Whatever Love Is (6 page)

‘Family squabbling
is the greatest evil of all . . .’

(Jane Austen,
Mansfield Park
)

F
RANKIE WOKE ON
S
ATURDAY MORNING TO THE SOUND OF
doors slamming and voices raised.

‘You can’t boss me about like this, Dad! I’m twenty-two for God’s sake,’ James was yelling.

‘With the social conscience of a six year old,’ his father stormed. ‘Now for the last time, pack a case and be downstairs in half an hour. Or consider yourself responsible for
your own debts.’

Frankie glanced at her bedside clock. It was only six-fifteen; something serious must have happened for her uncle to be up this early on a Saturday. Shrugging her arms into her bathrobe, she
opened the door and ventured downstairs.

From the kitchen she could hear Tina in full flood. ‘Thomas, you can’t go to Mexico now – what about the award? The press will be phoning.’

‘And I’ll talk to them – that’s what iPhones were invented for,’ he replied sarcastically. ‘Just make sure you pick up all today’s newspapers and all of
Sunday’s too, OK?’

‘Yes, but what about the Rushworths’ party tonight? I can’t go on my own.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course you can. The kids will be there, Nerys is going – you don’t need me.’

‘What will people think? You’re Nick’s godfather! And besides, you promised to drive me to London on Monday to see my new therapist.‘

‘Tina, can’t you get it into your head that the manufacture of my entire range of next spring’s Zeppelin label is rather more important than a visit to a quack waving a few
crystals over your stomach,’ Thomas replied wearily. ‘The trouble in Tehuacan has worsened over the past twenty-four hours and I need to get there asap.’

Frankie was heading back to her room, having decided that keeping out of the way was the safest option, when Jemma appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
‘What’s going on?’

‘Your dad has to go to Mexico right away,’ Frankie said.

‘
What?
Like today? He so can’t do that.’ Suddenly she appeared wide awake, a look of genuine horror on her face.

‘Judging by the suitcase in the hall, he can and he is,’ Frankie replied.

‘Don’t see why you’re surprised, Jem – surely you know by now that our dear father always does what he wants when he wants.’ James chucked a holdall out of his
bedroom door and kicked it viciously across the landing.

‘He’s just bailed you out,’ Frankie reasoned. ‘He didn’t have to do that.’

‘He did it to save his own face.’ James shut his bedroom door and gave the holdall another, rather more feeble, kick. ‘But yes, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been an idiot
and of course I’m grateful. It’s just that I’m gutted to miss the festival – I feel like I’ve let the other guys down big time.’ He rubbed a hand over his eyes.
‘We’ve worked so hard to get this far with the band, and so much hangs on this ENT gig. Besides, I’ve no interest in going to Mexico, or anywhere else remotely connected with his
business for that matter.’

‘James? James! The taxi’s here. Get down now!’ Thomas stood at the foot of the stairs, glaring at his son.

‘Dad, you can’t go today – can’t it wait till after the weekend?’ Jemma cried, her mules flapping on the stairs as she ran towards him. ‘Tonight’s
really important.’

‘When will this family get it into their heads that nothing – I repeat,
nothing
– is more important than making a success of the business?
Nothing
.’

‘And that,’ muttered James as he picked up his holdall and stomped down the stairs, ‘says it all.’

Are you there? Have you pulled someone? I need details – now! Lulu xx

Yes. No. Later.
Frankie smiled to herself as she hit
send
knowing that her reply would make Lulu even more impatient. She might have been tempted to say more – how Southerton
Grange made the Bertrams’ seven-bedroomed house look like a country cottage and how there appeared to be a contest between all the girls at the party as to who could show the most cleavage
– but right now she had more important things to focus on than satisfying Lulu’s appetite for gossip.

When they had first arrived, later than they intended after fielding phone calls from newspaper and TV editors who couldn’t reach Thomas on his mobile (‘He’s in midair en route
to Mexico,’ Ned had told them repeatedly), she had been so overwhelmed by the sheer over-the-top extravagance of the spectacle that Nick’s doting parents had laid on for their only
son’s twenty-first birthday that all thoughts of Ned’s reason for being there in the first place were temporarily forgotten.

‘However much must all this have cost?’ she had murmured to Ned, gazing at the lavishly decorated entrance hall, complete with palm trees, fairy lights and an old-fashioned barrel
organ; at the mini funfair in the front garden complete with coconut shies and a carousel and, spotted through the floor to ceiling windows of the dining room, the tables groaning with food, ice
sculptures and three chocolate fountains (which Jemma, who was doing a catering course, assured her were very last year and bordering on chavvy).

‘Enough to fund at least a dozen kids to go on an adventure camp for a week,’ Ned had muttered back. ‘The Rushworths never did do understated. But we’re here, so we might
as well enjoy it.’

Entering the huge drawing room, Frankie felt all the old shyness and insecurity flood back. While Jemma and Ned seemed perfectly at ease with the air kissing and ‘Darling, how lovely to
see you again’s, Frankie was acutely conscious that she was only there because it would have been rude to leave her out. Verity Rushworth, a large (the upper classes are never described as
obese) woman with pudgy fingers adorned with huge diamonds, said all the right things but made no eye contact. Her husband, Seamus, who wore the expression of a man who knows that the six hours
stretching ahead of him will cost three times as much as he imagined, called her Freya and squeezed her hand too hard and for too long. As for Nick, the birthday boy onto whose arm Mia was clinging
like a limpet in a rough sea, he looked as he always did – like an overexcited ten year old who has found himself in the middle of Disneyland and doesn’t know where to start having fun
first.

Frankie knew before he opened his mouth what he would say.

‘Hello, Frankie – some do this, isn’t it? The parents have really gone to town. Well, not actually to town of course, because they’re here but . . .’

She smiled wanly, wished him a very happy birthday and, not for the first time, wondered how it was that someone could be on the planet for twenty-one years and still be so vacuous.

It was as they made their way through the double doors into the vast open-sided marquee in the back garden, that Frankie became conscious of Ned’s eyes scanning the clusters of guests who
were sipping their Bellinis and trying to look as if they weren’t desperate to catch the attention of the photographer.

‘I can’t see . . .’ he began, but broke off as Mia and Nick, arm in arm, came over to them.

‘Hey, Ned, where’s Dad? We’ve been looking for him everywhere.’

‘Ah,’ Ned said. ‘I guess you haven’t heard then.’

Mia had stayed overnight at the Rushworths, putting her event management course to good use.

‘He had an emergency call,’ Ned explained and filled her in on the details.

‘What? You mean he’s not coming? That’ll ruin everything.’ Mia looked genuinely crestfallen.

‘No it won’t, babe,’ Nick assured her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Tell you what.’ He leant forward and began whispering in her ear.

‘OK, then!’ Mia brightened visibly. ‘Ned, over here! We need to tell you something.’

‘Can’t it wait?’ Ned replied, his eyes still scanning the room.

‘It so can’t,’ Mia said, a grin like a Cheshire cat’s spreading across her face.

‘Major urgency, no can put on hold!’ Nick cried. ‘Whole evening hangs on this moment! Follow me!’

With that, Nick strode through the marquee and out into the garden, Mia clinging devotedly to his arm – although it did occur to Frankie that she might simply be using him for support as
her five-inch heels struggled to cope with the coconut matting.

Ned sighed. ‘That guy gets more stupid by the day. I just don’t get what Mia sees in him. But then again, I guess when you’re the sole heir to the Rushworth jewellery empire,
it’s not your brain that girls notice.’

He took Frankie’s hand, causing her heart to miss several beats, and led her further into the marquee. ‘There’s Poppy,’ he said eagerly, gesturing to the far side of the
big tent. ‘I’ll go and listen to whatever nonsense Nick has to tell me, and you find out whether Alice is here. OK?’

‘Of course,’ Frankie muttered.
And if she is, I might be seriously tempted to throttle her
, she thought as she made her way past a couple of giggling girls and a guy who
looked the spitting image of Robert Pattinson in one of his less believable roles.

‘Frankie! At last! I thought you’d never get here!’ Poppy sashayed over to her and slipped an arm through hers. ‘Is this cool or what? I’ve had three Bellinis
already.’

‘I guessed,’ Frankie teased. ‘Listen, Alice and Henry – are they here?’

‘Aha!’ Poppy cried. ‘So you
do
like my plan after all! I told you that being on your own was overrated. I’ll get Henry – he’s yabbering on at
Charlie.’

‘No,’ Frankie said. ‘It’s Alice I’m looking for. Ned thinks he knows her.’

‘Really? That’s so random! Come on, she’s over here, probably telling everyone how wonderful she is. I’ll introduce you.’

She dragged Frankie across the room towards a group of guys who were clearly vying for Alice’s attention.

‘Hey, Alice.’

She’s stunning
, Frankie thought, her heart sinking as Poppy called to a tall, slender girl with flawless skin and hair so glossy that it could have been digitally enhanced. Poppy
had mentioned that Alice was doing fashion studies at uni and it showed. She was wearing a pure white dress with shoulder straps and in her hair she wore a single pure-white gardenia and even her
eyebrows, which were pencil thin, were studded with tiny stick-on sequins.

‘Perfect timing,’ Alice whispered to Poppy, smiling to show perfectly even, whiter than white teeth. ‘When guys start spouting chat-up lines straight from comic strips,
I’m so out of here.’

She began to move away.

‘Alice, wait, I want you to meet Frankie,’ Poppy said. ‘She’s a mate of mine and she’s a cousin of Mia Bertram, Nick’s girlfriend. I told you about the
Bertrams, right?’

‘You did!’ Alice nodded, scanning Frankie from head to toe and then fixing a fake smile on her lips. ‘Tennis court, big paddock, bossy aunt and the chance of some discounted
designer gear if I play my cards right?’

‘Alice! I didn’t say . . .’

‘OK, so I added that last bit myself!’ Alice laughed. ‘But you know what? I’ve been trying to remember where I’d heard the name Bertram before, and it’s just
come to me! I met this rather sweet guy at a party.’

‘That’ll be Ned,’ Frankie replied stiffly. ‘He’s around here somewhere.’

‘Ned?’ Alice frowned. ‘That might be the one, although I’m not sure – I meet so many guys that I get muddled over names.’

‘Get
you
!’ Poppy retorted, voicing precisely what Frankie had been thinking.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean it to come out like that,’ Alice said hastily, the silver bracelet on her right wrist glinting as she held her hand up in mock horror. ‘Truly, I meant
– well you know what boys are like. They see a girl on her own and they think they’re in.’

‘Mmm,’ Poppy mused. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m so rarely on my own.’

Nice one
, thought Frankie, as Poppy gave a breezy wave and sauntered across the room, picking up another Bellini from a waiter on the way.

‘So, Frankie,’ Alice said, ‘give me the lowdown on some of the guys around here. Poppy says I have to keep my hands off Charlie Maddox but having met him for ten seconds when
we arrived, she’s got nothing to worry about there. Definitely not my type.’

‘What
is
your type?’ Frankie asked, trying to sound laidback and disinterested.

‘Clever, ambitious, witty and rich.’ She laughed. ‘Although I have been known to accept three out of four if the guy is really fit. So are you with anyone?’

‘Hopefully not.’ The guy who had spoken was so like Alice – the same dark hair, blue-green eyes and identical aquiline nose – that it didn’t take a genius to work
out that this was Henry, and Frankie found herself instinctively taking a step back as he positioned himself firmly between her and his sister.

‘This,’ Alice confirmed, ‘is my twin brother Henry. He doesn’t want to be here and he’ll probably be in a foul mood all evening.’

‘I
didn’t
want to be here,’ Henry said, raising an eyebrow at Frankie, ‘but that was before Poppy pointed you out to me. That’s when everything
changed.’

Oh yuck
, Frankie thought.
As come-ons go that ranks with a Year Seven’s worst attempts.

‘Poppy says you’re a writer and a prize-winning one at that,’ Henry went on. ‘I’d love to read your stuff. Give me your blog address.’

‘But I don’t —’

‘Why not?’ Henry interrupted.

‘I did think about it,’ she admitted. ‘My brother has one – he posts his photographs and —’

‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!’

The Master of Ceremonies, in a red tailcoat and white waistcoat, mounted the podium at the top end of the marquee and banged his gavel on the table.

‘Oh God, I do hope this isn’t going to be horribly formal.’ Alice sighed. ‘I do so hate these all-age dos – I reckon grannies and aunties should stay at home out of
the way and let those of us who know how to really party get on with it!’

‘If it was my party, I’d want all my family to be around,’ Frankie replied. ‘No matter what.’

‘Really? That’s so sweet, especially considering,’ Alice replied.

Frankie felt cold suddenly. ‘Considering what?’

‘I mean, Poppy mentioned that you come from a broken home and that your mother’s had all sorts of problems and your dad’s a total —’