‘Maybe!’ called Rose over her shoulder as she headed down the drive towards the waiting taxi. God knows what more Darcie needed to do with her brows, Rose pondered, as she tripped over her own foot but tried to pretend she hadn’t by turning it into an intentional-looking skip – the jet black, inch-thick caterpillars her daughter sported were beginning to take on a life of their own. Soon they’d need their own rooms.
‘Can you bring me back some products?’ yelled Louisa – fifteen – from somewhere behind Darcie.
Rose stopped by the taxi and looked up at the window. Louisa, her head wedged next to Darcie’s, had her hair piled up in a massive bun and was wearing a greeny-brown face mask that made her look like Hannibal Lecter.
‘Please, Mum! Serums, oils, body balms, peels? The more expensive the better? I don’t do cheap, Mum!’
‘I know!’ yelled Rose. None of them did cheap; they were costing her and Jason a bloody fortune. ‘I’ll do my best!’ She opened the taxi door, flung her bag into the back and proceeded to clamber in after it. There was a frantic rapping on the window. Katie – fourteen, and Rose’s youngest – was grinning wildly behind the glass, her wholly unnecessary orange foundation glowing in the struggling afternoon sun like the surface of Mars.
Rose wound down the window.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes, Katie?’
‘Can I use your straighteners while you’re gone? Mine are broken again.’
Rose sighed. ‘Yes, all right, if you must.’ Katie had inherited her mother’s bull-in-a-china-shop clumsiness; it left a lot of broken items in its wake. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Yes, Mum. Hey,’ Katie pointed out accusingly, ‘you’ve got blusher on!’
‘I have.’
‘It’s a bit cringe.’
‘Thank you, Katie,’ replied Rose sarcastically. ‘As ever. See you on Monday.’
Rose wound up the window, pulled her glittery top – saved for ‘best’; finally worn – over the slightly straining waistband of her skinny jeans – too much chocolate this week; the willpower of a slug – and the taxi pulled away from the suburban kerb of Francis Drive, Hinklesworth, Hertfordshire. It dawdled down the street, the driver tunelessly whistling the theme tune to Friends, and Rose realised she hadn’t kissed her husband goodbye. She’d hardly even said goodbye. Jason was in the study, his slightly too long dark hair flopping over his eyes as he tapped away on the laptop – no doubt emailing that bloody Susie in Hong Kong again, the one he worked with and was always banging on about. Rose had sort of called out, ‘I’m going now, bye!’ and he’d sort of called back, ‘OK, see ya!’ and that was it.
Rose did an internal shrug about it as the taxi turned onto the main road and the sun disappeared behind a cloud. She and Jason didn’t do that sort of thing any more. Kissing. Holding hands. Saying goodbye properly . . . A matey ‘see ya’ was about as good as it got. In fact, Jason had recently taken to calling her ‘mate’, a rather disconcerting turn of events by anyone’s standards. Rose was really rather jealous of close friend Wendy and her brilliant, whirlwind romance.
The Friday rush hour traffic was pretty bad as they headed very slowly to the station, but Rose wasn’t worried by it; she’d allowed plenty of time to get to Paddington, and was almost beside herself with the relief and thrill of getting out of the house. A whole weekend away – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had one and, boy, she needed a break. Her three teenage daughters were driving her bananas at the moment. Not only were their ‘floordrobe’ bedrooms like bomb-hit branches of Lush – highly perfumed obstacle courses of discarded clothes, strewn toiletries and empty Costa Coffee cups – but their attitudes had been stinking to high heaven, too. There had been a lot of arguing recently, plus an annoying dose this week of what Rose called ‘argy-bargy’: prodding, poking, and mild slapping – mostly over borrowed and unreturned make-up – which had resulted in confiscated phones and ever-escalating fishwife reprimands shouted upstairs. It had been exhausting. Three nights away was going to be absolute bliss, even if it was for a hen weekend.
Rose didn’t really do hen weekends – not any more. She’d been to a whole host of them in her late twenties and early thirties, including her own rather disastrous one, where a friend of a friend she didn’t even know had got JoJo and their normally indestructible friend, Sal, so drunk on mysterious cocktails they both had to be sent home incapable in a taxi at 10 p.m., missing half the night . . . and they now just seemed so screechy. All that enforced naughtiness, the silly costumes, the traipsing from bar to bar in crippling heels, the unattractive strippers in unfortunate PVC hot pants threatening to approach and make women do things to them with whipped cream and leather accessories . . . She used to love them but she’d been there, done that: at forty-two she was too old for all that malarkey, and she’d only reluctantly ordered that sash online – plus a cheap veil - because Sal had made her.
Yet, Rose reflected, as she stared out of the window, Wendy’s hen weekend was going to be all kinds of different from the traditional hen dos Rose knew and now hated. JoJo had arranged this one, and JoJo could be relied upon to provide class, always – the Glamour Pamper Package for Wendy’s hen weekend sounded amazing. Rose was definitely in line for some serious pampering; she’d barely had time to shave her legs recently and if anyone was up for lying face down on a board for an hour while some hot, preferably Swedish, masseur pummelled bits of their body into blissful submission it was her.
She also couldn’t wait to see her old friends. It had been a while. Having met as freshers at Warwick University, back in the day, they had all spread to different parts of the country (well, different Home Counties, anyway, apart from JoJo who lived in central London) and their crazy-busy lives meant they didn’t get together that often these days. Sometimes it was only once a year, for a pre-Christmas meet-up in London, where they stayed in a five star hotel, ate loads, drank far too much Prosecco and giggled and chatted in their pyjamas until 1 a.m. But, when they did meet up, it was like they’d never been apart.
Rose, Sal, JoJo and Wendy – the oldest and bestest of friends. And they still had the ability to surprise each other, as proved with the meteoric, fast-track love story of Wendy and Frederick.
Remember Frederick? Wendy had group-messaged the girls, one night at the end of January.
Of course we do, Sal had replied. The pair of you couldn’t keep your hands off each other all night!
The four of them had met, in London, just before Christmas last year and Wendy had brought along her boyfriend of six months, Frederick, for dinner. He hadn’t planned on staying that long – he said he knew their time together was precious – but they had all liked him so much they’d begged him to stay. He was lovely. He had a ready smile, a kind and quiet manner and, despite being absolutely smitten with Wendy, shared his attention between all of them, asking just the right questions and laughing in all the right places. After they’d finally let him go, Wendy had grinned like the Cheshire cat and said he was definitely The One . . . with bells on. And she’d been right.
We’re getting married! Wendy had added, on their group chat. On July the 29th!!!!!! Save the date!!!!!!!!!!
The date had been saved, of course it had – Rose couldn’t wait – but a hen night had never been on the cards. Wendy had told them that she didn’t want one. There wasn’t really time, she said, what with the whirlwind, six-month wedding preparations for the huge white wedding at a stately home in Norfolk - some family seat of Frederick’s family - and she couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of it all. Hen dos were for the young and overexcited, she’d said, not those long in the tooth who had struggled for the best part of two decades to find someone