6

‘Dinner party? Er, which dinner party is this?’

Rebecca took one look at my horrified face and said, ‘Shit, you don’t know about it, do you?’

‘That would be a fairly good interpretation,’ I said, at the same time as Thea began to cry and Granny Morgan’s hat deigned to finally show signs of life.

‘Right, listen. I’m going to fetch Lilian in from the car if that’s OK with you and then we can all pile in to help with these babies. Honestly, Hat, once you’ve seen Lilian in action you’ll wonder how you ever managed without her.’

Was she any good at helping to dispose of battered and murdered husbands? I wondered crossly, as I simultaneously filled the kettle, jiggled my daughter on my shoulder and almost fell over the black fur ball that was now sniffing interestedly at my ankles. Suddenly there was an unholy shriek and I looked down to see Bones embedded in the puppy, digging his claws into the poor creature’s back, attempting to drag him off to his lair by the Aga. Bones had always had aspirations to being an eagle – he once dragged Ralph-next-door’s Sunday roast chicken through the cat flap, devouring it in front of our eyes while daring us, with deep seated growls, to take it from him – and this puppy was obviously just another chicken dinner to a bully like him. Where the hell had Nick and his mother slunk off to?

‘Put the dog down.’ The soft, Irish lilt didn’t betray the pure steel behind the command ‒ and an astonished Bones, recognising an equal in determination if not in stature, immediately released Sam and pelted for his cat flap. ‘You must be Harriet,’ she said, picking up Fin, who was about to add his wails to the clattering cacophony. ‘Point me in the direction of your nappies and I’ll change this one and then come back for the little girl.’

‘Right. Yes. OK.’ I didn’t quite know what else to say. Together we went up the stairs, and within a couple of minutes – and with lots of little soothing words, tickles and whisperings in his ear – Lilian had sorted Fin, laid him on his mat under the mobile and was reaching for Thea.

‘Erm, do you mind if I just find my husband before he leaves for work, Lilian? I need a few words with him.’

Lilian smiled, and her whole face lit up. She must have been knocking on sixty, and yet she appeared to have as much energy as someone thirty years younger. ‘You’ll be after having a little chat with him about this dinner party he’s let you in for? Rebecca’s just told me about it and asked if I can help. I’ll be glad to, so go easy on him.’

In fact I was desperate to get Nick on his own so I could talk to him about Libby. Sally Saxton’s insinuations were still my number one concern and I needed to know if he had any idea what she might be talking about. Underage drinking? Drugs? Unsuitable boys? Kit had said she fancied someone. I did hope it wasn’t someone from down on the Eastfields estate. And I needed to find out what the hell he was doing asking people to dinner when I was up to my ears in children and dogs and looking like a road accident. Oh, and bloody hell… Alex. A little involuntary lurch of my nether regions was not, I knew, a result of yesterday’s bath straddling, but a fleeting vision of the blue eyed one pulling a pristine white T-shirt over his head.

‘Nick? Nicholas?’ I hissed, knocking on the bathroom door before letting myself in and closing the door again. I didn’t want Lilian listening in on our conversation. For someone who, ten minutes ago, had been looking remarkably the worse for wear, Nick now appeared quite chipper, even humming to himself as he shaved.

‘I don’t know what you’ve got to hum about,’ I said crossly, poking him in the ribs for good measure. ‘So when were you going to tell me about these people you’ve invited round tomorrow?’

‘People round? Tomorrow?’ Nick looked at me through the mirror. ‘What people? Oh, shit. I did, didn’t I?’ Nick began to laugh. ‘Bloody good vodka, that.’

‘So good it’s robbed you of your memory? Right, Nicholas, think. Who have you invited? I already know about Rebecca, The Russian and that friend of yours. How come he turned up last night?’ I didn’t want to say Alex’s name out loud. Didn’t want Nick to hear any latent lust in my voice.

‘Which friend? I’ve got loads of friends. Made loads of new friends last night.’ Nick cackled again.

Oh, great. Had he asked everyone from the pizza joint? The pizza eaters probably thought last night’s little circus was just the warm up act, and they’d be more than up for the main event back at the drunk’s house on a Saturday evening.

‘Should you be driving? Where are you off to?’ I asked, when we seemed no further on with the actual numbers of people invited.

‘Manchester, to meet Anasim. Think I’d better go on the train. Saves parking at the other end.’

‘And from being banned from driving. OK, is that it? Anyone else I should know about?’

Nick closed one eye, swayed slightly, and, obviously searching any brain cells that hadn’t been pickled, listed on his fingers, ‘Rebecca, Anasim, Alex, Alex’s girlfriend, Seb…’

‘Seb? So presumably Grace as well?’

Nick frowned and winced. ‘Grace? Well, yes, of course Grace, if Seb’s coming. Thought it would be a bit off not to invite him when I was inviting all and sundry around him.’ Nick began to look a little pale as the number of guests added up.

‘All and Sundry?’ I actually laughed at that. ‘Sounds like a laundry firm. Well, that’s OK: there’s a pile of washing waiting to be done in the utility room.’

‘No,’ Nick said, seriously, ‘I don’t think they had anything to do with laundries. I think they were teachers. Ah, that’s it. I remember now. They’re both teachers at Kit’s school. Kit pointed one of them out to me.’

‘You’re joking? Kit’ll love you for that.’

‘Yes, actually I do remember Kit kicking my leg several times.’ Nick pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a couple of bruises. ‘Look at that, the little sod.’

‘Nick, if I’d been there, I’d have bloody well broken your leg. Both of them. Right, do you think that’s it? Because, before you tell me what you intend cooking tomorrow night, I need to talk to you about Liberty.’

‘Liberty?’ Nick frowned again and sat down on the edge of the bath. ‘What about Liberty?’

‘While you and your mother – where is she, by the way? – were either sleeping off excess vodka or plotting about that damned dog downstairs, I was having a confrontation with Sally Saxton, who took great delight in informing me that it was Liberty that I should be worried about, and not India.’

Nick looked puzzled. ‘Why? Is Libby being bullied by Adriana?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Nicholas.’ I did sometimes wonder how my husband was capable of running a business like L’uomo if he was unable to grasp what I was getting at. The tedious minutiae of everyday life passed Nick by when he was on a roll with business: when totally focused on one aspect of his life, he seemed to have no space in his brain for anything else. Like a lot of men.

‘Sally Saxton implied that it was Liberty we should be concerned about – that she was up to something.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Nick said. ‘Libby’s a good girl. Like her dad.’

‘Do you think she’s doing drugs? Having sex?’

‘She’s sixteen,’ Nick said, always ready to believe the best of his eldest daughter.

‘She’s seventeen and, in those tight leather pants and with all the make-up, looks twenty-one.’

‘Sally Saxton is doing it again, Hat. You’re mad to listen to her. Right, I’m off. I’m going to ring for a taxi to the station and then get a train to Manchester. What time tomorrow night shall I tell Anasim?’

‘It’s your do,’ I said sweetly. ‘I’m leaving it all up to you.’

I found Lilian back in the kitchen, chattering nonsense to the twins and emptying the dishwasher, while Rebecca was clearing away the detritus of my family’s breakfast. I was slightly embarrassed that other people were doing my work for me, and said so.

‘Get over it, Hat,’ Rebecca said, putting a viscid jar of honey away in the wrong cupboard. ‘Lilian knows exactly what she’s doing, even if I don’t.’ She smiled ruefully as she looked for somewhere to wipe her sticky fingers. ‘Right… Lilian is more than happy to sort things here. You can have a long chat with her later about hours, money etc.. Let’s have a coffee and talk dinner party.’

‘You really don’t need to do much cleaning, Lilian,’ I protested, as Lilian started to wipe out the sink. ‘I do have some help in the house. My cleaning lady comes in three times a week. She’s due later in today.’

‘Even better,’ Rebecca beamed.

‘I’ll be giving these two a bottle, then, and perhaps take them out for a walk with the dog.’ Lilian moved to the fridge, where I’d left bottles ready made up.

‘Are you sure? I mean, the two of them are a bit of a handful.’ I was unsure about this. They were my babies. How would they react to a stranger?

With coos and gurgles of delight was my answer. Lilian handled both of them with such calm confidence, they were putty in her hands. It was like watching the horse whisperer in action. Rebecca, seeing my face, laughed. ‘Told you,’ she said. ‘OK, paper and pencil and let’s sort tomorrow. You haven’t shown me your refurbished playroom yet. We could go down there.’

‘OK, you win.’ Although feeling slightly bullied, it was a bit of a relief to hand over the reins, as it were, to the horse whisperer. ‘Hang on, where’s Sylvia? She’s supposed to be driving back down to Surrey this morning.’

Lilian smiled her lovely smile. Incredible how a smile was able to change facial features so much. She was not a beauty by any means – but that smile, almost beatific, lit up her whole face.

‘Sure, the poor lady’s not well.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Must be something she ate. She’s taken to her bed for a little while.’

‘Or something she drank,’ I laughed. ‘She’d have been arrested the minute she got in her car.’

*

I was so proud of our new room that I was more than happy to show it off. Originally the kids’ playroom, I’d commandeered it when they got to the age that they were off at school all day because it was the best room in the house. Facing south, so that it was flooded with natural light for much of the day, it had French windows that opened directly on to the ravishing view of the valley below. When Nick’s business, The Pennine Clothing Company, had gone under, along with so many more during the recession, we were saved from having to sell our house only by a newly widowed Sylvia moving in with us to share bills. By converting this fabulous room into a granny flat for my mother-in-law, we’d been able, by the skin of our teeth, to stay where we were rather than selling up and moving to somewhere smaller and cheaper. On the day she moved in, I’d wept buckets.

But that was over three years ago. Nick’s new business was expanding at an almost alarming rate and Sylvia was back down south where she belonged, about to become Lady Colin Fitzgerald. As soon as I was convinced Nick’s business was sound and he really was making money again – once you’ve teetered on the edge of going under, it takes nerve to find your sea legs once again – the first thing we did, after mending the hole in the roof, was to change the granny flat back into one big room again. Unable to spend any money on the house for a good number of years, once I was given the go ahead, I’d spent many happy hours during my pregnancy poring over interior decorating books until I found exactly what I wanted.

‘Oh, wow.’ Rebecca, never short of something to say, was momentarily speechless. The new dark blue and cream striped curtains were pulled back, framing the autumn trees in the garden and beyond to full advantage. Two huge, squashy navy sofas, hardy enough for kids to bounce on but elegant enough for adult taste once the children were in bed, were almost hidden beneath a mass of navy and cream piped cushions. The one long wall devoid of either door or window had been given over to literally hundreds of both my and Nick’s, as well as the children’s, books, while upmarket navy and cream striped beanbags sat, throne like, on the polished, blonde oak floor. A huge new Persian rug, richly woven in reds and dark blues, lay between the sofas – and we’d installed a Sonos music system, together with Bose speakers for an instant choice of music. I went over now to select an eighties track I knew had always been a favourite of Rebecca’s from our grammar school days.

As the first notes of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ filled the room, Rebecca took her coffee over to the open French window, watching an incredibly hyperactive squirrel making preparations for the coming winter.

‘It will be fine with Mrs D, you know,’ she said after a few moments. ‘She is the most competent, caring and loyal woman I think I have ever met. I know you think you can do it all, Harriet, but just be kind to yourself for a change. You’ve gone from teaching full time again, to giving birth and caring for twins as well as looking after the other three. And being the mother of a gorgeous creature like Libby can’t be easy.’

‘What makes you say that?’ I asked, instantly alert.

Rebecca turned back to the view. ‘Oh, just that she’s very lovely and you’ll have every man in the area panting at your door over the next few years. Does she have a boyfriend?’

‘According to Kit there’s someone she fancies. Mind you, she tells me nothing.’ I sighed. ‘God, Rebecca, wouldn’t you just love to be that age all over again? To fancy the pants off some boy?’

‘You’re not kidding. I have to say, not having seen her for a while, that she seems to have suddenly blossomed into a young woman. And an incredibly gorgeous one at that. Everyone in the restaurant was looking at her last night. You’re going to have to keep an eye on her. Chastity belts at the ready, and all that.’

‘I know,’ I said gloomily. ‘It doesn’t half make you feel old seeing your daughter as almost grown up. I sometimes feel I’m past it all.’

‘Yep. ’Fraid it’s all downhill from here on. Lines, menopause round the corner, everything heading south. Do you know, even my knees have wrinkles? I think I might consider Botox soon.’

‘What, for your knees?’

‘For every bloody thing.’ Rebecca sighed. ‘Anyway, changing the subject, have you seen Grace lately? Well, yes, of course you have. She’s your best friend – you two have always come as a pair. I called in last week at that dreadful place she’s insisted on moving into. She’s in a state, Hat. She needs help.’

‘I know. She was great when she’d just given birth to Jonty, but you’re right, she isn’t in a good place now.’ I frowned, realising what I’d said. ‘She’s gone to stay with Amanda, you know.’

‘Blimey, how long for?’ Rebecca was shocked. Like me, she knew just how much Grace disliked Amanda. ‘For a couple of days, or what? Seb, too?’

‘Well, yes, as far as I know the three of them have gone. You’ve seen the farm. It’s not fit to live in. She’s better out of it. But I can’t understand why they don’t rent somewhere until the builders have finished. Can you imagine living with Amanda?’

Rebecca visibly shuddered. ‘Much as I adored Amanda when I was twelve, I can’t think of anything worse than sharing a house with her. I’m surprised Amanda wants Grace there. They never saw eye to eye.’ Rebecca giggled. ‘Do you reckon Amanda will confiscate her mascara and stop her running down her stairs like she did at school?’

I laughed. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her. But Amanda will put up with having Grace there so she can get her hands on Jonty and have Seb at home again for a while.’

‘Do you reckon?’ Rebecca considered this for a moment. ‘You’re probably right. Anyway, what about that Alex guy? Where’s he sprung from? I’m assuming he was there last night to meet up with the Russian.’

I could feel myself going red at the mention of his name. This was ridiculous. ‘Alex? I think he’s been taken on by David Henderson and Nick. Don’t know much about him, really.’

‘Really? Have you not met him? He and his girlfriend did suddenly turn up out of the blue last night, so I reckon Nick must have texted him to join him and Anasim. I think you’d already left.’ She laughed. ‘Well, he’s coming for dinner tomorrow, and bags sitting next to him. In fact, it will be great fun doing the seating plan. How serious is it with his girlfriend? Where does he live?’

‘Rebecca,’ I protested. ‘I’ve really no idea. I don’t know anything about him.’

Except I fancy him like mad and every time his name is mentioned something happens in the region of both my heart and my – not quite as bruised and battered as yesterday – bits and pieces.

Rebecca grinned. ‘Well, I shall have great fun having a little flirtation with him tomorrow night under his girlfriend’s nose. I reckon he’s a Jelly Deal, don’t you?’

‘A Jelly Deal.’ I smiled, remembering. ‘You know, I’ve not heard that expression for years. We made it up when we were in the sixth form. Do you remember? We’d been reading Marlowe’s Dr Faustus in English Lit. and about his deal with the devil, and then Jenny Taylor – I do hope she married and changed that very unfortunate name – was going on and on about that boy from the boys’ grammar school she was going out with.’

‘Yes, and to shut her up I said he was a Jelly Deal. That he was red hot, fruity and sweet at the moment, but if she made the deal to have sex with him she’d come to a sticky end.’

I laughed. ‘You were really mean to her. She stormed out of the common room, crying. Actually, I think it was more that you insisted on calling her “genitalia” as much as her boyfriend a Jelly Deal.’

‘Mean I might have been on both scores,’ she laughed, ‘but, from what I recall, both names were entirely appropriate. He got her pregnant and she had to leave school, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, poor thing. She was used as a warning by my mum for years. “Remember Jenny Taylor,” she’d shout after me if I were going out to a party or with someone new. My sister, Di, and I used to be in hysterics.’

‘I use the term Jelly Deal all the time for whenever I come across a situation that seems sweet and wonderful but you know deep down is toxic.’

‘Adriana Saxton is a Jelly Deal, I guess.’ I’d already told Rebecca about my dealings with Sally Saxton earlier that morning.

‘Absolutely,’ Rebecca agreed. ‘Sweet and delicious when she wants to be. But poor India will wobble if she continues in a friendship that is essentially quite poisonous and one sided.’

‘I know. She was certainly wobbly last night. All I can do is be there for her until she realises Adriana’s a Jelly Deal and stops being friends with her.’

‘You’re right, that’s all you can do.’ Rebecca nodded and then, lowering her voice, said, ‘Talking of Jelly Deals in your family, what’s been happening with your brother and Amanda lately? Anything?’

During one of our girly nights out I’d told Rebecca, perhaps somewhat unwisely, about my brother John’s continuing lust for Amanda Henderson. Amanda had broken his heart when, at the age of eighteen, she’d taken up with him the summer of her A levels – her ‘bit of rough’ was apparently how she’d described him – abandoning him as carelessly as a dropped piece of litter once she went up to Oxford. Mum and Dad, Diana and I had certainly known about it at the time – our whole household was in turmoil, caught up as we were in the sheer drama and misery of John’s broken heart. What none of us knew, until Amanda had come back into our lives last year and John had confessed all to me, was that Amanda had only to look John’s way and he would still come running. She had, apparently, like a bored cat with a mouse, played with him for the last twenty-five years or so.

‘I really don’t know, Rebecca,’ I snapped. I hated the idea that Amanda might still, after all these years, be toying with my brother. ‘And to be honest, I don’t want to know. What my idiot of a brother gets up to with Little Miss Goodness is absolutely no business of mine. Or yours.’

Rebecca held up her hands and pulled a face in protest. ‘Fine, fine. Sorry I asked.’ And then, obviously embarrassed by my rudeness, smiled and said, ‘Gosh, I forgot we used to call Amanda Little Miss Goodness when we were at school. Who came up with that? Grace?’

‘Who else?’

‘They really didn’t get on, did they?’

I smiled. ‘Well, we were all secretly in love with Amanda, but once she got to be head girl she just became a total despot.’ And then, feeling a bit mean that I’d snapped at Rebecca re my brother, said, ‘and, if we’re talking Jelly Deals, no one came to a stickier end than my mum with Amanda’s father, Frank Goodners.’ Rebecca knew all about my seventeen year old mum having Frank’s baby and then being abandoned by him, so that Mum had had to give the baby up for adoption. Again, we’d only found out all this last year, so ashamed had Mum been of having a baby when she wasn’t married. And with the boss’s son, who didn’t want to know.

‘Anyway,’ Rebecca now said, ‘I reckon that Alex guy is definitely a Jelly Deal. He’s a bad boy if ever I saw one, and I’ve had some dealings with bad boys in my time.’ Rebecca’s eyes gleamed. ‘You just have to know how to play Jelly Deals at their own game.’

‘I’ve never had the chance,’ I said, a little sadly. ‘Sometimes I feel I haven’t really lived. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my life, I love Nick and the kids, but…’

‘But you’ve never had a Jelly Deal?’ Rebecca laughed. ‘But we’re all different, Hat. For some reason, probably because of my own somewhat dysfunctional parents, I’ve never really been able to play Happy Families with one man. I’ve tried, three times, as you know,’ Rebecca smiled ruefully, ‘but I just don’t seem very good at it. I get bored. You’re different, Hat. You are a one-man woman.’

I sighed. ‘You’re right. I am. But it was just something Valerie Westwood, my old deputy head, said a couple of weeks ago. She came round one evening and brought some little tops she’d knitted for the twins. We ended up sharing a bottle of wine and talking about life, as you do. Valerie must be pushing sixty-five – she’s certainly been going to retire for years – and, to be honest, I’ve never really had much time for her, she’s so bossy and opinionated. But after a couple of glasses of wine she suddenly said, “Do you know what I regret, Harriet? I regret not having slept with lots of men. I’ve got to my age and only ever had Raymond. I mean, how do I know if he’s any good in bed when I have nothing to compare him to?” I really wanted to laugh at the time, the thought of old Valerie Westwood getting down and dirty with a whole string of lovers. But now I understand what she means, because, at the end of the day, I’ve only had sex with three men – well, two, really, because the first was just an exploratory fumble…’

I tailed off when I saw the look, almost of horror, on Rebecca’s face, that she very quickly tried to hide.

‘We’re all different,’ she said again, rearranging her face. ‘What suits one doesn’t suit another. Now, what about this dinner tomorrow night?’ Rebecca picked up the pad of paper she’d found in the kitchen and began making notes. ‘People coming? What are we eating? When I leave here, I’ll go and do the shopping for you. We can keep it simple, or I could do an Ottolenghi for you?’

‘Ottolenghi?’

‘Oh, everything’s Ottolenghi now. Where we used to do a Delia, now it’s Ottolenghi.’ Rebecca laughed. ‘Ottolenghi’s balls are to die for.’

‘Right, we’ll have the great man’s balls then, if you say so. Nick can do his famous duck pâté for the starter and I’ll make a couple of pecan pies for pudding. Cheeseboard to finish.’ I was beginning to look forward to having people round. Apart from Mum, Dad and Diana, and Sylvia and Judge Colin, we hadn’t entertained since long before the twins were born. ‘Will Lilian mind helping out with the kids tomorrow night?’

‘No, of course she won’t. She’s already said she will. She really loves being part of a family.’

I was curious. ‘Does she not have any family of her own?’

‘Not that I’m aware of. She has two grown up children, but she really doesn’t talk much about them. I know she left Ireland quite a few years ago and has worked for several families here in Yorkshire. Her references are immaculate and she has up-to-date police checks. She’s a great cook, too.’ Rebecca put a final flourish to her notes and got up to go. ‘I have a feeling, and I might be quite wrong about this, that somewhere in her past she’s had her own Jelly Deal and she’s never got over it.