Chapter Fifty
The following morning Clem had to dash. She was meeting Otto for morning tea and she couldn’t wait to tell her her news. Her phone had also been pinging with constant text messages. Chloe had been fielding enquiries for her since Paddy’s event last night. The show at the VA had got the ball rolling. Paddy had managed to boot it halfway to the moon. Her interview with Vogue next week should be the final slam dunk.
Clem walked into the lounge of the Royal Riverside Hotel. At the other side of the room, she could see Otto and Louis sitting in front of a large window. The light illuminated their faces and they were laughing like a pair of teenagers. They barely took their eyes off each other but when one did look away the other seemed to stare at them, hungrily devouring every detail. So many years had been lost that if they could make up time just by absorbing each other’s features, they would.
‘Good morning. Do you have a reservation?’
A tall girl looked down on her with a friendly smile.
‘It’s okay, I’m joining my friends for coffee,’ said Clem with a returning smile, and she made her way across the room, almost reluctant to intrude on the couple.
Louis noticed her first, and pushing his chair back he kissed her on both cheeks and then held out a chair for her. Otto simply smiled at her as she failed to stand. Maybe her point-scoring days weren’t completely behind her.
‘How’s your hip, Otto, still sore? No, don’t get up,’ she said as Otto continued to make no movement to rise.
Otto’s lip twitched and she raised her teacup in salute.
Louis tutted at the pair of them and asked one of the nearby staff for a fresh pot of tea and a cafetière for Clem.
‘You two are exhausting. You are like peas in a pod. Always having to be Queen Dog.’
‘Top Dog.’
‘Queen Bee.’
Louis groaned and threw up his hands in despair. ‘See, even in correcting me, you compete.’
Clem poured a splash of milk into her cup and waited for the coffee to seep a bit more.
‘I apologise, Louis,’ said Otto daintily. ‘You are right. I was being petty. It takes a certain amount of elegance to be able to apologise properly and I thank you for reminding me.’
‘Oh boil your head, Otto,’ smiled Clem, thrusting the plunger down, but it was said in jest and the little group laughed and relaxed.
‘So what plans do you two have for the day?’
‘In a minute, we are heading to the National, and I’m going to tell Otto which ones I think are hers and she is going to tell me which ones I missed.’
Otto clasped her hands together and beamed widely at Clem. ‘And after that we are going to make plans to visit Paris and Rome and do it all over again. It will be our grand tour and honeymoon all rolled into one.’
‘Honeymoon?!’ Clem leapt up from her chair and rushed around to give Otto a hug. ‘That’s amazing news. Congratulations.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. Would you excuse me…’ Otto rose from her chair and left the lounge in the direction of the ladies. Clem looked after her in dismay.
‘What did I do? Louis is Otto all right? Should I go after her?’
‘Not unless you want to be told off.’ He took a sip of his tea and smiled, looking over to where she had left the room, and refilled Otto’s cup, cutting a fresh slice of lemon and placing it on the side. ‘You mean a lot to her and I think the emotion just caught her unawares. Let her be.’
Clem looked around the room, trying to process her feelings. She had grown very fond of the difficult old woman. It hadn’t occurred to her that those feelings were reciprocated. She knew how horrified Otto would be if someone caught her crying and decided that Louis was right. When Otto returned, she wouldn’t mention it.
‘So, a tour of Otto’s successes and your failures. Isn’t that a bit… odd? I mean aren’t you duty-bound to say something to someone?’
Louis dabbed his moustache. ‘Possibly, but duty is a very dreary companion. Life is short and I wasted too much of it to duty. Maybe when I’m dead I’ll leave a note. Or not. It depends on Otto. I think for too many years she has been unhappy. Now I see her laughing and it’s as though we are back in the 1980s, eluding each other’s grasp and having the time of our lives. I like to think that now we are in our seventies, we are ready for another adventure.’
Clem drank her coffee and thought how incredibly romantic it all sounded, but would it actually work?
‘I still don’t understand it. I mean if you don’t mind me pointing out, you two are chalk and cheese. You’re on one side of the law and she most assuredly is not. What do you have in common?’
‘Ah mon Dieu,’ Louis smiled softly. ‘I don’t love her because she is good or bad, because she over tips, or tells chefs their food is bland. I don’t love her because she is a talented painter, or beautiful and elegant or that she can curse in ten languages.’
‘She can?’
‘Fluently! But I love her despite of, and because of, all of those things. I don’t care what she does. I care who she is.’
‘And who is that?’
Clem and Louis both gave a quick start. They had been so engrossed in their conversation that they hadn’t seen Otto return. She waved him away as he made to get up and smiled at the slice of lemon. Leaning across the table, she picked up his hand and kissed his fingers. ‘So, is there another woman that I must deal with?’
‘Only you ma coeur. I was just explaining to our young friend here how the best relationships are chalk and cheese. Where one lacks, the other provides.’
‘Are you suggesting I lack something?’ asked Otto, raising her eyebrows at the preposterous suggestion.
‘A suitable observation of the laws of the land, perhaps?’
‘Pah. Laws are there to be observed.’
‘You mean obeyed.’
‘No, observed. From a distance. Not taken seriously. But why are you telling Clem this? She has her own cheese. She knows this?’
Clem looked at Otto in surprise. She and Symeon had been over before they had really started. Any passion she had for Symeon was fury, and now that he had acknowledged her work, he was about as interesting to her as a flaccid cabbage.
‘If you mean Symeon, I most certainly do not have him.’
‘Symeon, that posturing man child? Stupid girl. Of course I don’t mean him. And don’t bristle at me. If you play stupid, I will call you stupid. And if you still have a chip on your brilliant, talented shoulder because some stupid teacher called you stupid then she was right. Oh look how fearsome she is.’ Otto threw her hands up in mock alarm as Clem glared at her. ‘Louis. Will you not save me?’
‘Otto, behave yourself and apologise.’
Clem sighed deeply. ‘Don’t bother. She’s right.’
‘Of course I am.’
‘But you could be nice, as well as right? I know at your age it’s a risk, but it shouldn’t kill you.’
Now it was Otto’s turn to scowl, and she began to look around the room in an air of studied nonchalance. As she returned her attention to the table, she was peeved to see that both were still staring at her. Clem had a raised eyebrow but Louis looked a trifle sterner.
‘Oh very well. Clementine, I am sorry. That was callow of me. But I wasn’t referring to the puffed-up popinjay, I meant Rory.’
‘Rory who?’ Clem asked, a blush creeping up her neck.
‘If I can’t call her stupid when she is being stupid then what can I?’ Otto appealed to Louis.
‘How about embarrassed,’ suggested Louis kindly. ‘Maybe shy? Uncertain?’
‘What is there to be uncertain of? He loves her. Adores the ground she walks on.’
‘Rory Gowan?’
‘Yes, Rory Gowan, who you mention at least once a day.’
‘But that’s always because he’s so annoying, and thinks I’m an idiot. And goes out of his way to stop me having any fun.’
‘So you say. I see it as him trying to help you settle in and find your feet.’
‘I, oh.’ Clem stopped. ‘Well why didn’t he say that?’
‘Maybe because he goes about things differently to you. Cheese and chalk, remember?’
‘I’m not convinced.’
‘Tch. He came all the way to London just so that he could show his brother your contract.’
Clem put her cup down and stared at Otto in astonishment.
‘No, he came to London for Janet. Wait? What! He did what? How did he know?’
‘Because I showed him.’
Clem didn’t know if she should be happy or mad. Having told Otto her deepest shame in total confidence, Otto had immediately gone and blabbed it to Rory.
‘Oh Otto, I could have got in serious trouble, and not just me, all the previous designers who had worked with him as well.’
‘Well exactly. To me it stank, so I called Rory. His brother is a solicitor down here and I asked if Rory would phone him up. Instead, he flew to London.’
‘Why would he do that?’
Otto tutted. The implication of what Otto was trying to tell her was too momentous, and Clem was uncomfortably aware of how quickly her heart was pounding. She decided to change the question.
‘So, when Symeon said it was an oversight, he wasn’t trying to cash in on my success?’
‘No, he was desperately trying to avoid being taken to court. Which may yet happen. I understand Thomas Gowan, Rory’s brother, is writing to all the designers. He will explain to them that the gag clause is worthless and that they are owed recognition and a share of all sales.’
‘And Rory fixed that?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘But why didn’t he say? Why did he let Symeon take the credit?’
‘He was concerned that you would be annoyed or embarrassed if you somehow felt obliged to him. He promised me that I wouldn’t say anything to you.’ Otto smirked slightly and sipped her tea. ‘Naturally, I agreed and then vowed to let you know at the first opportunity.’
Louis smiled indulgently. ‘See, no morals whatsoever.’
‘Bloody hell, how can I ever thank him?’
Louis and Otto smiled at each other and then Louis turned to Clem.
‘Tell him. Don’t waste your life not saying the important things. Just say thank you and see what happens next.’