The Perfect Christmas

‘Mum! Perfect Day’s breaking even after its first year, which is excellent, even despite the difficult winter and the small matter of a global recession!’

‘Darling, there’s nothing coming in this month and your VAT is due. We’re coming up to the summer wedding season and you don’t have anything planned for May. I don’t see how you can even draw a wage.’

I’ve had a few sleepless nights on this score actually but there’s no way I’m telling my mother that. She’s likely to drag me kicking and screaming back to her friend, Hester Dunnaway. It’ll be paper cranes, missing grooms and misery before you can say Chihuahua. Things aren’t that bad.

Yet.

‘There are weddings in the pipeline,’ I say firmly. ‘Saffron Scott’s asked me to pitch for her wedding. I’m meeting her on Friday.’

‘The Saffron Scott? Robyn! That’s wonderful!’

‘So stop worrying,’ I say. ‘Things will be fine.’

My mother checks her Cartier watch. ‘I’ll never get through these accounts before lunch. I promised Hester we’d try the new place off Henrietta Street.’

‘Leave them, Mum.’

‘Leave them?’ Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline. ‘That’s what caused the problems! Why don’t you have an accountant?’

‘Because I can’t afford one.’ I lean over and shut the books. ‘Anyway, Gideon’s more than happy to help.’

And he’s less critical than you, I add under my breath. Mum can’t help interfering with Perfect Day. She runs her own interior design company, and she got me my first job with Hester hoping that I’d have my own business one day. Now that I’ve achieved it, she thinks it gives her the right to ‘help’. I know she means well but I could really do without it.

‘Fine,’ she huffs. ‘I thought you’d jump at the opportunity of having someone with my business experience cast an eye over the figures. But if you don’t think I’m good enough … I’ve only built up my own design empire over the last twenty-five years …’

I grit my teeth so hard my fillings rattle. ‘You are good enough, Mum.’

‘You never were a very good liar.’ She pauses. ‘Unlike your father.’

Here we go. According to my mother, Dad could knock Satan into a cocked hat for pure evil. I pretend to listen to Mum complaining about my father while I tend to the Gaggia machine that Si got me for my birthday. The way she goes on you’d think Dad had left yesterday.

‘Did I tell you he’s bought her a brand new Range Rover?’ says my mother. ‘And all those years he let us struggle with a clapped-out old banger.’

By ‘her’, Mum means Charmaine, Dad’s new wife. Actually, hardly new since they’ve been married for eleven years and have ten-year-old twins. But as far as Mum’s concerned, Charmaine is a parvenu interloper.

‘Dad did his best,’ I say, rummaging in the fridge for milk.

‘That’s right,’ she snaps. ‘Stick up for him as usual.’

‘Do you want a biscuit?’ I interrupt. I open the Marilyn Monroe barrel that I found on eBay and help myself to a couple. Hopefully munching digestives will keep her quiet for a few minutes.

‘Have you got a slice of ham?’ Mum asks. ‘I’m doing no carbs!’ She pats her stomach. ‘Hester swears by it.’

Hester is a professional food Nazi so this is no surprise. And wherever her food fads take her – from the grapefruit diet to the boiled egg plan (believe me, it was not pleasant in the office during that phase) – Mum is sure to follow.

‘Do you know how many calories are in those?’ Mum snatches the biscuit barrel from me.

‘I’m starving!’

‘You are not.’ Mum tips the contents into the bin. ‘Children in Africa are starving. Have an apple.’

‘Who eats apples rather than biscuits?’

‘A girl who’s single, childless, and over thirty,’

‘Mum! You’ve just been telling me how crap men are!’

‘Well, yes,’ she agrees. ‘But I’ve seen the sweetest hat in Philip Treacey. It’s perfect for the mother of the bride. And there was the cutest little baby’s bonnet. You know how much I want grandchildren. Time’s a ticking.’ She tapped her watch as if it was my biological clock on her wrist.

I slosh coffee into spotty Emma Bridgewater mugs. ‘It’s not even a year since Patrick and I broke up.’

Mum places a hand on her heart. ‘I still have nightmares about having to return all those presents. Great Auntie Ethel was really upset.’

Sod Auntie Ethel. I was pretty upset myself.

‘I’m not ready for a relationship yet,’ I say. But I plan to be in one by Christmas, I add silently. What could be better than holding hands with someone special while listening to carol singers and watching the snowflakes drift to earth? That’s my idea of heaven.

My mother tuts. ‘When you fall off the horse, what do you do, Robyn?’

‘Call an ambulance?’ I say with a wicked grin.

‘Darling. Do try and make an effort. You get back in the saddle, of course! And at your age, you get back asap. And refuse to sign a pre-nup. Just like I do.’

This is no exaggeration. My mother, currently Anna Dexter, has been married and divorced no less than three times. To my great relief she’s taking a break from nuptials recently, preferring to go on luxury cruises where she’s wooed by men called Luigi who have Tango tans, hairy chests, and large wallets. She’s the only person I know who finds Michael Winner attractive.

So I think I can be forgiven for not taking relationship advice from her.

For a moment, I think about meeting Jonathan Broadhead yesterday. I see again those amazing hyacinth eyes framed by inky lashes all starry with rain and feel the hard contours of his body when he pulled me beneath his raincoat. He was definitely attractive and not a hint of fake tan.

He was also married.

More proof that all the good ones really are taken.

I’m saved from discussing my love life any further by Hester Dunnaway attacking the intercom. I buzz her in without a word and my stomach seesaws as I prepare to greet my former boss.

Imagine Cruella De Vil’s meaner older sister and you’ve got a pretty good picture of Hester Dunnaway. Groomed and plucked and waxed and suctioned to within an inch of her life, she looks like a desiccated skeleton; albeit one dressed in Prada and with Chanel-tipped talons. It costs a lot of money to look this well preserved so it’s just as well Hester is one of the most successful wedding planners in the country. And luckily she always has a keen junior to do the donkey work because keeping her aging body embalmed is a full-time occupation.

I should know. I may have learned an awful lot from working with Hester but she certainly got her money’s worth. You haven’t known telephone hell until you’ve spent six hours calling every zoo in Europe to secure the services of twenty pink flamingos. Way more than a year on and I still have the strongest Pavlovian impulse to jump to my feet and grab the telephone when in her presence.

‘Hello, Robyn,’ says Hester, looking me up and down. ‘How are you?’

‘Good, thanks,’ I smile. ‘And you?’

‘Never busier. My latest wedding’s going to feature in Hello! It’s very high profile and totally secret.’

There’s a pause while she waits for me to ask whose it is. No way am I going to give her the satisfaction. I’d rather eat Poppy’s dog food.

But my mother has no such restraint. ‘Who?’