Ellie prised her fingers free and rubbed the welts on her palm as she wandered aimlessly through the gallery. There were three blank spaces on the wall waiting for emerging Scandinavian art to be hung, two bulbs missing from a light installation, and someone was arriving later this morning to assemble a Perspex sculpture, which was currently in pieces all over the floor, but how could Ellie think about emerging Scandinavian art at a time like this?
She walked back into the foyer, picked up the wad of newspapers and hunted in the reception desk drawers for the scissors. As she cut through the string that bound both tabloids and broadsheets together, Ellie felt as if she was picking at a scab that should have been left to heal but after yesterday’s very nadir of badness, she had to know if the bad had increased exponentially overnight.
The huge picture of Billy Kay and his wife on the front page of the Daily Mail with the headline, BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR SIR BILLY didn’t even hurt that much. Ellie turned to page five so she could read about how Billy and the Honourable Olivia were on holiday in Napa Valley, California and even
the reappearance of an illegitimate daughter, the product of a misguided one-night stand with a groupie over twenty-five years ago, couldn’t put a damper on Sir Billy and Lady Kay’s vacation. The couple were all smiles as they lunched with friends at the French Laundry. A source close to Sir Billy said, ‘It’s common knowledge that Billy used to have a roving eye, but that’s all ancient history. He and Olivia are such a solid unit.’
Ellie hated this revision of the past; that this supposed one-night stand was being sewn into Billy’s history as if it were unassailable fact rather than complete fabrication, but it still didn’t come close to the sordid lies Richey had spewed about their sex life. That was something, at least. Just call her Miss Glass Half-Full.
As she read on, Ellie started to feel a little less adrift. It wasn’t just her. Billy Kay was being papped too. He was having cameras and microphones shoved in his face, and so was she. For once, they were in this together. They had something tangible in common, not just a few strands of DNA.
Ellie was realistic. There was no way she could be anything else. Billy Kay didn’t think about her that much, if he thought about her at all, but she would bet all the money in her internet saver account that she was all he could think about right now. They’d be angry thoughts at first because an illegitimate daughter, especially one with such an allegedly colourful sex life, wasn’t the right image for Sir Billy, godfather of cool, national treasure, silver fox, etc., etc. But then the thoughts might get kinder, warmer and more along the lines of, ‘I can’t believe she’s twenty-six already,’ and, ‘She looks like Ari, but maybe she looks a little like me too, around the eyes.’ There was even the very remote possibility that when he got home from Napa, he’d decide that it was about time that he got in touch with Ellie and she might even agree to meet him for a coffee.
She was getting way ahead of herself. Probably he’d just call her to make sure she was all right, Ellie thought, as she skimmed the newsprint and tried to find the bit where Billy talked about her. What a headspin! The first time that he talked about her, about their relationship, would be in a national newspaper:
… as Billy and Olivia left the restaurant after a long and leisurely lunch, they smiled for the photographers but refused to answer any questions about the secret addition to the Kay clan. ‘I don’t care to comment,’ said Sir Billy.
‘No comment’ was one thing, especially as they were meant to be maintaining a dignified silence, but ‘I don’t care to comment’ was callous and cruel. Like Ellie wasn’t even worth the effort it would take to think up a suitable comment. Like Ellie was something he didn’t want to think about. Like Ellie was nothing to him and would never be anything else.
She pushed the Daily Mail away with a shaking hand and was surprised by the angry prickle of tears. As long as she could remember, Ellie had never once cried over Billy Kay and she wasn’t going to start now. She rubbed her eyes with an impatient hand, but it took several moments of swallowing hard, blowing her nose and getting up to splash her face with cold water before she felt like she’d banished the threat of angry tears and was able to reach for the Sun, though why she was continuing to torture herself like this, she didn’t know.
‘“SHE’S A GOLD-DIGGING LITTLE TRAMP!” LARA AND ROSE KAY OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR LONG-LOST HALF-SISTER.’
Eyes so wide it hurt, Ellie began to read the interview with Lara and Rose, who were ‘devastated’ about their new sister but not so devastated that they’d turned down the chance to be photographed in their bras and pants as they’d just been signed as spokesmodels for a lingerie brand.
‘I don’t care what she says,’ sobbed Rose while comforted by older sis, Lara. ‘That DNA test is completely fake and she’s not our sister. She’s just some horrible wannabe who’s been hounding our family for years.’
‘It makes me sick that this girl and her mother are trying to hurt my dad,’ added Lara, the sexy model and singer who recently broke off her engagement to footballer Kai Houston after he cheated on her with glamour model Chanelle Scott. ‘It’s obvious that we’re not related. She doesn’t look anything like either of us and Sir Billy would never call a child of his something as tacky as Velvet.’
It was an impressive feat to move from dread to panic to woe-is-me, then to absolutely incandescent with rage in the thirty seconds it took to read the first couple of paragraphs of the story. Tacky? She wasn’t the one airing her personal business and appearing in her bra and pants in a newspaper.
Ellie ripped the newspaper in two, right across the photo of her two half-sisters’ stupid, sad-eyed, trout-pouted photo. And again, and again, and again, until there was a pile of black-and-white confetti on the desk in front of her. She really wanted to throw it onto the floor and jump up and down on it, but contented herself with sweeping it into the wastepaper basket, then stomping up to her office to get away from the press pack outside. It was just as well there were railings between the gallery windows and the pavement, otherwise Ellie was sure that they’d have their faces and camera pressed up against the glass and leave greasy smears all over it.
She left her luggage in a neat little pile by her office door and, with a heavy heart, reached for her phone.
There’d been no point in trying to call him up until now, because she had only his office number. Of course, he had her mobile number and he could have called her at any time during the last week to warn her that a bomb was about to blow up in her face, but she’d heard zip from him. Now, according to the receptionist at Wyndham, Pryce and Lewis, David Gold didn’t usually start work until eight thirty. Well, wasn’t that just lovely for him?
David Gold finally called at five minutes to nine, as Ellie was racing back down the stairs to fish a document out of the printer in the back office because hers was out of toner. She also needed to do something with the switchboard, because all five lines were ringing at once, and it was unlikely that any of the calls were about emerging Scandinavian artists. Consequently, her blood was well and truly up and likely to stay there for quite some time.
‘David Gold, here,’ he said, when she answered her mobile. ‘I got your messages.’
Ellie couldn’t speak at first because speaking was very difficult when she was almost crying again, from sheer frustration this time, and thumping a printer that was refusing to print. ‘Have you seen the papers?’ She had to force the words out. ‘I thought we were all maintaining a dignified silence, or did you not circulate the memo to those girls?’
‘I understand that you’re very upset and all I can do is offer my apologies. As far as I knew, there were no immediate plans to run the story …’
Ellie realised that she’d wanted him to be on the defensive, to get snippy with her so she’d have a worthwhile target for her rage, but it was hard to shout at someone who was purring platitudes at her. ‘I didn’t come down with the last rain shower, you know,’ she said, quoting one of Sadie’s favo
urite expressions. ‘Those girls had enough foresight to get a spokesmodel gig and organise a photoshoot. That kind of synergy takes time and forward planning.’
‘Obviously there’s been a communication breakdown at our end. Honestly, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’ David Gold’s sincere voice wrapped round Ellie like a cashmere blanket, but she immediately shrugged it off because what he said and how he said it made no different to the awful things that had already been said by his clients about her in the papers. ‘I’ll endeavour to ensure that everyone’s on message from hereon out. Heads will roll if necessary.’
‘You said that you’d try to stop the Sunday Chronicle printing the story,’ Ellie reminded him accusingly. ‘When there was nothing printed last weekend, I thought it was going to be all right and now I’ve been labelled as some sex-addicted, Daddy-obsessed tart – which I’m not, by the way … I’m not any of those things – then to have all those quotes from friends of the Kay family saying that I was a result of a one-night stand and that my mum was some two-bit groupie … Have you any idea how I feel right now? Have you? Well, have you?’
She was ranting. She bit down on the inside of her cheeks so she’d shut up. There was a pause. Probably so David Gold could count to ten.
‘Velvet—’
‘Ellie! My name is Ellie!’
‘Ellie, I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve gone through in the last twenty-four hours but we need to stay focused here …’
‘This is hell.’ Ellie was pleading with him now. ‘My flat is surrounded, my mum’s place is too, they’re outside my office right now. The door keeps buzzing and banging, the phones are going mad and it needs to stop. Right now.’
‘You’re not going to like what I have to say, but I’ve had many clients who’ve found themselves in similar situations and I can assure you that these things, if left alone, die a natural death,’ David Gold said, as though Ellie was talking about a mild head cold. ‘It’s not pleasant and I really wish there was some way that I could make it stop, but all we can do at this point is damage limitation. Now, it’s absolutely imperative that you don’t talk to the press.’
‘It’s not like I haven’t had huge sums of money offered to me but I wouldn’t do that because I value my integrity and my career, unlike …’
With a timing that verged on sublime, the front door opened a crack and a red-faced, pinched-looking Vaughn eased himself through the gap.
‘I have to go now,’ Ellie said to David Gold, who was still offering apologies like they’d been on special offer last time he went shopping. Those fifteen golden minutes they’d shared at Glastonbury were now a hazy memory – something that had happened in another lifetime.
‘… so the best thing would be for you to come to our offices this afternoon so we can have a chat. Make sure we’re all up to speed.’
‘I can’t go anywhere,’ Ellie said quickly as Vaughn glared malevolently at her. ‘I’m under siege and tonight is the launch of the biggest exhibition I’ve ever curated.’
David Gold started to say something, but Vaughn reached across the reception desk, took the BlackBerry away from a gaping Ellie and turned it off. ‘Do you want to know why I’ve let you stick around for as long as you have, Cohen?’ he asked conversationally, as he perched on the edge of the reception desk. Not that he looked relaxed. He was so tight-lipped Ellie was amazed he could still form words. She also knew that Vaughn wasn’t expecting an answer from her, because this was obviously just the opening salvo in a massive bollocking, and if she answered back the bollocking would spiral out of control, so she shrugged helplessly.
Vaughn folded his arms. ‘The reason why you’ve lasted longer than most of your erstwhile colleagues is because you don’t do drama. I don’t like drama. I get enough drama at home. My wife could teach the RSC a few things about drama.’
Ellie sighed because she didn’t need this. Not today. Not this morning. Not now. For someone who claimed that he didn’t do drama, Vaughn was one of the biggest drama queens she knew.
‘This is not acceptable.’ Vaughn gestured at the front door. The letter box was open and someone was bellowing, ‘The photos would be classy like, no nips or fluff,’ through it. ‘To have this circus outside my gallery, because of you …’
‘I’m sorry, but it’s not my—’
‘No!’ Vaughn cut right through her explanation with a clipped syllable and his hand slicing through the air. ‘It’s untenable. You’re fired, effective immediately.’
Chapter Twelve
Ellie stared at him in disbelief.
He’d threatened to fire her many, many times before, but this didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a fact.
‘Vaughn, please,’ Ellie tried to sound light-hearted as if it was a big joke. ‘Way to kick a girl when she’s down.’
‘I’m not unsympathetic, but this is affecting my business,’ Vaughn stated implacably, as if he wasn’t going to have a change of heart after lunch like he usually did. ‘Obviously, I’ll give you a good reference but I need you packed up and out of here before the rest of the staff fight their way through the pack of vultures outside. That would be best. You know how I feel about fuss.’
He felt the same way about fuss as he did about drama. Ellie hadn’t expected Vaughn to cut her much slack, but she’d expected a little slack. She knew that nothing was ever allowed to interfere with Vaughn’s bottom line, but sacking her and wanting her off the premises immediately was cruel, unreasonable and simply not going to happen.
Vaughn thought Ellie’s shocked silence was sullen acceptance. ‘There must be some cardboard boxes in the packing room and you can leave by the fire escape. I’ll even help you,’ he added magnanimously, which was maybe the nicest thing he’d ever said to Ellie.
‘No! I’m not going anywhere. You have no grounds to fire me,’ Ellie said, hands on her hips. ‘It’s unfair dismissal.’
‘I’ll spare you the small print, but a cursory look at your contract should tell you that I can do what I want.’
‘And a cursory look at my contract will tell you that I have a three-month notice period,’ Ellie reminded him waspishly and his eyebrows rose, because he’d obviously expected her to go down without a fight. Well, she was sick to death of people thinking that they could do what they liked with everything she held precious. ‘I’ve spent nearly a year working on the Emerging Scandinavian Artists exhibition and I am seeing it through to the end whether you like it or not.’
Vaughn didn’t say anything. Ellie wondered whether she’d robbed him of the power of speech. Then he flared his nostrils. ‘Inge or Alexandra can handle that.’
Ellie put her hands on her hips again. ‘They absolutely can’t! Do you really feel confident handing over responsibility of the exhibition to them? There are still a hundred and one very important things that need to be done, and this exhibition might be my baby but it’s your reputation on the line too.’
She had Vaughn on the backfoot and they both knew it. The pupil had overtaken the master. Well, not really, but he bit his bottom lip and moved towards the stairs so he was out of range of the look of certain death that was on Ellie’s face. ‘Well, maybe Piers will have to step up then.’
Ellie didn’t need to say anything. She found that a tiny inelegant snort said everything for her.
‘Fine. You can work out one month’s notice, I suppose,’ he conceded, as if he were bestowing a huge favour. ‘And why the hell are there a hundred and one important things to be done?’
‘Because nobody RSVPs any more,’ Ellie complained, following Vaughn up the stairs. She was back on track again. The work stuff, no matter how gnarly it was, could be handled. She could handle Vaughn too, which was good to know, and she was sure that in a few days he’d backtrack on her dismissal. Almost sure. ‘You know what artists are like.’
‘Sadly, yes.’
It felt reassuring to be back on familiar ground. This was what defined her; not the stories in the papers. ‘I bet ha
lf the Scandis are MIA somewhere in Shoreditch and won’t turn up at noon like we planned.’
‘Get Alexandra on it. If need be, she can take a car to Shoreditch and physically round them up,’ Vaughn decided, ushering Ellie into her own office. ‘I wouldn’t worry about the RSVPs, but get on to the caterers and tell them to double up the numbers, and order four … no, make it six, extra crates of champagne.’
Ellie tapped his instructions into her BlackBerry. ‘Are you sure? It is pretty close to the end of the season. A lot of people have already gone away.’
Vaughn had one hand on the door handle but he turned to give Ellie a scornful look. ‘It’s just as well that you’ll be leaving soon because I’ve obviously taught you nothing,’ he said witheringly, though she was sure he was just trying to save face. ‘Every single person on the guest list will turn up and everyone who calls today, who doesn’t work for a national newspaper or a TV station, will be angling for an invite. Obviously, we’re going to have a sell-out show. It’s very early noughties, having a sell-out show.’
All members of staff were in by nine thirty, even Piers and Inge, which was ‘an event we should mark on the calendar’, remarked Madeleine Jones, Vaughn’s personal assistant, who’d been drafted in for the day to help with the exhibition.
Madeleine and Inge manned the switchboard, replying with a terse ‘no comment’ to anyone who wasn’t interested in purchasing works of art. Muffin, who was in a fury because both Vaughn and Madeleine insisted on calling her Alexandra, was tracking down four missing emerging Scandinavian artists with the aid of her iPhone, iPad and vast array of trust-fund hipster friends. Piers was charged with a variety of errands, most of them not that urgent, because he kept getting in everyone’s way.
Just before lunch a vanload of policemen suddenly appeared and moved the gentlemen and ladies of the press back until they were gathered at the entrance to the mews and not at the gallery door. Everyone else, apart from Ellie, who didn’t dare venture outside, went a circuitous route to access the outdoor world, which involved nipping across Vaughn’s roof garden and going down the fire escape belonging to the eccentric architect from two doors down.