54. Natalie
54
NATALIE
W hen I suggest to my mum that we meet up for lunch, I’m careful not to give her the slightest inkling of the bombshell to come. I don’t for a second pretend that I have an agenda beyond an overdue girlie catch up, mainly because I haven’t quite decided how I’ll confess that the man who maimed her son so violently is whisking me off to New York for Christmas shopping and kinky sex.
Fuck fuck fuck.
The collapse of Dad’s firm may have hit Mum the hardest initially, but it was also she who rallied the hardest in the wake of Stephen’s attack. I don’t know if it was her inner caregiver being stoked into resilience and action by such a horrifying challenge to her maternal instincts, or whether the attack simply put into perspective everything we’d been through so far.
Either way, she was a fucking trooper.
I know Mum felt lost when we lost our home and our savings. I know she had to grapple with an entirely new identity along the way. And I’m hyper-conscious that it was she who held us all together in the aftermath of what Adam did to Stephen.
But somewhere along the way, she learnt a word that altered the course of her life.
Surrender.
You can’t change the shit that happens to you, so all you can do—the only way you can reclaim any power—is to choose how you react to that shit.
It’s worked brilliantly for Mum. I can’t say she’s managed to transform its power to me, though. I’m far more of a pusher. When things get hard, my MO is to push harder and attempt to control everything around me.
It’s worked really well for me so far. Cough.
Mum opts to come into town and meet me at the studio before we slip out for a coffee and a sandwich. She’s always been my biggest cheerleader. She kept all the endless drawings I did of beautiful dresses when I was a little girl, and it was she who gave me the confidence to apply to fashion school when my teachers were pushing me towards more traditional Arts degrees.
She looks as elegant as ever. Her penchant for investment pieces stood her in good stead over the “lean years” (that’s definitely a euphemism). She wore her beautiful clothes to death—she was definitely the only mum on the St Benedict’s school run in a Burberry trench.
These days, the designer clothes from nice boutiques are long gone. Mum’s wardrobe comes squarely from the high street, with the exception of a few silk scarves—and one gorgeous shirt-waister dress—that Evan’s made for her (he’s such a sweetie). Still, she’s a beautiful woman who knows how to dress for her boyish body shape and has an eye for putting an outfit together, and it shows.
Today, she’s in a nice camel-coloured crew neck and similar coloured slacks, with chocolate brown loafers and a burgundy-and-white scarf made from last winter’s leftover silk twill. Her light-brown hair is in a neat bob, and she has her wedding pearls in her ears. The sight of her always makes me feel a bit weepy, but these days it’s a good kind of weepy.
She even has some money of her own now. While I’d love to be earning enough to treat her to the occasional weekend away, at least Stephen and Anna are paying her. They insisted that they’d rather have Mum mind Chloe than any nanny, and that they should pay for that privilege. She won’t take anything near market rate, but I know it’s helped boost both her coffers and her confidence.
‘You’re glowing,’ I tell her when I’ve released her from our hug.
‘Thanks, sweetie.’ She pats her bob. ‘I’ve been following Verity’s anti-inflammatory diet, and I swear I look less bloated.’
Mum is an enormous fan of Vitality with Verity, a wellness platform for women of a certain age. I’m not sure whether Maddy or I were more excited when I discovered that Verity is none other than Maddy’s mother.
‘Ooh, that reminds me. Maddy got her new book signed for you.’ I dig around in my tote bag. This thing is revolting. Adam teases me about it, but my entire life is in here, and if I don’t want him buying me underwear from Selfridges every time I sleep at his, then the tote bag stays.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Mum actually claps her hands together in glee. ‘That is so exciting! I think I’d die if I met her in person.’
‘Well, that’s unfortunate, because you definitely will. Maddy says you’re invited to her baby shower when she has one, and she’ll introduce the two of you then.’ I extricate the book from a tangle of stockings and hand it over triumphantly. It’s called Find Your Zen, its cover featuring a stunningly beautiful brunette who looks exactly like a Charlie’s Angel and also exactly how I imagine Maddy will look in twenty-five years.
Lucky Future Zach.
Maddy tells me that Verity’s next book will be called Find Your Drive and is all about reigniting menopausal and post-menopausal women’s libidos. She said her mum has not only been asking her the most horrifying questions about how she and Zach keep things interesting but has been angling for an invitation to Alchemy. While the idea of Maddy explaining St Andrew’s crosses and spanking to her mum is beyond hysterical, I’ve already decided that’s one book my mum will not be getting a signed copy of.
She and Dad can work that stuff out for themselves, thank you very much.
After Mum’s finished squealing over the book and the prospect of toasting Maddy’s unborn child over mimosas with Verity herself, I lead her over to the racks of samples to show her the wisteria collection we’re producing for spring.
‘This is just stunning, darling,’ she says, holding up the dress with the gold hardware and engineered panels that Adam was so complimentary about when we were in Omar Vega’s studio. ‘What an absolute showstopper. Where are you shooting it?’
‘We’re just doing a studio shoot for spring,’ I say brightly. ‘But we’ve got a guy making us a backdrop of silk wisteria. It should be lovely.’
That’s what I tell myself, anyway. The truth is that a studio shoot is far more cost-effective than a location shoot. Not only is the hire fee way cheaper, but we can get far more shots under our belt in a day in front of a single backdrop than we can if our photographer needs to set up for each shot in a different location.
With cash being this tight, dropping an additional ten grand or more on a location shoot is simply not an option, so we need to get creative. While I’d love to sell the dream properly, I’d settle for just selling clothes. I try not to think about Omar Vega’s latest shoot: zany, futuristic-style dresses shot on location at Kensington Palace. Obsessing over his probable shoot budget is plain unhelpful (though I bet Adam would spill the numbers if I asked).
I suspect Mum can read right between the lines of my phony perkiness, but she just smiles and says, ‘I’m sure that will look lovely, darling. And isn’t this print wonderful?’
‘I can definitely find a spare metre to knock you up a little carré , Adelaide,’ Evan tells Mum, referring to the French word for square and the term Hermès uses for its scarves. I roll my eyes. He’s a pretentious arse-licker, and I adore every bone in his body.
‘Really?’ Mum breathes, fingering the dress reverently. ‘Oh God, I’d love that. But isn’t it a bit thick for a scarf?’
‘We’re printing it in twill, too,’ he says with a wink at her. ‘For these shirts, see? Ooh—I’ll get that. You ladies carry on.’
That is the doorbell.
‘Thanks, hon,’ I tell him, pulling the wisteria shirt out so Mum can admire the hidden buttonholes. I’m hoping to steal this sample for myself once we’ve shot it. It’s to die for.
It’s not until I hear the jumble of male voices and the clatter of footsteps that I belatedly understand what’s happening on the stairs. And it’s already far too late when I spin around to find the very fine and most unwelcome figure of Mr Adam Wright standing in my studio.