the caterers.
‘Bloody hell,’ hissed Simon, stepping up alongside her. ‘That was easy.’
Hannah looked up at him. ‘You think so?’ she said between gritted teeth. ‘I thought she was going to make me sign for it. Here, you can carry it.’
He grinned. ‘Fair enough.’
With Simon holding onto the vodka, Hannah decided to try the same tactic on one of the waitresses, who was busy unpacking a box of glasses. ‘Hello, we’ve come to pick up a bottle of champagne,’ Hannah said brightly, with a confidence that she didn’t feel.
The girl half turned to check her out and then yelled at the top of her voice, ‘Matt, can you come out here and sort this out, please? Someone wants champagne.’ At which point Hannah felt a great rush of panic and willed the ground to open up and swallow her whole, but instead her mum’s friend Matthew, who was busy in the prep area, looked up and smiled at Hannah.
‘Hi there,’ he said, ‘Yeah, that’s okay, it’s Suzie’s daughter. For Liz, is it? It’ll be fine.’ And with that he went back to whatever it was he was doing.
The girl disappeared out into the kitchen area and returned seconds later carrying a chilled bottle of champagne, which she handed to Hannah with a wink. ‘Don’t go drinking it all at once now, will you?’ she said.
‘Course not. Thank you,’ said Hannah, turning away and letting out a long slow breath as she and Simon made their way towards the door.
‘Whatever you do, don’t run,’ said Hannah out of the corner of her mouth.
Chapter Eight
‘So where exactly are you at the moment, Fleur?’ said Suzie, pressing the mobile phone tight to her ear. ‘The signal’s absolutely terrible. It’s really crackly.’
‘That’s probably the twigs,’ said Fleur. ‘I’m hiding.’
‘What?’ said Suzie in surprise. ‘What do you mean you’re hiding?’
‘In a shrubbery, near the lake.’
‘What on earth are you hiding from?’ asked Suzie.
‘Your mother and father. I thought I just saw them coming down this way. I’m supposed to be looking at some folly in the woods but my feet are killing me and it’s bloody miles away. I don’t want the two of them to catch me.’
‘Right . . .’ said Suzie, deciding that whatever the explanation was she could do without hearing any more of it; but Fleur was on a roll.
‘This is all your fault, you know. I’ve been trying to keep them out of your way as long as possible. Your mother’s been really rude to me.’
Suzie considered for a split second whether she should carry on with the family tradition. She had wet hair, was naked except for a bath towel, couldn’t find the new shoes that went with the new dress she’d bought for the party and would still be in the shower if Fleur hadn’t rung and insisted that she really needed to speak to Suzie now. Sam had assumed it was some sort of emergency and had practically dragged her out of the bathroom.
‘So how long do you think it’s going to be before you get home?’ Suzie asked, taking a long hard look under the dressing table as she spoke. Her new shoes had got to be somewhere.
‘I’m just going to go back and find your mum and dad. It’ll be a least another half hour before we leave.’
‘Okay. Perfect. Fleur, I’m really sorry but I’ve got to go—’
‘Oh that’s right. It’s all right for you, I don’t know why you couldn’t have taken them out for the day and come here with them instead of me. You know I hate all this garden lark,’ said Fleur miserably. ‘It’s been my idea of hell dragging them round this place all day.’
‘You’re doing a brilliant job,’ said Suzie as brightly as she could. ‘We couldn’t have managed to do it without you.’
But Fleur was in no mood to be interrupted, or flattered, come to that. ‘My place, I’ve got gravel, couple of strips of Astroturf, bit of paving and some plastic trees. You just hose the whole lot down once in a while to wash the dust off. I don’t hold with all this weeding, cutting and pruning palaver. Talk about a waste of time. You know your mother knows the name of all the plants, don’t you? In Latin. I’ve never been so bored in my entire life – red flowers, yellows flowers, why would anyone get excited over a bush, for God’s sake?’
Sam, who had leapt into the shower as soon as he had dragged Suzie out, walked into the bedroom wrapped in a towel. He looked at her anxiously. ‘Everything all right?’ he mouthed, indicating the phone.
Suzie nodded and gave him the thumbs up as she continued the conversation with Fleur. ‘Well, you can come home as soon as you like now, we’re more or less ready here.’
‘Thank God for that,’ sighed Fleur. ‘I’m totally petunia-ed out.’
*
Meanwhile, up on the terrace outside the stately home’s tearooms, having decided not to go looking for Fleur, and having finished off a pot of tea and the best of the cakes, Rose had left Jack sitting in the sunshine reading the guidebook, while she went off to wander around the gift shop. She had intended to go looking for plants, but what caught her eye instead was a large notice standing slap bang in the middle of the main aisle that read: ‘Unfortunately our fairy tale folly will be closed this summer for refurbishment. We apologise for any inconvenience to our visitors and invite you along next year for the grand gala opening. Special rate tickets are available at the counter.’
Rose raised her eyebrows; it looked as if Fleur was going to be disappointed after all.
*
Back at Rose and Jack’s cottage Liz was becoming increasingly flustered and annoyed. She hated to be rushed: it made her feel uneasy. Usually she allowed herself at least two hours to get ready, that was the absolute bare minimum; and as far as she was concerned it was two hours well spent.
Suzie’s daily regime appeared to involve slapping on a bit of moisturiser, some mascara and an old pair of jeans. But then again there was nothing in Suzie’s precious organic vegetable patch that was going to think she’d let herself go just because she wasn’t in full make-up at six in the morning for some stupid promotional do in a park in the middle of nowhere. No cabbage, courgette or cauliflower was ever going to suggest Suzie needed to lose a few pounds, no leek would ever mention in a meeting that they had seen this fantastic new girl on some obscure cable show who was really hot and incredibly talented and only twenty-bloody-three.
Oh no, in her line of work Suzie could go on till she had a face like a badly worn moccasin, whereas in Liz’s profession one slip, one slide, one filler session gone wrong, and you could find yourself hosting an afternoon car boot show. Once you reached a certain age it was easy to glide from golden girl to Granny’s collectibles in one short step, and while Lizzie actually felt that she was at her peak and had several good years ahead of her yet, it was important to be ever watchful, to keep herself in shape, keep up with those facials and not let time get the upper hand.
The gym, Botox, fillers, Gregor and his diabolical machines were going to be an occupational hazard
