‘She probably has to work.’
‘I know, but she should be here.’
‘Rory should be here,’ Indy said.
The shop’s second-in-command was desperately trying to get someone else to drink some of the champagne because there was an entire bottle. Meg had a vision of herself being forced into transporting a nearly full bottle of champagne home in the car and spilling it all over the precious wedding dress.
Crystal, who ran the shop, appeared full of the joys of spring and smelling faintly of cigarettes. She had recently doused herself in some sort of grapefruit perfume to hide it, but the scent was definitely there.
‘Now, are we ready to try it on for the last time before the special day?’ said Crystal.
Meg’s headache increased. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘just hold on a minute. Indy,’ she turned to her eldest daughter, ‘do you have any paracetamol?’
As a nurse, Indy always had something. But, as a nurse, she was very keen on leaving drugs to the very last minute.
‘I have a murderous headache. My neck, you know the way it goes sometimes,’ Meg said. The lie came remarkably easily. Lies did when you were a parent, she thought. There was no way she was going to say, ‘I had sex with your father this morning, so my neck hurts’.
Indy produced some paracetamol and an energy bar and prevailed upon Crystal to get some water.
‘You need to eat when you’re taking tablets,’ Indy said in her nurse’s voice.
At that precise moment Savannah and Eden arrived in. They hadn’t come together.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Savannah.
Her eyes were red and there was no other word for it, she looked dreadful.
‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ said Meg.
‘Fine,’ said Savannah. ‘Just didn’t sleep well, absolutely exhausted. And I had to pick Clary up from school.’
‘Is she sick?’
‘No, no, it’s a long story.’
‘Well, where is she?’
‘At home with Marie-Denise.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, I’ll tell you another time,’ said Savannah.
She felt so fragile, as if a blast of wind would push her over. As if harsh words would make her fall to the floor and cower. Harsh words did make her fall to the floor and cower metaphorically. Since this morning, Calum wasn’t talking to her. It was a very bad week for this to happen because, normally, when he gave her the silent treatment – and she now knew what it was from looking at the websites, she knew that men like Calum withheld affection, withheld conversation, withheld everything as a control – it lasted weeks.
A week of this was enough to turn her to an absolute quivering mess of anxiety. Because the power he wielded over her was such that she could barely function. She managed well enough for Clary and Marie-Denise’s sake, for them she could be strong and pretend everything was OK.
She smiled and talked and behaved as if everything was normal, when in fact Calum was speaking in a perfectly normal voice to Clary and a perfectly normal one to Marie-Denise. But he was blasting the coldest, iciest breath upon Savannah. It was like winter. Winter blowing in from the Steppes. It froze her, unhinged her.
The event with Clary had started it and then, just as he was getting into his stride, her father had phoned him. Calum had always been so odd about her father, because Savannah loved Dad so much.
In the early days, when she was telling Calum how the family used to be, how they had run the Sorrento, how it had been fun and how Dad had lost everything, he’d stared at her. His father had died when he was young, he’d only had his mother. He didn’t seem to understand that you could love a parent and still see their flaws. If only she had that time back again and she hadn’t told him that stuff.
Because she knew what it was now. She’d told him how amazing Dad was despite everything and how they’d all loved him. And how, despite everything, everyone probably thought it was a reasonable idea that he and Mum were getting back together, because they did belong together. Not that Savannah would say that now, no, she never talked about her family now, not to Calum.
But Eden had told her that Dad was ringing the sons-in-law to arrange some sort of a stag night. Calum wouldn’t like that. Calum would want something special. An elegant dinner in the most expensive restaurant in town where he’d pay with the company money, with Velvet Beauty money, and write it down for tax. Something that Savannah hated because it made her nervous, because it was wrong, because it wouldn’t have been a tax thing, it was a wedding thing. But Calum always got angry when she said stuff like that.
‘Don’t tell me how to run the company. I understand this stuff; you don’t.’
