I phone Adele.
‘I gave Adele your number a while ago,’ Dan admits. ‘I think she’s too nervous to use it.’
I laugh so loud I feel an unused stomach muscle ache.
You must put ‘dosit-ups’ on your ‘to do’ list,Mildred intones.
I ignore her.
‘How about we have dinner in our house on Friday and Elisa and possibly the new boyfriend come along?’
‘We haven’t met him,’ says Adele faintly, as if she’d met too many of Elisa’s men already. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’
‘You could bring your sons and their wives, and their sons ...’
I let the idea percolate.
‘Lexi would have more of your family there. People who want to see her. Let her feel loved, wanted.’
‘They’d love that. There’s Tony and his wife, Jo, and their twin sons, Michael and Cooper. They’re eleven, great boys, high energy. Marcus is the eldest and his wife is Lois, who’s pregnant, and she has Joshua, who’s fifteen and studies night and day. He’s quiet, very gentle. They’ll all be at your door happily. Tony and Marcus hated that they weren’t allowed to meet Lexi and you all that time in our house. But,’ she adds, ‘I don’t know what Elisa has organised for the week. She’s back and is going to parties all the time and meeting up with friends and ...’
‘It’s OK,’ I say calmly and in the background, Mildred giggles. Mildred recognises the steel inside me. ‘I’ll invite her and if she can come, she can come. Friday night our house, it will be very casual, very relaxed.’
‘I can do casual,’ says Adele.
I laugh. ‘Promise,’ I said, ‘because I will be wearing jeans.’
‘I have jeans.’
‘Good, you could even bring over the dog, that would help. Lexi wants her own dog.’
‘Oh, we can get her a dog,’ Adele says eagerly.
‘No!’ I say. ‘That has to be a family decision and we are working on it ...’
‘Of course. I’m not trying to interfere,’ replies Adele quickly.
‘I know you’re not. Just leave it all up to me. I’m hoping half six, a quarter to seven. I know that’s early for you guys but Teddy is only four, although she behaves as though she’stwenty-six and she does need to go to bed earlier or she gets very grisly.’
‘No problem, we’ll be there,’ says Adele.
‘That’s the spirit,’ I say. I hang up. Another thing ticked off my list.
On Friday, the menu planned, food purchased and ready to be cooked, my hair has beenblow-dried into enviable and unusual straightness and I’ve had an actual manicure.
‘I don’t have manicures unless I’m doing the show,’ I say to Lorraine, admiring my nails, a purple so dark as to be almost black. It’s funky and fun. It won’t last but hey, life’s for living.
‘Suits you,’ she replies, having left the office to assist with turning Chateau Kellinch into a bower of loveliness. ‘And you owe me some overtime.’
She’d gone to the flower market early and had enough flowers in Lexi’s favourite colours to organise a wedding.
Dan, who thought I was a bit mad what with all this dinner with the entire Markham clan malarkey, had gone off to work as usual, and had taken Liam, still discussing when we’d get our puppy from Patrick and Giorgio, and Teddy, discussing how guinea pigs could actually run very fast when you opened their cages, to their various camps.
Caitlin and Lexi were not, repeat not, going to ballet camp.
‘We want to help,’ said Caitlin, eyes shining, when I picked them up from ballet the evening before.
‘Yes,’ says Lexi, looking happier than she had in days.
