From Humble Beginnings (Joe Steel) Read Free Page A

surprise.
    “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you,” I hedge. The last thing I want is to blurt something out that may or may not be true.
    She sighed again. “There’s no point asking her, she’ll just lie for daddy. She always does.”
    “I’m sure that’s not true.”
    “Go on; stick up for her why don’t you?”
    “Hang on a minute, Juliet. I’m not sticking up for anyone. All I know is that no one cares about your father’s health more than Cass. In this company,” I quickly amended.
    Her hum of disbelief didn’t come as a big surprise. Juliet was a perceptive woman; I know that to my own detriment. She had probably sensed the vibes passing back and forth between her father and his long-standing PA.
    “Well, whenever I ask if he’s doing too much, she says he’s just fine. And I know that’s not true. I’ve seen his last doctor’s evaluation. His cholesterol is far too high and so is his blood pressure.”
    I didn’t question the amount of snooping she’d had to undertake to find that report. Juliet with the bit between her teeth is like a hound scenting a fox. And the fox, or in this case her father, never comes out well in the struggle.
    “I’ve never known her to lie, Jules. Especially where your dad’s concerned.”
    “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me that,” she murmured, ignoring everything I said, save the use of her shortened name.             
    “It is?” There’s no point in hedging, I know what she’s referring to and I’m still trying to figure out where it came from!
    “Yes.”
    A slight pause settles between us. Urging my chair into movement, I turn away from the wall of glass that offers no privacy from the hallway and prying eyes to face the window that overlooks the half a dozen or so leafy copses and trees that Bernard had planted, when the government bitched at him to monitor the company’s carbon footprint.
    “Has your father asked you to organize a party for me?”
    I know she thinks I’ve changed the subject. There was a huff of disappointment in her voice, as she muttered, “Look at you! One morning as Director of Overseas Development and you’ve already developed an enormous big head!”
    “No, I just know your father. Even if I told him I didn’t want one, you know what he’s like.”
    Bernard knew how to make money. Since his days in Belsen, he’d amassed a huge fortune. But in relation to the accruing of his wealth, he spent very little of it. A sizeable chunk on his daughters and their education, where money was no object. A little on himself, because projecting the image of the MD and owner of a soon to be international company was no mean feat. His only real demonstration of lavishness stemmed from the parties he liked to throw.
    When he’d made me the Director of National Management, he took me to his tailor in Savile Row and gave me some pearls of wisdom.
    “Always dress the part, Joseph,” he’d murmured as the tailor discreetly measured my inside leg. The touch of his homeland always brushed his words, but at that moment, his Polish accent had grown even thicker. “It is important. It keeps the wolves from the door. And when you are a success, you must show it. You must declare it to the world, for only that will keep you safe.”
    In his shirtsleeves, rolled up to his elbows for comfort’s sake as he ate a crumbling Danish pastry the tailor had proffered him upon our arrival, his fingers had abandoned the cake and unknowingly rubbed the scrawled tattoo on his forearm that marked him as a Jew. Even all these years later, his experiences of the Holocaust never left him.
    I’ll never forget that day. Nor his words.
    “Well, you’re right. As usual,” she mumbles, sounding peeved. Her voice breaks me from my thoughts. “I’m tasked with arranging it. Not Cass, for once.”
    Call it instinct, or second sight, but I’d known that this party would be being arranged by Juliet. I wouldn’t put it