The Finishing Touches (13 page)

“The kind of thing that your granny serves at Christmas parties,” said Clemmy. “On paper doilies.”

“
Your
granny, maybe!” Divinity nudged her and added, for my benefit, “Clem’s granny’s dead posh—she lives in a castle wi’ carpet on the walls.
My
nan serves up a Cadbury Yule Log and prawn cocktail, even now my mum offers to get the caterers in. Can’t beat a Yule Log, I reckon.”

“What would you prefer to be making in cookery lessons?” I asked, getting my notebook out.

“Cocktails!” squealed Divinity.

“Anything vegetarian,” said Clemmy.

“And organic,” added Divinity. “I get rashes if I eat too much dairy. Detoxes would be good.”

“But food you can cook yourself?” I suggested. “And a seduction supper if you want to win a man through his stomach? And something for when you’re on a diet, or needing cheering up? What about a simple dinner party you can throw together for some friends, or for when you get back from a club and you’re starving?”

“Or when if your battery’s dead and you can’t get the delivery number?” suggested Clemmy sarcastically.

“Exactly,” I said, ignoring the sarcasm.

“I’d like to be able to do a Sunday roast like my other nanna does,” said Divinity wistfully. “Yorkshire puddings and gravy and that. All the trimmings.”

“That’s a great suggestion,” I said, scribbling. I’d have to hold Kathleen back from teaching a Sunday roast. And what red-blooded man could resist a girl who could whip up a dish of crisp roast potatoes? “I need lots of feedback from you, so don’t hold back—tell me everything you’d like to know, OK?”

I smiled and, without thinking, Divinity and Clemmy
smiled back. For a second they looked like a perfectly charming pair of girls, not scary fashionista rich kids at all.

Then Clemmy looked shocked at the strange sensation in her facial muscles and reverted to looking like she was concealing a bat under her quilted coat prior to biting its head off at the first opportunity.

The Cookery class was held downstairs in the house, in a side room off the old kitchens that took up most of the basement. When the house was the first Phillimores’ London residence, there’d been marble-lined ice rooms and game cupboards and tens of kitchen maids and cooks in various ranks, all slaving to turn out elaborate dinner parties, and more servants to wash it all up afterward.

Two hundred years later, the high-ceilinged rooms echoed sadly, and the huge ovens sat silent and cold. I peered into one of the kitchens, where big KitchenAid mixers were hidden in plastic covers. I used to love watching the goings-on in the Cordon Bleu classes, where the girls learned to make lumpy cheddar cheese straws in preparation for jolly chalet-girl jobs, and gossiped about their dates…

“Are you all right?” said Divinity, and I realized I’d stopped in the doorway.

I gave myself a good shake.

“I’m fine, thank you!” I said. “Just thinking what a shame it is not to be using these facilities. There must be something Miss Thorne could be doing with the space.”

“Tanning beds? Or a hair salon?” suggested Divinity. “I want to be a top stylist when I leave here. You get to travel a lot, and get free stuff from designers. And I want to get my own perfume line too.”

At least Divinity had an ambition, I thought. That was a
start. On the way downstairs we’d established that her mother had sent her to the Academy to learn how to behave nicely in case her dad was made a UN Goodwill Ambassador when he retired from international football, and she wanted to be a celebrity in her own right too. Clemmy chewed her lip and remained silent.

“Have you had any lessons about styling?” I asked. “Advice about what to wear when, that sort of thing? Dressing up your good points, hiding anything you don’t like?”

Clemmy gave me a pitying look as she pushed open the door to the Cordon Bleu kitchen. “Yeah. If you want to go around looking like some old granny. But then, what do I know?
Nothing
I wear’s ever right.”

“Unless you’re going to a wake,” added Divinity helpfully.

I decided it was better not to answer that and ushered them into the class. The Cookery class involved the creation of meringue swans, which Mrs. Angell insisted could be used to carry place cards at dinner parties.

Venetia made some perfunctory efforts, but Clemmy decided to pipe gruesome meringue rats, and Anastasia finished early and spent the remainder of the lesson selecting a new ringtone for her mobile.

It wasn’t remotely useful—apart from the hour it gave me to make notes and sketch out ideas for new lessons.

When the girls stampeded from the building for coffee and cigarettes, I took the opportunity to slip up the stairs to the bursar’s office, in search of more covert information. If anyone asked, I was looking for details of any marketing the Academy had done recently, but what I really wanted to get my hands on were Nell Howard’s contact details and, ideally, the missing photograph.

Climbing up three flights of stairs all day was certainly going to get me fit, I thought, catching my breath at the top of
the moth-eaten landing. Mark Montgomery’s office door was closed, and I knocked, though I didn’t expect a reply—if Mark only came in once in a blue moon, thanks to that full-time job in the City he was so keen for me to know about, it would be ages before he reappeared.

Hearing nothing, I slipped in and shuddered as the hairs sprang to attention along my arm. I’d been in fridges warmer than the upper floors of this house, and Mark clearly turned off every radiator as he left the room, along with the lights and possibly even the spare oxygen. I pulled my green cardigan tighter around me and headed to the filing cabinets, which I was relieved to find weren’t locked.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for as I riffled through the manila folders or, indeed, what I would say to Nell Howard once I did find her details and ring her for a cozy chat. But if Mark Montgomery was planning to advise Lord Phillimore to sell up, I didn’t really have time to worry about the polite way of doing things.

My fingers flicked through files marked
Floral Decoration, Ski trips/Austria, Ski trips/France,
and
Guidelines for Divorced Parents.
Some of the files looked so old they might as well have been written in copperplate, and most of them contained ancient heating bills in pounds, shillings, and pence, or typewritten letters about overdue fees. Nothing remotely scandalous or interesting—although what did I expect in the bursar’s office? Presumably anything juicy would be in Miss Thorne’s files, and I didn’t want to ask
her
.

Frustrated, and with time ticking away until Miss McGregor’s napkin-folding class began downstairs, I chewed my lip, then had a flash of inspiration. The invitation list for the memorial service—Nell Howard would be on that! And I’d seen something about that with the unpaid bills on Mark’s desk the previous day…

I was over by his chair in an instant. His desk was clear, apart from the red tulips and some unopened post in the letter tray. Mark obviously wasn’t the sort to leave an in-box unfiled, but maybe, if he was anything like me, he sometimes dumped the unsorted work into his top drawer if he ran out of time.

I couldn’t believe I was rooting through the drawers, yet I was. And there was the green file.
Phillimore Memorial—Bills and Admin.

Bingo.

I shuffled through the pages of notes and letters until I found what I was looking for: the list of guests, neatly ticked for invites and ticked off again for RSVPs by Miss McGregor. She was right in the middle: Eleanor Howard, Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, and three phone numbers—two mobiles, one home.

I jotted them down with one ear cocked toward the door for footsteps, then slid the file back in the drawer. My heart was thumping with nerves, and I felt weirdly elated. Twenty years of deliberately not thinking about how easy or hard it would be to trace my mother, and here I was, taking the first tiny steps.

Toward what? It was like applying for a Proper Job. I might actually find out what I was—definitively. I’d be set in stone, at last. My days of tragic ballerinas and TV detectives might soon be coming to an end, and there was no guarantee that I’d like what I found. What if Hector had skedaddled because my mother’s father had come after him with a shotgun? What if she turned out to be a silly, selfish Sloane Ranger who didn’t want any reminder of her youthful mistake? What then?

My heart fluttered. Still holding the piece of paper, I rested on the edge of Mark’s desk and gazed out of the window at the street below. It was washed with rain, and the cars glistened.

I’d forgotten how much I missed London and its many subtle shades of gray. The pigeons, the pavements, the stone façades, the tea—a whole
palette
of gray, livened up with bright red splashes of buses and postboxes. I had to admit I loved it. I’d tried to prefer Edinburgh and even persuaded myself that all that granite was more elegant, but there was something about London’s cheerful grime that I secretly loved more. It was
home
. Someone had chosen to make this particular, elegant street my home.

My eye was drawn by a commotion unfolding on the opposite side of the street. A small figure in a huge fur coat with blond hair was arguing furiously with someone in a uniform, next to a silver Porsche. From the way the arms were windmilling and the traffic warden was taking nervous steps backward, it could only be Anastasia. Divinity was next to her, pointing everywhere—at the car, at Anastasia, at her own head, at the sky. Even though I couldn’t hear it, I knew the language would probably make Miss Thorne’s cashmere go rigid.

Lesson Four: Diplomatic Situations and Their Solutions, I thought, reaching for my notebook. How to handle being arrested, being overdrawn, being in court, and generally being a lady under pressure.

I heard feet and the sound of whistling on the stairs, and I bounced off the desk just in time for Mark Montgomery to push the door open.

He was wearing his tweedy jacket again, but this time it was accessorized with a battered brown briefcase and neon-blue cycle helmet. His thick dark hair stuck through the spaces, and he was still pink with the effort of cycling in the freezing January air. He clearly wasn’t expecting to see me.

“Oh, er, hello,” he said, yanking off the helmet, embarrassed. “Didn’t think anyone would be up here.”

“Sorry, I needed some quiet. To make notes. About the
Academy. And the lessons. I’ve been sitting in. Didn’t have you down for a cyclist!” I said cheerfully. “I thought City types like you roared round in Maseratis and damn the congestion charge. Are you one of those responsible car-free types?”

“Just during the week,” he said, removing his jacket. It needed patching inside; clearly he could afford a new one, so it had to be an old favorite, I reckoned. I rather liked men who clung doggedly to their favorite jackets. “I’ve got a Jaguar, but it’s forty years old, covered in dents, and I race it on weekends, so it doesn’t score many points with the hedge-fund boys. What I save on the congestion charge goes straight into the petrol tank, along with pretty much every penny I earn. If you ask me, cars are even more expensive to run than Phillimore girls.” He ruffled his hair back up and looked over, as if he was waiting for a snappy comeback. “It doesn’t even have a passenger seat, so I’m afraid I can’t offer you a lift.”

“Shame,” I said. “I’m very good at getting out of sports cars. It’s something I learned here, you know.”

“Again, you amaze me with this endlessly useful knowledge,” he said. “Learned anything else today?”

“Oh, yes. Meringue swans and how easy they are to scorch if you’re not
meticulous
with your oven timer. Also, Anastasia has selected ‘Material Girl’ as her ringtone.”

Mark half-smiled, half-frowned, his eyes creasing at the edges. He had what Liv called “dry” eyes—the sort that might or might not be joking, something that she found endlessly bewildering. “I never know whether they want me to laugh or not,” she would moan. I knew what she meant now. Mark had a tricky face to read, very guarded.

“There you go; your education is complete,” he said, hanging the helmet on the back of his chair and opening his briefcase.

“Not until I’ve added strawberry lily pads,” I said. “But
that’s next week. I thought I might suggest a vodka jelly pond for the week after.”

He snorted…with amusement? I hoped so.

“I was going to ask you, actually,” he said, pausing to flick a silver letter opener through the first envelope. “Is there a firm of surveyors you could recommend? I suppose you must come across some, in your line of work.”

“Sorry?” The only surveyor I’d met was the one who told me my flat had mildew and a strange smell in the bathroom that even he couldn’t explain.

“A surveyor.” He looked at me more closely. “You know, for checking over business premises?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “No, no. Fiona deals with hiring people.”

Mark raised an eyebrow. “And Fiona is?”

Oops. Wrong job.

“My assistant,” I fibbed quickly. “She sometimes…fills my shoes for me.”

He seemed impressed.

“What do you need a surveyor for?” I asked.

“To get things moving on the house sale. Makes sense to get someone to look over it before the real estate agents come in; forewarned is forearmed and all that.” He carried on opening the envelope, and I spotted a familiar real estate agent’s logo on the back. My heart sank. He really did want to sell up.

“Lord Phillimore’s away until the end of the month, as you know,” he went on, “but we have a regular meeting to discuss matters arising. I thought it would be less painful for him if I could put together various options, ready to go.”

“But I thought we were going to try to come up with some ideas!” I blurted out, filling with panic. He couldn’t close the Academy yet. I hadn’t even found the missing year’s photograph, let alone any other details!

“Betsy, apart from the fact that we just don’t have the money
to carry on much longer, I’ve got to be honest with you—the whole finishing school concept…” Mark began, and I knew from the
Guardian
-reading expression on his face that he was going to start his “etiquette is worse than apartheid” routine again.