by Fiona Field
Seb considered the idea. ‘I suppose. It might be politic to ask Rollo first. I mean, he might not want to be trotted out as main attraction.’
‘Rollo?’ spluttered Maddy. ‘Not want to be the centre of attention?’
Seb conceded she had a point. ‘But we ought to tell him – just as a courtesy.’
‘OK, I’ll do that.’ She smiled. ‘I’m so glad you agree. It’s about time we did some more entertaining. It’ll be fun.’
‘Just one thing,’ said Seb. ‘You do realise we’ll have to invite the Rayners?’
Maddy sagged. ‘Must we?’
‘We must.’
‘If they come there’s every chance Susie and Mike won’t, you do realise that, don’t you?’
‘They don’t have to talk to each other.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ But Maddy didn’t think the possibility that the Rayners and the Collinses might be in the same room boded well.
*
Maddy threw open the front door as the engine of Rollo’s powerful sports car rumbled into silence. Bloody hell, he still knew how to make an entrance. In a road where almost every car, including theirs, was an estate or a sensible four-by-four, his fire-engine red Jaguar F-type stood out like a ballerina in a rugby scrum. And what extravagance! This was an expensive car and no mistake. But that was Rollo – never subtle or understated.
Rollo threw open the car door and unravelled himself from the driver’s seat, then stretched. As he did so he caught sight of Maddy.
‘Mads! Darling Maddy.’ He bounded up their front path and enveloped her in a hug before planting a kiss on the top of her head.
Clasped against his chest, barely able to breathe, Maddy wondered when she’d been promoted to ‘darling Maddy’. They’d got on reasonably well at Oxford but he’d never called her ‘darling’ before.
He grabbed her shoulders and held her away from him.
‘You are glowing,’ he said. ‘Being married to Seb obviously suits you. And being a mother!’
Maddy grinned. Rollo’s bonhomie was infectious. He enveloped her in another bone-crushing bearhug.
‘And what’s this I hear about Seb giving up rowing?’
Behind her Seb boomed, ‘You heard right.’ Seb, carrying a sleepy, pyjama-clad Nathan, leaned over Maddy and clapped Rollo on his shoulder. Maddy, a respectable five feet eight, but squashed between two guys who grazed the six foot four mark, felt like the meat in a sandwich and a huge wave of claustrophobia engulfed her. She elbowed them both in the solar plexus.
‘Oi, you two. I can’t breathe.’ They moved apart. ‘And Nathan needs to go inside before he catches his death and I expect Rollo wants a drink.’
‘Drink?’ said Rollo. ‘You know the way to a man’s heart. Just give me two ticks.’
Seb bounded into the house to finish putting Nathan to bed while Rollo returned to his car, popped the boot and hauled out a small overnight bag and a large Fortnum and Mason carrier bag. He slammed the boot shut and then opened the passenger door and collected a vast bouquet of pink roses. ‘Can’t come empty-handed,’ he said as he gathered everything up and walked up the path.
‘But you’re only staying for the weekend,’ said Maddy, overwhelmed by his generosity. ‘Honestly, Rollo, it’s just lovely to see you again. You didn’t need to bring all this.’
They may have had their ups and downs at Oxford but Rollo had grown up a lot since he’d graduated and was now the epitome of a suave and charming man.
‘Here.’ He handed her the roses and Maddy inhaled their scent.
‘They’re beautiful, Rollo. I just hope I can find a vase that can do them justice,’ she said as she ushered him into the house. ‘Seb isn’t one of life’s great romantics. His attitude to flowers is why would I want a gift that I am going to watch die?’
Rollo laughed. ‘Ever the pragmatist is our Seb.’
He dumped his case at the bottom of the stairs and then carried the Fortnum’s bag into the kitchen and put it on the table there. ‘Nothing perishable,’ he said. ‘Just some treats.’
Maddy peered in; wine, tea, chocolates, honey, a jar of pâté. ‘Gosh, thanks, Rollo.’ She moved the bag off the table and into a corner. She’d unpack it later when she’d got supper on the go.
Seb thumped down the stairs. ‘Nathan wants a goodnight kiss, Maddy. You do that while I get Rollo a beer.’
Maddy popped upstairs to check on the children, give Nathan his goodnight kiss and tuck him in, switch on the hall nightlight then she returned to the kitchen and a glass of gin.
The two men were already sat either side of the table, halfway down their first beers, talking about the old days, the rowing, the boat club at the college and past acquaintances. Maddy listened in as she began to make their supper.
‘So, you’re still not married? I thought you and Tanya would wind up together,’ said Seb.
‘Tans? Great girl,’ said Rollo, ‘but I don’t think I quite fulfilled her ambitions. She was after a title as well as money. I could only ever give her the dosh and I think she’s still looking for a suitable victim – er – I mean life partner.’
Maddy remembered Tanya who had also been a rower and thus one of their set, and, like Rollo, from a vastly wealthy family, although she’d not been her favourite woman. Tanya had been, and maybe still was, a woman whose idea of fun was to try and snare other people’s boyfriends, just to see if she could. And having snared them, she’d chuck them back, not caring that in the process she might have ruined a relationship irreparably. She’d had a go at Seb once, at that house party of Rollo’s, which was the reason Maddy had wound up so utterly plastered – drowning her sorrows – while Tanya had made off with a man she didn’t really want, the man Maddy was insanely in love with, Seb. Still, I got him in the end, she thought, and Tanya was still, it seemed, on her own. Oh dear.
‘So what’s she up to now?’ she asked, trying to sound casual and not let the last vestiges of her antipathy show.
‘Last I heard she was in The Priory. I think her coke habit got the better of her.’
Maddy concentrated on slicing mushroom. She tried not to feel too smug. ‘Poor Tanya.’
‘So,’ said Seb, ‘this house-hunting of yours.’
Changing the subject, Seb? thought Maddy. You don’t want to talk about Tanya? There’s a thing.
‘Maddy knows all about it,’ continued Seb. ‘A neighbour of ours is looking for a place and Maddy’s been going to viewings with her.’
‘I’ve been to one, Seb,’ Maddy corrected as she swept the chopped mushrooms into a sizzling pan. She didn’t add that what Susie could afford and what Rollo was after were probably planets apart. She began chopping onions.
‘Anyway, she’s up to speed on the desirable villages, that sort of thing. What’s your budget?’
‘I dunno,’ said Rollo. ‘A few mill.’
Maddy’s knife slipped and she just escaped from cutting her finger. ‘A few million?’
‘Will that be enough?’ asked Rollo.
Was he serious? She checked out his face. Shit, he was. Maddy shook her head. You could probably buy a whole village for that sort of money, let alone a single house. And how unfair was that? Susie would kill to have a tiny percentage of the money Rollo was thinking of throwing at a house, and he didn’t even have a family to support.
‘I should think you might be able to find a suitable place for that money.’ She tried to keep the irony out of her voice. ‘So why the move down here?’ She added the onions to the mushrooms and gave everything a stir.
‘The company I’m working for is relocating, moving out of London. To be honest I was in two minds about staying with them, under the circs. But then I thought, what the heck? My old mates are down there and I can still drive up to the Smoke if I want a taste of the high life. And if I’m not cut out for the country, I can probably sack this job and get a post back in the old man’s bank – I didn’t make a complete arse of myself the last time I worked for him and besides, he’s
a bit better disposed towards me since I got that gong at the Olympics.’ Rollo grinned disarmingly. ‘Anyway, enough about me, I want to hear all your news. All I know is you’ve got kids and you live here.’
So while Maddy finished off making a beef Stroganoff and Seb kept himself and Rollo topped up with beer, he also filled in their guest with most of what had happened in the years since they’d left university. He finished up with the news that he’d come out of the last round of redundancies and defence cuts smelling as sweet as Maddy’s roses.
‘Promotion, eh?’ said Rollo. ‘Congratulations.’
‘And supper’s ready,’ said Maddy, plonking the big pan of beef on the table. ‘Budge up,’ she told Rollo.
‘I say,’ he said. ‘I’d have thought now you’re a field officer’s wife we’d be dining more formally than this.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Maddy, amiably. ‘This is us you’re talking to. You should know us better than that. And Seb, crack open a bottle of wine, would you?’
‘Just the one?’
‘For the time being.’
Chapter 9
The next morning Maddy awoke to the sound of Rose crying lustily and Nathan yelling that he needed to do a poo.
She turned her head to look at the alarm clock and instantly wished she hadn’t. God, she had the hangover to end all hangovers. She cracked open an eye and saw the clock read six thirty. Drinking and small kids was not a good combo – not the morning after the night before, at any rate. Oh God, and tonight she had that party to cater for. What had she been thinking about when she’d had those last glasses of wine? Beside her Seb slumbered on, oblivious to the demands of parenthood and the forthcoming drinks party. Typical.
Maddy swung her feet out of bed and slowly levered herself into a sitting position. She stayed perfectly still, like that, for half a minute, until her head stopped banging. Gingerly she rose to her feet and headed for Nathan. Dealing with shit and a hangover... it was her punishment for enjoying herself the night before. And she only had herself to blame; the third bottle had been her idea.
Twenty minutes later she was downstairs with Rose and Nathan washed and dressed and, more importantly, a cup of hot sweet tea and a packet of ibuprofen. The weather outside was glorious, perfect for a walk to the play park. She’d give them their breakfasts, sort herself out and then head out with the kids. It would also mean the guys would have a chance to sleep off their hangovers without the kids making a racket and waking them. Not, she thought, that they particularly deserved such kindness from her but the fresh air might help clear her head and if she could wear Nathan out with some exercise there was a fighting chance he might be persuaded to take a nap when Rose went down, mid morning. She left Rose strapped in her pushchair and Nate happily playing with his bricks on the sitting room floor while she shot upstairs and got herself washed and dressed in record time, despite tiptoeing around the still-sleeping Seb.
The patch was quiet and most bedroom curtains were still drawn as Maddy wheeled Rose along the road and Nathan skipped along happily beside her, chattering incessantly in the way that almost all three-year-olds do. Maddy tried to sound engaged and interested but the reality was that she wanted to die. When they reached the park she stared longingly at the bench there but knew she wouldn’t get a chance to sit down and bask in the early morning sun and instead she pushed Nathan on the swing and then provided the counter-balance at the other end of the see-saw.
‘More, Mummy, faster,’ demanded Nathan as Maddy pushed the see-saw down, time and time again.
She swallowed as bile rose briefly in her throat. God, she mustn’t be sick, not in front of the kids.
‘Go and sit down.’
Maddy spun round. ‘Rollo!’
‘Sweetie, you look terrible.’
‘I don’t feel too bright,’ Maddy admitted. ‘The mother of all hangovers.’ She gazed at Rollo who looked disgustingly chipper and bouncy. She relinquished her see-saw duty to him and tottered off to the bench. ‘Anyway, what are you doing up so early? I brought the kids out so you and Seb could have a lie-in, in peace and quiet.’
‘Very noble,’ said Rollo. ‘We didn’t drink that much last night.’
‘Three bottles,’ said Maddy, wishing her head would stop throbbing.
‘Is that all?’
‘All?!’ Maddy regretted her outburst instantly. She shut her eyes as her head reeled.
‘Lightweight,’ said Rollo.
She opened her eyes to see him grinning at her. ‘Wait till you have kids,’ she grumbled. ‘Then call me a lightweight. And you still haven’t answered my question, why are you up so early?’
‘I heard movement and I saw you going out for a walk. I thought I’d join you.’
‘Sorry, I tried to be as quiet as possible.’
‘You were. You didn’t wake me, I was already awake, looking at property websites.’
‘Find anything?’
‘Lots.’
‘I would imagine the world’s your oyster when you’ve got your sort of cash to chuck at a place.’
‘I’m very lucky.’
‘You are.’
Rollo stared at her. ‘That was said with feeling.’
‘Sorry. It’s just I’ve got a friend who is house-hunting right now and her budget is much more limiting. The amount of choice she’s got is almost zero.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘Don’t be, it’s not your fault.’
Rollo carried on amusing Nathan with the see-saw and then the swings again until Rose began to get restless.
‘I think it’s time we returned and woke Sleeping Beauty,’ said Maddy. ‘And I expect you’d like some breakfast.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘Full fry?’
‘You sure? I mean if you’re not feeling well...’
‘I’m feeling a lot better. The painkillers have kicked in and the fresh air has worked wonders.’ But she was still looking forward to the moment when Rollo and Seb took themselves off to go and see the estate agents in town and then go off on some viewings that Rollo had already arranged. A quiet day, cooking canapés and finger-food, and looking after the kids, was exactly what she needed.
*
It was nearly four when Seb and Rollo got back from their day out, trawling Wiltshire for the more desirable properties available and which might suit Rollo’s requirements, and Maddy was at the end of her tether. Far from having a lovely, quiet and peaceful day looking after the kids and rustling up tasty nibbles, Nathan had decided that being difficult, truculent and throwing himself on the floor, screaming and crying at hourly intervals, was the only way to behave. Nathan, usually good and relatively placid for a just-three-year-old, seemed to have decided that he was about to miss out on his quota of toddler tantrums and he needed to bank a few before he was deemed too old to get away with it. And what a day to pick, thought Maddy as she battled with him, the last vestiges of her hangover and the clock that ticked on relentlessly as the hour of the party approached and the plates she’d put out for the food remained empty. So when the boys barrelled through the front door they found that Maddy was stressed out to breaking point.
It didn’t take long to discover why she was so close to either bursting into tears or putting Nathan up for adoption, at which point Rollo took charge and demanded to know where the nearest Waitrose was.
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Maddy. ‘Why do you want to go shopping? Why now?’
‘Because,’ said Rollo patiently, ‘while you feed the kids an early supper, I am going to buy the party food. And after – when everyone has gone home – we’ll get a takeaway delivered. Think of me as your fairy godmother – only without the fairy bit. Think I’m a bit too hetero to be a fairy.’
Maddy stared at him. ‘But you can’t buy the food. You’re the guest of honour.’
Rollo shook his head as he pulled his car keys out of his jacket pocket. ‘Just shut up and sort out the kids, Mads. This is the least I
can do to repay you for lending me your husband all day and putting me up.’
‘But... but...’ But the front door had already slammed.
By the time Rollo had got back, laden with carrier bags containing mini pork pies, frozen vol-au-vents, blinis, smoked salmon, cream cheese, crackers and dozens of other things that could be turned into delicious bite-sized snacks, Nathan and Rose had both been fed fish fingers and chips and were being bathed by Seb. Both of these things were treats in the kids’ eyes and so Nathan’s tantrums had been replaced by giggles and smiles while Rose, always a cheerful child, was even sunnier than ever. Maddy had wondered why she never seemed to reap the benefit of having perfect, happy, smiley children when it was she who spent her life looking after them. However, she hadn’t been able to dwell for long on the unfairness of motherhood as she had had to whizz round the sitting room, tidying up the toys, then pushing a hoover round the ground floor to make the downstairs look more like a home and less like the council tip.
With fifteen minutes to spare before the first of the guests was due to make an appearance the children were tucked up in bed, snacks were warming in the oven, Rollo had made three jugs of Pimm’s and Maddy had managed to change into a pretty dress and put on a lick of make-up.
‘Phew,’ she said, with feeling, as she looked at her tidy house and saw the trays of glasses standing ready.
‘Don’t know why you were so worried,’ said Rollo, grinning.
‘I was worried because I didn’t know you had a magic wand.’
Rollo waggled his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Never heard it called that before.’
‘Grow up, Rollo,’ said Seb, coming down the stairs.
‘Killjoy,’ countered Rollo.
‘Nathan wants a goodnight kiss,’ said Seb. ‘Rose is already spark out.’
‘You’re a star,’ said Maddy, giving Seb a peck on the cheek as she headed for the stairs. From being stressed and anxious she was now, suddenly, rather looking forward to the party.
Thirty minutes later, everyone had arrived, Rollo was lapping up the attention just like the guests were lapping up the Pimm’s and the beer, and Maddy was chatting happily to her friends as she passed around the plates of food. It was obvious to Maddy that her party had already developed into two camps: at one end of the room were the Rayners where the conversation was polite and restrained, and at the other end of the room were the Collinses and Rollo and from where guffaws of raucous laughter billowed. Those with the Rayners cast occasional, envious glances at the other group but seemed to be trapped from abandoning the boss and his wife by politeness and protocol. Even Maddy, circulating as she was with the nibbles, found herself drawn to Rollo’s group rather more often than to the Rayners’ end of the room. As she offered her guests some mini sausage rolls she eavesdropped on what Susie was saying to Rollo.
