Guilty Pleasures

Cassandra gave a small laugh. ‘If we are referring to the orange stripe in her hair I’m going to get that sorted out immediately.’

The headmistress shook her head. ‘I’ve always felt thirteen is a watershed age. The cusp of womanhood. She needs her mother to guide her along the right path.’

Cassandra felt herself stiffen. Was there the suggestion in the woman’s words that she was not a good mother, or was she being overly sensitive?

‘I thought that’s what I paid you a great deal of money to do,’ said Cassandra, pursing her lips.

‘We like to think we have excellent pastoral care at Briarton but we can’t be all things to all children.’

You hypocrite thought Cassandra narrowing her eyes. You charge the highest fees to make parents feel better about themselves but at the slightest hint of trouble, you throw the blame straight back at them.

‘Ruby has an enormous amount of love and attention from her family, Miss Broughton, I can assure you of that. I can also assure you that there are other schools who would be only too glad to take responsibility for a bright, capable pupil like Ruby.’

She opened the car door and climbed inside.

‘As I said, a wonderful talk, Miss Grand,’ Miss Broughton said as Cassandra slammed the door.

Through the tinted windows, she looked up at the Gothic beauty of Briarton Court and shivered. For a moment she thought about taking her daughter away. That would show the old bitch, thought Cassandra. She wouldn’t want to lose the high grade exam results Ruby was likely to chalk up, would she? But then the reputation of the school was unparalleled and more importantly, the calibre of the pupils, of the friends that her daughter would forge, was also excellent. Besides, she didn’t want the inconvenience of moving Ruby again. She looked away from the school and told Andrew to drive to London as fast as he could. She then turned her attention to dissecting the new issue of Vogue as it started to rain.

6

Emma told the taxi to go slowly. Past Prada, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Past Hermès, Celine and Louis Vuitton. Past the window displays of grand twinkling diamonds: De Beers, Tiffany and Cartier. Past some of the greatest, most desirable luxury brands in the world. London seemed to have grown so much richer since the last time she had been shopping in Mayfair. Bentleys and high-end Audis lined the road, beautiful women with expensive haircuts and winter tans floated out of jewellers with big smiles and sparklers.

‘So where d’you want dropping, love?’ asked the cabbie, now visibly annoyed. He’d spent the last ten minutes snaking up and down Bond Street, with Emma pressing her face up against the window.

‘Do you know the Milford shop?’ she asked.

‘Not the foggiest, love. What’s it look like?’

Emma knew how he felt. It had been so long since she had last visited the Milford store that she could scarcely remember it either, and now having gone up and down the length of Bond Street, she was no wiser. Milford had four stores worldwide, all in prime locations; Rue St Honoré in Paris, Fifth Avenue in New York and Via Condotti in Rome, but the London shop was the flagship. Strange, then, that it seemed impossible to locate.

‘There it is,’ she said finally, and the taxi pulled up outside an anonymous-looking store on the lower stretch of New Bond Street.

‘It’s my shop. Well, sort of,’ she explained to the cabbie as she handed him a crisp twenty pound note.

‘Yeah, right,’ said the taxi driver under his breath as he roared off. Emma loitered on the pavement, unsure whether she really wanted to go in. It was a rather forbidding place, painted in a dark blue with a tiny window display of some not terribly exciting wallets and gloves. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the mahogany door but it wouldn’t open. She tried again, this time harder, but still it wouldn’t budge. Then she noticed a bell to the side of the door and after pressing

it twice, a buzzer sounded and it opened with a creak. The ghostly quiet which greeted her reminded Emma of going into a church. The store was dingy and very old-fashioned and it smelt slightly musty, like a country house boot-room. Where’s the glorious smell of leather? she thought distractedly. There was a beautiful staircase in the middle of the room leading to a mezzanine floor, but the rest of the store was dark and depressing, with small windows which let in very little light. Behind the counter, an old man with a pince-nez eyed her curiously, then continued with his telephone conversation. Emma had the curious sensation of feeling both intimidated and ignored at the same time.

Since leaving Price Donahue, Emma had dealt with her sadness and anger in the only way she knew how – by losing herself in work. She had requested Milford’s press cuttings and financial reports to be Fed-Exed over and had examined them with forensic thoroughness. She had quickly discovered that the company’s financial position was dire. While the luxury leather goods industry was now a multi-billion dollar business – in the last two decades designer handbags had been one of the biggest growth areas in the whole of the fashion industry – Milford was barely staying afloat. Looking around, she knew exactly why. It was a Saturday afternoon and the shop was deserted. Emma wandered over to the nearest shelf and picked up a leather bag. She pulled a face. You didn’t need to be a fashion expert to know that it was ugly. It was dark brown but it wasn’t the warm, rich brown of milk chocolate; it was sludgy like mud. She ran her fingers over the bumpy leather – ostrich she wondered – it was obviously expensive but it wasn’t an item she’d want in her wardrobe in a month of Sundays.

‘Can I help you?’ asked a stern-looking shop assistant with blonde hair the texture of candy-floss and a brass name-badge announcing her name as ‘Barbara’. She looked at Emma’s fleece and jeans with undisguised distaste.

‘I’m just looking,’ said Emma as brightly as she could.

‘For anything in particular?’ asked Barbara snootily.

‘Actually, can you tell me which is your most popular bag?’

The woman looked stricken that anyone should base a choice on anything as vulgar as popularity.

‘It’s this one,’ she said, indicating a brown leather tote. ‘It’s called the “Rebecca”.’ I wonder where that came from, thought Emma. She picked it up. The leather was certainly beautiful but the materials could not disguise the frumpy shape and the overcomplicated knotted tassels.

‘It’s rather expensive,’ said Barbara.

Emma picked up the price tag. £3,000! For that? she thought to herself.

As if reading her thoughts, Barbara added: ‘The craftsmanship on all the Milford range is superb.’