Page 40 of The Importance of Being Emma
Then a wonderful thought occurred to me. ‘You know, if Janehasto come here, she could work in Finance rather than Marketing. Philip’s been saying he needs an assistant and it could make all the difference to him getting the budgets out promptly.’
His eyes lit up. ‘Good idea, darling, I’ll give Mary a call and see what she thinks.’ He dialled Batty’s extension. ‘Quick question, Mary — oh? All right then.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘She says I must be psychic, she was about to pop along and see me about something extremely urgent.’
He’d hardly finished speaking when Batty burst in, panting.
‘Ah, you’re here as well, Emma. Good, that saves me a journey.’
Instead of hovering at the door as she usually did, she settled herself on a chair; I knew then that the ‘something extremely urgent’ was nothing more than a juicy piece of gossip.
She lowered her voice, although there was no one else around. ‘Have either of you heard from Mark recently?’
‘Why do you ask?’ I said, wondering what she could possibly know about him that I didn’t.
‘Well, Mother had to go to the doctor’s this morning, and I couldn’t take her because I had Pam Goddard coming in for a little review meeting about . . . So I got Jack Thomas along, you know, from Aardvark Taxis, he’s related to Doreen Davies in our Purchasing department, such a nice . . . Anyway, he said he had a call last night from Donwell Abbey and — guess what?’
‘They wanted a taxi?’ Dad said, tentatively.
She tittered. ‘Oh, yes, that goes without saying.But . . .the taxi was just for Tamaraandshe had all her luggage with herandhe had to take her to Gatwick. She must have gone back to India, that’s almost a week early.’
‘A business crisis perhaps,’ Dad said. ‘I can’t remember what she said she did, but it sounded very important.’
Her eyes gleamed. ‘That’s what I thought, but Jack said she swore at Mark when he tried to help with the bags. Must be a lovers’ tiff, mustn’t it?’
I recalled Tamara’s reaction when she’d found me at Donwell. At the time, I’d dismissed it as natural malevolence combined with a hard day’s shopping. Now I wondered if her crazy suspicions had come between her and Mark.
I merely said, ‘I’m aware that they had a little problem, but of course I would never dream of discussing it with Mark.’
Her face fell. ‘Wouldn’t you? Oh, well . . . Now, Henry, what did you want to ask me?’
‘Jane’s work placement.’ He paused. ‘Would a role in Finance meet her requirements?’
She gasped. ‘Goodness, I’m afraid that wouldn’t do at all. Much as I like Philip, I couldn’t bear to think of dear Jane closeted with him day in, day out. You never know what might happen, he’s got such a shifty . . . No, it has to be Marketing if you don’t mind, Henry. That’s what Jane’s specialising in after all, did I tell you she got top marks in her . . . ? And I know she and Emma will love working together, they’ve always got on so well.’
‘That’s settled, then,’ Dad said, with a helpless look at me.
I got abruptly to my feet. ‘If you’ll both excuse me, I’ve got lots to do.’
I made it all the way back to my office before I gave vent to my frustration. ‘That old bat knows exactly which buttons to push with Dad! And as for dear bloody Jane—’ I grabbed my car keys. It would do me good to get out of this place for half an hour — and with any luck I could kill two birds with one stone.
Five minutes later I was at Donwell Organics, making sure the Mercedes was in its usual parking space; so far, so good. I breezed into Reception and announced that I had an appointment with Mark. The girl rang Cherry and I could tell from her nervous glances in my direction that there was a problem.
‘Shall I speak to Cherry?’ I said coolly. The girl handed me the receiver with obvious relief.
‘Hi, it’s Emma, didn’t Mark mention our mentoring meeting? . . . Yes, we only arranged it last night, he must have forgotten to let you know . . . No, don’t do that, I’ll surprise him.’
I entered his office without a sound. He was standing looking out of the window, hands clasped behind his back, fiddling with his watch.
‘Hello there,’ I said.
He whirled round, his eyes wide and his face pale despite his tan, as if he’d seen a ghost.
‘Sorry if I gave you a fright,’ I went on, ‘I just had to come and find out if it’s true.’
His voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘If what’s true?’
‘That you and Tamara have split up.’
He flinched, then turned away. ‘God, I’d forgotten what this place is like, how there’s no sodding privacy. Don’t tell me, this morning you somehow bumped into the taxi driver . . . Probably at Highbury Foods, when he was dropping off his wife’s cousin’s mother-in-law who just happens to be one of your employees . . . He couldn’t help mentioning that he took Tamara to the airport late last night and of course you both jumped to the conclusion that we’d split up.’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘One other thing, have you broadcast it to the whole village yet, or are you seeing if there’s a perfectly innocent explanation first?’
