‘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’sFool Me Oncesprang 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 doyoubelong to?’ she finally managed to get out.
‘Belong to?’ I wanted to laugh at that. WhodidI 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 onFocus 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.’
4
There were thirteen of us to be seated around the huge oval table in the beautifully decorated dining room just off the kitchen. Itching to see this fabulous kitchen (fitted out, apparently, with top-of-the-range equipment over which Mum had enthused almost as much as Kamran’s wildflower garden), I managed only a glimpse into its shiny white and metallic interior before being herded into the dining room along with the others.
Although the table had been set with polished cut glass and starched navy linen napkins, the low-ceilinged room I walked into was warm and welcoming, relaxed, comfortable and homely, with any sense of conventional formality broken by the masses of spring flowers and herbs (Mum’s handiwork, presumably) arranged down the centre of the table itself. There was no seating arrangement but instead, a young boy round about Sorrel’s age was laughingly, but bossily, splitting up the Sattar daughters-in-law who appeared somewhat unhinged once they were separated, directing them towards the places he firmly indicated.
Hoping to be seated near Robyn, Mum, Fabian or Shirl (or even Dean), I found myself, instead, ushered up towards the head of the table and into the chair on Kamran’s right. That was OK, then, better than next to the scary thin women whose main concern appeared to be the superiority of the 8 kg rubber-coated, chrome-handled kettlebell over its 6 kg vinyl opponent at the gym. Or some such thing.
I did begin to relax, knowing at least Kamran and I would be able to talk food. But then that would obviously morph into the current progress of The White House restaurant and I knew I couldn’t be a part of it. I just couldn’t don chef whites and be at the helm alongside Kamran and Fabian once the new restaurant opened in a few months’ time. Couldn’t have sous chefs they’d be poaching from top restaurants shoutingYes, Chefin my direction when I wasn’t actually a chef with any real formal training. The very idea was utterly ludicrous. I sipped at my glass of water, searching out Robyn down the table who was chatting to Harif, the Sattar brother second in age after Kamran. Obviously knowing herself under scrutiny, Robyn turned from Harif towards me, mouthing: ‘You OK?’
I was just about to mouth back, ‘No! Can I come and sit with you?’ when my view of Robyn was blocked and the much younger, obnoxious brother who’d cut me free from the restraints of the Sainsbury’s bag sat down beside me on my left.
