The Bedroom Assignment

Suze knew that, ever since Zoe’s father had left home, money had been dreadfully tight—and, even worse, that Zoe’s mother had withdrawn into the cocoon of her own world. The Official Birthday Party was Suze’s way of helping out without admitting it.

‘You’re a good friend,’ Zoe said with affection.

She went over to the big wipe-down board where the family left messages for each other. Today it had been wiped clear—no phone messages for Artemis, her twenty-year-old younger sister, currently out with boyfriend Ed, or notes about washing seventeen-year-old Harry’s rugby kit. Today it was covered by one orderly list in Zoe’s neat writing. More than half the items had already been ticked off.

‘You’re so efficient,’ said Suze with a sigh. She came up and stood at Zoe’s shoulder. ‘You’re really wasted here. You ought to be running a government, not this mad house.’

Zoe flung up a hand.

‘Oh, all right,’ said Suze, as she always did. ‘You know your own business best. Got a job for next week?’

Zoe pulled a face. ‘Just a couple of guided walks along the Thames. I’ll probably call the library department on Monday morning, see if they’ve got anyone sick.’

‘I wish you’d sign on with me again,’ Suze said wistfully. She ran her own very successful staff agency. ‘People are always asking for you.’

‘Maybe after the summer,’ said Zoe vaguely. She narrowed her eyes at the list. ‘Put up fairy lights in the apple tree. Glitter balls in the sitting room. Which do you want to do?’

‘Sounds like manual labour.’ Suze looked at her elegantly painted fingernails and shuddered. ‘We’ll do them together,’ she decreed.

They went out into the garden first. Zoe brought the ladder out of the shed and slung it over her shoulder to carry it up to the orchard.

‘High-ho, high-ho,’ sang Suze, following behind with a coil of outdoor fairy lights.

Zoe grinned over her shoulder. ‘I’m no dwarf.’

It was true. She was nearly as tall as her six-foot father, and certainly as striking, with her candid, wide-open brown eyes and mop of unruly chestnut curls.

‘No, but you’re certainly one of the workers of the world,’ said Suze, watching as Zoe lodged the ladder against the tree trunk in a workmanlike manner. ‘Now, if Simon were here he could do it. That’s what men are for.’

Zoe pushed a dusty brown curl behind her ear and measured the angle of the ladder. She adjusted it.

‘Well, Simon’s not coming,’ she said bracingly. ‘Get used to it. And hang onto the ladder. You don’t have to chip your nails. Just lean against it.’

She climbed nimbly up the ladder into the branches of the apple tree. The ladder wobbled. Suze collected herself and leaned against it, hard. It stopped wobbling.

Suze tilted her head to peer up at her friend. ‘What do you mean, Simon’s not coming?’ she demanded, outraged. ‘Tonight is going to be the North London party of the year. He can’t chicken out.’

Zoe set herself astride a gnarled branch and looked down. She had done this many times before and she was dressed for it: thigh-hugging cycling shorts, elderly tee shirt that didn’t matter if it got torn. She had added flexible surfing shoes before coming out of the house. They improved her grip on the gnarled branches of the apple tree. Her soft brown hair was coiled round in a rough bun and skewered into place so that it did not catch on a branch. She leaned forward cautiously, holding out a hand.

‘Pass me up the lights. He didn’t chicken out.’

Suze handed up a worn wooden wheel. A cable of fairy lights was coiled round it like New Age barbed wire. The wheel was on a central pivot, and Zoe hooked the ends into the sling she had tied around her body for the purpose.

‘Oh, don’t tell me,’ said Suze. ‘When you returned him to store you told him he was off the guest list tonight.’

Zoe took a moment to replace a long hairpin more securely. Her wild curls never stayed in place, no matter how ruthlessly she restrained them.

‘We both agreed we could do with a breathing space,’ she said defensively.

‘Oh, that’s what it was, was it? Honestly, you’re hopeless.’ Zoe clambered among leaves and twigs, uncoiling the lights. ‘It seemed best,’ she said in a muffled voice.