‘Thank you.’ Kristin’s bright blue eyes gleam. ‘I’m really excited about getting my hands on the decor. I’m thinking white walls and pale floors. The light is particularly special. Can’t wait for you to see it. It’s lovely to be able to choose my own home, at last. This one …’ she glances around the narrow hallway ‘… it’s not what I would have picked.’
Jonas raises an eyebrow at Emilia but doesn’t say anything, although she’s tempted to ask Kristin what she’d have chosen if she’d been working on a local newspaper for a meagre salary at the age of twenty-three and pregnant. Emilia had always thought she and Jonas had done okay for themselves, buying an actual house when they were so young. But Kristin hadn’t had to worry about all that. She’d been swanning around Australia at the time with some rich boyfriend whom everyone thought she’d marry.
‘Anyway,’ says Emilia, glancing pointedly at her watch – although without her glasses on she can’t actually read it, ‘where’s Jas?’
Jonas turns away from her to bellow up the stairs and Jasmine thunders down, rucksack over her shoulder and her mobile attached to her ear. ‘Yeah, yeah, I said I was coming.’ And then into the phone, ‘I’ll ring you back, Nance.’ She pockets her mobile and brushes her blonde hair off her face. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she thrusts her feet into a pair of chunky white trainers that Emilia has always hated.
‘Come on, then, sweets. Let’s go,’ says Emilia, placing an arm around Jasmine’s shoulders.
‘Is Aunty Ottilie still coming over?’
She can’t help the small flicker of pleasure as Kristin squirms at the sound of their once mutual friend’s name. Not that Ottilie has spoken to Kristin for the last eleven years. The three might have been inseparable in their late teens and the first half of their twenties, after Emilia had introduced Kristin to Ottilie, but Emilia has known Ottilie since they’d joined their cold, uptight boarding school at the age of eleven and their bond runs deep. Ottilie has never forgiven Kristin for breaking what she’s always called the ‘girl code’。
‘Yes, she is, along with Grampy Trevor.’ Trevor is Elliot’s dad so not technically Jasmine’s grandfather but she’s always adored him and vice versa.
‘How is Ottilie?’ asks Kristin, trying to look disinterested, even though Emilia knows she’s always had a strange fascination with her. Most people who meet her do. She’s unlike anyone else Emilia has ever known.
‘She’s great. Amazing, actually. She’s started dating someone although I haven’t met him yet. He lives in Germany. She met him when she was visiting her dad in Hamburg.’
‘I’m pleased for her.’
‘And Elliot is cooking a roast.’
It’s childish of her, she knows, but Jonas is a terrible cook.
‘Ooh, Elliot does the best roasters,’ exclaims Jas, much to Emilia’s delight.
‘How lovely,’ Kristin trills, as Emilia opens the door, ‘to be able to eat roast potatoes. I haven’t eaten carbs since 2008.’
Jasmine gives her dad and Kristin a perfunctory hug goodbye and Emilia ushers her down the path as quickly as is humanly possible in the icy conditions, relieved to get back into the car. God, she can’t wait until Jasmine is old enough to drive so that she doesn’t have to face her former friend every other week.
5
Jasmine pushes open the unlocked front door, dumps her rucksack in the porch next to the expensive lurid green bicycle that Elliot always promises to ride but never does, races through the glass double doors that lead to their spacious hallway, and straight upstairs. Emilia is left to pick up the rucksack. She hasn’t the energy to call her back down.
She’s about to take it to the utility room when she hears a woman’s voice coming from what they call the ‘posh front room’ because they only really use it when they have guests. It has a teal blue velvet chesterfield-style sofa, floor to ceiling bookshelves and no TV. Ottilie is perched on a gold velvet armchair in the bay window, still in her white fake-fur coat and hat, her hair spilling over her shoulders. She looks like a snow queen. Elliot is on the sofa, a glass of wine in his hand. When Emilia walks in, he excuses himself to check on the dinner, looking relieved to be able to make a hasty exit. She knows Elliot finds small-talk difficult, even with Ottilie, who never lets him get a word in anyway.
‘Mils,’ Ottilie squeals, when she sees her – she’s the only one who ever calls her that, a hangover from their schooldays when everyone called her Milly. She jumps off the chair and catapults into Emilia’s arms. She smells of fresh air and expensive perfume. They haven’t seen each other for more than a month, but even if they’d met yesterday this is how Ottilie would greet her.
Emilia laughs. ‘How was Hamburg and when do I get to meet the new boyfriend?’
‘Fabulous as always, and soon. I promise. His name’s Stefan and I’m so excited about this one.’ Emilia doesn’t point out that she always is. She doesn’t really understand why Ottilie’s relationships never work out, except that her friend admits she’s fiercely independent and refuses to adjust any part of her lifestyle to accommodate someone else.
‘The spare room is all made up if you want to stay,’ she says, taking Ottilie’s coat and hat. They hang over her arm like an Arctic fox.
‘Thanks, but I’ll get an Uber home later.’ Even though her dad, Charles, lives in Germany he was savvy enough to buy a flat in South Kensington back in the late 1970s, which Ottilie now rents from him for a pittance on the proviso he stays with her when he’s back in the UK. ‘My dad’s basking in the Indonesian sunshine at the moment with his latest squeeze.’ She rolls her eyes but Emilia knows it hurts her. Her mother died when Ottilie was young and she has always looked around for a mother figure, but never found one in her father’s succession of younger women. ‘When does Trev get here?’
Ottilie is the only person allowed to call Elliot’s father ‘Trev’， probably because Trevor’s a little in love with Ottilie. Elliot’s mother died eight years ago, and even though she and Elliot suspect Trevor has had girlfriends, he’s not met anyone serious. He likes to come to dinner at least once a month, but always on his own.
Emilia checks her watch. ‘He’ll be here in about half an hour. I’d better get changed.’ Ottilie is wearing an emerald-green 1930s dress with a diamanté clasp around the waist. She looks like a film star and suddenly Emilia feels very underdressed in her boyfriend jeans and baggy jumper, even if she did put on extra make-up to go and pick up Jasmine.
Elliot returns with a glass of wine for her. ‘Hi, beauty, how’s Jas doing?’ He hands her the glass.
‘She’s rushed straight into her room to gas away with Nancy,’ she replies, taking the wine and sipping it.
‘Just like us at school,’ says Ottilie. ‘Do you remember the time Mrs Maynard sent us out of the classroom because we couldn’t shut up?’
Elliot raises an eyebrow. ‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’