Two gym classes later, one cardio barre and one circuit, Gemma has very sore arms and shoulders, but is no closer to a clear head. That is but one of many reasons for her to resent Jane Fairfax:
Jane Fairfax is rude.
Jane Fairfax tried to chat up Adrienne. She's lucky to be alive, the cow. Had she pulled that kind of move in the dark days before Agnes discovered beekeeping and yoga, this would have ended in a punch up outside. And Gemma's not certain her money would have been on Agnes because:
Jane Fairfax looks strong, as well as effortlessly slim and tall.
Jane Fairfax, despite never talking to him, knew something was up between her and Dylan, therefore:
Jane Fairfax is not actually rubbish at her job, far from it. She just acts like some kind of rude, pretty, well dressed loser so people will assume that she is one and that is, actually, very clever.
Perhaps Jane Fairfax isn't even that rude, perhaps that was an act too.
Jane Fairfax - and this is so so vexing - Jane Fairfax got her, Gemma Woodhouse, to put a foot wrong. Why did she have to turn Jane's questions about Frank into a matter of principle? Of course it wasn't any of her business, but then neither were Agnes' sexual preferences, nor indeed her own mother's alcohol issue. None of it is Jane Fairfax's business, but it's what Montage is paying her to find out. It will, albeit tangentially, be Montage's business. They want to know the people they will be trusting with their money. Their clients' money. This is also why their lawyers have been poring over the minutiae of Queen Bees' supply contracts with perfume makers in France and tin manufacturers in Germany. Apparently there was a tiny loophole in their payment terms with the Germans, now closed. So there you go: Montage have already added value to the business.
Jane Fairfax is so goddamn pretty. Her cheekbones make a mockery of gravity and her skin will literally never blemish.
Why did Gemma have to go and make an issue of Frank when she'd been quite willing to tell Jane Fairfax everything else? Almost certainly because too many other people had been giving Gemma a hard time about him already: Agnes, Hari, Ade, Dylan of course...
But that is a terrible reason to get exercised about anything, and now both Jane and Agnes are convinced that Gemma is attached to him, which means that by 9:03am on Monday both Ade and Hari will be too, not to mention Dylan, despite the fact that it is complete nonsense. Worse, Jane Fairfax will now, as mandated, report all this to Montage, causing embarrassment not just to herself, but to Frank too.
Gemma has walked most of the way home, but knows she cannot turn in until she has brought this vexing issue to some sort of conclusion. If she has learnt anything from watching her father over the course of his own successful career, it's that everyone needs a safe space from work worries and that space, for both of them, is Heath View Lodge. She cannot and will not sully it with thoughts of Jane Fairfax, even though she's now starving as well as tired and achy.
The only good thing that can be said about Jane Fairfax is that, with a bit of luck, she will be out of Gemma's life forever in a few more weeks. In the meantime…
Normally, that is with any other work-related problem, Gemma would be on the phone with Dylan right now, picking his brains or, more often, just being reminded that "All is well". It's not that Dylan is particularly great at coming up with solutions to things, but he's very good at putting them in perspective, and most of the time that is all the Gemma herself needs in order to arrive at a solution.
Now Dylan is the very last person she can consult on this, he would only make fun of her, and rightly so. He's made it abundantly clear he neither likes nor trusts Frank, which is hardly fair but...
Wait, if Dylan is the very last person she can talk to about this, then it follows that there is actually something even worse than having to fess up to Frank. Which she must do before Monday, obviously, before anyone at Montage reads Jane's report.
So yes, talking to Frank will be bad, but not as bad as, say, talking to Dylan about it, or talking to Frank about it in front of Dylan. If facts are what holds Agnes together, then with Gemma it's worst-case scenarios.
Most people don't like to imagine the worst, but Gemma finds it soothing, because by definition if she is having to imagine the worst then it hasn't actually happened. It means she still has agency to prevent it from happening. In this case, worst-case scenario number one is Geoff reading about this on Monday before Frank's had a chance to talk to him, and next-worst-case scenario is discussing it with Dylan.
Seen in that light, grabbing the phone now and talking to Frank is not, actually, that bad. The neighbour's appallingly trained new terriers bark at Gemma from behind their front gate. She gives them a defiant, alpha stare as she passes them, and they shush.
She's not scared. For a start, Frank is just as much at fault in all this as she is. She will remind him of that and, what's more, she will remind him that Jane Fairfax herself hardly behaved professionally last night. She will remind him that she and Agnes, by contrast, have been completely open and cooperative towards Jane, so that there is no reason for her to carry on with her investigations. She will remind Frank of all of that, and then she will apologise.
All is well.
Or rather, all will be well again, as soon as she's made this call.
x
"Gemma, you OK? To what do I owe the pleasure?" she hears as, starved and exhausted, she walks past the gate to Heath View Lodge and embarks on another round of the block.
"I'm calling to… oh but I'm sorry, is now a good time?"
"Of course, yes, just walking home from the gym."
"Oh, me too."
"People will talk."
She laughs a smileless, mirthless laugh. Over the phone Frank won't know any better.
"So, Agnes and I bumped into Jane Fairfax a couple of hours ago."
"Oh, I'm sorry," he says pleasantly.
"Only doing her job, but to be honest with you, Frank, I think we've both seen quite enough of her at this point."
"I know, not much longer now."
"No, Frank, I'm calling to say I think her job here is done. First of all do you know she literally followed Agnes' girlfriend to proposition her in the ladies toilets yesterday?"
"Wow, that's dedication: how old is that woman?"
"Frank, Adrienne's lovely! In fact were Ade any less lovely she'd be well within her rights to sue you guys for harassment. This has got to stop, Frank. I've not seen Agnes this stressed out since the SHB outbreak of 2014 and believe me, you don't want to go there."
"OK, OK I'm sorry, I'll have a word."
"No no, Frank: you're not just going to have a word. As I said Agnes and I bumped into Jane a couple of hours ago, precisely as I was beginning to talk Agnes out of tearing Jane's eyes out, so I decided to have it, well, out with her, so to speak. We had coffee with her and I promise you she now knows everything there is to know about us. She'll have it all in her report on Monday, and in return I'd like you to promise me you will have her stop following us."
"I'd love to, Gemma, but I'm really not sure I can."
"Frank, I am not joking or bluffing here: you're playing with Agnes' mental health."
Mental Health is a card Agnes never plays, but it's the very card she should play in cases like this, and Gemma has no compunction about doing so on her behalf.
"Can I at least wait until I see Jane's report?"
"No, you can't. You call her after this, she'll fill you in generally, and then you wait for the report."
"OK, OK, I'll call her now, give you the rest of the weekend off."
"Thank you, Frank, much appreciated."
"My pleasure."
"Now,"
"Yes?"
Now for the difficult bit of this conversation:
"Now about Jane's report, I'm afraid I owe you a massive apology."
"I find that hard to believe."
"You're going to laugh – well I hope you will. I think you ought to, certainly. Anyway you know how you're always saying that people will talk? Turns out they are, and Jane asked about you and I."
"Did she, now?"
Frank seems to find it funny, which is good. It shows that he has a sense of humour. It also shows that he does not find the suggestion altogether insulting, which Gemma already knew, of course, since it's a suggestion he keeps making in the first place. All of which Gemma should take as a compliment, only she finds it a little hard to do so right this moment.
"You know Jane: she didn't beat around the bush."
"I'm sorry, Gemma. This is all my fault, I should watch my manners around you, but you put me at ease and I'm afraid I do get over familiar."
"Frank, don't apologise. I don't mind, I'm perfectly at ease around you too."
"I'm sorry that Jane embarrassed you over it. It'll serve me right when Geoff reads about it."
"About that, Frank."
"Honestly, don't worry about it, Gemma, I'll tell Geoff it was all my fault. Blame it on being French, he knows what I'm like, it'll be fine."
"That's very kind of you but, oh I'm ever so sorry Frank, I'm afraid I rather let Jane get to me. You see she'd been so rude to us, especially to Agnes, for such a long time by then, I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of a blank denial."
When Frank says nothing Gemma realises how rare it is for Frank to have nothing to say. Rare and not altogether pleasant.
"I'm sorry, Gemma, can you please be less British with me?" he asks in the end, "What did or didn't you tell her?"
"Nothing, that's the thing. I refused to confirm or deny, now or later. You do know how that's interpreted in diplomatic circles?"
"No, I told you, I'm French."
"I'm afraid she's going to conclude that I have designs on you, Frank, I'm so sorry. I didn't think, she was just being so annoying!"
Frank starts laughing again. It's a bitter kind of relief, but a relief nonetheless.
"I'm glad you're taking it that way," she says.
"It's better to laugh, serves me right for being such a…"
A what?
"… for creating the wrong impression."
"Well I'm sorry I didn't help dispel that impression, that was really silly of me."
"Are you kidding? It was genius! Get that snake of a woman something properly juicy to be suspicious about. Payback for her trying to poison Agnes' relationship and sticking her tiny nose where it don't belong."
"That's her job, Frank. That is literally what you pay her for. You can't complain about her trying to do it to the best of her ability."
"OK, but I can have fun about her getting it wrong and you can too, Gemma, leading her along. And so you did, so thank you. From the heart, thank you, Gemma. Serves her right."
"You're welcome but... just to be clear: you're still going to pay her through to the end of her original assignment, right?"
"What, now you want me to pay her overtime?"
"Not overtime, I just want you to pay her for the whole job. She delivered early, that's all. So if anything yes, perhaps you should pay her extra."
"Wow, so your lipbalm tubes don't lie: every woman is a Queen to you?"
"Of course. Jane's not doing this for fun, remember? Can I have your word?"
"Course you can. The budget for it's already signed off anyway. But now I kind of want to keep her on the job just so you and I can string her along. Are you sure you really want me to call her off?"
"I'm sure, Frank. Delightful though it would be, I'm sure, I don't think Agnes can take another minute of her. Also don't you have an Obuasi report to go through? I think I've got some projections to rework for Ghana, you see, because Vikas wanted an updated best-case scenario assuming the loss rate stays at the three-year average instead of the five year so…"
"... so, no rest for the wicked?"
"Bear in mind Jane's probably already beavering away at her report. At least you and I can say we've been to the gym."
"Sure. But you're OK, Gemma? We're good?"
"Me? Of course I'm OK."
It's nice of him to check.
"Great. But I still feel like I should make this up to you: have you made your arrangements for Thursday yet?"
"We haven't, but it's on Hari's to do list for Monday. We're taking her along, by the way, I hope that's OK?"
"Of course, that's wonderful. And here's how I'm going to make this up to you. I'm going to send Hari the address of the best little hotel in the 7th, with the best little brasserie on the ground floor, and Vikas and I are going to take you three young queens for dinner there on Wednesday night, and then whisk you away to sunny Bretigny sur Orges for the warehouse visit on Thursday morning. If that doesn't get people talking, I don't know what will."
"That… that sounds great, Frank. Thanks for the recommendation, I've not been to Paris in yonks."
"You're going to love it."
"Of course."
"Fab. And I promise you that I will behave very inappropriately, but you'll have to promise me in return that you will raise your one glass of that day with me, to Jane Fairfax. That place has got a great cellar and I'll make sure to get the best bottle out first. Now how about that?"
"That sounds really great, Frank. You really don't have to, but thanks."
"Fab, see you in Paris on Wednesday night, then. I look forward to it."
"Oh I'm sure we'll be talking about Obuasi or Ghana before then."
"True."
"Good luck with Jane, then."
"No worries, Gemma. I look forward to that too: you've absolutely made my weekend. It's not often I have fun on this job."
"Glad to be of service. See you Wednesday."
Gemma is almost home. This time she ignores next door's barking terriers and buzzes the gate and swans into Heath View Lodge.
Like a Queen.
Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021, all rights reserved