Kitabı oku: «What a Girl Wants», sayfa 6

Kekipi stood on the first step of the staircase behind his Italian counterpart and clutched the wooden banister, eyes narrowed, knuckles white. He was seething.

‘And we will dine downstairs.’ Domenico turned to give Kekipi the full weight of his stare. Even though he was standing on the stairs, Kekipi was still the shorter of the two but height difference wasn’t going to be enough to win this battle. ‘Afterwards.’

‘OK, Mr Downton,’ he said, hand on hip. ‘Maybe Artie likes to keep things upstairs downstairs but I’ll be eating with Mr Bennett and the ladies in the dining room at seven. And I’m lactose intolerant, so keep that in mind while you’re preparing your feast. Ladies.’ He snapped his fingers and pointed up the stairs. ‘Follow me.’

‘Tess, he’s fabulous,’ Amy whispered. ‘He’s the most best gay man I’ve ever met. And I’ve met all the gay men, fabulous or otherwise.’

‘I think he might actually be the best man, gay or otherwise,’ I replied. ‘Just wait until you get him to do karaoke. He’s a God.’

‘Thank you so much, Domenico,’ I said, repeatedly dipping in mini bows as we scooted around him and up the stairs after Kekipi. ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine. But thank you. And for dinner. Thanks.’

‘Stop thanking him,’ Kekipi yelled without looking back. ‘It’s his job.’

‘Thank you,’ I mouthed.

‘Prego,’ Domenico said with a small smile. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘So what was that all about?’ Amy asked as she and Kekipi bounced up a second staircase and along the hallway on the third floor. ‘You two don’t get on, I take it?’

‘I’ve been with Al for a very long time,’ Kekipi explained, linking arms with Amy as they trotted on in front of me. I dawdled behind, running my fingertips along the heavy patterned silk that lined the walls.

‘When the Bennetts purchased this palazzo in the late seventies, it was Jane, Mrs Bennett’s, passion project. She renovated the entire place, designed the gardens, the colour schemes. She spent years pulling together the furniture …’ His voice grew soft with recollection as we turned a corner into an identical hallway. It was like being lost in a beautiful hall of mirrors.

‘But when Jane became sick, Al wanted to keep her in New York, near the best doctors, and eventually, they retreated to Hawaii almost altogether. Since he lost Jane, Al has barely left the island. He spends a little time in New York when he must and I always travel with him to ensure he is well looked after in a manner he finds comfortable but Mr Bennett Junior, for the last fifteen or so years, has spent the majority of the year here in Milan, tending to the business. He hired Domenico.’

‘So this is Al’s son’s house?’ Amy asked as Kekipi came to a halt at the end of the hallway in front of a pair of white double doors. ‘And Domenico is his guy?’

‘The house still belongs to Al,’ Kekipi clarified, pulling a key out of his pocket. ‘But without Jane, he hasn’t seemed interested in visiting for a very long time. Domenico does a very good job of looking after the house while we are away and he takes excellent care of Mr Bennett Junior but we have differing management styles. As I said, Al and I have worked together for a very long time, we have been through so much. Domenico thinks he’s top dog because he manages a palazzo. He thinks I’m some simple islander who is only good for organizing a luau and mixing drinks.’

‘You are very good at both of those things,’ I said. ‘But you know you’re more than that. Don’t rise to it.’

‘So wise for one so young,’ he sighed. ‘I knew I liked you.’

‘How come Al wanted to come back now?’ Amy asked. ‘What’s happening here that has convinced him to leave Hawaii? Because I’m totally happy to get on a plane to Hawaii and help out over there if he changes his mind.’

Kekipi gave us both a small smile and slipped the key into the elaborate gold lock on the door before him.

‘I imagine all will be revealed at dinner,’ he said, turning the key and pushing open the door. ‘Or at least, all that Al is ready to tell us. Are you ready to see your rooms, ladies?’

‘Oh. My. God!’

It was the second time in the same hour that the building had silenced Amy. I was really starting to like this place. Following her into the bedroom – and only jumping very slightly at Kekipi’s friendly slap on my arse – I understood what had got her so excited. Our ‘rooms’ were incredible. The ceilings were twice as high as mine at home and huge, airy windows opened out onto the street below, standing watch over the park across the way. Just like the house in Hawaii, most of the furniture was white and overstuffed but in every corner, I spotted a different antique – a beautiful wooden writing desk, an elegant mirror, a painting that clearly hadn’t come from Ikea; Jane Bennett’s signature style was everywhere I looked. But where were the beds?

‘Tess, I have you in this room,’ Kekipi said, opening a second set of double doors on his left. Oh. The beds were in the bedrooms. Of course. My room was dominated by a beautiful wooden four-poster bed, draped in the softest-looking white linens, and over by the window was another beautiful-looking antique desk, topped by a brand-new shiny Mac. ‘I had them install whatever photography software it didn’t have,’ Kekipi said, waving at the computer. ‘I wasn’t sure whether or not you would have everything you needed.’

I crouched down to peel off my Primark ballet flats and let my feet sink into the plush carpeting. It was like walking on a polar bear. Not that I had ever walked on a polar bear.

‘And Amy, you are across the salon.’ He gestured towards the other set of double doors on the opposite side of the room. Amy ran across and threw the doors open, squealing in incomprehensible delight. ‘As Domenico mentioned, you only need to press 1 to reach the housekeeper should you need anything at all, and I’m on 219 if there is anything only I can help you with.’

‘What’s the karaoke scene like around here?’ I asked, ignoring Amy’s screeches.

‘Abysmal,’ he sniffed. ‘But we’ll make our own fun. Besides, you’ve got tales to tell me before we start singing songs. Unless you’re going to begin with the Ballad of Mr Miller?’

‘Unlikely,’ I said with a wan smile. ‘But I could give you a catchy disco number called “my best friend told me he loved me but I didn’t say it back and now I’m dead confused”.’

‘Most of Beyoncé’s songs have one-word titles now but I’m sure we can work with it,’ he said. ‘That’s definitely a story that needs a cocktail. Meet me downstairs in a little while? An adult beverage after dinner, perhaps?’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ I agreed. ‘And you can tell me more stories about Domenico because I know you have them.’

‘Quite.’ Kekipi kissed both my cheeks with two very noisy, very non-Domenico smacks, handed me two suite keys, one for me, one for Amy, and closed the salon doors behind him.

‘Tess, get in here!’ Amy bellowed from her room. ‘Come and look at my bath! It’s massive! I can swim in it! Can we swim in it?’

‘I’m not coming in if you’re naked.’ I hesitated in the doorway, waiting for confirmation that she was still at least semi-dressed. ‘We’ve talked about this.’

‘I’m not in there yet, knobber.’

And she wasn’t. She was bouncing on her bed, trying to touch the canopy with her fingertips.

‘I feel like I’m in Beauty and the Beast,’ she breathed, dropping onto her arse and falling backwards to spread eagle across the enormous mattress. ‘Do you think they’ll adopt me?’

‘Maybe you could marry Artie,’ I suggested.

Amy shot upright, eyes wide open.

‘Is he single? Is he straight? Actually, that doesn’t matter – is he single?’

‘I will be in my room, working,’ I said, ignoring the question. Sometimes it was all you could do. ‘Try to stay out of trouble.’

‘You don’t need me to help?’ she asked, looking a little crestfallen. ‘Because I’m totally ready to assist the shit out of you.’

‘Go for a swim in your bath,’ I said, heading back into my own room. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’

Closing the door, I took in a very deep breath and let it out as slowly as I could. Across the room, a huge mirror showed me a picture of a girl who looked just like me, only not quite. I smiled and she smiled back but it wasn’t the confident, self-assured look I was hoping to project. I hoped that would come in time. I was calm. I had this.

Pulling my phone out of my handbag and setting up the charger by my bedside, I checked quickly to make sure Charlie hadn’t tried to call. Of course, he hadn’t. When I thought about the look on his face after I gave him a bloody thumbs up, I felt sick. He had every right to be furious with me. By the time I saw him again, he would understand and I would be over the shock of the whole thing. After all, I did love Charlie. I’d loved Charlie before he had loved me, I was so in love with him that I couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be in love with him. So why couldn’t I say it back?

Once my workstation and bedside table were all set up, I threw my suitcase onto the bed. Compared to Amy’s bags, it felt completely empty. It was only when I unzipped it, I realized it felt like it was completely empty because, aside from two packs of Marks & Spencer’s knickers, it was completely empty.

‘Amy!’ I was shouting. I knew I was shouting but I could not stop myself from shouting. I stared at the bare black lining of the suitcase. ‘Where the fuck are all my fucking clothes?’

‘Calm down, potty mouth,’ she trotted into my room, calmly dragging one of her enormous cases behind her. ‘Don’t be angry with me but I had a look at what you’d packed while you were in the shower this morning and honestly, I didn’t think you were doing yourself any favours, so I packed another case for you. Ta-da! And you’re welcome.’

I stood, I stared, I did not speak.

‘I know you were all about monochrome non-statements in the office,’ she went on, dropping into a cross-legged pile in front of her suitcase and reaching around, giving it a huge hug as she fiddled with the zip, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in her best Miley impression. ‘But we’re in Milan now, Tess. This is fashion, right? I talked to Paige when we were at the shoot the other day and she was telling me how Milan has all the amazing, out-there couture and that it’s like, the most fashion-forward city and then I looked in your case and it was just a bit sad.’

‘So you thought I could make a fashion-forward statement by going out in my pants?’ I picked up one of the five packs and threw it at her as hard as I could. Which sadly wasn’t nearly hard enough.

‘You’ve got to have pants,’ she replied, throwing them right back. ‘I’m not completely mental.’

‘And what about my bras? And my pyjamas? And all my fucking clothes, Amy?’ I was not calm. I did not have this. More importantly, I did not have any clothes. ‘Oh my God, Amy, oh my God.’

‘You’re wearing a bra.’

‘Women need more than one bra,’ I shouted.

‘That’s crazy,’ she replied, shuffling her own, perfectly formed, bra-less A-cup boobs inside her T-shirt and pushing up the lid of her case to reveal a rainbow fancydress box of nightmares. ‘I told you; I packed a case for you from my stuff. This is going to be loads of fun. Take you out of your comfort zone a bit.’

‘It might have escaped your notice but I’m already outside my comfort zone!’ I was shouting again. ‘I’m in Milan. And since when were you an expert in haute couture?’

She pouted. ‘Did someone in this room not have an interview at Topshop two days ago?’

‘Oh, that’s it, I’m going to kill you!’ I raised my hands and let them clap back against my sides before I could actually attack. It would be a crime to get blood on this gorgeous carpet. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.’

‘I’m going to go back to my room and let you look through this stuff.’ Amy shuffled onto her feet and folded her arms in front of her. ‘You can thank me when you’ve calmed down. Oh, and so you know, I did pack your sad toiletry bag in there so you know, you’re welcome.’

All I could think was that Amy was very lucky that my shoulder was still sore from falling out of a window or she would have been waking up at the bottom of a river, inside her bloody suitcase. This was ridiculous. I pawed through her outfit selections, trying not to cry. There wasn’t a single thing in here that I would ever, ever choose to put on my body, even if it had fitted me, which next to none of it would. Amy had once described traditional clothes sizing as ‘fascist’ and refused to be boxed into a number or a letter ‘dictated by the man’ but that was a very easy stance to take when you were a size six and had what could be loosely defined as an eclectic fashion sense.

At five ten with a little waist, big arse and giant boobs, I tended to have a bit more respect for the difference between a size six and a size sixteen. Unless I was planning to wear a hessian sack, I couldn’t just throw something on and belt it in the middle. Mounds of glitter, neon, sequins, feathers, leather and pleather oozed out of the suitcase like the magic porridge pot but I might as well have been sitting here with a bag full of Christmas crackers. I couldn’t wear any of these clothes; Al and Kekipi would think I’d lost my mind. I also couldn’t wear any of these clothes if I wanted to keep my midriff and the bottom third of my arse cheeks covered. Oh, and wait for it, right at the bottom was the bloody neon unicorn T-shirt. Of course. I pulled it out and looked at the gurning quadruped, my bottom lip quivering.

‘Better wash this out,’ I said, peeling off my white V-neck and closing the suitcase, blinking back tears. ‘Every night for the next week.’

Brilliant. My first week as a professional fashion photographer and everyone was going to think my fashion icons were either Ian McShane in Lovejoy or a poorly dressed drag queen. It was the stuff dreams were made of.

Incapable of even looking at Amy without being moved to violence, I avoided her for the rest of the afternoon. Wearing my jeans and her friendly, ill-fitting unicorn T-shirt, I decided to spend my time getting to grips with my new camera in the gardens instead. Al’s Italian home-away-from-home was truly wonderful. When I marched out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind me, I was certain nothing short of ritual sacrifice would calm me down but as soon as I was outside, in the courtyard, I felt better. For a moment, I wondered if I’d finally had that aneurysm I’d been worrying about and if this was actually heaven – but it couldn’t be. Surely, if there was a benevolent God, he wouldn’t make anyone spend eternity in this T-shirt?

Stepping into the sunshine and looking back on the building’s façade made me feel like a princess. And not the real-life Kate Middleton variety; no, the legit, wide-eyed, long-shiny-hair-and-a-waist-too-slim-to-contain-all-the-necessary-vital-organs Disney variety. Actually, maybe they were the same, it was very hard to tell. The gardens were made up of small squares of courtyard, some laid with flagstones and decorated with fountains and urns filled with beautiful trees and plants and others were laid with lush grass and had vines running all over the walls that surrounded them. Almost all of them had narrow arcades running down the sides, with endless repeated archways supporting the palazzo above and providing shady spaces to hide from the sun.

My favourite was the smallest of all the spaces I discovered. Unlike the rest of the gardens that flowed into each other, this one was hidden behind a wooden door and a sandy yellow wall. Inside it looked as though no one had been in here for centuries, even though, from the look of the shiny sprinkler system and ashtray with two dead cigarette butts, clearly someone had. But still, even if there had been other visitors, I couldn’t help but be reminded of The Secret Garden, one of my favourite books when I was little. I loved reading about Mary and Colin and Dickon, working away in their own private hideaway, bringing the garden back to life.

Sometimes, when my parents were arguing or my sisters were being less than sisterly, I would go to the bottom of our garden and climb over my dad’s wheelbarrow and the old pots of paint he still hadn’t taken to the tip, and pretend that the little square of scrub between the shed and the hedge was my very own secret garden. It was a perfect plan until our neighbour busted me ‘borrowing’ a couple of pansies from his back garden and grassed me up to my mum. But now my mum was far away and there was no one to drag me inside and make me scrub my hands until the dirt had washed away from under my fingernails and the skin was red and raw. I snapped away, working out the setting on my new camera, fiddling with the flash, the exposure, trying to get used to the bright summer light. Even though Hawaii had its share of sunshine, it hadn’t seemed as harsh as it did here in Milan. At least here in my garden, there was enough shade to stop me from burning off every layer of skin. Note to self: buy sunscreen. Along with sunglasses and an entirely new wardrobe.

Glancing upwards, I noticed a balcony at the end of the building on the third floor. My room was at the end of the building on the third floor. With all the nonsense over my case, I hadn’t even looked out of my own window. Retracing my steps through the courtyards, I finally found my way back to the main entrance of the house and bolted back up the stairs and down the hallway to my suite. Panting more than I would have liked, I ran over to my window and pulled aside the curtains, blinking down into the sunshine. There it was, my secret garden, right outside my bedroom. Only it seemed it wasn’t just my secret any more. There was a man sitting at the small, wrought-iron table in the corner, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray I had found.

I slipped back behind my curtains, not hiding but not wanting to be seen. Had he been outside my garden the whole time? Had he heard me singing ‘A Whole New World’ considerably louder than I would have if I’d known there was another human within fifty feet? Something in my stomach tightened as he rested his cigarette in the ashtray and stretched his arms up high, linking his hands behind his ashy blond head.

It couldn’t be.

‘Get your shit together, Tess,’ I told myself, forcing my shaking hands to steady themselves, and held my camera up to my face. ‘And now open your eyes, you daft cow.’

I prised my left eye open and forced myself to look through the viewfinder, trembling as I zoomed in. The focus blurred in and out, settling into sharp reality just as the man in the garden looked up towards my window. Pressing my back against my bedroom wall, I breathed in and closed my eyes. That was how you made yourself invisible, wasn’t it? I heard my pulse pounding in my ears, the blood rushing around my body so fast and making me so dizzy that I couldn’t trust my legs. I grabbed at the camera strap around my neck, pawing desperately. I threw it onto the bed and bolted into the bathroom just in time. My knees gave way and I fell in front of the toilet, just in time to be so incredibly sick.

Panting heavily and wiping my clammy forehead with the back of my hand, I tried to turn and wedge myself in between the toilet and the corner bath. Well, I thought, still shaking and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Surely it couldn’t be the first time a girl had thrown up at the mere sight of Nick Miller?

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Hello, my girl.’

I heard a warm, deep voice speak from the end of the table before I saw him. It was Al, my fairy godfather, resplendent in a dark three-piece suit and white shirt. Beside him sat Kekipi, similarly suited and booted but opting for a more Kekipi-ish cream-coloured fabric that set off his tan a treat. Apparently we were dressing for dinner.

And when I said we, I did not mean me.

I was wearing my jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with a low back and, formerly, a sequin trim on the sleeves that had been relatively easily hacked off with a pair of nails scissors. It was the only half-decent option I had found in Amy’s suitcase of horrors and incredibly upset about it I was too. This was not the outfit I would have chosen to be wearing when I went one-on-one with Nick Miller. Obviously, the outfit I would have chosen would be the dress I had worn at my recent wedding to Ryan Gosling. Sadly, I was stuck in baggy old jeans and Amy’s T-shirt. Score.

‘Hello!’ I opened up my arms to Al for one of the best hugs in the business, keeping one eye open to scan the rest of the room over his shoulder but there was no one lurking in the shadows, no one waiting with a snarky comment, just Kekipi, tipping me the wink.

Nick wasn’t there.

I breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours, relieved, disappointed, sick to my stomach. I wanted to see him so badly, I could taste it; I wanted to take my eyeballs out and rub them all over him so I would never forget exactly how he looked, sitting in the garden, smoking that cigarette.

‘I am very glad to see you here.’ Al pulled out the chair beside him and waited for me to sit down, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight and late evening sun. ‘And how lovely you look.’

‘I didn’t know we were dressing up,’ I replied, taking my seat as a waiter appeared to pour my water before disappearing just as quickly. There seemed to be an awful lot of cutlery surrounding my eighteen million plates and four glasses. What was I going to do with four glasses?

‘I had a bit of a luggage malfunction.’ I gestured down at my jeans and pulled a face. ‘Fingers crossed I can do better tomorrow.’

‘Luggage malfunction?’ Kekipi asked, slapping another waiter’s hand away to pour my glass of prosecco himself. ‘Sounds scandalous.’

As with the rest of the house, the dining room was predictably beautiful, but instead of the high ceilings everywhere else in the palazzo, I looked up to see the sky. The dining room was outside. Even though it was inside. Mind. Blown. The dining table was right in the middle of the room, covered in more white and peach flowers, roses this time, and the whole space was lit with candles.

‘Amy decided to pack for me,’ I said. ‘So I need to go shopping. Without her.’

‘Milan’s best boutiques are right on our doorstep,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in the morning.’

I nodded, deciding now wasn’t the time to get into the difference between Milan’s best boutiques and the nearest H&M. Sipping my water, rather than the prosecco, I tried to peep around the room as subtly as possible. Definitely just us. And the invisible waiters.

‘Are you looking for someone in particular?’ Kekipi asked.

I looked at him sharply.

‘Should I be?’ I asked, combing my hair behind my ear and lowering my voice into a hiss. I’d been calling his extension for hours and he hadn’t replied once. It was hard to concentrate on half an Italian episode of Game of Thrones when you were as pissed off as I was. I had not had a restful afternoon.

Kekipi shrugged and I dug my fingernails into my palms so sharply, I was worried I had magically developed Wolverine powers.

The double doors opened once more to reveal Amy, wearing the leftovers from Molly Ringwald’s prom dress in Pretty in Pink. Her polka-dot skirt entered a full three seconds before she did, clashing impressively with the peachy tones of the dinner table.

‘Hi!’ She tiptoed over to the table in matching pink Mary Janes and white ankle socks. ‘I’m not late, am I?’

‘Not at all.’ Al rounded the table to kiss the back of Amy’s hand and pull out her chair. ‘I apologize for not being here to meet you earlier; I am Albert Bennett, and please call me Al. So happy that you were able to come along on the adventure.’

‘How could I not?’ she said, settling into her chair with a prolonged rustle. ‘Tess had such amazing stories about her visit to Hawaii that I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. And you know, she needs a chaperone.’

‘So this is Amy.’ I glanced over at Kekipi who was clearly already utterly in love. He was so fickle.

‘What are you wearing?’ she whispered as the main doors opened again to allow four waiters carrying elaborate platters to the table. ‘That’s supposed to be a dress.’

‘Maybe on you,’ I hissed back. ‘But unless everyone at the table wants to see my womb, it’s a shirt on me.’

‘Still, you could have dressed up a bit,’ she muttered. ‘I love Al’s beard.’

‘It’s a brilliant beard and don’t you start,’ I warned her as the platters were placed on the table, full of cold meats and cheese and God knows what else. ‘Are we waiting for anyone else?’

‘Artie can’t join us this evening,’ Al replied with a barely detectable edge to his voice. I couldn’t work out if he was annoyed or relieved. ‘So I believe I have you two ladies all to myself. So, Tess, remind me exactly where we left things in Hawaii? What’s been happening with you?’

‘I’m sure no one wants to hear about that.’ I waved my hand, waiting for someone else to start eating so I could stuff my face with prosciutto. The service might be super formal but I was happy to see the actual meal was going to be suitably casual.

‘She came home, she made up with Paige, called Nick like a million times but he hasn’t called her back, so now she’s sort of going out with her mate, Charlie, and he wants to start an advertising agency but I think she’s mental to do that when she could be doing this. Oh, and Charlie told her he loved her and she gave him a double thumbs up.’ Amy paused to take a breath. Just one. ‘And, oh, she got kicked out of her flat and then arrested for breaking and entering and fell out of a window, which sounds worse than it is because it’s actually quite a funny story. I swear to God.’

The entire table stared at her in silence.

She raised her glass to her lips, peering at me over the edge. ‘What?’

‘Thanks,’ I said with a bright smile. ‘That was concise.’

‘What?’ she reached over and grabbed a piece of bread, much to Kekipi’s delight. ‘You didn’t break your neck or anything. They didn’t put you in prison; you’re not in Holloway. Or Rampton.’

‘What’s a Rampton?’ Kekipi asked, nothing on his plate and rapture in his eyes.

‘Prison for mentals,’ Amy answered.

‘It’s a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane,’ I said, piling my plate high with meat. ‘So yeah, we’re all relieved I’m not there.’

‘Yet,’ Amy added.

‘It sounds as though you’ve done a fine job of keeping yourself busy,’ Al said, spooning some olives onto his plate. ‘I’m glad you could fit me in.’

‘It wasn’t a difficult decision,’ I lied, not wanting Al to think I didn’t want to be there. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on but I’m really excited to be here. Super excited about your project.’

‘As am I,’ he replied. ‘It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time but I needed someone to give me a kick up the backside to get it started.’

‘Kekipi?’ I said.

Al smiled as he swallowed an olive. ‘Of course not, it was you.’

It was me?

‘It was me?’

‘Of course you.’ Al set down his knife and fork while Amy and I ploughed through the cheese platter. ‘All those talks we had, you really made me think, Miss Brookes. Life is too short not to take chances when you get to my age and so I’ve decided to go for it.’

‘Go for what, exactly?’ asked Amy, through a mouthful of burrata. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

‘Originally, when I asked you to come here, it was to shoot a retrospective of sorts,’ Al explained. ‘Taking those photos of Jane’s clothes, it was wonderful. Really, it was the first time I’ve been able to take pleasure in fashion since I lost her.’

Amy sniffed loudly, pulled a very sad face and then shovelled another forkful of cheese into her gob.

‘I thought what a glorious idea,’ he went on, after offering Amy a consoling pat on the wrist. ‘A beautiful book to catalogue all of my Janey’s glorious clothes, all the fashions she chose for the store, all of the outfits that were important to us. Janey always said that clothes tell a story and what better story to tell?’

‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ I said. He was right, I’d never been much of a clotheshorse but I remembered every last detail of every important outfit I had ever worn, good or bad. ‘But, what are you thinking now?’

‘I still want to do the book one day, a full retrospective, the history of it all,’ he replied as the servers reappeared to take away the food, much to my dismay. ‘But looking back made me look forward. I might have seen my best years but I’m not for the knackers’ yard just yet. I’m not quite ready to go gentle into that good night.’

‘What he’s trying to say is, you created a monster,’ Kekipi interrupted. ‘I find him huddled over his desk at two, three in the morning. He won’t go to sleep, he won’t rest in the day, it’s all quite frustrating.’

‘He’s worse than having a wife,’ Al said, scratching his beard and shaking his head. ‘As you know, my son Artie is set on taking over the Bennett’s retail business.’

‘I do know that,’ I confirmed. Artie had been quite clear about his ambitions the last time we had met. He had also been an obnoxious wanker, a trait he did not inherit from his father. ‘So what does that mean for you?’

‘It means starting again,’ he said, the twinkle in his eyes turning into a burn. ‘AJB.’

Amy looked at me, concerned. ‘Isn’t that something you can catch?’

‘The initials stand for Albert and Jane Bennett.’ Al sat back in his chair and unfastened the bottom two buttons on his waistcoat. ‘My new fashion line.’

‘That’s amazing.’ I said, both to Al and the servers who had reappeared carrying lots more food. ‘You’re really going to do it?’