Thirty-Three
Tuesday 27th October
‘Oliver? It’s Sara.’
‘Sara! To what do I owe the pleasure? Not another Norwegian crisis I hope?’
‘More of a personal crisis, this time.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘It was something you said when we had the wrap-up call with the Nilsens and I thought it was worth a conversation. Were you serious about opening a satellite office in London?’
‘Completely. Why? Would you be interested?’
‘CSH are making redundancies and I’ve been offered the option to take a package, which I’m considering. To be honest it’s made me stop to think about what I want the rest of my life to look like, so I might be open to having a conversation.’
‘My firm is tiny compared to CSH, so I couldn’t offer anywhere near the kind of money they’d be paying you.’
‘As I said, they’re offering me a package, so money isn’t my main motivator here. I’m looking for an interesting next move.’
‘OK, well why don’t I send you some more information on what I’ve got planned, and we can have another chat from there?’
*
The door buzzed and the postman called up. ‘One to sign for.’
Weird. I hadn’t had a registered delivery since Mark had sent the decree nisi to kick off the divorce. Normally everything went to work – because I was never in to sign for anything. I ran downstairs and scribbled for the brown envelope with the gold handwriting, knowing what it was straight away. I’d seen Greta and Jonas working away on them at the farmhouse, cutting and gluing and stuffing and sticking each one. It was a wedding invitation, and I held it to my heart all the way back upstairs, giddy with excitement. I didn’t want to rip it open straight away. I wanted to savour the moment.
‘Abs!’ I hissed, through the bathroom door.
‘Two more minutes – I’m almost done,’ she shouted, her voice echoing off the tiles.
‘I’ve finally heard from him. From Henrik.’
She cracked the door and one of her eyes looked at me and then at the envelope.
‘What is it?’
‘An invitation.’
‘Looks like a special one!’ she sang, eyeing the gold lettering. ‘Is it from the palace?’
‘Better. A wedding,’ I said, eyes shining. ‘Thewedding.’
‘At Firefly Forest?’
I nodded.
‘Why the hell are you waggling it around then? Open it!’ she screamed, slinking out of the bathroom and closing the door behind her.
We ran into the kitchen, and I slit the top open with a knife, like Dad did with all his letters, the pair of us saving the world together, one envelope at a time. Although this was a special one. I was going to keep this brown envelope forever. Even if nothing ever happened between me and Henrik – nothingelse– it still felt like the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me.The invite was four big leaves pressed together and sprayed with glue, and I felt like a princess in a fairy tale as I read the words out loud.
‘Ahem.To the fabulous: Ms Sara Pearson– that’s me.’
‘Obvs.’
‘We would love you to join us at our winter wonderland wedding on Saturday 5th December. Dress code: Nymphs and Centaurs. Midday till midnight.’
