Daughters by Elizabeth Buchan

Author:Elizabeth Buchan [Buchan, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literary, Ebook Club Author, Ebook Club, Fiction
ISBN: 9780141969886
Google: _JJ24uTWNDoC
Publisher: Penguin Books Limited
Published: 2012-02-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Eve’s email:

Flowers and Guest List

Sarah pestered them to come down to Membury to discuss the wedding. ‘She says it’s important to take decisions in situ, and there’s a wedding trade fair in the nearby town if we want to drop in on it. I think we have to go,’ Lara explained, when she phoned Jasmine.

Jasmine was mired in a huge new project so hush-hush that it was referred to by the code-name ‘Merlin’. It demanded every ounce of her energy and resources. She protested that she hadn’t time.

‘Hey,’ said Duncan, to her enormous surprise. ‘Not true, babe.’ He insisted they took a Saturday off. ‘I want to see the famed Membury,’ he said. ‘After all, if I’m to transfix the guests as best man, I’d like to see where I’m to do it.’

Bless. Duncan had decided she needed a day off. It was a happy thought and she guarded it carefully.

Here they were, then – Lara, Eve, Maudie, herself and Duncan – eating lunch at Membury.

The kitchen faced north. It was gloomy and smelt of damp, past lives and past meals. It needed fresh paint, a new cooker – actually, a complete overhaul. It wasn’t going to get it. Bill had made clear that the budget for refurbishment was on hold. What is it that drives people to take on projects they know they can’t manage? Jasmine wondered. Pride? Myopia? Still, if scaling the huge mountain of Membury pleased her father, so be it.

As always, Sarah had done her best. Duncan appreciated the beautifully cooked roast chicken, with red peppers stewed in balsamic vinegar, and asked for a second helping. ‘Sarah, you should be a TV cook.’ Jasmine wasn’t sure if Sarah considered this to be a compliment. But it was plain that she was charmed by his manners and sweetness. Duncan then interrogated Bill, politely but inexorably, on his plans for the garden. Jasmine eavesdropped with awe on his expert filleting of her normally uncommunicative father.

‘Do you have oil seed rape round here?’ Duncan was asking. ‘I’ve read it acts like a magnet for bees. They ignore the apple blossom and race to the big smell.’

Duncan knew nothing, zilch, about bees.

The two men occupied, Sarah was at liberty to pursue her objectives.

She launched in: ‘Eve, about the flowers. I’d like to do them.’ She offered the salt to Lara, who shook her head. ‘I’ve got plenty of ideas. Church, marquee, bouquet. I feel I’ve got my feet under the table in the village so I can get the flower rota on to it.’

Eve was about to have a fit. Jasmine stared hard at her plate.

‘How do you feel about ivy twined around columns?’ Sarah batted on. ‘And for the tables? Ice-cream cartons are useful, the square ones. If you paint them gold or silver, they’ll do as centrepieces. They’d look good with carnations and a nice evergreen sprig of something.’

‘Sarah,’ said Eve, ‘I had other – ’

‘Evie,’ said Jasmine, ‘you eat masses of ice-cream. You could start collecting now.

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