The Surprise Party

Sadie rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Oh right, mister family man – we’ve got to eat, haven’t we? I can think of a lot of other things we could get with twenty quid . . .’

‘Oh yeah,’ Tucker whooped.

Simon looked hurt. Hannah glanced up at him, longing to offer support, but at the same time not really wanting the spotlight to fall on her. Although as it happened it was coming her way, like it or not.

‘So it looks like back to your place first then, Hannah?’ said Sadie, as she hopped off the swing.

Hannah hesitated for a second before nodding.

‘Sure, okay,’ she said, as casually as she could manage, although as they fell into step alongside her, Hannah wondered how she was going to get round this one. Home to her grandparents’ anniversary party really was the last place she wanted to take any of them.

Chapter Six

‘I was thinking we really ought to go and see the folly before we go home,’ said Fleur, moving aside cups and tea plates to make enough room to spread out a map of the stately home’s formal gardens on the picnic table. ‘I reckon if we go down that way—’ she pointed towards an impressive row of topiary arches, ‘and then turn right, that takes us down past the lake and out through the woods.’

‘Are you completely out of your mind?’ said Rose, finishing off a Danish pastry. ‘The bloody thing is miles away. When in heaven’s name did you ever want to see a garden folly?’

‘But you like gardens,’ protested Fleur. ‘That’s why we came.’

‘I know and I’ve had a really lovely time looking round this one, but my feet are killing me. We’ve been here all day. I’m dog-tired and to be honest I just want to go home now,’ said Rose.

‘Oh right, that’s it, it’s always what you want, isn’t it?’ snapped Fleur. ‘I’m only over here for a couple of weeks.’

‘So you keep telling everyone,’ said Rose with a theatrical sigh.

‘And it wasn’t cheap to get in.’

‘If it’s about value for money,’ said Rose, opening up her handbag and pulling out her purse, ‘please let me pay for me and Jack – that way you won’t feel as if you’ve been robbed.’

‘I don’t want your money,’ protested Fleur, holding up her hand. ‘It’s my treat.’ She said it with no grace whatsoever, making it sound more like a threat than a gift. ‘As I said, we don’t see each other that often and I’ve only got a few more days left before I go back and I didn’t know what else to buy you.’

‘And you’re telling me that your trip back to England won’t be complete without a walk down to this folly?’

‘It was built by the late fourth Earl and is designed to represent the ruins of a gothic fairy-tale tower,’ said Fleur, reading from the description on the map. ‘Complete with a spiral staircase, and one remaining stained glass window showing the slaying of the dragon by St George, it is considered one of the finest examples of architect Cornelius E. Fletcher’s early work.’

‘Really? Well, in that case you’d better go,’ said Rose sarcastically, waving her away. ‘We’re all right here, aren’t we, Jack? We’ll get ourselves another pot of tea and have a crack at the rest of the cakes. Don’t you worry about us. We’ll be fine. We’ll wait for you here. Knock yourself out . . .’

Fleur stared at her open-mouthed. ‘What?’

‘Well, you want to go and see it, don’t you? We’ll wait for you here,’ said Rose, glancing at her watch. ‘You’d better get a move on if you want to get a good look at it before closing time.’

Very slowly, Fleur got to her feet. Meanwhile Jack picked up the map and began to fold it up for her. He folded it carefully so that the route to the folly was uppermost. ‘There we are,’ he said smiling benignly. ‘You’ll be needing this . . .’

*

After checking her watch for what seemed like the thousandth time that day, Suzie made her way across the garden towards the house. The guests should begin arriving soon. She had been hoping that Liz would have reappeared by now, all buffed and puffed and oh-so-beautiful, to act as the chief meeter and greeter for their guests. Suzie’s baby sister Lizzie had always had a natural gift for the kind of social handshaking and air kissing that made people feel as if they were the centre of the universe. And who wouldn’t want to be met by Lizzie Bingham, the golden girl off the TV? So far, however, there was no sign of her.

Suzie glanced around: there were drinks on standby, canapés . . . Mentally she ran through the checklist, working out what else needed to be done.

She glanced at her watch again; all this clock-watching was getting to be a nervous tic. She really wanted to hand over responsibility to Liz for a while so that she and Sam could nip home, grab a shower and get changed. While she was there she’d have a chance to see if Hannah had sneaked home, she could feed the animals, let the dogs out, check the phone in case anyone had rung to say they were on their way or were lost or God knows what else. Even as she thought it, Suzie smiled to herself: actually, maybe going home wasn’t such a bright idea. There were almost as many jobs to do at home as there were at her parents’ house.

Pushing open the kitchen door of her parents’ cottage, she made for the hallway and called up from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Hello? Liz? Are you going to be much longer?’

Not a sound.

‘Lizzie, are you up there? How much longer are you going to be? Only Sam and I would really like to go home and get changed. Liz?’

There was still nothing.

Suzie climbed the stairs two at a time and knocked on Lizzie’s bedroom door. There was no answer.

‘Lizzie? You’re not still in the shower, are you? Liz!’ She knocked harder and then finally pushed the door open. Inside, her younger sister was lying spreadeagled on top of the bed wearing nothing but the skimpiest pair of knickers, basking under some kind of lamp. Her eyes were firmly closed, her head tipped up towards the light, with her iPod on and earplugs in.

The sound of the door as Suzie slammed it shut made Liz jump, her eyes snapping open. She leapt off the bed and snatched up her robe.

‘What the hell!’ she shouted furiously, pulling it on. ‘What are you doing? Why didn’t you knock?’

‘I did. I knocked and I called and then I knocked some more. What are you doing?’

‘It’s my new holistic body therapy, it energises and revitalises your skin from the cellular level. I need to—’

Suzie held up a hand to stop her. ‘What you need to do is to come downstairs and hold the fort while Sam and I go home and get changed. People will be arriving soon.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at me, I can’t go down like this, I haven’t done my hair or my make-up yet.’ Liz protested, tying up her robe. ‘I’m not ready—’

‘For God’s sake, Liz, you’ve been up here for ages. And don’t look at me like that. Sam and I haven’t stopped all day. You’ve had plenty of time to get ready, you swanned in and spread a little star dust around the place and basically you’ve done nothing else since.’

Liz squared her shoulders indignantly. ‘That’s not true. I’ve paid for all—’

Suzie spoke over the top of her. ‘I know exactly what you’ve paid for, Liz, we’ve chipped in too and we’ve done the lion’s share of the work, so please can you come downstairs and give me and Sam a hand?’ Suzie could feel her frustration bubbling over.

‘I’ll be down in half an hour,’ said Liz, sitting down at the dressing table.

‘But people could start arriving in half an hour,’ protested Suzie.

‘Well in that case it’ll be perfect timing then, won’t it?’ Liz snapped. As she was speaking, Liz opened up a Pandora’s box of potions, lotions and creams and started to unpack a selection of brushes.

‘I need to go home and get ready,’

‘Well, off you go then,’ said Liz, waving her away. ‘I’m not stopping you, am I?’

‘But—’ Suzie began.

‘But what? Oh for God’s sake, Suzie, stop being such a bloody martyr.’ Liz said furiously, spinning around to glare at her. ‘You’re not indispensable, you know. The whole world isn’t going to fall apart just because you’re not there to sort it all out. People can manage perfectly well without you. We can manage without you – now just go. It’ll be fine. Go!’

Suzie was about to protest and then stopped and stared at Liz, all the words jammed up in her throat in a tight and angry knot. Finally, not trusting herself to say anything civil, Suzie stalked out of the room, down the stairs and out of the front door. Pulling her keys from the pocket of her jeans, she headed for her car.

*