Little White Lies (18 page)

‘Confidence is key.’ The lecturer’s voice suddenly interrupted her musings. ‘To be a good barrister, you need to have the ability to build relationships with a wide range of people.’ Annick brightened visibly. Well, that was
one
thing she was good at. People. Talking to them, putting them at ease, finding things out. Nothing made her happier than a good conversation and she didn’t mind with whom. At home in Lomé her mother was always chastising her for chatting to the servants when she ought to be studying.

‘D’you have another pen, by any chance?’ The young man to her left suddenly leaned over and whispered in her ear. ‘Mine’s run out, worse luck.’ He held up a leaking ballpoint pen.

‘Oh, yeah. Sure.’ Annick pulled her bag up to her knees. She had a handful of pens somewhere in the bottom. ‘Here. No, keep it. I’ve got a couple.’

‘Thanks.’ He smiled at her gratefully, holding her gaze for just a second longer than was necessary. She blushed and then saw the lecturer look directly at her. It was a look she recognised only too well.
Pretty. Silly. Fluffy
. She sighed. She ought to be used to it by now. It was a look that had followed her most of her life. The lecturer was still looking at her. She saw two girls in the row in front slowly turn their heads.
Flirting already
? One of them, a studious-looking redhead with oversized black spectacles smirked knowingly at her companion. They bent their heads together, laughing at her, of course. Annick felt the familiar flush of anger travel up her face. It wasn’t her fault that men seemed unable to pass her by without a second or a third glance. She had nothing to do with it. Her looks were
a fact
. She was tired of having to be extra nice to other girls so that they wouldn’t hate her. She was tired of fighting off men, even those old enough to be her grandfather and tired of everyone’s mistrust. She wasn’t a classic beauty, like her mother, she was a
sexy
beauty, which was far worse. Her beauty was of the cheaper, more inconsequential kind and it meant that Annick neither enjoyed it nor learned how to use it properly. She made a sudden grimace.

‘What’s the matter?’ The young man who’d asked for a spare pen sensed an opening. He put his face very close to hers.
Too
close. Annick stood up suddenly. She grabbed her bag and her coat and quickly left the lecture hall. She’d had enough. Of everything.

TASH
Lady Davenport Public Relations, Flood Street, London

‘We always answer the phone on the third ring. Lady Davenport doesn’t like it to be picked up any sooner.’

‘Why’s that?’

The giggling blonde named Priscilla, who was showing Tash around, paused. Her slender shoulders went up and down . . . once, twice, three times. ‘No idea, actually,’ she said at last, as though the question had surprised her. ‘I never asked her.’ She gave a small, incredulous laugh. ‘D’you know, I’ve never even thought about it. Have you?’ she asked her twin, who was sitting at her own desk, rifling through a magazine. The girl looked up, stared at them blankly and then slowly shook her head. ‘I
must
ask her,’ Priscilla said breezily. ‘Now, coffee’s in there. Lady Davenport takes hers black. She doesn’t take milk in her coffee.’

‘Presumably what “black” means,’ Tash murmured. She regretted her tone as soon as the words were out. It was only her first day. She oughtn’t to frighten everyone off just yet.

Priscilla looked at her uncertainly for a moment, and then the penny dropped. (Slowly, so fucking slowly, Tash swore later to Rebecca and Annick, she could practically
see
it falling.) ‘Oh, right. Yes, I see what you mean.’ Priscilla gave her irritating tinkling little laugh. ‘Gosh, I’m not being very bright today, am I?’

It was on the tip of Tash’s sharp tongue to say she couldn’t quite imagine her being bright on
any
day, but she managed to rein herself in.
Be nice
. Those were Rebecca’s strict instructions.
Be nice, Tash. And if you can’t be nice, just be quiet
. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.

Priscilla affected not to hear, opening the door to a second office.

‘Oh, hu-
llo
!’ Two further identical blondes were sitting behind a long glass table. ‘I’m just showing the new girl round; hope I’m not disturbing?’ Neither girl said anything. ‘So,’ she went on gamely, ‘that’s Tiggy and that’s Tilly.’ She pointed at each girl carefully in turn – useful, since Tash couldn’t possibly have told the difference. So far at LDPR, everyone she’d met was tall, leggy and blonde. Where on earth did
she
fit into the picture? ‘And this is Tash,’ Priscilla said finally, beaming at Tash. She’s new,’ she added unnecessarily. Tiggy and Tilly stared at her blankly.

‘So,’ Tash said briskly. ‘That’s us. The, er, team, as it were.’

‘Yes, that’s us,’ Priscilla said brightly, sensing an exit. ‘I’ll just show you where the photocopier lives and the coffee machine . . . and that’ll pretty much be it, I shouldn’t wonder. There’s not actually
that
much to do around here, you know.’

‘You don’t say,’ Tash muttered under her breath, following her through the doorway. The offices of LDPR occupied the top floor of a small mews house on Flood Street, just round the corner from the cinema. The rooms were tiny, the central heating seemed to be permanently on, making it even stuffier than it ought to be,
but
it was off the King’s Road, (which, as everyone except Tash seemed to know), was absolutely de rigueur for PR agencies. Lady Davenport was a thrice-divorced woman in her early fifties, with the sort of blonde beehive hairdo
that
Tash thought had gone down with the Titanic. She’d been (variously) an interior decorator, an art-gallery owner, a jewellery-shop owner and now she owned a PR agency. To Tash’s irritation, it was actually Lyudmila who’d found her the job. There weren’t that many career openings for a girl of
extremely
modest means with a bachelor’s degree in economics and Lyudmila would sooner have cut off her right hand than fork out the money for a masters (which seemed to be what was required for a career in economics). Tash sat at home for a month, growing increasingly despondent until Lyudmila dragged her out one night to Lady Soames’s on the pretext of ‘introducing’ her to Lady Davenport. ‘What for?’ Tash asked bitterly. ‘Don’t tell me they’re looking for maids?’

But Lady Davenport wasn’t looking for a maid. An assistant, she explained to an eager Lyudmila and silent, sulking Tash. Over dinner, Lyudmila sang Tash’s praises whilst Tash fingered her tattoo resentfully, trying to look as though she wasn’t there.

No one was more surprised than Tash, therefore, when Lady Davenport rang a few evenings later, asking for Tash. She appeared to be offering her a job. ‘Salary’s not up to much,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but you’ll get
loads
of experience. When can you start?’

‘Start what?’

‘Start work, of course.’

‘You want
me
to work for
you
?’ Tash almost dropped the phone. Lyudmila, realising what was going on, leapt up and practically wrenched it out of her hands. By the end of the three-minute conversation, it had all been decided. Tash would start work. On Monday morning.

And now, here she was, sitting at an empty desk in a stuffy little office somewhere in the bowels of Chelsea, wondering where it had all gone wrong.
Thi
s wasn’t what she’d imagined her future would be.

The front door suddenly burst open and Lady Davenport swept into the room trailing perfume, two wicker baskets, a handful of fabric samples and a scatter of Post-it notes, which she promptly dropped onto Priscilla’s desk. She turned to Tash. ‘Tatiana! How
lovely
to see you! All settled in, are we? Has Priscilla shown you the ropes?
Dear, dear
Priscilla. D’you know, I don’t know what I’d do without her.’ She smiled beatifically at Priscilla, who immediately blushed scarlet and affected not to notice.

‘Now, listen up, gels. We’ve got a new client. Hurrah! A rugby player’s been caught with an under-age schoolgirl and just before the World Cup, too – can you
imagine
? His agent’s in a complete spin. Oh, those
boys
. Too dreadful for words, don’t you agree, gels?’

‘Dreadful,’ they murmured dutifully.

Lady Davenport turned to Tash. ‘Would you be a darling and get me a coffee, Tash? Quick as you can, there’s a good girl. I’m absolutely
parched
.’

Tash’s eyes widened. Coffee? She was here to make Lady Davenport
coffee?
She glanced at Priscilla. There was a tiny, self-satisfied smile playing around the corner of her lips. Now it was Tash’s turn to feel the penny drop. Not only was she the new girl, she was the gofer, the coffee maker
and
the errand-runner. With Tash’s arrival, Priscilla had moved one tiny notch up the ladder.

A familiar feeling of dread slowly rose in her. In the two months that had passed since they’d all left university, the line that separated her from her two best friends had gradually solidified. The truth of it was simple; neither Rebecca nor Annick actually
had
to work. Annick had been pushed into studying law, not because she had any great desire to be a lawyer. She didn’t. Tash knew better than anyone else that the only reason Annick was enrolled at Store Street Law College was because of her father’s vanity. He liked the idea of having a beautiful, clever lawyer daughter. What Annick herself wanted was of no consequence. Sadly, Annick had never been able to stand up to either of her parents. What they wanted, they got. And she had no alternative plan for her own future, in any case. She could go on living in the Hyde Park apartment for the rest of her life. At some point, she’d once told a shocked Tash, they’d find a suitable husband for her . . . and that would be it. It had been on the tip of Tash’s tongue to yell out, ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Don’t be so bloody feeble! Tell them what you
do
want to do! Jesus, we’re not living in the Middle Ages!’ But she couldn’t and shouldn’t. Annick was bright; she just didn’t
think
she was. Tash had never herself been in a position
not
to have to worry about how the rent would be paid or how she’d live. Perhaps if she had, she’d understand it. And Rebecca? Rebecca would never have to work,
ever
. She’d enrolled at the Courtauld mostly because she rather liked the idea of swanning around in a dark grey polo-neck and knee-length boots, a stack of art history books under one arm, rushing from one obscure lecture on Byzantine art to another. ‘Look,’ she explained to Tash airily one morning over coffee, ‘not
everything
you do has to make sense. In terms of the future, I mean. Sometimes . . . well, sometimes you just have to do what pleases you.’ Tash didn’t know quite what to say to that. Rebecca and Annick had the luxury of money; she didn’t. It was as simple as that. The gulf between them had begun to yawn.

There was another thing too that troubled her. She understood now that if
she
was able to see them with new eyes, then the distance must work both ways. They too would be able to look at her across the barriers of wealth and privilege and see
her
, and she dreaded being the object of their pity. Tash Bryce-Brudenell, for all her brains and ambition, was now an office junior. Yes, the gulf between them was beginning to widen; one day it might be too wide to cross. She swallowed down hard on that little knot of fear.

REBECCA

‘Ancient Greek and Roman art is embedded in the culture of recent centuries and it often appears all too familiar to us. But how did it come into existence to begin with? Who made it? And why did they make it?’ Dr Jeremy Garrick paused dramatically. Around the seminar table, sixteen pens hovered nervously. Was it a genuine or rhetorical question? Was he asking
them
? Rebecca risked a cautious sideways glance to her left. Sitting next to her was Hugh Fraser, frightfully clever and (luckily) already something of a friend; to his left were the three frighteningly confident and snobbish girls she had dubbed the Cruellas – the improbably named trio, Luella, Bella and Ella.

‘Is that a question?’ One of the Cruellas spoke up, her horsey voice full of confident flirtation.

‘No.’ Dr Garrick barely looked up from his notes. ‘Over the next couple of months,’ he continued, as if the student in question had never spoken, ‘we’ll be examining some of art’s functions, forms and meanings within ancient society.’

Rebecca looked back down at her own notes, relieved she hadn’t had the confidence (blind or plain stupid) to raise her own voice. For the next half hour she concentrated on taking down as many of his pearls of wisdom as she could.

An hour later, the seminar finally over, she was crossing the beautiful courtyard of Somerset House when she heard footsteps behind her. It was Hugh. He caught up with her, taking care not to spill his Styrofoam cup of (terrible) canteen coffee.

‘God, I nearly bust a gut when he snubbed Luella.’ He took a sip of coffee and pulled a face. ‘Christ, this is shit. Almost as awful as she is. Mind you, Garrick’s almost as bad. He’s such a pompous ass.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Rebecca said dreamily. ‘I think he’s rather good-looking.’

‘Good-looking?’ Hugh nearly spat out his coffee. ‘He’s
fat
!
And
he’s old!’

‘Not
that
old. And he’s just
big
, not fat.’

‘You need spectacles, darling. He’s
fat
.’

‘
I
think he’s rather sexy, if you really want to know.’

‘You’re clearly blind,’ Hugh said sniffily. At that precise moment, a gust of wind blew across the courtyard, taking Rebecca’s scarf with it. She snatched at the air, whirled around and found herself practically pressing against the imposing mound of Dr Jeremy Garrick’s belly. She let out an audible gasp.

‘Your scarf.’ Dr Garrick’s voice was as dry and disinterested as it had been when snubbing Luella Maxwell. He held out the offending article of clothing as though holding a snake.