The Finishing Touches (23 page)

“No! No, he’s not in prison.” Lord P rubbed his nose. “Betsy, it’s very hard to explain…”

Because he’s my father, I thought. Why doesn’t he just
say
it?

The fire crackled as Lord P gathered his thoughts together, clearly uncomfortable. “Frances used to insist that Hector wasn’t a bad person, just a very weak one. Not enough stuffing. Always was easily led, from the time he was at school, liked to do exactly what everyone else did. Those boys he hung around with—Frances and I weren’t keen, not the sort of men she wanted for her girls, let alone her own son, to be going round with. One chap was a racing driver, quite a good sort, but careless. Another was the son of some of our friends, who’d gone off the rails. Hector was perfectly charming, but he lacked much moral compass, and I’m afraid to say when he really needed these so-called friends they let him down rather badly.”

He stared into the middle distance as his voice trailed off. It was clearly causing him some pain, but I really needed to know. Even if it was terrible.

“You don’t want to think that any child of yours could be a bounder,” he said eventually. “But I fear Hector was, and probably still is.”

This didn’t fit in with the occasional fragments Franny had dropped, about her handsome, amusing Hector.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why did he run away?”

“There was a car crash, involving some of his friends. Not his fault.” Lord P let out a long breath. “It emerged that it wasn’t
unconnected
with some gambling debts with some shady types that
were
his fault, and the same morning, instead of being a man about it, he upped and left. Left a note that broke his mother’s heart, saying he’d done something he was too
ashamed to admit to her face, and until he’d put it right, he couldn’t face her.”

I was holding the evening bag so tightly the sequins were imprinting into my skin. “Was that when he went to Argentina? Did you find him?”

“After several years of searching for the little sod, yes. I had detectives on the case, combing everywhere I could think of. He’d gone to Buenos Aires, but before I could get there, he’d vanished again.” Lord P looked almost impressed. “First time I’d seen the lad show any initiative in his life. I kept trying to track him down, even went out there myself a few times, but it’s not so hard to go missing in a country like that, if you’ve got the money.”

He looked up and met my gaze. “And I must confess, Betsy, after a while, I decided that I didn’t want to keep looking. Frances kept writing to him, to the last address she had, but he never replied. I didn’t reckon much to that. I thought that if he wanted to be in touch with us, when he sorted out whatever it was that was so important, he would be in touch. I tried to find him when she fell ill, but…” He raised his hands. “Clearly, he didn’t want to be found. The last thing she said to me was that she’d have forgiven him anything, anything at all, if he’d only come back. But I don’t think I can forgive him for letting Frances spend her last moments blaming herself.”

Hot tears were prickling at my lashes, burning my throat like mustard.

“But she had you,” he said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “She had you, and you brought her so much happiness.”

He smiled at me with those familiar, baggy blue eyes, and I felt a jolt of understanding. It was all falling into place in my head. Hector must have got some Academy girl pregnant and gambled money to run away with her—and then gotten into trouble with moneylenders and fled the country. She’d
been kicked out by her horrified parents, dumped me with the Phillimores, and he’d vowed never to come back until he’d managed to put things right. Maybe she’d fled to Argentina too? Maybe they were out there together and that’s why she hadn’t been at the memorial either?

No wonder Franny and Lord P looked after me like their own—I
obviously
was. Lord P clearly wanted me to save the Academy so she and Hector would have some reason to come back. Maybe I could bring things full circle, not just for myself, but for Hector and Franny and my mother.

I gulped down the lump in my throat. I’d been the cause of all this! I’d been the reason Hector had run off and Franny had died heartbroken. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry,” insisted Lord P, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. “Don’t be sorry! You were the one good thing that came out of that hideous business!” He flapped open his hankie and offered it to me. “I’m just sorry I have to be telling you such a ghastly tale.” He looked rueful. “God knows I’d love to able to say, yes, my son Hector’s a successful management consultant, with a degree from a good university. But I can say it about my girl, can’t I? And it makes me very proud.”

My girl.

I smiled through my tears and felt happy and guilty at the same time.

It was only when I was at home later, unpacking the evening bag again, that I found something at the back, hidden in the zipped compartment next to an old Estée Lauder lipstick, in Franny’s signature scarlet red.

It was a folded piece of writing paper, with a short note scrawled in the middle in round cursive hand:
Please look after my baby. I want her to grow up to be a proper lady. Thank you.

I stared at it, amazed. The note my mother had left with me. I’d never seen it before, just like I’d never seen the marmalade box.

There was something quite perfunctory about it, no kisses or explanations or even a name. Maybe that was why Franny hadn’t wanted me to see it. But she’d said “my baby.” I was someone’s baby, and she’d wanted more for me than she felt she could give me.

And the writing was so young, just like the bobbly fat style Divinity and Clemmy had. Whoever wrote this hadn’t been much older. My heart cracked for the teenager who had scrawled this, because it looked exactly like the jolly messages in the back of my notebooks—
See you in Val d’Isere! Caroline 4 Hugo 4 eva 2 gether!!!!

Franny had kept it, hidden with her own treasures, and then made sure I had it, along with her pearls and her earrings and her Art Deco evening watch.

She must have wanted me to find my mother now, I thought, staring at the girlish writing. Because if I find my mother, then I’ll find my father too. I’ll find Hector for her.

I got my phone out of my bag and dialed Nell Howard’s number with shaking fingers, unable to tear my eyes from the words. Nell would recognize the handwriting, wouldn’t she? I knew it was a pretty standard Sloaney style, but even so…

“Darling, it’s Nell.”

I started to speak, words tumbling over each other. “Nell! It’s Betsy! I wonder if—”

“I can’t take your call right now, too boring of me, I know, sorry, but leave a number and I’ll call you as soon as poss. Thanks!”

I stared at the wall as the answering machine beeped in my ear, and then hung up.

Then I made a new list in my notebook.

Open Day: Things to do.

1. Invite every Old Girl from 1980.

I had to hand it to Jamie—he
certainly took his new responsibilities as an educator of young ladies very seriously.

For his lesson in looking fabulous in photographs, he would, he said, require the assistance not only of me but of Liv.

“I need you in a professional capacity, Olivia,” he informed us, coming by the night before en route to an engagement party themed around
The Godfather.

“You think they’ll need a stiff drink before you start teaching?” I asked from my comfortable position wedged into the sofa with Barry the cat and a bowl of chicken soup.

“No, she’ll have to wield that camera she’s always going on about.” He looked over to Liv. “You are still considering yourself a part-time art photographer, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “And move, you’re blocking the Nazis.”

Instead of going out, Liv and I had been engrossed in a Sunday night showing of
The Sound of Music
—she was taking the male singing roles, and I was doing the nun stuff—and neither of us was really prepared for Jamie in full black tie. He looked amazing in black tie, as if he’d just stepped out of a Monaco casino, with his hair slicked back and his strong jawline freshly shaved.

I felt very conscious of our money-saving hair treatments and hoped Jamie couldn’t tell we had home pedicure socks on under Liv’s Ugg boots.

“Great! Well, bring your camera and your laptop and I’ll see you there at eleven,” he said. “I’ll need you too, Betsy,” he added.

I slid down in my seat and wished Jamie had come round
after
the party, not before it. We had
Pretty Woman
lined up next, by which time our nails would be gorgeous. “Fine,” I said, moving a cushion over the soup stain on my sweatpants. “I’ll be there from nine. Don’t use me as an example, please.”

“Certainly not. Anyway, got to dash. People to see, parties to start. I’m pleased to see that giving up men hasn’t led you to letting yourself go,” he observed as a parting shot.

Liv threw her cushion at him and passed me the tissues so we could have a good cry at the nuns foiling the Nazis as Julie Andrews and company ran up the mountain.

When Jamie swung into the Lady Hamilton Room at dead on eleven the next morning, I saw a dramatic change come across the girls’ faces, and their eyes followed him as he strode confidently toward the desk and slung his laptop on the table.

It was a bit like the moment when the keeper walks past the leopard enclosure with a side of raw beef.

Liv and I trailed in after him, but the girls didn’t seem to notice we were even there.

“Good morning, ladies!” said Jamie, and I could tell his accent had shifted down a gear, so he sounded more like a New British Art dealer than a public-school boy. Jamie’s accent was, like him, constantly changing to fit his surroundings. He was a natural at fitting in and sensing what would go over best.

“Good morrrrrning,” purred Anastasia, and the others murmured behind her.

“Today we’re going to do something very practical. I hope none of you are camera shy?” he went on. “Betsy, could you adjust the curtains, please?”

“Sorry?”

“The curtains.” He nodded toward the dusty green velvet curtains. “I need to cut the lights.”

I wasn’t sure that the curtains wouldn’t collapse in a shower of mold and moths, but I walked over to the windows anyway.

“Oh, my God!” squeaked Divinity. “Is this like…Introduction to Glamour Modeling?” She looked more thrilled than horrified. “I don’t mind doing a bikini calendar, but anything else has to be totally tasteful!”

“No!” I said, coughing as ten-year-old dust puffed straight down my throat. “No, it is not.” I gave Jamie a nervous look. He hadn’t quite explained what it was he was going to teach, just that it was “useful party skills.”

“How’s my technical expert getting on?” He glanced over to Liv, who was trying to plug her digital camera into his laptop. I went over to help her. Jamie had requested an improbable amount of technology for his lesson, including a projector that he’d “borrowed” from work and, fortunately for Liv, insisted on setting up himself.

“Fine,” said Liv. “Just don’t go too quickly.”

“I never go too quickly,” said Jamie with a cheeky grin, and my heart sank. I really didn’t want him to tease the girls. They were already cackling like a bunch of oversexed geese.

“Are we ready?” he asked, and the girls squealed, “Yeeeesss!” as if they were in some cheesy Ibiza club.

“Oh, God,” Liv moaned under her breath. “Brace yourself. He’s got his Charm Trousers on.”

“OK. Recognize
this?
” Jamie demanded, and clicked the mouse on his laptop.

A huge blow-up of Catherine Zeta-Jones stuffing wedding cake in her mouth appeared on the white wall.

The girls gasped in shock.

So did I. “Where did you get that?” I demanded. “Wasn’t that under injunction?”

“Private collection,” said Jamie smoothly. “Or how about this?”

He clicked again, and this time Britney Spears and her knickerless undercarriage emerging from the back of a car filled the wall. The girls shrieked.

“Oh, my God,” I said. I’d never seen that without the tasteful black squares.

“Blimey,” said Liv. “Shouldn’t that be in the personal grooming class?”

“Or this?” A quick sequence of Paris Hilton, Tony Blair, and Beyoncé Knowles at a variety of parties flashed up. All three were frozen in that peculiar “my leg’s gone to sleep and I’m playing an invisible trumpet” pose that happens when you’re letting your hair down on the dance floor, unaware that someone is standing by with a camera.

I felt my stomach shrink in recognition. I was a terrible “pointer” after a few beers. Most New Year’s Eve party albums featured me apparently directing Italian traffic. I sincerely
hoped Jamie wasn’t going to start fishing through his own personal photographs for examples.

“Always remember—the camera is like that best friend you don’t quite trust,” Jamie said in a deep movie-trailer tone. “Handle her right, and she will reward you with flattering images you can use for up to ten years before anyone questions their accuracy. Treat her recklessly, and you will forever be known as ‘the girl with all the chins.’ Everyone, whether they’re appearing in
Hello!
magazine with their new nose, or just appearing in their own passport, needs to know…how to look good in photographs.”

Even in the dim light I could see Divinity’s face register shock, and then intense desire to learn.

“Do you think this is Jamie’s ultimate fantasy?” Liv murmured. “Telling socialites what to think, in a darkened room, while they stare at him like he’s the second coming?”

“Of course, you can go too far the other way,” Jamie went on, and clicked again on his laptop. “You work out what suits you and then you do it again, and again and again, until it looks like you’ve got some kind of mild paralysis…” As he spoke, a series of Identi-Kit images of Liz Hurley at Premieres Through the Ages whizzed past, in which she was doing the same left leg forward, chest out, hand on hip, dress slashed to the thigh pose. Even at someone else’s
wedding,
for God’s sake.

“That’s a classic pose,” said Venetia. “It makes your leg look longer and thinner.”

“It makes her look like she’s dying for the loo, more like,” said Clemmy.

“What we need to achieve is something in between,” said Jamie. “Something apparently natural but totally rehearsed from every angle, and something you can do the second you see a camera. You want to walk into a party, throw your pose
at the snappers at exactly the same time as you say, ‘OK, that’s your lot,’ and move on, before they work out who you are. Gets you snapped every time.”

“Oh, my God, this is so useful!” said Divinity.

“The best way to look good in photos is to be in photos, and that’s what we’re going to work on today, with the help of Olivia O’Hare, top fashion photographer.”

The girls swiveled to stare at me and Liv. I could see their teeth and diamonds shining in the semidarkness and, in Divinity’s case, a flash of white gum.

“Hey! Gum out,” said Jamie. “Bit of flash on that and you’ll look like you’re wearing a mouth guard.”

She had it out and stuck under the desk in a flash, which was quite impressive since she’d resisted all my attempts to remove it on human rights grounds.

“Can we have some light, please?” Jamie asked, waving at me and beckoning at Liv.

I made a sarcastic aye-aye salute and opened a curtain. Liv moved nervously to the front of the class with her camera, but at least she looked like a fashion photographer, in head-to-toe black and silver.

“Before we start, some do’s and don’ts for party pics,” he said. “Do delete any photo of yourself with a double chin, red eyes, or sweat stains—takes a second, and it builds a reputation for photogenic-ness. Do assume that where there are people, there are cameras.”

“And don’t we know
that,
Anastasia,” muttered Clemmy.

“You say press intrusion, I say five grand from the
News of the Vorld
,” said Anastasia. “Those loos vere in a public area.”

“Do powder your nose and your forehead unless you want to look like a
Star Trek
monster, and by that I don’t mean any other kind of powder,” he went on, with an arch look. “If you
needed any other reason to say no, you might want to consider
this
.”

He added a brief and possibly libelous flurry of celebrity shots on the projector, featuring gurning, bad dancing, coked-up pointing, and several nosebleeds. “As someone very famous assured me just last night, you can’t take it back to the stylist once you’ve bled on it. Never let anyone photograph you from below, never do a full-on face shot if you can help it, and, as you can see here, when people tell you to dance as if no one is looking, ignore them. There is
always
someone looking. Now, shall we make a start?”

Jamie’s advice turned out to be surprisingly practical. “Put tin foil on your knee for passport photos so you’ve got your own reflector” was just one tip I found myself sneaking into my notebook. He also made the girls take it in turns to be photographed by Liv, in “a variety of event situations,” which they rehearsed with glee and then critiqued freely on the projector.

Venetia excelled at the red-carpet poses, being very good at sticking out her long legs and feigning open-mouthed excitement.

Clemmy was less good at the wedding style shots, but that might have been because the mere thought of a cathedral made her scowl. (“Remember to aim for
serene
at weddings,” said Jamie. “You don’t want to upstage the bride, but don’t let yourself be caught looking miserable, or else everyone’ll think you’ve got a Bridget Jones complex.”)

Divinity was a natural in front of Liv’s camera, which she modestly put down to her already celebrity lifestyle, and she even ran through her range of expressions. “When we had our new pool put in, we sold the photos to
OK!
” she confided to us. “I did ‘thrilled with my new life in Madrid,’ and ‘proud of my superstar dad,’ and ‘having fun with my sister, Brooke.’”
She demonstrated, and even Jamie had to agree you could definitely see the different emotions there.

Anastasia was “fierce.” Not so much in the Tyra Banks sense of the word, but just…scary. Liv photographed her around the ballroom, trying to make her seem soft and romantic, but she just looked as if she were about to tie someone to a chair and cut off their ear in every single shot.

I had worried that Jamie’s advice would be a bit, well, leery, but he was kind, and honest. All those years of picking through party photos had obviously armed him with more knowledge than I had given him credit for, and he was gentle about the girls’ pictures, concentrating on their good points, and ignoring the fact that Clemmy’s nose stud looked like a giant spot, and Divinity had a thing about the left side of her face that made her contort herself into grotesque shapes to avoid it being photographed.

“How do you know all this stuff?” Anastasia demanded while Venetia was posing for “a very upmarket newspaper interview about my life” (hand on chin, eyes focused on middle distance, knees together). I could tell Liv was only pretending to take photos now. “You are very expert.”

“Oh, just experience,” said Jamie. “I organize a lot of private parties, and I like to make sure that if someone’s paying me to throw the night of their lives, they’ve got fabulous photos to show for it. All part of the service.” He grinned, and I saw Divinity melt in her seat. “And if that means maneuvering the hostess into more flattering lighting, then yes, I have been known to pick her up and carry her three feet to the left.”

“Do you do celeb parties?” asked Divinity. “I would
love
to see your address book.”

“Well, play your cards right, and I could get you on a guest list or two…” He looked at me. “How about a field trip? I could throw in some wine-tasting, Olivia here could advise
you on making sure your underwear’s invisible, you could offer your inimitable take on brushing off unsuitable men—”

“Vhen can ve go?” demanded Anastasia. “Dates!”

“Yes! Can we bring dates?” asked Divinity.

“I’m not sure Miss Thorne would allow that,” I said faintly.

Jamie carried on, looking very serious, although his twinkling eyes undermined whatever credible expert look he was going for. “You can’t beat practical experience in being unimpressed by parties. I could arrange something, no problem. I mean, I know it’s tempting, but you’ve got to avoid being photographed with a star, even for your Facebook page,” he said to Divinity. “They’re always going to be thinner than you, and they’re always going to have more makeup. Even the men. The trick is to be having such a great time in your own corner that they want to get over there with you. Then be photographed with them from afar.”

“Can ve?” Anastasia’s eyes were pleading, like a very wealthy puppy. “Please?”

A field trip to the next vodka launch—under the care of me and Jamie. I could see it all going horribly, horribly wrong, and my attempt to save the place ending up in the tackier reaches of the gutter press.