‘Minister, I think you’ll find,’ said Juliet, tossing back her red hair. ‘Trade and industry. Max will have schmoozed her into some sort of complicated tax break before she’s finished her starter.’
Everyone laughed, and Amy was reminded how much she loved her Sunday lunches.
‘Where are Hettie and Alex?’ she said, looking around for Claire and Max’s seven-year-old twins.
‘Nev has taken them to play in the garden. Tilly, why don’t you go and join them,’ said Claire, motioning towards an enclosed courtyard at the back of the restaurant.
Tilly squealed and ran off.
‘I’ll go and check she’s okay,’ said Amy, getting to her feet.
David stopped her with a gentle touch on the arm. ‘Tilly’s fine,’ he said. ‘She’s five now. She’s not going to swallow the soap. Besides, she’s with Hettie.’
Amy looked down at him, biting her tongue. It was one of those niggling snag points that parenthood threw up. David had been sent to boarding school at the age of seven and believed that children should be given independence as soon as possible, whereas Amy was a modern mother who wanted to wrap her daughter in cotton wool until she was thirty. They disagreed on just about everything in between, too: schools, diet, bedtime; about the only thing they did agree on was the fact that Max and Claire’s daughter Hettie was like a big sister to Tilly and, against all genetic precedent, a good influence.
‘Nev’s such a star. I can’t believe she’s going back to Spain,’ said Amy.
‘Neither can I,’ replied Claire, raising an eyebrow. ‘Before the bloody Provence trip as well.’
‘Amy, David,’ said Max Quinn, throwing his arms out in an extravagant gesture as he returned to the table. ‘Where’s my darling god-daughter?’
‘Playing with my darling god-daughter outside,’ grinned David.
Amy couldn’t resist a smile. The two men were so different in many ways. At university, Max Quinn had been a poster boy for the Hooray Henry set: floppy hair, flinty eyes, cufflinks and sports cars, looking down on everyone else and scrabbling for places in the City, where they’d make even bigger pots of money. And he hadn’t changed a bit since. He was still obsessed with money, still loud, brash, braying. Sometimes Amy had to stop and ask herself why he was one of her closest friends – at Oxford she’d barely tolerated his pompous antics – but somehow he had a way of growing on you.
Her husband was a much more restrained character. When Amy had first met David in Oxford, she had mistaken his quiet pragmatism for stand-offishness, but had soon come to admire his loyalty and kindness, even before they had become a couple many years later.
But the two men shared one thing – twelve-hour working days and hugely successful careers, David in finance, Max’s as CEO and founder of the yummy mummy’s favourite fashion label Quinn – and they were bonded by a steadfast friendship that Amy envied, even though she sometimes worried, on their raucous boys’ away-weekends to Beaujolais or Vegas, that Max was a bad influence.
Max sat down and summoned the waitress to bring them some drinks. ‘No need for menus,’ he said, ordering the chef’s special for everyone.
‘So,’ he said, swilling his red wine around his glass. ‘Are we sorted for Provence? Tell me all plane tickets are booked and paid for.’
This would be Amy’s first visit to Claire and Max’s Provence bolthole, a villa in the dusty hills just outside the pretty village of Lourmarin. She and David had spent a few days in Lourmarin six years previously; the honeymoon period, as Amy thought of it, wedged between the romance of their wedding and the drama of childbirth. In her mind, it had all been sunlit and rose-tinted, a whirl of EasyJet and packing like Grace Kelly in Rear Window: just a ball gown and a hairbrush. Presumably there had been real-life problems back then too – cover shoots and dull meetings about budgets – but she didn’t remember anything but four-poster beds and roaring fires. She blushed at the memory.
‘Claudia’s still all right to come?’ asked Claire quickly. After Nev had announced that she was returning to Madrid, Amy’s own nanny, a cheerful Dutch girl, had been drafted in.
‘She thinks it’s the most exciting thing that has ever happened to her,’ smiled Amy, happy that they could bring her. ‘And we’re glad we’ll be able to go for a few adult dinners. Do I sound terrible saying that?’
‘Maybe I can get us a table at Bastide Moules,’ said Juliet, checking her messages.
Juliet’s magazine, Living Style, was an upmarket interiors magazine with a few pages devoted to food and travel. Its circulation was a fraction of Verve’s but Juliet seemed to have every PR and society shaker on speed-dial and had even managed to get a table at mythical foodie haunt El Bulli for David’s birthday a few years earlier, with only a week’s notice. The Bastide had the reputation of being the new El Bulli. It was rumoured that it had already received a million reservation requests for the five thousand covers it did in a season. Amy had no doubt that Juliet could get them in.
‘I can’t wait for three weeks in the sun,’ she said with a sigh, already thinking about the warm, dappled French countryside.
‘Have you told Douglas you’re out of the office for that long?’ said Juliet, sipping her wine.
‘William signed it off.’
‘You should still tell Douglas. You know what he’s like.’
‘I’ve not taken longer than a week’s holiday in five years. If I don’t have a decent break this summer, I think I might go mad.’
‘Has she told you we’ve got a pact?’ said David, eavesdropping. ‘We’re going to switch off our phones and not even take our iPads.’
‘Maybe you could persuade Max to do the same,’ said Claire, rolling her eyes.
‘Bollocks to that,’ Max declared. ‘Empires are not built without hard work.’ He downed his wine in one.
‘Max, when did you become such a workaholic?’ asked Amy.
‘When I bought my first helicopter.’
‘I’ll book us some spa treatments,’ Claire said. ‘There’s an amazing woman in Lourmarin who does reflexology.’
‘I need more than a foot rub,’ said Amy with a sigh.
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s what Monty Young said when he twisted his ankle skiing. His missus found him the best physiotherapist in London. The next thing you know, he’s left his wife and three kids for her.’
‘Monty’s left Suzie?’
Monty was one of their old friends from Oxford. They didn’t see him much, but Amy sporadically bumped into his wife at charity fund-raisers. The last event had been a January lunch, when Suzie had talked excitedly about the chalet they had just bought in Meribel. Things obviously hadn’t panned out as she’d hoped.
‘Darling, it’s the season for it,’ said Max. ‘Four mates from school – all divorced in the last six months.’ He made a slicing motion across his neck. ‘A lot of lawyers making a lot of money right there.’
For a long time, Amy had been unable to understand the statistic that over 40 per cent of marriages ended in divorce. Although the days when every other summer weekend seemed to be spent going to a wedding were past, she hadn’t heard of many separations – until recently. Just one or two at first: the couple who’d been clearly unsuited from the start, another who had eloped to Vegas a week after meeting in New York. But lately there were more unexpected ones: a lovely mum and dad she knew from the school gate; the marketing manager at work who had found out her husband was having an affair.
‘Is everything all right?’ Claire put her hand on Amy’s shoulder.
Amy blinked hard and put down her glass. ‘What do you mean?’ she said, realising that she did feel a bit spaced out. She loved seeing her friends, but it always meant being switched on, especially when Max was in such high spirits. Truth was, after such a stressful week at work, the only thing she wanted to switch on was her TV in the company of a bottle of wine and a box
of salted caramel truffles.
‘You just seem a bit run-down.’
Amy tried to laugh it off. ‘The pressure’s on at work.’
‘Did you get the chat about digital innovation?’ asked Juliet, rolling her eyes. ‘Denton seriously asked me if Living Style had potential as an estate agent.’
‘If it’s any consolation, he wants to turn Verve into the new Tinder.’
The three women laughed.
‘You know who you should also see,’ said Juliet, leaning forward. ‘Dr Al Saraf.’
‘Who’s he?’ asked Amy.
‘You’ve not heard of him? Dermatologist. Genius behind BlissVit.’
‘BlissVit?’ said Amy, feeling a little stupid. She did, after all, edit one of the top women’s glossies: if there was a hot new beauty treatment out there, she should have heard of it.
‘His own patented vitamin complex. It’s supposed to be amazing. It takes ten years off. You glow.’
Amy knew she was looking tired. She felt tired. If a doctor could really make her look younger – or even a little more perky – how could that be a bad thing?
‘I’ll give you his mobile number,’ Juliet said.
‘You really need to write your own little black book.’
‘Then the special secret numbers wouldn’t be secret any more.’
‘Amy,’ Max cut in. ‘David was just telling me he got you a Tracey Emin for your birthday.’
Amy felt herself blush. It was an extravagant gift, but David had got a huge bonus from the bank a few months earlier.
‘It’s an investment,’ she said, smiling. ‘You should approve.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. How about we come round and take a look? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go home yet, and apparently we only get this table for two hours.’
‘Even you?’ said Amy, mocking him.
‘Everyone’s welcome to come back for a drink,’ said David, raising his hand in surrender. Max was already asking for the bill.
Amy flashed her husband a look.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘She’s coming at four.’
‘Who’s coming?’ said Max, throwing down his Amex.
‘Is that today?’ said David with a frown.
‘What’s happening?’ said Max, now curious.
‘We’ve got a house guest this week,’ Amy said.
‘Anyone interesting?’
‘The daughter of a friend. She’s doing work experience at Genesis, so she’s staying with us for a week. We’re going to welcome her with open arms, aren’t we, David?’
A sly look crossed Max’s face as he got up from the table.
‘How old is she? I don’t think you want to be encouraging David to open his arms too much.’
Amy laughed along, but realised she hadn’t actually considered that. She was inviting a young woman into their home without even having met her – well, not since she was a toddler, anyway.
‘That’s good of you,’ said Claire encouragingly. ‘I know how hard it was for me when I came down to London.’
‘The world would be a better place if we were all kinder to people,’ Amy said.
‘I can be kind.’ Max looked at Claire with a mock-innocent smile. ‘Can we have a hot girl come and stay at our house too?’
‘What’s a hot girl, Mummy?’ chimed Tilly.
‘No one says she’s hot,’ hissed Amy at Max, as Tilly skipped out of the restaurant, lost in another world, dancing her finger puppets through the air, using parked cars as handy stages for her play.
‘Whose daughter is it?’ said Juliet as the three women started walking ahead.
‘My old school friend, Karen.’
‘And she’s staying with you all week?’
‘David’s a bit nervous because we’ve never met her. But what could I say? I can’t offer work experience and not help with accommodation. You know how expensive hotels are in London.’
The men caught up with them as they neared Amy and David’s house.
‘By the way, there’s a concert at the castle in Lourmarin every Thursday. I’ll get tickets if anyone is interested,’ said Claire.
‘Who’s playing?’ asked David, hooking an arm around his wife’s waist.
‘Classical music.’
‘Count me out,’ said David.
‘Philistine,’ laughed Juliet.
‘At least he’s honest,’ said Claire. ‘Max insists on going to anything that’s on at Cadogan Hall, then puts his sunglasses on and falls asleep.’
Amy enjoyed the gentle banter that rippled between them. Their tight group was not the family she’d imagined twenty years earlier. All of them were from a different world to her; even Claire, who pretended to hail from more down-to-earth stock, was actually the daughter of Yorkshire landowners and had a trust fund. But after Amy’s parents had both passed away in the past three years, that was what they had become. Family.
They took a left and turned off the busy main drag into an elegant side street. The sight of Amy’s home was something that still caught her by surprise. It was not one of the biggest terraces in Notting Hill, but the slim white Georgian house was one of the prettiest, with a huge pink magnolia bush in the tiny square of front garden and black-and-white chessboard steps that reminded her of Alice Through the Looking-Glass.
She stopped at the gate as she noticed someone sitting at the top of the steps. She had once found a homeless man in her porch when she had arrived home late at night, and for a second her heart started to pound hard.
But when she took another glance, she noticed it was a young woman, long bare legs stretched out in front of her. Amy was taken aback. Despite her simple clothes – shorts, T-shirt and trainers – there was no escaping how pretty she was. Long honey-coloured hair fell down her back, and her striking eyebrows reminded Amy of a popular supermodel.
‘Damn, she’s early,’ she said. ‘I wanted to tidy up first.’
‘That’s the work experience girl?’ said Max over the top of his sunglasses.
‘I’m Josie,’ she said, standing up and trotting down the steps. Amy was surprised by her easy confidence.
‘Well, hello,’ said Max, stepping forward to introduce himself.
‘Never let women in your house with longer legs than you,’ said Juliet under her breath.
‘It’s only for a week,’ said Amy, pasting on her best smile and going over to say hello.
Chapter 3
‘Coffee, I need coffee.’ Amy rushed through the kitchen still buttoning her blouse, tote bag swinging from the crook of one arm.
Claudia handed her a silver flask. ‘Already done. And there’s a hot water and lemon for now,’ she added, pointing to a mug on the table.
Amy grinned. She knew that busy middle-class parents always said this about their nannies, but she didn’t know what she’d do without Claudia. She arrived at the crack of dawn, taking Tilly to and from school in term-time and looking after her full-time during the holidays, while efficiently fielding all the other time-consuming day-to-day admin niggles such as paying the milkman, letting the gardener in and managing the cleaners who came three times a week to tidy the house and do the laundry and ironing. She was genuinely part of the family, about the only steady, reliable part of their chaotic household. A household that had grown suddenly with the arrival of Josie earlier that week.
Not that the addition of Josie was anything that Amy could complain about. Over the past three days she had been polite, charming and quiet – barely a sound coming from the granny flat in the basement where she had been billeted. More importantly, she had been brilliant with Tilly, who adored her; something to do with Josie being closer to Tilly’s age, Amy supposed. Or perhaps it was the way she was happy to get down on her hands and knees and join in Tilly’s flights of fancy
, which was exactly what a creative child like Tilly needed. Amy had to admit that neither she nor David had the time, and Claudia was far too blunt and authoritarian to indulge a five-year-old.
‘Morning, Tilly,’ said Amy, dipping to kiss her daughter on the head. ‘Can Mummy have a piece of your toast?’
Tilly spread her fingers over her plate, frowning. ‘Why?’
‘Because Mummy is running really late for work but I am very, very hungry.’
David came up behind her and handed her his bowl of granola. ‘You like this stuff more than me,’ he said, pulling on his jacket.
Amy kissed him on the cheek. ‘Shouldn’t you have left?’
‘Waiting for a call from Hong Kong. Thought it was better to take it in my study than on the mobile.’
‘Where are my bloody car keys?’ she said, only half listening to him. She’d planned on driving to today’s shoot, had now left it too late to get the train, but although she had tried every coat pocket, every bag, she couldn’t find them anywhere.
‘Mummy’s lost her keys again,’ squealed Tilly between big slurps of smoothie.
‘Why don’t we help Mummy look,’ said Josie, giving Tilly’s tummy a tickle.
The little girl giggled hard, and Amy felt herself melt as she watched Josie take Tilly on a treasure hunt around every pot and drawer in the kitchen.
‘What about the spare set?’ said David.
She puffed out her cheeks and glanced at the clock above the kitchen door. ‘They were the spare set.’
‘I’m sure they’ll turn up. In the meantime, get Geoff to take you.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll get the Tube,’ he said, and Amy blew him a kiss across the room.
‘I love your bag,’ said Josie, eyeing Amy’s clutch when they were in the hall. ‘Claudia’s got one just like it.’
Amy smiled. It was one of the perks of the job: in the run-up to Christmas, fashion PRs would shower editors with gifts, and handbags were the most prized.
‘You’re right,’ she said, opening the front door. ‘I was lucky enough to get given two of the same.’
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