‘Tickets, please?’ he said. Annie set about rifling amongst her layers to find the pocket where they were stashed. ‘Only kidding, I sold them to you guys, remember? Step this way.’
Annie didn’t notice the glance the two men shared, and if she’d been paying better attention she’d have seen Harri growing conspicuously paler but with a look of determination in his eyes.
Jasper led them through the seating area and up the stone steps that had taken them onto the lawns on Wednesday. Only now the steps led to a little tepee, a pink tepee in fact, and the entire thing was bedecked in yellow roses.
‘What’s all this?’ said Annie, watching as Jasper drew apart the folds, tying them in place, to reveal a glowing pink interior of artfully arranged cushions on a softly carpeted ground sheet. Gold tealight lamps with holey cutouts cast mottled light across the fabric walls, and these hung amid silver stars and crystals, all shifting with the movement of the tent and casting shimmering sparkles everywhere.
‘VIP area, I guess,’ Harri said, not needing to take credit for this. It had been a group effort, after all. He had begged and borrowed and run around for two hours straight, rummaging through Big House Wedding Inc.’s storeroom of props and decorations. Patti and Samantha had helped too.
Jasper hung around long enough to exchange knowing nods with Harri and to wish Annie a nice evening.
‘Shall we?’ Harri put out a hand to walk Annie inside.
Stooping, she made her way into the cosy tent and sat on a squashy round cushion. Harri settled himself beside her, crossing his legs.
‘Why do I get the feeling this isn’t just Clove Lore busybodies mixing in?’ Annie asked, her nose wrinkled with suspicion.
‘Hah!’ Harri was glad she was looking around admiringly. He reached for the contents of the ice bucket at the back of the tent. ‘Champagne?’
She laughed in surprise as Harri loosened the cork and let it fly out of the tent onto the dark lawn with a pop. Her eyes sparkled as much as the liquid in their tall glasses as he proposed a toast.
‘To…’ he did the maths, ‘twelve years of friendship?’
She only hesitated a little before bringing her glass to his with a soft chime. ‘To friendship,’ she repeated.
As they took their first delicious, crisp sips, Harri arranged the blankets over their legs. Fuzzy, soft and new, he’d been delighted when he found them left over from a Big House wedding at Christmas.
The other movie-goers were noisily arriving and finding their seats. Harri watched them, returning their greetings, but each one of them was conspicuously not coming over to interrogate them.
‘That’s weird,’ Annie remarked. ‘They aren’t sticking their noses in?’
‘Very weird,’ Harri said, smiling, trying to ignore Jowan’s conspiratorial wink from over by the daffodil beds where he was helping Minty (wrapped from head to boot in vintage furs like she was inDr Zhivago) into her deckchair. They gripped mugs of steaming, spiced Shiraz.
The aroma from the drinks stall – hot chocolates with marshmallows and a great big pot of mulled wine – wafted in the air.
More and more people arrived. Patti and Austen, the heavily pregnant Joy and Monty, and little Radia in a Paddington Bear duffel coat sat together as one family.
Joy was asking Radia what she wanted to drink. ‘Hot chocolate or a babycino?’
‘Ugh, babycino!’ Radia sulked. ‘I’m not a baby.’
Joy, now settled in her deckchair, hauled her big girl up onto her lap and rocked her. Harri just made out the words. ‘Radia Pearl, you will always be Mummy’s baby, even when you’re a little old lady, okay?’ And the pair hugged and giggled, and Radia conceded that a babycino with extra marshmallows, ‘might be all right, actually’.
Their attention was drawn by the arrival of Estée Gold who was having something of a one-woman red carpet moment as she steamed into the garden in a great glittering gold frock and acres of bunched tulle wrapped around her arms. There was a smattering of confused applause from some of the tourists, and a loud whooping and appreciative catcalling from Leonid and Izaak, who were snuggled together under a duvet in their bobble hats. There were a few eye rolls and tuts as well, but it was all the same to Estée who was having the time of her life at her first launch night in many years.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said graciously as she lowered herself into a deckchair, only struggling a little with her massive gown. Finding herself stuck, she snapped her fingers for a drink and three village husbands jumped to their feet to assist. ‘How kind!’ she cooed.
Annie was finding all of this delightfully bonkers, of course.
‘I’m gonna miss these crackpots,’ she said laughing. Harri felt the joy blazing from her body, even through all their layers.
‘Rose for the lady, sir?’ came an irreverent Scottish voice.
Peeping their head around the flap of the tent they saw Jude Crawley in neck to toe hiking gear and an usherette’s headdress on top of her beanie.
‘Hey!’ Annie welcomed her. ‘You’re helping here too?’
‘That’s what we do,’ Jude replied, with a knowing stare aimed at Harri. She held out the bucket of single roses, each one wrapped in a brown paper cone.
