Ikea curtains, failing to be soothed by Sean’s rhythmic breathing.
This was happening more frequently: an inability to drift off and, instead, a tendency to fixate on a whole raft of worries – such as, why had Henry found it necessary to call the fire brigade tonight? Which segued neatly into growing panic over the meeting with Marsha in a few hours’ time – and the realisation that, really, the one person Roxanne wanted to talk to right now was her sister, up in Burley Bridge. Of course, she couldn’t call Della now; it was the middle of the night. However, she fully intended not to just go to her party, but to spend time with her sister beforehand to help her prepare.
Would Marsha let her have some time off? she wondered. She would have to. Roxanne was still battling with residual guilt over the period leading up to her mother’s death from cancer two years ago, and she was keen to make up for it. She knew she should have spent more time up in Yorkshire. Pretty much all of Kitty’s care had fallen to Della. Della’s ex-husband Mark had been useless; he had left her for another woman soon after Kitty’s death, just as Sophie, their daughter, had flown the nest for art college. Roxanne was well aware that several Burley Bridge villagers assumed she had been flouncing from fashion show to fashion show whilst her mother had been dying in the hospice.
In truth, a lurking sense of ineptitude had kept Roxanne away. ‘You need to get yourself up there,’ Isabelle had chastised her, ‘and help that poor sister of yours.’ And so Roxanne had eventually driven north – but felt, just as she had as a child, that she was merely getting in the way.
One of her visits after Kitty’s death had coincided with her brother Jeff and his wife Tamsin descending on Rosemary Cottage. As they had grabbed what they wanted from the house, so it had looked as if Roxanne, too, was only there to snatch her share of the pickings. She had taken an emerald felt hat with a short net veil, a string of jet beads and the pretty rose-pattered tea sets, which until recently had resided in her unused oven – and that was all. She had watched, feeling faintly disgusted, as Tamsin breezed past with boxes piled high with silverware and, at one point, a vast fur coat. Roxanne hadn’t wanted the coat – she never wore fur, and refused to feature it in the magazine. She had principles, although it hadn’t seemed like that, as Jeff, Tamsin and their twin sons had swarmed like locusts all over the house, cramming their estate car with Kitty’s possessions while Roxanne just stood there, feeling helpless.
‘Can I do anything to help with the funeral, Dell?’ she’d asked.
‘No, it’s all organised. There’s nothing left to be done.’ Her words had been delivered with a note of bitterness.
‘Can’t I make sandwiches, help with the food—’
‘We’re fine with the food, thank you!’
Well, her sister hadn’t seemed fine. She had launched herself into scrubbing and packing up their mother’s house, and announced that all she wanted was Kitty’s vast collection of cookbooks. Even more startling, Della then decided to use them to stock a clapped-out old shop she had decided to rent, and subsequently bought, along with the flat above and then the vacant shop next door – how crazy was that? Not at all crazy, as it turned out. Eighteen months down the line, Della’s bookshop had been featured in numerous magazines and even on TV. On the other hand, Jeff was still working in banking – and clearly despising it – while Roxanne had almost burnt down her flat and endured a stern ticking-off from a fireman who looked about nine years old.
Looking at it that way, she mused, still wide awake at 1.47 a.m., who ranked highest on the craziness scale?
On a bright-skied Friday morning, Roxanne opened a bleary eye and watched as Sean pulled on his jeans. Even his back view was lovely. She took in the curve of his lightly tanned neck, his firm upper arms, the graceful lines of his shoulders. She yearned to touch him, to coax him back to bed just for a few more minutes. There was time; it was just 7.30. However, Sean’s attentions were now directed elsewhere as his assistant, Louie, was already on the phone about some small drama concerning the party at Sean’s studio that night.
‘Foie gras canapés?’ he exclaimed. ‘Britt showed me the menu and they definitely weren’t on it. Has she been running away with herself again?’ There followed some urgent muttering. It was obvious to anyone who met Louie that he was clearly in awe of his employer, and Roxanne could picture the eager twenty-one-year-old’s pale face flushing, his forehead beading with sweat. ‘I don’t care if they’re on sticks – if they’re lollipops,’ Sean barked. ‘I’m not having canapés made out of force-fed ducks or whatever the hell that stuff is. It’s disgusting. Just cancel them, all right? Get onto Britt, say we’ve spoken. Okay, good. Catch you in a bit – and remember we need to be right on the nail with today’s job. I want to be finished by five so the DJ can set up for tonight.’ He finished the call, turned to Roxanne and rolled his eyes as if his fiftieth birthday party had been foisted upon him – which, in a sense, it had. ‘It’s a monster that’s grown out of control,’ he groaned. ‘What’s wrong with a big bowl of sour cream and onion Pringles?’
She laughed, slipping out of bed as he pulled on his white T-shirt. She knew the party really wasn’t Sean’s style, but that his agent had convinced him that this friends and contacts in the industry would love it. ‘Why not make a big splash? You’re only fifty once!’ Britt had insisted, having breezed into his studio when he and Roxanne were in the midst of a shoot for her magazine a few months ago. He could afford it, of course. Sean was at the top of his game right now. Whilst magazine shoots were moderately paid, he could command thousands per day for an advertising job.
‘Gotta go,’ he said now, kissing Roxanne softly on the mouth. ‘Cab’s on its way. See you tonight, sweetheart.’ There was the toot of a car horn in the street below, and he was off.
Roxanne showered quickly, reassuring herself that of course he meant to wish her good luck for the meeting; he’d just been in a hurry, that was all. Anyway, it was no big deal, and it would soon be over, and tonight she’d be clutching a glass of perfectly chilled Chablis (Britt would insist on the best of everything) at his party and having a little dance. Even aside from the fire brigade incident, it had been a long, hectic week, with problematic shoots to arrange, all under the watchful gaze of Marsha in her little glass cube at the end of the office. Roxanne needed to kick back and have some fun.
Dressed for work now, she surveyed her reflection in her dressing table mirror. With today’s meeting in mind, she had chosen her favourite cream calico top with embroidery around the neckline, plus a knife-pleated black skirt, low patent heels that would also do for Sean’s party, and a blue topaz necklace she had bought on holiday last summer with her friend Amanda. They had gone for four days to Ibiza together – Amanda’s first trip without her daughters, who were then six and eight years old and had stayed at home with their dad.
Roxanne smiled at the memory, wishing she could spirit herself back there right now, instead of heading for her meeting with Marsha. It had been wonderful. They had chatted perpetually while sipping copious sangria in the quaint bars of the Old Town and swum in the clear turquoise sea. Amanda had been the unfailingly cheerful receptionist at Roxanne’s first London office. Although Roxanne was five years older, they had become exceptionally close – and now she was godmother to Keira, Amanda’s eldest daughter. Roxanne had reconciled herself with the fact that it was probably better to not be a mother herself than to have had children with any of the low-level lunatics she had involved herself with over the years. Imagine embarking on parenthood with a man who was incapable of heating up a ready meal! But then the brandy snap debacle shimmered back into her mind, so she banished all oven-related matters from her
