Country Affairs. Zara Stoneley
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She doesn’t seem like one.’
‘She’s a card, bless her.’
‘And Lottie is going to have to start behaving like a Lady.’ Lottie worried her as well. She’d been her normal scatty self when Elizabeth was there, but after her gran and uncle had left the room Pip had seen a glimpse of the woman her best friend was maturing into. Whatever Lottie thought, the Stanthorpe genes were obvious, the determination to succeed and do her duty impossible to ignore. Which was great, except she still seemed to be worried about the whole Todd situation and had asked again if Pip couldn’t at least keep an eye on him. And how did she get out of that one without seeming totally unhelpful and selfish? Assuring Lottie that they’d sort something out didn’t somehow seem enough.
‘Wow, that is so exciting, isn’t it? Lottie a real Lady.’ Sam clapped her hands together. ‘Does she get to hold tea parties on the lawn and wear a tiara?’
‘No, Sam. She gets to climb up and repair the roof if she can’t work out where to get the money from.’
‘Really? Does she know how?’
‘Nope.’ Pip raised a grin from somewhere, staying serious was impossible with Sam around. ‘Sorry, what were you saying before?’
‘Oh, I said wouldn’t you like one, babe? You know, a little mini-me. It would be so amazing.’
Pip, who was accustomed to hearing Sam talk about hair extensions and facelifts, hoped she’d misunderstood the question. ‘One what?’
‘You know, a baby. Doesn’t every girl really want one?’
She wasn’t sure now which was worse, worrying about Elizabeth and Lottie, or this conversation. ‘Sam, I don’t even want a dog, let alone a baby.’ She stared at the glamorous Sam and wondered what on earth it was that triggered baby lust in a woman after she’d been with the same man for any length of time. Personally, she was more interested in a different type of lust, which was pretty incompatible with babies, as far as she could see. And she’d thought Samantha Simcock would be the same. After all, if a girl is married to the seriously ripped England goalkeeper, lives in a mansion and has access to as many designer clothes as her heart desires, why on earth would she want to swap them for dirty nappies and middle-of- the-night feeds? ‘You’re not telling me you…?’
Sam shrugged, which Pip took as a bad sign. And even though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon, she decided it was probably time to open the wine.
‘Your boobs will sag.’ She passed Sam a glass and hoped that the alcohol would help the conversation take off in a more sensible direction.
‘Ah, that’s no problem, babe. You can always have them done, you know – implants. A lot of men love them all pert and it shows you still care about them, doesn’t it? And you can have them any size you want.’ She grinned. ‘That’s what all the girls do, you know, after they’ve weaned the babbies off them, that is. They won’t do them straight away, of course.’
‘Urgh, I don’t want to hear.’ Pip put her hands over her ears and tried not to think what Mick’s reaction would be if she landed him with a baby and a new pair of boobs. ‘And you’ll get bags under your eyes from lack of sleep. Implants won’t help with those.’
‘Oh bags are just so easy to fix, babe. I know one girl who had a job lot, you know –boobs and a bit of lipo on her thighs as well as having her eye bags sorted. I’m sure she got a really good deal for having the lot done all at once.’ She looked at Pip with an earnest expression. ‘You shouldn’t let a bit of sagging stop you.’
‘I’m not, believe me. When you’ve had as many brothers and sisters as I have, not to mention a load of cousins. then it puts you off bum-wiping for life.’
‘You can’t mean that. I want lots.’ Sam had a dreamy look in her eye. ‘Davey would like a whole football team. And I could always get a nanny or au-pair or something. He’d love that too.’ She winked.
‘Does he know how much that’ll cost in nappies as well as plastic surgery?’ Pip had a sudden vision of Sam’s gorgeous body being lifted, sucked and tucked in all directions as daddy David drilled them into becoming mini-me goal keepers. Not that many people would object to a few David clones.
‘And you’d need a bigger Jacuzzi.’
Sam ignored her, too taken with the fantasy world she was busy creating in her head. ‘Oh, babe, can you imagine having a little girl to take shopping? Just think about all the gorg stuff you can buy. You can get all the same stuff for kids now as for yourself, you know. Even, like, mini Barbours from when they are really teeny tiny. And’ she was warming to the subject, ‘the girls could have cute ponies and join in with the jumping that everyone does here. They just look so good in white pants and those black jackets, don’t they? Have you seen Jordan when she does that dressage stuff like Dom does? She looks cool, and so glam too with her hair up and that red lipstick. Somebody told me she had to have her boobs reduced so she could ride properly. That can’t possibly be true, can it?’ She paused, obviously considering that dressage might not be the ideal pursuit for her as-yet unconceived offspring. ‘I mean, I can see that it might make it more difficult to jump, but that stuff is just on a flat bit, isn’t it?’
‘I haven’t the foggiest, although you don’t see many big-boobed riders do you? Not professional ones anyway. There’s lots on the hunting field.’ Pip paused, aware she was being drawn into the ridiculous conversation.
‘Maybe she was scared they’d pop if she fell off?’ Sam gave a hearty laugh and opened her big blue eyes wide in mock horror.
In her brief time with Lottie and the Tippermere crew, Pip had seen a fair few falls – some of them quite spectacular (and most of them arse over tit, as Billy liked to point out), but she could never remember seeing any breast implants explode. Never. It would have made a lasting memory and the easiest piece of journalism she’d ever done in her life. ‘I thought they were supposed to be robust. Anyway it’s probably better to fall on your boobs than your nose. Although I suppose you could get a nose job.’ The sarcasm was lost on Sam.
‘You can get anything fixed now, babe. I know some really good people. Them days of black eyes and having to hide away for weeks have gone. Davey said that Jose’s fiancée had her boobs done for the World Cup and was on the beach by the time they’d played their first match.’
‘I thought she was just his girlfriend.’ Pip was faintly miffed that not only had she somehow missed out on the news that the England football manager had got engaged without her knowledge, but that she still hadn’t managed to get an interview with him. When Sam and her footballing husband, David, had moved into Kitterly Heath she’d had plans to grab some headlines of her own, but somehow her eye had drifted off the ball once she’d moved in with Mick. And she hadn’t realised quite how much until now.
‘Oh she went all out for the World Cup and he was so pissed after they won it that he proposed. She would have been gutted if he hadn’t after having her nails and her tits done specially.’
It was at that point, when she really felt that the conversation was getting out of control and taking on a life of its own, that there was a loud rap on the door, followed by an unnecessarily long ring on the buzzer. ‘Here, pour us another glass while I see who that is.’ Hopefully sanity would have returned by the time she did.
***
‘Now aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Thought I was never going to find this place. Going to invite me in?’
Pip stared at the hunk standing on her doorstep and her heart plummeted straight to her boots. Todd. As far as she was concerned, the only solution to the Todd problem was to put him on a plane, not look after him. And now he was on her doorstep. With, she noticed in alarm, a rucksack. A big rucksack.
In Barcelona she’d never really got to know him that well, but she did know that he was a complete heel for dumping Lottie like he had. And if he’d come back and said sorry, like Lottie had said, then that was fine. But