Читать книгу Kathleen Tessaro 3-Book Collection: The Flirt, The Debutante, The Perfume Collector - Kathleen Tessaro, Kathleen Tessaro - Страница 37

Flick sat alone in her office, cutting out yet another photo of Olivia Bourgalt du Coudray for her file. This was no ordinary mark. Here was one case where preparation was crucial.

Flick’s particular talent, groomed by Valentine, was to read between the lines of women’s lives, to excavate with all the instinctive wisdom of a white witch, what would touch them, stir them most.

Only Olivia Bourgalt du Coudray was proving difficult.

It should’ve been easy. Her life was extremely well documented. Although she didn’t appear to seek out media attention, she naturally attracted it. And miraculously, it was mostly confined to her public appearances. Either she did nothing to excite speculation in her private life or she’d managed that almost impossible task of taming the British press.

However, there was an impenetrable quality about her; as if she were protected by a haze of steely perfection.

What was this woman lacking?

Flick snipped the last bit of paper away and added the photo to the already bulging brief.

She wasn’t making much progress.

Yawning, she leant back in her chair. The flat was quiet. Late-afternoon sun filtered in through the window behind her desk, warming her back.

Valentine was out. All the boys busy; even young Hughie.

She smiled. He was a strange, rare talent; a bit like a child behind the wheel of a Ferrari; he’d be either brilliant or a disaster. Careful cultivation was needed. But he couldn’t be in better hands than Henry’s.

How many young men had she auditioned, trained, watched as they struggled to find their feet in this strange half-world of flirting? Few had the necessary ability or self-control. If truth be known, it took a young man with a tragic history to be successful in this game. To flirt with the intention of seduction, intimacy, romance was one thing. But to flirt and leave, again and again and again, six, seven times a day, required an altogether different sensibility.

Sometimes Flick wondered who was lonelier – the women they flirted with or the flirts themselves?

And where did that put her, at the centre of this web of fragile human transactions? Were they really helping to heal the rifts which separated couples or were they, in fact, simply distracting them, dangling a shiny object in front of crying children to stem their tears?

She looked around her office – at the wooden filing cabinets, the crowded bookcases, her desk piled high with client files and finally, at the backs of her hands, holding the newspaper clippings.

There was no denying it: they were old-lady hands, wrinkled and worn. No amount of hand cream would hold back time.

‘You’re getting cynical, old girl,’ she said out loud. ‘Remember, it’s just a job.’

Then something caught her attention. Picking up another photo, she looked hard.

No, she wasn’t just imagining it: there was an unmistakable sadness in Olivia’s eyes; a kind of helpless resignation.

Sadness?

Flick pulled out a few more recent clippings and lined them up one next to the other.

There it was – the same forlorn quality, which had eluded her at first, was now instantly apparent in each one of them.

What did Olivia Bourgalt du Coudray have to be unhappy about? Her life was charmed! Flick concentrated harder.

Again she looked at Olivia’s clean, coiffed, blonde hair, trim neat figure, elegant, impeccable clothes. Then she spotted her smile; the gritted teeth, tension running along the whole length of the jawline, grinding the back molars together. She could practically feel the strength of will that kept Olivia together; a thick, cold terror of exposing herself in any way, shape or form.

Sitting back in her chair, Flick pressed her hands together under her chin.

What was she so afraid of?

Suddenly it came. ‘She has a secret!’

But what?

A lover?

An addiction?

A child?

Again, she examined Olivia’s face for clues.

Then, looking into the frightened eyes of one of the richest women in the world, Flick recognized something from her own modest childhood: Olivia was ashamed.

As a good Irish Catholic, Flick had been raised with shame, like a cucumber pickled in vinegar and spice. She knew what it was like to be saturated by it so completely that it was almost impossible to tell where you ended and guilt began. In fact, her childhood had been filled with large, powerful, creative women, all pretending to be small, cheerful and uncomplicated – frightened of what might happen if they let themselves go. And it was shame that had accomplished this feat so effectively – binding them like corsets. Shame for being strong, shame for being interesting, shame for being human. It had baffled and frustrated her as a little girl but it infuriated her now.

Then Flick thought over the long, painful years she’d spent posing as a likely, sanitized version of herself and of how lonely and empty it had been – even, or perhaps especially, during her marriage. She’d always told herself that one day soon, when she felt better about herself, more comfortable, she’d be a bit freer with her husband, a bit more willing to show him who she really was. But he’d died before she ever dared to try. In fact, it was only in her solitude and through her strange association with Valentine that she came to know herself at all.

Such a waste!

Flick had never been particularly ambitious, never had any grand dreams of conquering the world. But here, in the quiet of 111 Half Moon Street, she saw an opportunity to accomplish something of real and lasting importance. Perhaps there was a way of liberating this woman from herself. Of freeing her from whatever secret it was that held her so tightly in its grasp.

Was it possible that something as slight as a flirt could succeed in so great a task? Could a woman be seduced into a freer, more daring version of herself?

She wasn’t sure. And it wouldn’t be easy: she’d need help, inspiration.

One thing was certain: the fragile future of Olivia Bourgalt du Coudray now rested firmly in her old-lady hands.