Katy Carter Keeps a Secret

by Ruth Saberton

  Then the handle turns, the door opens and up we all jump, shouting “Surprise!” and “Happy Birthday!” while the lights turn on, party poppers explode like gunfire and everyone starts singing. My phone’s ringing now, Mads again probably, but I’m far too busy joining in the general excitement to answer it.

  Ann’s hand flies to her mouth as she gazes around in astonishment at all her nearest and dearest. “What on earth’s this? How come all of you are here?”

  Before I have a chance to answer, Great Uncle Clifford toots loudly on a party blower and then coughs so violently that the next few seconds are spent slapping him on the back and panicking that he’s about to expire.

  “It’s your birthday party!” he gasps eventually. “It’s a surprise!”

  “Surprise!” echo the others, dutifully blowing their party trumpets and waving their balloons before stampeding towards Ann, who promptly vanishes into a tangle of hugs, walking frames and streamers.

  Ah. Isn’t this brilliant? All her favourite people are gathered here and she must feel so loved. Job done, I’d say. Maybe I ought to give up writing and take up party planning instead? I bet I’d be really good at it! I could do all sorts of themes and learn to make amazing cakes and everyone would book me and maybe I could even get to go on Bake Off and meet Mary Berry and everything…

  “Katy?” Ollie’s voice breaks into a wonderful daydream where Paul Hollywood is gazing into my eyes and telling me that my vanilla sponge is the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. Taking my hand, Ollie draws me away from the others. “Did you organise all this for Mum?”

  “I had a bit of help from Mads,” I say modestly and I glance down at my phone. Goodness, four missed calls now. She must really want to talk to me. I’ll ring her back as soon as the cake’s arrived.

  Ollie shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve managed to find Mum’s relatives and some of her oldest friends and a few church people, get them to Cornwall, arrange a party and keep it a secret?”

  Put like that it does sound like some feat and I’m quite impressed myself.

  “I couldn’t have done it without Maddy. She made the arrangements while I was away.”

  “But it must have cost a fortune,” Ollie says, looking around the room. “There are at least fifteen people here and you’ve paid for them all? You did all this for my mum?”

  I shake my head. “No. I did it for you, Ol. I felt awful about just how much money I cost us with the rewiring and the floor, and I knew how much you’d wanted to do something special for Ann’s birthday. Then I had the advance from Throb and I realised that there was something good I could do with it. It seemed like a way of making up for all the trouble.”

  “You’ve paid for Mum’s party with money from Kitchen of Correction? All these good upright citizens are partying thanks to cabbages and clothes pegs and kinky sex?”

  Ann’s pastor and his wife wave at us and we wave back.

  “Oops,” I say, and Ollie laughs.

  “You are crackers, Katy,” he says, putting his arms around me and kissing the tip of my nose. “You don’t ever need to make up for things. That isn’t how it works. And anyway, the floor and the wiring were accidents. You weren’t to blame.”

  It’s kind of Ollie to say this but it’s hard to see how my pulling up the floor can be construed as an accident. I mean, it wasn’t as though I accidentally grabbed the poker and inadvertently prised up the floorboards, is it? And who plugged in the lava lamp? And went snooping around St Jude’s in disguise? I actually think it’s just as well he doesn’t know quite how much making up I do have to do.

  “I’m sorry I kept this party a secret,” I say, “especially after what we talked about yesterday. But I kind of had to really, otherwise it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise, would it?”

  He laughs. “I guess not.”

  “And you were surprised, weren’t you?”

  “Not a day passes when you don’t surprise me,” Ollie replies with feeling.

  Hmm, I’m not totally convinced that’s a good thing. He might be smiling now but I’ve seen how stressed he’s been lately.

  “I know I don’t always make life easy for you,” I say, “but I always try to do my best.”

  “I’ll make sure I remember that the next time,” Ollie tells me.

  “O ye of little faith,” I tease, going onto tiptoes and kissing him.

  Anyway, secret or not, this party’s turning out to be a huge success. Ann is beaming from ear to ear while she chats to her guests, the old folk are having a lovely time and even Geoff’s having fun without the help of a fine Merlot. There are just two things missing: Nicky and birthday cake. But they’ll both be arriving together, of course. Just wait until Ann sees Nicky in his working capacity. She’s going to be so surprised! And she’ll love the cake. I chose it especially.

  Leaving Ollie chatting to a couple of elderly aunts, both of whom are pinching his cheeks and telling him how much he’s grown, I make my way to the back of the function room and knock loudly on the door – the cue that Mads and I arranged for the grand entrance of the cake. No sooner have my knuckles rapped on the oak than the strains of Happy Birthday to You strike up.

  At least, I think that’s Happy Birthday they’re playing? It’s saxophone music and it sounds a bit odd, kind of slow and exaggerated and… well, a bit more sexy than I was expecting.

  My phone vibrates again.

  I’M ON MY WAY! STOP THE CAKE!

  But Maddy’s warning comes too late, because at this point in the proceedings the door flies open and the cake appears in the doorway – the big pink cake with the beautiful white rose icing and trailing ribbons that I know gardener Ann will really love. Right now, she should be staring at it in wonder and gasping with joy.

  Yes, that’s what she should be doing, but unfortunately Ann isn’t gasping with joy: she’s gasping with shock.

  I know exactly how she feels because I’m in shock too.

  What?

  WHAT?

  I blink in astonishment and rub my eyes just in case I’m having a very weird and rather worrying delusion, but no such luck. I’m wide awake and I really am watching the scene unravel like a slow-motion car crash.

  Carrying the cake aloft in his muscular, baby-oiled arms is a young man, groomed, waxed, fake-tanned and plucked to perfection – and wearing little more than a grin and a teeny-weeny apron the size of one of Barbie’s tissues. It’s not protecting a great deal of his modesty, and his bronzed buttocks are very much on show.

  No wonder Maddy was frantic.

  But my horrific blunder is a million, gazillion times worse than merely hiring a nearly naked young man to deliver a cake to my churchgoing would-be mother-in-law…

  The “waiter” strutting across the room and shaking his naked butt in time to the music is none other than the horrified birthday girl’s adored youngest son.

  Chapter 23

  SOUTHWEST TIMES

  Topham’s Top Totty!

  Tansy delivers the male!

  BARELY BUTLERS is the South West’s newest and hottest catering company, specialising in hen parties, birthdays, divorce parties and girls’ nights. Delicious as the selection of food is, the semi-naked butlers serving it are even more tasty. The boys serve food, mix cocktails, play party games and, most of all, look gorgeous. And they’ll even clean up.

  “Fit, nearly naked guys who do the washing up! What more could a girl want?” giggles BB’s new owner Tansy Topham, wife of England star striker Tommy.

  “I went to a hen do a while back and I liked what I saw so much I bought the company. Just a few little tweaks and a few less clothes and Barely was born!” she adds with a cheeky wink. “It’s every woman’s dream to have a gorgeous guy as her slave – just like in my books – and this way it can come true. For a few hours anyway!”

  Tansy is clearly far more than just a WAG, fashion designer and bestselling writer. Her new catering company has taken the South West by storm and is due to ex
pand nationwide by the autumn.

  I actually don’t think I can read any more of the article Mads thrust at me when, two minutes after the cake arrived, she came charging into the function room, red in the face and panting like something out of a Throb novel.

  “I was just sitting in the kitchen flicking through the local rag and I saw this! You’ve got to stop everything now!” she’d gasped, brandishing the paper under my nose. “You can’t let Ann see – oh!”

  She’d suddenly looked around, clocked the stony faces of all the guests and spotted Nicky.

  “Bollocks. I’m too late aren’t I?”

  She certainly was too late. By now Ann was having hysterics, the pastor looked as though he was about to faint, Nicky’s cheeks were scarlet with embarrassment (all four of them) and poor Ollie was hastily yanking a curtain down and swaddling his brother in Laura Ashley’s finest.

  “Stop making a fuss!” Nicky had protested. “It’s just a bit of fun.”

  “Not to me!” Ann had wailed. “I don’t think seeing my youngest son naked and oiled up like a stripper is fun!”

  “Well, of course not,” Nicky had said kindly. “That would just be weird. But seriously, ma, just chill, yeah? It’s all perfectly fine. I just serve a few canapés, chat to ladies and get paid. It’s easy.”

  “It’s practically prostitution!” his mother had shrieked.

  Nicky had rolled his eyes. “Of course it isn’t. The ladies never pay me for the sex. Only kidding! That was a joke!”

  “Your jokes aren’t helping your mother,” Geoff had hissed. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “That I could put some money away for uni and fund my gap year,” Nicky had explained. “I’ve saved a fortune, Dad. You should be congratulating me. ‘Take responsibility for yourself for once’; that was what you told me when I was kicked out of school. So I did. I did this because of what you said to me. This was really your idea and if you don’t like it you’ve only got yourself to blame. ‘Why not seek a little enterprise within a free market economy rather than becoming a left-wing scrounger on benefits’ was what you said, wasn’t it? I’m confused actually, Pa. I’d have thought you’d be all for this?”

  Geoff’s mouth had opened and closed at this. He’d been completely lost for words, and I’d looked at Nicky with new respect. He was going to be one very scary politician someday.

  “What were you thinking booking a naked butler for Mum?” Ollie had asked me in bewilderment.

  “I had no idea the waiters were naked. I just booked Tansy’s company,” I’d said.

  Ollie had groaned in response. “Please tell me that Tansy Topham’s not about to rock up too? The church folk will have a fit. You do know she was naked in the papers again this week?”

  I hadn’t been aware of that, but it was nothing unusual. I’d have thought it would make more headlines if Tansy kept her clothes on.

  “I didn’t know this was what Tansy was up to! Of course I didn’t!” I’d protested. “I just thought she had a catering company and that it would be another surprise for your mum!”

  “Well, you’ve certainly achieved that,” Ollie had remarked grimly. “Although I’d say it was more of a shock than a surprise.”

  “I did try to warn you, Katy,” Mads had piped up. “Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

  Believe me, not answering her calls is now one of the greatest regrets of my life, along with not writing books about boy wizards and never growing above five feet three.

  “Anyway,” she’d continued, “I’m here now and I’ve told you!”

  “It’s a bit late in the day. I think the damage is done,” Ollie had said.

  “Shall I go and say sorry to Ann again?” I’d wondered, but my boyfriend had shaken his head.

  “Give my mother a bit of space. I think she and Nicky need to have a chat.”

  “I think we all need a chat with Nicky,” I’d said darkly. And once it’s my turn, that chat will be swiftly followed by me throttling the little git.

  Bloody Tansy and her bright ideas. Did it never occur to her to explain just what kind of catering her new company did? It might have been nice to have known that I’d booked a semi-naked butler to serve my boyfriend’s mother her birthday cake. And even worse than that, one that just so happened to be her own son.

  Anyhow, as I sit in the foyer now, staring miserably at the newspaper article while the fallout continues next door, my stomach twists with mortification. If I live to be a hundred I don’t think I’ll get over the shock of seeing Nicky strut in with the cake held aloft and wearing a loincloth so small that it was practically microscopic. And I don’t think Ann is going to get over the shock any time soon either. When I last saw her she was knocking back brandy like it was going out of fashion, while Geoff yelled at Nicky and Ollie tried to smooth things over. I don’t suppose any of them will ever talk to me again, and I don’t blame them either.

  I don’t even want to talk to me ever again.

  I put my head in my hands and groan. Why oh why oh why oh why didn’t I think to ask Tansy what kind of catering her new company actually did? I’ve known her long enough to realise what a loose cannon she is and that she’s the least likely person to be interested in cooking. Tansy never ingests anything apart from salad leaves and champagne, so of course this was never going to be about food – just like her novels were never really about the finest points of the English language, and her fashion designs aren’t really about fabric, and her advice column isn’t really about… Anyway, you probably get the picture. The point is that if I’d actually thought about it of course I would have started to wonder. But my head was so full of secret books and lobsters and Ollie’s possible affair that Tansy’s credibility as Plymouth’s answer to Mary Berry barely figured.

  Barely figured. Oh God.

  Barely.

  Bare. Butlers. Buttocks on view, and not just any old buttocks either. No. Nicky’s buttocks. The same Nicky who is living under my roof, attending my school and who is supposedly in my care. Should I expect social services to rock up soon?

  “Someone just shoot me now,” I groan.

  “It’s not your fault,” says Maddy, for what has to be the thousandth time in the past twenty minutes. “How were you to know? We’d have to have had very strange minds indeed to have even suspected this was what Nicky was up to. You must admit though, he has been very enterprising.”

  “By taking his clothes off?”

  “Oh stop being so melodramatic! He was still dressed.”

  “I hardly think a pinny covering his crotch and a bow tie count as dressed, Maddy!”

  She shrugs. “I can’t see it as a problem. It’s all totally above board. BBs have a strictly no-touching policy and everything. I read it on the website and Tansy promises me it’s all very innocent. We could book them for Holly’s hen night.”

  “Tell me you’re joking?” I say. Then, as a thought occurs to me, I add, “Hang on. You’ve talked to Tansy?”

  She nods. “I called the company on the way over and told them it was an utter emergency that I spoke to the director. Tansy’s on her way at this very moment to put matters right.”

  Can things get any worse? All I need right now is Tansy rocking up in a pelmet skirt and with her latest boob job on full display. If Uncle Clifford sees her he’ll pop for sure.

  “You do know that Ann’s pastor is in there? What on earth will he make of a glamour model appearing on the scene?”

  “He’ll probably be thrilled. Vicars are human you know,” Maddy huffs.

  You wouldn’t think so if you met Richard. Still, I keep quiet. Today is not the day to fall out over my best friend’s choice of husband.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “Tansy’s really upset and she wants to sort things out. You know how helpful she can be.”

  I certainly do. I’ve had the makeover to prove it, so I think I can be forgiven for not jumping for joy.

  I’m frantically trying to figure out how I can stop
Tansy from making a bad situation even worse – something that a few moments previously I would have said was totally impossible – when in she skips in sky-high Louboutins and swinging the latest LV handbag from her acrylic-tipped fingers. The rest of today’s outfit consists of leather trousers so tight I wince just to look at them and a tiny pink crop top with BOY TOY! emblazoned across her chest. At least I think it’s her chest under there, although it could be the Mitchell brothers held in captivity and spray-tanned orange. A new set of blonde extensions tumbles down to her minuscule waist, and when she turns to smile at me I’m almost dazzled by the glare from her teeth.

  “New veneers,” Tansy explains, seeing my face. “Toilet-bowl white, yeah? Tommy says all I need is Armitage Shanks written across them, the cheeky git! Anyway, like I told him, it’s the latest look. Flipping agony but all the other girls have got them and you know how it is.”

  Actually I don’t, but it’s nice she thinks I might.

  “Anyway, babes,” Tansy continues, “never mind my teeth. Maddy’s told me what’s happened and I am beyond shocked. Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to book a naked butler? I’d have given you a discount.”

  “I didn’t want to book a naked butler!” I wail. “And I didn’t want a discount.”

  “Eh?” Tansy’s forehead would crinkle at this point if it could.

  “I didn’t want you to feel obliged to take money off. Not when you’re building the business,” I explain, and she shakes her head despairingly.

  “Babes, you are such a muppet. I love giving discounts to my friends; it’s part of the fun. Anyway, I’m just about to franchise the lot out and Tommy’s been offered to Chelsea for the next transfer window,” she says. “I think I can afford to give you a freebie. Besides, who doesn’t love a bargain? I could have even thrown in Shane. He’s my hottest butler and a dead ringer for a young Brad Pitt. There’s no way we’d have sent Nicky down if I’d known this was your booking. Obs!”

  “Katy thought BBs did normal catering,” Maddy explains. “Neither of us had a clue the waiters were starkers.”