She wrinkles her nose. ‘It’s easy when you’re interested, that’s why you should always work at what you enjoy. Tarkie likes earth moving machines and pile drivers, if you want your basement digging out you’ll have to ask him not us.’
Tansy’s pursing her lips as she concentrates on her folds. ‘My second best thing is laminating.’
Tiff doesn’t look up from her folding. ‘She’s getting a laminating machine for Christmas.’
This is the thing with kids, you never know what they’re going to come out with next. ‘So what are you going to laminate?’
Tansy frowns. ‘Anything that’s flat. I just know my life will be so much better with a laminator in it.’
Tiff looks up. ‘If she had it now we could laminate stars for the tree. Or gin bottle labels for Bill’s product placement.’ For eleven she’s so tuned in.
‘Did I hear my name, does someone need me?’ It’s Bill, obviously, listening in again, as he crosses the kitchen.
I look up from the pentagon pile I’m rearranging. ‘I will have a word in a second. It’s nothing important, just an email I wanted to run past you.’
‘You know where to find me.’ He points towards his room as he heads through the door.
When I turn back to my stars Tiff and Tansy’s stares are so intense, I have to challenge them. ‘What? I’ve already told you, he’s taken. If ever I go to see him in there it’s strictly on Christmas business.’
Tiff’s stare doesn’t alter. ‘But he definitely does like you.’
I’m not letting that go. ‘I thought you just told me you didn’t talk bollocks.’
Tansy laughs. ‘We don’t. You should have seen him when Smiley Milo pushed him out of the way and hugged you instead.’
Tiff nods. ‘He was well annoyed.’
I push myself up to standing. ‘Two words – not happening.’
Tiff grins at me. ‘Mum said to tell you, remind Bill to get mistletoe.’
There are a very few times when I like being tall but now is one of them. I pull myself up to my maximum height and try for really scary. ‘You two – shut up and make your stars.’
Possibly I failed completely, because as I stride away, they both collapse into giggles. At least I know Bill’s expecting me. It’s only as I close the bedroom door behind Merwyn that it hits me I’m still without my hat, dammit. I shake my hair across my face, tilt my head and make my smile very bright. ‘About the lost baubles …’
Bill lets out a groan. ‘Not those again, I thought we’d moved on.’
‘Well it was a huge order, so I raised a query, then elevated it to supervisor level.’
He’s standing, holding his hands together. ‘But we agreed, we don’t need those decorations, we’ve reduced our carbon footprint by using recycled ones, why are we still discussing this?’
Not that I’m smug, but I’ve got the trump card here. ‘Because apparently they didn’t disappear into the ether like you said, they wereSIGNED FOR at the delivery address…’ I have to hold onto my fingers really hard to stop myself making those little speech marks in the air I hate so much, because it’s the one time in my life when they’d work really well ‘… it means the company won’t be refunding. So unless you want to be seriously out of pocket here youmightwant to follow this up?’
‘Ivy, maybe just leave this.’
My voice goes all high, because he’ssoannoying. ‘But I thought you were counting every penny here, not following this up is like hurling twenty quid notes out across the bay into a force ten gale.’
He’s rubbing his thumb across the stubble on his jaw. ‘Fine, I’ll tell you what happened, but it’s not great. They were delivered to my old house in London, and Gemma signed for them.’
I’m nodding. ‘So far, so good. The accounts are matching.’
He clears his throat. ‘The delivery was so big she assumed it was one of those malicious pranks, like people sending fake pizza orders to the wrong address, or having a load of concrete pumped into your cellar, or ten tons of donkey droppings delivered onto your front lawn.’ He stops to roll his eyes.
‘Oh no …’
‘When she saw it was from me, she dealt with it accordingly.’
‘Which was?’ I’m puzzled. Surely in that case she’d have sent it on.
