up – so quickly? It had to be the police – and was now in the corridor outside. Clem looked over at Stella, urging her to hurry up. If the police walked in before she’d sold the Birkin, everyone would be disbanded and they’d be without the major portion of today’s funds. It wouldn’t be enough without the bag.

  Stella was unruffled. ‘Final bid, going for ninety-five thousand . . .’ Stella looked calmly round the room, even as the doors began to rattle.

  Clem held her breath.

  ‘Sold!’ Stella cried, pointing to the winning bidder just as the door at the far end burst open and the seal on their rarefied vacuum was punctured.

  ‘I told you!’ Clover cried, pointing at Clem standing on the table at the far end of the room. ‘I knew she was up to something. Thank God Peony’s friends tweeted me.’

  The room fell silent and a pathway naturally opened up as the sea of women took in Stella, Clem and Mercy’s stares tethered to the small invading party.

  ‘Look, Tom, didn’t I tell you I saw something pink in that box?’ Clover continued, pointing at Clem as she led the march up the room.

  Tom? Tom Alderton? He was good-looking enough to be known by a fair few of the women in the room through lavish editorial features and local reputation. There was a murmur of unease and discomfit as they took in his evident displeasure.

  Tom didn’t move. He was as rooted to the spot as a fifty-year-old oak, his eyes darting between the images of his sister on the walls and the vision of her before him, wearing skins he recognized only too well. Furrowed brows began to knit, as everyone stared with growing comprehension at Clem’s illicit pink jumpsuit and Tom’s sickened expression.

  Stealthily the women began to hug the tissue-wrapped goodies closer to their bodies, slipping silkily from the room one by one.

  Clover realized what was happening first. ‘Stop! Don’t anyone leave until we’ve ascertained exactly what’s been happening here,’ she ordered imperiously. ‘This is copyright infringement.’

  But her words had the opposite effect to what she’d intended and the women suddenly rushed for the doors, the room emptying like an upturned milk bottle, expelling shoppers in pulsing, chugging beats. No one was returning anything.

  Tom didn’t move. He didn’t try to stop them. He wouldn’t make a scene. Enough damage had been done.

  Without taking her eyes off him, Clem jumped off the table, landing lightly two metres from him.

  ‘This was the secret. And it was a success, Tom,’ she said quietly, hands held up in appeasement. She gestured lightly towards the posters. ‘We didn’t damage the brand, we preserved your vision, your quality.’

  Silence.

  ‘They loved it, Tom. This is a new avenue for the company. If you could just have seen it. We could have sold ten times the amount . . .’

  Silence.

  Someone – Stella? – cleared their throat. The final total was one hundred and thirty-eight thousand, plus some change,’ she murmured in the smallest voice Clem had ever heard from her, pushing a list of the total sales into Clem’s hand.

  ‘D’you hear that?’ Clem whispered. ‘It’s enough, Tom. Enough to keep going. You don’t need to sell the flat now.’

  A ripping sound made her break eye contact, and she saw Clover tear one of the posters in half with a look of unconcealed fury.

  Clem looked back at her brother, more worried by his calm than Clover’s anger. ‘Say something. Please.’

  ‘How did you make that much?’ he asked finally, his voice a shade of its usual depth.

  Relief flooded her. ‘The collection – we’ve been working day and night on it for weeks, months in fact. It’s all from off-cuts and . . .’ She hesitated, not wanting to drop Simon in it. For everything else he was guilty of, he’d kept her secret at least. ‘. . . and those Perignard hides that were just s-sitting around in the factory.’

  He blinked slowly at her words, as though each one was a stab wound.

  ‘How did you make that much?’ he repeated, his teeth gritted as though it was taking considerable effort to get the words out and stay still.

  Clem felt the world wobble. This wasn’t about his name? ‘I . . .’

  He raised an eyebrow and waited, and she realized he knew. He just wanted to hear her say it.

  ‘It was just a bag,’ she whispered. The money’s all that matters. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  He turned his face away.

  ‘I did it for you, Tom,’ she pleaded, moving towards him. ‘You have to believe that. Look.’ She held out the sales tally towards him. ‘It’s all yours.’

  Tom stopped and looked at it, the large number written in vivid black looping script, written with joy and happiness. He reached for it slowly and Clem felt herself inhale again. OK then.

  He ripped the sheet of paper twice, letting it fall to the ground like confetti.

  ‘You disgust me,’ he said. ‘It was never just a bag, and you know it.’

  He walked back towards the door and Clem saw, for the first time, the tall couple standing in the doorway, heads bowed but shoulders back. Her mother was holding her father for support and her skin looked grey and slack.

  ‘Mum,’ Clem faltered, feeling the walls of her world begin to fold in on her. ‘I can explain . . .’

  Her mother’s eyes, usually like liquid fire, met hers, and the depth of betrayal reflected in them was like a fathomless blue pool. Her father – beloved Daddy – wouldn’t even look at her. Clem felt the words leave her as the door swung shut on them and they left her behind.

  Stella came up and threw her arms around her. ‘You were just trying to do the right thing,’ Stella soothed her, squeezing her hands vigorously.

  ‘But I’ve made it even worse.’

  ‘They’ll calm down.’ Stella hushed her. ‘Give them time; they’ll see your motives were pure.’

  Clem shook her head, panic beginning to over-ride her. ‘No. He’ll never talk to me again. You saw him that night. You know he meant it. He’s going to cut me out for good.’ Her breathing was shallow and rapid, her shoulders pulled up, trying to get more air into her lungs. ‘Wh-wh-what am I going to do?’

  Stella bit her lip, looking pained by her friend’s distress. ‘I don’t know, babes.’

  A terrified sob escaped Clem – Stella always knew! Stella always had a plan! – and she hid her face in her hands as the tears wracked her exhausted, nervous frame. It had been her winning hand. There was nothing after this.

  Another hand – warmer, plumper – settled on her shoulder like a dove bringing peace, and Clem looked into Mercy’s big, sympathetic eyes.

  ‘I do,’ Mercy murmured. ‘But you’re not going to like it.’

  PORTOFINO

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Tell me it’s raining.’

  Clem looked out of the car window and tapped back:

  ‘Resolutely not raining. Sky like topaz.’

  ‘Ever occurred to you to lie? Chucking it down here. Sky like bin.’

  ‘Fine. Can’t wait to get there.’

  ‘Now you’re getting the hang of it.’

  ‘Feeling buoyant and perky.’

  ‘Bravo, there you go. For my part, I’m delighted to see the back of you.’ Clem gave a small smile at that. Stella had wept at the airport like the mother of a gapper going backpacking in Iran. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘In the knee of Italy with the sea on my right.’

  ‘Gotcha. It’s lovely there.’

  ‘The water is bright green.’

  ‘Algae problem? Abort mission. Repeat abort.’

  ‘Aquamarine green. Stunning.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this. Lie dammit.’

  ‘Miss you already.’

  ‘Me neither, haters.’

  Clem smiled and stared out of the window as they drove into yet another mountain tunnel. It was just as well Tom wasn’t here. He couldn’t – literally couldn’t – drive through a tunnel w
ithout holding his breath; he’d be hypoxic by now.

  Not that there’d been any chance of him coming with her. He and her parents were stonewalling Clem, on top of him having moved out of the flat and firing her outright. She had managed to reverse that decision when she’d shown him her signature on the contract’s precious dotted line, but he’d still banned her from the office, and she wasn’t fooling herself that her employment was anything other than a technicality. He needed her to do this commission, because he needed this commission to save the company, but once that contract was fulfilled . . . He had finally done what she feared most and turned his back on her, and as much as she didn’t want to be anywhere near Portofino, without Tom or her father there was actually no reason to stay in Portobello. Her roots had been wrenched up through the familiar concrete pavements and cast adrift to the gentle Mediterranean bob, with only Stella in her pocket for company.

  The car came to a smooth stop and was opened a moment later by Luigi, the uniformed driver.

  ‘Signorina Alderton, welcome to Italy,’ a man said as she emerged. ‘I am Stefano. I work for Signor Beaulieu.’ He was the same height as her, with a stocky build, mariner’s tan and the uniform of the staff of the rich: a pale blue polo shirt, tan chino shorts and deck shoes.

  ‘Hi,’ Clem nodded, shaking his hand lightly, her eyes scanning the marina. Massive gin palaces, some four storeys high, cast them in shadow, as crew slopped water over teak decks and hosed down fibre-glass walls

  Where were they? They had passed the sign to Portofino, pointing right, several miles back, but had driven onto this large town that sheltered a wide, shallow bay. ‘I thought we were going to Portofino?’

  ‘We are,’ Stefano smiled. Luigi walked past them demonstrating admirable strength as he transferred her many bags from the car. She was never one to pack light, much less in these circumstances. ‘But Signor Beaulieu’s house is not accessible by land with luggage. This is the town of Rapallo. We will travel the rest of the way by boat,’ he said, gesturing to a mahogany motorboat moored behind him.

  A Riva? Oh, Tom!

  ‘This is Alberto,’ Stefano said, motioning to a similarly clad man holding the wheel as he held out his hand to help her step down into the boat. It was breathtakingly beautiful, with a sunbathing area on the back and seats upholstered in the palest Tiffany-blue leather.

  ‘Is this a new model?’ she asked, embarrassed to see her bags took up the entire back row of seats.

  ‘It’s a 1964 Super Aquarama. One of only two hundred and three made.’

  ‘Huh.’ Of course it was. She settled down on the seat and fished in her bag for her aviators, tightening the grey scarf at her neck. It was always colder on the water, even on a day such as this, with a deepening blue sky and spreading sun. Stefano cast the mooring ropes and hopped onto the boat as it pulled away from the jetty, the boat pivoting as smoothly as a train on a turning circle.

  ‘You might want to hold on to your hat, signorina,’ Alberto said, pulling back slowly on the throttle. ‘She can get up to fifty-two knots.’

  Clem took her panama off and held it tightly between her knees. A few people had stopped to watch, looking on enviously as the boat purred into deeper waters and pointed her nose to the small, craggy, tree-topped promontory of Portofino.

  They sped over the water as if it were glass, and Clem angled her face to feel the sun on her skin, trying not to overthink or overfeel. She had spent the entire plane journey formulating her action plan for getting through this, and it was a simple one: she would just live in this moment, the present one, with no thought of what was before or behind her. No Tom, no Swimmer, no . . . So right now, she was determined to be conscious only of the wind, the sun, gentle bumps beneath them as they sliced through other boats’ wakes.

  Gulls wheeled and cried overhead, blotting her with their pinprick shadows, and she opened her eyes as they moved deeper into the bay; the headland that Portofino tipped beginning to hook around them like an arm, drawing them closer. Her eyes skimmed the old towns and villages that had embedded themselves in the cliffs like fossils, the buildings all painted in an undulating, sun-baked palette of ombre, melba pink and taupe. As they drew closer to land, she could see that many of the buildings – villas, churches – were striped, some in thin spaghetti strips, others with wide blocks of colour, like layered ice cream. Most of the roofs were tiled with classic terracotta peg, but the grander ones had bleached grey slate tiles, intricately laid like overlapping fish scales and topped with statuary pineapples.

  As they sped closer still, the vista sharpened into deeper clarity and she began to see the lives being lived there – a market was stretched along the promenade of one town and she could make out busy shoppers, tall dotted orange trees, sheets hanging over balconies, rows of scooters. Mediterranean life. Her life, for a summer. A summer she was determined to live just one moment at a time. Determined to.

  She scanned the coastline with barely suppressed desperation. He was in there somewhere. Where was he?

  Clem looked up at the cliffs that rose in jagged tusks on three sides around them as Alberto cut the engine and the boat drifted into the tiny bay on its forward momentum. Stefano jumped on to a slab of rock that had been concreted flat and secured the mooring ropes. Clem reached over and stared down into the still-cool water that lapped gently against the boat. Several feet below, domed rocks glowed bright white, and combined with the speckled shadows thrown down by the umbrella canopies of the cypress trees, the inlet was mottled with vibrant patches of turquoise, cerulean, peacock blue and bone.

  She looked around the enchanting cove. It seemed to be the only access to the small shingled beach, just a few feet wide, with a jetty and the steps beyond it that must lead to the house. It was privately owned, clearly, with nothing on it but the wide double doors of a boat shed that looked neglected – the dark green paint was faking and one of the small glass panes was cracked.

  Stefano offered her his hand again and Clem stepped onto the platform as Alberto began the unfortunate task of unloading her bags.

  ‘Follow me, please,’ Stefano said, leading her up the stretch of steep but wide steps that curled away and out of sight from the private beach. Clem planted her hat back on her head and followed, trying to compose herself. This was the moment to think of Tom. She was doing this for him.

  Her heart rate climbed along with her as they moved up and away from the water, but she was young and fit and kept going until the steps fed into a wide path. It wasn’t exhaustion that stopped her but the sight of the house: tall with narrow, balconied windows, it had round-topped towers at each corner that would have made it seem more castle than villa had it not been for the pale pink and peach stripes still faintly rendered on the plasterwork. It was grand but tired, long past its glory days, and she felt a pinch of anxiety at the scale of the work that lay ahead. She and the Swimmer both knew he was using this project as a lure, but the job still needed to be done. If she was going to make things up to Tom, she had to pull this project off. It was high profile and every visitor would be a judge. Alderton Hide needed her to do a good job.

  A movement at one of the windows caught her eye and she dropped her head down quickly, hiding her face with the brim of her hat, just as she had on the first night they’d met. Was he in there watching her?

  Stefano led her through the gardens, which were gathered in concentric-stepped lawns and terraces, the beds as wildly coloured as if they’d been painted; they walked past stumpy olive trees with gnarled trunks and feathery-leafed heads into the long shadows of the house.

  A door opened as they approached and Clem braced herself for that devastating moment when her eyes rested on his again. But it wasn’t him. A stout woman in a black dress and white apron stepped out. Clem guessed she was around her mother’s age, early sixties, with long, still-dark hair looped beneath a discreet hairnet.

  ‘Signorina Alderton, welcome to Villa ai Cedri. I am Signora Benuto, Signor Beaulieu’s housekeepe
r.’

  ‘Hi,’ Clem replied, barely managing a smile and fiddling with her hat. She felt jumpy and nervous.

  ‘Signorina, I shall leave you now,’ Stefano said, tipping his head.

  ‘Oh, right. Thanks, Stefano,’ she said, nodding back at him. She turned back to Signora Benuto just as the woman’s eyes were on their way back up her. Disapproval sang through them – Clem supposed most people here didn’t wear a blazer, T-shirt, leather mini and heeled ankle boots for travelling – but in the next instant, she had blinked the look away.

  ‘We have everything ready for you, signorina. Would you like to follow me?’

  Clem nodded, moving as if to step into the house, but to her surprise, Signora Benuto stepped out instead, and started along a path that ran across one of the top lawns. Clem turned right and followed in bafflement as they walked further around the estate. A green swimming pool gleamed beneath them on one level, with a trio of cushion-less steamer chairs arranged to face the sun, and on the level above, she saw the canes and netting of a kitchen garden and vines being trained along a pergola.

  Signora Benuto stopped at a steep flight of steps just before a stone wall and turned to check Clem was still with her – she had set a swift pace in her white soft-soled shoes – before climbing up. Clem followed and was amazed to find they were on a small, humped bridge, traversing a narrow public footpath below. Beyond the wall on the other side was yet more garden, but it was wilder and uncultivated here, just a tangled olive grove with a compost heap on one side and an upturned wheelbarrow. After a few more minutes of silent marching on the winding path, the wind suddenly picked up and a flash of pinks to Clem’s left made her catch her breath – her first glimpse! They had come to a short round stone building, also painted in pink and peach stripes, like a matching pepper pot to the house. A key was already in the door and Signora Benuto led the way in.

  ‘These are your rooms,’ the housekeeper said, standing back so that Clem could pass.