‘So, what about me?’ I try to give a casual laugh. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’
There’s a pause. Then the spirit nods, and the screen lights up again.
Even though I was expecting it, I can’t help feeling a jolt as I see myself on the screen. I’m holding a baby, watching Dan as he taps at a crib with a hammer.
‘You’re useless!’ I’m saying. ‘It’s a rocking crib! It should bloody rock!’
The image segues straight into another one. Dan’s changing the baby’s nappy while I hover behind.
‘That’s not how the tabs go!’ I’m snapping. ‘You’ve done it wrong!’
As I hear my own voice I feel an uncomfortable twinge. I never realised before how sharp it was.
And I’ve never seen Dan with that hurt expression before. I stare, transfixed, as my screen self turns towards him and he quickly wipes it away with a smile.
‘Well you’re OK too, Ginny!’ says Georgia, sounding a little piqued. ‘Everything’s fine!’
‘It’s not.’ My voice sounds a little hoarse to my own ears.
Now the images are coming thick and fast. Dan with me and the baby at home, at the shops, at the park. And a constant soundtrack of my own voice, snapping at him. ‘You’re useless!’ ‘That’s wrong!’ ‘Give it here, I’ll do it!’
Shut up! I want to yell at myself. Leave the poor man alone!
But my screen-self just keeps on relentlessly hectoring and criticising. And all I can see is Dan’s face, gradually closing in on itself. Until he looks as though he doesn’t want to know anymore. As though he’s had enough.
I feel a shaft of panic.
‘Spirit…’ I say quickly. ‘You didn’t answer the question before. Are these the things that will happen? Or that might happen?’
I look up. But the room is empty. The spirit’s gone. Slowly the lights are coming up.
I look around – and the others are all blinking. Georgia’s rubbing her eyes. Gabby looks as though she’s in a trance. As though from nowhere, Petal has materialised at the front of the room.
‘That was your final lesson,’ she says in soft tones. ‘I’ll ask you all now a small favour. I would prefer that the exact contents of my classes be kept to yourselves.’
We all give stupefied nods. I don’t think any of us can quite speak.
‘Please, take a few moments to gather yourselves.’ Petal smiles around at us. ‘You can leave whenever you’re ready. And good luck. All of you.’
Before any of us can say anything, she makes her way to the doorway and vanishes. We all sit in dazed silence for a few moments. Then there’s a small crash as Intelligent Baby slithers off Georgia’s lap onto the floor.
‘Here you are,’ says Gina, picking it up. Georgia surveys it for a few moments.
‘Thanks,’ she replies. She takes it from Gina’s hand and rips the whole thing in two.
There’s a scuffling next to me, and I see Geraldine pulling her leather notebook out of her bag. She rips out the page on which she’d written ‘Davies – COMPLAIN’ and crumples it up.
‘There,’ she says, and exhales sharply.
‘Does anyone want to go for a drink?’ says Gabby suddenly. ‘I could do with one.’
‘Absolutely,’ says Georgia in heartfelt tones.
‘Me too,’ says Grace, stepping forward. Her cheeks are glowing and she looks like a new woman. She shakes her hair back, as though practising for her new style. ‘I’m in no hurry.’
‘Sod the baby,’ says Gina. ‘I need a double vodka.’
‘Ginny?’ Geraldine looks at me. ‘You coming?
‘You all go.’ I say. ‘I…have to get home. Now.’
***
As I arrive home, Dan’s in the nursery. He looks up as I approach, and for the first time ever I notice the wary look in his eyes.
‘I’m trying to make up this crib,’ he says. ‘But it won’t rock.’ He shoves it in frustration.
‘I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ I cut him off. ‘None of it matters. Come here.’ I hold out my arms and Dan looks at me in startled bemusement.
I feel a small icy plunge. It’s too late. It’s all too late.
Then, slowly, Dan puts down his screwdriver. He comes forward and takes me in his arms, and I find myself clinging onto him.
‘Happy Christmas.’ I say, my voice muffled with emotion. ‘And…and thank you. For making the crib. And everything. Thank you for everything.’
‘That’s OK!’ says Dan with a surprised laugh. ‘Happy Christmas to you too, darling.’ He smiles down at me, stroking my bump. ‘And Happy Christmas to this little one.’
For a while the two of us are silent, standing by the window arm-in-arm as the snow falls endlessly outside.
The three of us, I should say.
God Bless Us Every One keeps running through my head, over and over. But naturally I don’t voice it aloud. Instead, after a while I murmur, ‘You know, I was thinking about names.’
‘Really?’ Dan looks up. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Well…I was thinking we probably shouldn’t call it Melchior…’
Sophie Kinsella’s fabulous new novel,
I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
will be published in February 2012.
Read on for a sneak preview of the first chapter.
ONE
PERSPECTIVE. I NEED to get perspective. It’s not an earthquake or a crazed gunman or nuclear meltdown, is it? On the scale of disasters, this is not huge. Not huge. One day I expect I’ll look back at this moment and laugh and think, ‘Ha ha, how silly I was to worry’—
Stop, Poppy. Don’t even try. I’m not laughing – in fact I feel sick. I’m walking blindly around the hotel ballroom, my heart thudding, looking fruitlessly on the patterned blue carpet, behind gilt chairs, under discarded paper napkins, in places where it couldn’t possibly be.
I’ve lost it. The only thing in the world I wasn’t supposed to lose. My engagement ring.
To say this is a special ring is an understatement. It’s been in Magnus’s family for three generations. It’s this stunning emerald with two diamonds and Magnus had to get it out of a special bank vault before he proposed. I’ve worn it safely every day for three whole months, putting it religiously on a special china tray at night, feeling for it on my finger every thirty seconds … and now, the very day his parents are coming back from the States, I’ve lost it. The very same day.
Professors Antony Tavish and Wanda Brook-Tavish are, at this precise moment, flying back from six months’ sabbatical in Chicago. I can picture them now, eating honey-roast peanuts and reading academic papers on their his-’n’-hers Kindles. I honestly don’t know which of them is more intimidating.
Him. He’s so sarcastic.
No, her. With all that frizzy hair and always asking you questions about your views on feminism all the time.
OK, they’re both bloody scary. And they’re landing in about an hour and of course they’ll want to see the ring …
No. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive. I just need to look at this from a different angle. Like … what would Poirot do? Poirot wouldn’t flap around in panic. He’d stay calm and use his little grey cells and recall some tiny, vital detail which would be the clue to everything.
I squeeze my eyes tight. Little grey cells. Come on. Do your best.
Thing is, I’m not sure Poirot had three glasses of pink champagne and a mojito before he solved the murder on the Orient Express.
‘Miss?’ A grey-haired cleaning lady is trying to get round me with a Hoover and I gasp in horror. They’re hoovering the ballroom already? What if they suck it up?
‘Excuse me.’ I grab her blue nylon shoulder. ‘Could you just give me five more minutes to search before you start hoovering?’