Seeing Chloe last night, Meg had known instantly who she was. Chloe was so like Lori and Meg’s twin daughters. In the flesh, Chloe had been a young, innocent girl who needed love and support from her other family. She was young, scared, keen to meet her family, and Meg, the Meg who had lived many lives and understood that life was complex and always drawn in shades of grey, had willingly held out her arms. Chloe was part of the Robicheaux family: it was that simple.
Stu’s mother, Jacqueline, would have hated it all, Meg thought with a grin.
Now, before the absolute madness started, Meg wanted a wander around the hotel, to breathe in the atmosphere of this special day and say goodbye to the Sorrento. Soon it would be turned into apartments. Their friend Frank was having trouble getting money from the bank, but he would eventually, he insisted. And this little slice of heaven where she and Stu had raised the girls would become a different slice of heaven for more families. People who could look out onto the beauty of the water, smell the sea, feel the rain lashing against the windows and the rocks on windy nights. It was a magical place.
The kitchen was beginning to get busy. But Meg was used to walking through kitchens. She didn’t feel uncomfortable in them. At the height of its fame and business, the Sorrento had had plenty of staff in the kitchens. And although the chef of the day was always in charge, Meg was adept at travelling through, making a suggestion here, a comment there, soothing frazzled nerves because kitchens could be very frazzled.
This lot didn’t look as if they were frazzled – yet. There were cold canapés and precooked hot food for those who’d want it. And she knew that a refrigerated truck with the salmons and the cold meats was coming soon. Because the fridges in the Sorrento were long past their sell-by date. No amount of bleaching would bring them back up to proper culinary standards.
‘Everything going all right?’ she asked a girl hauling in a big pile of lettuces.
‘Yes, great,’ said the girl. ‘Oh, you’re Mrs Robicheaux?’
‘Yes,’ said Meg, ‘well, the ex, and soon to be the current.’
The girl laughed nervously. She looked about twenty-five and probably thought there was something absolutely insane about people in their sixties remarrying or getting married at all. Meg wondered if younger people assumed that sex stopped once you hit thirty or forty. They probably assumed they’d stopped it ten years ahead of their own age, a bit like middle age. Middle age was always defined as being ten years older than yourself.
Meg vaguely remembered that when she and Stu were young and wildly in love and lust, they’d felt sorry for old people.
People like they were now. They’d blithely assumed that their lives were over, because how could they possibly have a sex life or romance or anything to say to each other?
Yet Meg had so much to say to Stu; she loved his company, his charm, his wit, his cleverness, his kindness and his lovemaking – that was a part of it. The years they’d been apart had been unusual in that she’d always had a longing to be back with him. Had always known that he was the one. But his behaviour had taken him off the list.
And now, now he was back on the list, now he was on top of the list. And yet …
She left the kitchen behind and walked quietly into the ballroom where all the work she, Indy, Eden, Savannah and Vonnie had done was obvious in every inch of its beautiful, silk-bedecked beauty. The hired linens and tables and chairs with their pretty covers and peony-pink silk bows on the back looked beautiful. Savannah, who’d always had a marvellous eye, had decorated the tables with tea lights and mirrors and tiny little vases with clustered rosebuds. It was all completely gorgeous and nobody would guess it was done on a shoestring. Meg still had the beautiful old silver from the hotel and the marvellous linen napkins with an elegant cursive embroidered in teal in one corner.
There was nobody in the room and Meg stepped out into the garden breathing in the scent of a summer morning. Three hours, it was ten now and the ceremony was to take place at one. The girls were expected soon. But, for now, it was just her and the caterers. She walked around the garden feeling the sun dusting her skin. She could see the place where the girls had had their photos taken. It had been against a little barn-like structure, one that had been hung with fairy lights and decorated with trailing wreaths, depending on the season. Storm lanterns dotted the steps. How many pictures had they taken there? Fifteen? Twenty? Meg could remember them all.
Could remember the fights and arguments. Could remember the mood from different photos.
The ones where everyone was in marvellous form: the ones where there was tension, like after Savannah’s and Eden’s weddings. When Eden glowed with an inner beauty and Savannah, who Meg had expected to blossom, had looked as if frost had crept up on her in the night and frozen her face into a mask, not of fear, but of tension: that was it, tension. Indy might have been the out-and-out beauty of the family, the one who looked like she could be on the cover ofVogue. But all her daughters were beautiful, Meg thought. Savannah and Eden identical in so many ways visually but so different inside, had very different sorts of beauty. Eden’s was a rich, confident, sensual beauty, an awareness of who she was and what she wanted. And Savannah’s beauty had always been that of a mythical creature with her long rippling hair and her far-away gaze, and that was all gone now. She was dressed in floaty clothes but the far-away gaze was now the gaze of someone who had shut down. Meg paused, Savannah was shutdown, that was it, and she, Meg, had done nothing about it.
Then her mind roved to Stu: there was something not quite right with Stu, she knew it. It wasn’t to do with Chloe. He wasn’t himself. Or he was – he was behaving like the old him. Meg didn’t want Sonya to be right. She just wanted everything to be lovely again, just wanted a simple life with Stu, and why couldn’t she have that, why did everything have to be so difficult?
Indy, Eden, Minnie and Daisy arrived at the hotel at exactly the same time. Rory and Chantal had just turned up and so had Chloe in a taxi.
‘No Savannah?’
‘She texted to say she’s running a bit late,’ said Indy.
‘OK,’ said Eden, eyes narrowed. ‘Thought she was going to get her make-up done here with us?’
‘Well, maybe not.’
‘OK.’
‘Do you think it’s all right me being here, now?’ said Chloe.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Eden, putting her arm through Chloe’s. ‘Come on, you’ve got to meet your nieces. Daisy and Minnie, this is your Aunt Chloe. In fact, Aunt Chloe is going to play with you this afternoon.’
‘She’s not being a babysitter,’ said Indy firmly. ‘She’s a sister—’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Chloe. The girls looked up at her and smiled. ‘I’d like it.’
‘Well, we might have a lot of people for you to baby-sit,’ said Eden, ‘including your dad.’
‘Why?’ said Chloe
