Killer Heels (31 page)

or the last couple of months – ever since Lykke’s
betrayal of her at the Valentino show – Victoria had
been in the worst mood of her life. Gone was the happier,
kinder, more sympathetic Victoria, who actually thanked
underlings occasionally and refrained from humiliating them
in public. Poor Alyssa had been crying regularly on Coco’s
shoulder; nothing she could do was right as far as Victoria
was concerned. The daily de-linting sessions had become
especially painful: Victoria had taken to examining herself at
random intervals during the day with a magnifying mirror
and screaming abuse at Alyssa if she spotted even the tiniest
amount of fluff anywhere on her body.

It had been the worst possible timing for the organisers of
London Fashion Week to beg Victoria for help. London was
always the Cinderella in the two bi-annual Fashion Weeks,
squashed perilously between New York, Milan and Paris, the
schedules perpetually squabbled over by the Big Three, with
London desperately trying to elbow enough space for itself in
between the behemoths. New York, Milan and Paris had the
big names, the labels that anyone would instantly recognise,
with the diffusion lines, the perfumes, the sunglasses that made
billions for their investors: Michael Kors, Donna Karan, Gucci,
Armani, Chanel, Calvin Klein. London was fashion-forward,
directional, up-and-coming designers and eccentric creatives:
Hussein Chalayan, Giles Deacon, Christopher Kane, and
Vivienne Westwood.

Fun as the London shows were, its week was by no means
the big-money, well-oiled machine that the Big Three could
provide, and wasn’t the same draw: Stella McCartney and
Alexander McQueen, much to the London Fashion Week
organisers’ distress, showed not in London, but in Paris.

‘We’re being deliberately sabotaged, Victoria,’ one of the
directors of the British Fashion Council had practically sobbed
down the phone to her in July.‘I just heard that Gucci’s insisting that all its runway models come to Milan four or five days
before the shows, for some “pre-casting” nonsense! You know
what that means – they’ll all have to pull out of the shows
they’re booked to do for London Fashion Week, because Gucci
trumps us. Temperley, Aquascutum, Burberry – everyone’s
having absolute meltdowns over here!’

She drew a long, bubbling breath. ‘They’ve been doing this
for the last two seasons! And when we complain, they just say
it’s New York and London’s fault, because we’re before them
– you know, the time that Marc Jacobs show ran late so the
models couldn’t make the last flight to London and couldn’t
do the Friday LFW shows. As if that had anything to do with
anything! Milan’s already told us our fashion week should be
shorter. They’re trying to squeeze us out of existence!’

They probably are, Victoria thought. But what the hell do
you want me to do about it? I’m an editor, not an activist.
‘If you’d guarantee to come, Victoria, it would be such a PR
boost for us,’ the director pleaded. ‘It’s this whole third-weekin-September mess, you know? Everyone’s fighting over it.
Condé Nast have promised they’ll do New York and London
but skip Milan. If you’d definitely say you’d come to London,
that would be huge. Please say you will! You know, without
British designers, there’d be no wit, no whimsy, no true creativity in fashion. We drive fashion, we’re the seedbed for every
new innovation—’
‘Oh, please. Spare me the PR shtick,’ Victoria sighed, bored
now. ‘Blah blah Erdem, blah blah Preen. I’ll be six months’
pregnant then, you know. I’m not lugging myself to London
this year – I have to do Milan and Paris. I’ll send you Mireille
instead.’
The director actually wailed aloud.
‘Oh, Victoria, Mireille always comes! And she’s wonderful,
but it’s not the same for PR at all. We need
you
! It would be
such a powerful statement – you know, back to your roots, in
the States now but acknowledging that London’s the fount
of—’
‘No,’ Victoria snapped.‘You’ll have to make do with Mireille
and Coco.’
‘Coco? You mean your
assistant
?’ the director said, hugely
offended. ‘You’re fobbing me off with an
assistant
?’
‘She’s an editor here now,’ Victoria informed her. ‘My new
star. Fabulous editorial eye. I’m sending her everywhere. Suck
up to her – she’s going places.’
And, as was her wont when she had nothing else to say,
Victoria hung up. The poor British Fashion Week director
could not have known it, but she had never stood a chance of
convincing Victoria to come to London, because Victoria was
already well aware that Lykke had been booked solidly for the
entirety of London Fashion Week. Her otherworldly looks
made her perfect for London’s avant-garde aesthetic. Victoria
would not be able to avoid seeing her completely: Lykke was
doing some New York shows, and, of course, Milan and Paris.
But the thought of seeing her five times a day for five days in
London – where the shows were smaller and the front row
closer to the catwalk – knowing that she would be at every
single after-party, too – was a torture that Victoria simply
couldn’t bear.
The pregnancy was a good excuse, of course. But sheer
capriciousness would have worked just as well. Victoria had
been so intolerable recently that nothing she did would have
surprised her terrorised staff. Congratulations on her pregnancy had been met with such hostility from her that now
everyone was pretending that it wasn’t happening, that their
editor’s bump was invisible; it was one of two elephants in
the room. Victoria could mention the pregnancy; no one else
dared to.
Nor had Lykke’s name been breathed in Victoria’s presence by anyone on
Style
. It was the other elephant in the
room. And since Victoria was determined that nothing would
induce her to ever be alone with Lykke again, there were no
clues for the
Style
staffers to follow. No secret rendezvous, no
suspiciously regular repeat bookings of Lykke for
Style
shoots,
no mysterious phone conversations that Alyssa might overhear: nothing. No contact at all. She was hoping desperately
that the absolute lack of any contact between herself and
Lykke would make people believe that the entire story had
been a farrago of lies.
I can never be close to her again. Because I can’t trust her.
Telling Mireille about my pregnancy, of all people! And I’d be a
fool to think that it wasn’t Lykke who spread the story that she
and I were having sex, too. My God, she’s a fast worker. She
walked away from me at the Valentino party, and within five
minutes everyone knew both pieces of information. She’s a vile,
backstabbing bitch, and I’m better off without her.
Victoria heaved a long sigh, remembering the humiliation
of that night at the Valentino show, the sheer horror of everyone staring at her, barely suppressing their amusement at her
mortification, the laughter that had burst out after she had
exited the room. It had been all she could do to go into work
the next day as normal, acting as if nothing whatsoever, apart
from the annoyance of a broken slingback, had happened the
night before; she had managed it, of course, through sheer
willpower, and her staff had fallen right into line. Even
Clemence and Dietrich had refrained from a word of gossip in
her earshot.
They know what’s good for them, Victoria thought savagely.
They’re both brilliant at their jobs, but I’d have sacked them in
an instant if they’d dared mention anything to me apart from
sympathy for that bloody heel snapping.
She was staring out of the window of her customary suite
in the George V Hotel in Paris, where she always stayed for
Fashion Week: the seventh-floor Suite Anglaise, whose creams
and yellows and chintzy, faux-English overstuffed sofas
Victoria had always found very calming after the hustle and
bustle of dashing from one show to the next. It looked out
onto the grey marble courtyard at the centre of the building,
one of the hidden, internal gardens for which Paris was
famous, planted with miniature trees and topiary, huge carved
stone urns rich with deep green foliage. Wrought-iron tables
covered with white tablecloths were placed in the centre, the
pink and mauve flower arrangements providing a perfectlystudied touch of colour among the delicate palette of green,
grey and white.
The view of the courtyard had always, before, been a balm
for any stress and strain caused by the previous weeks. Victoria
always craved the peace and tranquillity of the George V after
the manic rush of Milan. Much as she enjoyed the Four Seasons
in Milan, there was something hugely special about the George
V, and about Paris itself. Milan was all big business, constantly
on the go, in perpetual rivalry with Rome, determined to show
itself as better, more vibrant, more cosmopolitan than its
southern rival. In Milan, Italian women with vast amounts of
make-up and hairdye chattered at you constantly with snapping teeth like crocodiles: jewellery clattered on their skinny
frames; both women and men overloaded their aftershaves and
perfumes till you felt your nose perpetually itching. It had
been unexpectedly overwhelming for Victoria this autumn, a
sensory overload; the pregnancy was making her more sensitive to noise and scents and crowds.
And it’s Lykke, too, she thought, staring down at a waiter
laying out silver cutlery in perfectly symmetrical lines on the
square white-covered tables in the courtyard. If she were here,
with me . . . if I knew that I’d be seeing her in the evenings,
that I could be alone with her, everything would be different.
Nothing would bother me. I’d be calm. I’d be happy.
She bit her lip.
I’d be nice to people again.
Victoria knew that no one had said a word to Jeremy
about her and Lykke: the gossip had clearly not spread to
him, because there was absolutely no way that Jeremy
would hear something like that and not instantly confront
her. Honesty was integral to Jeremy: he believed you could
get through anything successfully by telling the truth.
Victoria thought that Jeremy was hopelessly naïve sometimes, but she knew, too, that his natural integrity and
candour were a good foil for her.
He stops me from being a completely vicious cow, she knew.
Right now, I’m only a partial one. But I’m also a cheating wife,
and he doesn’t know about that either.
And he never will. It would break his heart. What good would
it do me to tell him? I cheated on him with a worthless slut who
dangled me on a string, got a cover out of me, then screwed me over
when she saw she’d gone too far and overplayed her hand.
Victoria closed her eyes, remembering Lykke’s words to her
at the Valentino exhibit. ‘You must take a step towards me, as
I did towards you.’
Victoria pressed her head against the cool glass of the
window. ‘Oh, Lykke,’ she whispered, a deep, pang of yearning
transfixing her.
How she longed to take that step towards Lykke! She
remembered Lykke walking for Armani, just a few days ago, in
a deep blue sequin sheath that clung as tightly to her long slim
frame as Victoria longed to do, and the memory was almost
unbearable. Her attraction to Lykke, she knew, wasn’t just
about sex. It was much more profound. Much more strong, as
Lykke had put it. Mad as it seemed, she felt that somehow, in
the brief time they had spent together, she and Lykke had
started to fall in love.
In five minutes, the car will be picking me up for the Chanel
show. I’ll see Lykke again, walking in it. God, this is like Chinese
water torture . . .
‘Victoria?’ Coco said from the doorway; she was standing in
the dining room of the suite. ‘The car’s here already. I thought
we might get a jump on getting to the Grand Palais.’
Oh great, Victoria thought bitterly, pulling back from the
windowpane, opening her eyes. Exactly what I want, to get a
jump on seeing my ex-lover walking down yet another catwalk,
looking so beautiful it breaks my heart every single time.
She turned to face Coco, very grateful that it was her and
not Alyssa who had come to summon her. Alyssa was so frightened of Victoria after the last couple of months of hell that
even the excitement of visiting Milan and Paris hadn’t balanced
out the stress of catering for Victoria’s every whim; Alyssa’s
eyes were permanently red-rimmed, and she had bitten her
nails so obsessively that they were ragged as claws.
‘Jesus, Coco, you look positively skeletal,’ Victoria observed,
taking in Coco’s appearance.
Coco beamed happily. ‘Thanks!’ she said. ‘I was freaking out
about all the travelling, and eating food on the go, but my nutritionist worked out meal plans for me and gave me her special
snack bars, and my trainer did a daily programme I could follow.
Half an hour every morning. I’ve been doing it religiously.’
‘My God, you’ve gone
so
New York,’ Victoria said drily. She
took in Coco’s skinny arms and legs, exposed in her Chanel
ruffled skirt and matching elbow-length fitted jacket, white
trimmed with black, young and girlish, utterly suitable for
Coco’s age.

Finally she’s managed to get into sample sizes
, Victoria
observed.
Good for her
. It was obligatory to wear clothes by the
designer whose show you were attending, and if Coco hadn’t
been able to wear samples provided by Chanel, she would
have been in trouble; there was no way she could have afforded
them, not on her still-small salary.

She had a flash of envy at Coco’s thinness; although Victoria
had managed to only put on eleven pounds so far, was aiming
for a maximum gain of fourteen with the pregnancy, the sight
of her newly-skinny, size two ex-assistant, dressed head-to-toe
in Chanel, while Victoria felt like a waddling duck by comparison, was by no means a welcome one.

‘Goodness,’ she added, noticing Coco’s little Chanel clutch
bag, quilted orange patent calfskin leather with a chain handle.
‘Isn’t that a Mini?’

‘Same admirer as the Hermès?’ Victoria inquired teasingly,
watching Coco squirm with embarrassment.
Does she really think I don’t know about her and Jacob? Still?
After all, it’s been going on for a few months now.
A little alarm bell rang in Victoria’s head at this observation.
A few months? Really, has it been that long?
She looked at Coco again, more closely.
Wait – was that outfit sent to her by Chanel, or did Jacob buy
it for her? That ruffled skirt, those cute little saddle shoes – is this
Jacob dressing her? It’s just how a fifty-something wants his little
twenty-something piece to look – young, flirty, girlish. A man closer
to her own age would want her to look more sophisticated.
Victoria frowned, biting her lip.
Is it possible that this could be more serious than I thought?
I’ve been so distracted, trying so hard not to think about Lykke.
Do I need to keep a closer eye on what’s happening with Jacob
and Coco?
‘Victoria, I wanted to catch a word with you,’ Coco said
hesitantly.‘Is this a good time?’