Читать книгу Playing by the Rules: The feel-good heart-warming and uplifting romance perfect for Valentine’s Day - Rosa Temple - Страница 8

Chapter 2

Back at my Holland Park flat I stood on the balcony outside the bedroom window. It was probably the hottest day of August and the heat made my head ache. The traffic trundled past at street level, three floors below, each of the drivers oblivious to my recent run of bad luck and the horrendous fate that awaited me if I gave in to Nana Clementine’s crazy condition and actually worked … for a whole year.

All of a sudden my head began to spin. My life was falling to pieces around me. Mother had already lived up to her threat and had stopped giving me money for rent and clothes whenever I was out of work.

‘It’s the only way you’ll learn to stand on your own two feet, Magenta,’ she’d told me over breakfast one morning when I’d come to borrow £2000 for the rent arrears. ‘If you don’t learn to look after your finances you’ll have to come back home and live with me and get a job alongside your older sisters.’

She’d seen the look of terror in my eyes. Mother had retired as CEO to the lingerie business and my older sisters both held high positions within it. Amber was head of marketing and Indigo was the business lawyer for the firm. Ebony had gone straight from university into a job as an assistant buyer for Harrods and hadn’t looked back.

‘But, Mother,’ I’d pleaded. ‘I’m not business-minded; I’m an artist. I’d never last in the dizzying heights of high finance and corporate management.’

‘Magenta,’ Mother had sighed. ‘You haven’t produced a single piece of art since you left art school. Why don’t you at least try to finish your degree? You were very good, you know?’

Mother was right. I was good at art but I was hardly the best. I realised a long time ago that in order to succeed one had to be competitive. And I wasn’t. There didn’t seem to be a competitive bone in my body. My sisters had been direct products of my parents’ ambitious natures. Their power-mad gene was missing from my DNA.

I leaned on the rail of the balcony and sighed. I was an artist who no longer owned a sketch pad and who didn’t have an HB pencil to her name. My talents lay elsewhere as I kept trying to tell everyone. I was an expert in where to get the best cosmopolitan in town, how to dress well and how to get invited to all the good parties in London, Paris, New York and at least four other cities in the world. With those credentials how was I ever going to get a job that lasted a year and what on earth did working for a year actually feel like?

I went back inside and put on some music. Before flopping onto the large red sofa in the middle of my spacious living room I grabbed the phone and called my younger sister, Ebony. Ebony was the most serious of us all and the most sensible. She was three years younger than me but seemed to have at least thirty years of common sense built into her anatomy and I admired her for that.

‘I was expecting your call,’ she said when she picked up.

‘Can you talk? Where are you?’ I said. I was upside down on the sofa, thick hair almost touching the wooden floorboards and feet crossed over the headrest. I could see I was due a pedicure. ‘You sound like you’re on the move.’

‘I am,’ said Ebony and I pictured her in the power suit she’d been wearing earlier today. A dark red skirt and jacket with a brilliant white shirt underneath. She wore an amber brooch on the collar of her jacket, one of the treasures Nana Clementine had given to her. Each time we went to see Nana in her sickbed she would point a long, thin finger at her jewellery box and present us with some precious gem or ring or bracelet. I had a box full of Nana Clementine treasures and there had been times, desperate ones of course, when I’d thought about taking them to the pawnshop on Notting Hill Gate.

‘I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes,’ said Ebony. ‘I’m just getting into the car but I think I have the solution to your financial predicament.’

I sat up quickly, the blood rushing away from my head, and I swooned.

‘Oh, Ebony, you’re a sweetheart,’ I breathed. ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Sure about what, Magenta?’ I heard her car start up.

‘Well you’re going to loan me some cash, right?’ I said casually. Because, after all, what’s the point in having a favourite sister if she didn’t give you money when you needed it?

‘Better than that,’ said Ebony. ‘I’m going to put you onto someone who can give you a job.’ Ebony had started driving. I could hear traffic from her end but I had suddenly lost the ability to focus on the David Hockney lithograph on the wall opposite me. Its vibrant colour scheme was nothing but a blur before my eyes.

‘Magenta, are you still there?’ Ebony shouted.

‘I am, but for a moment I thought you said you might have found me a job.’

‘Welcome to the world of the grown-ups, Magenta. My neighbour’s son is taking over from him and is hiring. Just yesterday Arthur told me that his son, Anthony, is interviewing for a new PA. I called Arthur a second ago and he called Anthony. You need to see Anthony tomorrow morning at ten-thirty at his office in Mayfair.’

It was all happening too fast. An interview? A job? Who the hell was Anthony and why would he hire me?

‘Look you’ve been a PA before, Magenta. It’s more or less in the bag. Anthony won’t know what he’s looking for in a PA because he’s new to the game. You just have to go and convince him that you’re the one for the job. You know how to do that.’

‘I don’t. I haven’t got a clue.’

‘Yes, you have. You know exactly how to manipulate people. How else could you get Mother and Father to keep you in the lifestyle you lead without having to lift a finger?’

‘That’s not manipulation, Ebony, that’s a mother and father’s genuine love for their daughter.’

‘They’ve spoilt you and you know it. Now get off that sofa of yours and get practising your interview technique. I’ll text the details.’

‘But I …’ With a click the line was dead and Ebony had probably zipped off in her sports car without a single thought as to how having to go for an interview would affect me.

It wasn’t until a little while later, when I was mixing an emergency margarita, that I realised I didn’t even know what the company I would be interviewing for actually did. A text came through from Ebony with the details of the job interview and I was none the wiser.

My interview was with Anthony Shearman. The company was called A Shearman Leather Designs. I supposed the ‘A’ stood for Arthur, Ebony’s neighbour, and quite fitting that his son, Anthony, another ‘A’, was taking over. The office was in Mayfair, classy, so that was fine but as for leather designs, well, that could be anything. Hopefully Ebony hadn’t lined me up for a job in anything kinky and the leather might mean shoes and handbags – two of my favourite words. I’d never heard the name Shearman in top fashion so they obviously weren’t a designer label, but with an office in Mayfair they must be doing well.

I decided to Google ‘A Shearman Leather Designs’. I opened my laptop on the coffee table and sat on the floor, my back against the sofa, a second margarita beside the laptop.

I saw that Arthur Shearman inherited the company from Arthur Shearman Senior, long since deceased. They started as cobblers of men’s shoes in the West End of London and branched out into boot making, wallets, briefcases and men’s leather gloves. In fact, every conceivable leather item a well-to-do city gent could require, A Shearman made and sold it. They also owned a small factory in East London. Arthur Junior was recently retired and his thirty-three-year-old son, Anthony, was to take the helm.

It looked as if most of their sales were online. There was a picture of Arthur Shearman shaking hands with his son at a party. His son was tall and looked pleasant enough. In fact, when I zoomed in on the picture, Anthony Shearman wasn’t bad-looking at all. I could work very happily alongside those looks for a year, I thought to myself as I zoomed in even closer, very happily indeed.

I left the laptop open next to most of my margarita on the coffee table and leapt up. I padded across to my bedroom and threw open the doors to my walk-in wardrobe. I was on a mission. By ten-thirty the next morning I needed to land a new job and maybe a new boyfriend. I had to look the part. I stepped inside my wardrobe and emerged with the perfect ensemble about two hours later.