Free Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden

heading crossly for the kitchen.
    ***
    There was something about the way Seb’s mother rushed at him as if he were the first day of the Harvey Nicks sale that confirmed Anna’s worst fears. Lady Lavenham was, Anna realised, a full-on, fully-paid-up Son Worshipper.
    Anna could recognise the breed from a cruising height of thirty-three thousand feet. She had, after all, encountered them before. The boyfriend’s mother before last had been one; a Welsh Italian who had made almost nightly phone calls and who had insisted on driving up from Cardiff to college to comfort Roberto practically every time he sneezed.
    “Call me Diana,” Seb’s mother barked to Anna on arrival. The coda, “If you dare,” hung unspoken in the air of the hallway, air that had suddenly thickened with expensive-smelling scent.
    Anna had been expecting trouble. But she hadn’t expected it to look like this. Diana was about as far removed from the tweedy battleaxe Anna had been anticipating as Cameron Diaz was from Margaret Rutherford. It wasn’t just that Anna felt wrong-footed by Seb’s mother. She felt wrong-haired, wrong-makeupped, wrong-dressed, and most of all wrong-shoed. Diana Lavenham had the type of long, thin, patrician feet that even looked graceful in wellies. A fully-paid-up Fulham blonde, she had thick wedges of expensive hair that shone brilliantly in the light of the hall chandelier, as did the single, polished platinum ring hanging loosely on one long, tanned hand. She had expensive skin too, opaque, glowing, and virtually unlined from a rich diet of face cream. Seb, who had suddenly shot into the kitchen, now emerged sporting an apron, a tea towel over his shoulder, and an air of cheerful culinary professionalism. “Anna, will you take Mummy into the sitting room while I get on with supper?”
    “Darling, you’re so clever,” Diana purred at her son as she followed Anna down the hallway. “Are you sure its not too much trouble for you?”
    “No trouble at all, Mummy, honestly.”
    That much was true, at least, Anna fumed silently.
    Her mouth set rigidly into a smile, Diana regarded Anna with narrowed eyesas they sat at opposite ends of the leather sofa. The silence roared in Anna’s nervous ears.
    “Tell me about yourself,” Diana said creamily. “Basty tells me you want to be a writer. I’d love to see some of your work.”
    “ Basty ?” echoed Anna, squirming at the thought of an unsympathetic stranger knowing such an intimate thing. Who the hell was Basty? Damn Seb for telling them, whoever they were.
    “Se bast ian?” said Diana in the bright voice of one trying to communicate with an idiot. “My son ?”She blinked repeatedly, her mouth turned up at the corners. “I call him that because I can’t bear the thought of anyone calling him Seb . Ghastly .Makes him sound like an estate agent .” As opposed to an estate owner, I suppose, Anna thought.
    Seb appeared. “Almost there with dinner,” he said, obviously lying. Anna wondered if he had even managed to find his way into the packets of salmon fillets. Heaven knew what he thought the carton of ready-made hollandaise was. Custard, probably.
    “I’ll come and have a look, shall I?” She rose to her feet, for once grateful for the chance to slave over a hot stove. Anything to escape from this woman’s icy, interrogative glare.
    Following Anna’s intervention, dinner was soon served. Throughout the meal, Diana chatted tinklingly yet pointedly to Seb about people Anna didn’t know. “Yes, darling, they’ve just bought a house in what they call up-and-coming Acton but honestly, I ask you. Acton ?I mean, where is Acton? What is Acton? Not even on the A–Z , is it?”
    Anna opened her mouth. Here, at last, was something she could contribute to the discussion. “It is supposed to be getting slightly smarter, I believe. I have a friend who lives there.”
    “Oh really?” Diana had still not looked at her once since they sat down at table. She did not