Flawless

In the end she’d taken refuge in a sunny corner of the garden, so far untouched by the demands of the party, with an armful of books from her childhood which she’d rescued from the attic. It had been wonderful to discover that The House at Pooh Corner had lost none of its old magic and step once more into Tom’s Midnight Garden. She found a new serenity burgeoning within her as she relaxed with them.

Over tea in the drawing-room she’d looked at the multitude of snapshots Aunt Grace had triumphantly produced of James, Louise and the children, and said all the right things. Or she hoped she had.

James looked flourishing, tanned and handsome. The kind of man who’d be an achiever whatever he set his hand to. But Louise, she thought privately, looked weary, her radiant blonde prettiness muted somehow, as if the everyday demands of babies and farming were becoming too much for her.

But then Louise had always enjoyed the urban life—London with its buzz, its theatres and parties. For her, the country had been somewhere to spend the occasional weekend. Strange then that she should have married James, and accepted the radical change of life-style he was offering, rather than one of his wealthy and sophisticated friends.

Of course, Louise might consider that the world she was used to was well lost for love, but Carly didn’t think so. Not on the evidence of these photographs, anyway.

As soon as she could, she escaped upstairs again, and had a lingering, scented bath, mindful of her mother’s adjuration to vacate the bathroom in good time, ready for Susan’s use.

‘It is her night, after all, dear.’

Carly felt that the reminder was unnecessary. She was conscious too of a nagging disappointment that Susan’s house-viewing trip was taking so long. It had been ages since she’d seen her sister—talked to her. In fact, it was Christmas, she realised. Each time she’d been home briefly since, Susan had been preoccupied with Anthony.

She took one last look at herself, and turned away from the mirror, glancing at her watch. Well, Sue was bound to have returned by now. She could go down to her room and chat to her while she got ready, as they’d done when they were younger.

She went down the short flight of stairs, and walked along the passage. As she lifted a hand to tap at the door, it occurred to her that once she would simply have barged cheerfully in.

‘Come in,’ Sue called, and Carly turned the handle and walked into the room.

Sue swung round on her dressing-stool. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Her smile was perfunctory. ‘How are you, Caro?’

‘I’m fine.’ Carly deposited herself on the bed. ‘You don’t mind if I stay—talk to you while you dress?’

Sue shrugged. ‘If you want. But I don’t have a lot of time to spare. I stayed longer than I should have done with Anthony’s mother, talking about the wedding.’

‘Oh.’ Carly hesitated for a moment. ‘Would you like me to do your make-up for you?’

‘No, thank you.’ Sue’s voice had an edge to it. ‘I may not have the professional touch, but I’ve managed adequately up to now. Besides, Anthony prefers me to look natural.’

Carly felt herself flush. ‘I—wasn’t criticising. I thought it might relax you.’

‘I’m perfectly relaxed,’ Sue said shortly, reaching for the moisturiser.

Carly bit her lip. ‘I can always go away, if you prefer.’

‘No, you may as well stay. I’ve been wanting to talk to you anyway about arrangements for the wedding.’ She fidgeted for a moment with the lid of the jar, then burst out, ‘Caro, would you mind awfully if you weren’t a bridesmaid?’

Carly stared at her, feeling as if she’d been pole-axed. She said slowly, ‘Not a bridesmaid? But Sue, we promised each other ever since we were little … Of course I’d mind.’

‘Yes, I know that.’ Sue’s tone was impatient, dismissive. ‘But things change—circumstances alter. And I’ve decided to have just Anthony’s sisters instead. They’re both shorter than you, and blonde. It would be practically impossible to find a colour you all could wear, and next to them you’d look like a giraffe anyway.’

‘I—see.’ Hurt and disappointment were warring inside Carly with a growing anger. ‘It didn’t occur to you to have me alone?’

‘No, it didn’t, frankly.’

‘Even though I’m your only sister?’

Bright spots of colour burned in Sue’s cheeks. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘whether you like it or not, I only intend to get married once, and it’s going to be my big day, from beginning to end. I’m not prepared to be—outshone by anyone. I want them all to be looking at me as I walk up the aisle, not at whoever’s following me.’

‘You think I wouldn’t take a back seat—that I’d push for attention?’ Carly spread her hands. ‘Sue, I wouldn’t—I swear it.’

‘You couldn’t help it. If you walked around with a bag over your head, people would still look at you. It’s the way you hold yourself—the way you move—everything.’ Sue slammed down the jar. ‘Anyway, there’s no use in arguing about it. My mind’s made up. I’ve already spoken to Tess and Sarah.’ She paused. ‘And Lady Farrar’s delighted,’ she added deliberately.

‘Oh, I understand,’ Carly said stormily. ‘This is all to do with last New Year’s Eve, and the fact that your future father-in-law can’t keep his hands to himself. I suspected I hadn’t heard the last of that, even though it wasn’t my fault, and you know it.’

Sue shrugged again. ‘Nevertheless,’ she retorted, ‘you can hardly expect to be her favourite person.’

‘You’re quite sure you even want to invite me to the wedding?’

Sue’s hesitation was just a fraction too long. ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m not.’ Carly rose. ‘I think I’m just beginning to see sense.’ She gave Sue a long, level look. ‘I’m really not wanted here, am I? I’m aware of it more and more each time I come home—that I’m an outsider.’

‘Not an outsider,’ Sue said angrily. ‘A complete stranger—in every way. What do you think it’s been like for Mother and Father—for me, listening to people talking about you—about the change in you? Seeing your picture in magazines—on television—all over the place? You know how they’ve always hated any kind of gossip or notoriety. How they’ve valued their privacy—their quiet family life. Well, you’ve ruined that. You’ve become spectacular, Caro, a media person. But you’re not going to spoil my wedding. I want it to be a dignified occasion, not a field-day for a lot of camera-happy idiots.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Carly said with supreme bitterness. ‘I promise to be somewhere on the other side of the world when that happy dawn breaks. Just let me know what you want as a present, apart from my absence, that is.’

It took all the control she was capable of not to slam the door as she left. She was trembling violently as she walked back to the nursery. She lifted her hands, and began to unfasten her hair, shaking it free on her shoulders in a scented mahogany cloud, scattering the pins piecemeal on the carpet uncaringly.

She knew all about her parents’ shock and resentment over her choice of career, and the means she’d chosen to achieve it. That was why she’d tried so hard, each time she returned home, to revert to being plain Caroline Foxcroft in the subordinate role of younger daughter. She thought she’d succeeded on the whole. But clearly she’d made a terrible mistake.

The incident at the New Year party when Sir Giles Farrar, flushed with whisky, had cornered her in the hall, thinking he was unobserved, had been embarrassing, but basically trivial. A more tolerant woman than Lady Farrar would have laughed it off.

Sue would make her the perfect daughter-in-law, she thought, anger stirring within her.

She collected her things, ramming them into her bag with swift, jerky movements. She kept on the grey dress. She could change when she got back to the flat. She didn’t want to remain here a minute longer than necessary.

As she carried the case downstairs to the hall, her mother appeared in the drawing-room doorway, Aunt Grace inevitably behind her.

‘Caroline?’ She stared at the case, raising her brows. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Leaving,’ Carly said briefly. ‘Isn’t that what everyone wants?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Well, it’s certainly what Susan would prefer.’

‘But you can’t go,’ her mother almost wailed. ‘The first guests will be arriving soon. Everyone will think it’s so odd.’

Carly shrugged. ‘They may also find it relatively eccentric that my own sister doesn’t want me as her bridesmaid,’ she retorted, her voice brittle.

Mrs Foxcroft sighed. ‘So Susan told you. Oh, dear, I rather hoped she’d wait. I knew you’d be upset.’

‘That,’ Carly said, ‘is putting it mildly. Mother, I can’t stay for the party, as if nothing had happened. You must see that.’

‘Your mother sees nothing of the kind,’ said Aunt Grace. ‘You’re spoiled, Caroline. Spoiled, and selfish. You can hardly wonder that Susan doesn’t want you as an attendant. No one’s forgotten your behaviour at Louise’s wedding.’ She snorted. ‘Claiming you had a virus only hours before the ceremony—insisting on being taken home, without a thought for anyone but yourself. The balance of the bridal procession was completely destroyed, and it was all your fault. You should have taken an aspirin, and played your part.’

Carly threw back her head. ‘Don’t tell me I was missed,’ she said. ‘Louise only asked me because she felt obliged to. It must have been a relief to her not to have me trailing behind her, the ugly duckling among the swans.’

‘You were certainly not a prepossessing child,’ Aunt Grace said. ‘But you’ve definitely taken drastic steps to remedy the situation since then,’ she added disapprovingly. ‘I, of course, have never agreed with tampering with nature. And poor Susan must feel it badly, having always been the pretty one.’

‘All the more reason for me to go back to London.’

‘But everyone will be expecting to see you.’ Mrs Foxcroft sounded distracted. ‘They’ll be asking where you are.’

Carly turned towards the front door. ‘Tell them I have another virus,’ she flung over her shoulder. ‘Or, better still, make it an infectious disease.’

She was still shaking as she drove back along the lanes towards the main road. A tractor pulled out of a gateway ahead of her, and she had to brake sharply to avoid it. She pulled the car over on to the verge, and sat for a few minutes, her arms folded across the steering wheel, and her forehead resting on them, waiting for her heartbeat to steady, trying to regain her equilibrium.

It was stupid to drive when she was so upset, so on edge. She couldn’t risk an accident now. It would ruin everything. She had to keep her hard-won beauty intact—flawless.

For Saul Kingsland.

At the thought of him, her whole body tensed uncontrollably.

During those innocent sunlit hours in the garden, prompted by the nostalgic memories of the child she’d been, she’d almost begun to have second thoughts about taking the Flawless assignment. But the confrontation with Susan had hardened her resolve to granite. She still could hardly believe that it had happened, that the girl with whom she’d grown up could resent her so deeply. When they’d been children, they’d been so close, the four-year difference in their ages seeming immaterial.

Sue let me tag around after her everywhere, Carly thought. And I was so proud that she was my big sister. I never minded when people said how lovely she was. I never cared about the comparisons they drew when they looked at us, side by side.

Her throat constricted painfully. But perhaps Susan had enjoyed the contrast, she thought. Even—needed it, to reassure herself about her own looks and popularity. Mirror, mirror on the wall … In those days, there’d never been any doubt as to what the mirror would answer.

But then had come Louise’s wedding—shattering her—turning everything upside-down. And in its aftermath her whole life had changed—totally and irrevocably.

And with that change had come first bewilderment, then awkwardness and withdrawal, and now, finally, estrangement from her family.

Saul Kingsland, she thought. Saul Kingsland, you have so much to pay for. And I’m going to extract every last penny. Starting now.

The flat seemed emptier than usual as she let herself in. She tossed the case into her room, and went straight to the kitchen. The fridge-freezer held a selection of packet meals which could be microwaved. She chose the first that came to hand, and slid it into the oven.

She filled the coffee percolator, and switched it on. Assembled crockery and cutlery.

Then she went to the telephone. She didn’t have to look up the number. She already knew it by heart. She dialled, and waited.

‘This is Saul Kingsland.’ He sounded, disturbingly, as if he was there in the room with her. ‘I’m sorry I can’t talk to you in person right now, but if you’d like to leave a message after the tone, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’

‘It’s Carly North. If you still want to take some pictures of me, I’m free tomorrow.’ She put down the receiver.

That’s that, she thought, and went back to the microwave and her instant meal. By the time she’d eaten it, the small kitchen was filled with the aroma of coffee. She poured herself a cup and took it through to the bedroom.

She peeled off the grey dress, and let it fall to the floor. On Monday, she decided, she would take it to a nearly-new shop. Certainly, she never wanted to see it again. She dropped bra, briefs, tights and slip into a linen basket and put on her dressing-gown. Its almost tailored style, with padded shoulders and deep revers, slashed to reveal the cleft between her small, high breasts, was in stark contrast to the sinuous peach satin it was made from. It was the most expensive robe she’d ever bought, but the colour warmed her skin, and acted as a magnificent foil to the tumble of her hair.

Barefoot, she wandered back into the sitting-room and switched on the television set. I don’t want anything significant, she told it silently. I just want some mindless entertainment—to prevent me from thinking. Because if I start rehashing everything that’s happened I shall cry, and I don’t want to give way to that kind of weakness.

A film was beginning—a classic thriller which she’d seen many times before—and she subsided into it gratefully, sitting curled up on the sofa, her hands clasped round the warmth of her cup.

It was ridiculous, because it was a beautiful night in early summer, but she still felt chilled to the bone. Perhaps in a minute she would switch on the electric fire.

The sound of the front door buzzer brought her head round sharply. All her circle of friends thought she was at home, enjoying herself at Susan’s party.

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