by Penny Jordan
As she turned into the underground car park beneath the block that housed her office, the sleet started.
It was just gone half-past nine, she noted as she locked the car and headed quickly for the lift.
The office block was a modern one, centrally situated in the heart of the city and a good catchment area for their business. Eleanor and Louise had agonised for weeks on whether or not to take the lease. It had been expensive even then, and in those days neither of them had been sure of what volume of work they could expect.
That they had met at all had been pure chance. They had literally bumped into each other when Eleanor had been delivering some translations she had just completed for a large firm of importers.
Louise had been there on a similar errand and, once they had discovered that their language skills complemented rather than competed with one another, it hadn’t taken long for them to decide to pool those skills and set up business as a formal partnership.
It had been a decision which had paid off well; their reputation had spread by word of mouth and within four years of becoming partners they were successful and well known enough to feature in a rash of magazine and newspaper articles about the emergence of the successful businesswoman of the Eighties.
In those days both of them had been single, Eleanor with a bad marriage and an even worse divorce behind her and only too thankful to fling herself head-first into the demands of establishing a new career, not just because she needed the money, but because it also offered her a much needed solace for her wounded pride and battered self-esteem; and Louise, eight years her junior, just emerging from the trauma of ending an intense and destructive relationship with a married man.
Physically so very opposite—she tall and fair, quiet and restrained in both her thoughts and her actions, Louise small, brunette and impulsively vivacious—they had shared a common need to heal the wounds life had inflicted on them, which had bonded them together in their determination to make their partnership work.
And it had worked… Had worked? Eleanor frowned as the lift reached her floor, and then shrugged as the doors opened. Had worked and was still working, she assured herself firmly.
The office block had originally appealed to both of them because of the brightness of its new design. Built around an atrium, it had a spacious, open feel to it which was emphasised by the atrium itself.
Today, though, the marble and chrome seemed to give off a chilly air that made Eleanor shiver slightly.
They had probably turned down the heating again, she reflected as she headed for her office. All the tenants had been complaining about the rapid escalation not just in their rent but in their overheads as well. As she glanced down into the atrium itself she noticed that some of the plants looked over-green and slightly shiny, more as though they were artificial than real, she reflected with distaste, her attention caught by the sterile perfection of a white lily.
Such plants did not belong under London’s sleet-laden grey skies, or imprisoned here, forced into life beneath their covering of glass and heat.
Claire, their receptionist, looked up with a relieved smile as Eleanor walked into the foyer.
She and Louise had chosen the décor for their offices with great care, calling on an interior designer friend of Eleanor’s for confirmation of their choice, but what had seemed energetic and appropriate in the Eighties now looked brash and slightly harsh, as inappropriate for the grey skies of recession as the plants in the atrium were for the grey skies of London perhaps.
‘Monsieur Colbert has arrived,’ Claire told her. ‘I offered him coffee but he refused.’
Thanking her, Eleanor went through into her own office, removing her coat and checking her appearance quickly before hurrying through into the room she and Louise used for negotiating with clients.
Pierre Colbert was French, with business connections which brought him regularly to London and which took him just as regularly to all the other major European cities. He acted as an agent for several large clothing designers and wholesalers, the type who were two steps down from the ‘named’ designers and two up from the general run of high street suppliers.
His business, if they could secure it, would prove an extremely valuable addition to their portfolio. Eleanor had heard via another client that he was unhappy with his existing translators, and she had made a tentative approach to him suggesting that it might be worthwhile their getting together.
She had been warned that as well as liking to get his pound of flesh he was also rather difficult to deal with, and, as she walked into the office and saw the impatience with which he was regarding her, her heart sank a little.
She didn’t show her feelings, though, giving him a calm smile and extending her hand.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she apologised. ‘The traffic…’
‘The English do not know how to drive,’ he interrupted her brusquely. ‘In Paris we have traffic; here in London you have chaos…’
‘Perhaps you would like a cup of coffee,’ Eleanor offered, side-stepping his aggression.
‘Coffee?’ He smiled sourly. ‘I think not.’
Was he deliberately trying to goad her into a response, Eleanor wondered, or did he simply not realise how rude he was being? She had met other men like him, men who were plainly uncomfortable with and antagonistic towards women in business, and she had developed her own method of dealing with them.
Once, in the aftermath of a long, lazy afternoon of lovemaking, Marcus had told her with sleepy pleasure as he ran his hand lingeringly over her warm, relaxed flesh, pausing to cup her breast and slowly caress the still erect peak of her nipple, ‘I love this peace you always carry with you, Nell. It’s such a pleasure to be with a woman who is so calm and secure. It makes it so easy to love you.’
It had been shortly after that that he had proposed to her.
‘No, we don’t seem to have developed the skill of making really good coffee, do we?’ she agreed with a smile. Another woman might have balked at using such placatory tactics, Eleanor admitted, but for her they were almost a way of life… peace and calm, good relationships, concord and harmony were important to her. Too important?
‘Your coffee, like your bread, is uniquely irreplaceable,’ she added, ‘although I understand that Marks and Spencer are doing their best. Apparently they are actually importing the flour now from France for their croissants and French bread.’
‘They are among your clients?’ Pierre Colbert asked her with shrewd interest, dropping his earlier aggression.
Eleanor allowed herself a small surge of relief.
‘Some of their suppliers are,’ she told him, opening the file she had brought in with her. ‘I see from your own client list that you have dealings with design houses in several major European cities, and that they in turn deal with manufacturers in the Far East. The clothes from the design houses you represent will sell best in our small exclusive country-town boutiques.’
‘You have done your research well.’
Was that a hint of respect she could see overtaking his earlier churlishness? She hoped so!
Eleanor smiled gently at him, too wise in the ways of business to show her relief.
‘I understand that at the moment you use translators domiciled in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We, of course, could supply all your translation needs here under one roof.’
‘As can the other companies I deal with,’ he pointed out, watching her.
‘True,’ Eleanor agreed with another smile. It was going to be hard work persuading him to give them his business, she recognised as she quietly and calmly started to point out to him the advantages of using them.
‘Additionally Louise, my partner, specialises in Middle Eastern languages. And Russian.’
‘Ah, but remember,’ he told her quickly, ‘with the break-up of the Soviet Union into various independent states, each will want to revert to its own language.’
‘A fact that we have taken into consideration,’ Elea
nor assured him.
It was true. She and Louise were actively recruiting on to their freelance books experienced translators who were able to work in these newly re-emerging languages.
Quite how she was going to continue to fit this additional commitment to interview and test their freelancers into her existing busy life, Eleanor wasn’t sure, but somehow she would have to find a way.
She had tried to make a start on all the application forms this weekend, but it hadn’t been easy. For one thing, the only place she had to work was the bedroom she shared with Marcus, and with Vanessa next door, her radio playing at full volume, it had been impossible for her to summon the necessary concentration, even knowing that it was vitally important to the continued success of the business that she and Louise secure an all-important head-start on their rivals in what promised to be the only genuinely expanding field open to them.
They needed that business if they were to continue to generate good profits, and yet with the ever-increasing demands on her time that marriage to Marcus had brought, never mind her own desire to have more time to spend personally with him, the actual hours she had left for expanding the company were alarmingly small.
She had already given up her two evening gym sessions and the once-a-month, long, leisurely Sunday lunch she used to share with her oldest woman friend, Jade Fensham; that had had to go because it conflicted with the weekend when Marcus had access to his daughter.
His daughter. She could understand why it was difficult for Vanessa to accept her, but surely it should not be so hard for her to accept Vanessa; she was after all a part of Marcus, and she loved him.
Jade told her she was too idealistic, and she had countered by telling Jade that she was too cynical.
Jade had shrugged those elegant shoulders and narrowed her long green cat’s eyes.
‘After two marriages and two divorces what do you expect? Take my advice: never, ever expect anything but trouble from a man’s children, especially if they’re teenage girls.’
The weekend before last, white-faced with a tension-induced migraine, she had asked herself what it was she was doing wrong and why it was that Vanessa was so antagonistic towards her. After all, it wasn’t as though she was responsible for the break-up of her parents’ marriage.
Perhaps Marcus was right. Perhaps she ought to try to arrange things so that Tom and Gavin stayed with their father when Vanessa came to stay. At least it would stop the interminable quarrels that seemed to break out when they were all together. Was she being unfair in suspecting that it was Vanessa who deliberately provoked them? It was true that Tom, over-sensitive and too vulnerable, tended to over-react—a legacy of her divorce from his father? But Gavin had a far calmer temperament; phlegmatic and easygoing, he had been a placid baby and was now a placid, sturdily resilient child.
Yes, it would make life easier if they kept them apart, but it wasn’t what she had hoped for, what she had planned when she and Marcus had married. She had never assumed that merging their two families would be easy, but neither had she anticipated that her relationship with Vanessa would become so destructive. Her relationship? What relationship?
The last thing that Vanessa wanted was any kind of relationship with either Eleanor or her sons, but most especially with Eleanor. Sometimes she felt as though she and Vanessa were two rivals locked in a silent and deadly battle for Marcus. And yet the last thing she wanted was for Vanessa to feel that her marriage to Marcus in any way threatened his daughter’s position in his life.
In fact she had been the one who had suggested to Marcus that he see more of his daughter. It had disturbed her a little, when she and Marcus had first become lovers, to discover how little he saw of his child.
‘She’s happy with her mother,’ Marcus had told her.
‘But she needs you in her life as well,’ Eleanor had insisted gently.
‘You have a husband and children,’ she suddenly came out of her brief reverie to hear Pierre Colbert saying to her. ‘Does this not affect your work?’
Eleanor refused to react, to allow him to provoke her into becoming defensive.
‘I’m a woman, monsieur,’ she told him quietly. ‘And as such I am well used to balancing many demands upon my time.’
She saw from his expression that she had both surprised and amused him, and mentally congratulated herself for not falling into the trap of complaining that he would not have asked her such a question had she been a man. He was a Frenchman, undeniably chauvinistic and no doubt unashamedly proud to be. She would succeed far better with him by emphasising the virtues of her sex rather than by challenging him to accept her as the equal of any man.
She watched him thoughtfully as he smiled at her, and then said shrewdly, ‘My partner and I like to think that we offer a very skilled and competitive service, and I believe that you must think so too, monsieur, otherwise you would not be here. You are not, I think, a man who needlessly wastes his time.’
She watched the respect dawn in the clever brown eyes before he looked away from her.
‘You are one of several agencies recommended to me,’ he told her dismissively. ‘It is always wise to consider several options, even though some of them must always be more favourable than others.’
He was standing up, terminating the meeting. Eleanor rose too, still outwardly calm and relaxed, although inwardly she was wryly aware that he would probably prefer not to give them the business. Had she been a man… or French…
As she escorted him to the door, she tried not to dwell on how much they needed the extra income his work would have given them. She had known when he first contacted them that it was extremely unlikely they would get the business. It made her feel a little bit better knowing that she had subtly challenged his initial attitude towards her, drawing respect from him in place of his original hostility.
After she had seen him off the premises, she went back to her office and picked up his file. She needed to put Louise in the picture vis-à-vis her meeting with him.
She got up and walked into the foyer. ‘Is Louise in her office?’ she asked Claire.
‘Yes, she’s just come in,’ the receptionist told her.
Smiling her thanks at her, Eleanor walked across to her partner’s office.
Claire watched her enviously. Eleanor was everything she herself longed to be. Attractive, successful, married to a man who exuded an almost magical charisma of sex and power; a man who, although he might be well into his forties, still had such an aura of compelling masculinity about him that he made her go weak at the knees. Not that he ever gave her so much as a second look. And even if he had…
Eleanor was so… so nice that she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.
Yes, they were an ideal couple, with an ideal relationship; an ideal lifestyle.
Marriage, career, motherhood—Eleanor had them all.
* * *
Although she had knocked on Louise’s door before going in, her partner obviously hadn’t heard her, Eleanor realised as she saw Louise’s dark head bent in absorbed concentration over some papers on her desk.
When Eleanor said her name she looked up, startled, quickly shuffling the papers out of sight, an embarrassed, almost furtive look crossing her face.
‘Nell, I didn’t hear you come in…’
‘So I see.’ Eleanor grinned at her. ‘Planning your summer holidays?’
She had noticed, as Louise shuffled the papers out of sight, the photograph on one of them of a pretty and obviously French château-style farmhouse.
To her surprise a faintly haunted, almost guilty expression flickered through Louise’s eyes before she turned her head and confirmed quickly, ‘Yes…’
‘I just wanted to bring you up to date on my interview with Pierre Colbert. Are you free for lunch?’
Once again Louise looked slightly uncomfortable.
‘Er—no, I’m sorry, I’m not. I’m having lunch with Paul…’
Eleanor smiled at her. ‘Lucky you,’ she
told her ruefully. ‘I wish my husband could make time to have lunch with me. We’re lucky if we manage to share a sandwich together these days.’
She broke off as she realised that Louise wasn’t really listening to her.
‘Louise, is something wrong?’ she asked her quietly.
‘No,’ Louise assured her quickly.
Too quickly? Eleanor wondered, her intuition suddenly working overtime.
She knew that Louise and Paul had a very turbulent relationship, a relationship which had started while her then new business partner was still nursing wounds from her previous affair, and she was also uneasily aware of how much Paul tended to dominate her partner. He was that kind of man, needing to assert himself or perhaps to assure himself of the superiority of his masculinity by forcing the women in his life to assume an inferior position.
She had become increasingly aware of how often the words ‘Paul says’ or ‘Paul thinks’ had begun to preface Louise’s comments since the two of them had married, but she had firmly dismissed her own dislike of the man by reminding herself that he was Louise’s choice and not hers, and that it was after all just as well that different types of men appealed to different types of women. And besides, if she was honest with herself, didn’t her dislike of Paul stem partly from the fact that his manner towards Louise was a little too reminiscent of her own first husband’s domineering manner towards her?
Still, if there were problems with the relationship, she would hate to think that Louise did not feel she could confide in her.
She tried again. ‘Louise—’
‘Look, I must go. I promised to call and see a client before I meet Paul. I really must go, Nell.’
Louise was an adult woman and there was no way she could force her into giving her her confidence if she did not want to, Eleanor reminded herself wryly as she went back to her own office.
The trouble with her was that she had a strong maternal instinct, or so Jade said.