One in a Million

‘That’s because you’re a big girl,’ Gina said, shifting registers to her high-pitched, little-girl voice. Incidentally, the same one she used with me. ‘And Basil is still a baby.’

Basil. Thirteen months ago, my sister had given birth and seen fit to name her baby Basil. Yes, I knew it was Alan’s favourite grandad’s name, but I had to assume if there was a heaven, somewhere above us, there was a kindly old man throwing his hands up in despair at the fact my nephew’s life had already been ruined before he could even string together a sentence. Basil the Baby.

‘Have you told Dad about the TechBubble awards?’ Becks asked, hurrying back from the kitchen with a bowl full of freshly sliced baguettes. ‘Annie’s been nominated for an award.’

‘Three awards,’ I said quickly, sitting up as Alice scampered off down the garden. ‘Best new agency, best boutique agency and best campaign. It’s kind of a big deal to be nominated for best boutique agency the same year you’re nominated for best new agency.’

‘All I hear about these days is start-ups going under,’ he said without removing his sunglasses. ‘Would have been a better idea to stay at that big place you were at. Work your way up, think about your pension, get early retirement. That’s what I did, and look at me.’

You couldn’t not look at him really. He was positively radioactive. He was the most tanned man I had ever seen. In fact, was George Hamilton still alive? It was possible my dad was now the most tanned man on earth.

‘But then I wouldn’t have been nominated for three awards, would I?’ I asked while googling the health and well-being of George Hamilton.

‘When will you find out if you’ve won?’ he asked.

‘Start of next month,’ I replied, brushing blades of grass off the arse of my jeans as I stood. ‘The awards are on the second.’

‘Shame you won’t know earlier.’ Dad pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his polished mahogany head. ‘I could have included it in the club newsletter.’

‘Surely the tennis club newsletter should be about news from the tennis club,’ I said. Gina took Dad’s glasses, pulled a case out of her handbag, cleaned them with a little cloth and them popped them away. ‘You could mention the nominations, if you liked?’

‘But what if you don’t win?’ he asked.

‘But what if we do?’ I replied.

‘But what if you don’t?’ he said again. ‘And then I’m out with your Uncle Norman and he says, how did Annie do in those awards? And I have to say, she didn’t actually win any of them, Norman, and then we’re all going to feel foolish, aren’t we?’

I pursed my lips and ran my tongue over my teeth. In for one, out for six.

‘I love your top, Annie,’ Gina said. ‘Where’s it from?’

Dinner was a blissfully swift affair. Lasagne, Dad’s favourite; trifle, Alan’s favourite; and wine, my favourite.

‘Doing anything exciting tonight?’ Rebecca asked, absently stroking Alice’s hair as her daughter scraped a spoon against the bottom of her bowl. ‘Seeing Mir?’

‘She’s got a date,’ I replied. If that was what you could call her plan to ‘maybe kind of probably get a drink with Martin if he’s around or whatever’. Date was quicker. ‘I have a load of work to catch up, I’ll probably just do that.’ The vague thought of Sam’s unInstagrammed life gave me a small lurch in my stomach.

‘No date for you?’ Alan bounced Baby Basil on his knee, without even the decency to make eye contact while opening Pandora’s box.

‘Annie’s too busy for boys,’ Dad said, laughing as though he had just made the funniest joke in the world. ‘Aren’t you, darling?’

‘Just busy in general.’ I stared longingly at the sweaty bottle of white, still half full in the middle of the table, and briefly wondering what Charlie might be up to. ‘You know me.’

‘What about Matthew and that bloody stunt at the World Cup,’ he said, looking across the table to Alan for support. ‘Can’t believe you let that one get away. Me and Alan could have been at the quarter finals right now if you’d played your cards right there.’

‘I feel just terrible about the whole thing,’ I replied, reaching for the wine bottle. ‘Apologies, Dad.’

‘Alice, have you shown Auntie Annie your new tree house?’ Rebecca asked, taking the bottle out of my hand before I could fill my glass to the brim. ‘I’m sure she’d like to see it.’

Alice stood and obediently held out her hand.

‘It’s at the bottom of the garden,’ she informed me while her mother changed the subject. ‘Up a tree.’

‘Controversial,’ I replied, throwing my sister a grateful glance as we skipped off down the garden.

‘They make me go away when they want to talk about me,’ Alice explained as I heaved myself up the steps and into her really rather nice tree house. Two chairs, an iPad and some lovely Cath Kidston curtains. If she could find her way to adding a mini fridge and corkscrew, I’d have been tempted to move in.

‘I think they’re probably too busy talking about me,’ I told her, holding out my hand to accept a tiny plastic teacup that she filled with non-existent tea. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

Alice considered this and decided it was probably right as she poured herself a drink and made herself comfy on the second wooden chair.

‘Now we can have a proper chinwag,’ she said, a conspiratorial wink in her eye. ‘Did Mummy tell you I put Persil in the fish tank?’

‘No,’ I replied, not sure what to be more afraid of, her use of ‘chinwag’ or the fact that I was alone in a tree house with a tiny sociopath. ‘Why would you do that?’

She shrugged and sipped her fake tea.

‘I was trying to clean it,’ she said, as though it were obvious. ‘But it didn’t work and then we had to get new fish.’

Clever Alice, skipping over the part where they all died.

‘Why haven’t you got a husband?’ she asked, opening an empty Quality Street tin and offering me an imaginary biscuit.

‘Not everyone has a husband,’ I said, taking care to select the right one. She’d tell me off if I took the imaginary Orange Club. ‘Granny hasn’t got a husband.’

‘That’s because Granny is too old,’ she assured me. ‘Daddy said so. And she used to be married to Grandad Mal, didn’t you know?’

As my mum liked to say, Alice was six going on sixteen. I couldn’t remember being quite so precocious when I was her age but, to be fair, the only thing I really remembered about being six was wetting myself on the way home from Alton Towers and my parents’ divorce. Hardly a banner year for me.

‘I did know that,’ I replied, following her lead and nibbling on my fantasy biscuit. ‘I don’t have a husband because I haven’t found anyone I want to marry yet.’

‘That makes sense,’ she said. ‘I’m going to marry Kofi from my gymnastics class. He can do four somersaults in a row.’

I’d definitely dated people for less.

‘I’ll find someone when I’m ready,’ I said, watching my niece cross and uncross her legs until she felt she’d found a suitably grown-up position. It would have been more effective if her dress hadn’t ridden up in the process, revealing her pants to the whole world. ‘There’s no rush.’

‘Daddy says you’re getting old too,’ she replied. ‘And that you’d better get a move on because you’re not getting any younger.’

‘Did he now.’ I pulled back the curtains and shot Alan a death stare across the garden. ‘And what else did your daddy have to say?’

‘He said everything started to go downhill for Mummy after thirty-five and that you ought to try to get a ring on it well before then.’

Note to self. Literally never open your mouth in front of a child over the age of one.

‘Well, I know this is probably going to be a strange thing to say, but your daddy doesn’t know everything,’ I said. ‘Especially about girls.’

‘Oh no, I know,’ Alice assured me. ‘Mummy tells him that all the time.’