was at the front door with the largest of three suitcases. She turned very slowly, took a deep breath, was on the verge of saying something unkind but thought better of it. Instead she continued towards the front door.
‘Here, let me help you. Before you scuff the paintwork as well.’
‘It would have been nice if you’d spared the time to do your own packing as well,’ Connie muttered, then, more loudly: ‘I think I can manage, thank you.’
Greg moved towards her just as she got the front door open. There ensued an unseemly scuffle as he tried to wrench the case from her hand and she held fast. It was Abigail who stepped in.
‘Mum! Dad! Why do we have to start every summer holiday with all this aggro? It will be brilliant once we get there and we’re going to have a LOVELY time! Let’s get on the freakin’ road.’
*
Fifty miles away, in an expensive corner of South-East London, Connie’s sister Pru was waiting for her pedicure to dry. She’d been up since four, tying up a few overnight loose ends that her overseas office had thrown up. These commercial surveyors could be such a bore. Now, she was lying on the bed in her extremely white and bright but sparsely furnished bedroom – a room so desperately tasteful it wouldn’t have looked out of place between the covers of Elle Decoration. She watched as her beauty therapist packed away the many pots of nail polish and lotions she had used on her client.
‘Thank you so much, Esther. I love this colour. What’s it called again?’
‘Pantie Glimmer,’ said Esther, a tall slender girl with a violent fake tan.
‘Pantie Glimmer? Where do they get these names from? I should think taupe was a perfectly adequate description.’
‘Yeah,’ deadpanned Esther. ‘But not very sexy, is it?’
Pru was about to argue the merits of taupe, one of her favourite shades in décor and clothing, but was stopped by a gentle knock on the door.
‘Enter,’ Pru called.
The door opened quietly and the slightly anxious face of her husband, Francis, appeared.
‘Hello, darling. You look marvellous.’ He took an appreciative sniff of the room. ‘Lovely smell. What is it, Esther?’
‘Ylang-ylang, geranium and sandalwood. It’s very good on ageing skin.’
Beneath her perfectly styled, short and sleek brown hair, Pru’s face stiffened, and her blue eyes took on a look that could only be described as icy. Francis hurriedly said, ‘Well, that’ll be lovely when my wife needs it.’ He turned to Pru: ‘Jeremy and I are ready when you are. I’ve packed the car and I’ve got some sushi for the journey.’
‘In the cool box?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there fuel in the tank?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me ten minutes. Oh, and remind Jeremy that once we start there’s no stopping. I want to be there in under four hours.’
‘Righto.’
Francis went downstairs, confident that he hadn’t forgotten anything.
Exactly ten minutes later, having sent the Aveda beautician packing, Pru swept out of the house to find her sixteen-year-old son already in the back seat, iPod headphones stuffed in his ears, and her husband waiting to shut the front door.
‘Is the alarm primed?’
‘Yes.’ Francis nodded.
‘Are the window locks checked?’
‘Yes, Pru. All sorted.’
‘Good. Let’s go.’
Pru walked to the driver’s side and got in. The keys were not in the ignition. Francis heard her tut of annoyance and, realising his mistake, hurriedly pulled the keys from his pocket and handed them over. ‘Sorry, darling.’
Pru checked her face in the wing mirror and started the engine.
‘My skin isn’t getting old, is it, Francis?’
‘Good lord, no.’ Francis smiled at her.
‘I didn’t think so.’
She slammed the gear stick into drive and pulled away in a spray of gravel before either son or husband had done their seat belts up.
*
Connie was aware that she was clenching her jaw. Her shoulders were up round her neck and her hands were in tight fists on her lap.
‘Can’t you drive any faster? This is a motorway. You can do eighty without getting stopped. The police accept that.’
‘No, Connie. The limit is seventy and that’s what I shall stick to. I’ve got nine points already. If I get stopped again, they’ll throw the book at me. Can you imagine what your father would say? The expenses I put in for chauffeured cars last time I got banned were horrendous.’
Connie bit her lip and looked out of the window to distract herself. They were passing the exit for Bristol Parkway station. The junction for the M5 wasn’t far. Another half an hour and they’d be at Taunton Deane Services. She could have done with a loo stop and a Costa coffee, but she was determined to arrive at Atlantic House ahead of Pru. This year the best bedroom was going to be hers.
She knew that she was behaving stupidly. This happened every year, and every year she got angry with herself for getting sucked into yet another silly, juvenile spat with Pru. Most of the time, Connie was a normal person: loving mum, good wife, someone who knew how to enjoy herself with friends and who appreciated her luck in life. But at the prospect of getting within ten feet of Pru, Connie started acting like a whiney, jealous teenager. It was in-furiating that after all these years she was still letting Pru get to her, but her sister’s competitive streak, combined with her superior attitude, was too much to bear. God only knew how Francis and dear Jeremy managed to put up with the woman. Connie was convinced that it was only thanks to Francis that Jem had turned out to be such a well-adjusted kid. Mind you, neither he nor Abi were kids any more; Abi’s seventeenth birthday was fast approaching, and she would be taking her A-levels next year and choosing a university. For a moment Connie allowed herself to wonder what Archie would have been doing now. Even after all these years it was hard to think about the little boy she had miscarried four months before she fell pregnant with Abi. Pru hadn’t attended his funeral; she’d been in New York on business. And she’d changed the subject whenever Connie mentioned him, closing the door on that heartbreaking grief.
Connie looked at her watch and was horrified to see the time.
Hearing her muttering under her breath, Greg glanced her way. ‘Can’t you just let your sister have the room she wants? She inevitably gets it anyway.’
‘Exactly my point. She always gets Mummy and Daddy’s old bedroom. It’s warmer, bigger and has the best view from upstairs. She knows it’s my turn this year yet she always wangles her way in. You and I deserve that room for a
