Christmas at Claridge's (8 page)

Clem rolled her eyes and watched a black cab chunter past on West Carriage Drive. ‘Well anyway, I saw him again last night. He was sitting in front of us at the Electric. Came in late with
his girlfriend.’

‘Oh yes – tie-dye Marant jeans and orange pash. She was gorgeous.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Clem replied dejectedly.

‘Oh dear,’ Stella said, tipping her head back and taking in her friend’s lacklustre demeanour. ‘You have got it bad.’

‘No I haven’t. I’m just hungover. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ll probably never see him again anyway. I just wondered if you knew him, that was all.’ She
took another swig of her bottle.

There was a short silence. ‘Jake was sweet, though.’

‘Yeah, he was funny. I liked him.’

‘Going to see him again then?’

‘Nah.’ Clem watched a young couple chasing after their toddler, who was staggering like a drunk across the grass.

‘Yeah, me neither. I mean, Oscar was cute but a bit young. I have a horrid suspicion he might’ve thought it was more than just a fling – he kept talking about getting tickets
to see Florence
+
the Machine at the Roundhouse. I mean, who said anything about
dates?
Got to make a swift exit from guys like that, I’m telling you.’

‘No good can come of it,’ Clem muttered.

‘Ain’t that the truth.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes, with just the slap of tumbling water and wobbly smoke rings for company.

‘Fancy a sausage bap?’ Stella asked after a while. ‘I’ve got evil munchies.’

‘Yeah, great.’ Clem stood up, kicking her feet out to shake her thigh muscles, throwing her arms above her head and sinking into some half-hearted side bends.

‘My treat, you need cheering up,’ Stella said, squeezing her arm fondly and propelling her along the park towards Notting Hill Gate.

‘Honestly, I’m fine.’

‘My father always said, “What’s meant for you won’t go past you.” Just you remember that,’ Stella continued solemnly.

‘Anything else your father said that I should know about?’

‘Never trust Sagittarians or men with long nails.’

There was a short silence. ‘Interesting man your father,’ Clem said finally.

‘I know! Right?’ Stella laughed, waving her arms so wildly that she inadvertently flagged down a cab. A look of pure longing crossing her face.

‘Oh, get in, then!’ Clem grinned, opening the door and smacking her on the bum. ‘This can be
my
treat.’

The low winter sun skated through the sitting-room window at a sharp angle, and at first Clem thought she was home alone as she opened the doors to the flat and blinked into
the light-drenched room. But the honeyed aroma of white jasmine wood-scented sticks told her Clover was in the house. She kept them on a high shelf in Tom’s wardrobe, knowing that neither Tom
nor Clem would ever bother to retrieve them for themselves, even though they both agreed they smelled heavenly and added a layer not just of sophistication but comfort to the flat. Their message was
clear: Clover could make a home for Tom, more so than his slatternly sister.

‘I’m back!’ Clem shouted, feeling cheerier after hers and Stella’s carb-loading at the greasy spoon caff on the corner of Lonsdale Road.

‘So we hear,’ Clover’s soft voice replied from the far corner. Clem peered through the slanting light to find Clover standing by the worktop in one of Tom’s rugby shirts,
boxers and hooped socks. ‘Lapsang?’

Clem pulled a face and tried not to retch. ‘Hell no. Where’s Tom?’

‘In bed, trying to catch up on his sleep. Leave him. He’s not slept for more than a few hours a night all week, poor thing.’ Her voice was so soft Clem half-wondered whether
she had meditated herself into a trance.

Clem pulled her muddy trainers off her feet and crossed the room, wondering why Clover always made her brother sound so fragile, as though he were some delicate creature that needed protecting
(from her, doubtless).

‘I’m bloody well awake now,’ Tom croaked from the bedroom. ‘I’d need dopamine to sleep through that foghorn voice.’

Clem loped through to the bedroom. ‘Hey, bro! Why so lazy?’

Tom groaned as she did a flying leap through the air and landed on the bed so heavily that it rolled several inches across the room on its castors. ‘Some of us have already been up and
running, you know,’ she said virtuously, throwing herself widthways across the bed. ‘My body is a temple.’

‘Temple of doom, maybe,’ Tom muttered, pulling the duvet up to his waist and folding his arms behind his head, watching her. ‘Where were you last night? Josh’s
again?’

‘Not exactly,’ she grinned, overjoyed that he was talking to her again.

Tom’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t say . . .’

‘I’m
not saying anything, big brother. I’m the very soul of discretion.’ She gave a cheeky wink.

Clover wafted into the room carrying a tray of lapsang souchong tea and freshly toasted waffles, topped with chopped bananas, hazelnuts and maple syrup. Both Clem and Tom’s eyes widened at
the sight and smell as she gracefully pushed the bed back into the wall with her legs.

‘I’d have made one for you, but you’ve already eaten so . . .’ Clover sat lightly on the bed and fed Tom a bite of waffle.

‘No I haven’t,’ Clem protested, watching as her brother’s eyes closed happily.

Clover tipped her head to the side. ‘So then, the ketchup on your chin . . .?’

Tom chuckled quietly as Clem put a finger to her face and it came back red. She jumped up and peered at her reflection in the mirror. Excellent. A huge gob of ketchup was smeared from lip to
jaw.

‘Shamblesshambles,’ Shambles squawked loudly in her ear from the cage beside her.

‘Thanks, Sham,’ Clem moaned. ‘Cos
you’ve
got such great table manners.’

‘Shamblesshamblesshambles.’

‘Am not.’

‘How many times have I told you not to argue with the parrot?’ Tom asked with a full mouth from the bed. ‘It makes you sound properly mad.’

‘And besides, you know she’ll always win,’ Clover jibed.

Clem wordlessly opened the cage door to let Shambles fly around the room, knowing that Clover had an irrational, but unarticulated, fear of the parrot landing on her head and getting a claw
tangled in her hair. Clem came and sat back down on the bed, watching as Clover moved closer to Tom, her eyes never leaving the parrot.

Revenge. Just like that.

‘So, what are you lovebirds up to today, then?’ Clem asked, tucking her legs beneath her and stealing the last bite of waffle left on Tom’s plate while he took a sip of
tea.

‘Oi!’ he protested.

‘Cos I’m up for a lazy afternoon at the Electric if you are. I still haven’t seen the new Scorsese yet. I started to last night but . . .’ she shrugged.

Tom’s eyes narrowed again.

‘Well, as much as an afternoon sitting in the dark sounds exciting, we’ve made some appointments to view a couple of flats later,’ Clover smiled.

Clem looked at Tom in alarm.
‘What?’

‘Jesus, Clo! You said you’d let me handle it!’ Tom muttered, visibly annoyed, pulling himself up further into a sitting position. He looked back at his sister, his most
placatory expression on his face. ‘It’s only some viewings, Clem. We’ll probably hate them.’

But he was missing the point. ‘You want to move out and leave me?’

‘Not leave
you,
sis,’ Tom replied urgently. ‘Just . . . here. Maybe.’

Clem blinked at him, speechless, which had the effect on Tom that his tic had on her.

‘Look, it was pretty clear after going through the numbers with Simon yesterday that I have to get some capital into the business. Fast. We’ve used up all our credit with the bank
investing in the new machinery, and they won’t extend any more.’

‘But why does that mean you have to move out?’ Clem whined. ‘I pay my rent on time.’

Clover gave the patient smile of the victor. ‘With the company in such trouble, it would be foolish for Tom not to look at downsizing. We’ve talked about it and Tom agrees the best
option would be to release his equity in this place and reinvest it in the company instead.’

Equity? Clem felt like she’d been shot with a tranquillizer gun. Their voices seemed hollow and distant, as if they were in a tunnel. ‘You mean you want to
sell
?’ Clem
asked her brother, resolutely ignoring Clover. Talk about going from bad to worse! He was wiping imaginary crumbs off the bed onto the floor and keeping his eyes well away from hers. She saw the
now-familiar tension tighten in the corner of his mouth again.

‘Like I said, it’ll probably come to nothing. These flats we’re looking at are all the way out in West Kilburn,’ he replied flatly.

‘Kilburn?’ Clem screeched, as though he’d said Dark Side of the Moon.

‘Yes, Clem. It may not have the fancy Portobello address, but a one-bed out there is almost half what you’d get for this,’ Clover said firmly. ‘It would solve all
Tom’s problems in one fell swoop.’

And yours, Clem thought bitterly, glaring at her. She’d been angling for Tom to move in with her for years. This way she was going to get Tom alone at last and herself on the mortgage
deeds. ‘But what about me?’

Clover smiled. ‘That’s the beauty of it. You can stay here and just buy the flat off Tom.’

‘Just buy?
Just buy?’
Clem hollered, jumping to her feet so that she was standing on the mattress, her head brushing the bottom of the light, which had a top hat as a shade,
making for quite a ridiculous image. ‘You know perfectly well I don’t have half a mill to just shell out whenever I want!’

‘No, but your parents have always made it perfectly clear they’d give you financial assistance if you needed it. All you have to do is ask,’ Clover said smugly.

‘The bloody nerve!’ Clem stormed at her brother. ‘Telling us what our parents can or cannot do with their own money. Are you really going to let her get away with that,
Tom?’

Tom looked away, his open face horribly closed, pinched and grey. He did look angry, although whether it was due to Clover’s bold assertions or the fact that his sister and girlfriend were
at each other’s throats again, she couldn’t be sure. ‘Clem, I . . . we’re just looking. Nothing’s set in stone yet. It’s just one option that I’m looking
into, that’s all. If it means I can keep the company going and we can all keep our jobs, then I have an obligation to look into it properly.’

‘But either way,
I’m
shafted. Whichever way you look at it, I’m going to lose either my job or my home, right?’ Clem sank dramatically back down onto the bed,
her head in her hands.

There was a long pause before Tom could find his voice. ‘As things stand at the moment, yes, that’s pretty much the sum of it,’ he said quietly. His eyes met hers, and Clem
almost burst into tears at the sorrow she saw in them. She immediately wanted to throw her arms around his neck and tell him it was all going to be OK, that they’d get through it together,
just like they always had. If they could survive being locked in old Mrs Gantry’s shed for three hours that time when they’d climbed over the wall to retrieve a football, then they
could survive anything. But she couldn’t, not with Clover lying in the bed next to him, her skinny ankle casually hooked around his leg.

Clover allowed herself a long sip of tea. ‘I don’t know why you’re so surprised, Clem,’ she said calmly and intrusively. ‘You surely must have understood better
than anyone that there would have to be some hard decisions taken after the Perignard and Bugatti deals were lost.’

Clem felt the pain of Clover’s words hit home. Clover was a bitch to say it, but it didn’t stop her being right.

Shambles gave a loud and sudden squawk that made the others jump, and Clover dived for cover under the duvet as the parrot swooped of the bamboo ladder that doubled up as Tom’s clothes
horse, and came to perch on Clem’s shoulder, rubbing her beak like she was polishing it in Clem’s hair, before taking a loving nip of Clem’s earlobe.

Clem didn’t holler in response like she usually did, though. She barely even registered it. Instead, she slowly climbed of the bed and lowered her shoulder to the open door of
Shambles’ cage, whereupon the bird walked in with particular dignity, her long red tail feathers sweeping behind her like taffeta ballgown skirts.

Clem tried to do the same as she turned on her heel, but it was a hard look to pull off with ketchup on her chin, and she’d only just rounded the corner when the tears blinded her way and
she had to hold the wall for support.

‘Shit, Clem . . .’ Tom called after her, and Clem heard the bed creak as he moved to follow her. ‘What did you have to say that for, Clo? It’s not like she doesn’t
know . . .’

‘No, Tom,’ she heard Clover say to him in a low voice. ‘I’ve told her the truth, that’s all. She’s just sulking because she wants to be a Portobello Girl all
her life. She’s spoilt, that’s her problem. You and your parents have indulged her for too long. You’re the one who’s got to leave the area altogether to release enough
money to plough straight back into the company, keeping her job going when this whole sorry mess has come about because of
her
recklessness.’

‘That’s not strictly true, Clo. I should never have invested so much before we signed contracts—’

‘If she hadn’t ruined the bike, you would have headlined Berlin and won the Bugatti account. True or false?’

There was a reluctant silence. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Tom muttered eventually, although his voice sounded strange.

‘I am, Tom-Tom, you know I am. And who knows, maybe this will be the best thing that ever happened to her? You’re not doing her any favours shielding her from the consequences of her
own actions, you know. It’s high time she started taking responsibility for her behaviour. She’s only got away with playing the wild child for so long because you’ve enabled her
to.’

‘I just worry about her, Clo, that’s all. She’s not as tough as she makes out.’

‘No, she’s nowhere near as fragile as you think, Tom,’ Clover contradicted. ‘And the sooner you accept that, my darling, the better life will be – for all three of
us.’ There was a heavy pause, and when Clover spoke again, her voice was lower, different. ‘And you know I can’t wait for ever, Tom. Please don’t force me into a decision I
don’t want to take just because you won’t make the one you know is right.’