Page 1 of Annabel and Her Sisters

My heart sank. I’d got up at sparrow’s fart specifically to get here before anyone else and have at least half an hour’s chat, but clearly the women of west Hertfordshire were keen to be at the front of the queue for whatever terracotta pots, silk flowers, Indian-style clothing and bath oils my sister and her cronies were flogging today, nominally in the name of Cancer Research but mostly for themselves.

I drew up beside a towering urn frothing over with white narcissi in the beautiful spring sunshine, realizing Ginnie would be thrilled with the day.

Netherby Manor looked magnificent, its pale biscuit facade basking in the soft light, Georgian windows gently glinting, and the weather would encourage those other than bargain hunters to sally forth for a day out and catch a glimpse; never underestimate the snoop factor, as my sister would say.

There’d be more than a smattering of women who didn’t get invited by Ginnie and Hugo to supper, or even drinks, but who would be keen to say they’d been and looked around the house and grounds.

‘Sociably mobile,’ Ginnie had hissed down the phone to me when she’d asked if I might bring some friends along. ‘The loaded sort that will spend oodles and spoodles and want to say they’ve been here for the day.’

‘I don’t know anyone like that,’ I’d told her shortly.

‘Hebe?’ she’d replied instantly.

Hebe was my best friend and did indeed fit the former category, but not the latter, and was safely installed at her own country pad in Norfolk, as I told Ginnie.

‘And anyway,’ I went on firmly, ‘I’m coming early, on my own, because I want to talk about Mum. I’m going on to see Clarissa.’

‘Oh yes, we can definitely do that quickly, and isn’t it marvellous?

Hugo’s thrilled, incidentally. It means we can redo the roof after all, which is a blessed relief.

But don’t forget, I’ll be busy, Annabel.

Country house fairs are hard work and the whole place will be full of stall holders and frantic women setting up, and God knows what else. Chaos.’

‘Which is why I wanted to come on Wednesday, the only other day I can do, when I’ve delivered the manuscript.’

‘And I told you, Wednesday’s impossible.

We’re off to Glyndebourne the following day, and if I don’t lie down and have my hair done and breathe I’ll look like a limp rag with the Frobishers, and Hugo wants me to look my best and chat up that buffoon Reggie.

He’s hoping he’ll take a corporate shoot day here and he might even invest in the vineyard.

Anyway, you can take a day off any day, surely? ’

‘Not when I’ve got a deadline,’ I told her wearily. ‘The copy editor’s champing at the bit for me to get it back to her.’

‘Well– tell her you need an extra day or something!’

‘She’s going on holiday at the weekend and I don’t want to mess her around.’

‘You’re the author!’ she shrieked. ‘You should call the shots. Honestly, Annabel, you churn out a book a year for them– when will you learn?’

I’d put the phone down with a grimace. My sister’s idea of what I did for a living was supportive in its way, but the collaborative nature of publishing and the fact that the book wasn’t actually mine– it had been paid for– passed her by.

I let it go, however, and now here I was, following a gaggle of well-dressed middle-aged women, chattering excitedly as they went up the ancient stone steps into the panelled hall, even jostling slightly, as if it was the first day of the Peter Jones sale.

Except you couldn’t actually see the hall, I realized as I went in, gazing around, not even the slightly gloomy oak panelling: every square inch, including the huge hall table, was full to the brim with admittedly gorgeous silk flowers, in pot-bellied terracotta pots which looked like they’d come straight from the Tuscan hills; they even had paint dripping artistically down the sides.

Two huge urns stood sentry by the fireplace, smaller ones were on the mantel above it stuffed with fake lavender, and every conceivable window ledge plus the marble console table was in full bloom, even obscuring the large carriage clock that had once belonged to my dear dad and had sat on his desk.

I looked vainly for my sister in the chattering throng, and as my eyes darted, one with an even sharper beam pounced.

‘I see you’re admiring the gladioli,’ purred a very tall woman in a thousand-acre voice, her hand on my arm. ‘They’re tremendous value, you know. Half the price of anything you’ll find in the shops. And they give structure to tall rooms just like that!’

I didn’t like to tell her my ceilings were cottage height, so I smiled politely and said I thought I was OK for silk gladioli.

‘Oh, you’ve got them already, have you? Good for you. Well, in that case the lavender might be more up your street; it’s new, French or English, and as a matter of fact a mixture is divine, it really does work. Perfect for brightening up a gloomy boot room!’

‘I’m actually looking for my sister, Ginnie. Is she about?’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize you. You must be Clarissa from Hastoe?’

‘No, that’s the other one. I’m Annabel from London. Ah, I’ve just spotted her. I’ll just go and–’

‘Here, take a card,’ she said, pressing one firmly into my hand.

‘And when you get home and think golly, that fireplace could do with cheering up in the summer, chuck out the pine cones in the grate and think sprays of pale magnolia instead!’ She gestured extravagantly to a fake blossom tree about the size of my sitting room.

‘I will,’ I promised as I hurried across to Ginnie, who was beetling through an archway, armed with a tray of my niece’s pottery bowls, her gait– body well forward as if into a headlong wind– so familiar in my family.

I was after her. Both my sisters moved fast, but this one was laden, thankfully. She stopped when she saw me.

‘Ah, Annabel. Quick, help me put Lara’s stuff in the sitting room.

She’s been completely hopeless at setting up herself, mooning around with a face like a wet weekend.

Glued to her phone, obviously. Oh, yes, hello,’ she said distractedly as I kissed her.

‘Sorry. Having a bit of a mare. Anastasia Mountjoy has included napkins and pyjamas from Rajasthan on her stand and I told her Minty Featherstone was doing those. Minty is incandescent. We cannot have a conflict of interest– yes, yes, I know, Minty, I have told her,’ she broke off, as an irate woman with wild blonde hair and furious staring eyes advanced threateningly.

‘I’ve asked her to pop them back in her car. ’

‘Which she hasn’t done,’ Minty seethed. ‘And people are sodding well buying hers because they’re at least ten pounds cheaper than mine, and Tobias and I made a special trip to Jaipur to get them. The quality is far superior– hers are probably off the internet!’

‘Yes, yes, I know, I’ll sort it out. Lara!’ Ginnie cried, hurrying past the wild-eyed individual and into the sitting room. ‘For God’s sake, set your pottery things out and put labels on them. I’ve stuck “China” on the door and you’ve got people coming in here wondering what on earth’s for sale!’

My pretty blonde niece was horizontal on a sofa, draped like a pair of wet silk stockings, cuddling a spaniel and scrolling listlessly on her phone.

She raised herself languidly as a couple of women picked up a Royal Doulton figurine from the mantel and turned it over interestedly.

Ginnie beamed at them and hastened across.

‘Not for sale, I’m afraid. It’s my daughter’s pottery in here.’

‘I’m not gonna lie, I don’t particularly want to do this stupid fair,’ Lara said, getting slowly to her feet.

‘Hello, Annabel.’ She gave me a hug which felt full of sadness.

I squeezed her tightly back. ‘It’s just you, Mummy, who wants me to do it, because you think I’m unemployed, or need a boost or something to stop me getting depressed.

Tell her, Annabel. Not everyone wants to dance to her tune.

Sometimes people need to find their own way. Like you let Luke and Polly.’

It had never occurred to me to steer my own children, but Ginnie was on a mission, already popping her daughter’s bowls, decorated with flowers, and indeed very pretty, about the room, complete with tags. The woman holding the figurine put it down disappointedly and pretended to show interest.

‘Coffee?’ I asked hopefully, having driven an hour and a quarter to get here and with no intention to do anything other than secure a chat with my sister. ‘I’ll take that one, by the way,’ I said to Lara, pointing to a cream-coloured dish covered in forget-me-nots.

‘Well, you’re not paying for it. I didn’t give you a Christmas present and you gave me Jo Malone, which is super generous.’ She handed it to me.

‘Lara!’ Ginnie snapped. ‘Fifteen pounds,’ Ginnie told me sweetly as Lara rolled her eyes and went back to the sofa with the puppy and her phone. ‘Here, in the kitchen. I could do with a coffee too, if only to get away from bloody Minty.’

She led the way and shut the door as I handed her the money to give to Lara later.

Here, at least, was a haven of quiet, although I noticed a fair amount of my sister’s aromatherapy oils and potions, her latest enterprise, on the kitchen table in the window, so no doubt it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

‘Dead Sea salts and eucalyptus with ginger infusion. They’re from Vietnam,’ she told me, her expression changing to one of the deepest gravitas as if she were delivering the autumn budget.

‘Seriously, Annabel, they are the absolute last word in soothing balm. You’ll never bathe in anything else again. ’

‘Great, I’ll try them,’ I promised as she put the kettle on the Aga and I went to the cupboard for a couple of mugs. ‘But Ginnie, I haven’t come all this way to buy aromatherapy oil. We have to talk about Mum.’