Annie approached the table with a tight feeling in her chest, her mind whirring frantically. What if Ed had decided he'd had enough of them? What if Aunty Hilda had poisoned him against the three of them for ever? What if he'd phoned up Giovanna and met her in Italy and decided she was the one for him and he'd packed up his clothes and his cats and was moving back to be with her?
Her hands were shaking with panic by the time she had the note in her fingers, making it difficult to open . . . difficult to read the words inside. But the words didn't solve any part of this puzzle for her, they simply read, 'I've gone to Hannah's.'
That was it, as if he'd just popped out and would be back any moment now.
'
I've gone to Hannah's
' she read again. And again. And once again. He'd gone to stay with his sister? How did that help anything? What use was that? What exactly was his point here?
Feeling a flash of anger at his refusal to talk to her, see her or deal with her on any level, she scrunched up the note and hurled it at the window. Right, that was it.
She'd put on her coat, get the car keys and whizz round to Hannah's, right now. She'd had quite enough of this sulky silence. Ed was going to talk to her. Nothing would be solved until they had a decent conversation. And she wasn't going to put it off for one moment longer . . .
Muuuum!' Owen called from the hall.
'Yes?'
'I'm hungry.'
Right, she would go round to Hannah's just as soon as she'd made something for the three of them to eat.
Annie poked about in the fridge and the freezer. Ed had obviously spent some time in the house: there was fresh milk in there, along with eggs and a loaf of bread.
She put oven chips in to cook and brought out the frying pan for the eggs. This was Ed's frying pan, carbonated steel or something . . . it had to be wiped down with olive oil on a kitchen towel and never washed. Usually she stayed well clear of it, but today she banged it down on the hob, determined to cause it some damage if she could.
'Get Lana to come down, will you?' she ordered Owen when the food was ready and she'd put the pan in the sink and covered it with soapy water.
'Isn't Ed coming?' Owen asked.
'No, not right now,' Annie answered without turning to her son. She didn't want him to ask any further questions.
'Right,' Owen said, then turned and went out of the room to get his sister.
When Lana came into the kitchen, Annie could see at once that something else was wrong and it wasn't just because Lana had changed into head to toe black.
'Have a seat, babes,' Annie said gently, 'you must be hungry.'
'I'm not,' Lana replied, her voice strained.
'Please,' Annie urged, 'have a little bit.'
About three chips and a small corner of egg had gone down before Lana blurted out at her mum, 'Andrei isn't answering any of my calls or messages.'
'We're having the same problem then,' came Annie's gloomy response.
'And Greta says,' Lana went on, 'Greta says she saw him snogging Daisy at the party on Saturday night.' Big breaking sobs followed this revelation.
Something of an astonished smile crossed Owen's face at this news, for he'd lived through Lana mourning a boyfriend for weeks before and he'd found it very entertaining. But the smile quickly disappeared at the sight of Annie's warning frown.
'Oh, sweetheart,' Annie said with as much sympathy and concern as she could muster, 'is Greta sure?'
When Lana nodded at this and carried on sobbing miserably, Annie could only say, 'Oh Lana, baby, that's terrible. I am so sorry.'
'We should never have gone!' Lana wailed. 'If we hadn't gone to Italy none of this would have happened!'
Annie put her arm round her daughter. A long evening of tears and snotty tissues was in store. They would have to break into the duty-free chocolate, no doubt about that. Annie would have to dust down her talk about unfaithful boyfriends: why they're no good and should never be taken back.
And any showdown with Ed at his sister's house would have to wait until she finished work tomorrow.
Dannii's daywear:
Tightest jeans (Juicy Couture)
Frilly floral chiffon top (DvF)
Silver heels (Gucci)
Silver bag (Gucci)
Platinum and diamond watch (Gucci)
Total est. cost £7,000
'Outplay her. Outflank her every move.'
The next morning in The Store, Svetlana's verdict on Ed fleeing to his sister's house without a word of explanation was simple: 'Nothing, nothing, nothing! Ahnnah, you don't want
nothing
to do with this man! What more can I say? I have had two, three husbands who not treat me the way I want to be treated. And I stay and I try and I do this and that and sexy underwear and lovely dresses and everything they ever want . . . and what do I get?'
She turned and fixed Annie with an expectant look in her glittering green eyes. 'I get cheating on and divorce court and fighting over every penny they owe me! So, no, no, no!' She shook her finger with its long magenta fingernail in the air emphatically.
'I learn my lesson. At the first sign of trouble, get out! Find someone crrrrazy about you,' she added with an extravagant roll of 'r's.
Annie thought she had, though, that was the point.
'Like my Harrrrrry!' Svetlana went on, 'Yes . . . I know, he not as rich as Igor of course.' Well, only a handful of people in Europe were, so no shame there really. 'But Igor never gave me any money anyway, so vot the point?'
Annie couldn't help feeling a large house in Mayfair counted for something, at least . . . but Svetlana was now asking, 'Am I too old for zis?'
The statuesque Russian turned to offer Annie a three-quarters view of herself in the red tropical print swimsuit, matching sarong and red platform heels. She looked fabulous. Breathtaking. Like a sumptuous Miss World, ready to stride across the platform and announce her intention to work with children.
Of course, this may have had something to do with the fact that Svetlana had once been Miss Ukraine. Although Svetlana had not told the judges she wanted to work with children. Instead she'd informed them with a dazzling smile that she 'Vant to marry very rich man', which according to Svetlana was the only reason they awarded the Miss World crown to Miss Thailand. ('
She
vas midget! You not believe!
')
'The swimsuit looks stunning,' Annie insisted. 'What do you mean, are you too old for it?'
'No, the purse!' Svetlana raised her leg at a graceful angle – fifteen years of ballet lessons hadn't been wasted on her – to show off the tiny, quilted Chanel ankle bag.
'I love it,' Annie told her: 'very glam Caribbean.' Because where else would Svetlana be spending the winter holidays?
'Vill I get my credit card in it?'
There was no question of Svetlana ever carrying cash.
'I miss when you worked from home Ahnnah,' Svetlana said mournfully, 'then we had more time, more privacy to talk, to work out all the looks. When are you going back? When you leave here and vork for yourself again? You need to make more money with your business, huh?' she asked in just the sort of cheery, jaunty way of a woman who's never had to worry for one moment about meeting the mortgage payments.
'Well, I have some new ideas,' Annie told her, but she didn't feel like giving Svetlana the whole business pitch today.
Today, her heart wasn't really in it. Today, she felt oddly flat and unenergetic. About as drab as the boring old black dress she'd put on for work this morning with only a necklace to accessorize it. No sparkly earrings, no fascinating belt, nothing worn in a different way to add interest. No, this morning Annie had woken up alone, flung on the dress and the necklace without a great deal of thought and got on with the business of starting the day.
'You need a good man to take care of you,' Svetlana told her sympathetically, 'you are a wonderful woman going to waste. You are looking tired, you are looking vorried. You need someone to take veight from your shoulders, not add to it.'
'Ha!' Annie managed, but she didn't want to meet Svetlana's eyes all of a sudden, because she thought if she saw too much warmth and sympathy there, she might be tempted to feel really sorry for herself.
'Come on!' Annie encouraged, as if to her client, but really to herself, 'we have this whole rail to get through before eleven o'clock.'
And with that her hands went to the next outfit: a shimmering, radiantly multi-coloured, long and lean Missoni evening dress. The kind of thing Svetlana would probably slap on over her bikini – whereas Annie would kill to have this very dress to wear at Bryan and Dinah's party.
Annie hadn't been able to resist making a quick call to Hector to find out how the 'secret' party preparations were going.
'He's not really very open to new ideas,' Hector confided, 'but we're getting there. I definitely couldn't persuade him to have doves, though. Doves were a total no-no.'
'
Doves?
' Annie repeated. The Hector she thought she knew was an only slightly camp, posh Scot. The kind of guy who wore tartan trousers – seriously – as daywear. She'd thought she could count on him to make Bryan and Dinah's party classy.
'Yeah, I was going to release ten pink doves at the end of the ceremony. One for each year they've been together.'
'Oh! That's quite a sweet idea,' Annie had to agree, 'but I don't think Dinah likes birds, they make her nervous.'
'That's what Bryan said.'
'Did you say "ceremony"?' Annie asked, thinking she really should know more about this. She'd thought it was supposed to be a party, not a ceremony of any kind.
'Yeah . . .'
'What kind of ceremony? How can it be a secret party if there's going to be a ceremony? Won't Dinah have to say something? Or know what to say?' Annie was starting to worry on her sister's behalf.
'Well, Bryan's going to do some home-made vows . . . and hopefully she'll be able to think of some to say back.'
'Hopefully?!' Annie spluttered. This was all getting very elaborate – very complicated. She thought it was really her duty to at least prepare Dinah slightly.
'I've been speaking to Hector,' she informed Dinah on the phone five minutes later. 'There's going to be a bit of a ceremony and some very low key, sort of, home-made . . . er . . . vows.'
'VOWS?!' Dinah leapt straight into panic mode. 'Dear God! Vows? I have to put a stop to this immediately! You know how bad I was at the registrar's.'
And Annie did. Dinah had cried and giggled intermittently throughout the short service.
'I'm not doing vows, that's so embarrassing. Cringe-worthy! No way is this Bryan's idea. This is all Hector's fault. I'm calling this whole thing off!'
'But it's a secret!' Annie reminded her, only too aware that if Bryan found out Annie knew everything about the party from Hector and had passed the information on to Dinah, who had then called off the party, it would all be Annie's fault. And Bryan and Annie's relationship was . . . well . . . not exactly relaxed, more like openly polite, but covertly hostile. It had been like this for years, ever since Annie and Bryan had decided they both loved Dinah but didn't really like each other.
'I'm still covered in those bloody spots!' Dinah wailed. 'I don't think they're going to go away in time. The party's on Saturday!'