Tasmina Perry 3-Book Collection: Daddy’s Girls, Gold Diggers, Original Sin

But now, as the day drew closer, with the Musical Evening only four days away on Saturday, Zoë was like an albatross around his neck. She had moved operations from her flat in Chelsea to the Blue Room at Huntsford, arguing that it was time-and cost-effective to be based close to the site. While Oswald had seen the sense of it, Zoë was now pestering him on an hourly basis, demanding lengthy daily debriefs and annoying him constantly for decisions on the minutiae of the event. She wasn’t even a pleasure to have around. A young, mousy Sloane, Oswald found her girl-guide owlishness infuriating. It wasn’t even as if she was attractive. She reminded him of the friends Cate used to bring home from school: pasty-faced virgins with personalities to match. Not like Serena’s friends, he thought, suddenly becoming excited at the memory: a parade of foxy sixteen-year-olds with their too-short skirts and rebellious low-cut tops. Oswald smirked as he drained the last of his gin and tonic.

Zoë took a seat, preparing herself for a fight. For her part, she had long had cause to regret the day she had agreed to organize the Huntsford Musical Evening. Yes, she was ambitious, yes it was a terrific coup for her fledgling events company, but she hadn’t been treated like this since school. Lord Oswald Balcon was a mean, self-important bully who had been frightful as an employer. She had been waiting over two hours for him to run through the latest costings and spreadsheets, only to be told by Collins that Oswald intended to have a sleep after luncheon. Sleep! Zoë could only dream about it. For the last six weeks, she’d been working eighteen-hour days to make the Musical Evening a success, while Oswald’s penny-pinching and aversion to publicity threatened to undermine all her hard work. She’d met his type before: desperate for social glory but too lazy and arrogant actually to make it happen.

‘Your lordship,’ she said with some trepidation, ‘I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I think it’s vital that we have a meeting. The event is in four days’ time and I have various concerns we need to discuss.’

‘Very well,’ said Oswald, wiping the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin and looking at the girl disapprovingly. ‘Let’s make this quick.’

Silently she opened her files and began to spread out various charts and projections on top of the wrought-iron table, while Oswald beckoned Collins to remove the remnants of lunch.

‘When’s the circus rolling in then?’ said Oswald. ‘I thought I’d have been disturbed by the cavalcade of equipment by now. Aren’t they leaving it a little late to erect the stage?’

Zoë cleared her throat and shook her head. ‘No, you’ll remember that we discussed this. We are charged per day for all that equipment and you were adamant that it should come as late as possible to avoid any extra charges. It is coming tomorrow, but I’m assured it shouldn’t take longer than a day to erect, weather permitting, of course.’

She looked at Oswald over her glasses and drew a deep breath, knowing he wasn’t going to like the next item on her agenda. ‘I’m not particularly worried about the stage,’ she began carefully, ‘what I am concerned about is that Johnny Benjamin, the guy doing our finances for the event, has just emailed me a projected profit-and-loss spreadsheet. Unless ticket sales dramatically improve,’ she hesitated, ‘it looks as if the event could make a substantial loss.’

The corner of Oswald’s lip curled up into a snarl. ‘We’re in this to make money, not lose it.’ His voice was low, controlled and forbidding. It made Zoë more nervous than if he had laid into her with a torrent of abuse.

Zoë pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, trying to compose herself. ‘With all due respect, your lordship, I ran every single expense past you.’

Zoë ran a finger down the spreadsheet, wincing at the figures. She knew Oswald was going to make her feel as if it was her who had let the evening go careering out of control, but it was Oswald’s approach to event management that was threatening its success. While he was prepared to cut corners on necessities, such as the stage, he wanted the best of all the trimmings to give the illusion of grandeur. If Glyndebourne had two on-site restaurants, then, reasoned Oswald, so should Huntsford. Zoë had managed a compromise, making one food outlet a hog-roast, which she had thought would be fun and cost-effective, yet Oswald had insisted that the main restaurant should be housed in a top-of-the-range marquee that had set the event back a hundred thousand on its own, not to mention getting Mark Tennant, the executive chef of San Paulo, in to oversee all the catering. Zoë had tried to point out that Glyndebourne was a slightly different proposition: a long-established, dazzling fixture in the social calendar which attracted the highest level of corporate sponsorship, and thus was able to support the staging of full production operas such as Figaro or Madame Butterfly. She’d always seen the Huntsford Musical Evening as a much more casual event, along the lines of the summer evenings at Kenwood House in north London, where an orchestra and various artists would do short sets to entertain the picnicking crowd. She didn’t see the need for black tie, full restaurant facilities, and state-of-the-art Portaloos, especially when he wanted to skimp on staffing and marketing.

Oswald let his gaze sink to the bottom of the spreadsheet and began to splutter. ‘Now that figure can’t be right!’ he shouted.

‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Zoë confidently. ‘And obviously we have committed to most of it by now.’

Oswald could hardly believe his ears. Was this Sloaney pipsqueak patronizing him? He snatched up the spreadsheet, absorbing the figures with a great deal more attention than at any time before.

‘I have always maintained that the staffing levels for this thing have bordered on the ridiculous,’ he said coldly, reeling off the various salary costs. ‘Stage manager, lighting engineer, box-office manager, head of catering! I mean, the list is bloody endless!’

‘We are running on a skeleton staff for this size of event,’ replied Zoë patiently. ‘Without any of these people, the event just wouldn’t function properly. You always wanted the Huntsford Musical Evening to have size and prestige. It’s not a local am-dram production.’

Oswald took a moment to take stock at Zoë’s words, still staring at the ominous figures on the spreadsheet. Begrudgingly he admitted that she was right. Not that he was going to let her see that. Oswald had dispensed with Venetia’s involvement months ago because she had argued that the Huntsford Musical Evening should be on a much smaller scale. But Oswald’s vanity wouldn’t allow that. He had seen the way the Christie family had nurtured Glyndebourne from a small outdoor event held in their family grounds in the forties, into a huge international brand enjoyed by millions. He wanted a piece of that action and he wasn’t prepared to wait sixty years for it.

How hard could it be to organize a rival to the big opera festivals? he had reasoned to himself. It had been easy raising a substantial loan from the bank to cover upfront costs, and his social circle had embraced the idea enthusiastically. Now clouds of worry were beginning to bank up in his mind. He had already been a little concerned that the roster of artists Maria had mobilized were a little – how could he put it? – a little patchy. Yes, there were some good international names on the bill, but none of the real greats: no one of the stature of Pavarotti, Dame Kiri. Then there was the thorny issue of Maria’s considerable fee. She had argued that the event was pulling her away from a big-money job in Dubai. But that small point paled into insignificance when he mulled over the thought of having a financial disaster on his hands. The loan was huge, the interest high; this whole thing could ruin him.

‘There is a solution,’ said Zoë slowly, taking a sip of the tea that Collins had brought over.

‘Continue,’ said Oswald coolly.

‘Ticket sales are – shall we say – a little slow.’

‘Ridiculous,’ spat Oswald, staring at the wrought iron of the table. ‘A fabulous event like this should have people jamming the phones desperate to get returns.’

‘I did impress upon you several weeks ago, your lordship, that we should allocate more resources to the marketing and publicity side of the event,’ said Zoë.

‘Nonsense!’ he barked. ‘This evening is a talking point with everyone I know!’

Zoë knew she had to tread carefully. ‘Possibly in your circle of friends, yes. But with the Great British Public it doesn’t quite have the profile of a Glyndebourne.’

This was exactly where it had all gone wrong, she thought to herself miserably. She remembered their conversation all those weeks ago when Oswald had dismissed her pleas to hire a PR agency as ‘vulgar’. He had also vetoed the idea of them hiring a ticket agency to handle the box office – Oswald had been vehemently against paying an agency ten per cent of the ticket proceeds. Instead, ticket sales were being dealt with by a student in the Blue Room manning a single telephone.

The sun had drifted around the side of Huntsford so that it threw long rays of heat onto the terrace, making Oswald feel even more uncomfortable. ‘So what’s the big idea, missy?’

‘We need to sell another two thousand tickets to minimize losses. If more people know about it, the crowds will come and we can rely on ticket sales on the day. However, to reach those people, we have to make a big publicity splash.’

Oswald looked at his young employee in a new light. ‘And how do you propose we create this “splash”?’ he asked sceptically.

‘Your daughter,’ said Zoë. ‘Serena. She hasn’t made a single public appearance since the tabloid revelations three weeks ago.’

Oswald shifted in his chair. He would rather not think about his youngest daughter’s disgraceful behaviour at this moment in time. While Serena could rarely do anything wrong in Oswald’s eyes, he had taken a very dim view of her pregnancy by Michael Sarkis. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she had still been in a relationship with the American – he might be a tacky colonial, but Oswald could appreciate his immense wealth. But the last thing the Balcon family needed was a bastard child tarnishing their reputation. However, with the thought of incurring debts over the Huntsford Musical Evening uppermost in his mind, he was prepared to hear Zoë’s idea.

‘Nobody is expecting Serena to attend on Saturday,’ Zoë said, picking up the pace of her words. ‘After all, there was that story in the paper about you two feuding over her pregnancy.’ Oswald bristled. He had yet to get to the bottom of how the bloody tabloids had got wind of his and Serena’s argument only ten days earlier.

‘If you could persuade Serena to perhaps compere the evening, or at least introduce Maria Dante, that would generate oodles of pre-publicity.’

Oswald felt his anger cool before he started to raise objections. ‘Yes, but how will a few random stories in those grubby rags sell tickets to the calibre of guests that will come to Huntsford?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ replied Zoë, raising one eyebrow above the tortoiseshell rims of her glasses. ‘We just need some media hype. I’ve worked in marketing, I guarantee you we’ll be at full capacity if we can give the public a first glimpse of Serena. Perhaps we could even arrange for her to do a little sympathetic interview with the Telegraph on Friday. You know she hasn’t breathed a word to the press since her recent troubles.’

Zoë sensed she had struck a chord.

‘When needs must, I suppose,’ said Oswald tartly, looking away from Zoë, his eyes lingering on the lake glittering silver in front of him. He had to admit it was a good idea. He had no idea how Serena would respond to the suggestion, though. She was her father’s daughter and she would probably still be hostile towards him, volatile at the very least. Well aware that they could both manipulate each other, he decided it was worth the risk, especially as it was either that or face financial ruin.

He dismissed Zoë Cartwright to her spreadsheets and reached for the phone.

32 (#ulink_1b446543-096f-5dca-8a39-972e5292bcc8)

A stocky man in a pair of dirty jeans stopped Serena’s driver at the gates of Huntsford by slapping a meaty hand on the windscreen of the Mercedes. The driver calmly leaned out of his window and politely enquired what the problem was.

‘Gotta wristband?’ asked the gorilla, waving a clipboard.

Serena pressed a button and allowed her electric window to purr down. ‘This is my home,’ she said sternly, too tired to flash the man her movie-star smile. Immediately recognizing Serena, the security guard gruffly apologized and let the car proceed on its way.

‘How ridiculous,’ she hissed, looking back at the bothersome man over her shoulder. As she turned back, her mouth dropped open at the transformation of Huntsford before her. Even half a mile away from the main house, she gasped at the size of the operation. On the horizon she could make out an enormous, dome-shaped stage held up by a web of scaffolding. The driveway was lined with iron railings, topless men in jeans were erecting signs pointing to toilets, car park and restaurant, while at the far side of the lake was a parade of vans, lorries, generators and trailers. At least sixty people milled around, lugging cables, striding across the lawns with clipboards or carrying huge tureens into the catering tents. It was vast – impressive, she thought, a smile curling up on her full lips.

She had driven a hard bargain with her father when he had called her two days earlier to persuade her to attend. Her instincts were completely against it. She still felt raw and betrayed, especially after her meeting with Michael, and certainly didn’t feel ready to venture out into the public eye quite yet. After news of her pregnancy had broken, some of the knives had really come out. The suggestion that she was yesterday’s news, or lacked the exotic, worldwide appeal in a new, more cosmopolitan age had particularly hurt. If she was going to thrust herself back into the limelight willingly, she reasoned, then it was going to have to be worth her while. So she had demanded a cut of the action. She had told her father that she wanted seven per cent of the box-office takings, which Oswald had ruthlessly negotiated down to three per cent. Not ideal, she thought to herself, but well worth the drive into the countryside. It was sure to impact positively on her profile, too; the dutiful daughter helping out at her father’s musical event: even the detractors would love that one.

‘Something of a transformation, wouldn’t you say?’ said Oswald to his daughter as she pulled up to the double doors, helping her from the car and giving her a cautious embrace.

‘Yes, it’s quite a change,’ smiled Serena, pulling her microshorts further down her legs to look a little more respectable. ‘It looks just like Glastonbury.’

Oswald recoiled in horror. ‘That dreadful hippy festival? I don’t think so,’ he replied curtly.

Serena swung her Mulberry bag off her arm and sauntered inside. ‘Only joking, Daddy. I can see it’s going to be fabulous.’ She let a silence pass between them, waiting to see if he would bring up their argument of a few weeks earlier. But Oswald seemed content to let that incident – and the bigger subject of her pregnancy – pass without comment.

‘Maria is arriving at the house at five,’ he informed her casually. ‘I assume you’ll be joining us for dinner? Perhaps you could make a little more effort to get to know her better.’

Yes, right, she thought darkly. She hadn’t spoken to the woman since her leaving party back in April, and had zero intention of offering an olive branch now. She had hoped that the pushy Italian would have been a passing fancy for her father, just like all the other women in his life over the past fifteen years: the divorcées, flight attendants, ageing models and middle-aged society women had all lasted about as long as his shampoo. But it disturbed her that this liaison seemed to be growing a little more serious. They had been seen out and about together at all sorts of social events over the past three months; Richard Kay’s Mail column had even begun to refer to Dante as Oswald’s partner. It irked her, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.