The Surprise Party

Rose looked at him and laughed. ‘That isn’t what I meant and you know it,’ she said. ‘All this—’ she waved a hand to encompass the day – ‘out by ten, slap-up breakfast on the way here, God knows how many hours spent trudging around a stately home and gardens. This from a woman who usually wants to stay put and be waited on hand and foot while she’s staying with us. Can you remember the fuss she made last time she was over and we suggested a day out at the seaside?’

‘Maybe she’s had a change of heart.’

Rose sniffed. ‘Fleur’s never had a heart, Jack, she’s got a calculator.’

Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘Play nicely. You have to admit she’s been all right while she’s been over here this time. Maybe she’s mellowing in her old age. Maybe she’s beginning to realise what she’s missing. And like she said, she’s only over here for a couple of weeks this time around and the gardens are only open to the public for a month every year.’

‘Fleur hates gardening.’

‘Yes, but she knows that you like it,’ said Jack.

Rose looked sceptical. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. When was the last time Fleur thought about anyone but herself? When she gets back I’m going to ask her what she’s done with my sister.’

Jack laughed and then, changing the subject, said, ‘Actually it’s been a really nice day all round, hasn’t it? I’m really looking forward to a pot of tea and some cake.’

‘And that’s another thing – buying us tea and cakes,’ said Rose. ‘Fleur’s purse is usually welded shut. So far she’s insisted on paying for us to get in and fought like a tiger when we offered to buy her lunch.’ As she spoke Rose counted the things off on her fingers. ‘And now she’s gone trotting off to go and get the teas. I don’t understand it at all. There’s something up. You don’t think she’s ill, do you?’

‘What?’

‘There’s bound to be something more to this. I’ve been trying to work it out all day. Maybe she’s softening us up so she can break the bad news.’

‘What bad news?’ asked Jack anxiously.

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Maybe she’s coming home for good. Maybe she’s finally outgrown Australia. Oh my Lord, you don’t think she wants to come and live with us, do you?’

Jack shook his head. ‘No, of course not. Maybe she’s just . . .’ he began, obviously struggling to come up with some explanation, while fiddling with a sugar packet, tipping it end over end so it made a sound like waves breaking on the beach. After the tide had rolled in and out half a dozen times, he shook his head. ‘No, actually, Rose, you’re right. I have no idea what Fleur’s up to, but to be honest it makes a nice change. In all the years I’ve known her she’s never so much as offered to buy a cup of tea, let alone treat us to a day out. And you have to admit she’s been really cheerful and good company today. I’m really rather enjoying myself.’

As if to underline the point, Fleur reappeared from inside the teashop carrying a huge tray. Jack leapt to his feet to rescue her. Rose smiled. Jack was always the perfect gentleman even when it came to her grumpy sister.

‘Here, let me have that,’ he said, taking it out of her hands. ‘Bloody hell, that looks amazing, you must have bought half the shop. Are you trying to feed us up?’

‘Thanks, Jack,’ said Fleur with relief. ‘I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a selection of little sandwiches and cakes. There’s salmon and cucumber, egg and cress, Victoria sponge, and a lemon drizzle cake. Oh, and Danish pastries.’

Rose looked at them in astonishment. ‘We haven’t long had lunch, we’ll never eat this lot.’

‘I know, I got the boy behind the counter to give me a box so we could take home what we don’t eat. Waste not want not.’ Fleur settled herself down at the table. ‘So have you enjoyed your day so far?’ she said, in a tone that suggested it was a leading question.

‘Yes, we were just saying that it’s been lovely,’ said Rose, watching her sister’s face for clues. ‘I was going to talk to you about that.’

‘The thing is,’ said Fleur, leaning forward to unpack the cups and pour the tea. ‘Coming here today. To the gardens. It wasn’t really my idea.’

‘Now there’s a surprise,’ said Rose, shooting Jack a knowing look.

‘Actually it was Suzie’s. She said that you’d always wanted to come here and as it’s your fortieth wedding anniversary she thought it would be a nice gesture—’

‘If you brought us?’ asked Rose sceptically. ‘Why didn’t she bring us herself?’

‘Well, the thing is, Liz is taking us all out to dinner tonight and Suzie got you those lovely olive trees and to be perfectly honest I couldn’t think of anything else to buy you. So I thought this would be the perfect present – a nice day out. Just the three of us.’

‘I don’t know why you bothered. You never bought us anything before,’ Rose said, the words out before she could stop herself.

‘That’s hardly fair,’ said Fleur. ‘I gave you that lovely cut-glass decanter, remember?’

‘Which someone gave you,’ Rose fired straight back.

‘Only because I thought it was more your sort of thing than mine and how was I to know that you knew the man at the garage?’

‘They were giving them away with petrol tokens,’ said Rose to a bemused-looking Jack by way of explanation.

‘Yes, but the promotion was over,’ protested Fleur.

‘I know,’ said Rose. ‘The man in the garage told me they were throwing the rest of them out and asked if I wanted one to match the one I’d already got.’

‘You said you liked it.’

‘I was being polite,’ growled Rose, ignoring the sandwiches and helping herself to the chocolate éclair from the selection of cakes on the plate.

‘I was going to have that one,’ Fleur said, sounding hurt.

‘I know,’ said Rose, biting off the end.

Jack, who had been watching the exchange, looked from one sister to the other. ‘When did we ever have a cut-glass decanter?’ he asked.

‘Fleur gave it to us as a wedding present,’ said Rose, through a mouthful of éclair. ‘I gave it to your mum for Christmas.’

Jack sighed and made a start on the sandwiches.

Chapter Three

Across the garden of Jack and Rose’s cottage, in a secluded spot behind the summerhouse, and as far away from the marquee as it was possible to get without actually being in the neighbour’s vegetable patch, Hannah – Suzie and Sam’s older daughter – threw herself down on the grass alongside her little sister, Megan. She put her hands behind her head and closed her eyes.

‘That’s it. If anyone asks me to carry just one more thing round to that bloody marquee I’m seriously going to flip out. Really. And Mum is just so stressy about everything at the moment. I mean, I was just getting myself a drink from Grandma Rose’s kitchen and she comes in and reckoned I was skiving off. As if. I mean, just how unfair is that? I said to her, I don’t have to be here you know. We’re volunteering, it’s not like we’re getting paid to help out or anything.’

‘It’s Grandma and Granddad’s party,’ said Megan.

‘I know that,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m not totally thick, you know.’

‘Well, you don’t get paid to go to a party.’

‘You do if you help. Those waiters and the people in the kitchen aren’t doing it for nothing, are they?’

Megan considered her answer and then after a second or two said, ‘That girl was round here looking for you a little while ago.’

Hannah opened her eyes and pushed herself up onto her elbows. ‘What girl?’

‘You know, the one that came round to tea. The one Mum says is trouble.’

‘Sadie Martin.’ Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘It’s only because she dyes her hair. And she’s fine. It’s Mum and Dad – they are just so narrow-minded about anybody not like them.’

‘She took the mickey out of everything, doing that funny voice, all that “Thank you, Hannah’s mum”.’

‘She was just being polite,’ Hannah grumbled. ‘She was not,’ said Megan. ‘And then she did that thing when Mum asked her if having her nose pierced hurt.’ Megan mimed an eye-rolling, sarky face. ‘And when Mum said about her having her hair streaked and how she’d done hers when she was a teenager and Sadie said, “I didn’t know they had hair dye then.”’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did she want?’

‘She’s the one who swears a lot?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I do know who you mean, Megan. She’s okay.’

‘Mum says she probably takes drugs—’

‘Well she probably does but that doesn’t make her a bad person. Okay? Or me a bad person for knowing her, come to that. All right?’ Hannah snapped.

‘Don’t have a go at me,’ growled Megan. ‘I’m just saying.’

‘Well, don’t,’ growled Hannah, closing her eyes again.

There was a moment or two of silence and then Megan said, ‘She came round with some boys.’

‘Yeah,’ sniffed Hannah, not stirring. ‘What boys?’

‘I dunno, just boys. One was sort of blond with cut-offs and a hoodie – like a skater, you know – and the other one was tall and thin with spiky hair.’

Hannah pulled a face, feigning nonchalance; it sounded like Simon Faber and Stu Tucker. Tucker had been seeing Sadie on and off for months and Simon . . . well, he was really cute and Sadie had told Hannah that he fancied her, but Hannah was playing it cool because Sadie could be cruel sometimes, and it might just be a joke and then how stupid would Hannah look?

‘How long ago were they here?’

Megan considered; time wasn’t really her thing. ‘I dunno, maybe twenty minutes. Dad sent me over to the summerhouse to find the extension lead for the lights. You were in the house getting a drink – so not that long really.’

‘So what did you tell them?’

‘I didn’t tell them anything. I just said that you were around somewhere and wouldn’t be long, but she said they didn’t want to hang about.’

‘Right, and did you say what I was doing?’

Megan looked at Hannah warily, sensing a trap. ‘No, not really, did you want me to say something?’

‘You didn’t say we were helping out or anything, did you?’

Megan shook her head. ‘No. Why would I?’

‘Good, only I told her there was a party here tonight.’

‘Oh my God. You haven’t invited Sadie Martin to Grandma and Granddad’s anniversary party, have you?’ asked Megan, incredulously.

‘No,’ Hannah spat contemptuously. ‘Don’t be such a moron, of course I haven’t, Mum and Dad would go ape if Sadie turned up with all the wrinklies and crinklies about. No, I just said there was going to be a party here and that there was going to be booze and food and stuff.’

Megan nodded. ‘And what, they came round to see if you were telling the truth?’

It was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to Hannah. ‘No, course they didn’t,’ she said angrily. ‘They probably just came round to see if the booze was here yet, and see if I wanted to hang out with them this afternoon, that’s all. Did they say where they were going?’

‘Down the Rec—’

Hannah got to her feet and brushed her clothes down. ‘Okay, well, if they come back tell them that’s where I’m heading.’

‘You’re not going down there now, are you?’ asked Megan anxiously. ‘Only Mum said—’

‘I know what Mum said,’ Hannah snapped. ‘And anyway I won’t be very long. They’ve got loads of people to help. They won’t miss me if you don’t say anything.’

‘But what about all the stuff we’ve got to do?’ Megan protested. ‘You told Mum you’d help her with the tables and the buffet. You said.’

Hannah dismissed Megan with a wave of her hand. ‘Give it a rest, will you? I’ve just said I’m not going to be that long; besides, we weren’t at Grandma’s wedding first time round, and the whole point of a buffet is that you help yourself, all right? It’ll be fine, just don’t let on to Mum that I’ve gone with Sadie, all right?’

And with that Hannah was off across the grass, heading towards the back gate and the lane beyond.

‘Hannah, Megan? Are you there?’

Right on cue, Megan heard her mum calling from the other side of the garden. She turned towards Suzie’s voice and then turned back again to see if Hannah had heard her, but her sister had already gone.

‘Oh, there you are,’ said Suzie smiling, as she watched Megan skipping over towards the marquee. Both of her daughters were growing up so fast. She looked around to see if she could spot Hannah among the girls working around the marquee. Probably off sulking somewhere, knowing Hannah. Over the last few months it had felt as if someone had stolen her lovely, happy, helpful, funny daughter and left a grumpy, sulky, argumentative troll in her place. Suzie was almost relieved not to see her and have to badger her into pulling her weight.

‘I had to go and get Dad an extension lead,’ said Megan in reply to Suzie’s unspoken question as they headed into the tent. ‘I put it round the back with all the rest of the lights and stuff.’

‘I wondered where you’d got to. Do you mind giving me a hand with the tablecloths? It’s really simple. Big white one on first and then a red one over the top at an angle – I’ll show you. And then I’ve got a box of table centres,’ Suzie pointed to the bar that had been set up in one corner of the marquee, alongside which was a stack of cartons. ‘They’re in those. If you could just put one on each table, then the girls can come and set up. Have you seen Hannah anywhere?’ she said, looking past Megan into the little knot of people who were unfolding the long buffet tables.

Megan hesitated for a split second; she didn’t like to lie, especially not to her mother, although not for any particularly high moral reason so much as her personal experience of the big, big trouble she could get into if she was found out.

‘I saw her a little while ago,’ Megan began, deploying the semantic defence of youth. ‘In the garden.’

‘Right—’ Suzie began, but before she could ask the follow-up question, someone called out to her.

‘Suzie?’ One of the caterers waved from the prep area. ‘I was just wondering if I might have a quick word with you?’

Suzie nodded. ‘Of course.’ Turning back to Megan, she said, ‘Do you mind carrying on on your own? I won’t be long, I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘Sure,’ said Megan, flicking the first of the snowy white cloths out over the table. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Good girl,’ said Suzie warmly.

Megan smiled. She had a strong sense that there might be extra brownie points awarded to those people who actually stayed around long enough to help with the party.

*

Jack and Rose’s cottage was the last house at the end of the lane, and was bordered by the hedges that the two of them had planted when they had first moved in, a mix of black-thorn and dog rose that filled the gaps between a row of great polled limes. The trees had been there as long as anyone could remember, and today were heady with perfume in the late afternoon sunshine.

In the middle of a sea of summer colours, the low pan-tiled roof of the cottage swept down to frame sleepy-eyed dormers drowsing in the summer heat, and a heady old rose rambled lazily around the door and up the walls, the faces of its flowers tipped towards the sunshine. And if the cottage looked a little weather-beaten and tired after all these years, then the garden was a glorious homage to the English country garden at its best, set with great drifts of peonies and lush beds of lupins, hollyhocks, delphiniums and foxgloves.

Upstairs in the guest bedroom, Liz had her mobile phone pressed tight to her ear.

‘Hello, Grant darling, I was just ringing to see what time you’ll be getting here. And I wanted you to know that I’m missing you lots and lots. I’ve made sure there’s some decent champagne tucked away for us, and I’ve booked us in to a super little boutique hotel – we can grab a cab and head back there after the party. We don’t have to stay here obviously, and we can always leave early if it’s too dull. I mean, people will understand. Kiss, kiss, darling. I can’t wait to see you,’ Liz purred, all the while watching herself in the bedroom mirror.

She pushed up her hair on one side to judge the effect; the tumble of hair and a little pout made her look sexy and vulnerable. She made a mental note to try out the look on Grant later at the hotel.

She didn’t really want him staying at her parents’ place among the faded florals and nasty cranberry colour carpets with no en suite and a bed that squealed like a wounded buffalo when you so much as turned over.

Nothing much had changed in all the years since Liz had left home: downstairs in the hall they still had the chart measuring how much the girls had grown every birthday, now with a new column added for Suzie’s two; and on the hallstand, she knew if she dug deep enough into the pile of coats she could probably still find her old school coat in among them.

The whole house was furnished with a mishmash of furniture, some bought second hand, some given, some picked up from the local auction. There was nothing new, nothing matching, with an assortment of chairs around the farmhouse table in the kitchen and a Welsh dresser stacked with odd plates, things Suzie’s kids had made at school and cards that went back to God knows when. While in some ways it was deeply comforting, it wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to inflict on Grant.

Suzie’s house was not an option either – in lots of ways it was worse, with noisy children, dog hair, cat hair, a hall full of gardening tools and furniture which owed far more to shabby than chic. No, a nice little hotel was the best option.

The place she’d booked into had a really good write-up in the Telegraph and had been awarded all kinds of stars and crowns and crossed cutlery for being tiny, hard to find, pernickety about who they let stay and very, very expensive. Grant would adore it.

Liz turned left and right to admire her reflection in the three-paned dressing table mirror. Her new hair extensions really worked. She’d bought a new robe in jade-green silk especially for the weekend – a colour which the girl in the shop had said really brought out the colour of her eyes – although however good it made her look, it was a bit flimsy for Norfolk and Liz wondered if she wouldn’t be better off in the old woolly tartan that still hung on the back of the door in the bedroom she used to share with Suzie.

‘If you would like to re-record your message . . .’ The high-pitched nasal female whine of Grant’s voicemail cut in, breaking her train of thought. Liz frowned and cut off the recording; she didn’t like to think of anyone getting between her and Grant, especially not another woman.

Grant – Grant Forbes. She let the name roll over her tongue. Businessman, entrepreneur, man about town, man with more than one house in more than one country, man with several cars. Man who had sent the maître d’ across a crowded restaurant in Paris with a single rose to ask if he might join her and then wooed her with champagne cocktails – now that was style.

Just the sound of his name made Lizzie smile. It sounded solid and at the same time sexy in a sort of American, cosmopolitan way – and Elizabeth Bingham-Forbes sounded really, really good.

Enjoying the flight of fancy, which had occupied quite a lot of her time over the last few weeks, Liz imagined what it would be like to be Mrs Bingham-Forbes.

‘Do come through and let me introduce you to my husband, Grant,’ Liz would say at the elegant dinner parties she would host for the great and good in their perfect, perfect townhouse in Hampstead. Or maybe they’d have friends to stay down at their country place – there would be staff obviously, and someone to walk the Labradors while they were away. As one fantasy gave way to another, Lizzie held up her showbiz personality of the year award, very slightly teary but not completely overcome, and through a brave, brave smile said, ‘Before I thank anyone else, I want to say a big thank you to my darling husband Grant for believing in me and for always being there for me.’

She could see the pictures in the tabloids now. Their eyes locked in love, lust and utter undying devotion across a crowded room. They’d have to have a table near the stage obviously, or the camera angle wouldn’t work. Liz made a mental note to find out exactly what it took to get a table right at the front at those things.

Grant was perfect. They had been dating for almost five months now. And okay, so maybe he was just a teensy-weensy bit overweight and his teeth weren’t that great, but she had given him the number of a guy who did the most fabulous cosmetic dentistry and sent her dietician his email address. And after Grant had sent the third or fourth bunch of roses Liz had explained to him that the whole red roses thing was a bit tired and sent him the link to the website of a little florist she always used; they knew what she liked.

Grant seemed quite keen too, even though they were both really busy and didn’t get that much time together. They’d been to see some new play written by some chap Grant had been to university with, and a private view at Tate Modern of a sculpture exhibition by some foreign woman with big hair who kept going on about how cuttlefish were a metaphor for disappointment, which apparently wasn’t a joke, even though Liz was absolutely certain she wasn’t the only one who had laughed. They hadn’t quite got around to the whole cosy nights in together yet, but she was sure that would come once she’d got Starmaker ’s new season’s preliminary meetings and photo sessions sorted and out of the way.

They had also been to a couple of premieres and been out to dinner a few times, although Grant had seemed a bit put out when the PR girl from Starmaker had rung half way through the first course to see where to send the photographers.

When Liz had suggested Grant drive up to her parents’ party and meet the family, he had hesitated for a split second, and then said he would really love to come, and then something else, although Liz hadn’t quite caught what he said because the shampoo girl was ready to rinse her off, and Dieter, who looked after her nails, had just brought over the new shade card for her to take a look at.

Liz had emailed Grant the directions and the postcode and then, just in case he still couldn’t find it, had popped round to his house while he was at the office and got his Polish cleaner to let her in so she could programme the route into the sat nav in his new 4x4 and the Audi. Grant had taken the Aston to work, which was a real shame because she had been hoping that that was the one he’d come up to Norfolk in.

Mrs Elizabeth Bingham-Forbes. Lizzie Bingham-Forbes. It sounded so good, so natural, it just rolled off the tongue.

Liz glanced down at her newly manicured hands; obviously it was a way off yet but she was thinking maybe a big solitaire might be nice, with something really special inscribed inside the band. Or maybe there was something antique and elegant in Grant’s family that had been passed down from generation to generation. That would be nice. It would probably need remodelling but people with taste understood that.

If the ratings for Starmaker carried on as they were then they could probably swing a deal with Hello! or OK for the rights to the wedding. It had crossed her mind on the drive up to Norfolk that maybe she should get her agent onto it now – or at least dip a toe in the waters to see if they would be in with a chance.

Lizzie wriggled her fingers in anticipation, then leant forward to look more closely at her face in the magnifying mirror she’d brought with her, turning her head one way and then the other, gently pulling the skin of her cheeks up a little with her fingertips, wondering whether the time had come for a little lift.

One of the make-up artists on the show had recommended she try a new Russian cosmetic dermatologist called Gregor who had been working on a radical new treatment to deal with lip lines, crow’s feet and loss of elasticity. Not that Lizzie had any of those problems yet of course, but Gregor said he was always keen to start early – better to preserve rather than repair – and that she had the most wonderful skin tone and quality for someone of her age.