‘How much?’
‘Seven hundred and thirty.’
‘Pounds?’
Her silence on the other end of the line confirms this.
‘How on earth …?’
‘Well, I had the colour, obviously, and they gave me a lovely conditioning treatment beforehand, and then the cut itself was two hundred and ten, because it was with the most senior stylist … well, apart from Nicky himself, of course … Anyway, my card’s been rejected,’ she goes on, in a very small voice, ‘and I’m just hoping, darling, that you might be able to come over and help.’
‘Mum, my card’s going to get rejected too, if I try and put seven hundred and thirty quid on it!’
‘But, darling,’ she lowers her voice, ‘you’re about to marry, well, a very rich man.’
‘Yes, and I still have my own bank account,’ I say, hotly. ‘With not very much in it!’
Except, of course, that I do have one of Joel’s credit cards in my wallet right now, for final payment on the Jenny Packham dress.
‘I just feel so stupid,’ Mum is saying, in a smaller, quieter voice than ever; a smaller, quieter voice than I’ve ever heard her use before. ‘This whole thing was stupid. I got myself into a sort of frenzy, really, because I didn’t want your father to see me looking old and worn-out. It’s been twenty-five years since I last saw him, and I suppose I just wanted to look like I used to back then. As if he was ever going to realize what a mistake he made, dumping me!’
‘It’s all right, Mum.’ I’m already getting to my feet. ‘Stay there, and I’ll come and bail you out, OK?’
‘Really?’ The relief in her voice is palpable. ‘You can do that?’
‘Yes, I can do that. Temporarily, I mean. You’ll still have to pay me – or rather, Joel – back.’
‘Of course! Honestly, Libby, what do you take me for? I know I may sometimes come across as a bit bedazzled by all the wealth you’re marrying into, but—’
‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ I interrupt her. ‘Bye.’
I get to my feet, pushing back the chair and pushing aside, as I do so, my moment of madness before the call came from Mum. I mean, obviously I can’t Say Something. What the hell was I thinking? The wedding is tomorrow. The time for Saying Something has gone.
‘Sorry, Ol,’ I mumble, ‘I just need to dash …’
‘Everything OK with your mum?’
‘Yes. I mean, if you don’t count her being bloody silly.’
Though even as I say this, I realize it’s a bit harsh on Mum. For all her maternal crimes – and they’re myriad, don’t get me wrong – I guess wanting to look and feel her best at my wedding isn’t the worst one. And as for looking her best in front of Dad, after a gap of twenty-five years … I get that. How you can still need to matter to someone you once loved, even after all that time.
‘I’d better go,’ I tell him. ‘Can you wait here for Nora, and let her know I’ll be back in a few minutes?’
‘Yes. And then I’ll leave you two girls to it,’ he says, rather flatly.
‘And look … if anything changes. With Tash’s dad, I mean …’
‘Of course.’
He leans down and places a soft kiss on my cheek.
And then I go up on tiptoe and kiss his cheek, in return.
And then he puts his arms around me, and I put my arms around him, and despite the fact we’re slap in the middle of a busy, bustling restaurant, and that people must be staring, and that my mum is waiting for me to come and bail her out with Joel’s credit card, we just hold on to each other.
I’d quite like the world to stop turning right now, please. Anything to make this moment last longer.
But the world won’t stop turning and, even if it did, the waiting staff at The Wolseley probably wouldn’t stop with it, because one of the waitresses is just asking us if we could possibly just step sideways so we can let her get to the nearby table …
‘You know,’ Olly says, rather thickly, as we pull apart, ‘you’ll be having such a wonderful day tomorrow, Lib, that you won’t notice who’s there and who’s not! You’ll only have eyes for Joel.’
I don’t have anything I can say to this and, even if I did, I’m not sure I’d be able to form the words anyway. So I just nod, and give Olly’s arm a final squeeze, and head for the doors without looking back again.
It’s been such a roller coaster of a day that I forget, until I’m only about ten minutes away from arriving at Barham Station, that I’m supposed to call the house to let someone know I’m arriving, so they can send one of the cars to meet me.
Assuming it’ll be either Sav, Rachael or Rebecca who picks up the phone, I’m pretty taken aback when I don’t recognize the voice at the other end of the house line.
‘Hello, can I help you?’
‘Oh, er … this is Libby … sorry, who am I talking to?’
‘Barbara.’ There’s the briefest of pauses before she goes on. ‘Your future mother-in-law.’
‘Oh, God!’ Oh, God. ‘Barbara, I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice …’
‘That’s all right. I’m probably not even supposed to be picking up this phone, but I like to be useful.’
‘OK, but … well, I’ll probably just try one of the assistant’s mobiles, instead … I just need to get one of them to send a car out to the station to pick me up.’
‘Oh, I can do that.’
‘No, no, Barbara, I don’t want to trouble you. You’ve better things to do, I’m sure, than tracking down one of the assistants.’
‘No, I meant I’ll come and pick you up. What time train are you on?’
What? No. No.
‘No!’ I actually yelp, out loud, before realizing that this is truly one of the rudest things I could possibly have said to Barbara. Who, after all, won’t realize that I’m a bundle of nerves about meeting her, and that my plan – to get myself groomed to the hilt and then knock back at least one double vodka before this evening’s big face-to-face meeting – is going to be completely stymied by having to meet her as I get off a train, sober, in ten minutes’ time. ‘What I mean to say, Barbara is—’
‘Just tell me your train time, and I’ll be there.’
‘I get in about ten minutes from now, but—’
She lets out a brisk tut. ‘You do like to swing by the seat of your pants, don’t you? All right, I’ll be there then.’
And she hangs up.
For at least seven of those eight minutes, I just sit frozen in my hard, slightly grimy seat, staring at the Sussex countryside passing by, unable to think clearly for sheer panic.
With less than three minutes to go, the ‘fight’ part of my flight or fight response finally kicks in, and I have the wherewithal to drag a comb through my hair, scrabble through my bag to find a slightly stubby lipstick, and then dart to the horrible train loo to check out my reflection in the mirror there.
For someone who’s getting married a little less than twenty-four hours from now, I could look better. I look tired, mostly, and a bit gaunt, and combing my hair hasn’t helped much (maybe Joel was right about the longer hair not suiting me) and then there’s the fact that I’ve spent quite a bit of the journey from Victoria crying …
I know it’s not as if I’ve said goodbye to Olly for ever, or anything. But I can’t seem to help the fact that it feels that way.
Not the time to think about that now, though, when the train is slowing down for Barham Station and, any moment now, I’ll be stepping off the train to meet Barbara in person for the very first time.
And I can see her, actually, before the train has even ground to a complete halt: the tall, incredibly striking woman standing perilously close to the edge of the platform, talking on her mobile.
I gather my things – handbag, Jenny Packham garment bag, courage – and step off the train.
She gets off her phone as soon as she sees me, and strides purposefully towards me.
‘Libby.’ She kisses me on both cheeks. ‘Goo
d to finally meet you. Come on,’ she adds, already striding off in the direction of the car park. ‘It’s freezing, and the car will be warm.’
It’s a bit of a struggle to keep up, what with the fact that she’s so tall and long-legged, and I’m carrying all my stuff, but I do. Mostly so that I can sneak glances at her as we hurry along. Though dusk is already gathering, it’s easy to see how beautiful she is in person: raven hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, Joel’s blue eyes and cheekbones, which are even more razor-sharp this close up than they were on the Skype call when I first ‘met’ her. She’s wearing what looks like Joel’s waxed jacket over jeans and expensive-looking black knee boots, and she looks a good decade or so younger than (I think) she really is, which is in her mid-sixties.
‘It’s so good of you to come all the way out to collect me, Barbara,’ I say. ‘Especially when you must have only just got to Aldingbourne yourself.’
‘Oh, we got in about two hours ago. My mother is having a nap back at the house, but I was already climbing the walls with boredom, waiting for everything to get going. Joel has gone to collect Julia from Gatwick, as I’m sure you know, so I haven’t even had the chance to have a proper catch-up with my son. And frankly,’ she adds, in a voice that – despite its light Slovakian accent – somehow reminds me of Grace Kelly’s –‘I couldn’t spend another minute being fussed and faffed over by any of those assistants. Lovely girls, but really, they’re just too much. Here we are. Hop in.’
OK, well, admittedly it’s only been about forty-five seconds since we met, but it’s going better than I thought so far, if only because I’m secretly gladdened to hear that Barbara finds Sav, Rachael and Rebecca as overwhelming as I do. So I put my garment bag on the back seat and then jump into the black Range Rover with a little more of a spring in my step than I’d imagined I might have, fastening my seatbelt before Barbara pulls off.
‘So!’ she says, with the air of someone starting an Important Conversation. ‘I finally get to meet my new daughter-in-law!’
‘Yes, it’s wonderful. Sorry it’s been so hard to meet up before now, but you know what Joel’s schedule is like, and—’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I know my son! And I have a hectic schedule myself.’ She snaps her fingers a few times, as if to demonstrate the speed with which she gads about the world. ‘Here, there and everywhere, recently. But it’s an exciting time for the foundation. We’re taking on several new projects next year. You and I must sit down together, in fact, after the honeymoon, and earmark the things you’re really interested in. You’re a gemologist, right?’
‘Er – no, I’m a jewellery designer. I mean, I do work with gemstones, obviously, but I couldn’t say I know all that much about—’
‘Perfect! You can come out to Afghanistan with me in February to take a look at the project we’re starting up out there. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with lapis lazuli, but there are a great deal of human rights concerns about the workers in the mines, and we’re very keen to shine the spotlight on child labour in the—’
‘Afghanistan?’
‘Yes.’ She glances over at me, taking her bright blue eyes off the road for rather longer than feels comfortable. ‘What’s the problem with that?’
‘Er … well, I’m not all that up to date on very recent events over there, but isn’t it a bit … um …’ I quail, rather, under her intent gaze. ‘Unsafe?’
She frowns. ‘Badakhshan is one of the most stable regions in Afghanistan.’
‘I’m sure, but …’ I let out a brief, nervous laugh. (And wonder how it is that we’re planning an itinerary for a trip to Afghanistan, only moments after meeting, rather than discussing, oh, I don’t know, the usual sorts of things daughter-in-laws might discuss with their mothers-in-law the day before their wedding. I mean, I’m no bridezilla, but wouldn’t most people be engaging in chit-chat about the flowers and the canapés instead?) ‘… it’s still … er … Afghanistan.’
‘I don’t understand. Are you planning on being pregnant already by then, or something?’
‘What? No, no, God, no …’ I can feel my cheeks flame. (Actually, this might be a more normal mother-in-law conversation, and I’m not sure I like it.) ‘That’s not the reason I’d be concerned about safety.’
Her frown deepens. She seems to be able to drive, along the twisty Sussex B-road, without needing to glance at the road more than once every few seconds. A lifetime, I don’t doubt, of driving aid trucks along dirt tracks in Central Africa.
‘Safety is an illusion, Libby. You could get hit by a bus while running errands in Chichester.’
‘Well, yes, I could.’ I laugh again, in a fruitless attempt to lighten the mood. ‘But statistically, surely, that’s quite a lot less likely than … well, you know—’ getting kidnapped by the Taliban and ending up publicly stoned to death in the streets of Kandahar? –‘the sorts of things you read about that happen in, er, that part of the world.’
‘Ah, well, that’s the trouble, really, isn’t it?’ Barbara takes a corner with impressive control, given that she’s driving fast and not really looking at the road as she does so. ‘Reading about these things rather than being on the ground, experiencing them. I mean, no offence, Libby, but how are you ever going to be able to speak about your work with real knowledge, with real passion, if you’re just regurgitating something that someone has sent you in a memo?’
‘Speak?’
‘Mm-hm.’ She reaches up and pulls down the visor, to shield her eyes from the glow of the winter sun that’s just starting to set over the field ahead of us. ‘I’ve always felt Joel’s wife should be a real figurehead for the Perreira Foundation, someone who can stand up in front of an audience and tell them the things they need to hear. Joel’s superb at that, obviously, but, let’s be realistic, it never hurts to hear the same message from a young, attractive female …’ Another rather lingering glance in my direction, as she openly assesses whether or not she’s been strictly accurate in calling me attractive. She seems to be having a couple of doubts because, after a moment, she goes on, ‘I assume you’ve been growing your hair that long so you can put it up for the wedding? I think a slightly shorter style would look more chic on you, actually, Libby. And has anyone ever taught you how to do your own makeup? It’s a great confidence booster,’ she goes on, before I can reply, ‘and vital if you’re ever going to be meeting big donors or talking to reporters in an area where we haven’t been able to take our own professional hair and makeup people. And, of course, that’ll be the case in Afghanistan. Now, I’ll speak to my assistant Elena and make sure she coordinates with your assistant for the travel plans … I’m heading out to Peshawar on the eighteenth of February, and then due to fly from there to Kabul on the twenty-first, I think, so it’ll probably make the most sense for you to fly on the—’
‘Barbara!’ I yelp. ‘I didn’t think we’d actually agreed the trip yet, had we?’
‘Well, all right, I guess you’ll want to discuss it with Joel first. I suppose he might be keen for you to take one of his security people with you, although I’ve always managed perfectly fine without them … mind you, there was that incident last year in Angola when I’d probably have appreciated Esti and her martial arts expertise …’
‘Look, can we just … put all this on the back burner, Barbara, please?’ I stare at her. ‘I’m getting married tomorrow, after all, and I haven’t even finished packing for the honeymoon yet! Making travel plans for Afghanistan just seems a bit … previous. And besides,’ I go on, my voice strengthening a bit, because I just have to say this, don’t I? ‘I’ve already started explaining to Joel that I’m honestly not sure I’m the person you want to take on a full-time job with the foundation.’
Barbara slams on the brakes, though this is to avoid a rabbit streaking across the road in front of us, rather than an act of anger. She doesn’t, in fact, look angry at all, as she turns her stunning face towards me again; merely surprised. No: astonished.
‘Why on
earth not?’
‘Well, I do have a job already, for one thing! One I really enjoy, and that I’m pretty good at. And I don’t think I’d be – at all – good at the sort of thing you do. You’ve been a professional aid worker for thirty years! You probably speak five languages—’
‘Eight. Nine, if you count my conversational Mboshi.’
‘… and you’re trained for disaster relief, and accustomed to dealing with NGOs, and know how to negotiate with governments and tribespeople … I’m a jewellery designer,’ I go on, somewhat desperately. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to help people far less fortunate than myself, I just don’t think I’m remotely equipped to do the sorts of things you need to do to actually help them! I mean, I once accidentally set my own head on fire on a location shoot for a TV show. In King’s Cross. Am I really the sort of person you want by your side as we set off into a remote region of Afghanistan?’
Barbara doesn’t laugh at the head-on-fire story. Nor does she express any particular interest in hearing any more about it. (But then I’m rapidly suspecting that Barbara might not have that much of a sense of humour. Or, in fact, that much interest in anything that doesn’t involve her work.)
‘Then what sort of thing did you have in mind?’ she asks, rather peevishly. We’ve just turned the corner into the private road that leads towards Aldingbourne, so I guess the silver lining is that this conversation is going to be over pretty soon. ‘Because Lillian, my previous daughter-in-law, never really committed herself to any of the wonderful work we do, and that made it difficult for her and me to get along. That’s not a threat, by the way. I never have any major issues with any of the women my son has dated, as long as they aren’t shallow gold-diggers. Which I don’t get the impression you are. A gold-digger, that is.’ She doesn’t, I notice, comment on the shallow side of things. ‘But I think everyone – Joel included – will feel rather let down if you don’t at least try to step up to the plate. You’re about to be in an astonishingly privileged position, you know, Libby. Wife to a very, very wealthy man. Don’t you want to give anything back?’
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 26