‘What’s that?’ she’d asked merrily, happy in the knowledge that their duty was done for another fortnight.
‘A person who’s bigoted against everything and everyone. You know, the way “pan” means everything.’
‘Probably not until Dad came along, but I’m sure we could tape him and send it into the Oxford English Dictionary people,’ she suggested. ‘Pan-got would be in the next edition, certainly.’
Anne-Marie was fretting as they neared the airport. ‘I hope Kirsten will be all right for the week; she told me on the phone that Patrick is going to be away.’
Emma raised her eyes to heaven. In direct contrast to herself, Kirsten was one of life’s survivors. Put her on the north face of the Eiger with nothing but a tent and a jar of Bovril and she’d turn up twenty-four hours later with a tan from skiing, lots of new clothes and a host of phone numbers from all the other interesting people she’d met en route, who’d all have yachts, villas in Gstaad, personal trainers and Rolexes. A week without Patrick meant Kirsten would have carte blanche to go mad with her gold card in Brown Thomas’s and would end up knocking back vodka tonics in some nightclub every evening, with a besotted admirer in tow. Emma didn’t think her sister had been unfaithful to her stolid and reliable husband, but she certainly enjoyed flirting with other men.
‘She’ll be fine, Mum,’ Emma said drily.
At the airport, her father let them off outside the departures hall with all the luggage and then drove off to find a parking spot. Anne-Marie went into fuss mode immediately: tranquil when her husband was there and bossing everyone around, she became anxious and hyper as soon as he was out of sight.
‘My glasses,’ she said suddenly as she and Emma joined the slow-moving queue at the check-in desk. ‘I don’t think I brought them!’
The note of rising hysteria in her mother’s voice made Emma gently take her hand and pat it comfortingly. ‘Will I look in your handbag, Mum?’ she said.
Anne-Marie nodded and thrust the small cream leather bag at her. The glasses were in the side compartment in their worn tapestry case, blindingly obvious if only her mother had looked.
‘They were here all the time, Mum.’
Her mother’s anxiety faded a little. ‘I’m sure I’ve forgotten something,’ she said. Closing her eyes as if running through a mental list, she was silent for a minute. ‘Have you forgotten something?’ she said abruptly.
Emma shook her head.
‘Sanitary stuff and things like that,’ her mother hissed, sotto voce. ‘Who knows what you’ll be able to buy out there. I bet you forgot. I should have got some for you this morning in the supermarket, but that Mrs Page took my mind quite off what I was doing…’
Emma tried to tune out, but her mother’s words mocked her. Sanitary stuff. She probably should have brought tampons with her but had hoped it would be tempting fate to bring them.
Her period was due in four days and maybe it wouldn’t come this time. This could be it: pregnant! She’d been so tired all week and she was sure her nipples felt sensitive, the way her pregnancy book said they would. They never felt like that normally. So she’d been reckless and left all her period paraphernalia out of her suitcase, hadn’t brought even one single tampon or pair of heavy-duty, enormous knickers in case they would bring her bad luck. Emma allowed herself a little quiver of excitement at the thought.
When her father marched up to them, giving out yards about how far away he’d had to park the car, Emma managed to look sympathetic.
‘All set then?’ he asked. ‘Let’s queue.’
He put one arm round his wife. ‘Egypt, eh? This will be a holiday to remember, Anne-Marie, love. I just wish dear Kirsten could have come along. She’d love it and she’s the best company in the world. Still, she’s busy with her charity work and looking after Patrick.’ He sighed a fond father sort of sigh and Emma started nibbling the thumbnail she’d managed to leave alone up to now.
Calm down, she repeated to herself, using the broken-record technique so beloved of her self-help books. Don’t let him get to you. She could cope with him when she had this wonderful feeling of hope lighting her up from the inside. A baby. She had to be pregnant this time, she just knew it.
Penny lay on the bed with a half-chewed teddy squashed between her golden paws and stared at Leonie balefully. It was hard to imagine that those huge brown eyes could portray anything other than pure canine love but then, Penny was not your average dog. Half-Labrador, half-retriever, she was all personality. Most of it human and all calculated to cause her owner the most guilt possible. Only her frenzied excitement at the rattle of her dinner bowl made Leonie realize that her best friend was actually a dog and not a person. Then again, Leonie thought with amusement, why did she confer ravenousness as purely doggy behaviour? She ate like a pig herself. Dogs and owners invariably looked alike so if Penny was a slightly overweight little glutton who was a slave to Pedigree Chum, then her owner was a carbon copy. A large shaggy blonde with a fat tummy and a propensity for biscuits. Just exchange Mr Chum for Mr Kipling and they were twins.
Leonie extracted an ancient khaki sarong from the back of the cupboard and rolled it into a corner of her suitcase alongside a selection of her trademark exotically coloured silk shirts. Penny, watching sulkily from the bed, snorted loudly.
‘I know, Honey Bunny,’ Leonie said consolingly, stopping packing to sit on the edge of the bed and stroke her inconsolable dog. ‘I won’t be long. It’s only eight days. Mummy won’t be away for long. And you wouldn’t like Egypt, darling. It’s too hot anyway.’
Penny, seven years of abject devotion and huge amounts of spoiling behind her, refused to be comforted and jerked her head away from Leonie’s gentle hand. Another little snort indicated that mere petting wouldn’t be enough and that doggy biscuits might have to be involved if she was to be satisfactorily cheered up.
Leonie – who’d only the previous morning told a Pekinese-owning client in the veterinary practice where she worked as a nurse, that dogs were terrible blackmailers and that little Kibushi shouldn’t be given human food no matter how much he begged at the table at mealtimes – hurried into the kitchen for a Mixed Oval and half a digestive biscuit.
Like a Persian potentate receiving gifts, Penny graciously accepted both biscuits, got crumbs all over the flowery duvet as she crunched them and immediately went back to sulking. One paw flattening Teddy ominously, she stared at Leonie crossly, her usually smiling Labrador face creased into a look that said, I’m phoning the ISPCA now, and then where will you be? Up in court on charges of cruelty to animals, that’s where. Imagine abandoning me for a crappy holiday.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t go,’ Leonie said in despair, thinking that she couldn’t possibly leave Penny, Clover and Herman for eight whole days. Penny would waste away, despite being cared for by Leonie’s adoring mother, Claire, who let her sleep on the bed all the time and fed her carefully cooked lambs’ liver.
But Leonie’s three children had gone to stay with their father in the States for three weeks and Leonie had vowed to give herself the holiday of a lifetime just to cheer herself up. She couldn’t let herself be blackmailed by spoiled animals. Really, she couldn’t.
Clover, Leonie’s beloved marmalade cat, didn’t get on with Claire’s cats, hated the cattery and would no doubt lurk miserably at the back of her quarters for the entire visit, going on feline hunger strike, determined to look like an anorexic for her owner’s return. And even Herman, the children’s rescued hamster, went into a decline when his luxury hamster duplex was moved into Claire’s home. All right, so Claire’s