“Dad…meet your granddaughter!” I say.
“Oh, Becky, darling. Congratulations.” Dad gives me the hugest, tightest hug. Then he peers into the crib, blinking slightly harder than normal. “Well, then. Hello, old girl.”
“Here are some clothes for you, Becky, love.” Mum heaves an enormous weekend bag stuffed full of garments onto a nearby chair. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I just rooted around….”
“Thanks, Mum.” I undo the zip and pull out a chunky cable cardigan which I haven’t worn for about five years. Then I glimpse something else. A familiar pale blue glimmering, beaded, velvety softness.
My scarf. My precious Denny and George scarf. I still remember the first instant I clapped eyes on it.
“Hey look!” I pull it out, careful not to snag any of the beads. I haven’t worn this for ages, either. “Remember this, Luke?”
“Of course I remember!” Luke’s face softens as he sees it. Then he adds, totally deadpan, “You bought it for your Aunt Ermintrude, as I recall.”
“That’s right.” I nod.
“Tragic that she died before she could ever wear it. Her arm fell off, wasn’t it?”
“Her leg,” I correct him.
Mum has been listening to this exchange, perplexed.
“Aunt who?” she says, and I can’t help breaking into a giggle.
“An old friend,” says Luke, tying the scarf around my neck. He looks at it for a moment in a kind of wonderment, then down at the baby. “Who would have thought…”
“I know.” I finger the corner of the scarf. “Who would have thought?”
Dad is still totally fixated by the baby. He’s put a finger into the crib, and the baby has wrapped her tiny hand around it.
“So, old girl,” he’s saying. “What are we calling you, then?”
“We haven’t decided yet,” I say. “It’s so hard!”
“I’ve brought you a book!” says Mum, rootling in her holdall. “What about Grisabella?”
“
Grisabella
?” echoes Dad.
“It’s a lovely name!” says Mum defensively, pulling out
1,000 Girls’ Names
and putting it on the bed. “Unusual.”
“She’d get called Grizzle in the playground!” Dad retorts.
“Not necessarily! She could be Bella…or Grizzy….”
“
Grizzy
? Jane, are you
mad
?”
“Well, what do you like?” says Mum, affronted.
“I was thinking…possibly…” Dad clears his throat. “Rhapsody.”
I glance at Luke, who mouths
Rhapsody
? with such an expression of horror, I want to laugh.
“Hey, I have an idea,” chimes in Suze. “Fruit’s been done to death, but not herbs. You could call her Tarragon!”
“Tarragon?” Mum looks appalled. “You might as well call her Chili Powder! Now, I’ve got some champagne to wet her little head…. It’s not too early, is it?” She pulls out a bottle, along with a piece of paper. “Oh yes, and I took a message from your real estate agent. He phoned while I was at your flat, and I gave him a piece of my mind, I can tell you! I said, ‘A newborn baby is homeless at Christmas because of you, young man.’ That stopped him in his tracks! He said he wanted to apologize. Then he started talking some nonsense about villas in Barbados! I ask you.” She shakes her head. “Now, who wants champagne? Where are the champagne glasses?” She puts the bottle down and starts searching in the cupboards under the telly.
“I’m not sure they’ve got any champagne glasses,” I say.
“Well, for goodness’ sake!” Mum clicks her tongue and stands up again. “I’ll speak to the concierge.”
“Mum, there
isn’t
a concierge.”
Just because they have posh menus and tellies, Mum seems to think this place is some kind of Ritz-Carlton.
“I’ll find something,” Mum says firmly, and heads to the door.
“D’you want some help?” Suze gets to her feet. “I’ve got to phone Tarkie anyway.”
“Thank you!” Mum beams at her. “And Graham, you fetch the camera from the car. I forgot to bring it up.”
The door closes behind Dad, and Luke and I are alone in the room again. With our daughter.
God, that’s a weird thought. I still can’t quite believe we have a daughter.
Meet our daughter, Tarragon Parsley Sage and Onion.
No.
“So.” Luke pushes a hand back through his rumpled hair. “In two weeks’ time we’re homeless.”
“Out on the streets!” I say lightly. “Never mind.”
“I guess you expected to marry someone who could put a roof over your head, didn’t you?”
He’s joking, but there’s a wryness in his voice.
“Oh well.” I shrug, watching the baby’s hand unfurl like a little starfish. “Better luck next time…”
There’s silence and I glance up. Luke seems genuinely stricken.
“Luke, I’m joking!” I say hastily. “It doesn’t
matter
!”
“You’ve just had a baby. You should have a home. We shouldn’t be in this position. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not your fault!” I grab his hand. “Luke, we’ll be fine. We’ll make a home wherever we are.”
“I’ll get us a home,” he says, almost fiercely. “Becky, we’ll have a wonderful house, I promise you.”
“I know we will.” I squeeze his hand tight. “But honestly…it doesn’t matter.”
I’m not just saying that to be supportive.(Even though I
am
a very supportive wife.) It really, truly doesn’t seem to matter. Right now, I feel like I’m in a kind of bubble. Real life is on the other side, miles away. All that matters is the baby.
“Look!” I say, as she suddenly yawns. “She’s only eight hours old and she can yawn! That’s so clever!”
For a while we both gaze into the crib, awestruck, hoping she might do something else.
“Hey, maybe she’ll be prime minister one day!” I say softly. “Wouldn’t that be cool? We could get her to do all the things we wanted!”
“She won’t, though.” Luke shakes his head. “If we tell her to do them, she’ll do exactly the opposite.”
“She’s such a rebel!” I run a finger down her teeny forehead.
“She has her own mind.” Luke corrects me. “Look at the way she’s ignoring us now.” He sits back on the bed. “So what
are
we going to call her? Not Grisabella.”
“Not Rhapsody.”
“Not Parsley.” He picks up
1,000 Girls’ Names
and starts flicking through it.
Meanwhile I’m just gazing at her sleeping face. This one name keeps popping into my head every time I look at her. It’s almost as if she’s telling it to me.
“Minnie,” I say aloud.
“Minnie,” Luke echoes, experimentally. “Minnie Brandon. You know, I like that.” He looks up with a smile. “I really like it.”
“Minnie Brandon.” I can’t help beaming back. “It sounds good, doesn’t it? Miss Minnie Brandon.”
“Named after…your aunt Ermintrude, obviously?” Luke raises his eyebrows.
Oh my God! That hadn’t even occurred to me.
“Of course!” I can’t help giggling. “Except no one will know that except us.”
The Right Honourable Minnie Brandon QC OBE.
Miss Minnie Brandon looked radiant as she danced with the Prince in a floor-length ball gown by Valentino….
Minnie Brandon has taken the world by storm….
“Yes.” I nod. “That’s her name.” I lean over the cot and watch her chest rising and falling with each breath. Then I smooth back her tuft of hair and kiss her tiny cheek. “Welcome to the world, Minnie Brandon.”
SO IT’S HAPPENED. The Karlssons have moved in to our flat. All our furniture has been packed up and moved out. We’re officially homeless.
Except not really, because Mum and Dad are having us stay for a while. Like Mum said, they’ve got heaps of room, and Luke can commute from Oxshott station, and Mum can help out with Minnie, and we can play bridge every night after supper. Which is all true, except the playing bridge bit. No way. Uh-uh. Never. Not even with the Tiffany bridge cards Mum bought me as a bribe. She keeps saying it’s “such fun,” and “All the young people are playing bridge these days.” Yeah, right.
Anyway, I’m too busy looking after Minnie to sit around playing bridge. I’m too busy being a
mother
.
Minnie’s four weeks old already, and is a total party girl. I knew she would be. Her favorite time is one in the morning, when she starts saying “ra ra ra” and you struggle out of bed, feeling like you only fell asleep three seconds ago.
Plus she quite likes three in the morning. And five. And quite a few times in between. To be honest, I feel totally hungover and knackered every morning.
But on the plus side, cable telly is on all night. And Luke often gets up to keep me company. He does his e-mails and I watch
Friends
with the sound turned low, and Minnie breast-feeds like she’s some starving, deprived baby who wasn’t fed just an hour ago.
The thing about babies is, they really know what they want. Which I do quite respect. Like, it turns out Minnie doesn’t like the hand-crafted crib after all. It makes her all cross and squirmy, which is a bit crap considering it cost five hundred quid. Nor is she impressed by the rocking cradle, nor the Moses basket, even with Hollis Franklin four-hundred-thread-count linen sheets. What she likes best is to be cuddled in someone’s arms all day and all night. And second best is my old carry-cot, which Mum got down from the attic. It’s all soft and worn looking but pretty comfy. So I returned all the others and got a refund.
I returned the Circus Tent Changing Station too. And the Bugaboo and the Warrior—in fact, loads of stuff. We don’t need them. We don’t even have a house to put them in. And I gave all the money to Luke, because…well, I wanted to help. Even a little bit.
The good news is, things are looking up a tad for Luke. And the best bit of all is that Iain Wheeler lost his job! Luke didn’t hang around—the day after we had Minnie, he paid a visit to Iain’s bosses, along with his lawyer, and they had a “short conversation,” as Luke put it. The next thing we heard was that Iain Wheeler was announcing his decision to move from Arcodas. It’s nearly a month later and Gary, who knows these things, says he hasn’t had any job offers yet. Which is apparently because everyone has heard the rumor of some incriminating dossier on him.
Ha
.
Luke won’t work with Arcodas, though, even with Iain gone. He says their attitude is just as obnoxious as ever. And he still hasn’t got any money out of them. He’s just closed down another three European offices and things are still pretty tense. But he’s OK. He’s thinking positive, already planning new pitches, new strategies. We sometimes talk about them at night, and I tell him everything I think. And then somehow the conversation always drifts to Minnie and how amazing and beautiful and gorgeous she is.
And now I’m standing in Mum’s driveway, joggling her in my arms, watching the delivery men unload all our things. Most of our stuff has gone into storage, but obviously there were a few essentials we had to bring with us.
“Becky…” Mum approaches me from across the drive, holding a teetering pile of old magazines. “Where shall I put these, love? In the rubbish?”
“They’re not rubbish!” I protest. “I might want to read them! Can’t they go in our bedroom?”
“It’s getting a little full….” Mum looks at the magazines and seems to make a snap decision. “I think we’ll have to give you the blue bedroom as well.”
“OK.” I nod. “Thanks, Mum.”
We didn’t give up the house without a fight. Luke phoned Fabia to plead with her, and so did I and so did the real estate agent. But they exchanged contracts with the other couple two days after Minnie was born. The only tiny silver lining was that I got my Archie Swann boot back, after I sent Fabia about five threatening e-mails. Otherwise there really
would
have been trouble.
“More shoes.” A delivery guy comes by, carrying a cardboard packing box. “That fitted wardrobe’s full, you know.”
“It’s all right!” says Mum briskly. “Start filling up the blue bedroom. I’ll show you….”
“How are you doing?” Luke comes by in his shirtsleeves, carrying my Pilates ball and two hatboxes.
“Fine.” I nod, watching a delivery guy carry in my vanity case. “This is weird, isn’t it?”
“It’s pretty weird.” He puts his arm round me and I nestle into his shoulder. Last night was even weirder, with all the furniture packed up in the van and just a big empty flat filled with boxes. At about four A.M., Minnie just wouldn’t sleep, so I wound up her mobile with the Brahms Lullaby and put her in the baby sling. Luke wrapped his arms round us both and we kind of danced around the room in the moonlight.
I never realized that song was a waltz before.
“Luke!” Dad approaches us, holding a pile of post. “You’ve got a letter.”
“Someone’s very efficient,” says Luke in surprise. “I haven’t given this address to many people….” He glances at the logo on the back. “Ah. It’s from Kenneth.”
“Great!” I feign enthusiasm and make a face at Minnie.
Luke rips open the envelope and scans the text. After a second he peers harder. “I don’t believe it,” he says slowly. At last he raises his head and stares at me in disbelief. “It’s about you.”
“Me?”
“There’s a duplicate letter in the post for you too. As Kenneth says, it’s quite a big matter, so he wanted to contact both of us.”
Oh, this is all I need. Letters of complaint from Kenneth.
“He hates me!” I say defensively. “It’s not my fault. All I said was that he was narrow-minded—”
“It’s not that.” Luke’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Becky…it looks like you beat me.”
“
What
?” I say in astonishment.
“One of your investments has done exceedingly well. I’m not sure Kenneth can quite cope with the news, to be honest.”
I knew it. I
knew
I’d win.
“What is it?” I demand in excitement. “What did well? It’s the Barbies, isn’t it? No, the Dior coat.”
“The Web site fabbesthandbags.com is going to be floated. You’ll make a stack.”
I seize the letter and run my eyes down it, taking in words here and there.
Three thousand percent profit…extraordinary…unforeseen…
Ha-di-ha! I beat Luke!
“So, am I the most financially astute and clever person in this family?” I look up in triumph.