Although early October, the day had been warm, clinging to the last vestige of what had been an incredibly good summer. The doors to the garden had been open wide most of the afternoon, allowing the scents of the still flourishing roses and Kit’s newly mown lawn to drift into the house and mingle with the smells of garlic, rosemary and basil. Ottolenghi’s balls were ready and just needed Rebecca’s finishing touch, and Nick’s duck pâté was sitting on individual plates in the overfull fridge, balancing on several bottles of a really decent New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. India had insisted on helping me lay the table in the dining room; we very rarely used this room except perhaps at Christmas and on occasions like this. In the centre was the large oak dining table and chairs we’d inherited from Sylvia once she’d made the decision to up sticks and move in with us after Nick’s father had died. I hadn’t wanted to share any part of my house with either Sylvia or her dining table but, at the time, it had been the only solution to our financial problems. To my shame, I’d accepted the table and chairs rather more readily than my mother-in-law, and was now quite attached to them. Sylvia, whose encounter with an excess of vodka had delayed her return to Surrey and Judge Colin, had started her journey back home at lunchtime, but not before gazing rather wistfully at her table and then more meaningfully towards Nick.
Ah, well, I was going to enjoy it while we had it. India had found some rather jaunty blue gingham napkins in the drawer and – together with a navy tablecloth and a bunch of sweet smelling blue and white stocks – we’d created, I hoped, an informal and attractive table. I really wasn’t into table places: it was every man for himself grabbing the best place, usually starting in the middle of the table – which, inevitably, meant Nick and me sitting at the ends of the table where, I suppose, all good hosts should sit.
Kit, who was not at all impressed with the idea of his French teacher coming to eat (‘He’s not going to ask me to go through avoir and être, is he? Because I still don’t know the bloody difference’), had been bribed, with the promise of a takeaway curry, to light a fire in the sitting room. Lilian had quietly and efficiently taken over India and the twins, so much so that, after just twenty-four hours, I was amazed at how I’d ever managed without her. Bones had retreated to the garage roof for the time being where, I had no doubt, he was planning his next manoeuvre with Granny Morgan’s hat. India had been ecstatic when she’d come home from school the previous afternoon and found Sam in situ in Bones’s usual place in front of the Aga. While Bones could probably have finished off the puppy with one swing of his mammoth paw, he’d obviously been badly frightened by the well timed intervention of Sam’s bodyguard yesterday and was, for the moment, keeping out of both their ways.
‘Where am I sitting?’ Liberty asked, peering at the table before helping herself to a handful of grapes from the cheeseboard.
‘You? Sorry, darling, you’re not invited. And will you stop eating those grapes? Kit has already had most of the black ones. I don’t want to be left with just stalks.’
‘The food looks good. Rebecca certainly has a way with balls.’ She caught my eye and we both giggled. I really shouldn’t be colluding with Libby over smutty jokes when I ought to be trying to find out more about what Sally Saxton had insinuated.
‘Aren’t you going out?’ I asked. ‘Party? Over to Bethany’s?’ New boyfriend? Orgy? Bit of drug dealing? The possiblities were endless.
‘Nope. Big maths test on Monday,’ she said, picking off yet more grapes. ‘I don’t think Grace will be fit to come, do you? Seb said…’
‘What did Seb say?’
‘Well, that she’s not happy. She’s not coping. I mean, she can’t be, can she, if she’s gone to live with horrible Amanda?’
‘Auntie Grace will be fine,’ I said firmly, removing the bowl of grapes. ‘We all need to rally round and be there for her. And, if you’re hungry, go and make yourself some beans on toast. You’re not on some silly diet, are you?’ I took a closer look at Liberty as she filched a couple more grapes from my bowl before taking herself off upstairs. She was looking a bit too thin these days, and I made a mental note to watch what she was eating. The last thing I needed was a teenaged daughter with an eating disorder.
*
By seven p.m. I was ready. I’d used a gallon of concealer and fake tan and, while it was still pretty obvious I had a black eye and the tiny purple threads were not an overly good look, I didn’t really care. It would be a talking point. And, apart from that, I wasn’t looking too bad. In fact, I was looking OK. More than OK, I thought, pleased with the ridiculously expensive Marc Cain dress I’d bought in the sale at the posh dress shop down in the village at the end of the summer. I’d had my eye on it through the hot sticky months after I’d had the twins, deliberately making it the highlight of our walk to make me get off my – rather large at the time – backside. If I was ever tempted to think, ‘Sod it, I’m going to sit in the garden rather than make the walk,’ the thought of seeing the dress, and the fantasy of ever having a body again that would fit into it, would spur me on. I’d saddle up the babies – and, during the holidays, India – and off we’d go. Puffing up that hill back from the village, a glorious vision of a thin and toned future probably helped keep me sane during those early months.
All right, so I’d had to invest in one of those Suck everything in and don’t ever breathe again little underwear numbers from M&S – Nick had fallen about laughing the first time I’d tried it on and I had had to shout for his assistance to actually get the damned thing off – but the effect on the dress, especially when coupled with my new L K Bennett Sledge heels, was fantastic. My pinkest lipstick, a squirt of the old Aromatics, and I was ready for action.
I didn’t realise just how much I’d missed having people round. Over the last couple of years, when money had been so tight, we’d rarely entertained apart from a bog standard spag bog with Grace and Dan in the days when they were still together. I wasn’t quite sure what Dan was up to these days: Nick, maniacally involved with his new business, seemed to have lost touch with him as well. Rebecca and Nick appeared to have everything under control in the kitchen and Lilian, after a couple of hours’ break in the afternoon, was back at the helm with the children.
I’d tried to speak to Grace after my conversation with Libby but, when I phoned, Amanda said she was asleep. She had tried, Amanda went on, to persuade Grace to come over tonight: that she, Amanda, was more than happy to look after ‘the little man’ (erlack) but she couldn’t promise Grace would be there. This was not like Grace at all.
‘She’s had a first baby a bit later than the norm,’ said Lilian, when I went back downstairs to see the twins. ‘You women expect to be thin and back in your jeans’ – she glanced at my artificially hoisted up and held in bum, encased in the black Lycra dress – ‘within a week of giving birth, and then go to pieces if you’re not. It’s all that Victoria Sponge woman’s fault – four babies, and thin as a stick.’
I laughed at that. ‘I think you mean Victoria Beckham, who used to be one of the Spice Girls, Lilian. I wouldn’t mind being thin as a tree at the moment – a particularly thin willow would be good – but, yes, I suppose you’re right. We middle class women do expect to be up and running to chair the next board meeting within five minutes of giving birth.’
Lilian looked shocked. ‘You’re chairman of a board somewhere? I thought Rebecca said you were a teacher.’
I laughed again. ‘Just metaphorically speaking, Lilian. Now, are you sure you are OK with the kids? The babies usually go to bed about now and India, as a special treat on a Saturday, always watches The X Factor.’
‘Oh, thank the Lord for that. If it had been the other one I might have had to give in my notice.’
‘The other one?’
‘That Strictly bloke. I don’t mind the dancing, it’s your man I can’t be doing with.’
‘Which man?’
‘Bruce Forsight.’
‘Forsyth.’ I giggled. ‘I know what you mean. He’s one of those people like Bob Monkhouse or… or Ken Clarke. When they die, you’re always surprised and say, “Oh, I thought he’d died years ago.”’
Lilian looked a bit shocked again. ‘I don’t want to see the poor man dead, Harriet, I just don’t want him in my face of a Saturday night.’
‘Mummy, you’ve got it all wrong, as usual,’ India said imperiously, coming into the kitchen with some coats. ‘It’s two ladies who’re doing it now. One’s called Claudia Winklepicker and she’s got a lovely fringe. Can I have a fringe like that?’
Laughter and the usual sounds of air kissing, handing over of coats and ‘Come on throughs’ negated any response to poor old Brucie’s possible demise, and I headed off to meet our guests. A vaguely familiar man of about thirty stood in the hall, shaking Nick’s hand, just as an unfortunate Kit was heading upstairs to his room.
‘Bonsoir, Kit. Ça va? Vous vous amusez bien, ce weekend?’
Ah, right. The infamous Mr Kerr. The last time I’d seen him was several months ago at Parents’ Evening. He hadn’t seemed quite as jovial then, with Kit’s French exam results sitting in front of him.
‘Je suis, tu as, nous allons,’ Kit muttered, before bolting into his room. I wanted to laugh, but instead shook Philip Kerr’s hand and said, ‘Is your wife not with you? Nick said you were both coming?’
‘Wife? I’ve never been fortunate enough to have one.’ He tittered nervously. ‘Mine or anyone else’s.’
Gosh, and you never will with that breath and that moustache, I thought, moving slightly out of range of both offensive weapons. Philip Kerr had exactly the same moustache as that bastard of a husband in Sleeping with the Enemy. I always reckoned Julia Roberts jumped overboard from that boat just to avoid seeing that moustache on a daily basis.
‘Oh, I wonder who the woman Nick has invited is. Any idea, Philip?’
Before he could answer, the door opened and in came Rebecca, Anasim the Russian – was that a hint of mascara? His eyelashes were remarkably long and black – and some woman I’d never set eyes on before.
‘Look what I’ve found in your garden,’ Rebecca trilled. ‘Now, Anasim I met on Thursday night and Sandra – it is Sandra, isn’t it? – says she was invited… but says if it was all a mistake and the drunk who invited her hasn’t told anyone, she’ll just quietly go home and watch Strictly.’
‘Come in, Sandra. Nick did say he’d invited another woman. We thought you must be Philip’s wife.’ I reached for her jacket – but she was hanging on to it, deciding, I reckoned, whether she was actually staying or not.
‘Oh, no, she’s not my wife,’ Philip giggled, almost girlishly. ‘Pas du tout.’
‘Actually, it wasn’t your husband who asked me. It was an elderly woman,’ Sandra said, looking round as if to find her inviter and prove she wasn’t a common or garden gatecrasher.
Ah, that drunk.
‘That would have been my mother-in-law, Sylvia. You’re more than welcome. Do come in and have a drink.’
Rebecca went off to the kitchen to make sure her main course was in the Aga, and Nick ushered the others into the sitting room. Left alone, I looked in the hall mirror, checking lipstick and hair were in place. It felt like when I was fifteen and Grace and I used to go to the teenage disco in town. We’d spend the large majority of the time up in the cloakroom, adjusting or even totally redoing our make-up, desperately praying that the flavour of the month would show up. And, when one of our gang burst through the door with, ‘He’s here, Hat, he’s just arrived,’ being too nervous to go down and see for myself. This was ridiculous. I was a grown, married woman, with a lovely husband. Why on earth was I lusting over some blue eyed sex god? Very probably because he was a blue eyed sex god. I pouted at myself in the mirror, practised a mental, ‘Hi, Alex, how are you? I do scrub up nicely, don’t I, when I’m not looking like a beached whale with wet knickers, or Muhammad Ali after ten thousand rounds with Henry Cooper?’ and finished off with a very attractive tinkle, just a ghost of a laugh.
‘Why are you baring your teeth and laughing like a mentally defective hyena to yourself?’
I jumped, guiltily. ‘Why are you creeping up on people in hall mirrors?’
Liberty tried out her own pout in the mirror. ‘Your friend’s here.’
‘Which friend?’ I asked, nervously. Blimey, was my eldest daughter capable of mindreading? Oh, well, maybe no bad thing. It would pay her university fees nicely next year, once she became famous.
‘What do you mean, “Which friend?” Grace is here.’
Oh, thank goodness, Grace was here. If Grace was here it must mean she was feeling better.
Libby stomped off upstairs to her room and I hurried into the kitchen, where Rebecca and Grace were in the process of pouring a couple of very large gin and tonics for themselves.
‘Grace… you came,’ I said, hugging her.
‘Well, I’m here,’ she said wryly, ‘although I’m not sure how good company I’m going to be.’ She took a very large gulp of her gin, and then another.
Grace certainly looked better than when I’d seen her at her place two days previously. She’d made an effort with what she was wearing – black leather skirt, black suede boots and a beautiful apricot coloured, obviously cashmere, jumper – and her hair was on a different planet from how it had been the other day.
She obviously knew what I was thinking because she smiled again. ‘Bloody Amanda booked an appointment for me with her hairdresser, and also insisted I get a facial and a manicure.’ Grace proffered her nails as proof of Amanda’s bossiness. ‘I really, really couldn’t be arsed, but it was like being back at school with her as head girl. I just did what she told me.’
Rebecca snorted. ‘You never did what Amanda told you to do. You went out of your way to do just the opposite.’
‘What’s it like living with her?’ I asked. ‘It’s such a fabulous house.’
Grace shrugged. ‘I suppose it is. I’ve been sleeping a lot. I just seem so tired all the time.’ Tears welled up in her big brown eyes and she made no effort to stop them falling. The old Grace would never have cried. Even when Dan left her the only time she’d cried, she’d said, was in a taxi when she’d frightened the poor driver half to death with her wailing. She and Rebecca were very similar in how they coped emotionally. Me, I just let it all out and cried and snotted everywhere until I got a raging headache and had to lie down.
‘Have another drink,’ Rebecca said, dismayed by Grace’s tears. ‘That will cheer you up.’
‘Mother’s ruin?’ Grace sobbed. ‘I’m ruined already.’
‘Where’s Seb?’ Rebecca whispered to me as she handed Grace more kitchen towel for her eyes.
‘No idea. Look, Grace, Rebecca will go with you up to my bedroom where you can mend your face. I’ll go and fetch Seb. Do you want to go home? I don’t think you should have any more gin. It will only make you feel worse.’
‘I’m OK. Really.’ Grace sniffed, picked up her bag and headed for the door. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and pull myself together. Don’t say anything to Seb. He must be fed up of seeing me like this.’
‘Bloody hell, Hat, I’ve never seen Grace like this before.’ Rebecca said once Grace had gone. ‘Has she seen a doctor?’
Before I could reply, Nick came into the kitchen. ‘Come on, Hat. What are you doing in here? Everyone’s arrived.’
Rebecca fluffed up her hair, looked round the kitchen for a mirror but, unable to find one, used a large serving spoon to check her lipstick. ‘Oops, upside down,’ she giggled, grabbing her gin and knocking it back in one. ‘What’s the science behind that? We did it in physics at school. Snell’s law or Boyle’s law… or was it Sod’s law? Oh, do I care? Right, Macduff, lead on.’ She giggled again. ‘Lead me to gorgeous men and all the action.’
Oh, great. Rebecca was pissed, Grace was having a meltdown and I didn’t know what to do with Ottolenghi or his bloody balls.
As so often happens at dos like this, the men were standing in a group talking football and the latest car while drinking Stella straight from the bottle. The women, each with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in hand, were eyeing up each other’s shoes and bags and, as no one had really met before, trying to remember who belonged to whom.
Apart from Rebecca, who was laughing with a man whose blue striped shirted back was firmly in my vision. Alex Hamilton.
I joined the little group of women, chatted and found out more about Sandra and Gabriella – ‘Do call me Gabs,’ – Alex’s girlfriend. The two couldn’t have been more different. Sandra lived down in the village and had actually been working at the pizza restaurant when Sylvia, full of vodka and bonhomie, had insisted she come along tonight. Sandra had apparently just finished an extended earlier shift and was on her way home when she’d been sidelined to Nick’s table, where Philip Kerr, recognising Nick from Parents’ Evening, had stopped to say ‘hello’. I suppose it was a reasonable mistake on Nick’s part to assume they were a couple, but, in reality, they didn’t know each other from Adam.
Gabriella, on the other hand, was a Londoner, working in PR – I’ve never understood what PR is, despite it being the chosen occupation for myriad chick lit heroines – and was now based in Manchester, where she had met Alex Hamilton.
‘And is it serious, then, you two?’ Sandra asked. Her strong Yorkshire accent could have stripped paint at thirty yards and Gabriella seemed momentarily startled both by the direct question and the vernacular in which it was spoken.
Well done, Sandra, love, I mentally congratulated her. Just what I wanted to know.
Call-me-Gabs laughed, somewhat coyly, and said, ‘I think that’s something you’re going to have to ask the man in question. But…’ here she lowered her voice, ‘we have been together for several months now, and I do think…’
She said no more, and Sandra and I leaned forward expectantly to find out what Gabs did think just as Rebecca yelled, ‘Bollocks, the balls,’ and ran for the kitchen.
I excused myself and followed her out. In the kitchen Lilian was calmly stirring thyme and parsley into the large dish of fragrant meat, while Grace and India were putting the finishing touches to Nick’s starter. Grace had managed to repair the ravages of crying but, rather than being actively involved in the task that Lilian must have set her, was passively carrying out India’s bossy instructions.
‘Oh, thanks, Mrs D.’ Rebecca gave Lilian a big kiss and headed straight back to the sitting room. Grace picked up the huge glass of wine I’d hoped wasn’t hers, took a good slug and, before I could say anything, followed Rebecca out.
‘Oh, gosh, do you think she’s all right, Lilian?’
‘Grace?’
‘Mmm.’
‘No, Harriet, I don’t believe she is, but at least she’s stopped crying. I went upstairs to check on the twins because I thought I heard one of them crying. But when I got there I realised the noise was coming from your bedroom so I went in. I hope you don’t mind. I had a little chat with her and found her a tissue.’
‘I don’t mind at all. Thank you for that.’
‘Well, India and I will just put these ready down on the table for you, and then go and watch TV. Bread’s in the oven. You know where we are when you need us to help clear the plates.’
With the kitchen to myself, I poured myself the first drink of the evening and leaned momentarily on the granite worktop. Enjoying its cool response to my over warm bare arms, I spread them further, peering out of the open window at the night view of the valley below.
‘Is that your own special place or can anyone join in?’
I started as a warm hand fleetingly touched my arm before it reached for the bottle of wine I’d just taken from the fridge. I turned and found myself alone with the blue eyed one.