One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [4]
‘I need you, Hattie, I really do. I can’t seem to get through to her at the moment. And she listens to you. Come for the weekend.’
I’d licked my lips, standing as I was at the time when my mobile had rung, on a seventeenth-century console table, fiddling with a delicate crystal chandelier. The weekend. I was supposed to be quoting on a house in Battersea on Saturday.
‘And don’t worry, I know you decorators all charge consultancy fees these days,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve factored that in.’ He went on to mention a sum of money so huge I had to climb off the table before I fell off.
‘Well, that’s extremely generous of you, Hugh,’ I said, trying not to wonder, if that was a consultancy fee, what the entire job would yield. Trying not to mentally pay off the mortgage and Seffy’s school fees.
‘Oh, believe me, it’s a fraction of the price I’ve been told someone called Ralph de Granville charges, who will otherwise be unleashed in my house. D’you know him?’
‘Only… by repute,’ I’d said, holding on to the console table now. I mouthed at Maggie – who was transfixed by this conversation, standing stock-still in the middle of the shop, a pair of gilt rococo cherubs in her hands – first the amount of money, then the name of the competing decorator. The first she gaped at; at the second, looked horrified. She shook her head and made an eloquent throat-slitting gesture. I turned back to Hugh, vertebrae stiffening.
‘We accept, Hugh. We’ll come this weekend and price the job up for you. Expect us on Friday.’
‘Perfect,’ he’d purred in relief.
‘Are you mad?’ Maggie squealed as I snapped my phone shut. Ralph de Granville? If we go head to head with that man we’ll be the laughing stock of London! If that’s who Laura wants there’s no way she’ll have us. We’re chalk and cheese! Fromage et froufrou, in fact. Remember Albion Close? That woman proudly showing us her “de Granville” bathroom with the tart’s knickers hanging from the window? That blind had more colour and pattern in it than one would care to see in an entire house! Hugh clearly has no idea how different we are. He just thinks one decorator is much the same as another.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ I said slowly. ‘Hugh knows what we do, and he likes it. And at the end of the day, Maggie,’ I flicked her a look, ‘it’s his house, not Laura’s.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Right. Blimey. Not much has changed then, has it? I mean, since the days of Mr Darcy and Miss Bennet.’
‘Not a lot,’ I said shortly. ‘As Carla discovered to her cost.’ I climbed back onto the table and resumed my inspection of the chandelier. Carla was Hugh’s first wife: a fiery Italian who’d left him after a few years of unsatisfactory marriage for a Formula One racing driver. She’d received a handsome settlement but if she’d expected half the Abbey, she’d been disappointed.
‘Tricky for you, though,’ Maggie mused behind me, still weighing up her cherubs and the implications. ‘I mean, Hugh wants you, but Laura clearly doesn’t.’ Her voice couldn’t resist a triumphant little rise at the end. I ignored her and carried on fiddling with the crystal droplets. Rather like Christmas tree lights, a dud one could jeopardize the entire show. ‘And if we did get the job,’ she persisted, ‘we’d be there a lot, don’t you think? I mean, weekends too, possibly?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Seffy would like that, wouldn’t he? Now he’s a weekly boarder.’
‘I’m sure.’
There was a pause. I could tell she was building up to something. ‘And Ivan?’ Her voice betrayed a frisson of excitement.
Ah, Ivan. My other weekly boarder. The one that tended to stay during the week, and scarper at weekends, who knows where. I carefully screwed in the last glass drop, then reached out and flicked a switch. The chandelier sprang into fabulous light, dazzling our tiny shop. We gasped as it glittered.
‘You see?’ I said triumphantly. ‘Just needed a bit