Vanity (23 page)

It was funny, endearing and clearly unscripted.

Poppy hauled herself out of the pool, rubbing the running mascara away from under her eyes, joking with and
apologizing
to the rest of the crew. The wet hair and lack of concern about her appearance only served to make her look more gorgeous.

‘Sorry about that,' she said, giggling from the screen. ‘But if you'd been here too, you'd have done the same. God, this is fab. OK, I'd better get on with being professional now …' People were running up to her with towels, and she thanked them all.

‘Thanks, Susie – you're an angel.' Poppy took one of them from a plumpish girl in specs, then continued, with an arm around the girl's shoulder, ‘This is Susie, my
assistant
. She's just brilliant, and won't be pandering to the likes of me for much longer, will you, Suze?'

Susie, who was clearly besotted with Poppy, laughed. She was used to bitches and divas.

‘And I would like to say, “Hello,” to Mrs Arkwright in Wisconsin – or may I call you Elizabeth? Susie's told me so much about you!'

‘Hey, Mom!' Susie grinned, waving at the camera.

‘Actually, Suze, I'm meant to be reviewing the drinks here, but if it's only me, it's a bit one-sided, isn't it?' Poppy continued, the sun shining off her wet blonde hair. ‘How about we try a couple of cocktails together? For a bit of journalistic even-handedness?'

‘Wow, yeah – thanks. If that's OK, Marty?' Susie looked over at her boss, who nodded enthusiastically. He loved the way Poppy was with the little people – it just made her all the more likeable.

‘Creep,' muttered Bella under her breath.

‘You know I'm not Poppy's greatest fan,' said Andy, putting his hand on Bella's leg and giving it a little squeeze, ‘but I have to say, I think she's doing a brilliant job.'

‘Yeah, and she looks
amazing
!' Mark laughed.

‘Are we going to talk all the way through it?' said Olivia, glancing at her daughter. ‘Let's save the comments until the end, shall we?'

So they turned back to the TV and watched the rest of the programme in silence.

‘You've excelled yourself again, Princess,' said Bernie, licking his lips and patting his paunch.

They were just finishing off lunch, which had been to die for – the aromatic lamb, so tender it fell off the bone, offset by deeply savoury crispy bits and a variety of summer vegetables. The sweetness of the
petits pois à la français –
peas simmered in stock with shallots and lettuce hearts – had complemented the meat particularly
successfully
. And nothing beat Olivia's crispy, fluffy roast potatoes.

‘It was a joint effort,' said Olivia. ‘Credit where it's due.'

‘Too right,' said Andy, smiling at Bella. ‘To the cooks!' He raised his glass
,
and Bernie, Justin and Mark followed suit.

‘The cooks!'

Bella smiled, feeling all warm and happy again, her earlier resentment towards Poppy all but forgotten. The rest of the show had been equally sparkling, as she drank cocktails on the roof terrace, chatting away happily with Susie, and flirting with random handsome men reclining on sun loungers. But she never lost sight of conveying the important bits, the facts that would be useful to anybody actually wanting to visit this particular hotel. Poppy was destined for TV greatness; that much was apparent to all.

But the show had finished hours ago, much wine had been consumed since, and (largely thanks to Olivia) many more topics discussed. Bella always loved sitting around her mother's kitchen table, eating delicious food and getting happily sloshed.

And it felt especially cosy inside now, as the storm continued to rage fiercely outside the windows. Bernie and Justin had lit a fire in the grate, with much showing off of their manly skills, and Olivia had switched on the many lamps that gave a soft, flattering glow to the family kitchen.

There was another roar of thunder, this one so loud it made them all jump.

‘Bloody English summer!' Bella laughed. ‘But not for you and Mum for much longer, Bernie. Aren't you off to Miami in a week or two?'

A couple of months into Bernie and Olivia's relationship, Bernie had moved into the mill house, selling his faux-Tudor monstrosity up the road for several millions. But he had kept his two other properties – an ultra-modern villa on Miami Beach and a surprisingly beautiful Art Nouveau apartment in Istanbul – and he and Olivia now led an enviably jet-set lifestyle, dividing their time between the three destinations.

‘That's right. Business calls. Places to go, people to see.' Bernie winked and tapped the side of his nose. Nobody really knew what Bernie did for a living, not even Olivia. Bella had once asked her, and her mother had dismissed the question with an airy, ‘No idea, darling, and quite frankly, I'd rather not know.'

‘Miami Beach!' chortled Justin. ‘The stories I could tell you about that gaff in the eighties. I remember shooting Jerry there with Helmut – Newton, you know …'

‘Jerry Hall?' asked Mark, and Justin nodded, starting to roll another spliff. ‘What was she like? Always struck me as a game old bird.'

‘Not so old in those days, son, but, yeah, definitely a game bird. Face like an 'orse, mind you, but legs that went on forever. You could see what Mick saw in 'er.'

‘Any other stories?' asked Andy, taking a swig of his red wine. He did find Bella's parents entertaining – they were like no one he had encountered in his life before.

‘I imagine most of them involve coke and hookers,' said Olivia, and they all laughed. As Justin launched into a scandalous anecdote involving Joan Collins, Jacqueline Bisset and a Puerto Rican rent boy, Bella got to her feet to clear the table and make way for home-made summer pudding. Olivia had knocked it up the previous day, using fruit from her garden and two-day-old home-baked white bread.

Bella put the glistening ruby dome in the centre of the table, with a cold jug of double cream, fresh from the village farm. It was the most delicious cream she had ever tasted. Disgustingly, she could drink it by the spoonful – and
probably
would, if she wasn't so aware of her increasingly tightening waistband.

‘Wow, that looks amazing,' said Andy.

‘Do all of you tuck in.' Olivia beamed. ‘I've the perfect little tipple to accompany it, too.' She floated into the sitting room, where the fully stocked drinks cabinet lived, and returned triumphantly bearing an almost spherical, gold-labelled bottle with some sort of deep purple liquid sloshing around inside it.

‘What on earth's that, Mum?' asked Bella, laughing.

‘Chambord. It's made out of black raspberries and is utterly delicious.'

‘I bet it is. Looks expensive …'

‘Oh, it is, darling, it is. It was originally created for Louis the Fourteenth. But worth it, as I'm sure you'll agree when you try it.'

It was. And it went like a dream with the summer pudding. The problem was, it tasted so yummy-ly fruity that it was easy to forget that they were, actually, downing neat spirits.

Soon the bottle was empty, and the mood more raucous than ever.

‘I think we need some music,' said Bella, getting unsteadily to her feet. She really was very pissed now. ‘Anyone got any requests, or can I be DJ?'

‘Oh, you choose, darling, you always do so
so
beautifully,' said Olivia, hiccupping slightly.

So Bella plugged her iPhone into its speakers and opened Spotify. Soon, Ella Fitzgerald was crooning classic Cole Porter hits into the kitchen and everybody around the table had a soppy, drunken smile pasted on to his or her face.

They all sang along to ‘Everytime We Say Goodbye', really getting into it when it got to the ‘from major to minor' bit, looking sentimentally into one another's eyes, as if it really, really meant something.

The next song was ‘I'll Take Manhattan', and the
conversation
turned, inevitably, to Poppy's show. Well, it was called
Poppy Takes Manhattan
.

Bella cursed herself internally. How could she not have seen this coming?

‘I have to say, Angel Face, that that friend of yours is going to be a
huge
success,' said Justin, taking a drag on his spliff.

‘She's certainly a very talented young lady,' concurred Bernie.

‘And she's looking hot as hell,' leered Mark.

Something snapped inside Bella. It probably wouldn't have, without so much booze inside her, but there was, and it did.

‘WILL YOU ALL JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT POPPY!' she shouted.

And the room, for the second time that day, fell silent.

Marty and Eleanor's clapboard beach house in Westhampton was a monument to understated good taste. White-painted woodwork contrasted with dark floors – slate in the kitchen, polished wooden boards everywhere else – and was
complemented
by natural linens and cottons in muted shades of cream and taupe throughout. Jaunty blue-and-white-striped cushions and rugs added a nautical flavour, and enormous French windows leading to decks on both floors let in enough light by which to perform microsurgery, if one so chose.

Poppy and Damian were reclining on the lower deck on incredibly comfortable polished teak sun loungers – upholstered, naturally, in cream linen, and piled with cushions in different variations on the blue-and-white-striped theme. The deck looked out onto the white sandy beach, and a cooling breeze wafted in from the glittering cobalt ocean.

Poppy, exquisite in a pale yellow string bikini that matched her surfer-girl hair and showed off her golden tan, was happily immersed in a trashy novel. She'd been working so hard on
Poppy Takes Manhattan
that it had been ages since she'd had a chance to relax properly, and she was practically purring with contentment. Damian, as was his wont these days, was poring over his laptop as he ploughed on with his screenplay.

‘Sweetheart, don't you want to take a break?' said Poppy, reaching out to touch his arm. ‘You've been slaving away all morning.'

‘That's easy for you to say. You've got a job.' Damian didn't look up from the screen and Poppy sighed.

After their Prohibition party, they had both been filled with remorse. Poppy didn't actually think she'd done anything wrong, but she knew that ever since her fling with Ben, trust had been a huge issue for Damian, which she could hardly blame him for. Of course he wasn't going to react kindly to a gorgeous film star trying to snog his wife.

Damian, for his part, felt sheepish at losing his cool, and thought he'd made a bit of a tit of himself. Once the heat of the moment had died down, they were both desperate to make their marriage work, and when Poppy had called Damian the following day, the first thing they'd both said was ‘sorry'. In unison. That had broken the ice, and they had both started laughing. The making-up sex had been fast and furious, then languorous and romantic, and for that night at least, everything had been great again between them.

But, much as she loved him, Poppy still felt that she was walking on eggshells around her husband.

‘Hey
,
guys,' trilled Eleanor, approaching them with a silver tray clinking with glasses. Poppy and Damian looked up expectantly. Ellie was wearing a supremely chic Ralph Lauren navy-blue strapless swimsuit underneath a man's white cotton shirt with the sleeves pushed back. Her light brown hair was held back from her face with
expensive-l
ooking but logo-free tortoiseshell sunglasses.

‘Oooh, I was just thinking it was probably time for a drink,' said Poppy, as it was already two p.m. and normal drinking rules didn't really apply when you were on holiday. Freshly squeezed red grapefruit juice had been the order of the day with brunch, a couple of hours earlier.

‘Poppy!' Ellie laughed, faux-reproachfully. ‘I have made a selection of iced 'erbal teas. You don't really want to be drinking alcohol before sunset, now do you?'

‘Oh, no, of course not.' Poppy caught Damian's eye, and tried not to giggle. ‘What I meant was that I'm just really, really thirsty. Gosh, those iced teas look delicious.'

And actually they did. Ellie had gone to the trouble of putting the tall glasses in the freezer, so they had a
pleasingly
frosty appearance, and decorating each of them with an appropriate garnish: crystallized rose petals and rosehips for the pale pinks; mint and basil leaves for the pale greens; camomile flowers and lemon peel for the pale yellows.

‘Yes, they do,' said Damian, smiling at his hostess. ‘You really shouldn't have gone to so much trouble, Ellie.'

‘Oh, that's OK, I love doing things like this.' Ellie smiled sweetly back. ‘It keeps me out of mischief, y'know?'

Poppy and Damian both laughed.

At that moment, Poppy nearly jumped out of her skin as something very cold and very sticky landed –
splat!
– on
her flat brown tummy. Looking up, she saw Hammond
– M
arty and Ellie's son – grinning evilly from the balcony above, an empty bowl clutched in his sticky little hand. As the dairy-free, sugar-free ‘ice cream' melted into her belly button, Poppy realized she couldn't get up without making the most god-awful mess over the pristine decking. She smiled at Ellie through gritted teeth.

‘Oh, my God, I'm so sorry, Poppy. Accidents will happen. You just wait there while I go fetch a cloth, then you can go freshen up. Hammy, honey,' she cooed up at the balcony. ‘Don't you worry, baby. Mommy will bring you some more ice cream right away.' And she half ran back inside her lovely, airy house.

‘Accidents, my arse,' said Damian under his breath, and Poppy smiled at him in a moment of pure complicity. Hammy was an absolute little monster. After suffering so many miscarriages, Ellie could deny her longed-for only child nothing, while Marty's feeble attempts at discipline had resulted in tantrums on such a whopping scale that he had pretty much given up after the third or fourth time.