A Perfect Heritage (38 page)

Today it was slick and glamorous, the mock-up of the Berkeley Arcade at the entrance intriguing. A vast screen behind the lectern and two smaller ones on either side of the platform showed photographs alternately of the Berkeley Arcade and the products in The Collection. Carly Simon was singing her heart out through the speakers.

‘Doesn’t this all look great?’

It was Lara, looking amazing in a red and white check suit, her heels even higher than usual. She came up to him, gave him a kiss on the cheek, looked round the conference hall approvingly.

‘It really does. Bit of a change from yesterday. Your people have done a great job.’

‘Yes, I’m really pleased. How are you feeling?’

‘Oh, fine. Just feel I might throw up any minute. I’ve never had to do anything like this in my life.’

‘Has your wife gone?’

‘Oh, yes, She left early. Big day for her today.’

Lara nodded and smiled at him rather feebly.

‘Pity she can’t see you strutting your stuff.’

‘Well – yes.’

In fact Priscilla had behaved quite appallingly and the only good news was that she had gone. Bertie had been deeply embarrassed by her; she had stood apart from everyone at the welcome drinks, talking into her phone and wearing an expression of some disdain. She had made no effort to dress up and wore a tweed suit that was very uncompromisingly daywear.

And later she had been very unfriendly to Bianca when she had told her how wonderful Bertie was.

‘Yes, well I’m pleased to hear you’ve found him something that occupies him,’ was all she said. ‘He seemed very under-employed before.’

And she’d been just plain rude to Lara, looking her up and down disdainfully, her eyes lingering on her cleavage, and implying that her job as marketing director of Farrell’s was of no comparison in terms of importance to her role in the charity world. Her main aim throughout the entire evening seemed to be belittling Bertie and his role in the company. Lucy had noticed, kept coming up to him and giving him a quick kiss and endeavouring to introduce her mother to other people, but she might as well have been working on the large pillars that stood round the bar for all the good it had done.

‘Anyway it’s all going to be fine,’ said Lara now, ‘even without the perfume. Oh, look, there’s your mother. Doesn’t she look amazing?’

Bertie looked and saw his mother coming into the hall, dressed all in white. She had always worn white for conferences, it was a strong tradition.

Well, so far so good, Bianca thought, putting on a last slick of lip gloss before leaving her room. The meet and greet drinks had gone fine, she’d made quite a nice little speech, and the buffet supper had been a very happy occasion. Athina had behaved really well, chatting to everyone, and she’d looked amazing, in a black dress and red sequinned jacket, very thirties, her silvery hair clipped back with two diamante barrettes. Florence, standing loyally at her side, had looked utterly lovely too, in the navy crêpe. The only person who had really let the side down – God, she was a cow! – was Priscilla. She had practically reeled at some of the things Priscilla had said, particularly about Bertie. What was the matter with her? Athina was a saint by comparison.

She thought of Bertie, whom she’d seen chatting and laughing with Lara; there was a chemistry between them, no doubt about it. Clearly the relationship was an innocent one so far; but maybe, under Conference Conditions, that well-known accelerator of bad behaviour, and with the departure of Priscilla, it might develop a little. If it did, Bianca thought, she for one would be cheering on the sidelines.

She looked at her watch: time to go down. Mike and Hugh were arriving any minute. God, she was scared. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so bad about a conference before. It was the perfume thing of course. Her phone rang; probably Patrick wishing her luck. It was Saul.

‘Hello,’ he said, ‘I just called to wish you luck.’

Bianca was so astonished she felt quite dizzy. Astonished that he should remember, astonished that he should care.

‘That’s really – really nice,’ she said, rather helplessly.

‘Well, I know how important it is to you. You said at Christmas you were worrying about it. How’s it going?’

‘Oh – incredibly well. Not.’

‘I’m sorry. What’s wrong?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Well, I do, but I haven’t got much time. What’s the worst thing?’

‘The worst thing is that the perfume, about which much hype, and which was only delivered yesterday, was complete rubbish. Tart’s boudoir would be classy by comparison No perfume, no hype. Me with mud on my face.’

‘That does sound bad,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Well, there’s no point me saying it doesn’t matter, is there?’

‘No,’ she said, and she smiled in spite of herself. ‘No point at all.’

‘But you’ll manage.’

‘Will I?’

‘Of course you will. Good luck, Bianca. Don’t look down.’

He was the most extraordinary person, she thought for the hundredth time, putting her phone away. She would have put a million pounds against the likelihood of him calling. So not entirely without feelings, it seemed. Or thoughtfulness at least. And it was more than Patrick had done.

Athina dressed for it, as she always had for conferences, in the white woollen Chanel suit, the gilt and pearl earrings to match and the chains of course, and Cornelius’s twin diamond rings. She would show them what class was, what class would do. She looked round the room now, and didn’t see much of it. That Clements woman, wearing red – so vulgar, with her cleavage on show, her too-high heels.

The sales director wasn’t too bad, at least he was wearing a half-decent suit, and Bertie, she had to admit looked very nice, Priscilla had done wonders getting the weight off him.

Just as well she’d gone home, though. She really was a very dull woman, no social graces, and no dress sense whatever. Bianca Bailey did look good however. She usually did. One had to admit it. A cream silk dress, none of that ghastly cleavage nonsense, blue belt, very good blue shoes . . . And she looked very calm, very much in control. She was too self-confident by far. Well, she was about to be given a lesson in the cosmetic industry – and in running a conference – that she’d never forget . . .

God, Lara thought, she loved doing presentations. She knew she was in a very small minority and supposed it was something to do with being self-confident, a bit of a loudmouth. But she loved standing up there, seizing their attention and then holding it, spinning a web of excitement and promise, feeling the hall increasingly with her, teasing them, drawing it out. Jonathan Tucker had gone first, and he’d been very good; bit flash, hamming it up, thumping the lectern, striding about the platform a bit, but then, a successful low-key sales director was a contradiction in terms. His own story, that he’d left Lauder to join Farrell’s was persuasive enough: who could doubt his faith in the new company?

‘We won’t just do it,’ he finished now, ‘we’ll leave all the others behind. This is a great company with a great past and a fantastic future. And it’s yours. Go for it!’

And now she had to lay out for them exactly what they would have to work with, this new, classy, imaginative package, with all her ideas for selling it in.

She described The Collection, the glamour it would give the whole Farrell brand, the high quality of the products, the classy packaging; and then called on Hattie to introduce them in detail – Hattie, who looked just sensational. No one could stop staring at her. That dress was a bit torch singer, slit up her thigh and with a plunging neckline, but it didn’t matter, it suited her, the first thing Susie could remember ever seeing her in that did. And her make up was brilliant, her eyes suddenly huge and smokey, her lips glossy and sexy. Sexy? Bossy, self-opinionated, nanny-style Hattie. It was amazing. And my God, she could talk products. You could feel the moisturiser going on, believe what the foundations could do for you, long to get to work with the palettes. She was genius. It had been genius to bring her in.

And now Tamsin Brownley, their creative designer. More torch singer clothes, but she was good too, in quite a different way, so wonderfully young, and excited, practically jumping in her Doc Marten boots as she talked about her designs, the colours, the style, the typeface she had created. They all loved her and she got the biggest applause so far; everyone was smiling as she left the platform.

OK, nearly there, Bianca thought. Just Susie and her frankly rather fluffy presentation, but it was brilliantly done, lots of glossy spreads from the magazines, names flashed about, a discussion of the new all-powerful bloggers and then – then it would be her. The damp squib at the end of the firework display. Don’t, Bianca, don’t think like that! She heard Saul Finlayson’s voice suddenly, ‘Don’t look down’ and literally straightened up on her chair, and thought, as the applause for Susie swept the room, come on Bertie, do it, introduce me, let’s get it over. Fuck you, Ralph Goodwin, fuck you, putting me through this! OK, here we go. She could do it. She stood up, walked towards the platform . . .

The moment had arrived, totally electric, as she had known it would be. She had been savouring it all morning. Pure theatre. Showmanship. Well she’d always been good at that. She’d learned it from a most brilliant source – herself.

She smoothed her hair, checked her earrings, and stood up, quite still, waiting.

Something was wrong, Bianca thought. Well odd, anyway. Bertie was silent, his eyes weren’t on her, they were somewhere else entirely, on another woman who was walking up the steps and on to the platform, a woman with her hand held up imperiously, a woman all in white, with silver hair, the eyes of everyone in the hall fixed upon her.

Athina Farrell, moving very determinedly towards the lectern, paused, looking out over the hall, clearly savouring the moment. And then she smiled and said, ‘You must forgive me. I am an extra item. Not quite extracurricular – a compulsory subject indeed, in the world of cosmetics, and one that you could not have heard about today, if it were not for me . . .’

Shit, thought Bianca. Fuck! thought Lara, old witch is going to steal the show. Oh, no, no, thought Susie, she’s taking over, making it her moment. Oh God, thought Bertie, what do I do, what
can
I do? How
amazing
, thought all the new people, the young slick salespeople, the sassy roving consultants, another of Bertie’s brainwaves, that this beautiful, brilliant woman with sixty years of experience in the cosmetic industry behind her, with so many stories to tell – and they had heard some last night of course – who had met the Queen of England, who had run the House of Farrell for decades – what might she have to tell them now?

‘What I am going to tell you is a true story, although it sounds at times too romantic to be true. It is the story of a fragrance, which we all hope,’ she smiled graciously down at Bianca, ‘will be not just part of the new range, The Collection, as I personally christened it, but the very heart of it.’

She held up a small, plain bottle.

‘I have in here a perfume. It was created many years ago by my husband and me, when we were still in charge of the House of Farrell. It was to be the ultimate element in the Farrell range. It was masterminded by my husband, Sir Cornelius Farrell, who was a genius in the mould of Charles Revson, and Estée Lauder, who understood cosmetics in a way few people can, who had this rare instinct in his very bones for doing what was absolutely right for the House of Farrell.

‘“We must create a perfume,” he said to me one day, “and by we I mean you. Go and find a perfumier and explain to him what we want.”’

‘And I did indeed find a perfumier, another genius, a Frenchman, of course. Daniel Chagard was his name, and the three of us spent many hours and days and weeks together, bringing our vision to life.

‘We knew what we wanted: a fragrance that would inspire and even create
Passion
. Indeed, that is the name we were going to give it. And finally Monsieur Chagard came to us, from his artist’s studio – and he was an artist, make no mistake – with a small phial of perfume that was so rich, so special that we all just smiled at one another and knew we had found what we were looking for . . .’

You old witch, thought Florence, how can you stand up there and lie like that? How can you betray Cornelius again, and Daniel too, who adored you so much, how
can
you!

For of course Cornelius had known about Daniel. It had made him actually rather happy.

‘It grants us greater freedom, wouldn’t you say, Little Flo, to pursue our own passion,’ he’d said, adding that the fellow was a complete charlatan and he could not imagine how Athina could not possibly see that.

The hall was silent; absolutely so.

‘So – we planned to launch the perfume, our
Passion
, in the early seventies. But, as many of you will know, that was a disastrous time for this country, and for all the industries struggling to survive. The House of Farrell came close to bankruptcy more than once.

‘Cornelius was as heartbroken as I. He knew what a treasure we had in our possession, but
Passion
had to wait. I kept it as instructed by Monsieur Chagard, in a sealed bottle in a dark place, waiting for the right moment to arrive, for prosperity to return.

‘Only, when it did, the perfume market had changed; the fashion was for a different style of perfume altogether, for the strong fragrances like
Youth Dew
and
Eternity
, and we knew that once again we could not launch.

‘Tragically, Monsieur Chagard died soon after finishing his creation; his last words to me were “take care of our perfume”. And so it has waited for almost fifty years, kept as instructed in the dark, stoppered up. Safe, precious, a treasure indeed. And when Mrs Bailey talked to me about a perfume for the new range she was thinking of doing, I knew the moment had finally come.