‘What are you talking about?’ muttered Georgia, wanting to head straight into her bedroom.
‘My exhibition. Ribbons . . . It’s sold out. Colin called me this afternoon and said that a wealthy collector had seen the brochure from my exhibition and loved it and bought the lot. He’s retrieving it all from storage and delivering it at the weekend. We have money, my love. You can have a dance.’
She tottered up to Georgia and put both hands on her shoulders.
‘Darling, what’s wrong? I thought you wanted a dance.’
A tear slipped down Georgia’s cheek. She couldn’t help it.
‘You know, just because we’ve had a little windfall doesn’t mean to say we should spend it all.’
‘But we deserve it,’ Estella said, clasping her daughter’s face between her hands. ‘Don’t cry, my love. This is a good day. I thought we could have it next month on your birthday. I’ve mentally designed the invitations already. I’m thinking the moon and stars and calligraphy on dark blue vellum. And we should invite everyone. Everyone we know.’
Georgia nodded softly.
‘And how was your night?’ Estella asked breezily. ‘How was the author? Tell me all. Was he interesting? Was he helpful?’
‘He was fine,’ said Georgia, heading for her bedroom and locking the door.
July 1958
Planning her ball distracted Georgia from dwelling on her night out with Ian Dashwood. She had told no one about it and didn’t even intend to channel the experience into one of her books. Some things were best forgotten, although every time she saw Uncle Peter, it was difficult not to tell him to choose his friends and acquaintances more wisely. Certainly Dashwood was not on the guest list for her dance, although it seemed that almost anyone that Georgia and Estella had ever met had been invited.
‘So who’s coming?’ asked Clarissa, sitting in Estella and Georgia’s flat sipping a cup of coffe
e as they prepared to go and decorate the venue.
‘Guest list’s on the table,’ said Georgia, trying to find the fourth box of fairy lights they had bought from Peter Jones the day before.
Clarissa picked it up and examined the list.
‘Edward Carlyle plus one?’ she said, her eyes wide.
Georgia stood up holding the fairy-light box, which had somehow wiggled its way under the sofa in the past twenty-four hours.
‘He’s helped me out a couple of a times so I owe him a night on the tiles,’ she said casually, thinking about the hours she had spent debating whether to invite him.
‘Helped you out?’ Clarissa raised an elegantly arched brow.
‘Nothing like that,’ said Georgia quickly. ‘Besides, he has a girlfriend. Hence the plus one.’
Estella appeared at the door.
‘Time to go,’ she said. ‘All hands on deck.’
Although she was not known for her organisational ability, for the past week she had been behaving like a sergeant major, even commandeering Mr and Mrs Hands to come up from Devon, where they were enjoying their work at the Bigbury Sands Hotel. Nothing, apparently, was being left to chance.
‘Clarissa, are you going dressed like that?’ she said, eyeing her niece’s pretty lemon sundress. ‘We have walls to paint, floors to sweep, magic to make. Just because it’s Georgia’s birthday doesn’t mean we don’t have to put in a bit of work today.’
Clarissa rolled her eyes, whilst Georgia laughed. It had been good of Clarissa to borrow her father’s car to transport all the stuff to the party venue – yards of white net and cheap satin, hundreds of long, furry willow twigs, cans of silver paint, hurricane lanterns that had been used in bomb shelters, plus food and drink.
The venue itself was a disused boathouse on a quiet stretch of the Thames between Putney and Barnes. It had been the home of a London rowing club many years earlier, but had fallen out of fashion and was subsequently abandoned. It belonged to a friend of Colin Granger, her mother’s art dealer, who had never been off the phone to Estella since the sale of her Ribbons series.
As they set off from their Chelsea flat, she scooped up the pile of post from the doormat. She glanced at them quickly, guessing that they would be an assortment of birthday cards and RSVPs. When she didn’t recognise Edward Carlyle’s handwriting among them, she stuffed them into her bag for later.
‘Look at this place,’ gasped Clarissa, as they arrived at the boathouse. The path to the entrance was covered in brambles, and even from this distance they could see that it was in considerable disrepair. ‘Have you not visited it before today?’
‘I came for a quick look,’ said Estella, waving her hand dismissively. ‘It’s nothing we can’t handle. Isn’t that right, Arthur?’