Persuading Annie (4 page)

Victoria stared at him. ‘I’ll get the camera ready, dear,’ she said.

‘Right you are.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Tee off in half an hour.’

And he was gone.

Before the loneliness gripped her, she phoned home.

‘Hhhrngh?’ croaked the voice of Katherine.

‘Katie darling, it’s me.’

‘How are you, popsie?’ Katherine’s voice sounded as rough as a cat’s tongue.

‘
Aw
ful. I think I’ve got chronic fatigue syndrome. Could hardly lift my feet during my pedicure today.’

‘
Popsie
,’ consoled Katherine. ‘I’ve just been sick
three times
before breakfast.’

Victoria tutted. ‘Not bulimia again? Weren’t you seeing someone for that?’

‘No, sweetpea,’ said Katherine, piqued. ‘Sick
before
breakfast. Bulimia would have been sick after breakfast, wouldn’t it? The clues are in the words, darling. No, I have a hangover because I had such a good time last night. And then I vomited three times spectacularly, once over the chaise, once in the shower and once over Consuela.’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Katie,
must
you give me the gruesome details? I’m
ill
remember,’ Victoria sighed.

‘Of course. How’s Charles?’

‘Golfing, how do you think?’

Both women grimaced. Such an embarrassment,
so
middle class.

‘Isn’t he going to this wretched meeting at Daddy’s this afternoon?’

‘What meeting?’

‘You know, the one where Susannah tells us off and we all ignore her.’

Victoria gasped with shock. ‘I completely forgot. I’ll call Charles on his mobile. He can live without golf for one day.’

‘Aren’t you going too, pumpkin?’

Victoria sighed.

‘I would if I were up to it.’

‘I’ll tell you all about it at the spa.’

‘Is Little Orphan Annie going to the meeting?’

‘Probably. If she isn’t out selling
The Big Issue
.’

They both laughed weakly.

‘Oh, how I wish I had her energy,’ said Victoria, and they both wheezed with lazily escalating laughter at the sudden image of Victoria wearing fingerless gloves and a duffel coat.

‘That’s right darling,’ said Katherine, ‘laugh through the pain.’

They wheezed again.

‘See you later darling. Give Daddy my love.’

‘Ciaou.’

The Ridings, Hampstead Heath, 10.10 am

Katherine Markham, eldest of the Markham daughters, pressed the off button of her phone and threw it down on to her silk sheets.

Fractionally slowly she inched her fragile body up into a sitting position and looked at herself in the vast mirror facing the bed.

Eyeliner smudged down her face, eyes dull and lifeless, blonde hair like a bird’s nest, arms bony and limp, chest concave, expression vacant.

She lit up her first cigarette of the day and smiled at her reflection through the early morning haze.

I’ve still got it, she thought exultantly. I could be a bloody model.

3

GEORGE MARKHAM’S VALET
had a face so bland that George frequently forgot what the man looked like while still actually looking at him.

Mind you, George would have forgotten his own name, were it not for the fact that he reminded himself of it every morning, by glancing at the framed newspaper article that had been in his dressing room for nearly a decade. (The date had been smoothly guillotined away.) There it was in big bold letters:
George Markham, fiftieth richest man in the country
(‘and it’s no small country,’ he would point out to his valet every morning)
whose extraordinary good looks, fine business acumen and wealth has made his three beautiful daughters the most eligible women in the United Kingdom. Katherine, 20, Victoria, 18 and Annie, 16, are a credit to him.

Every morning, while George’s valet brushed down his master’s suit, George re-read those hallowed words, sometimes to himself, sometimes out loud. And then his thoughts would turn to the man at his feet, polishing his shoes. Poor
fellow, thought George, scrutinising the man’s features as if for the first time. Face like a spade.

Nothing was more offensive to George than bad looks in a person. It was downright rude, as far as he was concerned. He had told his assistant on more than one occasion about his own excellent plastic surgeon, but to no avail. He had explained patiently that he wouldn’t even have to pay up front. George would simply take it out of his monthly wages, with a very competitive interest rate. But every morning, there the man stood to greet him, with his uniformly unimpressive features, eyes the colour of duckweed. It was most provoking.

George Markham, a man of small mind and large opinions, sighed deeply. For a desperately needed early morning pick-me-up, he looked at himself in the mirror. It never failed to satisfy. Fifty-odd years on this earth had not diminished the joy he found in looking at his own features. In fact, if anything, they had served only to deepen the love he had for them.

Looking at his reflection was George’s favourite hobby: it didn’t stretch his attention span and it confirmed his long-held belief that the aesthetic was superior to the functional. It was his face that had got him almost everything in this world.

He smiled warmly at himself in the mirror. The ink-black of his pupils visibly swelled, reducing the liquid brown irises to a crescent-fine outline. His heart – such as it was – expanded. What style, what balance, what symmetry! He allowed himself one last wide smile – didn’t want to give himself lines – before adopting his usual serene expression.

Once ready for work, George padded through his apartment. He opened his front door and breathed in the heady scent of jasmine before crunching down the gravel drive to where his limousine waited for him at the kerb. Excellent
exercise, walking. George insisted on it every morning if the weather was fine. One last deep breath and then into the car, which, alligator-like, darted silently away from the kerb and sped off. Twenty cocooned minutes later, George was at his London office in Mayfair.

The glass door of Markhams’ PR breathed open for George and he strode through the front office, nodding curtly at the blonde heads of his young staff, to the lift. Large gilt-framed posters of successful clients from the company’s heyday bordered the office: a phenomenally popular novelty game that had lost its novelty within months, one of the first-ever whitening toothpastes, a Radio 1 disc jockey.

Inside the moving mirrored coffin, George brushed the top button with his index finger and, while gliding up to his penthouse office, glanced at his reflection to check that his tie and teeth were straight. They always were.

The door slid silently open.

‘Good morning, Mr Markham,’ greeted his secretary, Shirley, smiling warmly. ‘Your coffee’s on the table.’

‘Ah well then,’ he greeted her back. ‘All’s right with the world.’

Shirley smiled, turned and walked as coquettishly as possible out of the room, which was not easy considering she was wearing a pleated A-line skirt and had size eighteen arthritic hips.

George eyed Shirley’s retreating figure, as he did every morning. Marvellous secretary, he thought. Marvellous. Made coffee that woke you up faster than a pretty gal touching your personals.

George took his coffee, as usual, standing at his full-length window, overlooking London’s hallowed streets. But today
he was unable to prevent a few rather unsightly frown lines to pucker his perfectly proportioned brow.

He had a meeting at 11am with his solicitor, Mr Cavendish, and even George knew things were going to get ugly. Which meant that his finance director – and trusted friend – Susannah Brooke should be here any minute. He glanced down at his Patek Philippe watch and noted the elegance of the long outstretched hand lying upwards like the neck of a dying swan. Extraordinarily beautiful. He looked up and breathed in deeply. Ah, life was good.

He looked down again to see what time it was.

His eldest daughter, Katherine, should make it in time for the meeting, though she’d been partying till late the night before. Took after her father, that one, he reflected proudly. Might even have got herself into a glossy again, he thought with a triumphant glow. He hoped to God that this time she’d remembered to stay sober till after the photographer had gone.

There was a gentle knock at the door.

‘Mrs Brooke to see you.’

Ah, Susannah! He turned to greet his old friend.

‘George,’ greeted Susannah warmly, walking towards him.

‘My dear,’ greeted George, allowing her to kiss him on both cheeks. They sat down, feeling safe in the knowledge that they entirely concurred with each other on every matter.

Today, however, was a difficult day for Susannah Brooke.

It had to be a day of action, something she knew George never liked taking, and it would take all her powers of patience, mental agility and rhetoric for it to go the right way.

‘How are you, George?’ she asked gently.

‘Fine, my dear,’ he answered, in a deep, mellow voice that had melted many a young girl’s heart, reserve and body. ‘I think today’s going to go rather well.’

‘You do?’ she asked, encouraged by the mischievous twinkle in his chestnut eyes.

‘I do,’ he said firmly.

‘You know why?’

‘No. Do tell.’

‘What colour is this tie?’

Susannah studied the tie.

‘Brown?’

George shook his head with a smug smile.

‘Not just any brown. Chocolate Brown. Melted Bournville Chocolate Brown.
Exactly
the same colour as my eyes. And I didn’t even tell my man. It was just lucky fluke.’ He touched his aquiline nose with his elegant forefinger, as if to prove his point. ‘Always a good sign.’

Susannah managed a smile.

* * * * *

Susannah had worked for Markhams’ PR for well over three decades, since its heyday. And she had been a friend to the Markhams for almost as long, having met George’s late wife, Caroline Markham, when both of them were nothing more than pretty young, single things in their first secretarial jobs, all those years ago.

Caroline had been lovely. Modest, beautiful, kind and intelligent – but shrewd as well, enough to know that she should demonstrate all three former qualities before the latter two. And together, she and Susannah had done very well for themselves. In fact, Caroline had excelled in the limited field open to her – for her class, era and gender. She had married her boss. Not just any boss, but chairman
of the PR conglomerate Markhams’ PR, millionaire George Markham.

Caroline was so universally loved that not a soul begrudged her her good fortune in making such a wonderful match. And of everyone, Susannah was the most delighted for her dearest friend, a generous reaction made easier by the fact that she had followed her only six weeks later, by marrying another wealthy man.

The two young girls’ friendship had continued to blossom once they were both wealthy wives. But there the similarities in their lives ended. Susannah’s husband had treated her spectacularly. He realised that he had married a clever woman, financed his wife through accountancy school, provided her with a beautiful daughter, watched her become more and more influential at Markhams’ PR, and then died, leaving her more money than she and her child could ever spend, in a new life of uncompromising fulfilment. It was more than many women could have dreamt of.

Meanwhile, a different story was unfolding for Caroline Markham. The truth of it was that she had been very unhappily married. After all, it would have been too much for George Markham to have cast his eye over his typing pool, spotted the prettiest blonde, made her his bride
and
realised her worth too. And sure enough, after Caroline’s Happily Ever After ending came the shapeless, shameless sequel of real life, with no plot, little humour and a far less likeable hero.

Caroline had floated down the aisle to marry a startlingly handsome, intelligent, acerbic young magnate. Yet before their third anniversary she had finally admitted to herself the horrible truth. She was married to an irascible twat.

She slowly discovered that her husband was not, as all the lowly typists had assumed, the ‘brains’ behind his international
company. Far from it. He had simply had enough money to buy it, and ever since, his minions had had to work their fingers to the bone, untying the knots he regularly tied.

As for his acerbic wit, which Caroline had mistaken for a sharp mind, it was nothing more than a piercing cruelty he chose not to curb. He was in fact a vain, rude egotist, who had wanted a trophy blonde for a wife and it had been her luck to have been in the wrong place when he was ready to take the plunge. By the time she had fully confronted the horror of her situation she was already pregnant with her second daughter, Victoria. Two years later, Annie had been born into a loveless sham of a marriage in a last-ditch attempt by her parents to beget themselves a son.

By this time Caroline Markham was a jaded, used and lonely mother of three girls. Again she did the best thing she could do for her class, era and gender.

She did nothing.

Eventually, her early end came from an unfortunate mix of drink and pills. ‘A tragic accident’, was the official verdict. And nothing more was said of the matter. Her three daughters, then all away from home, were told little about it, save the final fact, and were expected to get on with things. Katherine, nineteen, was staying with friends in Switzerland when she heard the news. Her first thoughts were that she would have to buy a new outfit for the funeral and that she’d miss the next ball. The disappointment of the latter surpassed the excitement of the first. Victoria, seventeen, at finishing school nearby, was distraught – or at least distracted – until she realised what this meant. It meant time, sympathy and understanding from the teachers with her school work and attention of a totally novel kind from her fellow pupils; she was a guiltless victim of circumstance, the feeble, motherless,
utterly passive heroine of her own life, to be pitied, revered and secretly envied by all. She felt like a princess. Annie, fifteen, at an English boarding school she despised, was heartbroken. She had lost the one close relation she could relate closely to, and for the first time in her life, she felt truly alone. It was a feeling that was to stay with her for a long time.