soar in profits, he felt sure. But the Jukes needed convincing this was the way forward first.
‘They can’t read a spreadsheet between them,’ Desmond told Lillie, ‘so they don’t know they are in trouble. I need to charm them; show them the way forward – and make sure they don’t go to anyone else for investment.’
He’d been to each of the shops and assessed their profitability. Ill-stocked shelves, dilatory staff, minimal advertising, dreary window displays – the shops were sliding backwards into the post-war austerity everyone else was charging away from. And Desmond knew retail. After all, his wares were readily available all over the country. There was barely a home that didn’t have a pot, or even two or three, of Lewis jam on its shelves. From castle to council house, it was classless; universally popular.
But as Desmond had pointed out, where do you go after jam? He was tired of experimenting with flavours – and anyway the money was in the popular; for him there was little point in experimenting with peculiar fruit varieties in an attempt to brainwash the nation. No, his ambitions lay elsewhere.
So the plan was to lure the Jukes down for the weekend so Desmond could butter them up and steer them into a deal of some sort. And although she was disgruntled that her carefully balanced guest list had been tampered with, Lillie loved nothing better than a challenge and the chance to charm. One of her favourite things was to watch people melt under her ministrations. As narcissists go, she was a beguiling one who managed to make people think it was all about them, not her.
‘I hope they’re not dull,’ she warned Desmond. ‘Dull would just be dreadful.’
But, being a man, he couldn’t give her a great description. The Jukes, according to Desmond, were aristocratic but impecunious – and likely to be even more so unless they took advantage of his timely intervention. ‘They’re about our age, with a son about Elodie’s age – and he’s the one due to inherit, so we need to butter him up too.’
Lillie rolled her eyes. ‘Well, there’s no point in asking Elodie’s assistance.’ Elodie didn’t have a scrap of guile. ‘In fact, it’s probably better not to tell her anything.’
The day the Jukes were due to arrive Lillie put the finishing touches to the menu plan – oysters (being French, she was convinced that there was no social occasion that couldn’t be ameliorated by a platter of oysters), beef wellington and an elaborate cherry-filled gateau smothered in swirls of cream. She sent the menu down to Mrs Marsh, the housekeeper, then she put her mind to what to wear. As she flipped through her rail of dresses, Lillie imagined a stuffy couple rigid with tweed and florid of face, like most people who lived in the English countryside seemed to be. It wouldn’t be hard to dazzle them, she thought, but nevertheless she put her mind to it. She wondered where Elodie was, and thought about giving her sartorial guidance but, actually, it was too hot to have that battle. And Elodie wasn’t really part of the battle plan. She would fit in wherever. She always did.
Elodie was, at that moment, charging up the cliff path, running through her wardrobe in her mind, trying to remember which of her decent clothes she’d brought down from Worcestershire and wondering how long it would take the new arrival to follow her directions back to the house on his motorbike: he would never be able to get to the house by way of the beach, so she’d given him detailed instructions which took him the long way round, via the village church. She just hoped it was long enough to get changed into something respectable and do her hair.
Her mother was always on at her to pay more attention to how she presented herself. Elodie didn’t give a stuff what she had on most of the time, as long as she was comfortable, spending most of the summer in shorts and her old school aertex and a pair of battered plimsolls. She
‘They can’t read a spreadsheet between them,’ Desmond told Lillie, ‘so they don’t know they are in trouble. I need to charm them; show them the way forward – and make sure they don’t go to anyone else for investment.’
He’d been to each of the shops and assessed their profitability. Ill-stocked shelves, dilatory staff, minimal advertising, dreary window displays – the shops were sliding backwards into the post-war austerity everyone else was charging away from. And Desmond knew retail. After all, his wares were readily available all over the country. There was barely a home that didn’t have a pot, or even two or three, of Lewis jam on its shelves. From castle to council house, it was classless; universally popular.
But as Desmond had pointed out, where do you go after jam? He was tired of experimenting with flavours – and anyway the money was in the popular; for him there was little point in experimenting with peculiar fruit varieties in an attempt to brainwash the nation. No, his ambitions lay elsewhere.
So the plan was to lure the Jukes down for the weekend so Desmond could butter them up and steer them into a deal of some sort. And although she was disgruntled that her carefully balanced guest list had been tampered with, Lillie loved nothing better than a challenge and the chance to charm. One of her favourite things was to watch people melt under her ministrations. As narcissists go, she was a beguiling one who managed to make people think it was all about them, not her.
‘I hope they’re not dull,’ she warned Desmond. ‘Dull would just be dreadful.’
But, being a man, he couldn’t give her a great description. The Jukes, according to Desmond, were aristocratic but impecunious – and likely to be even more so unless they took advantage of his timely intervention. ‘They’re about our age, with a son about Elodie’s age – and he’s the one due to inherit, so we need to butter him up too.’
Lillie rolled her eyes. ‘Well, there’s no point in asking Elodie’s assistance.’ Elodie didn’t have a scrap of guile. ‘In fact, it’s probably better not to tell her anything.’
The day the Jukes were due to arrive Lillie put the finishing touches to the menu plan – oysters (being French, she was convinced that there was no social occasion that couldn’t be ameliorated by a platter of oysters), beef wellington and an elaborate cherry-filled gateau smothered in swirls of cream. She sent the menu down to Mrs Marsh, the housekeeper, then she put her mind to what to wear. As she flipped through her rail of dresses, Lillie imagined a stuffy couple rigid with tweed and florid of face, like most people who lived in the English countryside seemed to be. It wouldn’t be hard to dazzle them, she thought, but nevertheless she put her mind to it. She wondered where Elodie was, and thought about giving her sartorial guidance but, actually, it was too hot to have that battle. And Elodie wasn’t really part of the battle plan. She would fit in wherever. She always did.
Elodie was, at that moment, charging up the cliff path, running through her wardrobe in her mind, trying to remember which of her decent clothes she’d brought down from Worcestershire and wondering how long it would take the new arrival to follow her directions back to the house on his motorbike: he would never be able to get to the house by way of the beach, so she’d given him detailed instructions which took him the long way round, via the village church. She just hoped it was long enough to get changed into something respectable and do her hair.
Her mother was always on at her to pay more attention to how she presented herself. Elodie didn’t give a stuff what she had on most of the time, as long as she was comfortable, spending most of the summer in shorts and her old school aertex and a pair of battered plimsolls. She
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