Guilty Pleasures - Tasmina Perry

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the way Emma functioned; with order and precision and just a little margin left over as a safety net. But this time even her careful approach had let her down; by the time the taxi had made the fifty-mile journey from Heathrow to the tiny Oxfordshire village of Chilcot where the funeral was being held, she could already hear the rousing sound of hymns coming from inside the church.

      ‘Shit, shit, shit, it’s started,’ she mumbled, making a dash for the church. Wincing as the double doors groaned loudly she squeezed inside and slipped into the end of the nearest pew.

       ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live.’

      As she listened to the hollow sound of the vicar’s voice echoing around the small church, Emma felt a pang of regret wash over her.

      It had been three years since she had seen her Uncle Saul. Working at Price Donahue had meant that her holiday time was cut to a miserly two weeks a year. There was barely enough time to get to Martha’s Vineyard let alone make the long journey to her family home. She should have made the time but she hadn’t and now it was too late. Saul was dead, his coffin festooned with roses at the front of the altar. The life-force of the family, the bon viveur, the glue that had seemed to hold everyone together, was gone.

      Emma’s own father was buried in Chilcot church’s grounds and it made the day seem even more poignant. She shut her eyes and for a split second she pictured herself running around Saul’s villa as a little girl the summer before her father died. She could still almost smell Les Fleurs; the riot of scent from pine to jasmine, lavender to thyme. She remembered the wonder of seeing hilltop medieval villages for the first time and the illicit swigs of rosé smuggled from the kitchens by Cassandra. It had been the last perfect summer.

      The service ended with ‘Jerusalem’, after which the coffin was carried down the aisle and the congregation streamed out into the grounds. Emma estimated there were over 200 people crammed into the narrow aisles; it was no wonder. Saul had been the patriarch of the village and Milford was still the main employer of most of its residents. It explained why so many of them were here, spilling out of the church, some of them in tears. Searching the crowd she vaguely recognized senior managers from the company. There was also a peppering of the London crowd that Saul had hung around with for four decades: elegant women with smart hats and impressive-looking husbands, well-known businessmen, politicians. She recognized Soraya, the Sixties supermodel, Terry O’Neill, even a handful of ageing rock stars.

      ‘Finally,’ said a disapproving voice behind her accompanied by a tap on the shoulder. ‘Please tell me you were at the back of the church.’

      ‘Yes, Mother, I was at the back of the church,’ said Emma with a sigh, leaning in to kiss her mother Virginia. She was exquisitely dressed in a charcoal suit, her silver blonde hair swung in an elegant bob around her pinched disapproving face. At almost sixty, she was still beautiful in a way Emma was not, finely boned, elegant, regal.

      ‘My plane was three hours late. You did get my message?’

      ‘Your mother was worried sick,’ snapped the man standing next to Emma’s mother. Jonathon Bond was her mother’s second husband. A stockbroker with pewter hair combed back in a slightly sinister style and a perpetually anxious expression, he had married Virginia within three years of Emma’s father’s death when she was still only ten. It was approximately at that point that Emma had begun to feel as if she were surplus to requirements within her own family. Emma liked to tell herself that she hadn’t intentionally drifted apart from them, but the truth was she had wanted to leave England to escape from a mother who seemed to have no interest in anything outside her new marriage. But if she had subconsciously tried to punish her mother by moving to another continent, Virginia hadn’t seemed to have been particularly bothered.

      Today was the first time she had seen her mother in six months. She had invited her mother and Jonathon over to Boston for New Year, but Virginia had declined, saying Jonathon had to be at the office over the holiday. She’d since learnt from her cousin Tom that they’d actually spent New Year staying at the Four Seasons in Manhattan instead. Emma had thought she had stopped feeling disappointed with her mother but it seemed as if this was something she would never get over.

      ‘Cassandra was here early,’ said Virginia shortly, ‘She had to come all the way from some fashion show in New York.’

      ‘And I thought you had a boyfriend coming over?’ said Jonathon looking around.

      ‘Who told you that?’ said Emma with surprise.

      ‘Your mother said there was some chap at work.’

      ‘Mum, please. It’s nothing serious,’ said Emma, suddenly feeling like a teenager.

      ‘It never is serious, is it?’ said Virginia, ‘unless it’s work.’

      Seemingly tiring of the conversation, Jonathon grabbed Virginia’s arm.

      ‘Come along,’ he said briskly, ushering them after the crowd, ‘they’ll be burying the poor sod.’

      The mourners had collected around the grave with the family standing in a row behind the vicar. At the end of the line, Emma watched them. The head of the family, of the Milford dynasty, was now her Uncle Roger. Still a handsome man she thought, looking at his well-toned frame wrapped in a long black coat. His blond hair was well-trimmed, and just lightly flecked with grey even though he was in his mid-fifties. His beautiful wife Rebecca, a local girl who had tamed the company playboy stood behind him, tall, slender and blonde with wide feline eyes; the perfect accessory for the new Lord of the Manor. Tom, Cassandra’s brother – all grown up now, she noted – was dressed in something that only loosely qualified as a suit. Tom’s mother Julia, an art dealer whose company Emma had always enjoyed, was at his side. And then there was Cassandra. Her eyes were obscured by the rim of an enormous black hat but that exquisite bone structure was still visible. She lifted her head and caught Emma looking over towards her; she gave Emma the hint of a smile. Moving to America had meant that Emma had got out from beneath the shadow of her charmed, more glamorous older cousin. But Emma had never been able to quite escape the voices. ‘Cassandra is dating a rock star.’ ‘Did you see Cassandra on television?’ ‘Oh, Cassandra makes us all so proud.’

      After Saul’s body had been laid to rest, Emma went back inside the church to find the case she had stowed in the pew. As she walked out, the leafy grounds were almost empty as most of the crowd had taken advantage of the fleet of cars laid on to ferry the mourners to Saul’s home Winterfold for the wake. But one striking figure was standing on the path. Cassandra.

      Emma’s heart sank. Cassandra’s love of pretty skirts and beads when they had played together as children had translated into a career as one of the top editors in the world. Her magazine, Rive, was the most respected fashion publication on the planet and Cassandra was the living embodiment of it: elegant, poised and, to Emma’s eyes, snooty and pretentious. Not much had changed there, she thought. Twenty-odd years on from Saul’s villa and Cassandra still had the power to make Emma feel awkward and ungainly.

      ‘Oh. Has everybody gone?’ said Cassandra as Emma approached. ‘I was just talking to the vicar about doing a Gothic shoot in the church grounds. Some of those over-grown tombs are stunning.’

      Emma smiled nervously and motioned towards one of the Mercedes cars.

      ‘Fancy jumping in this one?’

      ‘This is actually my driver,’ said Cassandra quickly. ‘But feel free to join me.’

      ‘Donna Karan?’

      ‘Sorry?’ asked Emma as she struggled to get her case onto the seat next to her.

      ‘Your suit. Donna Karan last season.’

      ‘Er, yes. I think so,’ replied Emma remembering how she had bought the trouser suit because it was smart and black and for no other reason beyond that.

      ‘Beautiful service, though,’ said Cassandra. Her mind had already moved on: ‘I got Robbie Van Helden to do the flowers. He does Elton’s parties.’

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