‘Say as little as possible,’ I instructed. ‘I know that’s going to be difficult but, if in doubt, keep your mouth shut. Talk about yourself instead, I can’t imagine it’ll be too difficult for you.’
‘Come back in with me,’ he begged, ignoring my gentle barb. ‘I can’t do it on my own, I’ll fuck it up.’
‘No you won’t.’ Pushing up onto my tiptoes, I leaned in to whisper in his ear. ‘Because if you do, we’ll never find out what would’ve happened if Charlotte hadn’t walked in when she did.’
And with that, I walked away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My attempt to sneak back down to the cottage without being spotted was doomed from the start. I hadn’t even made it past the kitchen window when two sharp raps on the glass made me jump, followed by the sound of the catch opening and my mother’s voice.
‘You asked me for my opinion and my opinion is you look like a dick.’
Why hadn’t I tried crawling under the window again?
‘Sophie,’ Dad said, my back still turned to whatever was going on in there. ‘Come in the kitchen, we need your opinion.’
I didn’t want to go in the kitchen. I’d spent the entire walk back home trying to decide if I even wanted to go back home at all. I was a mess. Ideally, I wanted to find a nice cave, preferably with internet access so I could still watch TV, and spend the rest of my life as a hermit. They got a bad rap, hermits. You never heard it from their side, it wasn’t like they could go around on a speaking tour extolling the values of hermitism otherwise they wouldn’t be hermits afterall but when I walked into the kitchen, I could really see the appeal.
My mother was standing in front of the fridge, bleeding exasperation, while my dad was, for reasons I was sure were about to be explained, dressed as a clown. Baggy trousers hooped at the waist, striped shirt, yellow tie, rainbow ruff and a big, bold, bright red nose.
‘I don’t want to know,’ I told them both, holding up a hand to shield my eyes. ‘What you do in private is up to you.’
‘Your father,’ Mum replied, ignoring my request as usual. ‘Has decided this is how he wants to dress for his party tonight.’
‘Because it goes with the theme.’ He pulled on his suspenders until a flap on the back of his trousers flopped down to reveal polka dot bloomers. ‘Think about it, publishing is a circus, isn’t it? And we’re all clowns.’
‘Speak for yourself.’ Mum pressed her forefingers into her temples. ‘This is why you wanted a bouncy castle? And the marquee?’
Dad scraped one huge clown shoe back and forth across the slate tiles. ‘It’s more of a stripy tent.’
She stared at him with a glare so fierce, it was a wonder he was still standing. ‘Hugh, have you hired a circus tent?’
‘The proper terminology is a big top.’
He turned to face me and I could see his hand pumping away at something in his pocket but whatever was supposed to be happening, wasn’t. ‘Bugger,’ he muttered, pulling out a long clear tube with a blue pump on the end. ‘Water is supposed to shoot out of the daisy. I’ll have to look at it.’
‘There’s a reason you’ve only pulled this out on the day of the party and that’s because you knew what I would say,’ Mum stated. ‘You are not wearing that to your party. Hugh, I have invited Jonathan Franzen.’
‘He’s a great laugh is Jonathan,’ Dad mumbled, still preoccupied with his failed water pump. ‘You need to see it with the wig. It doesn’t work without the wig.’
‘Morning, everybody, how are we, and Dad, what in the utter fuck are you doing?’
My brother stood in the kitchen doorway, a look of abject horror on his face. Behind him was Sanjit, Sanjit’s mother and Sanjit’s father, all three of whom looked even more appalled than William which was no mean feat.
‘Come to think of it, I don’t want to know,’ he said, holding up his hands before anyone could speak. ‘Sanj, go and wait in the car, we won’t be stopping for a cup of tea after all. I need to go home and wash out my eyeballs.’
‘Pandora, Hugh,’ Sanjit raised his hand in a hello-slash-goodbye as he hurried his parents out the house as quickly as they’d walked in. ‘Can’t wait for the party.’
‘It’s themed!’ Dad shouted and Sanjit raised a thumbs up over his head without stopping.
‘I only came to drop off the serviettes.’ William dumped a square-shaped cardboard box on the kitchen table. ‘They say “Happy Sixtieth Hugh” but I think there’s still enough time to alter them to “Dad’s lost his mind, help yourself to canapés”.’
‘See?’ Mum stood triumphant. ‘What did I say?’
‘None of you understand the vision,’ Dad grumbled as he took himself off upstairs in a huff. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Sophie!’
‘What did I do?’ I asked, as my brother and mother stood around the kitchen table shaking their heads at me.
