The Perfect Retreat

Merritt laughed.

‘Well, I’m heading off on a tour of the other gardens. Anyone want to come?’ he asked.

‘Me!’ cried Poppy.

‘What about Lucian?’ he asked the small boy, who stared straight ahead.

‘He wants to come too,’ said Poppy with authority.

‘Do they have some sort of secret language, like twins?’ he said quietly in Kitty’s ear.

She shrugged. The truth was she had no idea about Lucian and Poppy’s bond, and even less idea about Lucian’s reluctance to speak. His fascination with his blocks and Thomas the Tank Engine hadn’t waned since she had started working for Willow, and she figured if he was happy then she shouldn’t interfere.

‘Well go and get dressed,’ he said to Poppy and Lucian. ‘Quickly. I’ll meet you out the front.’

‘I’ll leave you here with Jinty for a moment, OK?’ Kitty said as she hustled the two children upstairs.

Jinty and Merritt eyed each other, and Jinty promptly burst into tears. ‘Oh dear. What a roar,’ he said, undoing the straps on her highchair. He picked her up and she stopped crying, looked at him and smiled.

‘Hello Jinty,’ he said seriously.

She blew a raspberry at him and covered him in bits of soggy toast. He laughed and looked up to see Willow watching him.

‘Morning,’ he said, and held Jinty out towards her mother.

‘Hi,’ she said, and took Jinty in her arms. Jinty started to cry again and reached out for Merritt.

‘It seems she likes you,’ said Willow tiredly.

Merritt was surprised. He had little experience with children and Jinty and Poppy’s enthusiasm for him was unusual, and flattering. Taking Jinty back into his arms she settled with her blonde head against his shoulder and Willow smiled.

‘You have a fan.’

Merritt snorted but was secretly pleased. Jinty was warm and soft and her little wisps of breath on his neck tickled him.

‘I’m about to take your other two for a tour. I hope that’s OK,’ he said.

‘Fine,’ said Willow. She didn’t mind as long as she could have a coffee and time to make her phone calls.

Willow started opening random cupboards and Merritt watched her. She was dressed in leggings and a t-shirt with a long cardigan over the top. Her legs were so thin he thought they might snap.

‘Have you lost something?’ he asked.

‘The coffee pot,’ she said. ‘I was sure Kitty had packed it.’

Kitty walked back into the kitchen with the children dressed for outside, although Poppy had added her purple feather boa. ‘Kitty, where’s the coffee pot?’ snapped Willow.

Kitty thought of the coffee pot and remembered she had left it sitting on the bench back in London. ‘Oh no, I knew I forgot something!’ she cried.

‘Christ Kitty, do I have to remember everything?’ Willow glared at her and thumped out of the kitchen.

‘She’s lovely in the morning,’ said Merritt under his breath.

Kitty looked crestfallen and took Jinty from his arms. ‘Don’t let them near the lake,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said Merritt and he took one of the children’s hands in each of his. ‘Alright explorers. Let’s go!’ he said and Kitty watched as they headed down the gravel driveway together.

As she took Jinty upstairs for her sleep she heard Willow on the phone in the drawing room.

‘Of course I will. Thanks Simon. No, I haven’t heard,’ Kitty overheard as she walked past the room towards the stairs. ‘He’s a shit, I know.’

Simon was Willow’s agent. Kitty had only seen him in the flesh once in three years, at a party Willow hosted at her home, which had gone well until Lucian had come downstairs and set up his Thomas the Tank Engine train set in amidst the feet of the guests.

Lucian had been so engrossed in his trains that he had refused to move, and Kitty had been called to try and shift him back upstairs. She had sat next to him in the centre of the room and talked quietly to him for over fifteen minutes until Lucian finally let her pack up the tracks and the trains and take him back to his room. Willow had laughed nervously to Simon, who she was chatting to, and Kerr had shaken his head and gone outside onto the balcony for a joint. Most of the guests had tried to ignore the scene, except for a young man who had observed from across the room. He had watched Kitty’s face as she talked to the child, whose face was absent of expression, and saw how gently she spoke to him. He noticed her wet hair and long fingers and how they touched his little face to turn it towards her, and how the child’s eyes never met her wide brown ones. He saw how the room full of London’s glitterati didn’t faze her, and how her intention was solely to help the small, lost boy.

Kitty had had no idea she was being watched. The party was just after she had started with Willow and Kerr and all she wanted was for Lucian not to make a scene. She had been in the bath when Willow had banged on the door telling her to come and get him.

She had put Lucian back to bed and made sure he was asleep. Then she snuck down the back stairs to the kitchen to see if there were any of those crèmes brûlées in tiny teacups left that she had seen the waiters handing around.

As she walked into the kitchen there were a few waiters and a guest. Kitty ignored them and walked over to the bench, which was filled with leftover delights from the party.

‘Hello,’ said the guest.

Kitty looked up and saw a handsome man, maybe a few years older than her. He was wearing a dinner suit with the tie casually undone and hanging around his neck.

‘Hi,’ said Kitty shyly.

‘You did very well with your little friend in there,’ he said, sipping from a highball glass.

‘Thanks,’ said Kitty and wondered if he would think her greedy if she got a tray and piled it high with tasty morsels to take back to her bedroom.

‘You the nanny then?’ he asked, eyeing her over and noticing her tiny waist and large breasts in her tracksuit bottoms and long-sleeved thermal top. Kitty wished she had put on a bra when she had jumped out of the bath.

‘Yes,’ said Kitty, trying to cover her breasts with her arms.

‘I had a nanny when I was small. Never looked like you though.’ He raised one dark eyebrow at her.

Kitty didn’t know what to say, so she stood silently.

‘You’re a bit of a kiddie whisperer then?’ he asked.

‘That sounds terrible when you say it like that,’ she said, startled.

‘No, no, no tawdry intention; just commenting on your brilliance with the kiddies,’ he laughed.

‘Are you a friend of Willow and Kerr’s?’ she asked, wanting the conversation with the handsome man to continue.

‘Me? No. I don’t think they have any friends here. I don’t think they have any friends at all actually. No, I’m sleeping with one of the guests, who’s here with her husband,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Kitty, shocked and disappointed. Of course a man like this would be with the fabulous people; she had forgotten her place.

‘Are you shocked?’ he asked her, liking the flash of disappointment that had fleetingly crossed her face.

‘Yes,’ she answered honestly. ‘It’s not very nice for the husband.’

‘I suppose not,’ said the man, clearly not caring.

Kitty stood waiting for him to say something else, but the room was silent except for the sound of glasses and plates being packed up by the catering staff.

‘Well I’m off to bed,’ she said finally.

‘Alone?’

‘Yes!’ she said, shocked again.

‘Shame. What’s your name then?’

‘Kitty,’ she said shyly.

‘Goodnight little pussy,’ he said sexily, and Kitty felt herself go weak at the knees.

‘Night then.’ Kitty left the kitchen without anything that she had come for.

Boys had always pursued Kitty, but this one was different, she had thought. The last boy she had slept with she had met at a pub nearby when she was exploring the nightlife in her new city. He was a funny New Zealander who had plied her with vodka and taken her back to his hostel. They’d had quick fumbling sex and she’d passed out on his bunk bed, to awake to him packing his rucksack and telling her he was off to Prague that day and to look after herself.

Kitty had done the walk of shame home to Willow’s, where she had snuck upstairs before the rest of the house had awoken.

After her recent bad experience she was trying to stay away from the opposite sex. She always seemed to choose the wrong ones. She had lost her virginity to Merritt’s friend Johnny Wimple-Jones, which she would never be telling Merritt about. It had been a mistake, she realised in hindsight, but Johnny had been so nice when he had turned up at Middlemist claiming he needed to speak to Merritt urgently. Merritt had already left the country and her father was in London for the night. Brandy and flattery had got Kitty into bed, and Johnny had taken her in a haze of drunkenness and a small amount of pain. Truthfully, she was happy to get rid of her virginity. It sat in the corner of her adolescence, in turn berating her and scaring her until she finally laid the ghost to rest – or Johnny did, so to speak.

After Merritt told her about Eliza cheating on him with Johnny, Kitty was shattered and had vowed to keep her tryst with Johnny secret forever.

The young man at Willow’s party unnerved her. His grace and casual elegance was something she had never seen in a man. Her own father and Merritt were men of the land, all dirty fingernails and work boots. There was a feline quality about this man in his dinner suit, and his upper-crust, lazy accent reminded her of Alan Rickman and Jude Law rolled into one.

She had never seen him since, but she thought about him sometimes, never daring to ask Willow who he was. Instead, when she was lonely in her bed, she would make up her own fantasies about him. It was easier than actually having to have a real conversation with a man; small talk and secrets. Kitty preferred the world in her head to the world outside. She knew why Lucian kept to himself.

Kitty left Jinty sleeping and found Willow waiting for her in the hallway.

‘I have to go back to London. You going to be alright here for a few days with the children?’ Willow didn’t give Kitty time to answer; she started walking towards her bedroom expecting Kitty to follow, which she dutifully did.

‘I’m seeing a new PR girl. Some young gun apparently; Simon recommended her. If I need money quickly then I have to get back to work. Simon believes – and I agree with him – that my re-entry into the public eye needs to be managed carefully.’

Kitty nodded. It all seemed so hard, this celebrity life of Willow’s. Nothing was ever done honestly, she thought, her mind on the hair and makeup artists who would spend hours on Willow to get her looking like she was naturally fabulous. If they could see her now, thought Kitty as she looked at Willow in her leggings and odd socks.

‘I’m pleased this woman will take me on as a client actually. She set up the deal for Gwyneth to work for Estée Lauder. And Simon has a film he’s putting me up for that Kate Winslet’s just dropped out of because of her divorce, so that’s good.’

Kitty was silent, although she wasn’t sure Kate Winslet thought her divorce was good. She wondered if Willow had any empathy for the woman, who was only in the same situation she was in herself.

‘I’m going to shower and head off now. I’ll be staying at the Dorchester until I get things sorted.’

Kitty wondered how she was going to pay for the Dorchester if she was running low on cash. Willow, as if reading her mind, spoke up. ‘Simon set it up. I’m going to be photo-graphed coming and going – they’ll give me a suite for as long as I need.’

‘That’s nice of them,’ said Kitty.

‘Nice? No it’s business, Kitty,’ said Willow. ‘So call me, OK?’

‘Are you going to wait for the children to return?’ asked Kitty.

‘No, no time. You can say my goodbyes. They’ll be fine,’ she said, taking her large Louis Vuitton toiletry bag and walking towards the bathroom, with Kitty following her out down the corridor. As she was about to go through the bathroom door she stopped and turned. ‘Kitty?’

Kitty turned and looked at her employer.

‘Thanks.’ Willow looked uncomfortable as she spoke the word.

‘It’s OK,’ said Kitty, and she smiled at Willow. For a brief moment the women looked at each other as equals. Then Willow shut the bathroom door on her, and Kitty was outside again.

CHAPTER SIX

Eliza slammed down the phone and screamed from her white wood and glass desk. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’

A harassed girl with thick ankles and premature worry lines ran into Eliza’s office. ‘Yes Mrs Wimple-Jones?’ Lucy felt ridiculous calling her boss by her surname. The last place she had worked at, she had known all three of the directors by their first names.

When Eliza had personally headhunted her and wooed her Lucy had felt flattered. Eliza made all the noises of a woman who wanted to share her vision with Lucy, dangling the possibility of a partnership with her in the new PR firm she was setting up, and speaking at length about her belief in a well-run business that didn’t require the crazy hours Lucy was putting in as an account manager at her current firm. Lucy had taken the job with Eliza even though her old bosses had pleaded with her to stay and offered her a higher salary. Times were tight; they’d already let go of all the juniors and Lucy was scared that she might end up as one of the unemployed if she stayed there, however much they liked her. She had been heady on Eliza’s dream.

It didn’t take long for the dream to turn into a nightmare. Every night, Lucy dreamed of walking into the office and stabbing Eliza with her silver Asprey letter-opener. Instead she sucked up Eliza’s demands and her constant bitching and dreamed of a day when she would open her own place.

Lucy imagined a PR company where people rang and had their queries answered. Where they were billed for actual work, not for Eliza’s dry cleaning and lunch bills, which padded out clients’ invoices as ‘project disbursements’. Eliza had forced Lucy to include the costs of her most recent art installation on a client’s bill, much to Lucy’s horror.

Eliza had come from the most successful modern art gallery in London, and through her network she had turned herself into a PR maven. Her clients in the art industry and her marriage to Johnny Wimple-Jones meant she had in her BlackBerry some of London’s best-known people, whom Eliza always referred to as friends. She always said to anyone who would listen that her agency wasn’t a job, it was just catching up with friends every night of the week.

Lucy groaned internally whenever she heard this catchphrase. True, it wasn’t work for Eliza; it was left up to Lucy to ensure the guests had drinks and the photo shoot was set up and the reputation of the latest art enfant terrible was saved.

Eliza had the network, but Lucy had the smarts. She was sure that one day karma would assert itself and she would be at the top of the PR game.

The truth was that most of Eliza’s clients only stayed at EWJ Agency because of Lucy. Her calmness and sensible advice had saved the day on many an occasion. Whether she was talking down a waiter high on coke and threatening to set fire to the hostess’s hairpiece with the chef’s blowtorch, or consoling a WAG whose husband’s philandering had just been made public, Lucy was in control.

Eliza was looking at Lucy shrewdly. ‘You’ve lost me the Piper Esprit Champagne account.’

Lucy looked at her boss confused. ‘I don’t think we ever had that account,’ she said.

‘Well we could have, but now I’ve just found out that they are launching with Karin Burchill.’ Eliza spat out the name of her biggest competition, as though it left a bitter taste in her mouth just to speak it.

‘I didn’t know they were looking,’ said Lucy.

‘You should have known. That’s your job,’ snapped Eliza.

Lucy felt a myriad of things rise to the surface that threatened to fall out of her mouth, so she closed it firmly, thinking of her small flat in Islington that she was paying off.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said instead.

‘You should be,’ snapped Eliza.

Lucy looked down at the diary in her hands.

‘You have two appointments back to back. Willow Carruthers first. She’ll be here in ten minutes,’ placated Lucy.

If there was one thing Eliza loved more than herself, it was celebrity. Eliza raised her eyebrows as if in disdain, but she was wondering if what she was wearing was impressive enough for the most stylish woman in the world. When she had got ready that morning, Eliza hadn’t known Willow would be coming; if she had she would have pulled out all the stops. Instead she looked down at her black silk Burberry dress, worn with the double strand of Wimple-Jones family pearls and her towering black patent leather Jimmy Choos, and figured it would have to do.

Eliza had decided that she would only dress in black and white once she started the agency. ‘Like the news,’ she told people when they asked. Lucy was always tempted to remind her that more and more people were reading their news online and that perhaps she should wear a Google logo dress, but she knew to keep her mouth shut.

Lucy left Eliza’s office and went back to her small desk, where she also acted as a receptionist and did whatever else Eliza decided to throw her way.

Sitting down, she opened JobSearch on her computer, typed in ‘PR’ and started to trawl through the results. She was either overqualified or underqualified for everything. No middle-entry positions, she thought. So fucking depressing.

The bell sounding Willow’s arrival startled Lucy from her gloom. She pressed the buzzer to let Willow into the upstairs office.

Eliza had made the EWJ offices look like a small gallery. Modern art covered the walls, changing constantly as Eliza rotated her sizeable collection between her three houses in London, the country estate and the house in Ibiza.

Today Willow was greeted by a giant installation of latex fried eggs hanging at different heights up the stairs. She pushed open the heavy glass doors. Lucy walked forward to greet her, but Eliza had pushed past and stretched out her long thin hand towards Willow before Lucy had had time to even open her mouth.

‘Hello, I’m Eliza Wimple-Jones,’ she said, with her most welcoming smile plastered on her face. ‘Please come in and we’ll have a chat, OK?’ She guided Willow to the small boardroom and tossed a look at Lucy over her shoulder. ’Coffee and mineral water please, Lucy.’

Willow smiled at Lucy almost apologetically and Lucy smiled back. Lucy was used to Eliza’s rudeness and dismissive tone. She knew that eventually Eliza would tire of her new client and then all the work would fall to her. She took a tray into the boardroom, notebook and pencil under her arm, and placed it down quietly on the glass table. A giant sculpture of a woman in pieces was strung above their heads. While it was ugly, it was better than the baby in utero talking on a mobile phone that had hung there a few months ago.

Willow sat nervously as Eliza talked about her boutique agency. ‘I don’t publicise. My job is to ensure you are in the media for the right reasons, and seen with the right brands and the right people. Your comeback, if you want to call it that, needs to be carefully orchestrated; by not only me but also your agent and manager, both here in London and back in LA.’

Willow nodded.

Eliza went on, liking the sound of her own voice. She was great at the pitch and she knew it; this was where she did well. She just wasn’t so great at doing the work.

‘This could take several months actually, so we need to be careful about how quickly we push you out into the marketplace. Slowly, slowly is the key.’

Willow thought about her dwindling current account and felt sick. ‘Actually I was hoping to move faster than that.’

Eliza nodded, ‘I understand. Want to show the world you’re fierce and fabulous, huh?’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘I get it, I did the same after my first marriage went down the gurgler. OK, well then to launch you sooner – that’s a different plan altogether.’

Willow smiled her most winning celebrity smile. ‘Great. So what’s the plan?’

Eliza preened under the gaze of Willow and looked at Lucy. ‘This is Lucy Faulkner; she’s my assistant and planner. She has fabulous ideas, and she’s already run a few past me this morning after Simon called telling us of your interest in our agency.’

Willow looked at the pale girl, who seemed about twenty-five years old. She was wearing a brown cashmere sweater that made her bust look like a single bolster pillow and a horrible black skirt that sat at an unflattering length on her thick legs.

Lucy panicked. She hadn’t run any ideas past Eliza at all. This was typical Eliza form: all icing, no cake. Lucy took a breath and looked at Willow. She was going to have to wing it and hope it was enough for her to sign them on.

‘I think that if you want to relaunch yourself quickly the best way is to get you a cosmetics contract. It’s a great way for people to see you in a different light and for the industry to see you’re ready to work again. You don’t have any projects lined up yet?’ asked Lucy briskly.

Willow sat back. She had underestimated the smart tweedy-looking girl. ‘No. I have a meeting this afternoon for a film though,’ she said.

‘OK, so I suggest we start shopping for a contract. Anyone would be happy to have you, either in fashion or in cosmetics as I said. Then I think we do a big interview: a tell-all with a magazine of substance. Vogue, Vanity Fair, nothing less than that, otherwise it cheapens the whole thing. I suggest you make no comment in public about your husband or your children either. Take the high road.’

The buzzer went in the office and Eliza looked at Lucy, expecting her to stop mid pitch and answer the door. Willow looked at Eliza, and then back at Lucy. ‘Perhaps you can get it. I’m interested in what Lucy is saying,’ she said almost imperiously. Eliza smiled graciously but was fuming inside. How dare that washed-up bitch tell me to answer my own door, she thought.

As the door to the boardroom shut Lucy looked directly at Willow. There was a fragility about her that she found interesting, as though there existed something more behind the brittle veneer she used to mask her feelings.

‘Listen, can I be straight with you?’ she asked suddenly and not even believing she was saying it.

‘I guess,’ said Willow warily.

‘There are rumours that you and Kerr are in the shit financially, big time. I don’t know if that’s true – and unless you’re my client it’s none of my business – but if it is true then Eliza’s not the agent you want. She’s indiscreet and a social climber. Your sorrows are her gains and she will use it against you. I suggest you look for another agency if it’s true. It’s not me, I could solve this for you – but don’t trust Eliza.’

Willow looked at the sensible, plain girl with the golden advice and nodded.

Eliza came back into the room. ‘Sorry, bloody couriers,’ she said and sat down again. ‘Now where were we?’

Willow stood up. ‘I’m sorry to waste your time. I’m afraid this isn’t really the agency for me; perhaps it’s a little premature,’ she said, smiling at Eliza.

Eliza glared at Lucy. What had she said to her? The stupid dumb clodhopper of a girl was useless. ‘Are you sure? I think we could work well together,’ pleaded Eliza.

‘No, I’m afraid not; but thank you for your time, I really appreciate it,’ said Willow. She backed out of the room, ignoring Lucy, ran down the stairs under the giant hanging eggs, and didn’t stop to take her first breath until she was on the street outside. A few people passed her, doing double takes at the glamorous star looking as though she had seen a ghost. Willow pulled herself together and thought about her options. If word got out about her financial woes then she would never be taken seriously. No one could know about this, she thought; she needed to act as though she hadn’t a care in the world except for her beloved children. The last thing she wanted was to do cheap media for money; she might as well light some hoops in Trafalgar Square and jump through them for small change.