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She gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘You need to stop looking so cute then, don’t you?’
She grabbed two bottles of wine from their fridge then walked into the dining room.
‘Who’s for some more wine?’ she asked. Everyone cheered in approval. She went around the table, topping up everyone’s glasses. When she got to her own glass, she added a dribble. She didn’t much like drinking, just the odd sip here and there.
‘Might want to calm down there, darling,’ Silvia said to her husband as he took a huge sip.
‘Oh please. We have a child-free night; I’m making the most of it,’ he replied.
‘Not a child-free morning though,’ Silvia reminded him.
‘Don’t remind me. Honestly, the stress of getting that girl up in the morning. You wait until you have a teenager,’ Giles said, quirking an eyebrow at Dean. ‘Nightmare.’
‘Oh come on, don’t exaggerate,’ Silvia countered. ‘She’s a dream compared to most teenagers …’ Her face darkened. ‘Like that TV presenter, Chris O’Farrell’s daughter. Did you hear about her running away?’ she asked.
Estelle thought of the brief glimpse of news she’d seen, the silver-haired presenter pleading to camera for his daughter to return.
‘I did,’ Estelle said with a sigh. ‘He must be so worried.’
‘I wish Annabelle would run away,’ Giles drawled.
‘Giles!’ Silvia exclaimed, flicking her serviette at her husband. ‘How could you?’
Estelle smiled at the banter between the couple. They were the publishing world’s most celebrated couple; it was still blowing her mind they were sat at her dinner table.
‘Admit it,’ Giles said. ‘She’s a nightmare at the moment.’
Silvia shook her head. ‘She’s a teenager. They’re supposed to be nightmares.’
‘Much like writers,’ Giles said with a raised eyebrow. ‘Bar present company, of course!’
‘I do apologise for my husband, Estelle,’ Silvia said. ‘He’s had particularly bad luck with his writers. He never quite believes it when I say mine are a dream to work with, especially you.’
Estelle quirked an eyebrow. ‘You weren’t thinking that when I made those changes to the proofs at the last minute.’
Silvia pretended to scold Estelle and Estelle laughed.
‘I’m intrigued, what bad luck have you had with your writers, Giles?’ Seb asked.
Giles leaned back into his chair, resting his glass on his rotund belly, clearly pleased to be the centre of attention. ‘You must’ve heard about Krishna Sandhill?’
‘I remember reading something about her,’ Seb’s brother said. ‘Wasn’t she some meditation guru?’
Giles nodded. ‘The Queen of Calm, we called her. Advocating a new form of meditation that promised calmness and clarity after just five days of following her little regime. Just before we signed off the final copy of her book, we received news she’d spent several months in prison for aggravated bodily harm to an ex. So much for calm.’
‘No!’ everyone around the table exclaimed.
‘The book was cancelled at the last moment,’ Giles said with a sigh. ‘It was a complete fucking mess. You can’t publish a book claiming to calm people down when it’s been written by someone so angry they beat up their husband.’ He shook his head. ‘We lost tens of thousands of pounds thanks to her dark past.’
Estelle felt a tremor of fear inside at his words. Her dark past. But she trampled it down.
‘Ah,’ Kim, Estelle’s publicist, said.
‘What’s wrong?’ Estelle asked her.
‘I hate to tell you this, but the journalist who exposed Krishna is the one who’s interviewing you tomorrow.’
‘Which one?’ Dean asked. He presented a radio show called Outing Rogues, which investigated cowboy builders and dishonest businessmen, so knew lots of journalists.
‘Louis Patel?’ Kim said.
Dean raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh yes, he can be quite tough.’
‘Don’t, you’re making me nervous,’ Estelle said. This was her first proper profile with a national newspaper. All her other interviewers had focused more on either her book deal or cooking tips.
Silvia put on a mock-serious face. ‘I hope our Queen of Clean doesn’t have any skeletons in her closet?’
Estelle forced a smile.
‘Okay, I admit it,’ she said, putting her hands up. ‘I might have taken a bite of a Disney princess cake at my goddaughter’s birthday last week,’ she said, referring to Christina and Tom’s five-year-old.
‘Yep,’ Christina said with an exaggerated sigh. ‘I can confirm she did. But only because my daughter insisted.’
Everyone laughed and, to Estelle’s relief, they soon moved onto a lighter subject – Seb’s new radio documentary about aspiring rowers, which was airing the next day.
But Estelle felt herself retreating, thoughts of the previous conversation stirring around her mind. She’d deliberately glossed over her childhood when she’d written the introduction to her book. What if the journalist she was meeting tomorrow had done some digging?
She played with the stem of her wine glass. Outside, the stars twinkled mischievously, the sound of laughter from the streets below drifting towards her on the breeze. She peered towards her book again and tried to draw comfort from it. Look how far she’d come! She refused to let anything ruin that. She had so much to be proud of and so much to look forward to.
Christina leaned over, putting her hand on her arm. ‘You okay, Estelle?’ she asked quietly.
‘I’m perfect,’ Estelle said, taking a sip of wine and smiling at her friend. ‘Everything’s perfect.’
As she said that, the doorbell rang out.
‘Bit late for more visitors,’ Seb said. He stood up and walked down the hallway, unsteady on his feet now, the bottle of wine he’d consumed showing. Once a teetotaller, he’d been drinking a lot since the injury that had taken him out of competitive rowing. Estelle’s heart went out to him. It must be tough, not being able to do what he loved.
Christina topped up Estelle’s untouched glass. ‘Here, more wine for the superstar author. Let’s raise a toast,’ she said, raising her wine glass.
‘An organic toast,’ Silvia said.
‘Of the finest gluten-free variety,’ Kim added with a raised eyebrow.
‘All wines are gluten-free, silly,’ Estelle said.
They all laughed.
‘To Estelle!’ they all said, holding up their glasses. She looked at each of them. Her friendships with them might not be very old, but they were all she had and she was so grateful.
She thought then of one of her few friends from childhood, and saw an image of a girl with long red hair biting into a rotting apple against a stormy sea.
She forced the image away as Seb appeared in the hallway with a small bouquet of bright red flowers. ‘Flowers for the hotshot writer,’ he said, bringing them over to Estelle.
‘What a strange time for flowers to be delivered,’ Silvia declared, peering at the clock.
Estelle followed her gaze. Nearly ten at night.
‘It is a weird time,’ she said. ‘Maybe they got ten at night mixed up with ten in the morning.’
She took the flowers from Seb, breathing in their scent, then picked out the card that came with them.
To Stel. Congratulations on the birth of your book. x
Estelle felt a shiver run through her. She hadn’t been called Stel for many years. That was another lifetime, another world, long before she became the person everyone around this table now saw. The memory filled her with anxiety.
‘What flowers are these?’ Silvia asked, brushing her finger over one of the crimson petals.
‘Poppies,’ Christina said. ‘How unusual.’
Seb took them from Estelle. ‘I’ll put them in water,’ he said.
As he walked to the kitchen, one of the poppies tumbled to the floor, where it was trampled by Seb’s foot.
Chapter Two (#ua9396ae1-5c85-5ffa-8cd4-012f10ea2b93)
Wednesday, 3 May
Estelle stared out at the Thames in the distance, watching as the bricks from the new development being built there crumbled onto the river’s banks.
The doorbell went. Estelle cursed, realising her fingers were gooey from the honey she’d been using for a recipe. How long had she been stood there in her kitchen, staring into space? She peered at the clock. Ten minutes wasted. She wiped her hands on a damp cloth and took a deep, nervous breath. She knew who would be at the door: the national newspaper journalist who’d once exposed the ‘Queen of Calm’.
Estelle took a deep breath then jogged to the door, opening it to see a young dark-haired man smiling at her. She smiled back, feeling a little relieved. He seemed nice enough.
‘Louis?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘Come in!’ Estelle said, holding the door open wide.
‘Gorgeous place,’ he said, looking around him at the stark white hallway as he walked inside. It was actually Seb’s house, but she’d moved in the year before, renovating it from a run-down mews house near the South Bank to a contemporary home for them.
‘Yes, we adore it here,’ she said, leading him to the kitchen. ‘People always seem surprised; I think they expect me to live in a cottage in Wales or something!’
‘No, that’s what I love about you,’ Louis said. ‘Clean city living. It’s realistic. Not everyone is able to up sticks and move to the country.’
‘Nor indeed wants to,’ Estelle said, gesturing to a row of stools by an oak-topped kitchen island. ‘I love the city.’
‘Baking something?’ the journalist asked, looking around at the busy kitchen surfaces.
‘When am I not? I thought you’d like to take something away with you.’
He slung his bag onto the island’s surface, pulling his laptop out. ‘I’m in heaven. Looks like flapjack mix?’
Estelle nodded. ‘With a twist. But I’ll leave it up to you to guess what that twist is.’
Louis peered around the kitchen. ‘Hmmm, are those chia seeds?’ he asked, pointing to a mason jar of small seeds.
Estelle laughed. ‘I’ve hidden the evidence. Here, have a sniff.’
She handed the bowl of gooey mixture to him and he took in a deep inhalation. ‘Dates, banana, honey.’ Estelle smiled. He seemed to know his stuff. Louis frowned, then added, ‘Is that a spice in there?’
She snatched the bowl away, laughing. ‘You’ll have to wait. I have another batch on the go that will be ready in five minutes, so you can do a taste test then.’
He smiled to himself, flipping open his laptop. ‘Woman of mystery,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
Estelle shot him a nervous smile before slathering the mixture into a ceramic dish and placing it in the oven. She loved the baking and the writing. But the publicity, not so much. She hated talking about herself. It had to be done though; that’s what her editor and publicist had told her.
‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked Louis. ‘Water? Green tea? Organic beer?’ She leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘Or we do have normal drinks that Seb keeps stowed away in a cupboard somewhere.’
He laughed. ‘Water would be perfect, thank you.’
She poured them both some water from the jug she kept in her fridge, then sat down across from him, brushing her blonde fringe from her eyes.
Louis peered towards the oven. ‘Don’t you use a timer?’
‘No. I’ve been baking so long I have an instinct for time.’
He laughed. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? So, just a month until your book launch. How are you feeling?’
Estelle felt a tremor of nerves. She’d been waiting so long for this moment and thought she was ready for it, but the closer she got, the more she felt like a fraud. Did she really deserve this? A friend of hers who’d had a novel published said she’d felt the same. Despite the fact she knew how hard she’d worked, it still felt alien, unearned. She called it ‘imposter syndrome’ and Estelle had it bad.
‘Nervous,’ she admitted. ‘Excited too though.’
‘No need to be nervous. So, let’s start at the very beginning. Where do you think your interest in food first came from?’
Estelle hesitated a moment. She could tell the journalist it had all started with how scarce good food was when she was a child, pale meals shoved in a microwave, cheap takeaways bought by her parents. She could tell him how, when she went into care and foster homes, it wasn’t always much better so she’d had to learn from an early age how to prepare food, the simple things like making scrambled eggs. She could tell him about how she paid attention in cooking classes at school because of this, unlike her peers, because she had no choice if she wanted to feed herself. She could then go on to tell him about Lillysands and the Garlands. Finally a place where food was something to be treasured and enjoyed, making dishes with her foster mother Autumn, helping to serve up business lunches for her foster father Max.
But she didn’t.
‘I really don’t know,’ she said instead. ‘It’s just always held a fascination for me.’
‘And that’s why you chose to study food science?’
It was almost tempting to tell him the truth here too – that it was one of her last foster parents who’d suggested this subject to her, a gentle chemistry professor called Justin. He’d noticed her interest in food, and the way she’d take notice when he talked about the chemicals in food. But she didn’t even want to tell the journalist about Carol and Justin Hall, the lovely couple she’d gone to live with just before she turned sixteen, because that might lead to more questions, to more delving into her past, and that was something she needed to avoid.
‘My teachers at school,’ she said instead. ‘They helped steer me towards food science as a degree subject.’
‘And after your university course,’ Louis asked, looking at his notes, ‘you decided to do a short accredited nutrition course?’
