Authors: Lulu Taylor
Jemima had to release her, furious but impotent.
The quiet, ceaseless torture went on for years. Then she escaped to boarding school, where at least she was free of Jecca – except in holidays when the younger girl would be waiting with the many tricks she had dreamed up during term time. There was the occasion, for example, when Jemima’s treasured collection of vintage Barbies had vanished only to be unearthed months later by the gardener, who’d found them buried in a vegetable patch and irredeemably ruined. Her father had once given her a beautiful edition of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
for her birthday – it was found with all the Tenniel illustrations she so loved scribbled out with bright green felt-tip pen. And
there
was the time her favourite old teddy had his brown glass eyes pulled off. Jemima had cried bitter tears, knowing who had done all those spiteful things. Then, to her horror, Jecca asked to be sent to the same school as Jemima and there was no escape. The persecution began again, but this time with added awfulness. Now Jecca, with her whispering campaigns and sure knowledge of Jemima’s weak spots, caused her real pain, turning the school against her. ‘Jemima smells of cat’s wee,’ went one nasty little whisper. ‘Have you smelt her? It’s disgusting …’
Jemima knew she didn’t smell and yet the rumour hurt. It damaged her. Girls sniggered at her in the dining room. The whispers continued: ‘Jemima never washes her hair, she’s got nits … Jemima’s in love with the music master … Jemima’s a slag, she’s not a virgin …’
Her parents wouldn’t listen and the school turned a blind eye to it, until Jemima forced them to notice and to expel her. She was found in the middle of the night, drunk on vodka, loudly playing the piano in the school hall wearing only her underwear, a cigarette burning on top of the piano. She left the school the next day.
‘At least I went out with style,’ she muttered to herself, as she was driven away by her irate parents, happy in the knowledge that Jecca was safely imprisoned in the school behind her.
Before Jecca, she was kind, quiet and obedient. After Jecca she’d realised that only bad girls get noticed, and now she had a taste for it. Her school career
became
a car crash: she left with four expulsions and a couple of exam passes to her name. The only thing for it after that was a finishing school for rich girls who didn’t need to bother with a career.
And now here she was, with one last chance to stop Jecca from stealing her life once more.
So, if the flat had to go, then it had to go.
28
‘FIRST, I WOULD
normally need a brief, something to tell me what you want in this perfume I must create for you. In the industry, we are given sometimes pages and pages of notes, sometimes a picture, sometimes an object. Once, I was given a piece of satin ribbon and a copy of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
with the instruction: put this in a bottle! Make it a scent.’ Claudine smiled to herself. ‘That one was easier than you might think. But here, we already have a juice. The classic
Trevellyan’s Tea Rose
. So in this situation, things are a little different,
non?
You have your brief – it is in your mother’s bottle. You wish me to recreate this scent.’
The sisters glanced at each other. Tara took the large perfume bottle and pressed the silken bulb, spraying scent on to her wrist. She inhaled, thought and then passed the bottle to Poppy.
‘What’s your analysis of this scent, Claudine?’ she asked.
‘It is a delightful piece. There are several rose accords in there, built round a musk and a heavy dose of jasmine. In fact, it has many, many ingredients. If you wanted this replicated exactly, it would be straightforward enough. We could put it through a very clever machine called a gas chromatograph that will identify all the constituent molecules and their percentages, and we could then rebuild it. What is notable about this is the quality, the richness, the tenacity … all hallmarks of a good juice. It develops on the skin, responds to the warmth of a body like a pearl necklace, gaining lustre and depth.’
‘It’s too …
rosy
for my taste,’ declared Jemima.
Claudine fixed her with an impassioned stare. ‘Rose is the most classic of the flowers. It is the foundation for nearly all the most treasured perfumes in the world.
Chanel NO 5
is a classic rose scent, along with jasmine and aldehydes, of course. Les Parfums de Rosine sell only rose-based fragrances. The Different Company make one of my favourite scents,
Rose Poivrée
– fifty kilos of rose petals to create two hundred and fifty millilitres of juice. Some people adore rose in all its forms. For others, it can smell a little soapy, perhaps because it has been cheapened by overuse in inferior products.’
‘Yes, that’s how I feel too,’ chimed in Poppy. ‘It reminds me too much of bad soap.’
Claudine looked a little impatient. ‘Very well. Which direction do you want to go? Zesty and fresh? Or rich and heady? Warm or cold? What is the story of this juice?’
‘We don’t know. We’ve no idea what warm or cold perfumes smell like,’ said Poppy helplessly.
‘We want something modern,’ declared Jemima. ‘Not too heavy. But it has to be classic and really very like the original
Tea Rose
.’
‘A flanker?’ asked Claudine. Then she explained. ‘A reworking of an original scent. Like the summer versions of classic fragrances. Esteé Lauder’s classic
White Linen
has been released in other versions.’
Jemima frowned. ‘I suppose so. But flanker doesn’t sound right.’ Her face cleared. ‘I know what the difference is.
White Linen
still exists, alongside the flankers, doesn’t it? But in this case, we’re not going to supplement the original, we’re going to replace it. It must have all the depth and passion of the original version but with something extra. Something fresh.’
‘But sophisticated,’ put in Tara quickly. ‘We don’t want something girly and sweet. It must be something a glamorous woman, from twenty to sixty, would love to wear. Suitable for the day but also rich enough for the night.
There was a long pause during which Claudine looked at them as if to say ‘You have no idea what it is you want!’ Then she spoke.
‘Then there is really only one answer. I will return to my laboratory, I will build some iterations and bring them back to you to sample. Yes?’ She looked to Tara for approval, who nodded.
‘How long will all this take?’ Donna asked, frowning. She had been scribbling notes on to a piece of paper while they were talking.
‘As long as it takes,’ Claudine said frostily.
‘This baby must be launched by November so that we’re in time for the Christmas market. We’re going to have to make a big, big noise if we want to get noticed. Jemima – I’ll talk to you later about publicity and marketing. Poppy, we’ll need to discuss packaging and the bottle, sooner rather than later, because we’ve only a few months to design, model and then order our bottle. As for the juice itself …’ Donna looked up at Claudine, her face serious. ‘Ideally we need samplers for the press in October. That means a final version of the juice can’t come soon enough, especially if we’re going to consider ancillary products.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Tara quizzed.
‘I mean body lotions, creams, soaps … all that stuff.’
‘We might not have time for that. It might have to wait for next year,’ muttered Tara. ‘Just getting the juice sorted is going to be an Olympic-sized challenge.’
‘Let’s see how we go,’ Donna replied. ‘Claudine? What’s the best you can do?’
The French woman narrowed her eyes and thought. ‘I want to help you,’ she said finally. ‘I will do my level best. I will attempt to have iterations here for you next week. Then it will depend on what everybody thinks of them.’
‘Thanks,’ Donna said. ‘We appreciate it.’
‘Where’s your lab?’ asked Jemima.
‘I share a laboratory with other perfumers just outside Paris.’
‘I’d love to see you develop our juice.’
‘Then you should come back with me, too,’ Claudine said, unsmiling. ‘If you want to.’
‘One of us should go to Paris anyway,’ Donna said quietly. ‘We’re going to need to look at distribution there. I want someone to go in and start charming the big department stores. It’s absolutely vital we tell them what we’re doing and get them involved.’
‘Then why shouldn’t that be me? I’m sure I can handle it if Donna tells me what we need. I’ll do whatever’s necessary and make the time to visit you in your lab.’ Jemima smiled at Claudine. ‘We can book our Eurostar tickets today.’
29
‘HELLO, MA’AM. GOOD
day?’ John gave her his usual comforting smile as he closed the door.
‘Not bad, John, not bad,’ Tara replied, though it wasn’t exactly the truth. Today she had realised the extent of the job in front of them. Up until now, a calendar year had seemed like a long time. A discussion with Donna earlier in the day had highlighted how little time they really had. It was late April now and they had barely six months to launch.
‘Without a November launch, there’s no way you can get the Christmas market,’ Donna had explained. ‘And without that, you’re fucked. I mean it. You will sell perhaps fifty per cent less than you otherwise could. So by November, we not only have to have everything finalised in terms of the juice itself, we also have to have a marketing, advertising and PR campaign well under way. That means we have to move fast.’
Tara knew now how big the job was. The only
comfort
was that, from her figures, she could see that increasing sales by the amount they needed was not as difficult as it sounded. They were looking at a base of very low sales indeed.
‘We need to reinvigorate the US market as well,’ Donna had said. ‘That’s going to be very costly. Hugely. I mean, if we had several million to spend, it would help.’
‘We haven’t got that.’
‘It’s a problem we have to consider. Without the States, you won’t be able to move towards the really big money.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder why anyone gets into this crazy business!’ Tara had declared, throwing up her hands.
‘Are you kidding? The profit margins on perfume are fantastic. If you get a hit, you’ll be rolling in it. If you hit the jackpot in India and China, you could make twenty million dollars in the first quarter. The big houses make oceans of money from their perfume, believe me.’
‘What did Erin make?’
‘Erin’s scents bring in almost fifty per cent of her gross profit.’
‘Really?’ Tara blinked. ‘That much?’
Donna nodded slowly, a smile creeping across her lips. ‘That’s why we all do it. It’s why we all battle it out and spend so much trying to persuade people that the dream inside our bottle is their dream – the rewards are mind-blowing.’
Donna had gone on to sketch a future that included
not
just a range of bestselling perfumes, but deals with top hotel chains to supply fragrances and toiletries, luxury soaps and perhaps a move at some point into further accessories, leather goods, scarves, even cosmetics.
It was all incredibly exciting. But it was also a huge mountain of work with no guarantee of success.
The afternoon, however, had been grim. She, Poppy and Jemima had presided over the firing of the major directors of the firm, calling them in one by one to face them, like the aristocrats facing the revolutionary tribunal. There was only one outcome and they all knew what it was. Tara finished each painful interview the same way.
‘We want to thank you for your contribution to Trevellyan, but you’ll no longer be needed. We’d like you to collect your things and leave the building immediately. And could you please return all company property – mobile phone, laptop, car keys – at once.’
Two lawyers from Goldblatt Mindenhall observed and minuted each interview, one of them the dark young man Victor had brought with him that first day.
Most of them had taken the sacking quietly. It had obviously been expected but none of them looked exactly happy about the outcome. Only Duncan Ingliss had proved trouble, as they had feared. He’d gone scarlet and spluttered with outrage, making Tara fear he might be a candidate for a heart attack.
‘You can’t do this!’ he’d shouted. ‘I’ve given twenty-five years to this company! I own shares! Your father trusted me!’
‘I should think you’d be ashamed to admit all those things,’ Tara said coolly, ‘seeing as the company’s decline over the last twenty-five years has been somewhat extraordinary.’
‘I shall challenge this,’ Duncan spat. ‘I shall take this to my lawyers. I will see you in court.’
‘I hope not, Duncan. We’ve created a redundancy package for you that is more than generous under the circumstances. I wouldn’t want to see a court take that away.’
Duncan had left, apoplectic with rage but powerless. What could he do against the combined will of the Trevellyan sisters?
Tara leaned her head on the cool glass of the car window. At least that was something to be glad about – she had feared that they would never be able to work together but so far everything was going well. The ideas they had thrashed out together were good ones. She was looking forward to presenting them to Donna. The question was, when the hard graft really started, would the sisters still be able to work in harmony? Tara sensed that Donna was banking a lot on Jemima, her fame and her contacts. She could see that Donna was well aware of Jemima’s newsworthy potential and wanted to exploit it. That was all very well, but it was a question of whether Jemima would play ball or not.
As soon as she walked into the house, she could sense the tension. She ran quickly upstairs to the nursery to find Robina and the children. They were not in
the
bathroom, as she was expecting, and she felt a quick rush of horror as she hurried to the nursery. She got to the door and tried to open it but it was locked.
‘Robina? Robina, are you there?’ She rattled the door.
A moment later it opened and Robina looked out. ‘Come in,’ she said quietly. She was pale and her expression was strained.