Private Lives

According to the latest issue of Vogue, Danehill Park was the most exclusive day spa in the country. Set in a hundred acres of Surrey parkland, the grand stately home had been converted into a beautifully furnished hotel for mini-breaking couples and savvy tourists looking for a taste of rural England without the inconvenience of the mud and the creaky floors.

Anna settled back on to her poolside sunlounger and sighed. She’d booked the day trip to the spa as a present for her mother, but she couldn’t deny she was enjoying it too. The spa was a modern addition in a glass and steel extension at the back of the house, built around a mint-green kidney-shaped swimming pool; with the gentle pan-pipe music and the aromatherapy, it was hard to do anything except just lie back and feel your stress float away.

She glanced over at her mother, lying next to her in a towelling robe, a lavender sleep mask over her eyes. According to her father, Sue Kennedy had been working herself into the ground revamping and extending the Dorset Nurseries’s dining room while also running the gardening business. ‘She needs a break, hon,’ he had told Anna on the phone. ‘If she doesn’t slow down, she’s going to blow a gasket.’

‘This is wonderful, isn’t it?’ said Sue, lifting one corner of her eye mask and peering at her daughter.

‘It was such a good idea of Dad’s.’

When she had booked the trip, Anna had taken on board her father’s concerns, but she was grateful for the quality time alone with her mother. They had always had an uneasy relationship. Even when the girls had been small, Sue Kennedy had seemed to dote on the prettier, girlie Sophie, who shared her feminine wiles and breezy popularity. She had never seemed to understand her older daughter’s efficient bookishness, used to tease her for preferring to take long walks across the fields and hills with her father than spend time indoors braiding hair with Sophie or playing with make-up. But recently Anna could sense her mother drifting away from her in a vapour trail of disappointment and frustration. She had got used to not having Sophie in her life, but to add her mother to the mix would be unthinkable. She was determined to stop the rot in their relationship and knew that this day out was as good a place as any to start.

‘How about lunch?’ she said, uncurling herself from the lounger.

Sue glanced at her dainty gold watch.

‘Not yet, darling. I wish you would just relax.’

Anna chuckled. ‘You’re right. We’ve got a big libel trial starting tomorrow, so I should chill out before the fun starts.’

‘You mean fun as well, don’t you,’ Sue said, teasing her.

‘Honestly, it is quite exciting.’

It was Sue’s turn to laugh. ‘You always found the funniest things to get excited about. Those books about Mount Everest you used to love. You were always so enquiring. It’s probably why you turned out so clever, so successful.’

Anna realised that this was the nearest thing she’d had to a compliment in a long time. Then again, Sue had been good-humoured, less snipey all morning, and hadn’t even mentioned Sophie or the wedding once.

‘Come on then. Let’s go and try out this restaurant.’

‘I hope you’re not going to complain about the food.’ Anna grinned.

‘Of course I’m going to complain, darling,’ said Sue, knotting her robe tighter and slipping on her white slippers. ‘It’s just professional interest.’

The restaurant was beautiful. The interior was all scrubbed pine and stiff linen, just the right balance between formality and casual; you felt you were in a sophisticated restaurant, but it didn’t seem weird to be wearing a fluffy robe. The double doors were open, leading on to an outdoor seating area around a small pond that shimmered invitingly in the heat.

‘Let’s eat outside,’ suggested Anna, feeling lifted by the warm, scented breeze drifting into the restaurant and realising this was the nicest day out she had had in ages.

She snaked through the wrought-iron chairs and then stopped dead as she saw a familiar figure seated under a parasol. Sophie was reading a magazine. She was dressed casually in leggings and a T-shirt, her hair all piled up like some nymph emerging from a grotto.

‘I don’t believe it . . .’ Words seemed unable to form in Anna’s throat.

Sue looked at her wearily. ‘I couldn’t let it go on, Anna. It’s so silly. At least speak to her.’

Sophie looked up, her expression papered with the same wide-eyed anxiousness she’d had as a child when she knew she was about to be in trouble.

Anna couldn’t stop staring at her. Of course she’d tuned into her sister’s TV show, more often than she’d liked. Sophie was a culinary Jessica Rabbit, all seductive curves and painted face, the perfect wife who could whip you up a luscious pie then take you to bed for an hour of mind-melting sex. That was how she remembered her sister in the flesh, too. A lusty temptress.

But the woman in front of her was slimmer, softer, less dangerous. Thin arms poked out under her black T-shirt; her face, leaner thanks to pounds lost for the television and her wedding, looked different, yet familiar. Her sister looked just like a slimmer version of herself.

‘Go on,’ hissed Sue.

Anna resisted her mother’s forceful hand against her back, then put one foot in front of the other and moved slowly towards Sophie’s table.

‘Hello,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It’s been a while.’

For a second she remembered the same words that were spoken almost four years earlier. She could see quite clearly the night Sophie had turned up at her flat, suitcase in hand, looking for a place to stay, having just washed back up from three years of travelling, with a sprinkling of tattoos, an empty bank balance and a vague ambition to get into telly.

Anna had been glad to have her sister back. Glad to have someone to laugh with, cook with, go out drinking with. They’d shared their love dilemmas: Anna’s frustration with Andrew, Sophie’s complaints about the lack of decent men in London. And after three months of Sophie’s unsuccessful attempts to find work, Anna had pleaded with Andrew to give her a job at the newspaper, where he was on the fast track to editorship. He’d delivered: an assistant’s job in the features department, which had turned into a food