Chapter Eight

‘What are you doing here?' I squawked as Joe slid past me into the house, carrying an overnight bag in each hand. ‘And where do you think you're going?'

‘Hello, Sophie, nice to see you again, Sophie,' he replied cheerily. ‘Nice PJs, very sexy. Think you missed a button.'

‘They're not meant to be sexy, they're meant to be comfortable,' I said, heat rising in my semi-visible chest. ‘Not that I care what you think. I happen to love these pyjamas.'

But I did care. As soon as I saw him, it all came flooding back: the red walls of the karaoke room, the hot, sweaty air that made it so hard to breathe, his face coming closer to mine until my lips prickled at their proximity.

‘Something else that isn't for me,' he grinned as I fastened my missed button. ‘Don't worry, I get it.'

‘Where's the birthday boy?'

A voice boomed down the hallway and a tall, tanned man, who looked to be somewhere in his sixties despite his neon yellow Air Force 1s and ultra-distressed jeans, strolled in like he owned the place. Without thinking about it, I took a safety step backwards. His energy was off. I couldn't put a finger on it but there was something I didn't like about his extremely shiny white teeth and even shinier diamond earring, and it was only when he pulled off his enormous sunglasses to hit me with the full force of his piercing blue eyes I realised who it was. Gregory Brent. Dad's favourite frenemy and, I realised when the two of them stood side by side, Joe's dad.

‘Little Sophie Taylor, is that you?' Gregory asked, failing to notice my extreme discomfort as he launched himself at me in a slightly too long hug. ‘I haven't seen you since you were in knee-high socks.'

‘Gregory, hi.' I pushed him away and took another, much bigger step backwards. How much aftershave could one man wear? He was more potent than a Lush store and didn't even come with the possibility of a bath bomb to ease my suffering.

‘Lucky you for getting the lion's share of your mother's genes,' he said with a leer. ‘Bet you could still pull off those knee socks.'

‘You're Joe's dad,' I stated, ignoring the deeply unpleasant implication.

There was no denying a fact. Same blue eyes, same square shoulders, almost the same height. They even had the same dark, dark brown hair but where Joe's was glossy and full of life, Gregory's was flat and matte. A tell-tale sign of the overzealous application of Just For Men.

‘For my sins,' Gregory guffawed before slapping his son on the back so hard that Joe stumbled forward and rattled the umbrella stand with one of the weekend bags. Both were made of leather, one shiny, black and covered in debossed designer logos, the other one almost as dark brown and weathered as his dad.

‘Surely you don't remember Joseph? You were tiny the last time the two of you met. But that's a Brent man for you, we've always known how to make an impression on the ladies.'

‘Quite,' I agreed. ‘So it's Joseph Brent, not Joe Walsh.'

‘No one calls me Joseph except for Dad,' Joe explained as his father began picking up everything within touching distance in the hallway. My dad was going to go spare when he saw his fingerprints all over his framed letter from JRR Tolkien. ‘Walsh is my mum's name. I changed it when—'

‘When she fucked off to America and took him with her.'

From the way Joe closed his eyes and shook his head, I had to assume that wasn't exactly how he would have put it. It made perfect sense for noted cad and bounder, Joe Walsh, to be the devil spawn of Gregory Brent but why hadn't he told me yesterday?

‘Where is everyone?' Gregory asked, picking up then putting down a photograph of my parents in the 1980s and striding past me down the hall and into the kitchen. ‘Isn't this supposed to be a party? Pandora, my angel, what have you got there? It looks like a giant pile of shit.'

Joe and I hung back by the bottom of the stairs and, for the first time since we'd met, he seemed to be struggling to meet my eyes.

‘You're Gregory Brent's son,' I said accusingly, crossing my arms and adding a silent ‘well, well, well' to my sentence. ‘Isn't that interesting?'

His reply was tight and tense. ‘No more interesting than you being Hugh and Pandora Taylor's daughter. Whoever my dad is or isn't has no bearing on who I am.'

‘Probably has a bit of bearing on what you do though, doesn't it?' I suggested with just the tiniest touch of smugness. ‘Or did you get your fancy creative director job by bravely soldiering on through the trenches of publishing, succeeding solely on your own merits and keeping your family connections quiet?'

‘You're one to talk.'

When he looked up, I saw the beginnings of a smile playing on his lips and the sound of distant alarm bells rang in my ears.

‘Joseph! Get your arse in here and say hello to Pandy!'

‘Please excuse me,' Joe replied. ‘I need to get my arse in there to say hello to Pandy. We'll pick this up later.'

‘No, we won't,' I said, both hot and bothered. ‘And Mum hates being called Pandy so if you don't want her to spit in your coffee, I'd think twice about saying it to her face if I were you.'

He backed off down the hallway, his grin growing bigger by the second until he turned to disappear into the kitchen, leaving me pressed up against the wall, breathing heavily. Joe Walsh was in my house. Joe Walsh who definitely hadn't appeared in one of my weird, restless night dreams, along with a desert island, a carton of Ben Jerry's and, for some reason, my Great-Aunt Maeve's toby jug collection. I pressed a hand against my clammy forehead and stared up at the ceiling. It would take more than a tub of Ben Jerry's to cool me down now.

‘Sophie?'

Jumping right out of my skin, I turned to see my aunt and uncle standing on the doorstep. Bryan's bald pate glistened in the morning sun and Carole had her lips pressed together so tightly, they completely disappeared into her overly powdered face.

‘Are you having a funny turn? Your dad said you were coming up from London,' Carole said, Bryan nodding enthusiastically beside her. ‘You can catch all sorts down there, you don't know where anyone's been.'

‘Or where they've come from,' Bryan added ominously.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I searched for the correct response but there wasn't one. Was it even a family party if there wasn't a touch of xenophobia?

‘Now I think about it, there was that man rolling around on the floor screaming on the tube,' I said as I bundled them both into the house and planted very wet kisses on their cheeks. ‘I didn't think much of it until he started frothing at the mouth but I probably should see a doctor, the rash on my backside can't be normal.'

They stared at me with dread, scrubbing the skin from their cheeks.

Maybe there was a correct response after all.

It wasn't even half-past ten on a Friday morning and it felt like the day was turning into my very own Agatha Christie novel. Everyone milled around the kitchen, shaking hands, but who would be found face down in the duck pond? Pandora Taylor, respected literary critic but failed baker? Hugh Taylor, celebrating his birthday and holding a lifelong professional grudge? Or Gregory Brent and his son, Joe Walsh, a pair of complete and utter dickheads who honestly could do with a good dunking?

‘Oh my god, everyone's here already!'

Charlotte bounced into the kitchen like Tigger after one Red Bull too many, prancing around as she presented herself for hugs and kisses. At least until she got to Gregory who she avoided like one of Taylor Swift's ex-boyfriends. My sister could be annoying when she wanted to be but she wasn't an idiot.

‘And who are you?' she purred, looking up at Joe from under her eyelashes.

Well, not a total idiot but she still had a lot to learn.

‘He's a twat who's twice your age, that's who,' I answered on his behalf.

‘We love a man with experience,' Charlotte replied. Subtle she was not. At least Joe had the decency to look mortified.

As she turned, a tiny black handbag swung from her shoulder.

‘Where did you get that?' I grabbed for the bag but ended up with a handful of air as she skipped around the table to nestle into our mother's open arms.

‘It was in your room.' Charlotte held the handbag aloft. A perfectly square, quilted black leather handbag, dangling on a long gold chain, tell-tale interlocking Cs on the clasp giving the game away without anyone saying a word. It was the one nice thing I'd bought myself since Butterflies blew up and I'd regretted it every day since. Finding the courage to walk into the Chanel boutique on Bond Street had been difficult enough and the snooty sales assistants hadn't made the experience any less stressful. It was easier getting a mortgage than it had been to buy that bag, but things like this happened when you watched Selling Sunset on your phone on the way into town and drank one too many pink wines at lunch, after which your friends all went home to their families and partners, leaving you alone and very suggestible.

Even though I knew it was ridiculous, I couldn't bring myself to leave it alone in the flat while I was away, so I'd brought it with me, like a pet. A very expensive, wildly impractical pet. I was terrified to take it out in public and couldn't even get my phone in the damn thing but the only thing I could think of that might be more humiliating than buying it was the thought of trying to take it back.

‘What were you doing in my room?' I demanded as Charlotte and my mother pawed at the soft lambskin. ‘That was in my suitcase, I haven't even unpacked.'

‘I was looking for something,' she answered, waving a vague hand around. ‘There's no way you can afford Chanel. Did you steal it? Do you have a sugar daddy? Are you on OnlyFans?'

‘What's OnlyFans?' asked Uncle Bryan.

‘That looks like an expensive bit of kit, Sophie,' Dad said, holding out his hands for the bag and pushing his glasses up on top of his head to examine it more closely. ‘You're not getting yourself into debt to keep up with the Joneses, are you?'

‘More like the Carter-Knowleses,' Charlotte answered before I could say anything. ‘That's got to be worth what, three, four grand?'

Everyone gasped except for Joe.

‘For a handbag?' Auntie Carole shrieked while basting herself in hand sanitiser.

‘All right, Oscar Wilde,' Mum muttered. ‘Sophie, can you please tell your sister you didn't spend four thousand pounds on a handbag?'

‘Yes, I can,' I replied, even though it was a lie. That was exactly how much it cost and I almost wept every time I thought about it. ‘It's—'

‘A fake,' Joe announced. He reached for the bag, turning it over in his hands and inspecting the tiny stitches, so small I assumed they had been made by magical mice who were under a spell. It was the only reason I could think for the bag to cost as much as it did. ‘It's clearly a fake.'

‘Are you sure?' I said, snatching it back. ‘Are you sure I didn't borrow it from one of those designer rental agencies?'

‘That would also be a good explanation,' he replied, tipping his head from side to side.

‘Yes,' I agreed. ‘It would.'

‘But it's definitely a fake.'

That clinched it. Joe was going face down in the duck pond first.

‘I don't know how I feel about you buying fake handbags,' Mum said, taking my bag baby back once again. I shuddered at the thought of all those unwashed hands touching my precious child. It just wasn't right. ‘These counterfeit rings are into all sorts of nasty business, I read about it in the Guardian. Organised crime, drug trafficking, child labour—'

‘And they're full of disease,' Uncle Bryan chimed in. ‘That's how the black plague got here.'

‘In a knock-off designer handbag?' I replied. ‘Really?'

Charlotte snatched it out of Mum's hands and held it tightly to her chest, the shape of the bag protesting only slightly at the strength of her love.

‘Can I have it?' she said, for some reason speaking to my mother instead of to me. ‘I don't care if it's fake, it's the best replica I've ever seen. They've lined up all the diamonds and got the correct number of stitches in each one and there's even a microchip inside. Please let me have it?'

‘How do you know so much about Chanel handbags?' I asked, my heart pounding altogether too fast for this time in the morning. I really should check what brand of coffee my mother was brewing.

‘I've watched all the videos on TikTok. Please, Sophie, I've always wanted a Chanel bag. Mum, tell her?'

‘Always? You're eighteen!' I exclaimed. ‘The last time I checked, the only thing you'd always wanted was a pony.'

‘Well, you don't have a pony but you do have a fake Chanel bag.'

I recognised her wheedling tone and knew I was fighting a losing battle. Charlotte had already convinced her parents to back her business, for fuck's sake, they weren't about to lay the law down now. ‘Oh, Soph, don't be such a miser.' Dad draped his arm around his youngest daughter's shoulders and winked. ‘Look how happy she is. Let Lottie have this one and I'll give you the money to buy a new one. How much could it cost anyway?'

‘They were practically giving them away on Canal Street last time I was in New York,' Joe offered unhelpfully. ‘What was it, Sophie, fifty? A hundred?'

‘A hundred pounds for a fake bloody bag,' Mum grumbled as Charlotte bounced around the kitchen with glee, her bag slung across her chest, while I eyed the knife block, wondering which one would cause Joe the most agonising pain when I ran him through with it. ‘I thought we'd raised you better than that, Sophie Taylor.'

‘Apparently not,' I replied, Joe's bemused gaze burning into the back of my head as I stalked out the kitchen door and into the garden.