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?
