Daisy Tate - The Happy Glampers

‘Hello, darling. Chilly out. Oh, good, you got your coffee.’

His eyes flicked to the bedside table then back to his phone. ‘Your friends were pretty lairy tonight,’ he said. As if they’d trashed the place. ‘Especially … who is it? The Scottish one. She likes her sauce.’ He mimed glugging a bottle of wine, which was rich given the fumes he was emitting. ‘You’ll keep an eye on her tomorrow, right? Make sure the staff don’t top her up too often?’

An instruction. So many of their conversations were actually lists of instructions. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t even trying to be different. This wasn’t the behaviour of a repentant man. A husband desperate to make amends. All of her hopeful thoughts that they might be able to go through this marital … calamity … fluttered to her feet.

She wondered if Oli’s lover was the same as she had once been. In complete awe of him. The power. His physical presence. The confidence . It was his confidence that had really swept her off her feet. He was still every bit as handsome. Every bit as charismatic. Every bit as much in love with her?

She reached out to him, her heart lurching up into her throat as she asked, ‘Darling, do you think this will all work out?’

‘What? The party? So long as your mates behave themselves, I’ve got it all in hand. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.’

Then he rolled over and turned out the light.

In that moment, Charlotte resolved to tell her friends everything.

Sleep might have helped. So would flinging her phone into the fire and watching it melt away into nothing.

As things stood, Charlotte wasn’t in the best frame of mind to host a birthday party.

Calling it off was out of the question. Too many wheels in motion. The caterers, for example, would be arriving any time now.

Almost involuntarily, her thumb flicked her phone from the home page to Instagram. Cyber-stalking, it turned out, was rather addictive.

Xanthe was terrifically young and beautiful. No surprise there.

Xanthe had well over two thousand followers, could ski, scuba, and loved a quality organic facial.

Xanthe – she thumbed a bit further down the page – also went out to nightclubs where her husband doled out kisses like lollipops. She looked happy and comfortable. As if it were perfectly normal to have another woman’s husband plant kisses on her dewy young cheek.

Charlotte pocketed the phone and stared helplessly at the yurts where her friends peacefully slept away.

As certain as she’d been that she must tell them what was really going on, morning brought with it the dawning realization that if she were to veer off script now she might lose what little traction she had in her marriage. Putting on ‘a good show’ was paramount to the Mayfields. And today, which came complete with the full complement of in-laws, would be no different.

Mostly because everything seemed one step removed from reality. As if discovering her husband was a cheat had dropped triple-glazing between her and the life she thought she’d been living.

She remembered the advice that some of the older wives at the law firm had given her in the early days of their marriage; giving her the lowdown on what being a ‘seasoned wife’ meant, and what was in store for Charlotte when Oliver became the youngest partner in his firm. Don’t complain about supper drying out in the oven. It will happen frequently. Never moan about the long days. Those billable hours were keeping her in Chloé and Stella McCartney. And most importantly, don’t fight about the affairs. It was simply how it worked. That will never happen to me , she had thought.

The affairs, she’d learnt that night, had tiers. The secretaries slept with the junior partners. The junior partners slept with the senior partners. The librarian slept with everyone.

She took a sip of her tea and watched, through the steam, as the morning sun edged its way from the woodland into the large meadowscape where, soon enough, she’d be celebrating her birthday.

Forty years old. She’d got her first party-planning job the year her mum had turned forty. They’d not celebrated. Quelle surprise. Forty. So much more grown-up sounding than thirty. Thirty had sounded full of possibility. Forty sounded … forty sounded a bit flat, if she were being perfectly honest. A crossroads.

Charlotte’s gaze shifted. Freya’s makeshift bunting had grown dewy in the night, causing quite a few of the cranes’ wings to droop, but, if the weather report was anything to go by, the string of origami serviettes would be shifting in a light, sun-soaked breeze by the time the party was under way.

The whole idea that she was throwing a birthday party suddenly seemed completely ridiculous.

This morning when she’d come down to put on the coffee, she’d foolishly looked around expecting something, anything , to be sitting out in the kitchen waiting for her. A card. A simply wrapped gift. A flower. But no. There had been nothing except a list of chores written in her own hand.

For all she knew, Oli had had to bribe the rest of their friends to come as he had the children. Veuve Clicquot and Michelin-starred amuse-bouches standing in for fifty-pound notes.

… deep breath in …

All she had to do was get through the next twelve hours. Twelve hours of smiling, greeting, nodding and, perhaps, if she dared, testing just how strong the bonds of her old friendships were.

Charlotte smoothed her hand across her spreadsheet, willing the detailed layout to act as a balm. Here was her day, laid out before her in black and white, with the odd yellow highlight (she really would have to stay on top of the Watlington boy’s peanut allergy, seeing as how Oli had insisted on a satay-based canapé and there was no guarantee his mother would remember his epi pen or that the catering staff would make an announcement).

Welcome drinks.

Nibbles.

Games for the children.

The hog roast.

Cake.

She pored over the sheet until she could see it with her eyes closed, then, as if someone had flicked a switch, the day began.

Her phone buzzed. It was a text from Oli. Bacon sarnies ready soon? Need to run into town to get something.

Someone , more like.

Well, she thought, her thumb hovering above the Instagram app, happy birthday to me.

‘What did you say?’

Felix glanced nervously over his shoulder. Felix didn’t do conflict. ‘Ummm … Dad’s taking a bath so he told me to ask you?’

Freya was in danger of turning into a bobble head she was nodding so violently. ‘A bath. I see. Well, that’s bloody rich, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so?’ Felix had never known a bath to be an activity of conflict before. ‘Ummm … can I have some money?’

Freya felt the hot rise of anger at her throat. ‘And he told you to ask me for money?’

Why did Monty do this? Send the children to her for money so she’d have to be the one to say no. She’d told him she only had forty quid and that they needed it to fill the car seeing as they’d already used the electric charge on the hybrid. Bloody London traffic!

‘Jack says there’s a shop and they’ve just put out scones and sausage rolls.’ Felix scuffed the dirt with his trainer. ‘I’m hungry.’

Freya did a quick calculation of the change that might’ve fallen to the bottom of her handbag and came up empty. ‘I’m sorry, darlin’. Charlotte’s making breakfast. We can’t afford fancy extras.’

Felix looked crestfallen, but tough cheddar. Waking up to not one but two ‘You’ve exceeded your overdraft’ texts from the bank hadn’t set the morning off in quite the whimsical, escape-to-the-country vein she’d been hoping for. Bloody Monty and his bloody largesse. Oli should’ve been the one footing the micro-distillery gin tasting at the pub, not her broke, wannabe portrait-photographer husband who had yet to pull his camera out of the very expensive case he’d begged her to buy him for Christmas.