The Pines
43 Elton Road
Oxshott
Surrey
27 February 2006
Dear Rebecca
Thank you for your demo CD: ‘Becky’s Inspirational Speeches’, which we have listened to. They were certainly very lively and some of the anecdotes most amusing.
You assert that your ‘profound and spiritual message comes across loud and clear’. Unfortunately, after several careful listens, we were unable to detect exactly what that message was. Indeed, there seemed to be several messages in your text – some contradicting the others.
We will not therefore be releasing a twelve-part set and advertising it on the TV, as you suggest.
Yours truly
Celia Hereford
Director (Mind-Body-Spirit)
ELEVEN
It’s happening. It’s actually, definitely happening. The party invitations have gone out! No turning back now.
Bonnie emailed the final guest list over yesterday, to my secret-party email account. As I ran my eye down it, I suddenly felt a bit nervous. I’d forgotten how well connected Luke is. Some really important, grown-up people have been invited, like the chairman of Foreland Investments and the whole board of the Bank of London. There’s even someone called the Right Reverend St John Gardner-Stone, who sounds petrifying and I can’t believe he was ever a friend of Luke’s. (I quickly Googled him – and when I saw his massive bushy beard, I believed it even less.)
Two hundred important people coming for a party. And I don’t have a marquee yet. No one else responded to my barter ad, and there’s no way I can afford one from a posh hire company. My stomach clenches with anxiety every time I think about it. But I have to stay positive. I’ll get one somehow. I just have to. And I’ve got the canapés and the pound-shop table confetti and I’ve made forty pom-poms already …
Could I make a marquee? Out of shopping bags?
I have a sudden vision of a perfect patchwork marquee, with hundreds of designer names shining all over it …
No. Let’s be realistic. Pom-poms is my limit.
On the plus side, my latest fab plan is to get the party sponsored. I’ve written loads of letters to the marketing directors of companies like Dom Perignon and Bacardi, telling them what a great opportunity it will be for them to become involved with such a glitzy, high-profile event. If just a few of them send us some free stuff, we’ll be sorted. (And obviously I’ve sworn them to secrecy. If any of them blab, they’re dead.)
I glance nervously down at myself, and brush a speck off Minnie’s little pink tweed coat. We’re walking along Piccadilly, and I’ve never felt so apprehensive in all my life. Two hundred yards away is the Ritz, and in the Ritz is Elinor, waiting in a suite, and that’s where we’re headed.
I still can’t quite believe I’ve done this. I’ve set up a secret meeting. I’ve said absolutely nothing to Luke. It feels like the most massive betrayal. But at the same time … it feels like something I’ve just got to do. I’ve got to give Elinor a chance to know her grandchild. Just one.
And if it’s a disaster or if Elinor says anything appalling, I’ll just whisk Minnie away and pretend it never happened.
The Ritz is as grand and beautiful as ever, and I have a sudden flashback to coming here with Luke for a date, before we were even going out together. Imagine if I’d known then that we’d end up getting married and having a daughter. Imagine if I’d known I’d end up betraying him with a secret meeting with his mother—
No. Stop it. Don’t think about it.
As we walk into the Ritz, a dark-haired bride is standing a few feet away, wearing the most amazing sheath dress with a long sparkly veil and tiara, and I feel a sudden pang of lust. God, I’d love to get married again.
I mean, to Luke, obviously.
‘Pin-cess.’ Minnie is pointing at the bride with her chubby finger, her eyes like saucers. ‘Pin-cess!’
The bride turns and smiles charmingly down at Minnie. She takes a little pink rosebud out of her bouquet, rustles over to us and hands it to Minnie, who beams back, then reaches for the biggest, most succulent rose.
‘No, Minnie!’ I grab her hand just in time. ‘Thanks so much!’ I add to the bride. ‘You look lovely. My daughter thinks you’re a princess.’
‘Pince?’ Minnie is looking all around. ‘Pince?’
The bride meets my eye and laughs. ‘There’s my prince, sweetheart.’ She points to a man in morning dress who’s approaching over the patterned carpet.
Yikes. He’s short, squat, balding and in his fifties. He looks more like a frog. I can tell from Minnie’s puzzled frown that she’s not convinced.
‘Pince?’ she says again to the bride. ‘Where pince?’
‘Congratulations and have a lovely day!’ I say hastily. ‘We’d better go.’ And I hurriedly lead Minnie away, her little voice still piping up, ‘Where pince?’
I’m half-hoping the man at the reception desk might say, ‘Sorry, Elinor Sherman’s gone out for the afternoon,’ and we can forget all about it and go to Hamleys instead. But she’s clearly primed the staff, because he immediately leaps to attention and says, ‘Ah yes, Mrs Sherman’s visitors,’ and escorts me up in the lift himself. And so, before I know it, I’m standing in an elegant carpeted corridor, knocking on the door, my hand suddenly trembling.
Maybe this was a terrible idea. Oh God. It was, wasn’t it? It was a terrible, terrible, bad idea—
‘Rebecca.’ She opens the door so suddenly, I squeak in fright.