‘Darling!’ she shrieked. ‘Thank God you’re here! You have to come up here at once! Allegra’s locked me in!’
Jonathan and I sprang apart.
‘What?’ I demanded. ‘Then who’s looking after the baby?’
‘Aren’t you meant to ask why Allegra’s locked her in?’ demanded Jonathan as we broke into a trot towards the house.
‘First things first,’ I gasped, pushing open the front door.
As I did so, the level of wailing intensified, and was matched by the sound of Mummy hammering on the door and the furious ringing of a handbell.
My head swivelled, wondering in which order I should tackle the chaos, but since it all seemed to be coming from upstairs, I decided to head up there and see which presented itself as the most urgent.
I was greeted at the top by the bewildering sight of Allegra holding Mummy’s study door shut, while alternately blowing cigarette smoke and shouting through the keyhole.
‘Come on, Mummy,’ she was bellowing. ‘Get knitting! I need a cat and a couple of unicorns from you. This is an emergency! And give the cat two heads! Or do something bizarre with its ears!’
‘Allegra!’ I yelled. ‘Who’s looking after the baby?’
‘Melissa?’ Mummy’s voice floated plaintively through the door. ‘Tell her to let me out. The poor mite’s going to do himself a mischief! Someone needs to see to him!’
‘Why not Emery?’ Jonathan murmured, but the answer to that was too obvious for the rest of us to respond.
Instead, Allegra looked shifty. ‘Annoying, isn’t it? Mmm. Is it making your blood pressure rise? Are you feeling the need to knit?’
‘Let her out!’ I roared.
‘Is someone going to deal with that godawful racket?’ bellowed a fresh voice. ‘It’s worse than when we had the builders in, and I have an interview to conduct with Waitrose Food Monthly in an hour!’
I spun round.
Daddy had emerged at the foot of the stairs to join in the fun, his new bouffant hair askew. His own study was at the other end of the house, far, far away from everyone else, to the mutual convenience of all concerned.
He seemed to notice Allegra for the first time. ‘What the hell are you doing, Allegra?’ he demanded. ‘I thought you were in Ham fighting with that monolithic nancy boy of yours.’
‘I popped over to collect Mummy’s new animals for the gallery,’ she said, without relinquishing her grip on the brass handle. ‘But Ivanka says they’re too neat. Too normal. Not like the cack-handed monstrosities she was producing six months ago, when the gallery was packed solid with collectors.’ She rattled the handle at this point, for emphasis. ‘When she was stressed, and giving up smoking, and generally more tense. She’s useless now she’s all Zen about life.’
‘So you’re trying to stress her out?’ I gasped. So that was the mysterious ‘hitch’.
‘Art is a cruel mistress,’ replied Allegra, narrowing her eyes. ‘And I’m on twenty per cent.’
‘Shouldn’t someone see to the baby?’ suggested Jonathan politely. ‘The poor little guy does sound kind of upset.’
The handbell started ringing again, at the same time as the crying ramped up a notch from teeth-grinding to ear-splitting.
‘Jonathan, would you go downstairs and put the kettle on for a cup of tea?’ I said, taking control, since everyone else was looking shell-shocked by the noise. The sheer force of it was paralysing. ‘Allegra, let Mummy out. Now!’
Sulkily, Allegra let go of the door, and Mummy emerged, looking flustered.
‘Thank you, darling,’ she said, passing a hand across her brow and eyeing Allegra’s Marlboro Light longingly. ‘Do you have any aspirin, Melissa?’
‘In my bag,’ I said automatically. ‘Allegra, should you be smoking, with a baby in the house?’
‘If anything drives me back to the fags, it’s going to be this baby,’ murmured Mummy, making a grab for it while Allegra was glaring murderously at me. She dragged deeply on it, while an expression of sheer bliss wreathed her face.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ snorted Daddy, and he marched past everyone towards the sound of the howling. ‘Do I have to do everything myself?’
I stared at my mother and sister, who were now squabbling like teenagers over the cigarette, couldn’t think of anything useful to say, and instead followed Daddy down the landing towards Emery’s room.
‘What?’ I heard him bark as he pushed the door open. The ringing ceased, a window opened, and after a second or two I heard the dull sound of a handbell falling into the shrubbery.
Emery was lying in her old bed, propped up on a variety of My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake pillows. Her hair cascaded around her and the remains of several boxes of chocolates were visible. The nuts, I knew from experience, would be all that was left.
‘Oh, good,’ she said when she saw me. ‘You’re here. I think the baby’s crying again,’ she added, as if we couldn’t tell from the rattling windows.
‘We noticed,’ said Daddy through gritted teeth.
‘I suppose he needs changing or something. When’s Nanny Ag coming?’ she asked, foraging for a strawberry creme.
‘Not soon enough,’ snarled Daddy.
Emery smiled beatifically. ‘Sorry? I didn’t catch that.’
‘I said, not bloody soon enough!’
‘Absolutely!’ nodded Emery.
I looked at her. How on earth could she sit there so calmly through this screeching? Poor little Baby Mac was turning bright red with effort.
Giving up on Emery, Daddy turned back to me. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to do something?’
‘Me?’ I protested.
‘Fancy a choc, Melissa?’ asked Emery, proffering the box. ‘You can have anything you like. Oh, sorry – so long as it’s a nut cluster . . .’
‘For the love of Mike,’ he snapped and, to mine and Emery’s total amazement, he lifted the baby out of his cot, trailing aertex blankets and all.
To our further amazement, the baby stopped crying instantly, as if Daddy had yanked out his batteries.
Daddy and the baby stared at each other, nose to nose. Both noses were quite red. You could see the family resemblance. If I hadn’t been so surprised, I’d have been touched.
‘Oh, fabulous,’ said Emery, pulling at her ears, and removing a pair of William’s clay-pigeon-shooting earplugs. ‘How did you do that?’
‘No idea.’ Daddy attempted to hand the baby to Emery, but the second Emery touched him, the screeching began again. Horrified, she tried to pass him to me, but he screeched even louder, until I was forced to press him back into Daddy’s arms, like a particularly fierce pass-the-parcel.
Then he stopped crying instantly again.
‘Oh, he likes you,’ Emery and I cooed in unison.
A strange expression crossed my father’s face. Sort of horror, mixed with pride, mixed with delight at the fresh avenues opening up to him. In a film it would probably have been accompanied by warm strings of sentimentality, or possibly stabby strings of unholy alliance.
‘Of course he does,’ said Daddy. ‘He’s the first male Romney-Jones to be born in this house for well over half a century.’
‘MacDonald,’ murmured Emery.
‘Still a Romney-Jones to all intents and purposes.’ Daddy raised the tiny baby up to eye level and made a squinty-eyed face at him. The baby blinked rapidly.
Just before the baby could prove his Romney-Jones credentials by spitting in Daddy’s eye, there was a gentle knock at the door, and Jonathan appeared with Mrs Lloyd, who was bearing a tea tray.
‘I tried,’ he said to me. ‘But Mrs Lloyd insisted I’d screw it up. The pot-warming, and so on. Would you like a cup of tea, Emery?’
‘Lovely . . .’ she said, rearranging her curtain of hair over one shoulder. Everyone seemed to preen themselves whenever Jonathan hoved into view.
‘Ah, just the man,’ said Daddy, his eyes glittering anew. ‘Fancy something a bit stronger in my study?’
/> ‘Well, I . . .’ Jonathan began, casting quick looks at me and Emery.
‘No point talking to either of them,’ said Daddy. ‘And I’ve got something to run by you that might, ah . . .’ He went to pass the baby back to Emery, but the little mouth opened in a warning manner, and Daddy took him back.
‘He’ll start crying if he’s hungry,’ said Emery with an absent-minded wave. ‘Or if his nappy’s niffy. Or something.’ She smiled at my worried face. ‘You have to go with the flow with newborns, Mel.’
I resisted the temptation to tell her that, in that case, she would be Cotswolds Mother of the Year in no time.
‘Why don’t you pop him in here?’ I suggested instead, picking up the carry-cot thing that William had dragged me into Peter Jones to help him buy. It could be fitted to a range of different all-terrain vehicles. ‘Then he might go to sleep.’
Aware that all eyes were on him, Daddy self-consciously decanted the baby into the cot. It lay there, gazing up adoringly at him.
‘You’re looking very well, Emery,’ said Jonathan, taking advantage of the silence. ‘William not around?’
‘Oh, he’s gone off for a run, or a shoot or something. I gave him the keys to the gun cupboard, that’s OK, isn’t it? He said something about shooting something for dinner.’ Emery stopped rootling through the chocs long enough to look up at me. ‘I told him to take the dogs too. See, Melissa? You’re not the only one who can multitask.’ She rearranged her pillows. ‘Would you mind awfully if I had a little nap? I’m absolutely shattered.’
‘I can see,’ I said, pushing away the grim possibilities presented by William, a gun, Braveheart, local wildlife and sundry other dogs. ‘I’ll leave your tea here, then. Next to your magazines. And your iPod. And your mobile phone.’
‘Thanks so much,’ said Emery, slipping on her eyemask.
Daddy had spirited Jonathan off to his study before I could think of a reason to save him, and I can’t say I was that keen to go and rescue him, to be honest.
Mummy and Allegra weren’t in the kitchen, but the faint trace of cigarette smoke drifting in through the door out to the herb garden gave me a good idea where they might be. I was just helping myself to a cup of instant coffee and a couple of French Fancies, when a tiny hand appeared out of nowhere and whisked the box away from me.
‘Not before your lunch!’ boomed a voice from the past. ‘And only then if I see a clean plate!’
‘Nanny Ag!’ I cried, turning round in delight.
Filling the space in front of me, although she was barely five feet tall, was Nanny Ag, the all-seeing, all-knowing Welsh moral oracle of my childhood. Even while she was glaring at me and the French Fancies, I could see her taking in the cobwebs, Mrs Lloyd’s defrosting lunch, the pile of Telegraphs waiting to go to the recycling bin and the dogs’ bowls, all very near the Aga.
Standing behind her, peeling off a pair of leather driving gloves and wearing a stiff expression, was my grandmother.
‘I see I’ve arrived in the nick of time,’ sniffed Nanny Ag. ‘Do your parents still employ a housekeeper, Melissa?’
‘We’d have arrived even sooner if you’d let me go over forty miles an hour,’ murmured Granny. ‘Darling, would you get me a Scotch? I believe your mother keeps an emergency bottle of Glenfiddich just behind the Weetabix, if you look.’
Nanny Ag looked askance, and I hesitated. Then I was saved by a sudden roar from Baby Mac and like a bloodhound responding to the scent (or more accurately, like a corgi getting a whiff of bare ankle), Nanny Ag was off, her sensible shoes stomping down the uneven parquet.
‘I haven’t finished with you, Melissa!’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘What do we say? Little pickers . . .’
‘– wear big knickers,’ Granny and I finished automatically.
Well, I think Granny said ‘silk knickers’ but she knew what she was supposed to say.
I looked out of the kitchen window, and saw Mummy hovering on the path, listening. The moment she heard Nanny Ag’s battle cry a terrified look crossed her face and she scuttled back to the safety of the herb garden.
The crying abruptly stopped, and a faint echo of Welsh folksong began in its place. Daddy’s study door also banged shut.
Granny nipped into the pantry, grabbed the bottle and was about to pour herself a large Scotch into one of Mummy’s nineteen WI market mugs but stopped, mid-slug.
‘On second thoughts,’ she said, looking up at me, ‘let’s keep the option of a quick getaway open.’
I held out my mug of coffee. ‘I’m not going anywhere. And if I am, Jonathan can drive.’
Granny sloshed in a generous measure. ‘So?’ she said. ‘Can I take some good news back to Alexander tonight?’
‘You’re seeing him again?’ I asked curiously. ‘Twice in one week?’
‘He hasn’t been able to get over to London much recently, and he’s making the most of it,’ she said airily, and raised her eyebrow. ‘Although now his wife’s gone to the great bag shop in the sky, that may change . . . Well?’
‘I would love to help Alexander get his castle,’ I said. ‘And if that means working with Nicolas, then yes, I will . . . take it on.’
Granny clapped her hands. ‘Oh, Melissa! I knew I could rely on you!’
‘But there have to be rules,’ I insisted. ‘I won’t run around after him, like everyone else does. I have to wear my wig and be Honey so no one thinks I’m dating him. And I won’t neglect my own business. I’m going to work out a series of appointments and if he doesn’t stick to them, I’m not chasing around the nightclubs of London looking for him.’
She tried to look serious, but the delight in her face was still touchingly clear. ‘Alexander will be thrilled. He’s happy to leave it entirely up to you.’
‘What Nicolas needs is to learn that there are some women who won’t roll over at the first bat of his eyelashes,’ I said, indignation rising just at the thought of how he’d undone my dress in Petrus. ‘And since I’m totally impervious to that sort of sleazy charm, I might just be the girl for the job. You can tell Alexander that I’m a safe pair of hands.’
Granny winked. ‘Unlike poor Nicky.’
I nodded, thinking how worried Alexander must be at the thought of Nicky as his next-in-line. ‘Quite. I wouldn’t let him run a bath, let alone a country.’
She paused, and sighed, as if I’d missed something, then offered me the verboten cakes. ‘Never mind, darling. French Fancy?’
7
Being at home with Jonathan kept me awake at nights. Not only because it was sweet revenge on my miserable adolescence to have fully licit romps at last in the four-poster bed, instead of just reading Jilly Cooper novels and pretending, but because I frequently lay there afterwards, my brain ticking over with all the possible things that might go wrong.
Like, what had my father been talking about for so long with Jonathan? Was he making embarrassing allegations about people Jonathan might know? And would Jonathan, the soul of discretion, tell me? Then more general things: would the central heating fail at the same time as a freak rainstorm exposed the leaky roof? Had Mummy remembered to take her chicken-fillet bra enhancers out of the bathroom? Was Allegra still sleepwalking?
I listened to the steady in–out of Jonathan’s breathing and stared at the strange tableau painted on the roof of the four-poster. At one time it had probably been erotic, but time had flaked off certain key details, leaving a nightmarish jumble of arms, legs, and prudish blanks. My mind shifted once again back to the problem of Nicky, now a real problem since I’d overheard Granny on the phone telling Alexander it was ‘all go’ and then laughing girlishly.
I need to make a list, I thought, slipping soundlessly out of bed, and hunting for my slippers. If I’ve got something to tick off, it’ll make it easier to get through, and at least there’ll be something I can type up and send to Alexander. Granny had hinted discreetly that there would be a retainer cheque to begin with, followed by a monthly sum. If I was going to make
my mortgage work, I’d need at least three months’ money.
Holding my breath, I allowed myself a moment or two to admire my fiancé’s lovely chiselled profile. Some people’s faces slumped into gormlessness in sleep. Not Jonathan. He even dreamed dynamically. Then I sneaked down to the kitchen, avoiding the three creaking steps.
Once fortified with some fruitcake and a glass of milk, I got my big ‘to-do’ notebook out of my handbag. Using an old copy of Tatler, and a posh Dean & Daniels Social Calendar, I started to list the events I could take Nicolas to, but this time in a sober, image-enhancing state, as opposed to a lecherous, bad-headline-grabbing one.
So, nightclubs, dubious fancy-dress parties and balls for teenagers were out.
Polo matches, charity dinners, art galleries and cultural events were very much in.
He might have a point about being a modern prince, but if the government of Hollenberg wanted an olde-worlde gentleman to go with their olde-worlde castle then that’s what they were going to get. There was nothing fusty about manners and dressing well, treating people courteously and having productive interests. After all, my life had improved immeasurably since I’d embraced boned lingerie and my inner bombshell. I just needed to dig out the young Prince Rainier in Prince Nicolas. Find his inner male Honey.
I sat back and examined my colour-coded diary. It was so packed with appointments and notes to myself that it looked like a particularly complex tartan.
I absolutely wasn’t going to spend more than ten hours a week with this cretin, international diplomacy or not, and I had to draw a line somewhere – probably the point at which Jonathan and I moved to Paris for good. In the car that morning, he’d started to press me about putting a definite date in the diary, and though I obviously wanted to move out there with him, there was just so much to do beforehand that I’d hedged around until he pinned me to the end of September – under six months away.
My stomach lurched at the combined thoughts of moving, packing, selling and learning French, all in a matter of months, but I stuffed some more fruitcake into my mouth, grabbed a highlighter pen and started scribbling until the twinge went away.