from school: pasty-faced virgins with personalities to match. Not like Serena’s friends, he thought, suddenly becoming excited at the memory: a parade of foxy sixteen-year-olds with their too-short skirts and rebellious low-cut tops. Oswald smirked as he drained the last of his gin and tonic.
Zoë took a seat, preparing herself for a fight. For her part, she had long had cause to regret the day she had agreed to organize the Huntsford Musical Evening. Yes, she was ambitious, yes it was a terrific coup for her fledgling events company, but she hadn’t been treated like this since school. Lord Oswald Balcon was a mean, self-important bully who had been frightful as an employer. She had been waiting over two hours for him to run through the latest costings and spreadsheets, only to be told by Collins that Oswald intended to have a sleep after luncheon. Sleep! Zoë could only dream about it. For the last six weeks, she’d been working eighteen-hour days to make the Musical Evening a success, while Oswald’s penny-pinching and aversion to publicity threatened to undermine all her hard work. She’d met his type before: desperate for social glory but too lazy and arrogant actually to make it happen.
‘Your lordship,’ she said with some trepidation, ‘I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I think it’s vital that we have a meeting. The event is in four days’ time and I have various concerns we need to discuss.’
‘Very well,’ said Oswald, wiping the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin and looking at the girl disapprovingly. ‘Let’s make this quick.’
Silently she opened her files and began to spread out various charts and projections on top of the wrought-iron table, while Oswald beckoned Collins to remove the remnants of lunch.
‘When’s the circus rolling in then?’ said Oswald. ‘I thought I’d have been disturbed by the cavalcade of equipment by now. Aren’t they leaving it a little late to erect the stage?’
Zoë cleared her throat and shook her head. ‘No, you’ll remember that we discussed this. We are charged per day for all that equipment and you were adamant that it should come as late as possible to avoid any extra charges. It is coming tomorrow, but I’m assured it shouldn’t take longer than a day to erect, weather permitting, of course.’
She looked at Oswald over her glasses and drew a deep breath, knowing he wasn’t going to like the next item on her agenda. ‘I’m not particularly worried about the stage,’ she began carefully, ‘what I am concerned about is that Johnny Benjamin, the guy doing our finances for the event, has just emailed me a projected profit-and-loss spreadsheet. Unless ticket sales dramatically improve,’ she hesitated, ‘it looks as if the event could make a substantial loss.’
The corner of Oswald’s lip curled up into a snarl. ‘We’re in this to make money, not lose it.’ His voice was low, controlled and forbidding. It made Zoë more nervous than if he had laid into her with a torrent of abuse.
Zoë pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, trying to compose herself. ‘With all due respect, your lordship, I ran every single expense past you.’
Zoë ran a finger down the spreadsheet, wincing at the figures. She knew Oswald was going to make her feel as if it was her who had let the evening go careering out of control, but it was Oswald’s approach to event management that was threatening its success. While he was prepared to cut corners on necessities, such as the stage, he wanted the best of all the trimmings to give the illusion of grandeur. If Glyndebourne had two on-site restaurants, then, reasoned Oswald, so should Huntsford. Zoë had managed a compromise, making one food outlet a hog-roast, which she had thought would be fun and cost-effective, yet Oswald had insisted that the main restaurant should be housed in a top-of-the-range marquee that had set the event back a hundred thousand on its own, not to mention getting Mark Tennant, the executive chef of San Paulo, in to oversee all the catering. Zoë had tried to point out that Glyndebourne was a slightly different proposition: a long-established, dazzling fixture in the social calendar which attracted the highest level of corporate sponsorship, and thus was able to support the staging of full production operas such as Figaro or Madame Butterfly. She’d always seen the Huntsford Musical Evening as a much more casual event, along the lines of the summer evenings at Kenwood House in north London, where an orchestra and various artists would do short sets to entertain the picnicking crowd. She didn’t see the need for black tie, full restaurant facilities, and state-of-the-art Portaloos, especially when he wanted to skimp on staffing and marketing.
Oswald let his gaze sink to the bottom of the spreadsheet and began to splutter. ‘Now that figure can’t be right!’ he shouted.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Zoë confidently. ‘And obviously we have committed to most of it by now.’
Oswald could hardly believe his ears. Was this Sloaney pipsqueak patronizing him? He snatched up the spreadsheet, absorbing the figures with a great deal more attention than at any time before.
‘I have always maintained that the staffing levels for this thing have bordered on the ridiculous,’ he said coldly, reeling off the various salary costs. ‘Stage manager, lighting engineer, box-office manager, head of catering! I mean, the list is bloody endless!’
‘We are running on a skeleton staff for this size of event,’ replied Zoë patiently. ‘Without any of these people, the event just wouldn’t function properly. You always wanted the Huntsford Musical Evening to have size and prestige. It’s not a local am-dram production.’
Oswald took a moment to take stock at Zoë’s words, still staring at the ominous figures on the spreadsheet. Begrudgingly he admitted that she was right. Not that he was going to let her see that. Oswald had dispensed with Venetia’s involvement months ago because she had argued that the Huntsford Musical Evening should be on a much smaller scale. But Oswald’s vanity wouldn’t allow that. He had seen the way the Christie family had nurtured Glyndebourne from a small outdoor event held in their family grounds in the forties, into a huge international brand enjoyed by millions. He wanted a piece of that action and he wasn’t prepared to wait sixty years for it.
How hard could it be to organize a rival to the big opera festivals? he had reasoned to himself. It had been easy raising a substantial loan from the bank to cover upfront costs, and his social circle had embraced the idea enthusiastically. Now clouds of worry were beginning to bank up in his mind. He had already been a little concerned that the roster of artists Maria had mobilized were a little – how could he put it? – a little patchy. Yes, there were some good international names on the bill, but none of the real greats: no one of the stature of Pavarotti, Dame Kiri. Then there was the thorny issue of Maria’s considerable fee. She had argued that the event was pulling her away from a big-money job in Dubai. But that small point paled into insignificance when he mulled over the thought of having a financial disaster on his hands. The loan was huge, the interest high; this whole thing could ruin him.
‘There is a solution,’ said Zoë slowly, taking a sip of the tea that Collins had brought over.
‘Continue,’ said Oswald coolly.
‘Ticket sales are – shall we say – a little slow.’
‘Ridiculous,’ spat Oswald, staring at the wrought iron of the table. ‘A fabulous event like this should have people jamming the phones desperate to get returns.’
‘I did impress upon you several weeks ago, your lordship, that we should allocate more resources to the marketing and publicity side of the event,’ said Zoë.
‘Nonsense!’ he barked. ‘This evening is a talking point with everyone I know!’
Zoë knew she had to tread carefully. ‘Possibly in your circle of friends, yes. But with the Great British Public it doesn’t quite have the profile of a Glyndebourne.’
This was exactly where it had all gone wrong, she thought to herself miserably. She remembered their conversation all those weeks ago when Oswald had dismissed her pleas to hire a PR agency as ‘vulgar’. He had also vetoed the idea of them hiring a ticket agency to handle the box office – Oswald had been vehemently against paying an agency ten per cent of the ticket proceeds. Instead, ticket sales were being