The Perfect Christmas. Georgie Carter

is so upfront and so genuine that I reel it off straight away.

      ‘Great.’ Jonathan saves my number and pockets his phone, then he leans forward and kisses me on the cheek, a kiss as soft and delicious as a buttery croissant. ‘It’s been wonderful catching up with you. I feel like I’ve made a new friend.’

      I can still feel the brush of his lips and I have to sit on my hands to stop myself touching my cheek.

      ‘Me too,’ I nod. ‘Me too.’

      ‘I’ll text you,’ promises Jonathan, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and then he’s gone, a tall broad-shouldered figure striding through the crowd.

      My hand slowly traces the place where his lips rested only seconds before.

      Why, oh why, are the good ones always spoken for?

       CHAPTER SIX

      OK, Robyn, count to ten.

      One … You are not going to let her wind you up.

      Two … You’re thirty-four, with your own flat, your own business and your own overdraft.

      Three … You do not answer to your mother!

      Four … Remember that yoga course you did with Faye? Exhale stress and inhale tranquillity.

      Five … And repeat slowly, ‘I will not let my mother get to me.’

      Six … I’m a natural!

      Or at least I am for all of seven seconds before my mother pushes her designer glasses up her nose and gives an exaggerated sigh. When she shuffles the papers and shakes her head for the fiftieth time my yogic calm is shattered.

      Maybe I should have gone to more than two classes.

      ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’

      My mother looks up from perusing my accounts. ‘Oh nothing, darling. Just ignore me.’

      It would easier to ignore a herd of wildebeest rampaging through my flat.

      ‘It’s obviously not nothing. You’ve been groaning for the last hour. What’s up?’

      ‘Your overdraft limit! Perfect Day’s hardly making any profit.’

      ‘Mum! Perfect Day’s breaking even after its first year, which is excellent, even despite the difficult winter and the small matter of a global recession!’

      ‘Darling, there’s nothing coming in this month and your VAT is due. We’re coming up to the summer wedding season and you don’t have anything planned for May. I don’t see how you can even draw a wage.’

      I’ve had a few sleepless nights on this score actually but there’s no way I’m telling my mother that. She’s likely to drag me kicking and screaming back to her friend, Hester Dunnaway. It’ll be paper cranes, missing grooms and misery before you can say Chihuahua. Things aren’t that bad.

      Yet.

      ‘There are weddings in the pipeline,’ I say firmly. ‘Saffron Scott’s asked me to pitch for her wedding. I’m meeting her on Friday.’

      ‘The Saffron Scott? Robyn! That’s wonderful!’

      ‘So stop worrying,’ I say. ‘Things will be fine.’

      My mother checks her Cartier watch. ‘I’ll never get through these accounts before lunch. I promised Hester we’d try the new place off Henrietta Street.’

      ‘Leave them, Mum.’

      ‘Leave them?’ Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline. ‘That’s what caused the problems! Why don’t you have an accountant?’

      ‘Because I can’t afford one.’ I lean over and shut the books. ‘Anyway, Gideon’s more than happy to help.’

      And he’s less critical than you, I add under my breath. Mum can’t help interfering with Perfect Day. She runs her own interior design company, and she got me my first job with Hester hoping that I’d have my own business one day. Now that I’ve achieved it, she thinks it gives her the right to ‘help’. I know she means well but I could really do without it.

      ‘Fine,’ she huffs. ‘I thought you’d jump at the opportunity of having someone with my business experience cast an eye over the figures. But if you don’t think I’m good enough … I’ve only built up my own design empire over the last twenty-five years …’

      I grit my teeth so hard my fillings rattle. ‘You are good enough, Mum.’

      ‘You never were a very good liar.’ She pauses. ‘Unlike your father.’

      Here we go. According to my mother, Dad could knock Satan into a cocked hat for pure evil. I pretend to listen to Mum complaining about my father while I tend to the Gaggia machine that Si got me for my birthday. The way she goes on you’d think Dad had left yesterday.

      ‘Did I tell you he’s bought her a brand new Range Rover?’ says my mother. ‘And all those years he let us struggle with a clapped-out old banger.’

      By ‘her’, Mum means Charmaine, Dad’s new wife. Actually, hardly new since they’ve been married for eleven years and have ten-year-old twins. But as far as Mum’s concerned, Charmaine is a parvenu interloper.

      ‘Dad did his best,’ I say, rummaging in the fridge for milk.

      ‘That’s right,’ she snaps. ‘Stick up for him as usual.’

      ‘Do you want a biscuit?’ I interrupt. I open the Marilyn Monroe barrel that I found on eBay and help myself to a couple. Hopefully munching digestives will keep her quiet for a few minutes.

      ‘Have you got a slice of ham?’ Mum asks. ‘I’m doing no carbs!’ She pats her stomach. ‘Hester swears by it.’

      Hester is a professional food Nazi so this is no surprise. And wherever her food fads take her – from the grapefruit diet to the boiled egg plan (believe me, it was not pleasant in the office during that phase) – Mum is sure to follow.

      ‘Do you know how many calories are in those?’ Mum snatches the biscuit barrel from me.

      ‘I’m starving!’

      ‘You are not.’ Mum tips the contents into the bin. ‘Children in Africa are starving. Have an apple.’

      ‘Who eats apples rather than biscuits?’

      ‘A girl who’s single, childless, and over thirty,’

      ‘Mum! You’ve just been telling me how crap men are!’

      ‘Well, yes,’ she agrees. ‘But I’ve seen the sweetest hat in Philip Treacey. It’s perfect for the mother of the bride. And there was the cutest little baby’s bonnet. You know how much I want grandchildren. Time’s a ticking.’ She tapped her watch as if it was my biological clock on her wrist.

      I slosh coffee into spotty Emma Bridgewater mugs. ‘It’s not even a year since Patrick and I broke up.’

      Mum places a hand on her heart. ‘I still have nightmares about having to return all those presents. Great Auntie Ethel was really upset.’

      Sod Auntie Ethel. I was pretty upset myself.

      ‘I’m not ready for a relationship yet,’ I say. But I plan to be in one by Christmas, I add silently. What could be better than holding hands with someone special while listening to carol singers and watching the snowflakes drift to earth? That’s my idea of heaven.

      My mother tuts. ‘When you fall off the horse, what do you do, Robyn?’

      ‘Call an ambulance?’ I say with a wicked grin.

      ‘Darling. Do try and make an effort. You get back in the saddle, of course! And at your age, you get