‘Because Maxie’s dropped some bombshell news. I was in London with her on the weekend. She’s sworn me to secrecy but I’m disobeying her. She and Hazel are getting married! Not just anywhere, either. In Gretna Green. They’re practically eloping!’
Eliza had never heard Olivia sound so excited.
‘I begged her to let me be one of their witnesses. Of course, she said. Then this morning I had a brilliant idea to surprise Maxie. I’m ringing to make you an offer I hope you can’t and won’t refuse.’
‘Olivia, I —’
‘Please, Eliza, at least listen before you say no. My plan was to leave a long message to give you time to think about it. And then I wanted you to ring me tomorrow and say yes.’
‘Where are you? Still at Maxie’s?’
‘No, back in Edinburgh,’ Olivia said. ‘I got the sleeper train last night. Except I didn’t sleep. I was too busy coming up with my ingenious plan. Are you sitting comfortably?’
At first, Eliza listened closely. Out of habit, she even took notes. Then, as her godmother kept talking, she put down her pen and gazed around her apartment, noticing every detail as if for the first time.
She’d lived here for eight years but had barely made her mark on it. She had few belongings. In the bedroom was a tidy rack of clothes. In the living room, her books and a box of painting materials. On a shelf, the tall green vase and three coloured bowls her mother had loved. There was a postcard of her mother’s favourite painting on the fridge. On the wall, the framed enlarged photograph of her eleven-year-old self with her mum and godmothers, taken after the school concert. Everything else – the furniture, crockery, even the cutlery – belonged to her landlord.
Her entire home life could be dismantled in less than an hour if she wanted. As quickly as her work life had collapsed today. ‘I’m doing you a favour, if you ask me. Let’s face facts – you’re stuck in a rut.’
Olivia was still talking. ‘I’m not putting pressure on you, Eliza, though of course that’s exactly what I’m doing. Please think about it. I know it’s short notice. And yes, of course I know how you feel about flying. But we’ll deal with that, even if it takes a wheelbarrow of drugs. I know you’ll say you’re too busy at work, but you’re owed weeks of holidays. I also know Gillian still pays you a pittance, so I’ll cover your costs. Let’s call it an extra thirtieth birthday present. An early fortieth present. Please say yes. It would make Maxie’s day. Mine too. The three of us haven’t been in the same place together for —’
‘Yes,’ Eliza said.
There was a brief silence. ‘What did you say?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without any excuses about busy schedules, or Gillian’s demands, or needing to be in Melbourne to make sure there’s a glass of water for the keynote speaker at a conference in three months’ time?’
Once, Eliza might have taken offence. Today, she almost laughed. ‘None.’
There was a pause. ‘Eliza, have you started drinking?’
‘No.’
‘Let me get this straight. I’ve asked you out of the blue to do something completely unexpected, on the spur of the moment, and —’
‘I’ve said yes.’
Eliza held the phone away from her ear as Olivia uncharacteristically whooped down the line.
CHAPTER THREE
As soon as Eliza hung up, she rang Rose’s mobile. Her friend picked up after five rings. Eliza could hear children shouting and laughing in the background.
‘Rose, I’m sorry. I know it’s hell hour. Can you talk even for a minute?’
‘Every hour is hell hour. My children are demons. Hold on, I’ll lock myself in the laundry.’ After a pause, Rose’s voice came on the line again, the background quieter now. ‘Is everything okay?’
It only took Eliza a few minutes to explain all that had happened.
‘That selfish cow,’ Rose said about Gillian. ‘I hope she has a fifty-hour labour and those twins don’t sleep until they turn ten.’
She sympathised about the eviction notice. ‘At least it will only take you five minutes to pack up.’
She also wanted to know every detail of Maxie’s surprise wedding. Eliza explained that Hazel had been offered lighting design work on Broadway, for a big production of The Railway Children. She’d be away for at least a year. It had made Maxie realise just how much she loved her and she’d proposed. Hazel immediately said yes. Not only were they getting married, Maxie had decided to press pause on her UK acting career and move to New York with her. Perhaps even make time for the playwriting she’d been talking about for years now.
‘But they don’t want a big fussy wedding,’ Eliza told Rose. ‘Hazel’s so private. So they decided on Gretna Green, the eloping place in Scotland. Olivia said she’d secretly organise for me to be the second witness. She wants it to be a complete surprise for Maxie.’
‘What a wedding present! And then what will you do afterwards?’
Eliza shared that news too. After Olivia heard what had happened with Eliza’s job and flat, she’d invited her to stay at the Montgomery for as long as she wanted.
Rose repeated the name of Olivia’s hotel, sighing. ‘It even sounds fancy.’
Olivia had recently sent Eliza a link to the hotel’s redesigned website. It was as elegant as the Montgomery itself. The logo was a stylised flower, the line ‘Family-run for four generations’ beneath it. The main photo showed the hotel’s exterior, three adjoining Victorian terrace buildings in Edinburgh’s West End. Ivy covered all three storeys of the middle building. A photo gallery displayed an inviting sitting room complete with open fire, a formal dining room with crisp linen and gleaming glassware, luxuriously cosy bedrooms, each designed to reflect a floral theme. Evident in every image was the art collection: portraits and landscapes from all around the world.
‘Are Olivia’s stepsons still working there?’ Rose asked. ‘That mean one, more to the point?’
Eliza sometimes wished Rose didn’t remember every story she’d ever heard. Thinking back to that time still made Eliza want to cringe. ‘Yes, they both are. But that was years ago. I’m sure they’ve forgotten about it.’
‘I haven’t,’ Rose said. ‘He’d better be nicer to you this time.’
Alex and Rory weren’t the only family members living in the hotel at present. Olivia had told Eliza that another one had recently moved in. Alex and Rory’s grandmother Celine. Edgar’s first wife’s mother.
‘An in-house almost mother-in-law? Poor Olivia!’ Rose said when Eliza told her. ‘How old is she?’
Somewhere in her eighties, Olivia had said. Scottish-born, but she’d been living in the south of France for years with her third husband. By all accounts, they had a stormy relationship. She’d walked out on him yet again in January and returned home to Scotland. Edgar had promised Celine she’d always be welcome at the Montgomery. ‘Olivia assumed he meant for a holiday, but she’s been there for more than two months now, with no talk of leaving.’