Page 45 of The Importance of Being Emma
‘It’s not important, Aunt Mary.’
I cut in with, ‘Why don’t we have a little chat, Jane? Come into my office’ — delicate emphasis on the ‘my’ — ‘but I can only spare half an hour, I’m afraid.’
‘Marvellous, Emma, I’ll leave you girls to it,’ Batty simpered, while Jane followed me into my room.
We sat at opposite sides of the table and I leaned forward encouragingly. ‘Tell me about your degree course, then I can see where you’d be most useful.’
She folded her hands neatly in her lap and studied her skirt. ‘If you like, although I think it’s all sorted. I’ve had a brief word with Henry and he thought I’d be ideal for the Harriet’s Secret Recipes project. It also meets my course requirements perfectly — taking something from a sketchy concept and seeing it right through to its launch.’
Sketchy concept? Was that how Dad had described all the work I’d done to date? Somehow I doubted it; it was more the sort of thing dear Jane would say as she prepared to step in and take all the credit.
‘Really? How do you plan to do that?’ I asked, through clenched teeth.
She proceeded to drone on about various marketing tools and how she would apply them to my project: Ansoff’s Matrix, the AIDA model, the Marketing Mix and so on. I knew them all backwards, so I doodled on my notepad and waited for Mark to arrive. At last, I heard his deep voice in the outer office, followed by an inevitable giggling fit from Harriet.
I got to my feet. ‘Very interesting, Jane, but we’ll have to leave it there. You remember Mark Knightley? He’s just arrived to take me to an important business engagement and we need to get away promptly.’
As I went towards the door to show her out, it opened abruptly and Mark cannoned into me.
He drew back instantly, without even looking at me. ‘My fault, sorry.’ Then, in a much more cordial tone, ‘Jane, lovely to see you again. It’s been so long, I hardly recognised you.’ He seized her hand and shook it for several seconds.
She smiled, ever so briefly. ‘Mark.’
He continued, his eyes fixed on her, ‘I didn’t realise you were in a meeting—’
‘We’ve just finished,’ I said coldly. ‘See you on Monday, Jane. In the meantime, I’ll have a think about where I can put your amazing expertise to good use.’
She murmured her thanks and slipped out of the room.
Mark shut the door behind her. Then he turned to me and said quietly, ‘Have you seen Elton today?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘So you don’t know that—’
Before he could finish, Batty burst in. ‘So sorry to interrupt, but I thought you’d both want to hear the news as soon as possible.’
I covered my irritation with a thin smile. ‘What news is that?’
‘Philip’s got a girlfriend! He met her in Bristol and she’s coming to stay with him this weekend, he’s only known her a few days, must be serious, mustn’t it? Funny, I always thought he was after someonemuchnearer to home.’ She shot me a coy glance.
I flushed and said nothing.
Mark cleared his throat. ‘That’s what I was about to tell you, Emma.’
Batty’s face fell. ‘And how did you find out?’
‘From Elton himself. I was passing his office just now and he rushed out to ask if I could recommend somewhere for a romantic dinner. Before I could answer, he went off into a long explanation of his eyes meeting this woman’s across a crowded room and hardly being apart from her since.’
‘That’s more or less what happened withme, except he wanted the name of a reliable cleaning lady,’ — she lowered her voice until it was barely audible — ‘because Gusty would be practicallylivingwith him from now on and she’s highly allergic to household dust.’
I frowned. ‘What did you call her? For a moment I thought you said Gusty—’
‘That’s right, odd sort of name, must be short for something, let me think . . . ’
Mark raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, Mary, I hope you helped him out with a cleaner. We wouldn’t want Gusty to get dusty, would we?’
It was a lame joke, but we all burst out laughing anyway. I for one needed to relieve some tension; the effect of having Saint Jane around, no doubt.
