Charity Read online

  ‘Really?’ Charity was happy just to see him, but the offer of business was even better.

  ‘I’ve bought a small share in a domestic freezer business,’ Martin explained. ‘Of course I know nothing about freezers themselves, only the grub you put in them, but it was suggested we got a few girls in major appliance shops to push them and I immediately thought of you.’

  ‘My girls can sell anything.’ Charity instantly switched from mere friend to saleswoman. ‘Tell me more.’

  They talked for some time, first the business, then switching back to more personal things. Finally Martin had to go.

  As he was about to descend the stairs, he turned to her. ‘We’re so bloody proud of you,’ he said. ‘When I think what you’ve been through, and now you’ve got all this! But keep freezer and frozen food companies in mind. There’s a revolution coming in food, and if you get in on the ground floor with it, you’ll go right to the top.’

  ‘You always were so good to me.’ Charity hugged him. ‘Thanks for the leads. I’ll be on to them like a bloodhound. And I’ll come and see you and Marjorie soon.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  1973

  Charity leapt out of her Mini. She was late for an appointment with Martin Bell and although he would understand, Charity believed in punctuality.

  She felt great, even though it was a grey, cold March day. She had returned just a few days earlier from a holiday in Florida with Dorothy, complete with a golden tan and a curly perm Dot had insisted on. But better still, she had an idea for Martin that could be brilliant for both of them.

  Dorothy’s thirtieth birthday party was the main reason Charity had gone to Florida. Her friend hadn’t changed much: she moaned about her age, then advertised it by throwing an extravagant party. Of course there was a rich man in the background who paid the rent on her sumptuous apartment in Miami, and her Cadillac was a present from another, and her modelling still brought in enough work to keep her very comfortably. It had been a wonderful holiday, long lazy days on the beach, parties and fun; they’d even been to Disneyland like a couple of kids. Dorothy was hard with men, she’d grown even more self-centred, but alone with Charity it was just like their old flat-sharing days, giggling and gossiping till the early hours.

  Charity shivered and clutched her black rabbit coat round her tighter as the cold wind caught her. She just hoped Martin was as impressed with her idea as she was and went for it. Things were getting a bit tight in London.

  Property prices had gone sky high in the last year, inflation was out of control and she sensed that the economy was about to take a slide into a depression. For the moment Charity was holding her own, still taking a large slice of the pie in promotions work, but if the economy were to take a nose dive, she knew the first hit would be small businesses like hers.

  Charity was twenty-eight now, still slender in size ten clothes, but curvier now than she had been as a girl. Unlike Dorothy who worried about her increasing age because it meant less modelling work for her, Charity was glad of maturity because in her business it meant she was taken more seriously.

  Not that she was feeling mature today. Her new curly perm made her feel ridiculously young and giggly and she thought she might persuade Rita to go out somewhere tonight.

  As Charity turned into King’s Road she waved to Carla, the owner of the boutique, who was dressing her window and paused just long enough to admire the pale pink spring suit she was arranging.

  ‘Good morning Miss Stratton,’ Jaquintha put her phone down as Charity swept in. ‘Mr Bell’s here, he’s waiting in your office. I gave him some coffee.’

  Rita was tucked away in her own office upstairs now. This new receptionist was nineteen, a small pretty brunette straight out of secretarial college. She had only been with them for a few months but she was shaping up well.

  ‘Thank you, Jaquintha.’ Charity smiled at the girl, noting immediately that she was looking pale. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Jaquintha blushed.

  ‘Just a tummy ache,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s … you know.’

  Charity leaned closer over the desk.

  ‘Go and take a couple of aspirin,’ she suggested. ‘If it doesn’t go within an hour get one of the other girls to cover for you and go home.’

  Charity had learned to be tough with both employees and clients over the years, otherwise they took advantage. But her sympathetic nature was easily tugged, especially by the young and vulnerable.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Martin,’ she said as she walked into her office. ‘The traffic’s appalling.’

  Martin got up and kissed her cheek.

  ‘For you I’d wait for ever,’ he said. ‘But it’s only five minutes. You look fantastic, Charity, the holiday did you good. I like the hair too. It makes you look truly angelic.’

  Martin had observed the changes in Charity over the eleven years he’d known her. He’d seen the frightened little girl, the giddy young thing about town, then the slow transformation into an astute businesswoman. Yet there was still a sense of purity in her, something untouched, undefiled.

  ‘Your old flattery.’ Her wide mouth curved into a disarming smile. ‘Dot called it Rabelaisian. I’m not quite sure what she meant by that. Does it mean I look like a good-time girl?’

  The freezer promotion five years earlier was the start of a series of campaigns connected with Martin. They had been just small jobs: girls offering money-off vouchers for frozen food and occasionally cookery demonstrations. Martin had been right – frozen food and freezers had become more and more popular and he’d been smart enough to capitalise on it. Now Charity felt it was time for them to get together in a big joint venture.

  Two years ago Martin had moved into the American idea of frozen TV Dinners, but although the potential was enormous, so far the British public were hesitant about trying them. Martin had discussed this with Charity before she went away and now she felt sure she had the solution.

  Charity had used her holiday in Miami to do some homework. She’d seen promotion girls handing out samples of such foods, and knew it could work here in England.

  Martin looked prosperous now. Impeccably cut suits hid his increasing stoutness, even his balding head gave him an air of distinction. Playing golf at weekends had given him a healthy glow he never had back in Hammersmith, but it was the inner man that shone through. He had maintained his fairness and good humour, he wasn’t ashamed of his background, but best of all to Charity was that he was faithful to Marjorie, even though his success gave him plenty of opportunity to stray.

  ‘I think any man under sixty would like a good time with you, Charity.’ Martin smiled, as always wondering why someone hadn’t snapped up such a beautiful and caring woman. ‘But we’d better get down to business, hadn’t we? I’m sure you’re as pushed for time as me.’

  ‘I gave your convenience foods a great deal of thought while I was away,’ Charity said, taking from her briefcase the notes she’d made. ‘In-store sampling is the only thing that’s really going to move them.’

  ‘But that’s so expensive,’ Martin said. ‘Wouldn’t money-off vouchers do as well, backed up with advertising?’

  Charity shook her head. ‘You can’t smell or taste a voucher.’

  ‘It’s worked with frozen veg,’ Martin retorted.

  ‘That’s different. People know what frozen peas are all about; the concept of a complete, ready-made meal is different. We have to overcome resistance to the high price by proving the product is worth it.’

  Martin shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t believe his meals were expensive.

  ‘Just imagine yourself as a working woman for a moment,’ Charity said. ‘You rush into a store to get something for tea, you’re hungry, you know when you get in the family will be clamouring for something quick. While you are rushing about grabbing tins of beans, sausages, you suddenly see a girl standing under a bright yellow and white awning, cooking something that smells wonderful. You stop for a s
econd, just to look, and she offers you a dish of chicken and pasta, or beef and vegetables. In the time it takes to wolf down this delicious taster she is explaining that the dish comes ready made: all you have to do is pop it in the oven for twenty minutes.’ Charity paused to let this sink in.

  ‘Well what would you do, Martin?’

  ‘Buy it of course.’ He smiled.

  ‘So would I.’ Her eyes looked intently into his. ‘But the point is: that woman wouldn’t have picked it from the freezer, not even with a money-off voucher, because she couldn’t see or smell the finished product. There she would weigh up its cost compared with sausages or fish fingers. But once she’s committed herself to a couple of mouthfuls she knows little Johnny will eat it, and what’s more there’s no preparation, precious little washing up to do afterwards – and the extra cost ceases to be of any significance.’

  ‘Put like that I have to agree.’ Martin’s nut-brown eyes twinkled with amusement at her enthusiasm. ‘But the cost of running a promotion like that would be huge.’

  ‘The cost would soon be recovered,’ Charity wheedled. ‘Once women have tried these foods once, they’ll return to buy them again and again, and tell their friends how good they are. Can you afford not to offer a tasting?’

  Charity saw Martin’s eyes glinting and knew she was almost there.

  ‘My partners are keen on the idea of television advertising,’ he said.

  ‘That’s an excellent way of pointing out the quickness, the nutritional value and how labour saving these meals are. But it isn’t as effective as offering a sample of delicious food to a hungry woman who is out buying food, and sticking the box in her shopping basket.’

  ‘OK.’ Martin knew when he was beaten. ‘I agree that we ought to hit all the major supermarkets, but have you got any suggestions of ways we can slash the cost of the equipment needed?’

  ‘Yes.’ She pulled a sheet of paper from her folder. ‘One girl with one set of equipment moves from shop to shop in a given area over a four-week period. I’ve got girls with their own cars and a couple of supervisors who can do the rounds to check everything is running smoothly. All I would need from you is the back-up of stock arriving at the stores, the equipment and of course the promotion briefing, which should be somewhere central.’

  Martin knew it made sense. Although Charity had organised only small-scale promotions for his company in the past, he knew she wouldn’t suggest such a big scheme unless she could handle it, and he trusted her judgement.

  ‘Fair enough.’ He held out his hand as a gesture of agreement. ‘But you’ll have to come out to the factory in Luton and give my partners a presentation.’

  Charity shook his hand firmly, blue eyes dancing with delight.

  ‘Get a sample stand made up and we could even arrange a trial demonstration in a local store,’ she suggested.

  Martin stood up, pulling his jacket over his plump tummy.

  ‘You aren’t just a pretty face,’ he grinned. ‘Tell me – do you ever think about those days back in Hammersmith?’

  Charity knew that Martin meant Daniel but couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  ‘Yes, all the time,’ she said. ‘He’ll be eleven in May, going on to a big school in September.’

  Martin saw her eyes cloud and wished he hadn’t mentioned it.

  ‘Marge and I wish we’d had a child now,’ he said. ‘All those years of struggling … now we’ve got so much, yet we’ve got no one to share it with. Don’t make that mistake, Charity, find someone to love again and have a child.’

  ‘I do my best,’ Charity said, standing up to kiss his cheek. ‘Sometimes I think all the best men are spoken for.’

  Charity let herself into her flat just after twelve that night and went straight to the bathroom. While the bath was filling, she walked over to the window and gazed thoughtfully at the view.

  There was enough moonlight to see ghostly silhouettes of the trees on Primrose Hill against the backdrop of the night sky.

  She had had a good evening with Rita, telling her all about Dorothy and Florida; they hadn’t mentioned work once. But as always Charity was glad to get home, to shut the door and the world and people out.

  She never really understood why she felt this way. She had essentially been on her own for the last few years. Prue had got the teaching job she wanted, and married Tim, a colleague, two years ago. It had hurt Charity not to be invited to the wedding, but Prue had said she couldn’t risk upsetting Stephen when he was footing the bill. Taking Prue and Tim out for a celebratory meal and looking at the photographs hadn’t made up for not sharing the day with her only sister. But Charity was happy for Prue: she had a little house of her own just outside Oxford and mixed with the kind of intellectual and well-bred friends that meant so much to her.

  James was fifteen now, and at Dulwich College. His sunny nature hadn’t changed. Although he was good at almost everything he turned his hand to, from lessons and sport to playing the guitar, he hadn’t a trace of Toby’s and Prue’s superiority.

  He often spent weekends with Charity. Whether they went for a spin in her car, looked round the shops in Oxford Street or just lazed about chatting, he was happy. Now he said he wanted to be a doctor and as far as she could see, he’d be perfect – he had the brains, the persistence and the compassion.

  On the face of it Toby was an even greater success story than the other two. He was twenty-two now and he’d gone on from Wellington College to Sandhurst, passed out with flying colours and got his commission in the army. Now, like his grandfather and uncle, he was in the Royal Green Jackets and Uncle Stephen was reported to be delighted.

  Charity looked out at the twinkling lights of London for a moment longer, then pulled the curtain cord and shut out the view. She wondered, as she had so many times in the last few year, why she couldn’t just see Toby as everyone else did. A charming, handsome young man who was just a little irresponsible and thoughtless. He was stationed in Winchester and when he had leave he treated her flat like a London hotel, turning up, taking a shower, then rushing off until the early hours of the morning, without the least concern for Charity’s feelings.

  He appeared to have it all – looks, the sporting ability and the charm – yet he never considered himself fortunate. There were always complaints. His officer’s salary wasn’t enough, his mess bills were huge, his car wasn’t fast enough and other officers were always trying to do him down.

  Time and again when he came here, she would look at him gracefully sprawled on her settee, listen to the lazy way he drawled out his complaints and wish she could smack that handsome face and point out that he was twenty-two, a man, and responsible for his own life.

  There were other more hurtful things too. Toby never appreciated how hard she worked, or praised her for doing well. He carped about her flat being so small and asked why she hadn’t bought a place with a spare room so he could be comfortable when he stayed the night. If she took him out for a meal he wanted to go somewhere ridiculously expensive and before he left he always asked her to lend him some money, which he never paid back.

  But most of Charity’s anxiety about her brother was just suspicion, based on little things Prue or James mentioned quite innocently.

  Prue spoke of some silver disappearing from Studley and how Uncle Stephen believed it was taken by a ‘walk-in’ burglar one afternoon while he and Nurse Giles where out in the grounds. Charity didn’t want to believe it was Toby who took it, but he did seem remarkably flush around that time.

  James found Toby ill in his room one day and the symptoms he described sounded far more like a comedown from drugs than the dose of flu Toby claimed it was.

  Another story was told to Charity by Annabel, one of her promotion girls, and though it could quite possibly be pure spite because Toby had taken Annabel out a few times, then dropped her, Charity didn’t think so.

  Annabel said he picked up older women and conned them into buying him expensive presents and paying his mess bills.
She hinted too that he hung around Soho on his leave, gambling and drinking with rough characters.

  When Charity analysed her fears and suspicions, she found she never had enough evidence to confront Toby with anything. But the worry about drugs niggled at her like a sore tooth. Half the people of Toby’s age in London were dabbling in drugs. It was all part of the hippie scene and in fact Charity had tried smoking pot and taking speed herself on a couple of occasions, so she wasn’t naïve about it. But she knew that if Toby was caught with so much as a pinprick of cannabis, he would be thrown out of the army immediately.

  The last couple of times Toby had visited her, she had thought his behaviour very odd. He had had no appetite and he seemed nervous. She’d tried to talk to him about it but he’d brushed it away as her imagination and gone off out again.

  He never spoke about where he went when he was in London. He made brief phonecalls arranging to meet people, but he never said who. His visits always left her with a feeling of dissatisfaction and unease. He never seemed interested in her, or James and Prue. In fact, Toby was becoming almost a stranger.

  Charity woke the next morning with a start when her alarm went off, feeling as if she’d only been in bed for an hour or so. She leapt up to get washed and dressed, mentally making a note to give Toby a good talking-to next time he turned up.

  It was Friday, and as always it was the busiest day of the week with her girls phoning in their hours, queries about wages and last-minute arrangements for the next week’s work.

  By lunchtime Charity was feeling very optimistic. All her regular girls had work lined up for the next two months and only four of the casual ones had to be told there was nothing for next week. The campaign with Martin’s company would be a big one and it could lead to still more opportunities.

  ‘Your brother called a few minutes ago,’ Jaquintha said as Charity came back into the office after nipping across the King’s Road to Safeway for some groceries at lunchtime.

  ‘James or Toby.’ Charity asked, her hand reaching out for the phone.