‘Gross!’
‘Yes, love, that’s definitely been the grossest thing about giving birth and becoming a mother, having to cut my hair short!’
Ashleigh watched as she and Ruthie laughed again, as if in on the joke that again left her feeling like an outsider. It was a moment of realisation that no matter how much she loved her sister, her parents, and coming home, Archie Oxton Fitch was her life now, her future, her other half. She looked at the clock on the wall and decided to give him a call in a bit, knowing just the sound of his voice, the man she trusted never to lie to her, never to make her crazy, would make everything feel just a little bit better.
Ashleigh Brett and Remy Hughes
1995
Aged 33
Remy
Remy raced as best she could up the wide stone staircase of this vast country pile, doing her darndest not to trip or spill the bowl of ice. Her Buffalo platform trainers made the job a little trickier, but who cared when it gave her a lovely extra couple of inches of height? Her baggy jeans sat pleasingly over the top; she liked this look. The lady who seemed to be running the kitchen had been very kind, helpful, when she’d explained that Sophie, her twelve-year-old daughter, had a bit of a temperature.
‘Oh lordy!’ the woman had remarked, abandoning a tray of choux buns she was delicately tending to, as if as aware that illness, this weekend, was an absolute no-no.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing!’ She’d done her best to smile as if her words were true, fingers crossed behind her back.
Walking into the large bedroom with a sweeping view of the immaculate, striped rear lawn at Mulverton, she deposited her ice on a magazine on the chest of drawers. Sophie was still curled up on the pull-out bed that had been set at the foot of the imposing four-poster.
‘How are you feeling, darling?’ Remy bent low and placed her hand on her daughter’s clammy forehead. It was warm, very warm.
‘Bit sick.’
‘Oh, Soph. Keep sipping water. I’ve got some ice. I’ll soak a flannel in it and put that on your head; it’ll cool you down. Where’s Dad?’ She looked towards the vast bed, just to check he wasn’t lost under the heavy silk counterpane.
‘In the bathroom. Harper’s being sick.’
‘What? No!’ Pushing her long hair behind her ears, she rushed to the bathroom, where Midge stood by the sink of the rather grand en suite and wiped at the front of his shirt with the damp corner of a towel. Harper splashed in a bath filled almost to the brim with bubbles.
‘You got enough bubbles there, Harps?’
Their little one smiled. Aged three, she was at that adorable time in her life when everything made her giggle and nearly everything was of interest. Remy watched as she heaped bubbles on to the back of her hand and blew them against the tiled wall.
‘She looks alright.’ This she noted with relief, hoping it was the over-indulgence of Jammy Dodgers in the car on the way here that had made her sick and not a bug.Please, please, not a bug! Not this weekend.
‘Well, she does now, but a few minutes ago, it was like a scene fromThe Exorcist. Projectile doesn’t come close, it was ...’ He shook his head.
‘Poor love.’
‘I’ll survive. Just washing splashes off my shirt. Wish I’d packed more than three.’
‘I meant Harper!’ She tutted at the big oaf of a man she adored.
‘She was sticky’ – he pulled a face – ‘so I thought it best to give her a bath and get her into her PJs.’
‘It’s only four o’clock,’ she pointed out.
‘I know! But if she’s ill, I thought, snuggle her up in here with Soph. I’m happy to sit with them, get them some soup, I don’t know!’
‘Hmmm, you wouldn’t be using the girls’ sickness as an excuse to hide and avoid the celebrations now, would you?’
‘As if!’ He winked at her in the mirror. ‘You know there’s nothing I’d rather do than spend time with The Right Honourable Archie of Mulverton and his mates. When are they arriving? Wouldn’t want to miss it!’
‘Midge, my love,’ she began, running her hand over his back, about to issue another reminder of why this was important to her, to Ashleigh, and how it would soon be over.
‘Mumma!’ Harper suddenly wailed, and as Remy grabbed her, her little girl proceeded to vomit the watery remains of her stomach into the bubbles.
