‘And Lawrence?’
Tor drained the remains of her champagne flute and began to eye the Grey Goose vodka cocktails that were doing the rounds.
‘He’s off to South Africa soon, for six weeks, possibly more. Filming bloody elephants …’ She paused for a moment and looked up at Ellie with a doleful expression, adding quietly, ‘… And I’m still not pregnant.’ For the briefest moment she wondered if she might confide everything in her friend, divulge the secret little plan she’d recently been cooking up in her head, but Tor knew that to say it out loud meant making it a reality and she wasn’t sure she was quite ready for that yet.
Ellie slid her hand across the table and placed it on top of Tor’s.
‘Oh honey, I’m so sorry,’ she said with genuine regret.
Tor swallowed down a lump as sharp as glass. She knew that Ellie meant it, that she above all others most understood the pain and disappointment that had become a seemingly permanent fixture in her life these last couple of years. After all, they had spent a long time under the same fertility doctor, a man who had been hailed as a so-called miracle worker, yet so far had been unable to work his magic where she and Lawrence were concerned. Or the Scotts, for that matter.
‘Your husband’s sperm count is seriously diminished, Mrs Mayfield,’ Doctor Fouad had gently reminded her during her last, and final visit. ‘I’m not saying it’s impossible – I believe nothing is impossible – but I am saying that it is very unlikely that you’ll ever conceive with your husband again.’
With your husband. Those words had haunted Victoria ever since.
‘There’s still hope,’ Ellie said in a bid to pull her friend out of her obvious black mood. ‘You’ve got to keep trying, keep believing. You’re still young …’
Tor gave a derisive snort as she drained the remains of her fourth Kir Royale. All that sweet cassis was beginning to make her feel a bit nauseous now, but to hell with it. On the fertility drugs, she had never imbibed more than one glass of fizz on a special occasion; fat lot of good it had ever done her. She was sick of remaining positive and ‘turning the frown upside down’ as Lawrence was always reminding her; she wanted results, not kind words. You couldn’t love and feed and nurture kind words. ‘Anyway,’ Tor straightened herself out before she unravelled completely. ‘How’s the venue search going? Found anywhere suitable yet?’
Ellie welcomed the conversation’s change in direction.
‘Now that you come to mention it …’ she said, beginning to explain all about the amazing old warehouse in Soho that Vinnie had found. ‘… It’s completely perfect – everything I’ve been looking for.’
Tor forced a smile; it was the only way she knew how these days.
‘So it’s all systems go!’ she said, mustering up her best excited face.
‘Provided we win the auction,’ Ellie interjected.
‘Well, surely being married to a billionaire property developer must have its perks.’
Their giggles were interrupted by a horse-faced blonde woman wearing a Jil Sander paisley skirt suit that did absolutely nothing for her robust frame.
‘Ladies,’ it was Lady Davinia Sexton-Lloyd, one of today’s hostesses, and arguably one of the most prolific gossips this side of the Thames. She was married to Lord Sexton, a bloated old buffoon whose name suited him.
‘Lovely to see you, Davinia,’ Ellie stood to shake the woman’s diamond-encrusted hand. ‘I trust you’re well.’ It was all the opening Davinia needed as she plonked her cumbersome bulk down to join them.
‘Marvellous, darling,’ she replied, displaying a little red lipstick and canapé between her teeth as she smiled brightly. ‘You know how busy it is at these events; I think I need to clone myself.’ Ellie balked at the very idea. ‘—And this is …?’ she turned to Victoria, precariously placing her copy of HELLO! magazine on the glass table which had been lavishly decorated with scented Jo Malone tea lights and tiny Swarovski scatter crystals. No expense spared for the orphans of Uganda.
‘Victoria Mayfield – a very good friend of mine.’
‘The Victoria Mayfield?’ Davinia looked impressed. ‘Of Mirror, Mirror fame?’
‘The very same,’ Ellie sang, giving Tor a surreptitious wink.
‘Well, Victoria, this is a pleasure,’ she gushed, her gaudy Bvlgari jewellery rattling as she shook her hand vigorously. ‘I’m an avid reader of all your books. Took Mirror, Mirror with me to Courcheval last year, couldn’t put the bloody thing down.’ Tor thanked her politely, finally releasing her hand from the woman’s vice-like grip.
‘It’s been a week from hell, I tell you,’ Davinia placed a palm over her shiny botoxed forehead, ‘trying to organise this lunch on top of Seaton’s wedding. I ask you,’ she rolled her eyes in exaggerated exasperation, ‘I really should’ve gone into events management you know,’ she turned to Victoria. ‘Seaton’s my son,’ she explained as an afterthought.
Tor looked at Ellie with an expression that begged the question, Seaton Sexton? She called her son Seaton Sexton! ‘He’s getting married in Monaco next week and there are still a million and one things to organise. I mean, he’s left everything to me and his father – good job we’ve still got all our faculties!’
Debateable, Tor silently thought as she watched Lady Seaton throw her head back with a roaring laugh. ‘Kids eh? You know how it is?’
Victoria shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Actually, two years ago I found my baby girl dead in her crib and now my husband has crippled sperm so, no, actually I don’t know ‘how it is’ and probably never fucking will!
‘Tell me, are any of the glossies going to cover it?’ Ellie interjected, in a bid to steer the conversation back towards Lady Sexton’s favourite subject: herself. Davinia’s delight at the opportunity to brag was almost palpable.
‘Funny you should mention but yes! They’ve even given it a plug in this week’s issue of HELLO!,’ she said, the magazine miraculously falling open to the well-thumbed exact page in question. ‘‘An exclusive peek behind the scenes at Lord Seaton Sexton-Lloyd’s wedding to Florence Corbett-Wellesley!” It’s marvellous isn’t it?’ she gushed with such pride that Ellie thought the woman was about to explode.
‘I take it she won’t be using her full name,’ Tor smirked, the Kir Royales loosening her tongue. Lady Seaton shot her a sideways glance but Ellie missed it, her attention having been caught by the news story opposite. Loretta Fiorentino. Jesus, there she was again! And this time there was no mistaking her. The small photograph showed her standing outside a church dressed in a jet-black couture dress, unmistakably McQueen, her enormous comedy breasts spilling over the top like rising dough. She was holding a small Chihuahua underneath her arm as though it were a clutch bag, its tiny face peering out at the camera. The headline read: ‘Widow Grieves for Top Plastic Surgeon Husband as Muldavey Rumour Mill Continues …’ Ellie stared at the face of a woman she had once, a long time ago, thought of as a friend, and felt a tight knot of nausea form in the pit of her stomach.
‘Terrible business, that,’ Davinia remarked, having clocked Ellie’s interest in the story. ‘Poor Miranda. She’s an old friend of the family’s actually,’ she pulled her mouth into a thin line, pleased to be able to make such a topical namedrop. ‘Says there that she’s going after Hassan’s wife for a spot of compo for the disastrous mess he made of her face …’
‘Serves the old bitch right,’ Ellie shot back, forgetting herself. Just the sight of Loretta’s face seemed to rancour far more than she had expected. Davinia’s eyes widened, her gossip antennae twitching wildly.
‘Someone