Page 27

Chapter 26

Margot

Anna has been sitting at my kitchen table for much of the morning, slowly working her way through my biscuit barrel and herbal tea caddies. When she turned up earlier unannounced, she mentioned something about self-assessment, tax returns, deadlines and a broken Wi-Fi router. I said that of course she was welcome to use mine, but the village pub also has Wi-Fi and a wonderful breakfast menu. The hint fell on deaf ears.

So I’ve been stuck indoors, boiling and refilling the kettle like I’m below-stairs staff at Downton Abbey while Countess Hobnob eats her body weight in biscuits.

I need a break from her incessant tap-tap typing and confectionery guzzling, so I disappear upstairs. Last night I had a FaceTime call with Sylvia, a celebrity TV chef, but if I’m being honest, I was hoping to wangle an invitation to her much-sought-after restaurant in the Cotswolds. But some of what she said did make sense. How is Frankie wanting to identify as neither sex actually going to affect me? When I think about it, I suppose it really doesn’t. I relayed the conversation earlier to Anna, who gave me an idea of how Frankie’s self-identification could benefit both of us. So I drop my agent Geri a line and ask her to put the wheels in motion.

I have time to kill, so I pick up my iPad, sprawl across the bed and scroll through thumbnail photos of clothes for sale on eBay. I’ve found a loophole in Nicu’s tightening of my purse strings and his refusal to allow me to buy anything new. Outfits from eBay are preloved and therefore not new. So I don’t have to curtail my spending habits, merely adapt them.

I try and log into my account, but to my frustration, it won’t accept my password. I try different combinations but nothing. Bloody stupid technology! Why is it always against me? In the last week, I’ve been unable to log on to Instagram and Ocado or my banking and Amazon apps. I swear this house has a poltergeist that only has me in its spectral sights.

The doorbell rings just as I’m about to hurl the device at the wall. I want to tell whoever it is to fuck off by the time I reach the bottom of the staircase, but Anna has already let Liv in. She’s carrying two bags with the words ‘Recycle Me!’ on the side in bold print.

‘Hi girls,’ she begins.

‘This is a lovely surprise,’ Anna says. ‘Would you like a tea?’

‘I’d love one,’ she replies. ‘It’s not been a great day. I told you about Cat Face disappearing last week, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ says Anna. ‘And I saw the reward posters up on lamp posts around the village.’

We all did. Those eyesores are hard to miss.

‘We found the kids sitting by the cat flap in the middle of the night. They’d got it into their heads she was coming back. Then this morning they overheard Brandon and I talking about it being likely she’d died somewhere. Now they’re besides themselves. We’ve had to keep them off pre-school today as they’re so upset.’

Oh crap , I think. I’m taken back to my own childhood, when an urban fox caught my pet rabbit in its garden pen and I found it torn to shreds one morning. I was inconsolable. Then I picture Rupert and Ingrid’s tearful faces as they await the return of a cat who isn’t coming home. My conscience isn’t even pricked, it’s been hit with a sledgehammer. What have I done?

Suddenly Liv thrusts a bag into my chest and I recoil, thinking for a split second that Cat Face might be inside it. ‘Anyway, I have something for you.’

Inside are two carefully wrapped items. I open each of them. They contain two LK Bennett skirts and a pair of Miu Miu heels I won in an eBay auction.

‘I have got the right order, haven’t I?’ Liv asks, suddenly concerned. ‘They’re what you bought?’

‘It was your auction?’ I ask, jolted by the realisation she was the seller.

‘I sell a lot of my old unwanted stuff there,’ she explains. ‘Every time I have a clear-out, I put what I no longer want online. It’s just a waste if you don’t, isn’t it? Anyway, the skirts were my maternity wear that I won’t be needing again. My womb is shutting up shop.’

I’m too mortified to respond. I have bought second-hand maternity wear and I’m not even pregnant. Could this morning get any worse?

‘Anyway, I was packaging the orders and noticed it was you who’d won, so I thought I’d save the Royal Mail some carbon footprints and bring them over myself.’

I want the ground to open and swallow me. Has it really come to this? Am I really buying second-hand clothes from the neighbours? What’s next? Buying from a catalogue? Putting money aside each week towards a Christmas hamper? Urgh.

‘They’re not for me,’ I’m quick to point out. ‘They’re for a charity I support that provides emergency shelter for the victims of domestic abuse.’

It’s not a complete lie. When I was in the band, we donated some of the sales of one of our singles to support a charity like that. Don’t ask me which one though.

‘These women often have to leave their homes with only the clothes on their backs,’ I continue, ‘so it’s nice to be able to give them something to make them feel special.’

Liv’s face beams. ‘That sounds like just the sort of cause I’d love to support. I donate the proceeds of my auctions to different charities and that would be a perfect fit. What’s it called?’

Shit .

‘What’s it called?’ I repeat, stalling for time.

‘Yes. What’s the name of the charity?’

Think, Margot, think . I pluck a name out of thin air.

‘The Battered Women’s Victim Charity.’

I know it sounds awful even as it’s falling clumsily from my mouth.

‘I’ve not heard of that one,’ Liv says, puzzled. She begins googling it on her phone. ‘Hmm, I can’t seem to find it ...’

‘I think they’re rebranding,’ I reply. ‘So they’ve probably taken their website down for now. I’ll find out from my contact.’

‘Oh, I don’t want to put you to any trouble. Just AirDrop me the number of who I need to speak to.’

She stands with her phone in her hand, waiting.

‘I would, but my battery is dead.’

‘Later then,’ she replies. ‘I’ll keep an eye open for it.’

I shove her clothes back in the shopping bag where I can’t see them. I cannot possibly wear them now. I’d take them to a charity shop, but it’s too much effort to drive into town and find a parking space. I’ll have to bin them instead.

‘Do you mind if I take the bags back with me?’ Liv asks. ‘I try and reuse them for as long as possible.’

‘Of course you do.’

And for a moment I wonder how long I’d need to keep one over her head before she suffocates.