Tamsin, who had followed them up the silk-paper lined corridor with the royal blue patterned carpet, was two doors up from JoJo and Wendy and had said stiffly she was going to make some work calls and would see them downstairs for dinner. As she’d closed her door, Sal had made the ‘handbag’ gesture accompanied by the ‘cat’s bum’ face.
‘She’s all right,’ Wendy had insisted, although she looked a little worried. ‘I’m sure she will be. She’s a lawyer, like Frederick, that’s all, and lawyers are serious, aren’t they?’
‘That’s why I didn’t become one.’ JoJo smiled.
‘A lawyer, eh? Well, I don’t remember Frederick being quite like that!’ Sal said sniffily, as she inserted the key card into the door of her and Rose’s room. ‘He seemed quite good fun.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Wendy, waiting for the little green light that signalled she had successfully unlocked her and JoJo’s door, ‘and she might be, too. Give her a chance, Sal, and everyone, please. She’s Frederick’s sister. I love him and I’m sure I’m going to love her.’
‘Of course we will,’ said JoJo, and Rose had nodded.
‘For you, oh glorious bride-to-be,’ Sal had called, disappearing into her room with Rose trailing behind, ‘I’ll do anything.’
‘She looks a lot like him,’ noted Wendy as they walked across the lawn to have a nose at the swimming pool. Having dumped their stuff and done a spot of light unpacking, they were now exploring The Retreat’s house and grounds in the warm glow of the fading evening sun. JoJo didn’t think she’d ever seen anywhere more beautiful.
‘She really does,’ agreed Rose. They stood by the edge of the swimming pool in a row and looked down at the turquoise, crystal clear water.
‘What sort of lawyer is Tamsin?’ asked JoJo. ‘One in the science field, like Frederick?’
‘Criminal,’ said Wendy. The others nodded. ‘You know, seeing her, it was almost like seeing Frederick in a dress!’ she added. JoJo looked down the row to where Wendy stood at the end expecting to see her laughing, but Wendy was frowning. ‘He can be serious sometimes. Quite serious. And they are both so posh, aren’t they? Public school, privileged childhood and all that . . . High-flyers . . . and his parents are, too. I’m not sure what Frederick’s doing with me!’ She laughed now, but nervously. ‘How on earth will I fit in? I went to a bog standard comprehensive and don’t know a Barbour from a barber!’
‘Hey, don’t put yourself down!’ said Sal, bending down to place her fingers in the water. ‘Ooh, that’s lovely . . . You’re successful in your career, and nothing wrong with state school! Rose and I both went to one as well, remember? It was only JoJo that went to some fraightfully well-to-do eighties version of Malory Towers!’
‘Oi, don’t knock it!’ laughed JoJo, ‘My lacrosse and Latin skills have proved highly useful in later life!’
‘Ha, ha,’ said Sal. ‘You can’t beat a bit of lacrosse – not that I even know what it is. You use fishing nets to catch a ball or something, right?’
‘Something like that,’ laughed JoJo. She looked at Wendy and noticed she looked really quite crestfallen. She’d broken from the row and had stepped back a few paces, staring towards The Retreat. ‘Tamsin’s not Frederick, you know, and you’re not marrying his family, you’re marrying him. You don’t really think he’s too posh for you, do you, Wendy? Too good for you in some way?’
‘No, not really . . .’ said Wendy. ‘Well, sometimes I do, I suppose.’ She curled a flame-coloured ringlet round her finger and gave a gigantic sigh. ‘We’re nothing alike, chalk and cheese . . . He’s all ordered and gentlemanly and goes about everything the right, proper, way; whereas I’m all crazy hair and unladylike and out-there colour combinations and scatterbrained, mad-scientist type.’ She gave an uncertain little giggle. ‘Although, I don’t think he fully knows yet just how crazy I am. It’s all been such a whirlwind . . . I feel there’s so much we still need to know about each other—’
‘Don’t be silly,’ interrupted JoJo. ‘He must feel he knows you, or he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him.’
They’d heard all about the proposal. How Frederick had whisked Wendy off to Paris, in a helicopter of all things, and had proposed at the top of the Eiffel Tower, in a sudden rainstorm. How Wendy had taken the ring, held out to her and nestled inside a black velvet box, placed it on her finger and said, ‘Yes,’ whilst tears had run down her face along with the rain. How Wendy couldn’t help but break into a mad few seconds of a spontaneous victory dance – a joyous hybrid of ‘Gangnam Style’ meets the Running Man, apparently – around the top of the tower, which she’d attempted to bring to an embarrassed halt, but an American tourist had taken her hands and enthusiastically tried to join in with her whilst whooping and shouting, ‘Hey! This lady just got engaged!’ in a really loud voice (Wendy was mortified about that part and said she would probably skip it when recounting the story to the grandkids). And how, once the American had finally stopped whooping and had left the tower to get a ‘cup of corfee and some of those swell French pastries’, she and Frederick had stood there, looking out over Paris in the rain, for an hour, just holding each other and kissing and saying how happy they were.
It had all sounded ridiculously romantic.
‘I suppose so,’ said Wendy. ‘I can’t believe he did ask me! And a week tomorrow I’ll be marrying him . . . It all seems like an incredible dream – I really hope he’s not making a mistake!’
‘Of course he isn’t, you silly cow,’ said Sal. ‘What are you like? Now come on,’ she added, taking Wendy’s arm, ‘let’s have a look at this pool house malarkey. I can spy padded sunloungers and a massage chair.’
What must it be like? JoJo wondered, as they stepped through the double doors of the pool house, to have someone ask you to marry them? It was something she’d never experienced. She couldn’t even get a man to stay with her after she got pregnant with his child, let alone make a lifetime commitment, and now she didn’t want anyone to ask her. Ever.
It was gorgeous inside the pool house. Sun streamed through the massive windows onto a dazzlingly blue, kidney-shaped indoor pool, punctuated at one end with a very inviting looking Jacuzzi. A handsome, twenty-something pool attendant in yellow and red shorts was crouching by the side of the pool and fiddling with the filter.
‘Good afternoon, ladies.’
‘Good afternoon,’ trilled Sal and they had to stop themselves from giggling and making a forty-something show of themselves.
‘Wow, amazing,’ said Rose. ‘I think Jason’s got something like this below his building, in Hong Kong. And a squash court.’
‘His building?’ enquired Wendy. ‘Doesn’t he stay in a hotel when he goes out there?’
‘No, not now. He goes so often they put him in an apartment. He kind of lives there, really,’ Rose said sadly. She gave a big sigh. ‘Hong Kong is his second home, isn’t it? And now he’s actually got a second home there. I keep asking him for photos of it, but he keeps forgetting to take any.’
‘But it’s not for ever, right?’ asked JoJo.
‘No,’ said Rose miserably. ‘I expect it’s not for ever.’
She looked so sad, JoJo wanted to give her a cuddle – so she did, but the cuddle took Rose by surprise and she ended up tripping over a pool chair and landing them both in an undignified heap on the ground. Wendy laughingly pulled Rose up by the arms and the pool boy dashed over to help JoJo.
‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to avoid looking at