Page 90 of The Spare

I took the name of the interior designer Adam had originally used, fired our own useless one, and made a call. Thus, the dining room is no longer clad in shiny bottle green damask but in the most perfect smoky-grey silk faille that provides a kind of moodily austere backdrop for the huge oils rather than competing with them. Next to the Dürer hare hangs a stunning oil of Belvedere’s exterior that Ben and I commissioned Ivy to do last summer. And next door, in the breakfast room, the damask has been stripped and replaced with highly polished Venetian plaster, whose lustrous shell tones make the room brighter and more contemporary.

Charlotte finds all of it a travesty, and that fills me with glee.

One by one, we’re working through the rooms. My and Ben’s bedroom was the first priority. He’s a big fan of our new wet room, and I have my suspicions that my womb is highly susceptible to it, too. I’ll never be able to prove it, but I like to think that the little boy growing safely inside my body was conceived during one particularly athletic shower session.

Next up: the nursery. I cannot tell you how out of control my Pinterest boards have got over this one little room.

But, as summer beckons, my mind is turning to the gardens.

‘I’m still very interested in commissioning a new bronze for the west lawn,’ I tell the table at large. I turn to Flora, who is home from uni for the weekend and in whose honour we’re throwing this little lunch party. ‘Flora, any chance you know James Locke? I looked him up and it sounds like he’s involved with you guys somehow?’

James Locke is a preeminent British sculptor and really the only person I would consider for this commission. According to Google, he’s a visiting professor of the Royal College of Arts, where Flora is studying. Maybe I’m being simplistic, but it seems fair to assume their paths may have crossed.

Flora freezes with a forkful of cold salmon halfway to her mouth. The expression on her face makes me laugh. She looks beyond horrified at my question.

‘Is that like your mum asking your least favourite teacher to dinner?’ I ask her jokingly.

‘Yeah.’ She stuffs the salmon into her mouth and nods frantically.

‘Not a fan?’ Ben asks her.

‘He’s very grumpy,’ she admits when she’s swallowed. ‘Hostile is probably fairer.’

‘He’s a genius, darling,’ Charlotte protests from the other end of the table. ‘He’s allowed to be temperamental.’ She holds out her arms and makes grabby hands in Xav’s direction. His and Ivy’s wedding and the arrival of Alice have glossed over all manner of perceived ills from Charlotte’s perspective. She’s obsessed. Xav hands his unconscious daughter over, looking deeply reluctant.

‘Umm-hmm,’ Flora says noncommittally, lowering her face over her plate. I catch Ivy’s eye and raise a confused eyebrow, only for her to give me a knowing smirk and nod. The subtext: there’s a story there.

Right after lunch, the two of us corner Flora and drag her off to the conservatory. It’s a lovely, light-filled corner of the house, even if I can’t get as excited about its contents—ferns dating back to when the house was built—as Ivy does.

‘Spill,’ Ivy orders her. ‘What’s the score with James Locke?’

‘Only if you let me hold the baby,’ Flora says mutinously.

‘Fine.’ Ivy, who has been cuddling Alice since she regained possession towards the end of lunch, passes her carefully to Flora. ‘Now talk.’

Flora slumps defeatedly down onto one of the broad limestone edges of the fern beds, laying the baby in her arm. ‘We’ve had some beef.’

I raise a you were right eyebrow at Ivy, who barks, ‘Sexy beef?’

‘Jesus, Ivy,’ I say with a little laugh. ‘Not everything is about sex.’

At exactly the same time, Flora sighs out a defeated ‘Yes.’

‘Oh my God,’ I say, squatting down to get to eye level with Flora. ‘Seriously?’

‘Called it,’ Ivy says.

‘Is he your professor?’ I ask. I’m trying desperately not to openly clutch my metaphorical pearls, as Ivy has had words with me before about encouraging Flora’s sexual expression and not being a ‘total cockblocker’ like her brothers were for so long. But we’ve had slim pickings in terms of gossip from Flora over the past few months, and this is one hell of a surprise.

‘Kind of,’ Flora says. ‘He’s been overseeing one of my modules this term.’

‘And?’ Ivy demands. ‘Come on, spill the tea. And bear in mind that I still feel as if my insides are going to prolapse every time I have sex, so I could do with some sexy times by proxy.’

I, on the other hand, am flooded with sex hormones and gagging for it more than I ever have in my life, so have an entirely different agenda for wanting sexy times by proxy. Only this morning, I came by rubbing myself against my husband’s very muscular thigh while he pretended to read the newspaper in bed.

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.

Flora sighs. ‘He’s tutoring one of my practical classes, and things got kind of out of hand a couple of weeks ago.’