Chapter 31
CHAPTER 31
Juliet was in the big kitchen of her new house in Queen’s Park, entertaining Rachel and Dottie and three of their respective children for a quick after-work catch-up. The four little girls were off to one side in Cassady’s playroom – just close enough to hear if there was any serious distress, but not intrusive. That’s what the architect had said, but she’d asked the nanny to stay in there with them anyway.
Newborn Hettie was asleep in a Moses basket on the sofa.
‘So you move to our ’hood,’ Rachel was saying, ‘with a four-week-old baby and straight into the best house. If I wasn’t so happy you were here, I’d say it was rude.’
‘Do you like it?’ asked Juliet, looking round the big white space, with a wall of glass opening onto the garden.
‘It will be better when it’s a bit dirtier,’ said Dottie. ‘Did you mean to buy a white sofa with two children under four, or was it an accident? It’s certainly an accident waiting to happen.’
‘It’s got stain proofing on it,’ said Juliet. ‘And Cassady’s not allowed to eat or drink while she’s sitting on it.’
Rachel and Dottie laughed.
‘Have you told her not to use felt tips, or crayons, or plasticine, or cover her entire face in your lipstick, and not to sneeze or vomit when she’s sitting on it?’ said Rachel.
‘I had a sofa ruined by a ball of slime,’ said Dottie. ‘It left a bright green circle right at the front of the middle cushion.’
‘Bubble mix isn’t great, either,’ said Rachel. ‘Or wee. But you enjoy it now, Juliet. You can get lovely beige polyester loose covers made for it when it’s wrecked, or a nice busy chintz. Right, Dottie, where’s the magazine?’
The next issue of Her , with the article about Juliet in it, had just come back from the printer ready to go out with the paper that Sunday, and Dottie had brought it over to give them an advance peek.
‘Here you are, Juliet,’ she said, fishing around in her bag and putting the magazine on the table. Juliet was on the cover, holding up her hand with one of her famous eye rings on it.
She studied it, feeling queasy.
‘Aren’t you going to look inside?’ said Dottie.
‘Can one of you read it to me first?’ said Juliet. ‘This one is so personal with the pictures of Cassady...’
‘It wasn’t even photographed in your own house,’ said Dottie, laughing. ‘We’ve never agreed to shoot in a location house for anyone before.’
‘Well,’ said Juliet, ‘it worked for Harry and Meghan, didn’t it?’
They laughed and Rachel picked up the magazine and leafed through to find the page. Then she held it up for Juliet to see.
‘Not yet!’ said Juliet, covering her eyes. ‘Let me hear the words first.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Rachel. ‘My other clients would throw in a couple of limbs as well as our fees for this coverage. Alright, sit down for story time. This is the headline: The Woman Who Has It All – Except a Man .’
Juliet was quiet for a moment.
‘You could have mentioned the jewellery,’ she said to Dottie, who rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.
‘The whole point is to make them intrigued so they read the damn article,’ she said. ‘“This Woman Makes Nice Rings” is not going to pull them in, get it?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Juliet.
‘Are you two going to shut up so I can read it?’ said Rachel. ‘ Here goes. Juliet Mylan has it all – not a word of lie there – Her game-changing jewellery brand, Giuliette, is worn by Hollywood stars and edgy Grime artists alike. Her unique style – invented by the self-taught designer – combines precious gems with natural crystals creating a new genre of fine jewellery, which offers her clients the energetic qualities of the crystals along with the glamour of elite stones. The company’s stratospheric success is rumoured to be attracting interest from Bernard Arnault, as the possible next addition to the LVMH stable. Bring it,’ said Rachel, putting her hands in the prayer position. ‘Where was I? We visited Juliet – and three-year-old daughter Cassady – in her enviable house in Queen’s Park— ’
‘Or something similar in another part of London entirely,’ said Dottie, laughing. ‘The house in those pictures is in Wandsworth. You’ve made me lie to my readers, Juliet. It’s shocking.’
‘But it does look quite like this house,’ said Juliet.
‘Yeah,’ said Rachel. ‘It has the generic dream social kitchen. Simon’s cliché nightmare that I made him have, ha ha. Hang on, let me finish.
‘ “Belgravia is beautiful,” says Juliet, “but it’s not great for kids and we have a lot of friends in Queen’s Park—” ’
‘That’s us,’ said Dottie.
‘ “So Cassady now has a garden and plenty of pals within walking distance,” ’ Rachel continued. ‘ And children are particularly on Juliet’s mind at the moment as – at the time of writing – she was nearly nine months pregnant with her second baby. So, she has business success, creative cred, a beautiful house, glamorous friends and a family – but the one thing that is missing from Juliet Mylan’s apparently perfect life defines the reason she believes she has managed to “have it all” on her own terms. There is no man in her life.
‘ “It is very much my choice,” says Juliet. “I never wanted a husband or an involved father for my children. I knew from a young age that I wanted to be financially independent and that has been my driving force for the business. Once that side of things was stable, I was able to pursue my other ambition, which was to have a family on my own terms.”
‘ So, how do you have children when you categorically do not want a husband or partner, or another parent involved in the young ones’ lives in any way? Juliet replies as if it’s the obvious solution: a sperm donor. The same one for each of her children. “So they are true siblings, even if they don’t know their father,” she says. “That was important to me.” ’
The article went on with more about the business and her plans for the future and by the time Rachel had finished reading, Juliet was smiling broadly. She got up and gave Dottie a squeeze from behind.
‘You really are a friend,’ she said. ‘Your journalist has written exactly what I said. She hasn’t twisted it to make some controversial point. I’m so grateful.’
‘What about me?’ said Rachel. ‘I fought Godzilla here, on your behalf, to keep Cassady off the cover.’
Juliet hugged her too. ‘Thank you both, so much. You are such good friends and you’re both consummate professionals as well, so I respect you as much as I like you.’
‘That’s lovely, Jules,’ said Dottie. ‘And it really means a lot, coming from someone as emotionally constipated as you.’
Rachel shouted with laughter, tea spurting out of her mouth all over the table.
‘Oops, sorry,’ she said. ‘Lucky we weren’t on the white sofa. Let me grab a cloth.’
Juliet was already on her feet. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’
She wiped the table then sat down and looked at the pages of the magazine. ‘It really is a great piece,’ she said. ‘Thank you again.’ And then she threw the dishcloth across the kitchen in the rough direction of the sink. It landed on the floor and she left it there.
Rachel and Dottie burst out laughing.
‘Yay!’ said Rachel, holding up her hand to give Juliet a high five. ‘You did something out of control. I bloody love it.’
‘You know what,’ Juliet said, sitting down again. ‘I’ve already learned so much from you two – where to live, where to send your child to school, how to have friends. So, I’m going to do something else that’s right outside my normal comfort zone – which is a very small area, as you know.’
‘A jewel box,’ said Dottie.
‘Touché,’ said Juliet. ‘I know it’s a school night, but if you two are game, can you call your lovely husbands and ask them to come and get your kids? And then we will drink wine – just one for me because I’m breastfeeding – and eat bad delivered food and I will tell you something I don’t tell anybody, which explains why I’m such a weirdo.’
Without saying a word, Rachel and Dottie reached for their phones and started texting.
Juliet went to her study and pulled out the fat file of press clippings about her mother killing her father and all the abuse that had pushed her to do it.
It seemed a good place to start.