فصل 04

4

To: KatClark!@yahoo.com

From: BusyBee@gmail.com

Hey, Stinky Arsebandit Yourself,

(Is that how a respected accountant is really meant to talk to her globetrotting sister?)

I’m good, thanks. My employer – Agnes – is my age and really nice. So that’s been a bonus. You wouldn’t believe the places I’m going – last night I went to a ball in a dress that cost more than I earn in a month. I felt like Cinderella. Except with a really gorgeous sister (yup, so that’s a new one for me. Ha-ha-ha-ha!).

Glad Thom is enjoying his new school. Don’t worry about the felt-tip thing – we can always paint that wall. Mum says it’s a sign of his creative expression. Did you know she’s trying to get Dad to go to night school to learn to express himself better? He’s got it into his head this means she’s going to get him to go tantric. God knows where he’s read about that. I pretended like she’d told me that was definitely it when he called me, and now I’m feeling a bit guilty because he’s panicking that he’ll have to get his old fella out in front of a room full of strangers.

Write me more news. Especially about the date!!!

Miss you,

Lou xxx

PS If Dad does get his old fella out in front of a room full of strangers I don’t want to know ANYTHING.

According to Agnes’s social diary, numerous events were highlights of the New York social calendar, but the Neil and Florence Strager Charitable Foundation Dinner teetered somewhere near the pinnacle. Guests wore yellow – the men in necktie form, unless particularly exhibitionist – and the resulting photographs were distributed in publications from the New York Post to Harper’s Bazaar. Dress was formal, the yellow outfits were dazzling, and tickets cost a pocketful of small change under thirty thousand dollars a table. For the outer reaches of the room. I knew this because I had started researching each event that Agnes was due to attend, and this was a big one not just because of the amount of preparation (manicurist, hairdresser, masseur, extra George in the mornings) but because of Agnes’s stress level. She physically vibrated through the day, shouting at George that she couldn’t do the exercises he’d given her, couldn’t run the distance. It was all impossible. George, who possessed an almost Buddha-like level of calm, said that was totally fine, they would walk back and the endorphins from the walk were all good. When he left he gave me a wink, as if this were entirely to be expected.

Mr Gopnik, perhaps in response to some distress call, came home at lunchtime and found her locked into her dressing room. I collected some dry-cleaning from Ashok and cancelled her teeth-whitening appointment, then sat in the hall, unsure what I should be doing. I heard her muffled voice as he opened the door: ‘I don’t want to go.’

Whatever she went on to say kept Mr Gopnik at home way after I might have expected. Nathan was out so I couldn’t talk to him. Michael stopped by, peering around the door. ‘Is he still here?’ he said. ‘My tracker stopped working.’

‘Tracker?’

‘On his phone. Only way I can work out where he is half the time.’

‘He’s in her dressing room.’ I didn’t know what else to say, how far to trust Michael. But it was hard to ignore the sound of raised voices. ‘I don’t think Mrs Gopnik is very keen on going out tonight.’

‘Big Purple. I told you.’

And then I remembered.

‘The former Mrs Gopnik. This was her big night, and Agnes knows it. Still is. All her old harpies will be there. They’re not the friendliest.’

‘Well, that explains a lot.’

‘He’s a big benefactor so he can’t not show. Plus he’s old friends with the Stragers. But it’s one of the tougher nights of their calendar. Last year was a total wipe-out.’

‘Why?’

‘Aw. She walked in like a lamb to the slaughter.’ He pulled a face. ‘Thought they would be her new best friends. From what I heard afterwards, they fried her.’

I shuddered. ‘Can she not just leave him to go by himself?’

‘Oh, honey, you have no idea how it works here. No. No. No. She has to go. She has to put a smile on her face and be seen in the pictures. That’s her job now. And she knows it. But it’s not going to be pretty.’

The voices had risen. We heard Agnes protesting, then Mr Gopnik’s softer voice, pleading, reasonable.

Michael looked at his watch. ‘I’ll head back to the office. Do me a favour? Text me when he leaves? I have fifty-eight things for him to sign before three p.m. Love ya!’ He blew me a kiss and was gone.

I sat for a while longer, trying not to listen to the argument down the corridor. I scrolled through the calendar, wondering if there was anything I could do to be useful. Felix strolled past, his lifted tail a question mark, supremely unbothered by the actions of the humans around him.

And then the door opened. Mr Gopnik saw me. ‘Ah, Louisa. Can you come in for a moment?’

I stood and half walked, half ran to where he was standing. It was difficult as running brought on muscle spasms.

‘I wondered if you were free this evening.’

‘Free?’

‘To come to an event. For charity.’

‘Uh … sure.’ I had known from the start that the hours would not be regular. And at least it meant I wasn’t likely to bump into Ilaria. I would download a movie onto one of the iPads and watch it in the car.

‘There. What do you think, darling?’ Agnes looked as if she had been crying. ‘She can sit next to me?’

‘I’ll sort it out.’

She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘Okay, then. I suppose so.’

‘Sit next to …’

‘Good. Good!’ Mr Gopnik checked his phone. ‘Right. I really have to go. I’ll see you in the main ballroom. Seven thirty. If I can get through this conference call any sooner I’ll let you know.’ He stepped forward and took her face in his hands, kissing her. ‘You’re okay?’

‘I’m okay.’

‘I love you. Very much.’ Another kiss, and he was gone.

Agnes took another deep breath. She put her hands on her knees, then looked up at me. ‘You have a yellow ballgown?’

I stared at her. ‘Um. Nope. Bit short on ballgowns, actually.’

She ran her gaze up and down me, as if trying to work out whether I could fit into anything she owned. I think we both knew the answer to that one. Then she straightened. ‘Call Garry. We need to get to Saks.’

Half an hour later I was standing in a changing room while two shop assistants pushed my bosoms into a strapless dress the colour of unsalted butter. The last time I had been handled this intimately, I quipped, I had discussed getting engaged immediately afterwards. Nobody laughed.

Agnes frowned. ‘Too bridal. And it makes her look thick around the waist.’

‘That’s because I am thick around the waist.’

‘We do some very good corrective panties, Mrs Gopnik.’

‘Oh, I’m not sure I –’

‘Do you have anything more fifties-style?’ said Agnes, flicking through her phone. ‘Because this will pull in her waist and get around the height issue. We don’t have time to take anything up.’

‘When is your event, ma’am?’

‘We have to be there seven thirty.’

‘We can alter a dress for you in time, Mrs Gopnik. I’ll get Terri to deliver it over to you by six.’

‘Then let’s try the sunflower yellow one there … and that one with the sequins.’

If I’d known that that afternoon would be the one time in my life I would be trying on three-thousand-dollar dresses, I might have made sure I wasn’t wearing comedy knickers with a sausage dog on them and a bra that was held together with a safety pin. I wondered how many times in one week you could end up exposing your breasts to perfect strangers. I wondered if they had ever seen a body like mine before, with actual fatty bits. The shop assistants were far too polite to comment on it, beyond repeatedly offering ‘corrective’ underwear, but simply brought in dress after dress, wrestling me in and out, like someone wrangling livestock, until Agnes, sitting on an upholstered chair, announced, ‘Yes! This is the one. What you think, Louisa? It is even perfect length for you with that tulle underskirt.’

I stared at my reflection. I wasn’t sure who was staring back at me. My waist was nipped in by an inbuilt corset, my bosom hoisted upwards into a perfect embonpoint. The colour made my skin glow and the long skirt made me a foot taller and entirely unlike myself. The fact that I couldn’t breathe was irrelevant.

‘We will put your hair up and some earrings. Perfect.’

‘And this dress is twenty per cent off,’ said one of the shop assistants. ‘We don’t sell much yellow after the Strager event each year …’

I almost deflated with relief. And then I gazed at the label. The sale price was $2575. A month’s wages. I think Agnes must have seen my bleached face, for she waved at one of the women. ‘Louisa, you get changed. Do you have any shoes that will go? We can run to the shoe department?’

‘I have shoes. Lots of shoes.’ I had some gold satin-heeled dancing pumps, which would look fine. I did not want this bill going any higher.

I went back into the changing cubicle and climbed out of the dress carefully, feeling the weight of it fall expensively around me, and as I got dressed, I listened to Agnes and the assistants talking. Agnes summoned a bag and some earrings, gave them a cursory glance and was apparently satisfied. ‘Charge it to my account.’

‘Certainly, Mrs Gopnik.’

I met her at the cash desk. As we walked away, me clutching the bags, I said quietly, ‘So do you want me to be extra careful?’

She looked at me blankly.

‘With the dress.’

Still she looked blank.

I lowered my voice. ‘At home we tuck the label in, then you can take it back the next day. You know, as long as there are no accidental wine stains and it doesn’t stink too much of cigarettes. Maybe give it a quick squirt of Febreze.’

‘Take it back?’

‘To the shop.’

‘Why we would do this?’ she said, as we climbed back into the waiting car and Garry put the bags into the boot. ‘Don’t look so anxious, Louisa. You think I don’t know how you feel? I have nothing when I come here. Me and my friends, we even shared our clothes. But you have to wear good dress when you sit next to me this evening. You can’t wear your uniform. This evening you are not staff. And I am happy to pay for this.’

‘Okay.’

‘You understand. Yes? Tonight you have to not be staff. It’s very important.’

I thought of the enormous carrier bag in the boot behind me as the car navigated its way slowly through the Manhattan traffic, a little dumbstruck at the direction this day was taking.

‘Leonard says you looked after a man who died.’

‘I did. His name was Will.’

‘He says you have – discretion.’

‘I try.’

‘And also that you don’t know anyone here.’

‘Just Nathan.’

She thought about this. ‘Nathan. I think he is a good man.’

‘He really is.’

She studied her nails. ‘You speak Polish?’

‘No.’ I added quickly: ‘But maybe I could learn, if you –’

‘You know what is difficult for me, Louisa?’

I shook my head.

‘I don’t know who I …’ She hesitated, then apparently changed her mind about what she was going to say. ‘I need you to be my friend tonight. Okay? Leonard … he will have to do his work thing. Always talking, talking with the men. But you will stay with me, yes? Right by me.’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘And if anybody ask, you are my old friend. From when I lived in England. We – we knew each other from school. Not my assistant, okay?’

‘Got it. From school.’

That seemed to satisfy her. She nodded, and settled in her seat. She said nothing else the whole way back to the apartment.

The New York Palace Hotel, which held the Strager Foundation Gala, was so grand it was almost comical: a fairytale fortress, with a courtyard and arched windows, it was dotted with liveried footmen in daffodil silk knickerbockers. It was as if they had looked at every grand old hotel in Europe, taken notes about ornate cornicing, marble lobbies and fiddly bits of gilt and decided to add it all together, sprinkle some Disney fairy dust on it and ramp it up to camp levels all of its own. I half expected to see a pumpkin coach and the odd glass slipper on the red stair carpet. As we pulled up, I gazed into the glowing interior, the twinkling lights and sea of yellow dresses, and almost wanted to laugh, but Agnes was so tense I didn’t dare. Plus my bodice was so tight I would probably have burst my seams.

Garry dropped us outside the main entrance, levering the car into a turning area thick with huge black limousines. We walked in past a crowd of onlookers on the sidewalk. A man took our coats, and for the first time Agnes’s dress was fully visible.

She looked astonishing. Hers was not a conventional ballgown like mine, or like any of the other women’s, but neon yellow, structured, a floor-length tube with one sculpted shoulder motif that rose up to her head. Her hair was scraped back unforgivingly, tight and sleek, and two enormous gold and yellow-diamond earrings hung from her ears. It should have looked extraordinary. But here, I realized with a faint drop to my stomach, it was somehow too much – out of place in the old-world grandeur of the hotel.

As she stood there, nearby heads swivelled, eyebrows lifting as the matrons in their yellow silk wraps and boned corsets viewed her from the corners of carefully made-up eyes.

Agnes appeared oblivious. She glanced around distractedly, trying to locate her husband. She wouldn’t relax until she had hold of his arm. Sometimes I watched them together and saw an almost palpable sense of relief come over her when she felt him beside her.

‘Your dress is amazing,’ I said.

She looked down at me as if she had just remembered I was there. A flashbulb went off and I saw that photographers were moving among us. I stepped away to give Agnes space, but the man motioned towards me. ‘You too, ma’am. That’s it. And smile.’ She smiled, her gaze flickering towards me as if reassuring herself I was still nearby.

And then Mr Gopnik appeared. He walked over a little stiffly – Nathan had said he was having a bad week – and kissed his wife’s cheek. I heard him murmur something into her ear and she smiled, a sincere, unguarded smile. Their hands briefly clasped, and in that moment I noted that two people could fit all the stereotypes and yet there was something about them that was completely genuine, a delight in each other’s presence. It made me feel suddenly wistful for Sam. But then I couldn’t imagine him somewhere like this, trussed up in a dinner jacket and bow tie. He would, I thought absently, have hated it.

‘Name, please?’ The photographer appeared at my shoulder.

Perhaps it was thinking of Sam that made me do it. ‘Um. Louisa Clark-Fielding,’ I said, in my most strangulated upper-class accent. ‘From England.’

‘Mr Gopnik! Over here, Mr Gopnik!’ I backed into the crowd as the photographers took pictures of them together, his hand resting lightly on his wife’s back, her shoulders straight and chin up as if she could command the gathering. And then I saw him scan the room for me, his eyes meeting mine across the lobby.

He walked Agnes over. ‘Darling, I have to talk to some people. Will you two be all right going in on your own?’

‘Of course, Mr Gopnik,’ I said, as if I did this kind of thing every day.

‘Will you be back soon?’ Agnes still had hold of his hand.

‘I have to talk to Wainwright and Miller. I promised I’d give them ten minutes to go over this bond deal.’

Agnes nodded, but her face betrayed her reluctance to let him go. As she walked through the lobby Mr Gopnik leant in to me. ‘Don’t let her drink too much. She’s nervous.’

‘Yes, Mr Gopnik.’

He nodded, glanced around him as if deep in thought. Then he turned back to me and smiled. ‘You look very nice.’ And then he was gone.

The ballroom was jammed, a sea of yellow and black. I wore the yellow and black beaded bracelet Will’s daughter Lily had given me before I’d left England – and thought privately how much I would have loved to wear my bumblebee tights too. These women didn’t look like they’d had fun with their wardrobes their entire lives.

The first thing that struck me was how thin most of them were, hoicked into tiny dresses, clavicles poking out like safety rails. Women of a certain age in Stortfold tended to spread gently outwards, cloaking their extra inches in cardigans or long jumpers (‘Does it cover my bum?’) and paying lip service to looking good in the form of the occasional new mascara or a six-weekly haircut. In my hometown it was as if to pay too much attention to yourself was somehow suspect, or suggested unhealthy self-interest.

But the women in this ballroom looked as if they made their appearance a full-time job. There was no hair not perfectly coiffed into shape, no upper arm that was not toned into submission by some rigorous daily workout. Even the women of uncertain years (it was hard to tell, given the amount of Botox and fillers) looked as if they’d never heard of a bingo wing, let alone flapped one. I thought of Agnes, her personal trainer, her dermatologist, her hairdressing and manicurist appointments and thought, This is her job now. She has to do all that maintenance so she can turn up here and hold her own in this crowd.

Agnes moved slowly among them, her head high, smiling at her husband’s friends, who came over to greet her and share a few words while I hovered uncomfortably in the background. The friends were always men. It was only men who smiled at her. The women, while not rude enough to walk away, tended to turn their faces discreetly, as if suddenly distracted by something in the distance, so that they didn’t have to engage with her. Several times as we continued through the crowd, me walking behind her, I saw a wife’s expression tighten, as if Agnes’s presence was some kind of transgression.

‘Good evening,’ said a voice at my ear.

I looked up and stumbled backwards. Will Traynor stood beside me.