never used it but perched it on her dressing table and looked at it a lot as if it were a treasure. And so it seems fitting that this treasure goes to yet another treasure. But it does come with a stipulation: that you must always carry it with all the chutzpah you can muster, Charlie was most insistent about that. He became so fond of you in the time he knew you, as did I.
Charlie’s funeral is at Tuckwitt Church, 25th Jan, 11am. Please try to come. Also – a heads up – I may be using my Christmas present from you soon and ringing you, as I will need a friend’s cheerful voice. Your presence on the 25th is one of the few things about the day I will be looking forward to. Dress code: black and glamorous.
Love to you
Robin (and Charlie) xx
She turned the bag over in her hands and knew exactly how Charlie’s mother must have felt. She could quite happily have put it on her dressing table and stared at it for hours. It must be worth a small fortune.
‘I can’t accept it,’ she said. ‘It’s far too much.’
‘Yes you can,’ said Bridge firmly. ‘Charlie wanted you to have it and enjoy it, so you must. For him. So long as you promise you’d parade it. It will have made him happy to think he was giving it to you. I shall wear my scarf to the funeral and you must take your bag. If that doesn’t fit in with the dress code, nothing will.’
‘Do you really think I should, Bridge?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely,’ said Bridge. Charlie had an obvious soft spot for Mary. Who didn’t? Bridge only wished she had been like this young woman herself at that age: someone who recognised her own worth, who was brave and competent while still retaining a gentleness.
‘Then I’ll keep it.’
Bridge crossed to the fridge, took out a bottle of champagne. She always had a bottle in there waiting for an occasion. Once upon a time, she thought it would be the most glamorous thing ever to do, so now she did it.
She ripped into the foil, twisted the wire, covered the mushroom cork with a tea towel as she popped it so it didn’t fly off and break one of her very expensive glass lights.
‘We are going to drink a toast, to Charlie,’ she said, swooping up two flutes and filling them.
‘To Charlie.’
They chinked and drank, the bubbles raced down their throats.
Bridge looked at Mary as she drank; she had changed even in the very short time she had stayed here, was shedding a previous self like a skin. Tomorrow, Mary was going to have a consultation with Bridge’s hair stylist, Russ. Then they were both going shopping afterwards. Mary said she wanted a whole new set of clothes to match her new life: she was planning to buy something bright, something that would pull her out of the shadows.
Mary Padgett owned a Chanel handbag; Bridge would do her best to make sure her young friend never slid back into the shadows again.
Chapter 36
Mr Chikafuji was still giving Jack the runaround. He said, or rather his PA did, that he could not fit an appointment in to see Jack until August now. He persisted in being impossible to get hold of and his office was habitually lax in returning calls. Jack, in sheer desperation, took a leaf out of Luke’s book and suggested a video conference, but Chikafuji would not be pinned down even for that. But in that first week of the new year, a much smaller bakery chain in Japan had approached Jack asking to do business with Butterly’s. The MD, a Mrs Anmitsu, appeared as keen to start the ball rolling quickly as Mr Chikafuji wasn’t. Mrs Anmitsu didn’t have time for face-to-face meetings as she had a young family, so Jack and Mrs Anmitsu had trans-continental video calls and he realised he could conduct business quite adequately like that without having to stare into the whites of her eyes. Mrs Anmitsu was direct and completely devoid of bullshit so Jack took a chance that this Japanese bird in the hand was better than two in the Bonsai. He’d not only saved a lot of expense but time. And Jack was determined this new year to make sure that he had plenty of spare time in reserve – for life, and that he wouldn’t fill it with work. He didn’t want a life/work balance