Chelsea Wives

*

‘I’ve found this,’ the sales assistant called out to Yasmin from behind the curtain. ‘It’s Alexander McQueen couture. J-Lo once wore something similar to the VMAs, but I thought of you the moment I saw it on the rail.’

Yasmin tore back the curtain and poked her head out. It was the dress. She knew it instantly as she observed it in all its inky black floor length, sequinned embellished, one-shoulder glory.

‘I’ll take it,’ Yasmin said nonchalantly.

The assistant stared at her, incredulous. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see if it fits first, Lady Belmont? I would advise it.’

‘No. That’s the dress. Just have them all wrapped for me, yes,’ Yasmin spoke hurriedly.

‘All?’ The assistant was perplexed.

Yasmin shot her an impatient look.

‘Yes. All of them,’ she snapped, pointing to the enormous pile of couture on the floor. ‘I want them all wrapped and charged to my husband’s account, please.’

The sales assistant closed her mouth. She was accustomed to observing obscene amounts of cash change hands but she had never seen anything like this.

‘Ye … yes, Lady Belmont,’ she stammered. ‘I’ll get it done right away. Would you like them sent on to your Chelsea residence? And can I get you a car? I see you already have some luggage.’

‘If you don’t mind,’ Yasmin said, pulling on her spray-on DVB black jeans and Rick Owens tank and hurriedly throwing her Balmain leather biker jacket over the top.

‘Not at all,’ the sales assistant said, instantly buoyed by the realisation that she would meet her sales target this week and then some.

‘Oh, and I’ve left a tip for you in the dressing room, for all your help,’ Yasmin smiled kindly at the assistant as she breathlessly made her way past her. ‘Don’t spend it all at once, will you? Got to dash,’ she said, checking the time on her watch. ‘Mustn’t keep hubby waiting – bye for now!’

‘Yes, er, goodbye, Lady Belmont. See you again soon?’

She watched incredulously as Yasmin Belmont strutted from the room carrying a black holdall, her long platinum hair swishing behind her. Oh, to be that young and have so much money, she thought enviously as she stepped into the curtained changing room to clear up the mass of padded hangers and empty champagne bottle. It was then she noticed a large black holdall on the chair and called out, ‘Lady Belmont, your bag! You’ve forgotten your bag!’ But Yasmin was long gone.

Sighing as she picked it up it was awfully heavy she noticed an envelope on the top: ‘To the helpful assistant. It’s all yours – Treat yourself and your family! Love, Lady B XX.’

Opening it, the assistant put her hand to her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. The holdall was full to bursting with fifty pound notes. She stared, dumbstruck, at the cash, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. The Queen’s face smiled wryly back up at her as she stood rooted to the spot. Looking around her, convinced it had to be some kind of prank, she picked up the note and re-read it.

‘ – it’s all yours …’

Gripped by a potent combination of shock and elation, with her heart thumping so hard in her chest that it almost hurt, the assistant began to empty out the contents of the bag, turning it upside down, watching as a seemingly never-ending flurry of notes fluttered to the floor in a makeshift money-snowstorm. And then she started to laugh, great belly laughs until tears fell from her eyes.

CHAPTER 10

Bibendum was exceptionally busy, even for a Friday lunchtime.

‘I thought perhaps we might go for a little meander around Knightsbridge after lunch,’ Calvary announced as she cast a critical eye over Yasmin’s choice of lunch outfit – a colourful Julien Macdonald dress that displayed far too much leg and cleavage – a major fashion faux pas. ‘Browse for something to wear for the ball perhaps.’ She was determined to push her protégée in a more demure sartorial direction if it killed her.

Yasmin bristled, affronted. What exactly was she trying to say? Anyway, she already had her outfit sorted, and just wait until Calvary got a load of it! If she thought her usual attire was a little on the risqué side then the woman’s eyes would fall out of her head once she saw the sheer, split-to-the-crotch McQueen she was planning to unveil!

Yasmin was wise enough to hold her tongue, however. She had learned quickly that it was best to indulge Calvary Rothschild. Interfering and bossy though the woman was, Yasmin was not naive enough to think that she couldn’t learn anything from her. She hoped Calvary’s knowledge of society might prove useful when it came to gleaning information she needed. Information about the night her sister died.

Reluctantly, Yasmin knew she should be grateful to Calvary for taking her under her wing, especially since she had been largely ostracised by the other women on the society circuit. In an odd way, they both needed each other; Yasmin wanted information and to fit in, and Calvary needed a distraction from her ever increasing marital problems. Their fledgling friendship suited them both.

‘Fine with me,’ Yasmin shrugged. If it meant blowing yet more of her husband’s cash then she was more than game.

‘And I suppose you’ll want to pick up a few last minute bits for LA, won’t you, darling?’ Calvary turned to Imogen. ‘You’re flying out the day after tomorrow, aren’t you?’

‘What? Hmm …’ Imogen replied, her mind clearly elsewhere. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, jerking her thoughts back to reality. ‘LA.’

‘You must be excited,’ Yasmin remarked, shovelling a forkful of walnut salad in between her shimmery lips. She was off the coke today and as usual her appetite had returned with an insatiable vengeance. ‘Getting back in front of the camera again. Calvary told me you were, like, as big as Kate Moss back in the day.’

Calvary shot Imogen an apologetic look.

‘Back in the day,’ Imogen repeated, her mind drifting towards him once more.

Ever since meeting with Cressida again, it was as if the door to her past had been flung wide open and, struggle as she might, she could not seem to close it again.

Her head throbbed with thoughts of him so much that it hurt. Images of the two of them together constantly flicked like still frames through her mind; she saw his sparsely furnished apartment in Camden where they had first made love … the rickety old boat they had taken out on the canals during a weekend trip to Amsterdam, laughing until their sides hurt. Try as she did to stop herself from going there, she saw the stunning white beach house in Ibiza, the sound of the waves in the distance as they made love on the sand one last time. And Aimee … she could not forget Aimee …

‘So, what made you give it all up in the first place, the modelling, I mean?’ Yasmin asked, genuinely intrigued.

‘More like who made her give it up,’ Calvary explained, throwing one leg dramatically over the other as she smoothed down the front of her Alberta Ferretti shift dress.

Imogen sighed. She hated answering this question. It always made her feel so weak and pathetic.

‘Seb wanted me to concentrate on motherhood rather than my career,’ she explained quietly, fiddling nervously with her small silver necklace, the necklace he had placed around her neck all those years ago and that had remained there ever since. ‘He didn’t think I could do both.’

Yasmin pulled her chin into her neck, outrage written all over her young, heavily made-up face.

‘Jesus, what a dinosaur,’ she shook her head ruefully. ‘Well, no man could ever make me do anything I didn’t want to do, uh-uh,’ she announced defiantly, though secretly she knew this had not always been the case. On the contrary, Yasmin had spent most of her young life doing exactly what men wanted her to do. It was partly why she felt such a fierce loathing for them all.

‘You haven’t met Sebastian Forbes,’ Calvary deadpanned. ‘Actually, I’m surprised he’s been OK about this LA trip. I must say, Ims, I thought he would’ve thrown his toys out of the pram at the very mention of it.’

‘That makes two of us,’ Imogen replied, still unable to quite believe her husband’s easy-going attitude. ‘Though I made it clear that I’m doing this for Cressida and he couldn’t stop me even if he tried. This time I stood up to him,’ she said, enjoying a small rush of pleasure as she remembered the scene in the kitchen.

‘Sounds to me like you were fifteen years too late,’ Yasmin retorted, unable to help herself from wondering how someone as beautiful and seemingly smart as Imogen had ended up with a man like Sebastian Forbes who, by all accounts, sounded like a misogynistic bully.

‘Better late than never, I suppose,’ Imogen smiled unconvincingly, dipping her spoon into her celeriac soup.

‘Relationships, darling,’ Calvary interjected, sighing and trying hard not to think too much about the mess her own was in. ‘I’ve always thought that love makes people do the silliest things.’ She shot Yasmin a humorous look. ‘Like marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather.’

Imogen bit her lip and cast her friend a look that told her she was a wicked woman.

‘Oh yes, bravo, very funny,’ Yasmin retorted, slowly clapping her hands. ‘You may mock, Calvary Rothschild, but I’ll have you know that Jeremy is the love of my life.’ This statement sounded almost as ridiculous as it was unconvincing. ‘I knew as soon as I saw him,’ she added, the natural drama queen within her unable to stop herself from overegging the pudding.

‘Love at first sight, was it?’ Calvary raised a sceptical eyebrow, adding dryly, ‘if such a thing even exists.’

Suddenly it was the summer of 1995 and Imogen was in the British Library. He had been taking a sly look at her from behind the dusty bookshelves as she casually thumbed the pages of an old copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, pretending not to have noticed him.

She had been instinctively aware of someone watching her, longing eyes leaving imprints on her skin. When she had eventually looked up and met his gaze, it had felt as if a bomb had gone off inside her. He had immediately looked down at the book he was reading as if furious with himself at having been caught staring, and the memory of it still made her smile, even now.