‘I keep getting ID’d,’ India said with a pout that fooled no one.
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous – you’re twenty-six,’ Mum said, before her butterfly mind darted off to a more enjoyable subject. ‘And getting married in four months!’
‘Seventeen weeks yesterday,’ India said, beaming from ear to ear.
Next they’d be back on the colour scheme and place settings.
India sent a fond smile across to where her fiancé, Jerry, was sitting happily working his way through a slab of brie.
He looked up and winked. ‘Well, I for one can’t wait!’
‘Poor deluded fool,’ Dad said, noticing India trying to slip a bottle of Angostura bitters in her bag. ‘India, are you going to leave us any alcohol, or are you planning on stealing all of it?’
India went and dropped a kiss on top of his bald head.
‘Oh, Daddy, you can always restock in duty free,’ she said, ‘when you go to Australia.’
‘That’s not for a while,’ he said, taking the Angostura bitters back.
‘So how are the August figures looking, Alexa?’ Mum said.
Right. That just about summed up my life at the moment.
My younger sister had infuriated me all week with her untidiness, her inability to use spellchecker and her cavalier attitude to the appointment book, and now here she was again, dominating the occasion, raiding the drinks cabinet and probably the freezer. We’d spend the rest of the day discussing her wedding dress fitting, the flowers, the cake, the bloody flower girls; but I got asked about the sales figures for the family business.
I felt a noble pang of self-pity. Mum had to talk to me about something, I suppose, and at the moment it certainly wasn’t going to be my boyfriend or dazzling social life. I had neither. I had loads of friends but in the last few years they’d all been getting engaged or married; now they were busy having children.
‘Oh, you know, okay,’ I said, feeling a little proud despite myself. ‘The three properties on the Bainbridge estate have gone and there’s an asking price offer in on Walton House.’
‘Excellent, well done, it’s been a good year despite all the doom-mongers. I was talking to John Thingy at the golf club yesterday. You know, the tall, thin chap from Countryside Property, and he said they’re doing awfully well. He was asking after you. Don’t you think you could fancy him just a bit?’ Mum said airily. ‘You don’t want to be living at the end of our garden for ever, do you?’
I thought of John Foster with his damp hands and the irritating way he wound his legs around like pipe cleaners when he sat down.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Well, it’s a shame. India will be off in no time,’ she said, ‘and then who will introduce you to people?’
I couldn’t remember the last time India had introduced me to anyone significant.
‘I’m quite able to look after myself, you know,’ I said, ‘and I don’t need to be palmed off on John Foster just to tidy things up.’
‘No, I suppose not. What about that nice Ben with the curly hair? You don’t think he might do? Oh well.’ Evidently the subject had begun to bore her and she waved a hand at my father to attract his attention. ‘Do you know, Simon, I think I fancy a cherry brandy with my cheese.’
‘They make a liqueur in Australia from liquorice and chocolate,’ Dad said as he went to find some clean glasses. ‘I was reading about it earlier.’
‘Sounds vile,’ Mum said. ‘We must try it.’
A mobile phone rang somewhere and we all patted our pockets and looked under things on the dining table to find out whose it was.
‘Oooh, it’s me,’ Mum said and prodded at her phone, standing up to take the call and get away from the noise we were all making. ‘Really? Really? Well, that’s fantastic! When? When? Really?’
She wandered off through the patio doors into the garden, still talking, and we went back to the cheeseboard on the table. India wrestled the biscuits away from Jerry and loaded one up with a pyramid of Boursin, which she then pushed on to his nose. Honestly, they were like a couple of babies.
I tutted and rolled my eyes at Dad but he was busy reading the Angostura bitters label and didn’t notice.
‘There’s a flat coming up on the Park you would like,’ I said to my father. He might have nearly retired from the estate agency but he still liked to keep a finger on the pulse.
Dad looked blank. ‘I’m not thinking of moving. Am I?’
‘You could always downsize, have a nice simple place to look after,’ I said. ‘Less housework for Mum.’
Not that she seemed to do any; the kitchen floor was really sticky. But then who was I to talk? I hadn’t looked at a cleaning product since moving into the garden flat.
Down the other end of the long table, India and Jerry were squabbling over the box of chocolates I had brought for my parents as a gift, ripping off the cellophane with glee, India’s dark curls slipping out of the messy chignon she had recently adopted and falling over her face. She had some idea that it might be nice for me to do the same thing when she got married, but my hair – while the same colour as hers – was straight as a poker and unlikely to co-operate.
They looked up as Mum came back in from the garden, her face bright with shock.
She took her cherry brandy and downed it in one.
‘You’ll never guess,’ she said. ‘That was someone called Stephen McKenzie about the raffle.’
We all looked at her blankly, waiting for more details. On these occasions Mum was inclined to spin things out as long as possible.
I cracked first. ‘What raffle?’
‘He had some news; I mean some really unbelievable news that I think is going to make life a bit difficult. I’ll have to check my dates.’
‘God, Manda, you’re not pregnant, are you?’ Dad said, a hazelnut whirl halfway to his mouth.
India pulled a face at me across the table.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Simon. I mean our holiday dates,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll get my diary.’
Dad grabbed her arm. ‘Later. Tell me what’s going on first.’
‘Well, do you remember the golf club dinner we went to in January? The Founders Day Dinner Dance and Fundraising Extravaganza? Bel Goodwin was doing the tombola and you won a bottle of Liebfraumilch?’
‘It was corked,’ Dad said.
‘Yes, but do you remember Jeff Bosbury-Wallace was selling raffle tickets in aid of Cancer Research? It was a nationwide thing, not just for the golf club. Ten quid each or a book of ten for a hundred?’
‘No,’ Dad said, pulling the chocolates towards him as his attention waned. ‘I don’t remember and I hate to break it to you but that’s still ten quid each, by the way.’
‘Well, I bought a book.’
‘What? A hundred quid! You spent a hundred quid on raffle tickets? It’s not as though that club fundraiser doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg already! Jeff Bosbury-Wallace is a bloody bandit! They should have given them to us for nothing.’
‘Have you won something?’ Jerry said, being the perfect potential son-in-law and breaking the tension.
‘I have!’ Mum said triumphantly, sitting back in her chair and sending him a fond look.
Behind her I saw India wander up to the wine cabinet and pick out a couple