The only problem with living out in Buckinghamshire was the journey home, thought Molly, pressing her foot down on the accelerator. Marcus had given her his Maserati two weeks ago after he had bought a brand-new silver Jaguar XS. She loved the way it ate up the road. Even though she had not officially moved into The Standlings, she was fast beginning to think of ‘the manor’ as home. Her interior decorations were almost complete, most importantly the conversion of a bedroom into a climate-controlled ‘his and hers’ dressing room into which Molly had moved all of her extensive wardrobe. She was also delighted with the new Smallbone kitchen with its racks of shiny Global knives she would never touch and the brand-new panelled library designed to look 300 years old. The pièce de résistance, however, was the ten-man indoor hot tub, modelled on the grotto at the Playboy mansion. Molly had been itching to have one of those since she had been to a party there in the 1980s – now that was a great night out, she smiled. Marcus, however, had almost had a meltdown at the expenditure Molly was racking up, but even he had to admit the place looked amazing.
If she could have picked up The Standlings and dropped it in the middle of Kensington, it would have been perfect, but it wasn’t. It was fifty miles outside of sodding London, which felt ten times longer after the two cocktails and the line of coke she had taken a couple of hours ago when she met some friends in Notting Hill for lunch.
She pushed her foot down even harder, wanting to get home for 4.30. She had discovered a wonderful woman in the village, a former beauty therapist at Dorchester spa who had downshifted to Buckinghamshire and came round to Molly’s once a week to do a very respectable manicure and pedicure. As she hit sixty mph on a B-road, her mobile rang and she reached across the passenger seat to grab it. She hadn’t seen the slight bend in the road, and the car jerked as it mounted a roadside kerb. Molly dropped the mobile phone and tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she tried to control the vehicle. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she muttered as the front left wheel bumped back on the tarmac. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ she yelled, banging her palm against the dashboard as the sound of a police siren wailed behind her.
She’d been whisked through the court process. Molly had actually considered herself lucky to get away with a £2000 fine and a twelve-month ban on her licence after she had seen the three po-faced country bumpkins on the magistrates’ bench. No amount of Chanel or pearls was going to sway those inbreds, she thought. She was entirely correct. Molly was convicted of drink-driving when the bench completely rejected her mitigating plea that she had needed to drink vodka cranberry to sort out a nasty bout of cystitis. Still, at least she hadn’t received a sentence of community service – imagine! Scraping chewing gum off railway bridges with her nails? – and hopefully her driving ban would mean that Marcus would finally sort them out with a Midas Corporation driver.
‘Now we really have it to get this sorted,’ said, Marcus seriously, sitting on one of the slate-grey sofas in The Standlings’ drawing room with the cold, efficient manner of somebody who was dealing with a business problem. ‘I have phoned Alcoholics Anonymous but apparently they don’t take bookings. They say you need to initiate it yourself by going to a meeting. I think that would be a good first step, Molly.’
Molly sat back with the sulky, truculent expression of a grounded teenager. Marcus had spent too many years in America, she thought; he was beginning to sound like Oprah.
‘I am not going to Alcoholics Anonymous because I am not an alcoholic,’ she said, stubbornly refusing to meet his gaze. ‘And before you ask, I’m not checking into the bloody Priory either.’
‘Well, what about another rehabilitation programme then?’ he continued soberly. ‘I have a friend who has recommended a very discreet place in Wiltshire. It’s tough, but apparently they have incredible results in three or four weeks.’
‘Marcus!’ Molly slapped her hand against the George Smith velvet sofa with a thud. ‘You aren’t listening! I am not an alcoholic or a coke-head. There is no problem to solve apart from finding the two-thousand-pound fine you’re too stingy to pay for me.’
Molly got up and started pacing around the drawing room, while Marcus watched her closely, as if she was going to do something foolish at any time.
‘Well, what are you going to do Molly? We cannot let the matter just rest here. You know I love you, but I do think you have a problem and we need to get it sorted.’
Molly knew that there was no wriggling out of this situation. Marcus had been like a dog with a bone since the offence; he’d got some crazy notion that this was all for her own good. As if, she thought. She had no intention of sitting on a plastic chair talking about her terrible childhood with a bunch of losers at AA, or disappearing off the circuit for four weeks to go cold turkey in the middle of nowhere. But it was clear from Marcus’s belligerent expression that she had to do something. With an offer to move in to The Standlings full time surely just around the corner, she wasn’t going to take any chances.
‘I do have one idea,’ said Molly, going to Marcus’s chair and sitting on the floor, her chin on his knee. ‘I know how much this means to you – to us – so I am going to stop drinking and I know of a fabulous way to start.’
‘Molly, this is more serious than—’
Molly ignored Marcus’ protests and pressed on regardless. ‘My friend Donna runs a detox retreat at Delemere Manor. I know it’s nothing official like rehab,’ she said, trying to look as penitent as possible. ‘But it’s pretty much the same thing. Really rigorous, totally healthy. Organic menu, meditation and yoga, emphasis on spiritual and mental wellbeing …’ She smiled up at him hopefully, creeping her fingers up to his crotch for good measure.
‘It sounds more like a holiday,’ said Marcus.
‘It will be bloody hard work,’ said Molly indignantly.
Marcus looked at her, seeming to weigh it up. ‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘It’s a start, at least.’
‘Wonderful. I’ll phone Donna and tell her to squeeze me in and then I think I’ll pop into London to buy some new gym kit. And maybe get that pedicure. Can’t have shiatsu with hangnails, can you?’