'Annie!' he warned. But it was already too late. In her enthusiasm to get to him, she'd pushed the chair back beyond the point of no return. If they'd been hoping to keep news of their reconciliation quiet, they were certainly disappointed when the chair went down with a crash, somehow taking along the tablecloth, two bottles of mineral water, glasses and a condiment set, as well as the embracing couple.
As Annie lay on top of Ed and the chair, listening to the loud hum of concern in the room as people hurried towards them, she was conscious of one thing and one thing only . . . a cool breeze. Ed had managed to pull up her dress.
'I think we've drawn that crowd,' Ed said.
A roomful of spectators was now being treated to a rear view of her orthopaedic beige tummy-tuck tights. She should have gone with the stockings. She so should have gone with the stockings.
Party Lana:
Pink dress (Miss Selfridge)
Pink heels (Primark)
Blue fishnets (Topshop)
Blue eyeshadow (Superdrug)
Total est. cost: £85
'Is he staying the night?'
'So this is why Lana is suddenly getting As in French,' Ed teased gently. 'Lots of private tutoring.'
'Sir!' Andrei protested, pulling away from Lana's ear, which he had been nuzzling, as Lana blushed frantically and Annie and Owen burst into laughter.
'OK, break it up and please take your mug of the finest hot chocolate, complete with mini marshmallow toppings, that you are ever likely to taste outside of a campsite,' Ed continued, bringing the steaming drinks towards the table.
Although it was close to two in the morning, Ed had promised everyone in the taxi home from the party that what they needed before bed was a taste of his 'world famous' hot chocolate.
'Obviously Owen knows all about this treat, being a veteran of the Ed Leon school of camping,' he added, making sure Owen was included in the first round of drinks.
Owen looked up and smiled a little shyly. He accepted his cup without a word and began to stir the marshmallows. His silence did not escape Annie. She was acutely sensitive to how her children were feeling about Ed being back in the house.
'So, sir,' Andrei began in Ed's direction, 'are you dressing up for the Halloween disco again this year?'
By way of reply, Ed threw his head back and gave his best horrible, hollow, ghost-train laugh. This set everyone around the table giggling again, including Owen, to Annie's relief.
'You'd make a very dapper Dracula,' Ed advised Andrei: 'you're tall, with dark hair, you just need a bit of talc on the face, some fake teeth – and Lana could be your victim! Put on a long dress, add a bite mark or two on your neck . . .' Ed was tempted, so tempted, to add, 'unless they're already there of course,' but he swallowed the comment back down.
As Andrei groaned at this suggestion, Ed turned to Annie, who was looking straight at him. She gave him a wink. He wondered if that meant she knew about the neck comment he hadn't made. He suspected that it did. Sometimes he felt as if his entire, complicated inner life and private thoughts were nothing but an open book to Annie.
And looking at her there, sitting bolt upright, her hair piled up on her head, mug of hot chocolate in her hand, winking at him with her eyebrow cocked, he thought . . . he thought that that was just fine. She could leaf through his open book any time. Any time at all.
Further chat about the Halloween disco established that the decorations last year were rubbish and desperately needed an overhaul, then Owen, under intense questioning, broke down and revealed that he was going to go as Beethoven. But finally the mugs were empty, Andrei's taxi honked at the front door for him and Ed showed him out.
'I'll lock up behind you,' he said. 'No, don't take that to mean I'm locking you out – but I am!' He winked at Lana.
Planting one final kiss on Lana's face, Andrei thanked them all for a lovely evening and disappeared out of the kitchen with Ed.
Which left Annie facing her sleepy but none the less curious children.
'Is he staying the night?' came Lana's whisper first.
'Is Ed moving back in?' Owen asked, before Annie had a chance to reply.
'We're just talking,' she told them, 'we're trying to sort out some of the things that were making us so upset with each other. OK? But . . . you do both want Ed to come back, don't you?' she added quickly.
'As long as that's what you want, Mum,' came Lana's reply.
'How about you, Owen?'
Owen gave a non-committal shrug. 'I'd like to go to bed.'
Ed's head appeared round the kitchen door and he said, a little uncertainly, 'I was thinking about going upstairs . . . to bed . . . if that's OK?' When the three serious faces turned in his direction, suddenly he wasn't sure if this was OK at all; he wondered if he should maybe be getting into a taxi just like Andrei.
'Yes . . . yes, that's fine,' Annie said, but now she felt slightly unsure too.
When Annie stepped into the bedroom, only the little flower lights were lit, casting their low pink glow. A fruity jazz saxophone was oozing from the stereo and Ed, still in the black suit, was sitting in the chair with a very thoughtful look on his face.
'Come here?' he asked gently, as she came into the room. As she got closer, he held out his hands to hers and stood up beside her. 'That is some dress,' he said, 'you look amazing.'
'Oh, it's the chicken fillets,' she said and he had no idea what she was talking about.
'Well, whatever they are . . . they're working,' he said.
He put his arm round her and with her right hand in his, he began to dance with her very slowly in a small circle round the room.
'Are you OK?' he asked and his hair brushed against her ear.
'I think so,' she said.
'I've missed you.' Ed's voice sounded a little ragged.
'You should have said . . . because I had no idea what you were thinking,' Annie told him.
'I'm sorry.' Ed leaned over to land a kiss on her shoulder. And then came another, which lasted until she felt a shiver, a shudder travelling up and down her neck. She leaned into him, closing her eyes and hearing only the melting notes of the saxophone solo.
But.
Why did she feel so frightened?
He was here, wasn't he?
He had his arms around her.
She thought of Owen's silence and Owen's noncommittal shrug and now she understood it. Owen didn't know if he wanted Ed back because what if Ed went away again? Annie and her children had already lost far too much once before.
With a knot of fear in her stomach, she held onto Ed very tightly, because this was going to hurt. This was going to really hurt.
She let the saxophone play on to the end of the song and then she began to speak slowly and carefully. 'Ed . . . you can't be in my life. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I don't think you can know how sorry I am. But you can't be one of us.
'I have this little family . . .' she stumbled on, starting to cry now, 'me and Owen and Lana . . . and I just can't let you in.'
As Ed tried to pull back from her grip, to look her in the face, she clung to him more tightly and kept her chin firmly on his shoulder. She didn't want to look him in the eye as she said this, it was hard enough.
With a great hard knot in her throat she went on, 'I can't do it again. I can't go through it again. Because I've tried to be in love with you and I just can't go there. I can't lose it all again. I just want to look after my children, work hard and keep us all safe and happy. I can't have this unknown quantity in my life, someone who might choose to walk away when it suits him. I can't bear that. When you moved to your sister's, you didn't even think for a moment about how the children would feel.'
'Annie,' Ed began urgently, 'I'm sorry. I am really, really sorry. I misunderstood . . . everything. I will never let anything like this happen again. This is all so new to me. Annie, please?'
'But you should have talked to me. You should have come
to
me, not walked away from me.'
She was looking into his face now and could see the extreme anxiety there. But none of this mattered any more. All she could focus on clearly was that Ed didn't belong with them. She and Lana and Owen were inextricably linked. They were family. Ed was like a guest who had visited them for a year. He just couldn't be permanent. He couldn't replace Roddy. He couldn't be her husband or their father. She'd rather grow into an old lady alone, with her children and her grandchildren to love and care for and to love her back, than risk any love on someone who could let them down. She could not face losing someone she was in love with all over again.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed with Ed, she held him in her arms and told him this in every way she could, until he understood that she really, really meant it. She was telling him the truth.
The jazz CD had reached an end and there was nothing but a deep, painful silence hanging in the air between them.
After looking at her very closely and very carefully, Ed finally turned away, murmuring only 'I have to go now,' before leaving the house.
The mysterious dark-haired lady:
Long red, black, olive and orange knit dress (House of
Fraser own brand)
Long black crotcheted cardigan (same)
Black maternity tights (Mothercare)
Low black boots (Russell & Bromley)
Total est. cost: £320
'Oh! You're Annie Valentine, aren't you?'
A decade of dressing women in The Store, in their homes, even in random London changing rooms when she just couldn't keep her advice to herself, had taught Annie many, many valuable lessons.
But the number one, the Annie Valentine Golden Rule, was that you never, ever Let Yourself Go.
Yes, it was tempting. When everything around you was turning to rubbish, when you were going through break-up hell, your house was about to be put up for sale – even if it was for a fortune – and you were about to begin the hassle of looking for somewhere new, packing up and moving.
It was tempting to reach for the beaten-up jeans, the drab old jumper, not wash your hair and put it in a scrunchie . . . get up too late to wash your face and put on your make-up. She knew just how tempting it was.
For six mornings in a row, she had woken up with a start, stared at the ceiling, let the full memory of what was happening come flooding back into her mind and she had wanted to roll over, pull the duvet back up over her head and stay there. Forget about it. Block it out.
But Annie knew that staying in bed was the beginning of the end. If she let the slightest thing slip now, where would it lead? Before she knew it, she'd be turning up at The Store in a fleece
. . . a fleece
! And maybe even clumpy shoes – and then she'd lose her job and no one would buy Timi Woos from her website either and she wouldn't be able to buy a new home of her own . . . far less afford the school fees and . . . . just the horror of these thoughts would get her out of bed on time. Force her to the bathroom, where the rigorous application of cleanser, toner, moisturizer and make-up would begin.
Annie had decided she had to go in the opposite direction. If other women let their appearance slide when things were going appallingly, she had to smarten up, over-groom . . . gleam and radiate. It was the only way to maintain morale.