Everything seemed to be happening, but then our house at breakfast time always seems to be rather like one of those medieval castles with donkeys and pigs and all the serfs coming in for shelter at the first sniff of trouble. In the weeks since our move, it had become even more chaotic, if that's possible, and the medieval castle had a building site slap bang in the middle of it.
Clive had left the house at six, which is even earlier than usual because at the moment he's working on some sort of horrific takeover bid. Just before eight Lena drags the two older boys into the Espace for the school run. Lena's our nanny stroke au-pair thing, lovely-looking girl, Swedish, infuriatingly blonde and slim and young, though she has this thing through her nose that makes me wince every time I see it. Goodness knows what it must feel like when she blows her nose.
Then people started arriving. Mary, of course, our priceless cleaner, who came with us to Primrose Hill. She's a treasure, except that I have to spend so much time standing over her and telling her what to do and then checking she's done it that I've said to Clive I might as well do the cleaning myself. And then all the rest of the people who were meant to be improving the house but instead have been reducing it to a slum full of brick dust. The rewiring and replumbing had finished at the end of the week before and the best that could be said about the house at that point was that anything from then on had to be an improvement.
I was satisfied, though, despite everything. This was what I had always wanted, what Clive had always promised me. A project. The house was down to bare boards and walls, back to the beams and rafters practically. Now I was going to turn it into a home we could be proud of. I know you're supposed to fall in love with a house but this house wouldn't be worth falling in love with for another six months as least. There had been two old dears living there before in what looked like a second-hand bookshop that nobody had gone into since the fifties. The question wasn't what to change but what on earth one could possibly keep.
I spent four months with Jeremy, our architect, head down over plans, tanking him up with expressos. It was just a matter of being simple. Rip out everything. Put new roof on. Then kitchen and dining room in the basement, living rooms on the ground floor, Clilve's study on the first floor at the back, then bedrooms all the way up. Attic conversion for nanny to get up to whatever nannies get up to without scaring horses. Lavatories left right and centre. En suite for Clive and me. Power-shower for the boys in hopes it might persuade them to wash occasionally.
So this morning Jeremy popped in at around half past eight with Mick to go over a problem with an arch or beam or some-thing. Closely followed by Francis who we'd brought with us to do - by which I mean completely re-do - what passed for the garden. Hundred and twenty foot, which isn't bad for London, but looked like a giant rabbit run until Francis got at it. The ruck of electricians and plumbers have gone, thank God, but Mick still comes with his entourage. Tea and coffee all round, of course, as soon as Lena gets back to make it. Somewhere in the middle of it I pop Christopher - who's four - along to his play-school thing, which he'd joined when we moved in. I'd become a bit dubious about it: no proper uniform, just blue sweatshirt, and wall-to-wall sandpits and finger-painting. But it was hardly worth chopping and changing. He'd be at Lascelles, in the pre-prep, in September anyway and, what is more, off my hands, which would be something of a relief.
Then it was back to the house and finally a sit-down, a coffee and the quickest of glances at the paper and the mail before getting down to work - i.e. walking round stopping people knocking through the wrong wall and doing some liasing. Leo, my faithful handyman, was going to be dropping in and I'd been sweating over a list of things that needed doing. And I needed a serious discussion with Jeremy about the kitchen. That had been the really hard part of our planning. The thing is, in any other part of the house, if you get something wrong, you can live with it. But if the fridge door opens and blocks the cutlery drawer, you're going to be irritated by it twenty-five times a day until you're old and grey. What you ought to do ideally is build the kitchen, live in it for six months, then do it again properly. But even Clive isn't rich enough for that. Or, at least, not patient enough.
Lena wandered in and I gave her some instructions. Then, while she got going properly, I sipped some coffee and finally got down to the paper and the post. I have a strict rule of never giving the paper more than five minutes, if that. There's nothing in the papers anyway. Then the mail. In general 90 per cent of the mail is for Clive. The remaining 10 per cent is divided between children, pets and me. Not that we've got any pets just at present. Our grand total of pets for 1999 consisted of one cat, missing presumed dead or having a better time in someone else's house somewhere in Battersea, and one hamster, buried in unmarked grave at end of Battersea garden. I'd been thinking of getting a dog. I'd always said that London wasn't a place to keep dogs but now that we're two minutes from Primrose Hill I can sometimes be caught with a wistful expression on my face considering it. Haven't mentioned it to Clive yet, though.
Hence mail was speedily dealt with. Immediate pile of anything with Clive's name on it or variations thereof. All bills ditto. I can spot a bill at fifty feet, usually without even needing to open it. Anything addressed to Mr and Mrs Hintlesham ditto. As usual I put these letters in a pile, carried them upstairs and deposited them on the desk in Clive's sanctum for him to deal with when he got home or, more likely, at the weekend.
That left two letters to Josh and Harry, duplicated messages from Lascelles about sports day; various advertisements and solicitations that I filed straight in the bin. And then, after all that, there was one letter addressed to me. Now, whenever there's a letter addressed to me it almost always turns out to be a bill from a mail-order company that goes straight onto Clive's pile. If not that, then it's a letter from a mail-order company that has obtained my address from another mail-order company.
But this was different. The name and address were neatly handwritten. And I couldn't recognise the handwriting. It wasn't Mummy's or a friend's or relative's. This was interesting and I almost wanted to savour it. I poured another cup of coffee, took a sip then opened the envelope. It contained a folded slip of paper that was much too small for the envelope and I could see straight away that it didn't have much writing on it. I smoothed it out on the table:
Dear Jenny,
I hope you don't mind if I call you Jenny. But you see I think you're very beautiful. You smell very nice, Jenny, and you have beautiful skin. And I'm going to kill you. It seemed like the silliest thing. I tried to think if someone was playing a practical joke. Some of Clive's friends have the most awful sense of humour. I mean, for example, he once went to this stag night for a friend of his called Seb and it really was awful, with two strippergrams and lipstick on everyone's collar. Anyway, Jeremy came down and we started talking about some of the problems with the kitchen. In these last horribly hot days I'd been worrying about the Aga and I wanted to see if the skylights above could be made to open. There were these funny window catches I'd seen in House & Garden that could be opened with string. I showed the picture to Jeremy but he wasn't impressed. He never is unless he's thought of it himself. So we had a big bust-up about that. He was very funny about it, really. Stubborn, though. Then I remembered the letter and I showed it to him.
He didn't laugh. He didn't find it funny at all. 'Do you know who might have done this?'he said.
'No,' I said.
'You'd better call the police,' he said.
'Oh, don't be so silly,' I said. 'It's probably just someone playing a joke. I'll make a fool of myself.'
'Doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter if someone's playing a joke. You must call the police.'
'I'll show it to Clive.'
'No' said Jeremy firmly. 'Call the police now. If you're too embarrassed then I'll do it for you.'
'Jeremy.....'
He was being an absolute pig about it. He rang Directory Enquiries himself and got the number of some local police station, and not only that he dialled the number himself then handed me the phone as if I was a toddler talking to her granny. 'There,' he said.
The phone rang and rang. I put out my tongue at him. 'Probably nobody's home....Oh, hello? Look, this is going to sound really stupid, but I've just been sent this letter.'