LITMIR.BIZ

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She started to walk again, but now her step was slower and more regulated, and by the time she reached Commercial Street she had managed to calm herself considerably. She dawdled a little bit, stopping to glance in shop windows, until finally she was drawing to a standstill in front of E. Harte, her grandmother’s huge department store at the end of the street. She smiled at the uniformed doorman, whom she had known since childhood. ‘Hello, Alfred,’ she said, smiling.

      ‘’Ello, Miss Paula,’ he responded with a benevolent grin, touching his cap. ‘It’s a right beautiful day. Yes, luvely, it is that, Miss Paula. Let’s ’ope t’weather ’olds til termorrer, for yer bairns’ baptisms.’

      ‘Yes, let’s hope so, Alfred.’

      He grinned again and pushed open the door for her. She thanked him, hurried through the perfumery department and took the lift to her office on the fourth floor. Her secretary, Agnes, looked up as she walked in, and exclaimed, with a small frown, ‘Oh dear, Mrs Fairley, you’ve just missed Mr O’Neill. Shane O’Neill, that is, and only by a few minutes too. What a shame. He waited for quite a while, then had to rush off to an appointment.’

      ‘Oh.’ Paula stopped dead in her tracks, taken aback, but she recovered herself, and asked quickly, ‘Did he say why he dropped in? Or leave a message?’

      ‘I gathered he was passing the store and decided to say hello on the spur of the moment. No message though, other than to tell you he would be coming to the christening.’

      ‘I see. Anything else, Agnes?’

      ‘Mr Fairley phoned from London. You can’t call him back, he was on his way to a luncheon at the Savoy Hotel. He’ll be arriving on schedule, at six, with your parents. The other messages are on your desk. Nothing vital.’ Agnes hesitated, then asked, ‘How did your meeting go at Aire?’

      Paula made a sour face. ‘Not good, Agnes. In fact I’d venture to say that it went extremely badly.’

      ‘I am sorry, Mrs Fairley. I know the amount of work you put in on those dreadful balance sheets, and then the hours you devoted to the contracts.’ Agnes Fuller, prematurely grey at thirty-eight, plain of feature and with a severe expression that actually betrayed the kindest of hearts, had worked her way up through the ranks of the Leeds store. She had been flattered yet apprehensive when Paula had promoted her to private secretary. After all, Paula was the heiress apparent, and Emma Harte’s favourite; also, there were those in the store who thought she was cold, remote, unyielding and something of a snob who lacked Emma’s extraordinary common touch. But Agnes had soon discovered that Paula had none of the characteristics so unkindly attributed to her by detractors. She was reserved of nature – even a little shy – cautious and prudent, and a veritable work horse, and these traits had, very simply, been misconstrued. Over the past three years, Agnes had come to love the younger woman, was admiring of her, and considered her to be a brilliant executive who was a warm and caring person and a considerate employer.

      As she peered at her young boss through her bifocals, Agnes noticed that Paula was paler than usual, and drawn. She gave her a look of sympathy mingled with regret. ‘It’s all very annoying,’ she clucked in commiseration, shaking her head. ‘And I hope you’re not going to let it bother you, particularly this weekend.’

      ‘No, I won’t, I promise you that,’ Paula reassured. ‘As my grandmother always says, you win a few, lose a few. We lost this one – ’ She did not finish, and a reflective expression settled on her face. ‘But, come to think of it, perhaps that’s just as well.’ There was a thoughtful pause, before she finished, ‘Excuse me, Agnes, I’ll see you shortly.’

      Paula went into her office and sat down at the huge antique partners’ desk which dominated the room. After taking the Aire Communications papers out of her briefcase, she picked up a red pen and wrote dead in capitals across the front of the bulging folder. She rose, went to the filing cabinet and slipped it inside, then returned to her desk. The deal was dead as far as she was concerned. The negotiations had ended in a fiasco, and, in consequence, she had lost all interest in Aire Communications.

      More than any other of the Harte offspring, Paula had inherited an unusual number of Emma’s characteristics, and those she had not been born with she had acquired by osmosis, from years of working at Emma’s side. Chief amongst these was the ability to admit any kind of mistake with openness and candour, and then put it behind her philosophically. Like Emma, she would invariably say: It didn’t work. Perhaps my judgement was flawed. But let’s go on from here. We mustn’t look back.

      And this was exactly what she said to herself now. In her mind, Aire Communications was already a thing of the past. If she had gravely misjudged John Cross and wasted a great deal of time and effort on him, she had no intention of compounding these errors by dwelling on them unnecessarily. She wondered whether she ought to give her grandmother a ring, to explain what had happened, then decided against it. Grandy was seeing both Alexander and Emily this morning, and was bound to be busy. Later, she would drive out to Pennistone Royal, as arranged, and apprise her of the situation. Grandy is going to be disappointed, of course, she thought, sorting through the sheaf of messages. But that won’t last long, and I’ll soon find another project for her.

      Picking up the telephone, Paula returned all of her business calls, signed the stack of letters Agnes had typed, and then sat back in the chair, glancing at her personal messages.

      Her mother had called. Nothing important. Don’t bother to call back. Will see you tonight, Agnes had scribbled, then added one of her inimitable postscripts. Mrs Amory sounded marvellous, elated about tomorrow. We had a lovely chat. She’s got a new hairstyle, and is wearing a grey Christian Dior suit for the event.

      Paula smiled at Agnes’s comments, then scanned the message from her cousin, Sarah Lowther. Apparently she was fighting a cold and might not be well enough to attend the christening. But she didn’t sound at all sick, Agnes had written cryptically. How strange, Paula thought, frowning and re-reading the slip of paper. Sarah obviously doesn’t want to come. I wonder why? Since she could not hazard a guess, she turned to the last message. Miranda O’Neill was at the Leeds office of O’Neill Hotels International. Please call her back before lunch, Agnes had instructed.

      Paula immediately dialled Miranda’s private number. The line was busy, as it usually was when she was in the city. Like her grandfather, Miranda had what the poet Dylan Thomas had called ‘the beautiful gift of the gab’. She could easily be talking for the next hour. Automatically, Paula’s thoughts turned to Miranda’s brother, Shane, and instantly she saw his vivid laughing face in her mind’s eye. She was terribly disappointed she had missed him earlier. Such a visit had become a rarity. For years he had made it a habit to drop in on her both in Leeds and London, and when these unexpected visits had ceased abruptly she had been hurt and baffled.

      Shane O’Neill, son of Bryan, grandson of Blackie, had been Paula’s closest friend since childhood. They had grown up with each other, had spent all of their school holidays together, and they had been inseparable for most of their lives, so much so that Emma had nicknamed Paula the Shadow. As her mind lingered on Shane, she realized she had not set eyes on him for many, many months. He was constantly travelling these days, dashing off to Spain and the Caribbean, where a number of the O’Neill hotels were located, and when he was in England, and if she chanced to run into him, he had a preoccupied air and a distant manner. She exhaled softly, slowly. How odd it was that their closeness should end with such finality, as it had two years ago. It still puzzled her. When she had eventually tackled Shane, had asked him what had happened between them, he had looked at her in the most peculiar way, and denied that anything had. He had blamed business and his time-consuming schedule for his absence from her life. Perhaps he had simply outgrown her. Childhood friendships often did change radically; very frequently they deteriorated to such an extent they could never be reinstated. Regrettably, she thought. And I do miss him. I wish I’d been here this morning.

      The buzz of the telephone cut into her thoughts. She reached for it. Agnes said, ‘It’s Miss O’Neill, Mrs Fairley.’

      ‘Thanks, Agnes, put her through, please.’

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