Next day, Roxanne was delighted to be greeted by an overcast but mercifully dry morning, which meant that no hideous waterproof clothing was required. It wasn’t that she minded terribly what she looked like here. Indeed, her make-up bag had barely been unzipped since she arrived. However, where Della’s nylon trousers were concerned, Roxanne could now safely say that she had at least ‘tried’ them and, like their mother’s rather sinister-looking salmon mousse, once had been quite enough.
‘So, are you glad you decided to come up here?’ Michael asked her as the two dogs ran ahead, with the diminutive Stanley gamely trying to keep up with the rangier, long-legged Bob.
Roxanne glanced at him. ‘Yes, I really am. It’s funny – I’m friendly with this elderly lady back home who lives downstairs in my block. Isabelle’s a real Londoner through and through. When I was talking to her about possibly coming up here, she said, “London will always be here for you if the countryside gets too much”, as if I might suddenly snap and run, screaming, onto a King’s Cross-bound train …’
Michael laughed. ‘Maybe she forgot you grew up here.’
‘Yep, I think so.’ Roxanne nodded. ‘I was an indoor sort of girl really, always drawing and reading and dreaming, but I did appreciate being able to go out and wander from a very young age, and no one ever worried where I was.’ She omitted to mention that, along with turning up her music and dancing alone in her bedroom, it was one of the tactics she used to escape when her parents were in the midst of a row.
‘What about when you were a teenager?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I was desperate to get away then,’ she said quickly.
‘I can understand that. Even all this beauty and peacefulness can become a bit too much sometimes.’
‘D’you find that?’ She wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not.
‘Sure,’ Michael replied. ‘I mean, I grew up in Canterbury. It’s hardly London but, you know, there was always plenty going on …’
‘And then you moved to York?’ she prompted him.
‘Yes, I was teaching at a big comprehensive there.’
She nodded, burning with questions now. ‘How d’you really find it, living here in the village?’
He seemed to be mulling this over as they strode onwards. ‘It’s taken some adjustment,’ he ventured, and immediately, Roxanne decided it was a subject best left alone. However, he continued, ‘But it wasn’t all Suzy’s doing – setting up the bakery, I mean …’
‘You wanted to do it too?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Not exactly – I mean, it’s not what I’d have chosen for myself. It was very much her idea, her driving the whole thing. But then, I didn’t want to stand in her way either. I’d been in teaching a long time – since I was twenty-three and just qualified, and I’m almost fifty now …’
‘That’s a very long time,’ she agreed.
He nodded gravely. ‘Yep, I’m ancient.’
‘Oh, me too. I’m forty-seven, and in magazine terms that’s basically antique.’ They both chuckled.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he added.
Roxanne grinned. ‘Yes, but it’s a very strange world. The women who buy our magazine are in their thirties and forties but the models we use have an average age of nineteen.’
Michael looked baffled by this. ‘Why is that?’
‘It’s just the way it is,’ she replied. ‘Once they’re all made up, they no longer look as if they’re barely out of school. They’re proper grown-up women then, but with the skin of peaches …’
He laughed in disbelief. ‘It’s really skewed, isn’t it?’
‘It’s completely bonkers,’ she agreed. ‘So, you said you’d been teaching for years …’
‘Oh, yes – and to be fair to Suzy I was absolutely up for something new, you know? Teaching is great, but the way it’s gone in recent years, you’re ploughing through the curriculum and even though you try your best, you sometimes wonder if you’re really making a difference, in a way that matters.’
She nodded, remembering her own favourite teacher: Miss Smith, with the wispy voice, bobbly cardigans and seven cats, who headed up the art department. ‘So you started off wanting to be that inspirational teacher who changed kids’ lives?’
‘Yeah.’ His smile crinkled his clear blue eyes. ‘Ever the idealist.’
‘I bet you were a great teacher. You’re a very approachable person …’
‘Well, thank you,’ he said, laughing bashfully. ‘But anyway, I scaled it down to a bit of supply teaching while we set up the bakery and, well … here I am.’
‘And you don’t regret it?’ Roxanne ventured, at which Michael shook his head.
‘Occasionally, as it’s damn hard work, but most of the time …’ He shrugged. ‘Not at all. I know it seems rash and a little crazy to throw everything we had at this project, which we knew virtually nothing about …’
‘Just like Della did,’ Roxanne observed, and Michael nodded.
‘Exactly.’
‘It was a sort of leap of faith?’
‘Yes, it was, and you know what’s funny? I’m actually immensely proud of what the kids and I have managed to do here, from what seemed at first like a totally disastrous situation.’
Roxanne nodded, flattered that he was being so open, and suspecting that he rarely found the opportunity to talk about what had happened to his family.
‘… And if none of it had happened,’ he added, ‘and I hadn’t had to teach myself to bake properly …’ He smiled wryly. ‘Well, I’d have stayed in my nice safe teaching post, probably until retirement. And how boring is that?’
‘It sounds perfectly reasonable to me,’ she remarked.
‘But hardly adventurous, right?’
‘Well, no, perhaps not,’ she conceded, reflecting now how glad she was that she had asked him to join her today. They fell into a comfortable silence as they reached the top of the hill, where the dogs sniffed around in the ferns. How natural this felt, Roxanne reflected, walking together and getting to know Michael a little better. Perhaps Della had been astute in plotting for them to meet, that first night at the Red Lion. Had she been single, Roxanne may have been interested – a minor detail that her sister seemed to have overlooked, and which made Roxanne’s mouth twitch with amusement now.
‘Something’s funny?’ Michael caught her eye and smiled.
‘Oh, it’s nothing really. I’m just enjoying this, um … being out in nature thing.’ She laughed. ‘I never thought I’d hear myself say that.’
‘I was the same,’ Michael offered. ‘I mean, I could see the appeal of the countryside, to visit … briefly …’ He looked at her again and they chuckled in recognition. ‘But I was always quite happy to leave it behind again. It really is quite entrancing, though, isn’t it? Once you’ve adjusted to the gentler pace of life, and stopped wishing you could just pop out to the cinema …’
Roxanne considered this for a moment. ‘Even at home, I probably get to the cinema about twice a year.’ She smiled ruefully.
‘So, what did bring you here?’ Michael asked as they started to make their way back down to the village. And so she told him about the developments on the magazine, and her job changing beyond all recognition – which sounded quite petty and ridiculous, just as it had when she’d poured out all her woes to Della. She omitted to mention Sean, and the recent drama surrounding his party. That, too, seemed silly and insignificant now, and in the company of this engaging – and, yes, undeniably eye-pleasing – man, she realised she had no desire to mention her boyfriend at all.
‘I think it was a smart move, coming to stay with your sister,’ Michael observed.
She glanced at him in surprise. ‘Really? Why d’you say that?’
He shrugged. ‘Sometimes you need a change of scene to see things in a different light.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right.’ It was true; Roxanne was no longer of the opinion that her life was effectively over just because Marsha had tried to put her in charge of cost cutting and competitions.
‘Will you stay on the magazine, d’you think?’
‘Oh, I really don’t know what’ll happen. I’ll deal with all of that when I go home.’ She glanced at him, grateful for his company and his willingness to listen. ‘Right now,’ she added, clipping on Stanley’s lead as the road leading into Burley Bridge came into view, ‘I’m just taking things one day at a time.’ She paused. ‘Thanks for walking with me. I’ve really enjoyed it …’
‘My pleasure,’ Michael said, ‘and I have too.’
They parted company at the bakery and, as she headed back to the bookshop, sunshine broke through a chink in the clouds, beaming warmth onto Roxanne’s face. As she strode into the shop, and greeted the customers who were sipping coffee and browsing, she knew in her heart that right now, there was nowhere else she would rather be.
Meanwhile, in the offices of Britain’s best-loved fashion magazine on a muggy Friday morning, Roxanne was being missed far more than Marsha had anticipated – and she had only been gone for four days.
This was ridiculous. Marsha had a mind to call her right now, summonsing her back from her sister’s, up in God-knows-where, and admitting she’d made an error of judgement in effectively packing her fashion director off to the country for two months.
Two months! How on earth were they going to manage without such a crucial member of the team? Marsha had thought it would be easier to revamp the mag without Roxanne being around, insisting on everything being tasteful and beautiful; but how wrong she had been.
There had been a disastrous meeting between Tina and a prestigious fashion house that would never have happened if Roxanne had been here, being her usual charming and diplomatic self. In other ways, too, Roxanne’s presence was being sorely missed. Her team seemed jaded and lacklustre, as if they were merely going through the motions of what Tina had asked them to do. When Tina had presented her ideas to Marsha for the next issue’s fashion pages, they had been, to put it mildly, disappointing.
‘I thought we could do something on vests?’ Tina had suggested.
‘What kind of angle did you have in mind?’ Marsha had asked, a question which had apparently befuddled Tina. ‘I mean, are we talking the essential vests? Or the sexiest? Or what? I’m sorry if vests are a thing right now, but maybe you can be a bit more specific …’
Tina had merely frowned and looked confused. ‘I just thought it’d be quite useful.’
‘Right, so, what am I to put on the cover?’ Marsha had barked. ‘“Here’s a bunch of vests”? Can’t see that boosting sales!’ Although she and Tina had worked together before, Marsha had never been Tina’s direct boss. She now wondered if she had been a little hasty in bringing her onto the magazine.
To make matters worse, several influential fashion PRs had been on the phone to Marsha, demanding to know why Roxanne had been sacked – and intimating that they would be loath to lend clothes for shoots if she was no longer heading up the fashion department. A notoriously ferocious model agent had called Marsha and ranted in her ear for twenty-five minutes without listening to a word she was trying to say. All of which had required an almighty amount of cajoling and placating, and now, quite frankly, Marsha needed a stiff drink. Hell, she would call Rufus and demand that he wangle some excuse to get away from his wife and out for a few hours, and she would make him buy a bottle of crazily expensive champagne, which she would proceed to neck.
First, though, she’d phone Roxanne – just to keep a connection going and remain on her good side. Marsha had been pleasantly surprised by Roxanne’s rather batty and eccentric blog posts and accompanying photos. Who’d have thought someone of her standing in the industry would willingly send herself up in a plastic rain hood? Thanking her was just the excuse Marsha needed to call her.
‘Hello?’ Roxanne answered immediately.
‘Roxanne? It’s Marsha. Hope you’re having a good time up there?’
‘Yes, thanks. It’s doing me good, actually.’
‘That’s great to hear. Any fun things planned?’
‘Er, well, I’m going to a sourdough workshop next week, would you believe …’
‘Sourdough?’ Marsha repeated incredulously.
‘It’s a kind of bread,’ Roxanne explained.
‘Yes, ha, I do know that. So you’re doing cookery classes. How sweet!’
‘Uh, it’s not exactly—’
‘Well, I guess you’ve got to find something to amuse yourself on a Friday night in the country!’
‘Ha, yes.’ They both laughed stiffly.
‘Um, anyway,’ Marsha went on, ‘just wanted to say, your blogs are excellent – very funny! So unusual to see a fashion person being willing to laugh at themselves …’
‘Oh, thank you. I’m so glad you—’
‘And those pictures,’ Marsha went on, ‘in those dreadful plastic trousers or whatever the heck they are! Good on you, Roxanne, for not giving a fig about what people think of you. Who did you find to take them?’
‘Just a local photographer,’ Roxanne replied.
‘Elsa something? You mentioned in your email …’
‘Yes, that’s right. Her name’s Elsa Bramley.’
‘Well, she’s very good. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I was expecting rubbishy selfies taken on your phone …’
‘No, there are actually some proper photographers up here,’ Roxanne said breezily. ‘So, er, we will be able to pay her, won’t we?’
‘Gosh, yes, of course. Get her tied up to shoot the whole series and we’ll sort out a fee …’ Now Tina was hovering at Marsha’s office door, sipping from a chipped mug. Marsha had requested a chat at her earliest convenience. ‘Better go. Thanks again for those fantastic posts,’ she gushed. ‘It really is excellent work.’
She finished the call and beckoned a nervous-looking Tina in.
‘Sit down,’ she said sharply, extracting a strawberry yogurt from her bag and tearing off its foil lid.
Tina bobbed down into the chair.
Marsha glared at her across her desk. ‘So, I gather your breakfast meeting with the Pierre Moreau lot didn’t go too well?’ Tina had explained this already but Marsha needed to hear it again, just to get her head around the fact that one of their biggest clients – a fashion house that spent hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on advertising – had just announced that they were pulling out with immediate effect.
‘I suppose it could have gone better,’ Tina replied, staring down at her lap.
Marsha took a plastic spoon from her drawer and started to devour the yogurt. Perpetually on a strict diet, her method for remaining stick-thin was to consume only doll-sized portions at proper mealtimes – with the result that she was permanently ravenous and teetering on the brink of a psychotic mood. Hence the perpetual at-desk snacking, which wasn’t quite part of the diet plan – but she adhered to the theory that, if it wasn’t eaten off a plate, then it didn’t count. ‘So, how did you put it to them? I mean, what did you say that horrified them so much? Tell me exactly what happened …’
Tina glanced through the glass wall into the main office, as if wishing to spirit herself through it. She gnawed a fingernail and flicked her straight black hair back from her face. ‘Well, I did my presentation, just as we’d discussed. I explained that we were stopping the arty-farty shoots that Roxanne’s being churning out for years, with all the top models looking gorgeous and whatnot. I said, people were sick of all that – and instead we’ll be featuring masses of cheap, disposable high-street pieces, with the emphasis on figure-fixing.’
Marsha stared at her. ‘Tell me you didn’t actually put it like that to one of our top advertisers.’
‘Well, isn’t that what we’re planning to do?’ Tina threw her a confused look.
‘Yes’ – Marsha jettisoned the now-empty yogurt pot into the waste-paper bin – ‘but we don’t say that. We don’t say, “Oh, you know all that stunning photography you love so much, that we’re famous for? Well, we’re stopping all that and filling the pages with cheap tat from the low-end high-street stores you despise because, let’s face it, they can rip off what they see in your shows and get it in their stores within two weeks. Sure, the quality’s crap, and it all falls apart if anyone so much as breathes on it – but it’s a tenth of the price so who’s caring, eh?”’
Marsha stopped abruptly, aware that she had been shouting. Tina was scratching at a patch of flaky skin on her hand. Marsha found herself fixating on it, wondering how many flakes were coming off with each scratch. Thousands? Millions? While she frequently left a scattering of pastry crumbs in her wake, she had a strong aversion to the idea of being in close proximity to particles of someone else’s epidermis.
‘So, what should I have said?’ Tina asked in a small voice.
Marsha gave her a withering stare. ‘You could have said we’re refreshing the brand, making a few subtle changes that they’re going to love …’ She inhaled deeply, trying to suppress the urge to go right round there and shove Tina off her chair. Hadn’t she listened to a word she’d said during their pre-meeting meeting yesterday? Be careful with these people, Marsha had warned her. Treat them like royalty because that’s pretty much what they are. Whatever you do, don’t scare them, or they’ll pull their advertising and then we’re stuffed. We need these big fashion houses in order to survive – do you understand? Yes, Tina understood, or so she had said.
‘The thing is,’ Tina said, sounding more emboldened now, ‘they’ll know soon enough when they see the magazine …’
‘Yes, and by then our sales’ll be rocketing so they won’t mind a bit.’
Tina hesitated. ‘D’you think it’s absolutely right, what we’re doing?’
Marsha’s nostrils seemed to enlarge as if air had gusted through them. ‘Of course I do. It’s why Rufus brought me in to do the job …’ She broke off. Had that been a flicker of something in Tina’s eyes, or was she just being paranoid? No one knew about her and Rufus, did they? Marsha cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, the damage is done now. All I can do is arrange another meeting with Pierre Moreau – if they’ll see me – and butter them up, try to unpick the damage …’ Marsha shot another quick glance at Tina, still rattled by the possibility that she might have an inkling about her affair with the company’s big cheese. ‘Okay, no point in going over and over this now. Not in a hurry to rush off for lunch, are you?’
Marsha saw Tina’s pale grey eyes flicker towards the clock on the wall. She had heard her braying about her lunchtime plans earlier. It was her boyfriend’s birthday, and apparently she had booked somewhere amazing way across town where no one could ever get a table – but apparently they would need it back by two, and it was already almost noon. ‘See what happens when you can say, “I’m fashion-director-in-chef on YourStyle!”’ Tina had crowed. Well, it looked as if no one was going out for a fancy Friday lunch now.
‘Well, er, I was planning to meet Darius,’ she muttered. ‘It’s his birthday …’
‘Aw, that’s a shame.’ Marsha gave her a flinty look, then turned her gaze to her own computer. ‘It’s just, Roxanne’s sent me her first style-in-the-country blog posts and pictures and they’re excellent. D’you know, she’s even found a photographer up there in the middle of nowhere? Fast work, huh?’
‘Amazing,’ Tina growled.
‘Okay, so I’m just going to email them over to you now. Choose one, give it a look over – because grammar’s not her forte – but don’t worry too much because it’s hilarious as it is, and I don’t want to lose any of her personality or spirit, all right?’ She paused and stared at Tina.
‘Could I do this after lunch?’
‘Nope, sorry – I want you to get it up on the site within the hour. No time like the present. You can manage that, I assume?’
Tina’s cheeks blazed as she gave her hand a final clawing, brushed the lap of her skirt and stood up to leave Marsha’s office. ‘Yes, of course I can manage.’
‘Great.’ Marsha smiled tartly, extracted a Kit Kat from her drawer and ripped off its foil aggressively. ‘Christ,’ she growled, snapping the chocolate fingers, ‘at least one thing’s gone right today.’