‘This is important, Colette. There’s a big promotion coming up, and it’s between me and Jerry Olsen and you know how competitive he is. He’s taking them to Gordon Ramsay’s but I want to entertain at home, so they can see the whole package. Let them see class! And talk to them about your work in Dickon and Austen’s. Tell them about our pieces. Impress the hell out of them – some of them wouldn’t know a Monet from a Manet.’
Neither did you until I got my hands on you, Colette thought sourly.
Des paced up and down, agitatedly firing off instructions.
The trouble with her husband, Colette had realized shortly after meeting him, was that he was nouveau riche and it showed. He had made his impressive wealth in a relatively short but successful banking career, accumulating a substantial portfolio of stocks, shares and properties. Image to Des was everything! And she, always impeccably coiffed, groomed and dressed, was his greatest asset. He knew it and she knew it, Colette reflected. It was her finesse, her nous and her taste that kept them on the straight and narrow of the perilous path of who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’ in the society circles they mixed in.
Des Williams had come from an affluent, solid, middle-class background in the north-east of England. His father was a dentist; his mother ran a travel agency. They had two foreign holidays a year and a summer house in Cornwall. But Des, an only child, had wanted to escape his boring, insular life and his boring, insular girlfriend. The bright lights of London beckoned and as soon as he had finished his finance degree at Manchester University he had moved south and, now, rarely went home.
Ambitious, competitive, acquisitive, he had worked tirelessly to climb the career and social ladders. He had lost his northern twang, he dressed in sharp designer suits, he ate in expensive restaurants and he mixed in seriously wealthy circles.
By the time, Colette had met him at the debut launch of an up-and-coming abstract artist called Devone, Des was very much the sophisticated, successful, well-heeled young financier. He had been more than impressed by her confident discourse on Devone’s striking colourful brushwork, which to his eyes looked like something a five-year-old in a crèche might paint for playtime. And he’d been more than taken with her petite, trim figure, which had looked extremely fetching in the pale pink Chanel shift dress she was wearing.
Colette, still suffering from the devastation of Rod’s rejection of her, was very taken with the good-looking, blue-eyed, tawny-haired man who had made a beeline for her. She was even more impressed when he had suggested they go for a drink afterwards, and had driven her in his top-of-the-range, sporty Merc to a pub on the banks of the Thames where they had quaffed champagne in long elegant flutes, raspberries floating on top of the sparkling bubbles. When Des brought her home to her aunt’s ground-floor-over-basement Holland Park flat, he had given a low whistle as he pulled up outside. ‘Nice pad.’
‘It needs a complete revamp. Since my uncle died ten years ago it’s gone downhill. My aunt has no enthusiasm for anything now. She’s a bit of a recluse. I’d love to get my hands on it and get the builders and decorators in to update it. My big fear is that she will leave it to a dog charity or something,’ Colette confessed.
‘Are you serious? How horrendous would that be?’ Des frowned. ‘Is there a mortgage on it?’
‘No. It was her husband’s family home, bought yonks ago, and it was signed over to him before his mother died.’
‘Very valuable now. Worth a mill or two. In a prime location, so close to Kensington. You should work hard on your aunt to make sure it goes to the right person. You know what I’m saying?’
‘I do,’ Colette agreed, liking his frankness and the fact that his thoughts mirrored hers.
‘Maybe I could take you and your aunt down to the river for Pimm’s and a picnic some day? Might she enjoy that?’ Des suggested casually.
‘She might,’ Colette shrugged. ‘And then again she might not. Thanks for a lovely evening.’ She blew him a kiss and was out of the car before he realized her intention.
‘I’ll call you, what’s your number?’ he asked, looking somewhat startled at her abrupt departure. He took out a business card and loosened the top of his fountain pen. She looked at him, with the evening breeze ruffling his hair as he leaned back in the leather seat of his sports car, pen poised.
‘Ring me at Dickon and Austen’s. Byeee!’ And then she was clattering up the marble steps, keys jangling in her hand. ‘I’m not that easy, Desmond Williams,’ she murmured as she closed the heavy red door behind her.
She had kept him at arm’s length, meeting him when it suited her, dating other men in between, letting him know that he wasn’t the only one. No one was going to break her heart ever again. She was always going to be in charge of any relationship she was in and that was that.
Later that year, at the end of the summer, Colette had gone home for a long weekend to celebrate her mother’s birthday, starting with a lavish barbecue at their house on the beach in Sutton. The O’Mahonys had invited the Kinsella family, and Colette was looking forward to catching up with Hilary and telling her all the news about her exciting new life in London.
Poor Hilary, she lived such a boring life in comparison with her own, Colette had reflected as the plane made its descent over the Irish Sea, with the Sugar Loaf etched against a clear blue sky and Dun Laoghaire and Dublin Port to her
