Jumping right out of my skin, I turned to see my aunt and uncle standing on the doorstep. Bryan’s bald pate glistened in the morning sun and Carole had her lips pressed together so tightly, they completely disappeared into her overly powdered face.
‘Are you having a funny turn? Your dad said you were coming up from London,’ Carole said, Bryan nodding enthusiastically beside her. ‘You can catch all sorts down there, you don’t know where anyone’s been.’
‘Or where they’ve come from,’ Bryan added ominously.
I squeezed my eyes shut as I searched for the correct response but there wasn’t one. Was it even a family party if there wasn’t a touch of xenophobia?
‘Now I think about it, there was that man rolling around on the floor screaming on the tube,’ I said as I bundled them both into the house and planted very wet kisses on their cheeks. ‘I didn’t think much of it until he started frothing at the mouth but I probably should see a doctor, the rash on my backside can’t be normal.’
They stared at me with dread, scrubbing the skin from their cheeks.
Maybe there was a correct response after all.
It wasn’t even half-past ten on a Friday morning and it felt like the day was turning into my very own Agatha Christie novel. Everyone milled around the kitchen, shaking hands, but who would be found face down in the duck pond? Pandora Taylor, respected literary critic but failed baker? Hugh Taylor, celebrating his birthday and holding a lifelong professional grudge? Or Gregory Brent and his son, Joe Walsh, apair of complete and utter dickheads who honestly could do with a good dunking?
‘Oh my god, everyone’s here already!’
Charlotte bounced into the kitchen like Tigger after one Red Bull too many, prancing around as she presented herself for hugs and kisses. At least until she got to Gregory who she avoided like one of Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriends. My sister could be annoying when she wanted to be but she wasn’t an idiot.
‘And who are you?’ she purred, looking up at Joe from under her eyelashes.
Well, not a total idiot but she still had a lot to learn.
‘He’s a twat who’s twice your age, that’s who,’ I answered on his behalf.
‘We love a man with experience,’ Charlotte replied. Subtle she was not. At least Joe had the decency to look mortified.
As she turned, a tiny black handbag swung from her shoulder.
‘Where did you get that?’ I grabbed for the bag but ended up with a handful of air as she skipped around the table to nestle into our mother’s open arms.
‘It was in your room.’ Charlotte held the handbag aloft. A perfectly square, quilted black leather handbag, dangling on a long gold chain, tell-tale interlocking Cs on the clasp giving the game away without anyone saying a word. It was the one nice thing I’d bought myself sinceButterfliesblew up and I’d regretted it every day since. Finding the courage to walk into the Chanel boutique on Bond Street had been difficult enough and the snooty sales assistants hadn’t made the experience any less stressful. It was easier getting a mortgage than it had been to buy that bag, but thingslike this happened when you watchedSelling Sunseton your phone on the way into town and drank one too many pink wines at lunch, after which your friends all went home to their families and partners, leaving you alone and very suggestible.
Even though I knew it was ridiculous, I couldn’t bring myself to leave it alone in the flat while I was away, so I’d brought it with me, like a pet. A very expensive, wildly impractical pet. I was terrified to take it out in public and couldn’t even get my phone in the damn thing but the only thing I could think of that might be more humiliating than buying it was the thought of trying to take it back.
‘What were you doing in my room?’ I demanded as Charlotte and my mother pawed at the soft lambskin. ‘That was in my suitcase, I haven’t even unpacked.’
‘I was looking for something,’ she answered, waving a vague hand around. ‘There’s no way you can afford Chanel. Did you steal it? Do you have a sugar daddy? Are you on OnlyFans?’
‘What’s OnlyFans?’ asked Uncle Bryan.
‘That looks like an expensive bit of kit, Sophie,’ Dad said, holding out his hands for the bag and pushing his glasses up on top of his head to examine it more closely. ‘You’re not getting yourself into debt to keep up with the Joneses, are you?’
‘More like the Carter-Knowleses,’ Charlotte answered before I could say anything. ‘That’s got to be worth what, three, four grand?’
Everyone gasped except for Joe.
‘For a handbag?’ Auntie Carole shrieked while basting herself in hand sanitiser.
‘All right, Oscar Wilde,’ Mum muttered. ‘Sophie, canyou please tell your sister you didn’t spend four thousand pounds on a handbag?’
‘Yes, I can,’ I replied, even though it was a lie. That was exactly how much it cost and I almost wept every time I thought about it. ‘It’s—’
‘A fake,’ Joe announced. He reached for the bag, turning it over in his hands and inspecting the tiny stitches, so small I assumed they had been made by magical mice who were under a spell. It was the only reason I could think for the bag to cost as much as it did. ‘It’s clearly a fake.’
‘Are you sure?’ I said, snatching it back. ‘Are you sure I didn’t borrow it from one of those designer rental agencies?’
‘That would also be a good explanation,’ he replied, tipping his head from side to side.
