for more light, drained her boozy cocoa, and spread all the images over the bedspread, stroking the dummy layouts that her art-editor friend, Carol Shelley, had designed in return for a Chanel bag. They were beautiful, graphic, impressive. And such a waste.
Cate thought back to when she’d been told, two weeks before the October deadline, that there had been a management buyout of the company. Cecil Bradley and the older members of the executive were paid off into retirement, and in came the hotshot marketing and money men like Walton. An email went round to say that all launch activity was to be temporarily halted in favour of ‘rationalizing and restructuring’ the company.
Cate had been gutted. She’d briefly thought about taking Sand to another company, but then she’d been offered the Class editorship and she’d consigned her precious dummy to a box file under her bed. This afternoon she’d rescued it and made a list of which companies – Emap, Condé Nast, Time Warner – she might take it to. But still thinking about Philip Watchorn’s words: why couldn’t she try and launch it by herself? Jann Wenner had started Rolling Stone from his kitchen, likewise Tyler Brulé and his style magazine Wallpaper. It was certainly a more competitive climate these days, and the odds never favoured the little guy, but why couldn’t she give it a try?
She felt a tingling in her tummy. An enthusiastic planner, Cate pulled out a blank sheet of paper and, eyes straining in the dim light, started writing a ‘to do’ list: meetings to arrange, paper costs to research, advertising directors to talk to – not to mention the thorny issue of financial backing. She knew there was no point turning to her father. After forty-five minutes she was exhausted. She walked over to the windowsill to blow out the candles and stumbled back to her cosy canopy bed in the pitch black, feeling her way in the dark. It was something she was going to have to get used to.
The kitchen at Huntsford was the warmest room in the castle. Buried in its west wing, heat spewing out of the claret Aga and always smelling of freshly baked pies, it was a cosy sanctuary that everyone was drawn to. As a child and well into her teens, Serena would spend hours there, sitting at the big farmhouse table and stuffing her face with warm muffins when she should have been revising, or practising the piano, or tidying her room. Mrs Collins the cook should have sent her away or reported her to Oswald, but she was always such entertaining company, gossiping about school or making fun of her father, she didn’t have the heart. It was no surprise to the Huntsford staff that Serena had relied on her good looks and charm to make her way in life.
‘Here you are!’ Cate stood at the doorway in bare feet, holding a mug of coffee, and smiled to herself at the familiar scene. Dressed in an old pair of corduroy trousers and a tiny white cotton vest that stretched just far enough over her pert breasts, Serena had her feet curled up on the oak bench and was picking at a banana muffin, looking rather sorry for herself. She looked beautiful now rather than merely pretty, as she had done in her youth, thought Cate, but it still could have been a snapshot from ten, fifteen years ago.
‘Muffin?’ Serena’s voice was feeble and wobbly, her wide mouth downturned and sombre as she held out a conker-coloured cake in Cate’s direction. ‘Mrs Collins made me a batch but I can’t eat a thing. I just feel sick to my stomach.’
‘Hungover, perhaps?’ asked Cate with a smile. ‘Bananas, a diet coke and a brisk walk always do the trick for me.’
Serena looked at her incredulously. ‘What do you mean, “hungover”? I am sick with misery. In case you weren’t paying any attention last night, my relationship has unravelled.’
Cate was used to treading on eggshells around her sister – the slightest thing could easily set off a diva hissy fit, and it was clear that today she had to be extra careful. She went over to give her sister a hug; she felt thin and delicate in Cate’s arms. Her hair, pulled back into a ponytail, smelt fresh, but the red eyes from last night’s performance remained.
‘I still think we should take that walk. How about it?’
‘I have to wait for my PA to come over,’ sighed Serena. ‘I’ve got nothing suitable to wear, unless you call a kaftan suitable for a bloody miserable February.’
‘Well, borrow something of mine,’ said Cate.
Serena let out a snort. ‘I’m a size eight.’
They turned their heads as Venetia strolled into the kitchen, wearing a pair of Katharine Hepburn trousers and a slim-fitting olive cashmere polo neck, with a stack of newspapers under her arm and a frown on her face.
‘You’d better take a look at this.’ She threw the papers onto the tabletop and they spread out in a fan. Serena’s name was on every front page.
‘What the hell?’ Serena’s face went deathly pale as she saw images of Tom jumping off Roman’s dahabeah splashed across the front page of every tabloid.
‘Tom In The Drink – Serena Splits’, read one. ‘Nile Nookie Sends Serena Spare’, screamed another.
‘The papers were going to find out sooner or later,’ said Venetia, trying to strike a positive tone.
‘This is precisely what I pay a publicist thousands of pounds a month to keep out,’ hissed Serena as she frantically rifled through the papers. ‘I am going to fire her arse as soon as I get back to London.’
She stopped dead in her tracks as she read the first spread in the Sun. It carried a picture of a heavy-breasted girl in a bikini pouting next to a superimposed shot of Tom.
‘Archer tried to pick me up.’ As she read out the words, Serena’s voice began to wobble. She spun round to face Cate, stabbing the newspaper with her finger so hard it made a hole.
‘Just who the fuck is this tart? Who?’ she screamed, finally bursting into tears.
‘Come on Sin,’ Cate offered, using her youngest sister’s oldest nickname. ‘She’s just some nobody after a fast buck,’ she continued, putting her arm around her sister’s heaving shoulders.
Serena looked up suddenly, stopping the tears as quickly as they had started. She looked at Cate hopefully. ‘This isn’t true though, is it? Tom would never cheat on me, would he?’
Cate looked over Serena’s shoulder to read the story, while passing her sister a mug of tea. ‘I’m sure it’s just some silly barmaid in his local pub,’ replied Cate reassuringly. ‘She probably mistook Tom giving her a tip for a come-on. It’s amazing how people’s memory can change once they’ve had a big Fleet Street cheque waved in front of their nose.’
Outside the big mullioned window they could hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves in the kitchen yard. Cate unbolted the big oak kitchen door to see Camilla climbing off a big bay mare. She was dressed in a pair of cream jodhpurs and fitted navy hunting jacket.
‘If there’s coffee on the go, I’ll kill for it,’ she called to Cate. She took off her riding hat, her blonde hair tumbling onto her shoulders.
‘Watch your step,’ Cate whispered as she approached the door, ‘Serena’s about to kill someone herself. Her story’s broken in the papers.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Camilla strode purposefully into the kitchen where Serena now had her head in her palms. She looked up as her sister entered.
‘Camilla. Thank God. There must be something legal we can do about this,’ she moaned.
‘But it’s true, darling,’ interrupted Cate delicately. ‘You and Tom have split up.’
Serena rounded on her sister crossly.
‘Thank you for the recap.’
Camilla was speedily running her finger over the text in professional mode.
‘We can potentially get an injunction to stop other things