‘I’ve tried to tell you what to do,’ Rach said, somehow seeming affronted. ‘And you didn’t listen to me. Now you’re telling me you favoured a dead stoat over your alive best friend?’
‘Why can’t I start my business over again?’ Keeley asked herself as much as Rach. ‘Why did I let my mum make me give up that dream?’
‘Why don’t I just apply for a senior negotiator job at another firm where I might be respected for my skills in negotiating rather than my short skirts and coffee-making?’
‘Rach,’ Keeley gasped. ‘You are appreciated for your skills… aren’t you?’
Rach shrugged. ‘I want more too. I don’t shop at Price Squash because I prefer it to Harrods, you know.’
There was a Christmas tree in a cobbled pedestrian section now, its decorated fronds swaying gently with the breeze and as they approached it, Keeley marvelled at the multi-coloured décor. There were CDs with writing and drawings on them, like the local children had added wishes for Santa. Wishes and dreams. She deserved them, didn’t she? Rach deserved them too.
Rach stood next to her. ‘Talking about you… I think we all just thought you probably wanted to do something simpler now. Not have the worries of a business-owner. Let Roland take care of public liability and all that.’
‘But why did I do that?’ Now Keeley was almost calling out to the universe for answers. A passer-by gave her an odd look then hurried into an ivy-covered brasserie. ‘Bea would have hated the fact that I’d given up on my dream.’ Her sister had been her biggest supporter, always giving her opinion on fabric and pattern. Bea might have been all the practical and mechanical by nature, but she had also loved a quirky print and the feel of silk under her fingertips. ‘And I hate it too. It’s stupid and… ridiculous.’
Wherever this wake-up call was coming from, Keeley was embracing it and being mindful in the moment. She grinned at Rach then, suddenly feeling like she could take on the world.
‘Rach, we are going to move in together after Christmas,’ she said with utter determination. ‘Like we talked about. You don’t want to live with Bertram anymore and I don’t want to feel like my every decision has a government five-point plan.’ She drew in a breath. ‘And I am going to start my business again. Maybe I’ll have to start working out of home to begin with, maybe those clients I had lined up originally will have gone with someone else but… the one guarantee is, people will always want nice things to… make them happy.’
And by nice she really didn’t mean expensive. Maybe that could be her USP. Most interior designers she had worked with before, had focused on the elite clients, the ones who wanted slightly mad things like a coffee table combined with an aquarium full of lionhead goldfish or curtains made from their children’s handprints. Perhaps Keeley could focus on her type of ‘nice’. The relaxed and comfortable that made her heart sing, but something a step up from rearranging lounge furniture and choosing travel books as props. Practical, yet beautiful solutions for modern day family living…
When Keeley turned away from the Christmas tree and back to Rach, her best friend was looking at her a little differently.
‘What?’ Keeley asked, following the question up with a nervous swallow. ‘Do you think I’m completely mad? To be getting this all off my chest now. When we’re supposed to be sightseeing?’
‘No, I don’t think that,’ Rach whispered, darting what looked like tears away from her eyes. ‘It’s just… I haven’t seen you look that way since…’
She didn’t need to finish the sentence for Keeley’s benefit. She knew. And she could feel it too. Coming here had been a kickstart she badly needed. The comfort zone of protection her mum had wrapped around her was understandable, but only when she had broken out of that did she see all the implications of its limitations. She was living but she wasn’t living. And that had to stop.
Keeley threw her arms around Rach and gathered her close, closing her eyes and trying to isolate her senses from each other like Ethan had got her to do. What had Rach used to smell like when smelling had been so easy to do? Keeley smiled to herself, recalling memories of bags of goodies from Price Squash – half-price Milka chocolate (the one with the strawberry bits in), toothpaste, pork scratchings, this bloody hair dye and the tin of red paint they’d first bonded over cleaning up on a bus eight years ago. Rach had been carrying six tins of it and trying to press the button to alert the driver to stop, one had slipped from her grasp and rolled down onto the floor, spilling open on its journey. Within milliseconds the whole of the 328 was filling up with fumes and everyone was coughing. Only Keeley hadn’t run for the exit door as soon as the driver ordered everyone off, instead choosing to offer Rach her large pack of handwipes and help remove the mess.
Keeley laughed then. ‘Did they ever get that paint off the floor of the bus?’
‘What?’ Rach asked, stepping back from her friend’s embrace and looking like she had no idea what Keeley was talking about.
‘The 328 bus. Where we met. The bus covered in… what was the name of that horrible paint again?’
‘Hickory Smoke,’ Rach said, laughing. ‘It never covered properly either! Apart from the bus floor. My dad did six coats on the lounge wall before he gave up on it. Bloody Adie!’ She shook her head. ‘Lucky it was cheap.’
Keeley put her arm through her friend’s and turned them towards the street and their proposed incline to take in the view of the golden dome of Les Invalides. ‘You do deserve more, Rach. You are an amazing negotiator.’
‘I know,’ Rach said with positivity. ‘But perhaps I need to think about a change in agency… or at least put the frighteners on Roland. Make him realise he would be lost without me.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Keeley said, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘We’ll work out a strategy so he can’t fail to realise.’ She shrugged. ‘And if he doesn’t, then House 2 Home’s loss will be someone else’s gain.’
‘Right there with you,’ Rach said.
‘So, shall we do a little more shopping? I ought to make a start on Christmas while I’m here. I need to find something for my mum that she’s going to love so much she won’t worry when I tell her I’m moving out and giving my business another shot.’ Keeley took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure even something by Coco Chanel was going to do the trick there. ‘And we can discuss Louis. Has he texted you yet?’
Rach hugged Keeley’s arm. ‘He did but… I don’t know.’
‘What don’t you know?’
‘I don’t know if he’s really my Pyjama Man,’ Rach said with a sigh.
‘Well,’ Keeley said, ‘there’s only one way to find out.’
Thirty-Three
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Opera District, Paris
Ethan burst into his office knowing he needed to freshen up before he met with Louis, Silvie and Ferne’s solicitor. Somehow, even though he had changed, he smelled of street-kid, dog and coffee. It was the exact combination of things he had once smelled of each and every day up until he had met the Durand family. Except his plan for a quick shower at the hotel was thwarted by the fact that the three of them were already sat in the room adjacent, around the boardroom table and Noel was collating papers on his desk.