I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,35

Charlie. ‘I’d better go up and get them. Robin’s a stickler for regimentation. He says it throws the timings out if I don’t take them on the dot.’

‘Can I get them for you and save your legs?’ Mary offered.

‘Oh, would you, my dear, thank you, that’s kind. There’s a leather bag on our bed full of medication. He’s colour-coded them, so it’ll be the green bottle. I need two. Do you mind awfully?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mary.

‘What a delightful girl. I bet you’re glad you have her,’ Charlie said to Jack when Mary was out of earshot.

‘Yes, she’s very efficient.’

‘How long has she worked for you?’

Jack tried to work it out. ‘Two… three, yes three years… I think.’

‘Six and a half,’ corrected Bridge. ‘She told me yesterday.’

‘Is it?’ Jack pondered on it. ‘Yes, I suppose it must be. She worked for my father when she first arrived. And then he retired four years ago and that’s when I took over the full running of things and inherited her from him.’

‘You make her sound like a chattel,’ said Charlie, but not unkindly. ‘I bequeath you all my worldly goods – and Mary.’

‘Good PAs, and I mean really good PAs are hard to find,’ said Bridge, a little annoyed by Jack’s not knowing. ‘I might be poaching her if you aren’t careful, Jack.’ It was only half a joke.

* * *

Mary walked into Robin and Charlie’s room and was immediately greeted by a mixture of their colognes, still present in the air. It made her senses happy, made her think of her father who always smelt lovely. As a family they weren’t rich by any means, but his one indulgence was a stupidly expensive aftershave, ‘Pluie d’Automne’. Autumn Rain. She had bought him a bottle of it with her first monthly wage packet and she could see his face now, his kind, blue eyes. ‘Oh, love, what have you gone and done this for?’ ‘Because you didn’t have any left and it’s too far long to wait until Christmas or your birthday,’ she’d answered him. It had brought her so much joy to buy it, there was nothing she would rather have spent her first proper earnings on. It was only in the last year that she’d been able to bear the smell of it because it did odd and upsetting things to her brain.

Robin and Charlie’s scents were nothing like her dad’s though, they were lighter, lavender and citrus lingering on the air. They’d made the bedroom their own, placing a hairbrush, glasses and toiletries, a book, a notepad on the dressing table and bedside cabinets. The bed was perfectly made, the white duvet cover smoothed like icing with a warm knife. There was a black Montblanc toilet bag sitting on it, just as Charlie said. Six bottles of pills inside, all with different coloured labels. She pulled out the green one, as instructed, took out two tablets, read the label before she put the bottle back into the bag.

* * *

‘I had quite a few secretaries, as we used to call them back in the dark ages,’ said Charlie. ‘One had light fingers and had to go. One decided to try and befuddle me, blaming her many days off on “women’s complaints” but I came from a family of ladies and I know more about gynaecology than a consultant obstetrician, so there was no wool pulled over my eyes. She certainly wasn’t going to embarrass me talking about menstrual cycles and sanitary towels. Then I decided to take a chance on a young man who walked into my office with a big chip on his shoulder because he’d been hounded out of his last job by homophobes.’ His voice softened. ‘It was the best move I ever made.’

‘Robin was good at his job, I take it?’ asked Jack.

‘Exceptional. Faultless. Meticulous. He started out being my chauffeur, but he quickly became more of a personal assistant. It was strictly work only for a few years, but I fell fast and hard for him. I kept it to myself, because there was a twenty-four-year age gap between us so I never thought he’d be interested in an old wreck like me. Why would I? Then I fell down the bloody stairs and he came over to the house to help me. Moved in for a week and never moved out again. People warned me he was just with me for my money, but I’ve always been so very good at spotting fakes.’