The Surprise Party. Sue Welfare

didn’t like to lie, especially not to her mother, although not for any particularly high moral reason so much as her personal experience of the big, big trouble she could get into if she was found out.

      ‘I saw her a little while ago,’ Megan began, deploying the semantic defence of youth. ‘In the garden.’

      ‘Right—’ Suzie began, but before she could ask the follow-up question, someone called out to her.

      ‘Suzie?’ One of the caterers waved from the prep area. ‘I was just wondering if I might have a quick word with you?’

      Suzie nodded. ‘Of course.’ Turning back to Megan, she said, ‘Do you mind carrying on on your own? I won’t be long, I’ll be back in a minute.’

      ‘Sure,’ said Megan, flicking the first of the snowy white cloths out over the table. ‘I’ll be fine.’

      ‘Good girl,’ said Suzie warmly.

      Megan smiled. She had a strong sense that there might be extra brownie points awarded to those people who actually stayed around long enough to help with the party.

      *

      Jack and Rose’s cottage was the last house at the end of the lane, and was bordered by the hedges that the two of them had planted when they had first moved in, a mix of black-thorn and dog rose that filled the gaps between a row of great polled limes. The trees had been there as long as anyone could remember, and today were heady with perfume in the late afternoon sunshine.

      In the middle of a sea of summer colours, the low pan-tiled roof of the cottage swept down to frame sleepy-eyed dormers drowsing in the summer heat, and a heady old rose rambled lazily around the door and up the walls, the faces of its flowers tipped towards the sunshine. And if the cottage looked a little weather-beaten and tired after all these years, then the garden was a glorious homage to the English country garden at its best, set with great drifts of peonies and lush beds of lupins, hollyhocks, delphiniums and foxgloves.

      Upstairs in the guest bedroom, Liz had her mobile phone pressed tight to her ear.

      ‘Hello, Grant darling, I was just ringing to see what time you’ll be getting here. And I wanted you to know that I’m missing you lots and lots. I’ve made sure there’s some decent champagne tucked away for us, and I’ve booked us in to a super little boutique hotel – we can grab a cab and head back there after the party. We don’t have to stay here obviously, and we can always leave early if it’s too dull. I mean, people will understand. Kiss, kiss, darling. I can’t wait to see you,’ Liz purred, all the while watching herself in the bedroom mirror.

      She pushed up her hair on one side to judge the effect; the tumble of hair and a little pout made her look sexy and vulnerable. She made a mental note to try out the look on Grant later at the hotel.

      She didn’t really want him staying at her parents’ place among the faded florals and nasty cranberry colour carpets with no en suite and a bed that squealed like a wounded buffalo when you so much as turned over.

      Nothing much had changed in all the years since Liz had left home: downstairs in the hall they still had the chart measuring how much the girls had grown every birthday, now with a new column added for Suzie’s two; and on the hallstand, she knew if she dug deep enough into the pile of coats she could probably still find her old school coat in among them.

      The whole house was furnished with a mishmash of furniture, some bought second hand, some given, some picked up from the local auction. There was nothing new, nothing matching, with an assortment of chairs around the farmhouse table in the kitchen and a Welsh dresser stacked with odd plates, things Suzie’s kids had made at school and cards that went back to God knows when. While in some ways it was deeply comforting, it wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to inflict on Grant.

      Suzie’s house was not an option either – in lots of ways it was worse, with noisy children, dog hair, cat hair, a hall full of gardening tools and furniture which owed far more to shabby than chic. No, a nice little hotel was the best option.

      The place she’d booked into had a really good write-up in the Telegraph and had been awarded all kinds of stars and crowns and crossed cutlery for being tiny, hard to find, pernickety about who they let stay and very, very expensive. Grant would adore it.

      Liz turned left and right to admire her reflection in the three-paned dressing table mirror. Her new hair extensions really worked. She’d bought a new robe in jade-green silk especially for the weekend – a colour which the girl in the shop had said really brought out the colour of her eyes – although however good it made her look, it was a bit flimsy for Norfolk and Liz wondered if she wouldn’t be better off in the old woolly tartan that still hung on the back of the door in the bedroom she used to share with Suzie.

      ‘If you would like to re-record your message . . .’ The high-pitched nasal female whine of Grant’s voicemail cut in, breaking her train of thought. Liz frowned and cut off the recording; she didn’t like to think of anyone getting between her and Grant, especially not another woman.

      Grant – Grant Forbes. She let the name roll over her tongue. Businessman, entrepreneur, man about town, man with more than one house in more than one country, man with several cars. Man who had sent the maître d’ across a crowded restaurant in Paris with a single rose to ask if he might join her and then wooed her with champagne cocktails – now that was style.

      Just the sound of his name made Lizzie smile. It sounded solid and at the same time sexy in a sort of American, cosmopolitan way – and Elizabeth Bingham-Forbes sounded really, really good.

      Enjoying the flight of fancy, which had occupied quite a lot of her time over the last few weeks, Liz imagined what it would be like to be Mrs Bingham-Forbes.

      ‘Do come through and let me introduce you to my husband, Grant,’ Liz would say at the elegant dinner parties she would host for the great and good in their perfect, perfect townhouse in Hampstead. Or maybe they’d have friends to stay down at their country place – there would be staff obviously, and someone to walk the Labradors while they were away. As one fantasy gave way to another, Lizzie held up her showbiz personality of the year award, very slightly teary but not completely overcome, and through a brave, brave smile said, ‘Before I thank anyone else, I want to say a big thank you to my darling husband Grant for believing in me and for always being there for me.’

      She could see the pictures in the tabloids now. Their eyes locked in love, lust and utter undying devotion across a crowded room. They’d have to have a table near the stage obviously, or the camera angle wouldn’t work. Liz made a mental note to find out exactly what it took to get a table right at the front at those things.

      Grant was perfect. They had been dating for almost five months now. And okay, so maybe he was just a teensy-weensy bit overweight and his teeth weren’t that great, but she had given him the number of a guy who did the most fabulous cosmetic dentistry and sent her dietician his email address. And after Grant had sent the third or fourth bunch of roses Liz had explained to him that the whole red roses thing was a bit tired and sent him the link to the website of a little florist she always used; they knew what she liked.

      Grant seemed quite keen too, even though they were both really busy and didn’t get that much time together. They’d been to see some new play written by some chap Grant had been to university with, and a private view at Tate Modern of a sculpture exhibition by some foreign woman with big hair who kept going on about how cuttlefish were a metaphor for disappointment, which apparently wasn’t a joke, even though Liz was absolutely certain she wasn’t the only one who had laughed. They hadn’t quite got around to the whole cosy nights in together yet, but she was sure that would come once she’d got Starmaker ’s new season’s preliminary meetings and photo sessions sorted and out of the way.

      They had also been to a couple of premieres and been out to dinner a few times, although Grant had seemed a bit put out when the PR girl from Starmaker had rung half way through the first course to see where to send the photographers.

      When Liz had suggested Grant drive up to her parents’ party and