A French Affair (31 page)

‘Why miserable?’ said Gina, carefully.

‘Because I’ve fallen out with you, dork!’

Then they were in each other’s arms, hugging and crying and patting each other.

‘I’ve been so unhappy!’ they both said at once.

‘I’ve tried really hard to make things right,’ said Gina.

‘Have you?’ said Sally. ‘I didn’t notice.’ But there wasn’t a trace of anger left in her voice.

‘Silly! I tried to find Carmella another premises so she could have her shop and you could have your job and the French House could stay as it is.’

‘Really? That’s amazing!’ A few crumbs escaped as Sally enthused.

‘Yes, but don’t get too excited, I failed.’

‘Oh.’

Gina sighed. ‘The other shop had a lot going for it. Further away from here, sadly, so not as perfect for you, but it should have been good for Carmella. Slightly nearer the centre of the universe, too. I mean the M4,’ she added.

‘What a shame. I do understand why you want to keep the French House as an antiques centre, especially now you and Matthew seem to be making a go of things.’

Another sigh escaped Gina.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve split up while my back was turned?’ said Sally, outraged.

‘I don’t know, Sal. We haven’t seen much of each other. We’ve both been busy. You know how it is.’ She didn’t like to admit how things were – or rather weren’t – between Matthew and her right now.

Sally looked at Gina. ‘Hm. I thought when you first get together you can’t keep your hands off each other.’

Gina made a little gesture. ‘Well, it’s not like that for everyone. At least, not for Matthew.’ Then, because she knew her sister loved being an agony aunt even more than Nicholas did, and, unlike Nicholas, wouldn’t hold back if she felt Gina was in the wrong, she went on. ‘Actually, Sally, I really need your help. Not with Matthew.’ She gave a little ‘as if!’ laugh. ‘It’s with this event I’m arranging. The massive fundraiser for the French House – Gilbert and Sullivan. You know, the event you despised.’

‘I never said that . . .’

Clutching fresh cups of tea and more biscuits Gina filled Sally in.

‘God, I’m so glad you two are friends again,’ said Alaric a little while later, ‘it’s been bloody hell here.’

‘It has been awful,’ Gina agreed. ‘I’m so proud of everything Sally does, I felt dreadful standing in the way of her big chance. She’s so ace the way she fits it all in round you and the girls.’

Sally didn’t speak but put her hand on Gina’s. ‘I didn’t know you felt like that,’ she said after a few moments.

‘Of course I do!’ Gina got up and they hugged again.

‘I’m going to open some baked beans,’ said Alaric. ‘I think you two need food.’

‘And I’m really proud of you, too!’ said Sally. ‘You’ve really got behind the antiques thing and now this event – it sounds amazing.’

‘I hope it is. After lunch’ – Gina sent a grateful smile towards her brother-in-law who was tipping beans into a saucepan – ‘I’ll take you to meet Nicholas. He’ll love you, and you can advise us as to what should go where.’

‘Oh God, I’m so excited,’ said Sally. ‘Shall I open the wine?’

‘No. We have work to do.’

‘Bloody hell, Gines. It’s like Chatsworth has relocated to the Cotswolds.’

Gina chuckled. She and Sally were negotiating Fairfield Manor’s impressive drive. ‘I know what you mean but it’s nothing like as big.’

‘And no one knew it was here?’

‘They knew about it but Nicholas has never let anyone look over it before.’

Sally shook her head in amazement. ‘I have to say, I knew you were good, but snaffling this venue has to be your best yet.’

‘I know. The house is amazing, but getting this event to actually make money is going to be tough.’

‘Why? The house is free, the entertainment is free, you’ve only got to pay for the food and wine.’ Sally was back to her old optimistic self.

Gina pulled up in front of the house and turned off the engine. ‘Yup. And advertising, and insurance, and loos: all those little extras that send your overheads up like a rocket. I’m not sure we can do it, frankly.’

Sally gave her sister a sharp dig in the arm with her elbow. ‘Of course you can. Now come and get me shown round this gaff.’

Just having Sally on side did make Gina feel much more positive and she loved watching Nicholas showing off his home to a very appreciative Sally. As Gina followed the two of them, making expansive plans for doing the Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet – just so they could take advantage of a very handsome specimen – she felt a lot more positive.

She had suppressed Sally’s and Nicholas’s more extravagant plans, taken note of Sally’s other, very good suggestions and driven Sally home when her phone rang. Her heart leapt when she saw Matthew’s name appear. She made herself let the phone ring a couple of times before she pressed the button.

‘Hi,’ she said, trying to make her voice sound relaxed
but pleased to hear from him rather than desperately over-excited. Her ache for him hadn’t diminished. It was like a dull headache, always there, always interfering with what she was doing. He had sent her a couple of texts since they last saw each other, but always work related – did she want to pay Bill fifty quid for his latest auction bargains, things like that – but he had sometimes added a cross indicating he didn’t actually hate her. If he asked her out now, she’d say yes like a shot.

‘How are you?’ he said.

She could tell from his voice that he was going to say something she wasn’t going to like. ‘Fine. Busy. You?’ Please don’t let him start telling her off again. She couldn’t bear it.

‘Gina, I’ve got to go to Edinburgh for a while.’

‘Why?’ She felt instantly abandoned.

‘An old friend of my father’s has just died. He was an antiques dealer and his wife wants me to help her sort through the stock. Sort everything really.’

‘Right.’ She tried to sound bland, as if it didn’t matter to her one way or another that he was going away, leaving her to run a massive event – entirely for his benefit – without even his moral support, let alone any actual assistance.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘There is a good side to it. We’ll get whatever pieces we want and at a good price. I’d go out of kindness for my father, but it’s good business too.’

‘Good.’

‘And I’ll be back in plenty of time for the event, I promise.’

‘Oh.’

‘If there was anyone else I could send – and if she hadn’t
asked me particularly – really, if I could I’d stay, but her husband left things in an awful mess. If I don’t go she could lose everything. Her home, the lot.’

‘That’s OK. I quite understand. You have to go. It must be awful for her.’ And he could lose everything too, his home, the lot. She loved him for being so kind at the same time it made her want to shake him.

‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

After he’d rung off she tried to convince herself that she did understand and wasn’t at all jealous of some poor woman who’d just lost her husband. France now seemed something that had happened to another person – a prettier, more lighthearted version of herself. But there was no point dwelling on that. She had to set things up so she could also sell tickets for the event online.

Only Gina seemed to realise just how important it was to sell enough tickets. Nicholas was just enraptured by the thought of his house being thrown into glittering centre stage. The Gilbert and Sullivan group were focusing on polishing their performances and Matthew was in Edinburgh. However, she was used to this and just got her head down. It helped her forget Matthew for a bit.

First she set up a PayPal account so people could buy tickets online. Then she worked out discounts for various people. Anyone booking a table from a historical society, or connected to the Gilbert and Sullivan group, got a deal. She also decided to offer discounts to anyone else helpful – but not too many, of course. She included the catering college and the wine merchant and Anthea’s auction house.

She rang Anthea to tell her. They had become good
friends. ‘I really hope people won’t be frightened off by the price. But we only have one chance at it – we have to make all the money in one hit.’

‘Which is tough,’ agreed Anthea.

‘Although I think Nicholas is planning to have salons and things all year. He might feel differently when it’s actually happened but now, well, he rang me to see if I think the Bach Choir would come down and sing in little groups. I told him I had no idea and he should ask them.’

‘Lordy. Poor love. So who have you been in touch with so far?’

‘Every historical society for whatever architectural period that anyone has ever heard of. Andrew has given me a list of people who’ll be interested in the music, and of course he’s planning to get at least a coachload of tickets sold.’

‘Mm. It’s a pity Gilbert and Sullivan is a bit, well, Marmite. Some people hate it,’ said Anthea.

‘I know, and everyone thinks opera would be better but as I told Sally, I’d have to pay opera singers. This way we’re getting our singers free. And for all those who don’t like them, there are plenty who’ll just come for the house.’

‘True. Well, I’ll do my best to help. And hey, I’ve just remembered my mother is friends with a woman who’s very high up in the National Trust. She might bring some people.’ Gina heard Anthea scribbling on a pad. ‘Good luck with this, Gina!’

Gina made a chart with the break-even mark on it so she would know the moment they started making money. She had numbered tickets printed and made a careful note of who had which numbers to sell. Then she set up a dedicated Twitter account and Facebook page, and when
she wasn’t doing anything else, she sent links to her page to anyone she thought might be interested.

‘It’s probably just as well Matthew’s away with his Scottish Widow,’ she told Sally on the phone later. ‘I’m so busy I wouldn’t have time to see him.’ She still hadn’t confessed how things were between them. ‘And I haven’t done much on the antiques front lately. When I popped into town to see how ticket sales were going I realised we were dreadfully low on stock. We have sold quite a bit which is good but we need some new things. Bill got me some, but we’re still low.’

‘Let’s go to a car boot this Sunday. There’s one near here, I noticed a leaflet when I was doing the weekly shop,’ said Sally. ‘We can take the girls and have a jolly time and maybe pick up some things for the stall.’

Gina opened her mouth to say there wouldn’t be anything suitable at a car-boot sale and she was far too busy to take a morning off just for fun when she realised how very boring she had become. ‘Well, that would be nice. I’ll have to be back quite early though. The first few bookings from the online site should start to trickle through by Sunday and I’ll need to post the tickets off.’

‘You’ll be fine. Car boots are early, remember. I’ll pick you up at eight. Well, maybe half past. And bring bags.’

As they walked along the field full of stalls, eating hot dogs and laden with carrier bags, the girls holding on to the pushchair, Gina realised it had been good for her to get out of the house. She’d done a fair bit of dashing about, delivering packets of tickets to people who thought they might sell them, meeting with the caterers to check on the menu, persuading a local firm to provide fresh
apple juice at cost price and all the other thousands of jobs that her role seemed to consist of, and now this time out, in the fresh air, was very reviving. Also, in among the vast quantity of plastic toys her nieces picked up for pennies, she and Sally did find a few pieces of china that would go well with their other stock at the centre.

‘While Matthew-the-Antique-Nazi is away, he won’t be able to be picky about things being not quite old enough.’

Gina laughed but suddenly discovered she had become quite picky about these things herself and determined to do some research when she got home. One of their car-boot bargains had been a
Miller’s
, only just out of date and so potentially extremely useful. And it meant she could return Matthew’s copy.

Once she had been delivered home by Sally, who was off to Sunday lunch with her in-laws, Gina took the box of things to the kitchen so she could give them all a good wash and then went to her laptop to see what, if any, response there had been since her site had gone live.

She was thrilled. Twenty tickets, mostly in pairs, had been sold. It wasn’t much but it was a very encouraging start. Feeling she was being very childish, she filled in twenty lines on her chart after she’d addressed the envelopes. She would take this first batch as a good omen. The tickets
would
all sell. The event
would
be an enormous success.

GINA WOKE HORRIBLY
early. It was still pitch dark but she knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep again. There was too much on her mind. The morning of the event had dawned. It was make-or-break day and she still didn’t know if the numbers worked out.

She made herself a bowl of porridge. Until she got to Fairfield Manor she couldn’t do anything more. After her breakfast she felt calmer and went up to pack her bag. She might not have time to come home and change so she wanted everything with her. Then she had a quick shower and washed her hair before getting dressed, packing the car, and setting off. Bernard would be up and about by eight and would let her in.

The caterers had arrived very early. They had already set up a couple of huge vans when Gina got there. The vans connected with the kitchen, which Bernard had confided was designated as ‘service only’ – which meant it wasn’t fit to cook in.

‘They said it would cause less disruption,’ said Bernard, ‘although how there could have been more disruption I cannot tell you.’

‘
Oh, Bernard, I’m awfully sorry. This must be ghastly for you,’ said Gina, mentally putting him on her list of ‘people to be publicly and heartily thanked’. ‘Of course it’s a huge amount of work for you. I never gave that a thought when I suggested it.’

Bernard inclined his head gracefully. ‘Well, it isn’t what we’re used to, but it’s given Nicholas such a new lease of life I’m inclined to forgive you. Although I’ve told him if he starts opening the house regularly, he’ll have to take more people on.’