Читать книгу Come Away With Me - Sara MacDonald, Sara MacDonald - Страница 19

On our first date Tom turns up at the house with the biggest bunch of flowers I have ever seen. It’s eight o’clock and I’m not ready. It has been the most terrible day. Our most experienced cutter has gone sick and Danielle and I are behind with our accounts, again, and we are terrified of incurring a penalty. Danielle is upstairs fighting figures while I try to finish cutting a complicated pattern.

I had it all planned for a quick getaway. My clothes are laid out on the bed and an expensive soak is waiting on the edge of my bath. I wanted to feel calm and fragrant when I saw Tom again but when I throw open the door to him I am frazzled and almost tearful.

He grins at me, buckling under the weight of foliage in his arms. ’Hi, Jenny.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m late, I’m not ready. Come in.’

I am mortified. I look a complete mess.

‘It doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m early…’ He leans forward and kisses me on the cheek round his acre of garden. ‘These are for you.’ He hands me the flowers. The smell of them fills the hall, dwarfs me and hides me from his sight. I suddenly want to giggle.

‘Heavens, you disappeared.’ He takes them back, laughing, and we fill the sink. Suddenly I feel better.

‘I’m not sure if I have enough vases…’ I regale him with the saga of my awful day. I get wine out of the fridge and pour two huge glasses.

‘Sorry about your hellish day.’

He raises his drink to me and we clink glasses and I am so pleased this man is standing in my kitchen that I reach up and kiss him on the side of his mouth. ‘Thank you so much for my ginormous, wonderful bunch of flowers.’

‘I didn’t know what you like so I got a mixture of everything in the shop.’

‘So I see.’ We stare at each other, delighted. ‘Look, I’ve got to go back down to the basement to tidy up. I’ll be five minutes.’

‘May I come down and see where you work?’

He follows me down the stairs and as I tidy and lock up he mooches around in an interested fashion looking at the noticeboard and at designs pinned on plastic models, and the table where I’ve been cutting out.

‘We’re a bit cramped, as you can see. We’re going to have to look for bigger premises eventually, but it’s hard in London. We need to be fairly central for people to get to us.’

‘Fairly central means expensive.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Do you always work this late?’

I laugh. ‘This is early, Tom! Danielle and I are selfemployed.’

We go back upstairs and an exhausted-looking Danielle is in the kitchen pouring herself a glass of wine.

‘I can hear a cork go three storeys up. Hello, Tom.’ She holds up her glass to him. ‘Jenny, you are not changed. Go at once…’

‘Look,’ Tom says, turning to me. ‘You’ve both obviously had a pig of a day, why don’t I order a takeaway for three and you and I can go out for a meal tomorrow, or another night, when you aren’t exhausted?’

Relief floods through me. I have to get up early in the morning. ’Are you sure?’

‘I refuse to play strawberry,’ Danielle says primly.

Tom and I scream with laughter.

Danielle smiles. ‘What? What did I say?’

‘Gooseberry, not strawberry, Elle. Don’t be silly. Where are all our takeaway menus…?’

‘Aha. Girls after my own heart.’

We fish them out and I fly upstairs to have a quick shower. Tom and Danielle get on famously.

Tom had to do a bookkeeping course for the army and he glances over our books for us. ‘Why don’t they teach students the business side of things at art school?’

‘I think some art schools do, but not at Central St Martin’s,’ Danielle says.

‘You really need someone to do this professionally for you.’

‘We’ve got an accountant, but we still have to get the books in order for him and it’s so time-consuming,’ I tell him. ‘But you’re right, we do need someone.’

Danielle and I smile at each other. ‘Actually, we both know the ideal person. We need someone administrative who can also oversee the girls in the workroom, leaving us both free to design. Someone who knows the fashion business inside out.’

‘So, have you asked her?’

‘It’s tricky. She works for a designer we know very well. We’d have to approach her carefully.’

‘Headhunt, entice, persuade, inveigle, you mean?’

‘That is it.’ Danielle laughs. ‘Jenny is nicer than me. She worries. I think we should take Florence out to lunch, Jenny, and just ask her. I do not think she is happy with Sam Jackson.’

‘He certainly takes her for granted. She’s an absolute treasure.’

‘We would appreciate her.’

‘Of course we would. I’ve heard he is appallingly mean with his staff, too.’

Tom pours more wine. ‘That’s the way. Talk yourselves into it. Concentrate on “Operation Headhunt”.’

When Danielle has gone up to bed Tom says, ‘I’m going to go and let you get some sleep.’ But he doesn’t leave for another half-hour. We kiss until my mouth is sore.

The following night we make love on the hard polished floor of his flat because we never make it to the bedroom. I see Tom every day of his ten-day leave and when he goes again I cannot even remember what I had done or where I had gone before I met him.