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I clear my throat. ‘Sorry, Audrey, but perhaps you were distracted. I came down here for my grandfather’s funeral. He’s passed away…’
Silence. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Condolences are in order, then.’
Oh, dear God, how can she be so out of touch? She’s completely forgotten.
‘Thank you, Audrey.’
‘I’ll send a floral arrangement. What flowers did your grandfather like, dear?’
I sigh inwardly, a migraine already forming behind my eyes.
‘Oh, to have inherited from a lord and not even know him,’ she continues. ‘How fortunate are you?’
Are you hearing this? Because I don’t think anyone outside Maisie and the Coastal Girls would believe me.
*
‘Don’t mind her, Emmie. She means well,’ Stephen assures when I call to tell him that even if he and his mother did threaten to come down for the holidays, Lady Heatherton-Smythe isfarfrom wanting to meet any of my acquaintances, let alone put them up in her own home. And can he please pull the reigns on his mother…
‘I can’t tell her that, Emmie,’ he regrets. ‘It’ll hurt her feelings. She’s already told her friends that your grandmother is going to be the guest of honour at our engagement party.’
‘I’m sorry, but… What? My grandmother? Guest of honour? Atourengagement party? Not happening.’
‘Oh, come on, Emmie. It’s the best way to introduce your family to our society.’
‘But it’s not my, or her, society. She’ll never come, not in a million years. And by the way, with what gall does your mother tell her friends that my grandmother is going to be there?’
Stephen sighs. ‘She didn’t know that your grandmother would refuse, Emmie. What does that say about her as a grandmother?’
I can feel my heart racing, my head about to explode.
‘OK, soa) you missed the memo that we don’t exactly get along, andb) you don’t assume someone’s coming to your party just because… Oh my God, Stephen, when is this going to stop?’
‘Emmie, she’s just a little, you know, overwhelmed, what with the wedding and all.’
‘Overwhelmed because we’re getting married.’ That’s the MIL for you.
‘Well, you know, all she has is me. She’s just being affectionate.’
‘So it’s OK for her to be affectionate with you, but it’s not OK for you to be affectionate with me. I get it now.’
‘Oh, come on, Emmie. I’m really getting tired of all this, you know? You ditch me before the engagement party and take off for the funeral of someone you’ve never met, to a place you’ve never been, and then you say you need time away from me. What am I supposed to think? You don’t even like your grandmother, so who are you spending all this time with, hmm?’
‘No one special,’ I whisper. ‘Just my new friends.’
He snorts. ‘Your new friends! And I’ll bet they’re crawling all over you since your newfound fortune, aren’t they?’
Like his own mother, he means, but I hold my tongue. About that tiny bit. The rest, I can’t suffer.
‘That’s unfair. They’re lovely people – much wealthier than I, in any case.’
‘Oh, really? So Starry Cove is the hub of millionaires now, Emmie? Give me strength…’
‘Listen, Stephen. I only called to tell you that I’m considering a business option.’
‘What business option?’
‘The shop I inherited 50 per cent of – I’m figuring out what to do with it.’
