Don't Tell Eve Read online

  The boys, who slid in their socks to the door to meet him, pounced on the box immediately. What was in it? Who was it for? Was it for them? Surely it was for them? They’d been very, very good – for almost a week now.

  ‘You’re going to have to wait until after lunch.’

  ‘So it is for us!’ they shouted in unison, skidding back down the hallway to tell their mother.

  ‘Oh, Oliver, they don’t need presents – they don’t deserve presents.’

  ‘Oh, but we do, and we like presents.’

  ‘We love presents.’

  ‘We need presents.’

  ‘We haven’t had any presents for, for … when did we last have a present?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten, it was so long ago.’

  ‘It was last month, for your birthday. Now go and wash your hands,’ said Kate, turning to Oliver. ‘I mean it, they don’t need to be spoiled – entertained but not spoiled.’

  ‘I told you I’d thought of a way to keep them occupied – what did you expect me to do? Turn up with some piece of sporting equipment? Or clay? Paint?’

  ‘I can’t see you getting your hands dirty somehow.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Anyway, I’m not spoiling – just diverting, which should make you feel better, which is what this is all about.’

  ‘Well, when you put it that way, okay – what’s in the box, then?’

  After checking to make sure the boys were still out of earshot, Oliver explained to Kate what he’d brought.

  ‘I’m not sure about that – I mean, it’s really kind of you, but I’m not sure. Remember what happened with the chemistry set?’

  Everyone in the street knew what had happened with the chemistry set. It had led to a way to tell the difference between the boys, for a start. Kate’s ex-husband, in the belief that it was educational, had given them a chemistry set the previous Christmas. It was educational – they all learned what could go wrong when two small boys tried to make their own fireworks. One of the twins had lost part of his left index finger. It could have been much worse, but the incident had shown exactly what damage they had the potential to inflict, given the right tools. Kate also knew what they could do when they had no tools. As did Oliver, and he pointed this out.

  ‘Okay, they can have it – and I know you’re right, I’m way too jumpy and it’s getting worse. It’s not having anything else to concentrate on except the boys and money, or the lack thereof. But you don’t want to know about that.’

  Before Oliver could answer, the boys tumbled back into the room, comparatively clean and ravenous. After lunch, they were allowed to open the box, which they did quickly and expertly, ripping off the wrapping paper and throwing it to the floor.

  ‘It’s a magic set.’

  ‘Wow, this is great.’

  ‘What do you say, boys?’ said Kate.

  ‘Thank you, Oliver,’ said the twins, in unison.

  ‘That’s quite alright. Now, do you want a demonstration?’

  Kate was surprised by this. Somehow, his appearance made it easy to misjudge Oliver: he was far too attractive to be either kind or interesting, although she knew he was both. As he juggled, made balls disappear then reappear out of the boys’ ears, made a rope knot, unknot, change length and then disappear as well, she was just as entranced as the boys.

  When the show was over, the twins rushed out of the room to attempt to emulate the tricks themselves.

  ‘I would have thought you were too cool for um … magic,’ Kate said afterwards, thinking at the same time that he was also too cool for her.

  ‘Too cool? Why can’t a person be able to do a few magic tricks and be cool as well?

  ‘Um, I guess I associate magic with children, circuses and blokes in black capes throwing swords at simpering female assistants dressed in spangly knickers.’

  ‘None of which you consider cool?’

  Kate thought about it for less than half a second. ‘No, except for the spangly knickers and the capes.’

  Oliver ignored the last comment. ‘Did you ever consider magic cool?’

  ‘Well, when I was a child myself, obviously.’

  ‘Ah, so the definition changes according to how old you are – you’re saying it’s a relative concept?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess, but where are you going with this?’

  ‘Here’s the thing: if it changes according to how old, or who you are, where you are, when you’re there – these factors all make a difference, they all relate to how you perceive things. And what do you think magic is about?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tricking people?’

  ‘It’s about perception.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And deception, of course.’

  [site name donttell]/thedolls/exhibit-g

  While the girl slept, dreaming of a man with ever-changing facial hair, her small dog lay awake, staring at her shelf of dolls.

  A new arrival had toppled over and its feet hung over the edge; dangling, taunting him, teasing him, tempting him. It was inevitable that he’d give in. In the words of his long-haired, long-dead literary hero, this little dog knew he could resist anything but temptation. So he pattered carefully over the slippery apricot bedspread and reached up.

  He had it in his teeth. All he needed to do was give it a slight tug. Just so. The doll was his. As it tumbled down the girl stirred but didn’t wake, and the dog was able to drag its prey safely to the ground.

  Just as he’d imagined, it was soft and chewy, but sadly it didn’t prove robust. After only a few minutes of fun, the little dog abandoned the doll, leaving it on the kitchen floor, the soft layers of its beautifully made outfit ruined.

  Chapter 17

  The interior of Zoë’s house wasn’t so much minimalist as resolutely mid-century modernist, with a touch of twenty-first century Zen.

  All but her bedroom.

  Central to the dusty rose-coloured room, though not in the centre, was her bed: vast, cloud-like and impossible to say no to. Surrounded by books, clothes, flowers, candles and muslin curtains, she liked to think of it as an island of soothing femininity. It was here Zoë liked to entertain.

  Ghastly and entirely emasculating was Oliver’s take on the room as he lay naked in the twilight, letting Zoë sketch him. He wondered, lazily, if she sketched all her conquests. It was certainly better than having your picture taken.

  Oliver had first seen Zoë in the flesh a few weeks earlier at a Russian bar he’d been writing about and had been struck by her confidence. All the other striking women he knew – and Zoë was striking, if in an unconventional way – were an exhausting mixture of vanity and insecurity, a combination Oliver found difficult in the long term; in the short term it didn’t pose a problem. Zoë wasn’t like that – she believed in herself. Not that he planned to fall for Zoë. For a start, she seemed alarmingly fecund, with hips made for popping out a football team, and then there was the openness that accompanied the confidence. What he wanted was someone who held back – someone more like him. He was aware that this was a little narcissistic, but he didn’t care.

  What he did care about was escaping, and his most pressing problem was how to let Zoë down gently. This was always the part he hated. The regularity with which he did it didn’t make it any easier – or perhaps it did, he thought, as he was so accustomed to ejecting women from his life that it was probably easier to do that than to hold onto them. It was an idea he wasn’t interested in examining too closely. After all, he was busy. There were always hotels to assess, nightclubs to weigh up, restaurants to review, and this was the way he preferred it. A man didn’t want to have to deal with relationships. He glanced at Zoë again, just to make sure. Nope, she really wasn’t for him.

  From the instant she saw him Zoë had wanted Oliver. The thick wavy black hair, beginning to grey at the temples, the slight creases around the eyes, the nonchalance, the slick, understated dress sense: in her mind it all added up to a kind of smudged perfection, really the only kind worth acquiring
, as real perfection now had the artificial air of a spray-on tan or a luxury brand bag bought for $10 on a street corner.

  When he’d turned up to interview her for the ‘Designing Women’ feature, she’d recognised his face immediately, but it had taken a little while to remember from where, exactly. And she hadn’t planned to lure him upstairs, but in the end, after he’d asked so many sensitive and astute questions, it had seemed inevitable – rude – not to at least suggest continuing the conversation off the record and in the bedroom. Like most, he’d put up only a cursory show of resistance.

  Pity it’s a no-go, she thought, while shading in his torso with her pencil. He had charm, wit, beauty – it wasn’t as though he was a bad prospect, but he wasn’t for her. He was too, too – was the word suave? She thought it was. Her taste was less classic James Bond and more Clint Eastwood in his early gun-slinging days – grit and swagger definitely won out over polish and manners.

  Best to get it over with then, she said to herself before saying to Oliver, ‘I know someone who’d be perfect for you.’

  Oliver pulled a sheet over his lower half and tried to hide his amusement. He couldn’t have done it better himself. However, in case it was a trap of some catty sort, he responded with the noncommittal, all purpose, eternally useful, ‘Mmm?’

  ‘A friend of mine – my best friend, you could say. She’s in publishing, does lifestyle books.’

  Oliver didn’t immediately ask for this best friend’s phone number. In the first place, it would have seemed insensitive; in the second, he was without pen or paper; and besides, he didn’t want to be set up with Zoë’s best friend. Especially if she was like Zoë, and there was a strong possibility that this was the case. ‘Lifestyle – that’s a very broad term. Do you mean high-concept design or fad diets?’

  ‘Do I detect a hint of derision?’

  ‘Do I detect a hint of evasion?’

  ‘She does both.’

  ‘Derision and evasion, she might well be for me then.’

  Zoë ignored his facetious tone. ‘Actually, she mostly does books that sell in bucket-loads these days, and they’re pretty much always food-rather than art-related. She’s not big on diets either – she likes food.’

  Ah, fat then, was Oliver’s instinctive response, his politically correct conscience immediately adding the established sit-com rejoinder of not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-that. ‘Right, so why else would she be perfect?’

  Zoë thought about it. Somehow, ‘she just would’ didn’t have a convincing ring to it, particularly as Oliver evidently was not taking her seriously. Saying Jess was pretty probably won’t help either; Oliver was clearly the type of man who was able to find pretty all by himself.

  But she did believe he’d be ideal for Jess, to get her back in the saddle, which was an undeniable necessity. There was the fact that Jess didn’t like Zoë’s leftovers to overcome, but as no one knew about this afternoon, that was surmountable. What she couldn’t work out was how to make Jess sound irresistible to someone like Oliver. ‘Um, well, for a start, her background isn’t like mine at all. I mean, my parents were ridiculously strict, unbelievably so …’ For the next ten minutes Zoë talked about the difficulties of dating during her teenage years until she remembered that the conversation was supposed to be about Jess. ‘Jess, on the other hand, had a mother who made pot cakes for birthdays and once sculptured their letterbox into the shape of a giant penis …’

  Oliver smiled but it was an indulgent smile, nothing more.

  Her plan wasn’t working and Zoë mentally kicked herself. Of course he wasn’t the type of man to go after a hippy chick, he was the type of man to — She stopped. In fact, she had no idea what type of man he was. All she had to go on was his appearance. This meant taking a risk, and Zoë knew that if Jess found out about this risk, she’d be in serious trouble. This knowledge didn’t stop her though, as she didn’t see why Jess should find out. Oliver looked trustworthy, after all. ‘I mean, don’t get the wrong idea, she’s not a hippy chick – far from it – but she is, well, she is working on a project that might interest you. Especially in light of your current series, and the fact that her boss is going to be one of your subjects. You can’t tell her that I told you though.’

  When Zoë had finished, Oliver asked if Jess had done anything like it before. Zoë said no, then corrected herself. ‘Well, she did once tell me a spooky story about running over a doll as a kid and there being an accident the day afterwards, and I did wonder —’

  ‘I meant artistically.’

  ‘Oh, right, no, not that I know of. I mean, we studied together and stuff but she hasn’t done anything since then. But you know what? There is this artist who does work that sort of reminds me of Jess’s project. I mean, not exactly, but there’s something about it – unsettling …’

  Oliver, finally, asked for Jess’s number.

  Chapter 18

  It sounded like a coffee-grinder, which was frustrating given she wasn’t benefiting from any aroma, let alone coffee. So Jess crossed the vast wilderness of her new office to flick the switch that shouldn’t have been left open in the first place.

  The vent was proving to have its downside. Certainly, she was learning exactly how the company was being run and that Eve spent a lot of time on eBay buying large earrings while Hilary briefed her on administrative matters, but remembering to flick that lever was proving more difficult than she’d envisaged. It wasn’t that Jess was worried about Eve or Hilary figuring out what was going on, it was that they’d figure it out then use the damn thing for their own purposes. As a precaution, she made a note to ask Todd only to call her at home, on the tower line. They’d spent a lot of time on the phone over the last few months and now was not the time for either of them to get caught.

  Then it occurred to her that perhaps they had been caught. How did she know she wasn’t already under surveillance, wasn’t here in order to be watched more closely? She glanced quickly over her shoulder. Through the picture window was the usual azure sky, only today there were some clouds scuttling past, nervously, as though they didn’t want to hang around the building for too long. Jess knew how they felt. But, she thought, if Eve wanted to get rid of her, she’d have done so already. Why promote her? That just wouldn’t make sense.

  The truth was, Jess really didn’t want to go yet. She wasn’t ready. It wasn’t just security – financial or otherwise; that no longer worried her. Until her current project was finished, she wanted to stay close to Papyrus’s managing director.

  Climbing off the floor, Jess returned to her desk and stared out of the window once more. Alex was still out of action, which was bad. Very bad. Even if he returned within the next few weeks there was hardly any time left once she factored in editing, photography, the overseas printing and its ridiculous shipping time.

  Maybe it was time to accept that Alex was not going to come up with the goods and that she was going to have to invent a replacement. It would have to be show-stopping, but unfortunately show-stopping was costly and, unlike Phil, she wasn’t particularly comfortable with spending vast sums of the company’s money without permission. This meant just one thing. She was going to have to admit that their biggest author wasn’t interested in writing his annual bestseller and then beg for the money to acquire a book to fill the gaping, Alex-shaped hole that would appear in the budget.

  She could just imagine Roger’s ferrety little face when he found out that Alex hadn’t delivered, and nothing was planned: at first it’d be chalky, then flushed, then purple and finally a deeply unattractive and no doubt unhealthy combination of all three. Apoplectic was the word that came to mind. The words that came to Roger’s lips wouldn’t be suitable for repetition. Then there was Eve. She wouldn’t take it well. People had lost their jobs for a lot less, as Jess knew only too well. At the very least there’d be the raised voice, there’d be the accusations, there’d be objects that preferred to remain on desks, leading quiet uneventful lives, finding themselves hurt
ling towards walls that had experienced this kind of behaviour one too many times. In short, at the very least there’d be a scene. It was exhausting just to think about it. Jess hated scenes.

  While she was picturing Eve’s response to her news, and trying to work out a way of breaking it gently, Eve was next door, oblivious, and not making coffee.

  She was playing with her favourite new toy while dressed in a little number that would have been perfect had she been been going to a pool-side cocktail party. She was strapped into metallic jewel-encrusted sandals with impossible heels and wearing a kaftan. Or what looked like several extremely light silk kaftans, all of varying lengths and colours, layered on top of each other.

  Like so many of her outfits, it was designed to surprise, to make sure no one ever again forgot her or, more humiliatingly, wore the same thing. Todd might have been the one to point her in the right direction originally, but Eve knew she’d surpassed him by the time they arrived on the island. His approach was too tame, too restrained. Besides, how could she trust a man whose wardrobe resembled that of a priest? Eve was pleased to have finally taken over full responsibility for her reinvention. It was empowering. She understood what clothes were about, and they were nothing to do with covering up shameful nakedness, as she’d been led to believe as a child. Among many other things, she now matched themes and moods. The relaxed mood of her current outfit demanded a similar attitude from the wearer. It would have been wrong, she knew, to be wearing underwear.

  So there she was, enjoying the feeling of unrestricted freedom in her office in the middle of the afternoon and enjoying her new toy. The toy being her very own industrial-strength shredder, which she was using to shred pretty much anything not actually glued, or screwed, down.

  She had begun with the notes about the fraudulent documents she and Hilary had used to eliminate various employees, and then progressed to some emails – she was someone who preferred to print emails rather than scan them on screen, the environment being her concern only when she could use it for PR purposes, with her competition, for instance, or the ‘eco-drive’, as Hilary had cleverly christened it.