The Party Crasher(11)

  “How was work?” I say, hoping to change the subject, but she carries on reading.

  “The house sits within whimsical gardens and grounds, which complement the unconventional architecture.”

  “Whimsical means weird,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “And unconventional means ugly.”

  “No it doesn’t! Effie, I love Greenoaks to bits, you know I do, but you have to admit, it’s different. Special,” she adds tactfully. “A spacious hall leads to a large paneled reception room with mullioned window seat,” she reads out now, and for a moment we’re both silent, because we lived in that window seat when we were schoolgirls. We pulled the ancient thick curtains round us to make a kind of fusty cave, where we read magazines and tried on makeup. When we were older, we swigged vodka miniatures and talked about boys. When Temi’s granny died, we spent an afternoon there, just in each other’s arms, not saying anything, in our space.

      I perch next to Temi on the floor and watch as she scrolls through all the photos, with a jokey running commentary. But as she reaches the pictures of the plain gleaming kitchen with its plain gleaming cupboards, her finger stops scrolling and we’re both silent. Even Temi can’t find anything funny to say. What Krista did was wanton, gratuitous destruction. She took Mimi’s forest—something beautiful and unique—and she obliterated it.

  And people wonder why I have a feud with her.

  A timer goes off in the kitchen and Temi gets to her feet.

  “I need to stir my stew,” she says. “Cup of tea? You look like you need it.”

  “Yes please,” I say thankfully. “It’s been a bit of a day.”

  It’s not just the news of Greenoaks being sold or even being thrown out of the kitchen….It’s everything. It’s all churned up in my mind.

  What no one will believe is, I tried to give Krista a chance. I really did. That day we first met her at Greenoaks, I went along determined to be positive.

  OK, yes, I found it weird, watching a strange, glamorous woman tottering around Mimi’s kitchen in tight jeans and high heels. Running a manicured hand down Dad’s back. Calling him “Tone” and nestling up to him on the sofa like a teenager and roaring at some private joke, clearly involving sex. But I wasn’t “against her from the start,” which is what everyone seems to think.

      Bean said afterward we should have met first at some neutral venue, and I expect she’s right. It was always going to be hard, seeing another woman in Mimi’s place. In most families the mum stays in the family home, but as Mimi kept saying, it was Dad’s house long before she was on the scene. So Mimi insisted on moving out, and after what seemed about five minutes, Krista moved in.

  And that was never going to be easy. But hand on heart, I was prepared to tolerate and even like Krista. It wasn’t until the third time I met her that the alarm bells really started ringing. And that was the day when things first went badly wrong for Dad and me.

  Our relationship had already disintegrated a bit. For quite a while, after the announcement about their divorce, I couldn’t really talk to Dad or Mimi, because all I wanted to do was wail, Why? or How can you? or You’ve made a terrible mistake! and Bean said this wouldn’t be helpful. (Nor would she join in my short-lived plan to get Dad and Mimi back together by re-creating their first date and tricking them into going on it.)

  So it was hard. And we were all a bit unnerved by the way Dad had changed. He’d clearly tried to shape up for Krista by buying new clothes (bad jeans) and putting on fake tan (he denied it, but it was obvious) and buying cases of champagne the whole time. He and Krista didn’t ever seem to drink anything but champagne, which had always been a special-occasion thing before.

      They kept going for luxury mini-breaks and posting photos of themselves in bathrobes on Dad’s new Instagram account. And talking about buying a villa in Portugal, where Dad had never even been before—it was all Krista’s idea. He even bought her a diamond pendant for their “four-month-iversary,” and she talked about it constantly, showing off and playing with it. Mind my sparkler! Look at the light on my sparkler!

  It was as if a whole new, different Dad had emerged. But at least I was still talking to him. I still felt like he was on my side. Until that day.

  I’d gone to Greenoaks for lunch—just me. It was when Dad was on the phone that I wandered into the sitting room and found Krista taking a photo of the bureau. Then she murmured, “Bureau, six drawers, gold handles,” quietly into her phone, as if she was dictating. I was so startled, I couldn’t even move for a moment, then I tiptoed away.

  I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. All through lunch, I tried to think of an innocent explanation for what she was doing. But I just couldn’t. So I asked Dad if I could see him in the office about a “family thing,” and then spilled it all out.

  The conversation didn’t just go badly. It went terribly. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but I can remember his angry, defensive voice, telling me I shouldn’t snoop around, that I had to accept he was with Krista now, and I should be happy for him, not invent problems, and I must promise not to mention this to Gus or Bean, as it would turn them against Krista.