by Agatha Frost
“Your father lives here?” Dawn asked, clearly impressed when Peridale Manor came into view. “It’s beautiful. Is that Cotswold stone?”
“It is,” Julia said. “It’s technically his father-in-law’s house. It’s been in the Wellington family for generations.”
“Dawn is an architect,” Ethan explained. “She does a lot of work for various London councils. She loves these big old buildings.”
“They don’t build them like this anymore,” Dawn said, pulling out her phone to snap a picture through the window. “I’m glad I brought my sketch pad with me. I needed a break from glass and steel.”
The gravel surrounding the house crunched under Julia’s tyres when the lane ended. She pulled in between her father’s black BMW and Katie’s bright pink Range Rover.
“Looks like Casper is already here,” Ethan said as he climbed out of the car, nodding at an orange Volkswagen Camper Van parked on the other side of the Range Rover. “I can’t believe they’re still in that old thing. He’s been driving it for thirty years now.”
After unloading their bags from the boot, they walked towards the double oak doors. Julia knocked hard on the wood, the door opening almost immediately. Hilary, the grumpy and, elderly housekeeper, peered through the gap, her eyeliner-circled eyes bulging out of her sockets like they always did.
“I thought there’d only be two of you,” Hilary snapped, skipping the niceties as she looked down her nose at Julia. “You said there’d only be four guests arriving today. Four! I’ve only made up two bedrooms.”
“That’s my fault,” Ethan said, holding his hands up. “I should have called ahead. I’m sure Luke won’t mind sleeping on the couch. I’m Ethan, and this is my wife, Dawn.”
Ethan held out his hand for Hilary, but she looked down at it as though he was offering her a slab of road kill they had found on the drive up. She huffed before swinging open the door and turning on her tiny heels.
“I’ve just polished the marble, so wipe your feet,” she demanded as she shuffled to the grand sweeping staircase in the middle of the entrance hall. “I’ll make up another room. Leave your bags near the door.”
Julia wiped her feet on the doormat, smiling her apologies on behalf of Hilary. The housekeeper had been with the Wellington family for decades and was well past the age of retirement. Her loyalty to Vincent Wellington kept her there, even if the old man could no longer speak a word since his last stroke.
“This place is incredible,” Dawn exclaimed, taking a picture of the glittering chandelier that hung from the ornate ceiling as she wiped her feet on the doormat. “Early 1800s?”
“I’m not sure,” Julia replied. “Katie might know.”
A man’s deep laugh drifted out from the sitting room, echoing around the grand entrance hall. Dawn and Ethan looked at each other, both rolling their eyes.
“That’ll be Casper,” Ethan said with an exhausted sigh when he finished wiping his feet. “Always the bloody loudest in the room.”
Julia was beginning to abandon all hope of a quiet family reunion for Barker’s birthday.
Luke walked in and ignored the doormat, his eyes glued to his phone. He pushed the door shut with his hip, slamming it in its frame. Julia motioned for them to follow her towards the sitting room.
“Julia!” Brian, her father exclaimed, jumping up to kiss her on the cheek when she walked in. “You never told me Barker’s brother was the Casper Brown!”
Julia smiled meekly at the couple sitting on the ornate red and gold couch across from her father. The man, who she assumed was Casper, looked to be the same age as Julia’s father. He was plump, with a thick grey moustache balanced on his top lip. A cane sat between his legs, his hands leaning all of his weight onto it. The woman, Heather, was also plump, but was so short her feet did not touch the ground. Her thick grey hair had been set into neat rows, which Julia thought looked far too old-fashioned for her kind and open face, which was absent of any wrinkles thanks to her red chubby cheeks.
“Ethan,” Casper said, nodding to his younger brother. “Dawn. Good to see you. How long’s it been?”
“Bethany’s funeral,” Dawn reminded him.
“Ah, yes,” Casper said, his eyes glazing over for a moment before turning to Julia with a wide grin. “You must be Julia! It’s nice to put a face to the name.”
“You never told us how pretty your daughter is, Brian,” Heather said, looking around her husband to smile at Julia. “My brother-in-law has got himself a catch there.”
“Do you all know each other?” Julia asked, glancing from her father to Casper.
“Casper was an avid collector of army medals,” Brian explained. “We go back some twenty years. I’d say he bought more medals from me than any collector I’ve ever met.”
“Still wasting your money on those things, Brother?” Ethan asked as he took in the large and lavishly decorated room. “I could think of better things to spend an army pension on, like a new car, for instance?”
“Your father is one of the best antique dealers there is,” Casper said, looking at Julia and completely ignoring his brother’s passive aggressive comment. “My hunt for medals became much harder when he got out of the business.”
“I recently reacquired the antique barn,” Brian said, clapping his hands together. “Anthony Kennedy croaked it, so I’m officially back in business. Murdered, in fact, and by his own mother, no less. I’d say I felt sorry for the fella, but he screwed over too many people on the way out. Got into some dodgy business with a fake Murphy Jones painting. Can’t believe he was the best man at both of my weddings.”
“Never did like him much,” Casper muttered darkly. “He didn’t know a medal from a chocolate coin. Still can’t believe you’re having another baby at your age, old boy. Our seven are all grown up now. Three boys, four girls. Our youngest, Daisy, has just gone off to university!”
“You’re never too old,” Brian said, rubbing his hands together and leaning forward. “And when you’ve got a wife as beautiful as mine, it’s hard to resist.”
“I’m thinking of trading this one in for a younger model,” Casper joked, tapping Heather on the knee. “But I’m not sure if anyone will put up with an old codger like me with a fake leg.”
He knocked on his left shin and an unnatural rattle of plastic shuddered under his trousers.
“The leg is the easiest part, Mr. Brown,” Heather said, flicking her husband’s ear. “I dare you to find someone else to put up with the rest of you.”
Julia chuckled before looking at Dawn and Ethan, who could not have looked more disinterested with their relatives’ banter. Julia had a feeling she was going to be getting along with Casper and Heather a lot more than anyone else during Barker’s birthday party.
“I’ve got a nice collection of medals down at the barn,” Brian said suddenly, clicking his fingers together. “I dare say even you don’t have some of these. You’ll have to come down and have a look tomorrow.”
“Maybe,” Casper said shakily, glancing unsurely at his wife. “My collection has – is that Luke?”
Casper squinted through Ethan and Dawn to his nephew, who was still glued to his phone. Luke looked up at his uncle Casper, a dry smile on his lips.
“Hello, Uncle,” he said in such a cold way it made Julia shiver. “Auntie Heather. Nice to see you. How’s things?”
Casper’s eyes bulged out of his face, his jaw gritting, and his cheeks turning bright red in the process. For a split second, it seemed as though he was about to explode, but Heather softly rested her hand on his knee, rapidly sedating him. Julia scanned the faces of the others in the room, but no one else seemed to notice the obvious tension.
“Lemonade!” a squeaky voice announced as metal wheels rattled along the polished floorboards. “Oh, more guests! I’ll have to grab some more glasses.”
Julia turned to see her father’s wife, Katie Wellington-South, pushing in a trolley with a large jug of Wellington family lemonade and four glasses. H
er peroxide blonde hair was curled to perfection, her face painted like a model, and her ample chest and giant stomach looked fit to bursting out of her tight shirt.
“None for me,” Casper said, pushing himself up on his cane with a groan. “I-I-It’s been a long day, and I think I need to lie down. My good leg is cramping up.”
“Are we okay to go up?” Heather asked, standing up and resting her hand on her husband’s lower back. “It’s better that he rests up now before it gets any worse. He’s not used to wearing the prosthetic for this long. I told him to take it off while I was driving, but he never listens. Was more worried about having it on in case we crashed, but at the speed I was driving, I think a plastic leg would have been the least of his worries.”
“You’re in the room at the end of the hall near the bust of my great-grandfather,” Katie announced after pushing the trolley around to the other side of the couch. “You can’t miss it.”
Katie rested her hands on the bottom of her lower back and pushed out her stomach. Julia looked down at her high heels, almost not believing that she still insisted on wearing them so close to the end of her pregnancy.
Casper and Heather hobbled past them, their smiles warm and kind until they landed on Luke. For a split second, the pressure boiled up again, turning the room cold until they left. Julia itched to know what was causing the tension, but was too polite to ask either of them.
“I think I could use a nap too,” Dawn said, pinching between her eyes. “I can feel one of my migraines brewing.”
“I’ll come up with you,” Ethan said, opening his mouth and letting out what seemed to be a fake yawn. “That train journey has exhausted me.”
“You’re in the room next door to your brother,” Katie announced, pouring homemade lemonade into two glasses. “Are you staying for a glass, Julia?”
“I should get back,” Julia said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder, not wanting to admit that the lemonade was too sickly for her tastes. “Barker will be wondering where I am.”
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” Luke asked bluntly, the last of Barker’s family still in the room. “I need to check my emails.”
As Katie shuffled over to the internet router on a small table in the corner of the room, Julia nodded for her father to follow her out into the hall.
“Is everything sorted?” Julia asked, pulling a small notepad out of her coat pocket to run down her list again. “Did the balloons arrive?”
“Everything is in hand,” he assured her with a confident smile that she knew was supposed to soothe her, but did not. “I’ve told you not to worry. Just bake one of your delicious cakes, and everything will go smoothly.”
“I never expected it to be so difficult,” she said, slotting the notepad back into her pocket. “I never expected them to be so difficult. I’m beginning to wonder if this was all a giant mistake. What was that look Casper gave Luke?”
“What look? You have nothing to worry about with Casper and Heather,” he assured her as they walked to the front door, their heels clicking on the shiny marble. “They’re the loveliest people I know. This world just keeps getting smaller, doesn’t it? I’ve known Barker all this time, and I never put the two Browns together.”
“The last brother, Theo, is arriving tomorrow at noon. Do you want me to be here to greet them?”
“It’s all taken care of,” he repeated, yanking on the door. “There’s nothing to panic about. The Wellington family are famous for their hospitality. We’ll have a nice dinner tonight. They’ll be refreshed for tomorrow night’s party, you’ll see.”
“Okay,” she said, allowing herself to smile for a second, glad she only had the cake to worry about now. “Just don’t let them anywhere near the village. The last thing I want is for Barker to see one of them so close to the party.”
“I’ll keep them under lock and key,” he promised with a wink. “Go home, put your feet up, and have one of those peppermint teas you like. What could go wrong?”
Leaving her father on the doorstep, Julia climbed back into her car at the exact moment it began to rain. Reversing out of the tight space, she waved to her father before turning and heading back down the winding lane. As her window wipers squeaked against the glass, she inhaled deeply, wondering why she felt even more nervous than she had standing on the platform waiting to meet one of Barker’s brothers for the first time.
“What could go wrong?” she whispered to herself, repeating her father’s words. “What could possibly go wrong?”
2
Julia awoke the exact moment her phone began to vibrate the next morning. She immediately stopped the alarm, holding her breath as she looked down at Barker in the dark. He snorted, rolled over, and resumed snoring into his pillow. He would be fast asleep until his alarm woke him.
Julia tossed back the covers and climbed carefully out of bed, the cold floorboards creaking underfoot. She could not remember the last time she had woken up before the radiators came on. Glad she had left her sheepskin slippers next to her bed the previous night, she slipped her feet into them as she stood up. Avoiding the notoriously squeaky floorboards, she tiptoed across the room, grabbing her pink dressing gown from the hook on the side of her wardrobe.
“Morning, boy,” she whispered to Mowgli, her grey Maine Coon, as he crawled out from his warm spot underneath the bed. “Bit early for you, isn’t it?”
Mowgli shook out his flattened fur, his sleepy eyes still half-closed. He nudged her leg with the side of his soft face, letting her know it was never too early for breakfast.
With Mowgli dancing around her ankles, Julia crept out of the bedroom, glancing at Barker one last time.
“Happy Birthday,” she whispered.
Once in the kitchen, Julia flicked on the spotlights under the cupboards, not wanting to turn on the ceiling lights in case the bright light disturbed the rest of the household. Letting out a long yawn, she filled the kettle from the tap. She looked out into her slightly overgrown back garden, the sky still inky, the grass still frosty.
While the kettle boiled, Julia plopped a peppermint and liquorice teabag into her favourite giant mug, fed Mowgli, and began gathering the basic ingredients for Barker’s birthday cake. He likely knew that she was going to bake him a cake, but she thought the sheer size of the one she intended to bake might give away her plans for more people than the quiet dinner he expected.
She stepped back and looked at the self-raising flour, butter, eggs, caster sugar, and baking powder. She decided against pulling out the various flavourings and colourings until she needed them. The fewer ingredients pointing to a birthday cake, the easier it would be to pretend she was baking something for the café if Barker suddenly woke up. The soft snoring coming from the slightly ajar bedroom door let her know that was not likely to happen anytime soon.
With the oven preheating, Julia began measuring out enough sponge cake ingredients to fill eight sandwich tins. She planned to colour each layer differently, but her practice runs had taught her it would be easier to change the colours when she had separated the mixture into each tin.
Barker probably expected Julia to make him one of her famous double fudge chocolate cakes. It was his favourite, after all, but she had been making that same cake on an almost weekly basis since the beginning of their relationship. Since it was his birthday, she had been planning something a little more special, but no less delicious.
One of the few things Julia knew about Barker’s mother, aside from that she also loved baking and apparently cursed like a sailor, was that her favourite cake was coconut cakes. Julia loved coconut too, so when she had come up with the idea to gather Barker’s brothers, she had decided a variation of a coconut cake would be an easy crowd pleaser. After seeing how strained Casper and Ethan’s relationship seemed to have been yesterday, and how dismissively Ethan had spoken about Theo, Julia hoped their late mother’s favourite cake would somehow bring them together. She knew it was a long shot, but her baking had performed seemingly impos
sible miracles before.
When she was happy with the consistency of the batter, she sprinkled in a healthy dose of desiccated coconut along with two caps of pure coconut extract before dividing it between the eight tins. When she was satisfied she had poured them evenly by eye, something her mother had taught her to do as a child rather than relying on scales for every step, Julia gathered the colourings from the cupboard and started mixing. She watched as the beige batter turned purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, turquoise, and red, the bright colours bringing a little sunshine to the dark and chilly morning. After adding extra racks to the oven, she carefully placed the raw mixtures into the heat, set her timer to twenty-five minutes, and finally grabbed her peppermint and liquorice tea. Despite it being free of caffeine, nothing woke her up more than the minty sweetness of her favourite hot drink.
Remembering the pizza boxes in the sitting room from the takeaway the night before, Julia hugged her tea as she wandered through. She was surprised to see Jessie wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, and even more surprised that she was wide awake, staring at the television while Julia’s Pretty Woman DVD played almost silently in the dark.
“Jessie?” Julia whispered, not wanting to startle her. “Are you alright? What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered back, wiping her cold red nose with the edge of the blanket. “You always watch Pretty Woman to cheer you up, so I thought it was worth a shot.”
“Is it working?”
“I still want to punch Julia Roberts every time she cackles at that jewellery box,” Jessie said, sitting up, the blanket wrapped around her head and shoulders. “I’d say it was half successful.”
Julia handed over her tea, which Jessie accepted gratefully. She sipped the warm drink, her eyes blank as they stared at the burnt logs in the whistling fireplace.