Percy Crow

Chapter Three: Soft Box

It wasn"t until late in the evening that I arrived back at The Hall. Serena had called me twice whilst I was away. The first time to say that she was bored, and the second to tell me that her hairstylist was coming; again! Serena"s hair was almost as important as her fashion designs; requiring infinite attention. As Joseph, my long-suffering, stolid butler, greeted me at the door I heard the shrill sound of playful voices coming from somewhere inside.

“We have unexpected company, my Lord.” If Joseph was uneasy with anything he addressed me as he had just done. More often than not he was in absolute command over the house and then I was referred to as plain "sir".

Serena bounced towards me, on the tips of her toes, as though she was a ballerina performing little pas de chat steps. She was either excited by her new hair colouring, or it had sent her stark staring mad. It wasn"t long until I found out.

“Follow me, Harry. My heavenly creative team are here awaiting you. Oh, I also invited a couple of business associates up from London as well. Something vitally important came up suddenly. We have been busy in your absence. Don"t mind, darling, do you?”

“Don"t I get a kiss nowadays? There I was thinking that it was my body and scintillating personality that attracted you, when all the time it was my money and this spacious place that you were after.” I smiled of course, but I was slightly annoyed to find that it was open house to strangers. I needed time to think, not socialise.

“Tanta, you"ll meet him in a second, just loves your cows, H. He positively fell in love with one of them, I"m telling you tears were in his eyes in adoration!” I got my kiss, and doubted that anyone named Tanta was a farmer, but looked on the bright side in case I was wrong. At least there was another man amongst her normal all female cast of attendants.

“I was raised in the belief, Serena, that if one stocks cows then it"s better to milk nice ones than the ugly ones. For myself, I try not to fall in love with four-legged cows as much as I do with the corresponding two-legged variety, but there"s no accounting for taste.” My displeasure was fading but not fast enough for her.

“Have I caught you in a bad mood, H? I do hope not, as simply everyone is over the stars here in ecstasy!”

As I quickly dismissed the thought of some drug-induced party held in my beloved county of Yorkshire, I caught sight of Joseph who was hovering, ostensibly to take my attaché case and coat, but I sensed his displeasure. He and I had been together for too many years not to be able to understand situations without the need of speech.

“I"ll have the car garaged, sir,” he stated on his departure, carrying away my coat. Serena took hold of my hand and led me towards the introduction of her assembled retinue of assistants.

“Do you adore the new hair colour, Harry? Say you do, or Tanta will be just so upset he"ll probably cry again. The poor chap is undergoing traumas of emotions so far from his home. The country air doesn"t suit his personality at all! I thought he was going to choke when he got out of the taxi.” There is a waft from the muck that I"ve heard to be considered unpleasant by city-lovers but surely not by a lover of cows! I concentrated on Serena"s hair rather than the unbelievable.

“Purple is it, or crimson?” I asked, ignoring all references to tearful, sentimental cow lovers who found fresh air alien to their nature. As much as I was interested in everything about her, the variance in shades of colouring was not foremost in my mind.

“Tanta has christened it crimple. With the added cute advertising line of: The Fulfilled Fusion of a Fateful Future! Creativity at its best, Harry, can"t you just believe it. I instantly flew two of my design team up here as we"re going to use the colour for this year"s upcoming winter coat collection. We"re working flat out on it now. There is a bit of a rush to get it to the machinists. Most other designs are waiting in warehouses.”

The entourage, in one of the smaller upstairs drawing rooms, numbered six: Tanta, the maestro with the imaginative creativity. A huge black man with plaits of pure white hair trailing down his back as far as his knees. Shoulders and neck definition that reminded me of a bodybuilder and the frame of a super heavyweight boxer. He was wearing a full-length, loose-fitting grubby garment that I can only describe as a coat smock. He never looked like a tearful girl to me!

A petit, quiet Chinese girl with short lifeless black hair named Bao, the pedicurist. She was minute in frame and height. Walked with her feet turned painfully inwards and had such intoxicating blue shadowed eyes that made it almost impossible to look away from. She frightened me.

The manicurist! A strikingly good-looking woman named Fiona. In her early thirties with a figure to die for. She spoke with a faint Scottish intonation, giving her the extra s*x appeal that her body definitely did not need. With her I desperately fought against the thought of discussing Scotch whisky; and several unrelated topics that I had a liking for. Even though I was with Serena, I had not abandoned my characteristic flirtatious ways.

The hairstylist, an immensely expensive, middle-aged chap with a French name I had instantly forgotten, who only cemented my innate dislike of that race. Then came the two fashion photographers. Both appearing to be in need of a substantial meal to fill out sections of their corresponding yellow dresses that might make it easier to guess as to their gender. One of these under-nourished girls was beside a soft box, with light-reflecting umbrellas and a fish fryer. She was standing alongside the second, who was at a tripod mounted digital Canon camera. My late younger brother Edward sprang immediately to mind, as it was he who had first used the terminology that I instantly remembered when I had seen him in the exact pose here at The Hall. They all mumbled a faint hello, then assumed their previous positions.

After a curt, compact conversation with the assembled, separated by another of Serena"s kisses and an inconspicuous smile from me in Fiona"s direction, I made my excuses and left, wishing my fingernails needed cutting.

“Get Mrs Franks to bring something from the kitchen, then I"ll be back shortly to share it with you. Make it something easy,” I added as an afterthought, with mind to Tanta"s size. “As I believe she may be on her own in the kitchen at this time of night.”

I showered, then met with Joseph half an hour later in my private office.

“I need to go and stay in London for a few days, Joseph, visiting George in Eton Square. Then no doubt there"ll be other things to do and people to see that I haven"t met in ages. Could you telephone him tonight to arrange a visit for late next week please? I"ll check my diary and leave a list of meetings to cancel, and I"ll tell the estate manager of my plans. It could involve a long absence, but I"ll try my best not to make it so. You know how much I hate London.”

“And what will the young lady do whilst you"re away, my Lord? Will she be going with you?” Joseph was uncomfortable again.

We had been in the room for no more than a minute when Serena appeared at the open doorway. She had never before shown an interest in my personal affairs, be they playing around with chemical analysis or just the simple experiments I did in my adjacent laboratory, being totally engrossed and passionate about the fashion industry, something that was completely foreign to me. I was taken aback for a moment!

“So, this is your holy sanctum, Harry. I expected more grandeur! One of walls lined with television screens connected to world centres and striking matching clocks announcing the time in Tokyo and New York. I"m a bit disappointed, to say the least. The estate office is of far more interest. So much more happening in there! Very sedate this one, too quiet for my liking. Why am here? Oh yes, I remember. We have just emailed the sketches of those coats I mentioned, to Franco in Milan, along with photos of me in this new hair colouring. He was so impressed with the colour that he wants it in this September"s fashion show along with my entire summer and autumn collection. This September, can you believe it, Harry, this one! Paris, New York and London are no problem, they"re next year! But Milan; in just over eleven weeks! It"s virtually impossible unless I have them machined in the next few days. I"ll need more machinists, and then more! Then there"s the models to hire! Where will I get the stylists? Oh Lord, I need help and desperately soon. Plus, I simply must get shoes. I really, really must!”

I was pleased that the doorframe to which she clung was sturdy and solid, not likely to fall apart as she seemed on the verge of doing. I looked at Joseph just as he averted his eyes away from Serena towards the ceiling. The situation needed a spot of light-hearted inspiration.

“I really don"t know how I can help, my dear. I"m no slouch with a needle and thread in an emergency, but I"m no seamstress. Not so sure about Joseph though! Saw him darning a great big hole in some socks once. How about it, you up for a bit of overcoat sewing, Joseph?” He laughed as did I, however, the joke passed without a Serena laugh.

“Don"t be a silly imbecile, Harry. I have experts to make up all my designs. Plenty enough! No, the help I want from you is simple. You just have to let me go for a week or more and live without me. I need time at my workshop in Lisbon. I"ll be leaving first thing in the morning. September, can you credit it!” At that she was gone, to be replaced by the widest of grins on Joseph"s ugly face.

“When I marry the girl I will have to seriously think about retiring you, Joseph.” If it were possible, I"m sure his smirk got wider as he left whistling a tune I didn"t know. He knew me too well.

It took me almost one week to the day before I had managed my affairs and left Harrogate for London, during which time I spent many hours telephoning friends and acquaintances, trying to discover more of Katherine"s surprise.

* * *

My family connection to George was complex. He was Katherine"s much older stepbrother, sharing the same father, Paulo, but that was not the only similarity: neither had known much about their respective mothers. Katherine had known her mother for a short eight years before she was killed in a bomb attack whilst Paulo was assigned in his Russian ways to Beirut. George, on the other hand, had only known his mother for just under two years. But for fifty-two years she had kept Paulo"s secret, misleading George to believe she was his aunt! The complication I had was that my great-grandfather, Maudlin, was their grandfather. I only found all this out a short while after I had a brief affair with Katherine.

When Elliot, my father, and then my brother Edward were murdered, I settled the family"s London town house in George"s name, he was after all Elliot"s butler-c*m-secretary, and everything else for that matter. Loti, his mother, whose name had been changed by Maudlin on her defection in London, moved in at the same time and for the short period they had together they lived a happy, contented life. It took George a considerable time after I buried my own father and brother, to finally accept that he would never know more of his own father than what he had managed to glean at our only meeting with Paulo in Switzerland. The fact that he"d had Loti in his life in lots of ways eased the loss, but I was never entirely sure just how affected he was. For my part, that settlement was not just done for some altruistic reason, nor through a sense of benevolence towards the two of them. I hated the smell, the taste and the clamour of London, but most of all I hated its classist society. It had never been my desire, at any time throughout my life, to live there.

Big cities are not my scene at all, with London being in my opinion especially full of people who judge others on their outward appearance and social position in life, more than what they are. My family is one of the oldest in England. Able to trace its roots as far back as the fourteenth century and King Edward III"s daughter Elizabeth, more particularly to her husband and a lover, but I do not fit the model of the rich landed gentleman farmer type, and have no wish to do so. I treat everyone on merit and expect the same in return. George had been my friend and companion at Harrogate Hall from my birth, until his departure to London. His true identity had been hidden from all of us by Maudlin, and would have remained a secret had I not uncovered the truth.

The Eton Square home had housed all the youngest sons born into the Paterson family, whose role was to manage the private bank in Queen Ann"s Gate, affectionately known as Annie"s, since its inauguration. This was where Maudlin served time and began his vast photographic collection. Edward"s collection had been moved there too, from the rented apartment where his dead body had been found, just around the corner in Cadogan Gardens. Annie"s had been removed from the Paterson"s control on the death of Elliot and although no family member actually served there anymore, my name was amongst its list of directors. As far as London, Eton Square or the bank were concerned, if I never saw any of those places ever again in my life I would not shed a single tear, but it was to London I had to go. The only connection I had to go on between Maudlin and Percy Crow was photography. I wanted some information before meeting Katherine, something yet to be arranged.

* * *

I arrived at London, King"s Cross at two that Friday afternoon and was on the doorstep at Eton Square thirty-five minutes later. My first time there since Loti"s funeral, ten months previously. As I stood, waiting to push the imposing brass doorbell, the few good memories I had of my father in this house were overshadowed by the despondency of all the members here when Elliot had been found shot in the head. My own insecurity was salvaged when Mrs Squires, the cook, and now the only occupant other than George along with a footmen and a maid, greeted me with the same warm, overflowing enthusiasm that I received when I was a child on a town visit. I had known the two of them all my life, with only fourteen years separating George and me, but both looked tired beyond their years. George looked closer to seventy-eight than the fifty-eight years he really was, with Mrs Squires looking frail and aged. The thought of a genealogist pinpointing the exact nature of George and my relationship was complete anathema to me.

After the usual questions regarding health, that I didn"t want to delve too far into considering their appearance, I moved the conversation onto the reason for my visit, laying the copy of the local newspaper cutting detailing Percy Crow"s death, with a full facial photograph, part of Jimmy Mercer"s yellow file, in front of them both, on the vast table in same sitting room as my father had been found. Not a single emotion, centred on his demise, passed through me as I entered the room. The framed photos of Maudlin and other Patersons remained unmoved, as did the painted portraits on the wall. I wondered if it was through a sense of devotion to the Paterson family or one of indifference to change in general.

“Do you know this chap at all, George, or have either of you seen him before?” I asked, noting that his once immaculately close trimmed goatee beard had somewhat grown amok and was fast becoming one of those increasingly fashionable unshaven looks favoured by soccer players. I was tempted to ask if his sanity was in decline but I refrained, fearing his reply!