Carefully placing the Lalique on the table next to all the other presents, Sasha sauntered over to the buffet table.
‘Sasha! How lovely to see you.’
A plump young woman in a tartan dress was smiling at her. For a second, she struggled to place her, until she realised it was Jessica Bird – her father’s best friend’s daughter. They had been in the same class at prep school, parting ways at eleven when Jessica had scraped into Guildford High while Sasha had gone off to Wycombe Abbey.
‘Jessica!’ she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. ‘So what brings you here?’
‘Whole family was invited,’ she said, stuffing a cocktail sausage into her mouth. ‘Of course, I’m just round the corner from my mum and dad now. I finished my teacher training last year and started at St Vincent’s Primary in Woking.’
‘Wow, that’s great,’ said Sasha, wondering if the bar had any real champagne. She could see she was going to need it. A tiny diamond ring winked on Jessica’s left hand.‘And engaged already?’ she asked.
Jessica smiled, glowing from within. ‘A bit soon, I know, but I’ve been with Dan since sixth form, so why waste time?’
Dan from the sixth form, thought Sasha, trying to imagine living in a world of such poor choices, but then she remembered the time she had been desperate for Miles Ashford to propose. At eighteen! Thank God that didn’t happen. Men were trouble, whether they came from Esher or Angel Cay.
Jessica leant forward, her boozy breath clouding into Sasha’s personal space. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your dad,’ she said, putting a sympathetic hand on her arm.
‘What about my dad?’ Sasha frowned.
‘You know, losing his job.’
Sasha felt suddenly cold. Looking across the dance floor, she could see her father was holding Carole in his arms. He’d lost his job? It was the first Sasha had heard of this, and she was angry they’d let some silly cow in plaid tell her first. Yes, she had been busy, out of the country half the time, but even so.
‘He told my dad about it on the train to Waterloo a few days after it happened.’
‘When was this exactly?’
‘It must have been about a month ago now. Of course you know he was still catching the train into the city every day to pretend to your mum that he was still working, which I think was so sweet. He just wants to protect her from the world, doesn’t he? I know my Dan is the same. Still, things can’t be too bad, can they? They’re still having the party and I’m sure your dad has got a lot tucked away.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ said Sasha, making her excuses and heading to the bar, where she got a glass of cava and drank it quickly.
Did he have anything ‘tucked away’? Sasha wasn’t at all sure, not with the way her mother spent money, using Harrods as her own private boutique. They had not financially supported her for some time, of course, but she was still worried what it meant. They might have to sell the house, she thought, suddenly realising how much she was attached to that stupid mock-Tudor semi. She had spent so many years feeling embarrassed by her home and her family, but she still hated the idea of her childhood home not being there to go back to. And would the house be the only casualty? Picking the icing off a thin slice of anniversary cake, she looked at her parents on the dance floor, wondering about the chances of them reaching their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Slim to none, she suspected, when her father could no longer keep Carole in Oscar de la Renta dresses.
‘You poor bugger,’ she whispered to herself, sitting down at an empty table and filling her glass from a half-empty bottle. Over the years Sasha had experienced many emotions about her father: pity, resentment, frustration at his lack of ambition, talent and sophistication, certainly compared to the Robert Ashfords of this world. But in spite of it all, she loved him and privately acknowledged that she owed him a great deal. Growing up, it had been her mother who had encouraged her to take riding lessons, tap, ballet, flute; self-improvement is key, she had always said. But it was her dad who had made it happen. The thought suddenly struck her that he must have been taking time off work to make sure she got to her classes, to ferry her back and forth. No wonder he hadn’t progressed in business.
God, I need a drink, she thought, reaching out for the wine. Just as she touched the neck, the bottle was snatched away.
‘Hey!’ she protested, looking up at a sharp-suited man standing by the table.
‘Sorry,’ he said, holding up his hand with a half-grin. ‘I was just minesweeping.’
‘Minesweeping?’
‘Leftovers.’
‘This isn’t the student union, you know,’ said Sasha sourly.
‘Well, how about we share it?’ he said, nodding to the spare chair next to her.
The bottle thief was handsome. Not Alex Doyle handsome, she thought, recalling a magazine feature she had seen about that smug bastard recently. No, this man had that sporty, public boy polish and a gym-toned physique evident beneath his tailored suit. Slightly square, of course, but then this was Hinchley Wood. She held out her glass and shrugged. ‘If you must.’
‘So who do you know here?’ asked the man, topping up his own glass.
‘That’s my dad,’ she said, nodding over in the direction of Gerald Sinclair. ‘Poor bastard,’ she said despite herself.
‘Ah. I heard about his redundancy,’ he said.
‘Seems like everyone here knows about it,’ she said tartly. ‘I was just thinking about suing the firm.’