When She Was Bad... (23 page)

‘What about the tin mines, though?’ she had ventured. She didn’t want to challenge 1Kupert too much, because she could see he was working his ass o.. She was so rateful to him for giving up his job to help her out. Aunt Victoria no longer bullied her, and Uncle Henry and the rest of his cronies had been forced to back off from Lancaster, with Becky’s consolation gift of a hundred thousand a man. Henry had sniffed at it, but she noted that he hadn’t sent the money back.

‘You don’t want to get into that right now. I’m still working on the mines. The hotel business needs work.’

‘But the hotel division is such a small part of the company.’ Rupert had put down his teacup and looked her straight in the eye. ‘If you want to blow it off and sell it, darling, be my guest. The whole shebang is yours to do as you like with. But your grandfather bought that hotel.’

Becky had nodded.

‘My thinking is that no part of Lancaster is too small to save. But you might feel that a hotel is beneath you, and I fully appreciate that.’

She laughed. ‘lKupert, of course it isn’t.’

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‘If you’re sure. The hotel business runs out of Oxford.’

‘Why not London?’

‘Maybe because it’s so small. You’d have to make a sacrifice to save it, in that you’d be distant from the rest of the company. But it’s a short hop down to Paddington, and I can drive up and see you every night.’

And he’d been as good as his word. Rupert schlepped up to town to see her every single evening, and commuted back down to London in the morning. They spent the weekends at Fairfield. He complained he

hardly knew the way to his own house any more.

‘I could come down to London, you know.’

‘No need, darling. Why should you get up hideously early? Let me handle it.’

He was so considerate, Becky thought. So attentive, and protective, and chivalrous. He seemed to hit exactly the right note with her every time. He mixed up nights at the opera and ballet with movies and even the occasional concert. Last week he’d somehow managed to get tickets for the Airport premi6re. When she complained she missed America, he took her out to see Kelly’s Heroes and then got her a burger and fries for dinner, complete with French’s yellow mustard. She knew she was lucky, and she knew that saving the hotel operations was a worthwhile thing to do. She just felt a nagging sensation in the back of her mind that something was missing.

‘Miss Lancaster.’ Ellen, her secretary, buzzed her. ‘There’s a woman here to see you.’ ,

Becky glanced at her day planner. ‘I don’t see anything here. Isn’t the designer due at ten?’

‘Yes, she is, but this lady says she’s a friend of yours—’

‘Let me in, Becky, you old fart!’ yelled Sharon’s voice on the intercom.

Becky grinned. ‘Send her up, Ellen.’

‘Yes, Miss Lancaster,’ Ellen said reluctantly. Becky could almost see her lips pursing. Rupert had hired Ellen Witherspoon. He said she was the most competent secretary he could find. But Becky didn’t like her. She was twice Becky’s age, and her stiff body language and total refusal to joke made it clear she didn’t like working for a woman, especially one not much older than the students with their flares and sideburns that zoomed past on bikes outside their small lobby.

Becky looked down into St Aldgate’s and saw Sharon’s banged-up Renault 4 parked in front of a meter. She was suddenly very, very glad she was here. Whenever Becky had suggested they go and see Sharon, P,-upert had been too busy for some reason or other. She felt guilty.

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Despite Rupert always saying how much he liked Sharon, .he mdnt hang out with her a lot.

‘Well, look at her ladyship,’ Sharon said, bursting unceremoniously into the room and giving her a bear-hug. ‘All dolled up. You look like Mrs Thatcher.’

‘Goddamn it, I do not! Just because sonle people have to wear suits.’ ‘Yeah, very professional. What are you doing tucked away down here, though?’ Sharon glanced around Becky’s office, looking remarkably unimpressed. ‘I thought you wanted to start taking over. We aren’t

going to win the revolution like this.’

‘I don’t want a revolution.’

‘That’s because you’ve bought into the Tory male capitalist oppression, sister.’

‘Don’t start with that sister shit.’

‘I thought better of you, I really did. You’re a Yank. But I won’t hold it against you. You’ll convert to radical feminism one day.’

‘I doubt it,’ Becky said. ‘I like equal rights, but I don’t hate men.’ ‘That’s only because you don’t know any better. You’ll learn.’ ‘I take it you broke up with Jack?’

‘Actually Jack and me are blissful.’ Sharon grinned smugly. ‘We’re getting married.’ She held up her left finger, with a small, pretty ruby surrounded by diamonds glittering on it.

‘Let me look. Ooh, man, that’s gorgeous.’ Becky twisted her fingers over. ‘When did he ask you?’

‘Last night. I came right over here. Since I’d probably die waiting for you to come and visit me.’

‘I know, I’m sorry. We’ve bgen really busy,’ Becky said guiltily. ‘So I’ve been reading in the papers.’

‘How did he propose? I’m so happy for you guys. We have to throw you an engagement party.’

‘He was very traditional,’ Sharon said. ‘We went out for a walk over some fields, and he kneels down and takes out the ring. Unfortunately two seconds later he also slipped on a cowpat. It was pretty funny.’

Becky burst out laughing. She’d really missed Sharon. She shouldn’t have let P,,upert keep her away so long. ‘Oh,. man.’

‘And no engagement party, thanks. We’re not the ruffles and pearls types. I invited you to the cheese and beer bash Jack threw, but I never got a reply.’

Becky was horrified. ‘I never got the invite. You know I’d never blank you.’

‘Do I?’ Sharon said calmly. ‘I’ve rung Fairfield a few times and left messages and nobody’s got back to me. Ordinarily I’d think you were

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blowing me off, but as it happens I have skin like rhino hide, so I thought I’d come down here and check you out. See for myself.’

‘Sharon … I never got those calls, I promise you.’ But you never made enough of an effort to go down there and see her, did you? said the little voice in her. head. ‘This is awful. I don’t know why Mrs Morecambe wouldn’t—’

‘Don’t blame her. I spoke to Rupert.’

‘But Rupert would have told me …’

‘Sure about that, are you?’ Sharon crossed her legs. ‘Look, Becky, I know you’re really into the guy—’

‘I am. He’s perfect for me,’ Becky said defensively.

‘All right. And maybe I should just butt out. But I have to tell you

what I’m thinking first, and then if you want to tell me to sod off,’ she

added cheerfully, ‘I’ll be fine with that and I won’t bring it up again.’ ‘Maybe he forgot about your messages.’ ‘That’s possible, yeah.’ ‘He’s been busy.’

‘He has, hasn’t he? A busy little bee,’ Sharon agreed. ‘And busy doing what? Taking over your companies. What do I read in the papers? A lot of overseas trips, a lot of partying, lots of impressive-looking statements made by “Lord Lancaster of Lancaster Holdings”. I never used to read the business sections, now I’m glued to ‘em. And you know what it looks like to me?’

‘I’m sure you’re gonna tell me,’ said Becky, a bit sullenly.

‘It looks like he won his court case. Not lost it. He’s always at Fairfield, he controls who you talk (o, and he acts like he’s President of the company.’

‘Rupert helped me get the board off my back.’

‘And installed himself there instead. Now, what are you doing? Judging by the press, what you’re doing is being.the good little girlfriend in the background. You don’t interfere with his work, you aren’t doing the hiring and firing. You aren’t even in London. You have no idea what goes on in the Lancaster offices—’

‘Wait just a second. These are the Lancaster offices.’

‘Not the main ones.’

‘Every part of the company is important.’ Why doesn’t it sound as

true when I say it as when Rupert said it? Becky wondered.

‘Oh, su-u-re.’ Sharon didn’t bother to hide her contempt. ‘Some

shitty little hotel off the coast of Cornwall.’

‘It’s not shitty.’

‘Well, it’s not the Ritz, is it? And it’s one hotel.’

‘I’m doing a lot with it. I’ll show you.’

z4o

Tm sure you are, and I bet you’re doing well. Seriously. I know you’d make a success of whatever you turned your hand to. You have that killer instinct, under all the tennis-tournament princess stuff. But you’re not getting to turn your instincts to your company, l,upert is handling it all.’

‘I keep an eye on operations. P,-upert has gotten orders up, you know.’

‘No, I didn’t. And that’s good, I suppose,’ Sharon admitted grudgingly, ‘but that’s not to say you wouldn’t have done even better. With less flash. And flash takes cash.’

Becky nodded slowly. It was true. Why did she assume she couldn’t do better, when she hadn’t even tried?

‘One last thing, then I swear I’ll shut up.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ Becky grunted.

‘He likes to have Fairfield mentioned in the stories in the press. I know you’re beautiful, for a skinny cow. But I just keep seeing pictures of him, and you’re in the background or hardly mentioned. He gets the company and the house this way. What if he marries you, and gets you knocked up, and you have a boy? What happens then? The kid gets the title from his dad and the house and company from his mum and Bob’s your uncle, lupert Lancaster gets what he always said he wanted. The title and the house reunited.’

‘You think he’s just using me?’

‘I think it’s very possible. Not certain. Maybe I just don’t like him because he didn’t pass on my messages. I might be biased.’

‘P,.upert gave up his own senior Pt< job to work at Lancaster.’ Sharon’s eyes narrowed.

‘I bet you didn’t even check up on that, did you? Probably wrote him a fat salary without checking what he was making before. Gave it up, did he? I bet he laughed all the way to the bank. And the mansion.’

Becky had gone a bit pale, and Sharon checked herself. ‘Look, hon, I’m probably way off. I don’t think you should do anything based on a theory. But you should tell him to pass on my messages. Then maybe I won’t have to dream up these wild scenarios.’

She fished an album out of her bag, the Jackson Five’s ‘ABC’. ‘Look what I picked up, brand new. I got digs just off the high street. Why don’t you take an executive decision and come over and listen to it? I got a kettle and a toaster,’ she added temptingly.

‘Hell, why not?’ Becky buzzed Ellen. ‘Ellen, I’ll be takiilg the rest of

the day off. Tell Lord Lancaster he can meet me at the flat tonight.’ ‘Yes, Miss Lancaster,’ Ellen snapped.

They went back to Becky’s flat first so she could get changed. It was a

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small, beautiful apartment in a sixteenth-century house, with oak beams in the ceiling and a nice view of Queen’s College. She peeled off her business suit and grabbed a pair of embroidered bellbottoms, her favourites - they were made of black denim with flowers made of tiny mirrors sewn on them. Becky had picked them up in Kensington market, but 1Kupert hated them so she didn’t often get to wear them.

She paired them with a plain white shirt and black leather jacket.

‘How does that look?’

‘Great. Not so stuffy. You’re only twenty-one.’

Tm twenty-two.’

‘Whatever. You should hang out with people your own age.’

‘Would you shut up about lKupert, please?’

‘OK, I’m sorry. “Love is blind all day, and cannot see,” as Chaucer

put it.’

Sharon took Becky to her own tiny college room and they drank tea

and watched children’s TV. Sharon said she was a Wombles addict. She gossiped about Jack and college life and then took Becky out for fish and chips at her favourite chip shop at the top of St Aldgate’s. She was a member of the Oxford Union ‘You like debates?’ Becky asked. ‘No, I like subsidized beer,’ Sharon said solemnly - and took her in there for more tea and a lot of sitting round with students talking about nothing. It was a lot of fun.

‘I envy you,’ Becky said wistfully.

‘No, you don’t,’ Sharon answered. ‘You’re too ambitious for college.

You wanted to get out there and rule the world. Yesterday.’

‘That’s not fair.’ Becky blushed, because she knew it was.

‘I don’t understand you. You’re rich, you’re pretty, you got a title—’

‘It’s not a real title.’

‘The Honourable Rebecca.’ Sharon stuck her nose in the air mercilessly, enjoying watching Becky wriggle. ‘You’ve got money and you’ve got a mansion. Why the bloody hell do you want to bust your guts all day working in an office? If it were me, I’d stay at Fairfield and just hire servants to feed me grapes.’

‘Well…’ The question was so direct it threw Becky off. She paused,

thinking about it. ‘My father wouldn’t have wanted me to.’

‘You never met the guy. How can you know that?’

‘I just feel it. My father worked to build up something to leave his children. He structured his will so that his executors couldn’t sell Lancaster before I came of age. I know I was born lucky,’ Becky admitted, ‘but somewhere up the line one of my ancestors worked to get what we have. And I don’t want to lose it because I was lazy. I want

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to build it up, make it more than just a small British company. Make an

impact in business, maybe the world.’

‘Nobh, sse oblige?’

Becky coloured. ‘If you veant to put it like that. I guess.’

‘Oh, stop. You don’t have to apologize to me. I want to see women in power, even if they were born to it. It’s better than nothing. And I suppose it’s better than sitting on your backside. Like most of the landed gentry.’

‘You’re such a Bolinger Bolshevik,’ Becky accused her friend. ‘Wait till you start making some money and paying seventy per cent tax. I bet you shut up about the blood of the workers then.’

‘Quite possibly,’ Sharon conceded. ‘Want a pint?’

Sharon left to meet Jack at St Catherine’s at six, and Becky walked slowly home. She watched the sun set over the ancient grey stones of Oxford crarmned up against the red-brick houses and shops of the modern town and thought about what her friend had said. Was R.upert too controlling? She had thought just the opposite. But Sharon wasn’t lying about those phone calls, why should she?