The Importance of Being Emma (16 page)

‘
So why’s it here?’

I heard myself blustering, ‘For God’s sake, I’m mentoring her. That photo tells me a lot about her public image, something she clearly needs to work on.’

‘And your mentoring file is – where?’

I paused. ‘In the office.’

‘
Ah. But you keep this charming photo at home. Presumably it’s normally at your bedside, nicely to hand, but not required while I’m here.’

‘
If you’re insinuating what I think you are, then you’re – ’

‘
And the way you were eyeing her up on Saturday night, was that in the name of mentoring too?’

‘
I wasn’t eyeing her up.’ Was I?

‘
Every time I looked at you, you were staring at her.’

I shrugged. ‘If I was looking at her more than usual, it was because I thought Elton was eyeing her up.’

‘
Funny, you didn’t look at
him
very much, which makes it a bit difficult to know what he’s doing, doesn’t it? You see, Mark, I’m putting two and two together. Ever since I arrived, you’ve been – different. As if your mind’s on something, or someone, else. And now I know who.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go into the drawing room and discuss this in comfort.’

In one fluid movement, she pressed herself against me, her voice a husky whisper. ‘Mmmm, that depends, darling. If it’s in front of the fire, with no clothes on – you know I’m up for that sort of discussion. Talking’s such a waste of your gorgeous mouth, I always say.’

I shook her off, took a step back. ‘No, for once let’s talk properly. About us. About whether there’s any future in our relationship.’

Shit, wasn’t that the phrase Emma had used in that heartless little note to Rob?

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ After a brief pause she said, ‘Well, I’m not spending the whole night discussing all that crap and going round in effing circles. I can find out what I need to know right now. I’m going to ask you a question and I expect an honest answer, OK?’

‘
OK,’ I said, warily.

She hesitated. Then, ‘Can you picture me living here, at Donwell Abbey, with you, in the years ahead?’

Relief flooded through me. The question I’d feared hadn’t been about her at all … But I needed to consider my answer carefully; I owed her that, at least. So I thought about the past few days and how it had felt to be here with her on my own. Whenever she’d stayed previously, Father and Saffron had been around, filling the silences, fuelling our sense of togetherness.

But this time there’d been no distractions, no disguise. Away from the heady expat social life of India, I realised we had very little in common. Five years of wild partying, exotic holidays, good sex – and not much else.

And yet I couldn’t bring myself to say the word ‘no’; such a stark epitaph. Instead, I gave a barely perceptible shake of my head.

She smiled, but her eyes were empty. ‘I thought as much.’ She squared her shoulders. ‘I’m going upstairs to start packing. Once that stupid PC’s up and running, I’ll look up the next available flight. Don’t try and change my mind, you’ll be wasting your time. We’ve already wasted five years, haven’t we?’

‘
Don’t say that, it hasn’t been – ’

‘
And here’s your precious photo.’

Before I could stop her, she tore the photo of Emma into little pieces and threw them at me. We both watched in silence as they fluttered to the floor; then she stalked out of the room.

I crouched down and picked up the pieces, one by one, cradling them in my hand. The last piece was her face, a face that I could picture only too well living here, with me, in the years ahead.

I crushed the pieces in my fist and walked slowly into the drawing room. The fire was well ablaze and I stood in front of it, comforted by its warmth and light; yet, at the same time, disturbed by recent memories …

Who had I really been making love to, here on the rug – and upstairs, in my bed?

It was all so obvious. I’d spent the last few days in some sort of denial; even the normally thick-skinned Tamara had detected that. Denial of our crumbling relationship. Denial of my growing fascination with someone else; someone who thought of me as at best a friend, at worst a boring old fart.

I unclenched my fingers and let the pieces fall into the hungry flames.

~~EMMA~~

These days Dad was far less receptive to discussing work matters at home, which I took as yet another sign that he was ready for retirement. So I saved the subject of Saint Jane for our weekly one-to-one on the morning after the Board meeting.

I came straight to the point. ‘Giving Jane a work placement in Marketing will cause me big problems. First, I’ll have to spend time I can’t afford, bringing her up to speed with my ideas for the research project. Second, she won’t have anything like the thorough grounding in marketing theory I got at Harvard, so she’ll only be able to do basic stuff. And last but not least, Harriet can barely cope with the work you and I give her, let alone any extra. I’m having second thoughts about taking her on permanently.’

Dad nodded gloomily. ‘Yes, she’s a lovely girl, but – oh, if only Kate would come back!’

I ignored this and went on, ‘And I don’t see why we need to help Jane anyway. She got herself into this mess, she can get herself out of it.’

‘
Now, darling, Mary’s asked me a favour and I can’t refuse, she’s one of my oldest friends
and
my bridge partner.’ He winced and clutched at his stomach. ‘Must make some more peppermint tea, such a nuisance having to do it myself, but I’m still suffering repercussions from Saturday night.’

‘
Aren’t we all?’ I said, under my breath. I certainly was with Philip; and I suspected Mark was with Tamara – you could have cut the atmosphere between them last night with a knife. I went on, in a louder tone, ‘If you hadn’t sent Harriet home yesterday and told her to stay there until she was better, she’d be here to make your tea. In the meantime, the work’s piling up, and that’s even before you’ve hired Jane Fairfax.’ I paused to let this sink in. ‘If Harriet’s not back tomorrow, we’ll have to find another temp for a few days to get up to date – a cost we can easily avoid.’

He sighed. ‘I suppose she could come back, but we’d all need to wear breathing masks, like the ones John used when he sanded those doors down in their last house – ’

‘
Dad, please! If she comes back this week, I’ll keep her with me, I won’t let her anywhere near you.’ I bit my lip; that meant I’d have plenty of opportunity to tell her about Philip.

As if he could read my mind, Dad said, ‘And now Philip’s going away just when he’s meant to be working on next year’s budgets.’

This was news to me, especially as I’d found a snotty email from him in my inbox this morning, hassling me for some figures by tomorrow.

‘
Where’s he going?’ I asked, hoping for Outer Mongolia on a one-way ticket.

‘
To Bristol, on a training course. He claims he told me about it ages ago, activity-based costing or some such nonsense. He’s back in the office on Friday, but he’ll probably be so caught up in newfangled ideas that he won’t be able to concentrate on his priorities.’

Unlike Dad, I was relieved; the less Philip and I – and Philip and Harriet – had to do with each other at the moment, the better.

Then a wonderful thought occurred to me. ‘You know, if Jane
has
to come here, she could work in Finance rather than Marketing. Philip’s been saying he needs an assistant and it could make all the difference to him getting the budgets out promptly.’

His eyes lit up. ‘Good idea, darling, I’ll give Mary a call and see what she thinks.’ He dialled Batty’s extension. ‘Quick question, Mary – oh? All right then.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘She says I must be psychic, she was about to pop along and see me about something extremely urgent.’

He’d hardly finished speaking when Batty burst in, panting.

‘
Ah, you’re here as well, Emma. Good, that saves me a journey.’

Instead of hovering at the door as she usually did, she settled herself on a chair; I knew then that the ‘something extremely urgent’ was nothing more than a juicy piece of gossip.

She lowered her voice, although there was no one else around. ‘Have either of you heard from Mark recently?’

‘
Why do you ask?’ I said, wondering what she could possibly know about him that I didn’t.

‘
Well, Mother had to go to the doctor’s this morning, and I couldn’t take her because I had Pam Goddard coming in for a little review meeting about … So I got Jack Thomas along, you know, from Aardvark Taxis, he’s related to Doreen Davies in our Purchasing department, such a nice … Anyway, he said he had a call last night from Donwell Abbey and – guess what?’

‘
They wanted a taxi?’ Dad said, tentatively.

She tittered. ‘Oh, yes, that goes without saying.
But
… the taxi was just for Tamara
and
she had all her luggage with her
and
he had to take her to Gatwick. She must have gone back to India, that’s almost a week early.’

‘
A business crisis perhaps,’ Dad said. ‘I can’t remember what she said she did, but it sounded very important.’

Her eyes gleamed. ‘That’s what I thought, but Jack said she swore at Mark when he tried to help with the bags. Must be a lovers’ tiff, mustn’t it?’

I recalled Tamara’s reaction when she’d found me at Donwell. At the time, I’d dismissed it as natural malevolence combined with a hard day’s shopping. Now I wondered if her crazy suspicions had come between her and Mark.

I merely said, ‘I’m aware that they had a little problem, but of course I would never dream of discussing it with Mark.’

Her face fell. ‘Wouldn’t you? Oh, well … Now, Henry, what did you want to ask me?’

‘Jane’s work placement.’ He paused. ‘Would a role in Finance meet her requirements?’

She gasped. ‘Goodness, I’m afraid that wouldn’t do at all. Much as I like Philip, I couldn’t bear to think of dear Jane closeted with him day in, day out. You never know

what might happen, he’s got such a shifty … No, it has to be Marketing if you don’t mind, Henry. That’s what Jane’s specialising in after all, did I tell you she got top

I made it all the way back to my office before I gave vent to my frustration. ‘That old bat knows exactly which buttons to push with Dad! And as for dear bloody Jane

– ’ I grabbed my car keys. It would do me good to get out of this place for half an hour – and with any luck I could kill two birds with one stone.

Five minutes later I was at Donwell Organics, making sure the Mercedes was in its usual parking space; so far, so good. I breezed into Reception and announced that I had an appointment with Mark. The girl rang Cherry and I could tell from her nervous glances in my direction that there was a problem.

‘Shall I speak to Cherry?’ I said coolly. The girl handed me the receiver with obvious relief.

‘Hi, it’s Emma, didn’t Mark mention our mentoring meeting? … Yes, we only arranged it last night, he must have forgotten to let you know … No, don’t do that, I’ll

surprise him.’

I entered his office without a sound. He was standing looking out of the window, hands clasped behind his back, fiddling with his watch.

‘
Hello there,’ I said.

He whirled round, his eyes wide and his face pale despite his tan, as if he’d seen a ghost.

‘
Sorry if I gave you a fright,’ I went on, ‘I just had to come and find out if it’s true.’

His voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘If what’s true?’

‘
That you and Tamara have split up.’

He flinched, then turned away. ‘God, I’d forgotten what this place is like, how there’s no sodding privacy. Don’t tell me, this morning you somehow bumped into the taxi driver … Probably at Highbury Foods, when he was dropping off his wife’s cousin’s mother-in-law who just happens to be one of your employees … He couldn’t help mentioning that he took Tamara to the airport late last night and of course you both jumped to the conclusion that we’d split up.’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘One other thing, have you broadcast it to the whole village yet, or are you seeing if there’s a perfectly innocent explanation first?’

Poor Mark, he was obviously devastated by the breakup. I crossed the room, put my arms round his waist and hugged him.

‘
Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘After all, that’s what friends are for.’

For a split second he let me hold him, just as I’d let him hold me last night. Then he said brusquely, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’, and shook me off, gently but firmly. He sat down at his desk and started leafing through a neat pile of post, evidently unimportant until now.

I followed him and perched on the edge of the desk. ‘So have you split up?’