Amy nodded. Chrissie turned the doorknob and went out into the little landing outside, not closing the door behind her. Amy waited a few moments and then she tipped backwards on to her bed, and rol ed towards the wal , her knees drawn up, the photograph in its envelope held against her chest. Only then, as quietly as she could, did she al ow herself to cry.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bernie Harrison liked quality in a restaurant. He liked stiff white tablecloths, and heavy cutlery and his fish to be fileted with a flourish at the table, and presented to him complete with a half-lemon neatly wrapped in muslin. He liked carpets, and thick curtains, and properly dressed waiters who said things like ‘Mr Harrison, Chef has some guinea fowl he’d very much like to offer you today.’ Booking a table at his favourite restaurant in the centre of the city, he specified a particular table for two, and was not in the least pleased to be told that that table had already been reserved.
‘Then unreserve it,’ Bernie said to the young woman – Dutch? Scandinavian? Eastern European? – on the other end of the line.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr Harrison.’
Bernie glared ahead of him. He usual y had his personal assistant telephone restaurants for him, but he found he did not particularly want Moira to know that he was giving Margaret Rossiter dinner. Moira had been the late Mrs Harrison’s choice of assistant for Bernie – personable without being seductive, middle-aged and capable, with enough of her own family and life to prevent her from becoming needy – and she had been silently but eloquently intolerant of Bernie’s entertaining any woman alone since his wife’s death five years before. Admittedly, Bernie’s taste, in the immediate aftermath of Renee’s death, had run to the extremely obvious, but Margaret Rossiter was of the calibre of lady dinner companion that Moira considered to have the potential to be a real threat. Margaret Rossiter would be a catch, even for a man like Bernie.
‘I’ve eaten at La Reserve, young lady,’ Bernie said, ‘since before you were born. I want table six, in the alcove, and a bottle of Laurent-Perrier on ice, by eight o’clock tomorrow night, and no more bloody nonsense.
Then he put the phone down. Stupid girl. Not only did he want to give Margaret Rossiter a good time, he wanted her to see that he was a man of consequence who was acknowledged as such, in places where you paid London prices. He put his hands flat either side of his head and smoothed his thick iron-grey hair back. Renee had hated to see him do that. Touching your hair in public, she said, was common.
Margaret had reacted to his invitation to dinner without surprise.
‘Wel , that’s nice of you, Bernie, but what are you after?’
‘Your company, my dear.’
‘I don’t like flattery, Bernie.’
He beamed into the telephone.
‘I’l come clean. We’ve done a few good deals just now, and I’l admit I couldn’t have got the Sage gig without you. I think you’ve had a rough time just recently with Richie going and al that upset. We get along fine and I’d like to buy you dinner.’
‘Thank you, Bernie.’
‘I’l send a car for you.’
‘You won’t,’ Margaret said. ‘There’s a perfectly good taxi service in Tynemouth.’
‘If you insist.’
‘I do.’
Bernie beamed again.
‘Til Wednesday.’
Renee Harrison had not cared for Margaret Rossiter. Renee had been much better-looking than Margaret, much better-groomed, with a more sophisticated taste in food and friends and travel. She had also come from a professional family in Harrogate, and she preferred not to remember that Margaret and Bernie had been at King Edward School in North Shields together, in Miss Grey’s class, and that Bernie’s father had been a fisherman and Bernie’s mother had worked in Welch’s sweet factory. This unease was confounded by Bernie’s chosen career, which, although it paid for the house in Gosforth and the cruises and the golf membership and the wardrobes of superior clothes, was not one that Renee would have chosen, even if she did occasional y get to shake the hand of the likes of Dame Shirley Bassey. To al but her most intimate and trustworthy friends, Renee had referred to Bernie as an impresario.
There had been times when Bernie had believed her. He had produced the odd thing, after al , the odd one-off, showy thing, and he had been an angel a few times for friends with favours to cal in, who were taking a bit of a risk on a rising unknown, or a rival, or a comeback star. But mostly he knew he was an agent, a hugely successful, extremely hard-headed agent, with an unrival ed spread of contacts and a greater range of artists on his books than anyone else in the North-East. He was, professional y, in a different league from Margaret Rossiter, and the fact that she not only didn’t seem to care but also declined to acknowledge the difference was both an irritation and a chal enge. He looked forward to their dinner. She was, after al , official y a widow now and that new state of affairs must – surely it must – create in her just a little of that attractive vulnerability which was both to his taste and to his purpose.
Dawson had roused himself from his slumber along the back of the sofa to inspect Margaret briefly before she went out.
She stood in the doorway of the sitting room and said to him, ‘Wil I do?’
Dawson considered.
‘Scott would say lilac was a Queen Mother colour,’ Margaret said.
Dawson yawned.
‘I won’t be late,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve got my pearls on, so there’s nothing to pinch, except you, and nobody but me would want you.’
