Chapter 3 #2
‘…I mean, how serious are they? Is Lisa thinking of moving in here?’ Dean’s eyes lit up at the endless possibilities in store for him as he got out of the car.
‘That would be good – we could knock through to her cottage and have ourselves a much bigger place. She wouldn’t charge you for it, would she, once she was up here playing at being Lady of the Manor?
She’d just hand it over, glad to be rid of it. We could—’
‘Dean,’ I managed to get out through gritted teeth.
‘They’ve only been seeing each other three months.
Cut it out, will you?’ I stalked off ahead of him, crunching the tiny white stones underfoot on my trusty, but filthily decrepit, trainers, having thankfully recalled from my previous visit here that high heels would have resulted in ruined shoes, grazed knees or a sprained ankle.
‘Only got Lola’s and your – and Scargill’s – interests at heart. Have to look ahead – have to think of the future.’
I was prevented from making any scathing response in Dean’s direction by the highly polished black double door opening in front of us, Mum proudly welcoming us in.
‘Lady bountiful already,’ Dean murmured into my ear as he caught me up and, together, we were ushered along a deep, soft cream carpet towards a sitting room at the far end from which noise and laughter were already drifting.
‘Hang on a minute, I need to change out of these trainers.’ I headed back to the front door with my orange plastic Sainsbury’s carrier containing my one decent pair of black heels, two bottles of Malbec and the Welcome to Beddingfield village tin containing the home-made Florentines I’d feverishly baked to impress once Lola and I were back from the pet shop.
While Dean, eager to get on with the party, left me to it.
‘Oh Jesus, oh God, please don’t say I haven’t brought them.’
The son of man and his old man obviously weren’t listening, but a taller, much younger version of Kamran Sattar was.
‘Kamran,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘there’s a blaspheming bag lady out here trying to infiltrate the party. Shall I get in the heavies? Send her on her way?’
‘Jess, come on in, ignore this tosser of a brother of mine and come and have a drink.’ Two tossers in one evening – I was obviously on a roll.
Red-faced, the twisted plastic of the carrier now biting tenaciously into my hand, I appeared unable to dispose of it or its contents and found myself, instead, simply grinning inanely in Kamran’s direction.
‘Just give me two minutes, Kamran,’ I sang, the heavy bag swinging and twisting more tightly as I turned.
‘Is Robyn here yet? Would you ask her to join me please?’ Oh God, now I sounded like the old dragon of a headmistress at Beddingfield High when me and Serena Atkinson had been snitched on in Year 9 for putting half a pint of frogspawn into the games mistress’s spare hockey boots when said woman had left the pair of us off the team sheet for some misdemeanour or other.
‘You OK, Jess?’ Kamran asked solicitously as the obnoxious brother stood laughing, enjoying the ongoing pantomime. ‘Hang on, I’ll get Robyn for you.’
‘Jess? What is it? What’s up?’ Robyn, looking slim, tall and utterly fabulous in white cargo trousers and a white skimpy top, was at my side.
‘Forgotten my heels,’ I muttered. ‘And this plastic bag has arrested me and is refusing to let me go.’
Robyn, obviously a couple of drinks down, started laughing. ‘Oh, come here. Just relax, let your hand go…’
‘Go where?’ I snapped, the heavy bulky bag now giving me both arm and back ache. I sank to the floor while Robyn, still laughing, attempted to release my hand.
‘Scissors, George!’ Robyn called to the brother in the manner of a surgeon about to whip out a particularly vexatious gall bladder.
Scissors appeared as if by magic, and, really giggling now, Robyn started to snip at the strained tight plastic handle.
‘That’s my bloody finger.’ I pulled it back in alarm as I felt a nip to my hand.
‘Move over.’ George, still laughing, joined Robyn and me on the cream-carpeted floor at the end of the hallway, by which time all three of us were in a huddle, shouting instructions until I was free.
Flexing both my hand and my dignity, I attempted to pull down the too-tight dress over my backside and, with head held high, let the filthy trainers carry me into Kamran’s beautiful sitting room.
Because, knowing there was one whopping great hole in the toe of my tights, as well as feet in dire need of a pedicure, this appeared to be a better alternative than discarding them entirely.
‘Now, Jess.’ Kamran smiled. ‘A glass of champagne first and then let me introduce you to everyone. This is my mum, Shirley.’
Oh, thank goodness there was at least one person in the room who appeared almost as dishevelled as I felt.
Glancing round at what appeared a veritable sea of beautiful – and slim – people, I smiled gratefully in the older woman’s direction.
I’d been expecting some sort of matriarchal head of the Sattar’s Frozen empire (Joanna Lumley as Judith Burkett in that Netflix adaption of Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once sprang to mind), but the diminutively rotund woman, probably in her mid-seventies, desperately trying to balance her glass of champagne and the two canapés she appeared to have ended up with, fell utterly short of that image.
‘Jess, hello, love. Call me Shirl. How you doing?’ The woman’s voice was pure West Yorkshire.
She attempted a handshake but, realising both hands were full, emptied her left by discharging both canapés into her mouth at once before thrusting it in my direction.
‘So, who do you belong to?’ she finally managed to get out.
‘Belong to?’ I wanted to laugh at that. Who did I belong to?
The tosser over in the corner, hoovering up canapés and peanuts as though there was no tomorrow?
I turned my back on Dean, not wanting to acknowledge ownership of the man who was now edging his way over to a tall sultry blonde.
He was nothing if not self-assured, confident in new company in a way I had never been. Or ever would be.
‘I’m Lisa’s eldest daughter.’ I smiled before upending my own glass of champagne. Sod it, we’d have to get a taxi home; it was ages since I’d spent an evening having more than one glass of alcohol. And this was a particularly cold, crisp and utterly delicious vintage.
‘Oh? Right?’ Shirley’s surprised eyes dropped to my black dress straining slightly now at my breasts and backside before automatically glancing across at my divinely slim mum and then across to Robyn, who was confidently in full flow with yet another of the Sattar brothers.
How many of the feckers were there? They seemed to be everywhere, another one popping up out of the ether at every turn.
This alcohol-fuelled quizzing in my head made me want to laugh, and I grinned somewhat inanely in the older woman’s direction.
‘Of course you are,’ Shirley soothed. ‘I can see the family resemblance now.’
‘Well, Robyn and my little sister, Sorrel, appear to have inherited all of Mum’s slim beauty while…’
‘Hey, hey, you can stop that right now, love,’ Shirley scolded. ‘You’re a fine figure of a woman.’ She patted her own more than adequate polyester-clad behind. ‘You need a bit of padding up here in Yorkshire when the winter sets in.’
‘Except it’s spring…’ I began, laughing as Shirley glanced, somewhat disdainfully, across at the coven of whippet-thin women dressed in expensive designer gear in one corner of the room. Shirley’s daughters-in-law presumably.
‘Ah, of course, you’re the fabulous cook,’ Shirley went on, smiling.
‘Won that Yorkshire TopChef thingy last Christmas, didn’t you, love…
?’ She broke off in order to stop a young kid, moving round the room with his tray of canapés.
‘My grandson, Beau,’ she said proudly, giving his arm a squeeze before helping herself to the feta with balsamic onion jam and a beetroot relish with blue cheese and pear.
‘I saw you on Focus North. Brilliant, it was. No wonder our Kamran wants you helping with this new project of his.’
She broke off once again as Kamran started speaking, lifting a hand in the guests’ direction. ‘We’re ready to eat, everyone,’ he called. ‘Do come across to the dining room.’