Thank Goodness for mission 10:30. or, as Gemma privately calls it, mission Try:Not:To:Think:About:Dylan:For:Five:Minutes. There is no shortage of supply contracts to review, to keep Gemma busy while Agnes heads the assault on the French eco-smetics market, with the help of Montage's Paris office.
The day they finally signed their deal with Montage, Agnes and Gemma came bearing the biggest gift hamper Queen Bee offers, determined that this would be the last present Geoff would ever get from them. The next day Gemma told Rob to come clean with his buyers, and tell them she held the rest of the warrants.
There was a small but terrifying chance that Montage would kick up a stink, but they had not. Perhaps Queen Bees was too small a deal for them to get really worked up about. Or perhaps they simply realised that they had been outplayed and that there was nothing they could do about it. Either way, Montage continue to pretend to be perfectly happy with the situation. And if there's one thing Montage truly excels at, it's pretending.
Now that they are "capital partners", Montage and Queen Bees' interests have become more aligned than either party could ever have dared hope. Because the sooner Queen Bees generate profits, the sooner they can pay off that warehouse investment and buy Montage's shares back, and be rid of them forever. And the sooner Queen Bees generate profits, the sooner Montage can recoup their investment and be rid of Gemma, Agnes and all their pesky Queens forever.
Gemma knows she's lucky to still have a hold on her business. She knows it, but it's hard to be happy with just that, not to want more. If the French launch goes on as planned, for instance, sales could double in the next twelve months, and that would help bring forward Freedom-from-Montage-Day. But selling cosmetics to the French is Agnes's job. Gemma's is to implement as many savings as possible, without causing job losses or compromising the products' quality or ethical credentials. One day, then, whenever 10:30 has succeeded, Queen Bees will be making three times more profits on twice as much sales volume, i.e. six times more profit. This will enable the business to borrow more, and therefore to buy Montage out even earlier- maybe in three or four years.
It's hard not to wish those three or four years away, really hard. And it's probably really hard for Montage meanwhile not to wish Gemma away too, but tough. At least Frank has, as promised, moved on to his next target. This leaves only Vikas to pollute Queen Bees' board meetings with his presence. Today Agnes, Hari and Gemma are introducing him to Queen Bee's latest product line.
"So as you found out, Vikas, when you get stung you swell up," Agnes is saying. "In your case it was anaphylaxis and it was definitely a wasp, but my fingers still swell up whenever they get stung. So Hari and I looked into using bee venom to plump up those rare parts of a woman's anatomy they often do want to make bigger."
"Unlike a wasp, a bee always dies when it stings you," Hari says, "because of the barbs on its sting. But on her last trip to Uganda Agnes brought with her some venom extracting plates, which get the venom out without killing a single bee. You just place one at the entrance to the hive and switch it on for a few hours at a time." Hari says, showing Vikas some photos.
"This is Christine, in Uganda" Agnes says, changing slides. One of the many beauties of beekeeping is that under the suit, gloves, and wellies everyone looks the same, and Christine might as well be a white man.
"Christine is the only woman for miles around with a Bachelor's degree," Agnes explains, "She's been keeping bees with us for three years. What with the baby I'm not going to be able to travel as much as I used to, so she's going to act as our Queen of Apicultural Training, working out of Kisoro. She's trialled the plates, which use electricity to stimulate the sting glands without harming the bees, and she's found that depending on the age of the colony she gets between a third and three quarters of a gram of dry venom per hive, per collection. Dried up venom keeps well and it's super light and cheap to ship."
"The main active component of bee venom is melittin," Hari explains, "which causes pain and stimulates blood circulation, but also has anti-arthritic and anti-inflammatory effects. So we have made it into this plumping lip gloss, in one transparent and five tinted shades. We've also put it in a regenerative eye serum, a calming face cream and a cleanser," she says, pushing the prototypes in front of Vikas.
"That smells nice," he says, trying the eye serum.
"That's half the battle," Agnes smiles.
"... and it tingles a bit,"
"That'll be the other half."
"Now price wise, here's the deal," Gemma says, showing Vikas a spreadsheet, "We are effectively creating a new, high premium brand with this. Agnes reports a lot of appetite from French department stores, and Hari is working on getting us a tie-in with Baby the Stars Shine Bright,"
"Sorry, what?" Vikas asks.
"Japanese brand, high premium, where you go to spend a thousand dollars to dress like Hari does at the weekend. They've agreed to distribute a special edition lip-gloss colour worldwide for us, under a co-branding arrangement."
"Sounds interesting," he smiles at Hari.
"The next slide's got the prices charged by some of competitors with none of our sustainability credentials, so I propose we add a 20% eco-premium to those. Ours will come with multi-use containers that can be both personalised and refilled in store. What you have in front of you is a simulation under various scenarios, but given current interest I would expect this to add about 6% to our EBITDA margin, dropping to 9% net profit margin."
Vikas nods.
"Which means that we've decided not to increase the prices on any other of our products. The end."
Vikas looks from the projection screen to her, wide eyed. Or perhaps that's the serum?
"But we said…"
"No, Vikas, you said we should increase our prices across the product range, and we say that since Agnes has created expensive new products for people who can afford them, we'll keep the rest of the range affordable to every Queen in the country, as it was always intended to be."
"But a 5% increase..."
"Vikas," Gemma says, pushing the prototypes closer to him, "this new product line, here, is the part of our souls we're happy to sell. Now if you don't mind, we'd quite like to hang on to the rest."
Vikas shakes his helpless, minority-shareholder head. Agnes shoots Gemma a look that says: thank God these arseholes aren't in charge. Gemma returns it and Vikas asks:
"So what are you calling this?"
"The Japanese insist on having French names: we're going with La Poison for the special edition gloss," Hari says.
"It's not complete nonsense," Agnes says, "Le poison is poison, but la poison is just any woman you don't like."
"I see…"
"And we thought we might as well call our own venom line what it is: we're canvassing The Sting and the French love it."
Vikas does not bother to object.
x
"You OK, Antigen?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes, I am. Look at her, she's asleep."
Gemma is holding Matilda: Kristy and Scott's baby daughter. She's getting a little heavy on Gemma's arm but she's also deliciously squidgy and soft, sleeping with that hard fast breathing babies have, which makes their sleep seem so very urgent.
"You should put her down. You shouldn't get babies used to sleeping on you. Else they won't sleep in their cots."
"That's true. But look, she's so cute. One more minute."
Quentin shrugs. At thirteen he's already a little taller than Gemma, and a bit of a baby whisperer, but above all he's still a lovely kid, who spontaneously asked his aunt whether she wanted to come and "hang out" with him when he heard she was babysitting on the night of Dylan's leaving do. So she's kidnapped Matilda and brought her over to Isa's, giving Kristy and Scott a rare whole night and following morning off, and Quentin a Monopoly partner. Quentin's also brought down some school art project he's working on, involving a spool of thin golden wire and some pliers.
"You OK, Antigen?" he asks again.
"Why? Yes, of course."
"Dylan's going away tomorrow."
She nods. Dylan's going away to tax heaven tomorrow, where his angel-perfect new girlfriend will join him in a few weeks.
"I'm going to miss him," Quentin says in his croaky, beginning-to-break voice.
"I'm sure he's going to miss you too," Gemma says, wishing she had an excuse for her own voice to break.
"Do you think so?"
"I know so. Dylan's always loved you, Quentin. Almost as much as I do."
Quentin smiles his lovely, only slightly awkward smile. If he's this cute as a teenager he'll make a devastating young adult whenever the growth spurts stop, the skin settles down and the braces come off. He doesn't seem to care how cute he is, which is even cuter. He's working away on the kitchen table, a chopstick in one hand and the pliers in the other.
"You're going to miss him too," he says as he winds some wire around the thin end of the chopstick.
"I already do."
"What did you fight about?"
"Which time?" Gemma says, trying to smile, but failing.
"Was it because Grandad hates him?"
"What?" Gemma laughs
Then again: how would the morning after the night before have panned out, had it taken place at Heath View Lodge? Had she felt comfortable taking Dylan there, rather than lying to Peter Rabbit about where she was spending the night?
"Well, I suppose that too, a bit," she says.
"And does Grandad hate Dylan because of the conservatory, or just because he's a bit of a racist?"
"Quentin, please, don't beat yourself up, please! None of this is your fault, OK? And Grandad is a bit of a racist, yes, but at the end of the day he's not the one who upset Dylan, I am. I've only got myself to blame."
Quentin stares at her for a while, then bends back down over his work and tries to bite his lips with concentration, but his braces remind him not to, and he looks back up.
"You really should put that baby down now."
"You're right."
Gemma puts Matilda down into her carrycot and watches her squirm then sink back into sleep. Oh, to be able to sleep like that again.
"So do you want one of your own now?" Quentin asks, nodding at Matilda's cot, but talking as if she were another Monopoly board.
"They seem to be all the rage."
"So you do?"
"I think so, yes."
"So you wouldn't mind having a husband either, or would you want to do it on your own? I think it'd be terribly difficult on your own, you know. I wouldn't want to."
"I think you're right, Quentin."
"But you always said you didn't want a husband."
Gemma shrugs with a sad smile: who says a husband would want to have her?
"Do you want to play Monopoly?" she asks, for a change of conversation.
"I'm not sure. I kinda want to get on with this, but we can talk," Quentin says, clicking his pliers.
"What, are you growing out of Monopoly as well?"
Quentin blushes slightly but does not reply.
"It's OK to grow out of stuff, Quentin. Look at you, how many sizes of school uniform have you grown out of this year? Don't worry, Monopoly will always be there."
"But what will I do with all my boards?"
"Up to you. Keep them for your own kids one day, sell them, give them away. But keep one for a rainy day, at least one."
"I feel bad, Dad just got me this really old vintage set – it's still called the Landlord's game, it must have cost a fortune."
"Your Dad can afford it and probably thinks of it as an investment. And I hear your last school report was really excellent."
"Yeah but I kinda wanted a guitar for that."
"A guitar? What about your clarinet? You're so good on the clarinet!"
It's not just avuncular pride talking: Quentin has raced through his grades and started playing jazz tunes with a fluency that he still hasn't quite cracked when he's using words rather than crotchets and semiquavers.
"Thanks, Aunty, but a friend showed me a few chords and licks on the guitars at school and it's more fun, you know. It's cool. You can be in a band, you can sing along while you play."
"Wait, you can already play and sing along too?"
"It's like languages, when you know one instrument it's easier to learn others."
"You definitely get this from your father's side," Gemma says, who relentlessly grafted at her French and her recorder at school without ever showing the least promise with either.
"But I'd have to stop the clarinet."
"Would you?"
"I don't think I'd have time for both. We're starting GCSEs next year."
"Let someone else play the clarinet then."
"But it's kind of scary, you know... having to tell my teacher. And Mum and Dad, and everyone one at school, and leaving the orchestra."
"Sure, I get that it's scary, but you can do it."
Quentin looks up from his work and stares at Gemma for what feels like a long time, though not an uncomfortable one. Quentin has always liked to think before he speaks, hence he didn't start speaking until he was almost three.
"Is it true you're never scared, Aunty?"
"What? No, of course not! I'm scared all the time, Quentin. Right now I'm terrified about Dylan going away. I'm the biggest coward in the whole wide world."
"Mum says you never let it stop you though. Like you didn't let that French guy scare you. Is it true you actually followed him into his own flat to hack his email?"
"That wasn't clever, Quentin. It achieved exactly nothing except…"
Except make everyone even more convinced that she was two timing Dylan.
"But it was still something, you know: brave," Quentin says.
Gemma shrugs:
"Didn't feel like I had a choice."
"Mum says she tried to scare you all the time when you were kids, but she never could."
Gemma smiles.
"Is it true about the spider in the pool shed?"
"It is."
"With your bare hands? It's really dark in there."
She nods:
"I did puke my lunch up afterwards. Did your mum tell you about that too?"
"She did," Quentin sniggers, "And that I'd be in no end of trouble if I tried that with Toby, or Alfie or the twins. She made that very clear."
"Oh, good!" Gemma smiles, "But look, it's not as if she traumatised me for life or anything. If anything I think it's rather good that she toughened me up. It's stood me in good stead."
"No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"I think you were already tough before. Like Toby, that boy has like, no pain threshold."
And that, Gemma thinks, is one of the many reasons she's always preferred Quentin. Toby's out at a friend's tonight and the au pair put Alfie and the twins to bed a while back.
"Anyway," she asks: "what are you making?"
"No, don't look, it's not ready!"
"OK!" she says, and goes to sit by Matilda's cot.
"Can I put some music on, if it's not too loud?"
"Of course," Gemma says, adjusting a blanket that doesn't need adjusting while Quentin fiddles with Youtube on his phone.
What do you know: Quentin's goes and plays some 70s song that Dylan used to love too. Still loves, probably. Possibly is dancing to, right now, with Katiya. Gemma keeps her eyes on the baby to hide them from Quentin. Dylan loved babies, it's true that he fussed over Quentin something silly when he was little. Dylan probably still loves babies, and will be making them with Katiya before long.
Gemma feels Quentin looking at her, so pretends to fuss over Matilda again. Where do Isa and Quentin get this idea that she's hard to scare? Right now she's terrified, and the only thing that's keeping her together is that she has to, for the kids.
Not even her own kids, mind: Quentin and Matilda, other people's kids.
Perhaps that's how it works. You distract yourself from really scary things, like Dylan leaving the country, by doing things that are marginally less scary, but still too scary to allow you to think much about anything else. Like looking after a baby.
And perhaps hanging out with the spiders in the pool shed was Isabella's way to get them both to forget about what had happened in the pool itself, on the night of Gemma's second birthday. Isabella's moved on to things vastly scarier than spiders: to putting people to sleep for life-or-death operations, and to raising five boys. But does she still get those bad dreams too, about the pool?
x
"OK, I think it's done, come and have a look," Quentin says. At some point the music has changed and it's now playing a slow jazz tune, one of the ones Quentin can play beautifully.
"Quentin! Did you just make this while we were chatting?"
He blushes, nods and hands over a small bee-shaped object he's fashioned out of his spool of wire. It's only slightly larger than an actual bee, gloriously golden, and has no sting or legs, but the required number of wings and antennae.
"That's amazing, are you doing this for art?"
"No, I have to make a 3D teddy bear for art. I'll hang a heart in the middle made of red modelling clay, and a tiny little bell."
"Wow, that sounds deep, man."
"Hey, blame the teaching spec: I'm going to ace that assignment on freedom and identity," Quentin says with a smile that reminds her of Dylan at his best.
"Spot on with the bear then, ten out of ten. Oh, but this is so beautiful!" Gemma says, cradling the bee in her palm.
"I made it for you. You can hang it to something, like, if you loop something through the head here, or through the wing there."
"Wait," Gemma says, undoing the chain of her necklace. The diamond won't come off, her father made sure of that by having the hoop it's mounted on made smaller than the chain's clasp. But the bee's forewing is large enough to loop around it and the bee slides on, and flies down onto Gemma's throat as she fastens the chain again.
"How do I look?"
"Like a queen," Quentin replies right on cue.
Good job he's not grown out of hugs with his Antigen quite yet.
x
Matilda is very good. She only wakes up once around 4:30 in the morning and goes right back to sleep after her feed and change. Gemma, on the other hand, can't sleep for thinking of Dylan going away. As dawn breaks she finally falls into a shallow doze, and goes on a walk with him. In the dream they say nothing to each other, at all, they just are, side by side, only occasionally looking at each other. They are amongst hills but walking isn't hard, or in any way scary. They sit under a tree for a while, close by but not touching. There is nothing passionate about the dream. Nothing is said or indeed even felt, but it's a very very happy dream.
Arguably this is the happiest they've ever been together, Gemma thinks as she heads for the shower before Matilda wakes up and starts growling again. It's something to be grateful for, she thinks as she catches a glimpse of her new bee pendant in the bathroom mirror. Matilda's squirming but her eyes and mouth are still shut so Gemma gets dressed, then quickly goes online to order a cheap new gold necklace chain. Matilda is beginning to grumble. Gemma gets another free hug in exchange for a clean nappy and a warm bottle of formula.
A couple of hours later Matilda has been delivered back to her grateful parents and Peter Rabbit drops Gemma at the gates of Heath View Lodge.
"Oh, hi, Daddy!" she says as their paths cross on the doorstep.
"Good morning, darling, how did it go last night?"
"Fine, Daddy, it went fine."
"Great, well I'd better..."
… be off, yes, of course. Mr Woodhouse always leaves the house at this time every Sunday, for his game of golf. But today, as Gemma's hand reaches for her necklace and she feels the bee Quentin's made for her, she stops her father and says:
"Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"Daddy, I think I'm going to move out."