Trophy Life (22 page)

During the days she went back to her past routine of preening, shopping, meeting Julia and the kids and Claire and Jill. She was starting to think about her hopefully impending motherhood and the way she would approach it. For some reason, this manifested itself in frenzied domesticity, doing more cooking and cleaning. She had also been healthier, making better food choices and exercising more.

She and Lucy hadn’t seen each other at all since the night of the event, but Lucy had been helping her via email, giving her PR ideas for raising awareness and publicising events. 

The one thing she didn’t think about - that she didn’t dare turn her mind to - was Freddie. Luckily, Andrea had assured her time and again that everything had been taken care of. All of the staff had been paid, the charity funds were being processed, all loose ends tied up. She hadn’t needed to speak to Freddie or so much as send him a bank transfer. She knew that this was best. A clean break.

It was the day before the monthly London Ladies meeting that Amy, having gone for an early morning jog in Hampstead Heath, turned on her phone to find several missed call alerts, amongst them Julia and Lucy. She decided to call Lucy first.

'What’s up?' she asked, slightly out of breath.

'Have you seen the
Mail
today?'

'No, why?' Alerted by a definitely nervous edge to her friend’s voice, Amy stopped walking.

'There’s an article about your event, Aims.' She paused. 'It’s not great.'

Amy told Lucy she would call her back and opened the
Daily Mail
app on her phone. She didn’t even need to scroll down. It was the lead story.

'Spoilt WAGs Charity Bash Scam'

The words swam before Amy’s eyes.

'Exclusive social club, the London Ladies' Society, whose membership is made up of the country’s most influential families and a slew of celebrities, held a charity event on the 10th of January in aid of children’s charity The Children’s Fund. Yet, despite a place at a table costing in excess of £500, the event raised just £200 in total for this worthwhile cause. Instead, the funds were splashed out on lavish decorations, flowers, a live band and a chocolate fountain. The wine alone cost a staggering-'

How much? Amy battled the urge to sit down right there on the pavement outside Carluccio’s. She wondered how it could possibly be that this was the first time she was hearing about this. Surely they would have asked for a comment from the Society. Yet, at the bottom of the article she saw the words she had dreaded:

'The
Daily Mail
contacted the London Ladies, but they refused to comment.'

There was even a quote from Jinny from The Children’s Fund who had spoken on the evening saying how disappointed she was. This was accompanied by heart-breaking photos of needy children in contrast with photographs of the night itself. Yet the worst part was, she wasn’t just named in person. There was a photograph of her right there in the story, wearing a beautiful gown and laughing uproariously. She looked like the very epitome of a spoilt WAG.

'Event organiser Amy Green was also unavailable for comment, but sources tell us that the socialite, who is married to infamous lawyer Harry Green AKA Sir-Split-A-Lot, spent weeks planning the opulent event.'

It was a disaster. Had they really raised so little? Amy looked at the line about the cost of the wine. It must have been the wine. She should have looked into how that had happened straight away, but everyone had been saying what a success the night had been. And Andrea had assured her that they had raised a good amount so she had assumed she had managed to save it with her auction. Clearly not.

Andrea had even said that the charity’s moneys had been sent over, but had never specified an amount. She had just said it was 'as expected'. Why had Amy just accepted this? Why hadn’t she phoned the charity? Emailed Jinny? Insisted on Andrea telling her more?

She knew why. Fear. Fear of failure. Terror that somehow the wine fiasco was her fault. Anxiety that history might have repeated itself and she would have let down the charity. She was more than happy to stick her head in the sand and accept the idea that everything had turned up roses. Content to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Her phone began to ring. She didn’t recognise the number and let it go to voicemail. Probably a journalist, she thought glumly.

She had a familiar sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was transported back four years. Four long years ago to when she had been felled by another mistake. The shame. The fear. The crippling sadness.

She had hidden then. All those years ago. Run away. She simply couldn’t do that again.

***

Walking into the meeting room at the Society’s headquarters the next day bore several similarities to the experience Moses might have had when parting the Red Sea. As Amy made her way into the room, there were definitely several shades of crimson in the faces she saw and people seemed particularly keen to keep their distance from her, as though her failure was contagious. One girl audibly gasped when Amy brushed past her and Amy could hear whispers around the room. The result in front of Amy was a clear path wide enough to let through as many Israelites as one might reasonably wish.

'Amy, what a lovely surprise to have you here. We weren’t sure you would make it,' cooed Olivia flanked by Darcy and Binky. Her voice oozed sweetness. 'What with your latest notoriety.' She giggled.

'Seriously Olivia, crawl back under whatever boulder you came from,' Giselle’s stilted accent intoned from behind Amy. As Amy turned, her sister-in-law took her by the arm and whispered, 'Where have you been? I’ve been calling.'

Before Amy could say anything, a tinkling at the front of the room drew all of their attention. It was Esther, calling the room to order with Andrea standing beside her dressed head to toe in black, looking solemn.

'Welcome ladies,' she paused dramatically, looking straight ahead. 'As you all know, our beloved club has been slandered in the press. Never before have we faced such negative and public rebuke. We have always been a philanthropic force of good. I take this responsibility entirely upon myself. I let our event be run in this way. It was under my watch. And I will not let that happen again.' Her eyes flashed with the dogmatic fervour of a revolutionary leading the march. Esther was wiping away a tear beside her.

Amy looked up, a mixture of grateful surprise and deep shame engulfing her. Of course, everyone would still blame her, but for Andrea to take the fall like this was so touching.

The meeting was painfully short and conducted in low, funereal tones. All that had been decided was a date for the next meeting, after which the crowd had all but dispersed. Giselle asked Amy if she wanted to go for a coffee, but Amy declined. She needed to talk to Andrea.

She found her in her study, reading that month’s
Tatler
. Knocking gingerly before creaking the door open, she saw that her mother-in-law appeared as cool and calm as ever, not an inkling that her beloved London Ladies was in trouble. Amy marvelled at her poise.

Andrea continued to read as Amy entered, creeping in as if afraid to disturb the stillness of the room.

'Thank you for saying those things Andrea,' she began, still humbled by her mother-in-law’s gesture. 'And I can assure you I will get to the bottom of how this happened.'

'Why, of course Amy.' Andrea’s tone was soothing, reassuring. 'The best thing for everyone is that we forget all about this little incident. It’ll pass.'

'Thank you.'

'And then you can quietly hand in your resignation and we can pretend it never happened.'

At first, Amy thought she had misheard. 'You want me to resign?'

At this, Andrea finally looked up, a smile of uncertain intention on her face.

'Well, of course. You can’t expect to stay a member after such an… incident.' She continued to smile and tilted her head, sympathy etched onto her face. 'Don’t worry. Not everybody is supposed to be a London Lady. It’s all for the best.' She continued to look at Amy for only a second longer before turning back to her magazine. Clearly she considered the conversation over.

Amy couldn’t believe her ears. She was essentially being kicked out by her own mother-in-law. 'But I thought every Green woman was a London Lady.'

'I suppose there are exceptions to every rule. I wouldn’t worry about it. Do you know if you and Harry are coming on Friday? Only I have to give the cook numbers.' And with that note of finality, Amy was shunted out of the room, only managing to mumble something about checking with Harry as to their weekend plans.  

Walking out of the building she felt numb. Ashamed. She had failed in the one thing she had tried to do. To raise money for those children.  To be a good wife. How could she face Harry?

Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about that because no facing took place that day. Or at least she didn’t see
him
. She awoke the next morning to a note on the bed reading, '
Sorry, lots of work. See you later x'
. She sighed and lay back on her pillow. What would she do today?

She pottered around the house for an hour or so, picking up various things and looking at them desolately. It was when she saw a wedding photo of her and her sister, their arms around each other, that she knew one place she could go. She arrived at Julia’s house just after eight, a time when she knew all the children would be in bed.

Julia shook her head as she read the article again. 'So badly written,' she mused. 'Honestly, can nobody spell these days? And what about that grammar?' Her sister always had the knack for grabbing the completely irrelevant end of the stick.

'And the part where your sister is utterly humiliated?' Amy said pointedly, head in her hands.

'Yes, well there is that,' Julia admitted. 'But you say that you watched every penny of the budget. How did you get it so wrong?'

That was the question that had been haunting Amy, taunting her, ever since the article had been published.

'I don’t know, I haven’t had access to the numbers since this all happened.' She was furious with herself for not checking everything after the event. How had she been so careless? 'It must have been the wine though. That’s the only part of the night that I know of that was different to what I had planned.'

'And you think this Olivia person had something to do with it?' Julia asked. Amy had told her about Olivia and her reaction to the wine switch that night. Her nonchalance when Amy had presented her with the disaster.

'Yes, but it’s not like I can prove anything,' Amy said dejectedly. 'It’s just that she’s the person who was in charge of ordering the wine. I gave her the completed form. But then again I don’t exactly have a great record when it comes to completing forms, do I? The last time I filled in a form incorrectly it cost 150 mil. I suppose I should be grateful that this time it’s less.'

Both women sat contemplatively, thinking about that last point. Julia didn’t know everything about Amy’s legal debacle, but she knew enough.

'Do you think you filled in the forms correctly?'

'Jules!' Amy’s voice was sharper than she had intended. It wasn’t like she herself hadn’t considered this question a million times.

'Sorry. It’s just infuriating. I know how much effort you put into this,' Julia mulled. 'And for someone to have leaked the story like that.'

Amy’s surprise at Julia’s last utterance was enough to make her lift her head up to look at her sister.

'What do you mean? You think someone leaked it to the press on purpose?'

If Julia’s facial expression had to be captioned at that moment, it would be with the single utterance of
duh
.

'Aims, they have really detailed figures and facts about the event,' Julia gestured to the paper. 'They must have had someone tell them those things.'

Amy stopped. She couldn’t believe this hadn’t occurred to her. It was so obvious. She had been so busy with self-recriminations and trying to figure out how it had all happened that she hadn’t questioned how the story had broken in the first place.

'But who would do that?' she wondered aloud.  'Somebody who wanted to make the club look bad?'

'Or someone who wanted to make
you
look bad.'

Amy shook her head. 'Come on Jules, that’s a bit heavy,' she snorted. 'I can’t believe anyone would care enough about
me
of all people to start a national anti-Amy press campaign.' She laughed at the thought of this, of some evil mastermind pulling the strings in some overblown plot.

'You said it yourself. Olivia doesn’t seem to like you very much at all. I imagine there are a few people there who don’t.'

'Oh, thanks.'

'Let me finish little sis,' Julia said, hand up to silence Amy. 'Maybe this Olivia has feelings for Harry or just doesn’t like the fact that you’ve come out of nowhere and produced this event. It’s not completely out of the question. I mean, yes, it’s all a bit extreme, but from what I’ve seen, everything in that world is one notch up on the volume scale.' Julia raised an eyebrow and sipped her tea.