The Party by Rachael Llewellyn

The cake

The cake was purchased from Gladwell’s Bakery on Queen’s Street. The shop had a pastel pink front door and a window display adorned with strawberry-filled pastries and a variety of decorative cakes.

Elsa had chosen the cake: three tiers, vanilla flavoured sponge, with strawberry jam rather than buttercream; the icing was the colour of burnt umber – her mother’s favourite colour – and decorated with small pale-yellow flowers. She collected it on the morning of the party, parking her Toyota around the back of the shop – she had called in advance to ensure she could do this – in order to negate the stress of transporting the cake some distance to the town centre car park. The shop provided a cake box, and the shift manager had helped Elsa carry it to her car. She sat the cake box in the front seat and fastened a seatbelt around it for additional support.

The invitations

The invitations were circulated six months prior. Small and rectangular on surprisingly thick card. Pale cream and embossed with an art-deco design on the top left corner. Elsa had relented and allowed the invites to be designed by Matt, who sneered at the design quality of anything not created in his hand. He had RSVP’d to her wedding, explaining that he would come, but he was now blind from the horrible typeface she had opted for.

He had sent an invite to everyone on the guest list the three of them had agreed on. Including their mother. Fortunately, Maria had been staying with her at the time the invites went out, recognised the envelope, and intercepted before their mother could see it.

What’s wrong with you? Elsa had asked on the sibling group chat. Why would Mum need an invite to her own surprise party, you absolute shit for brains????

Matt had apologised, then screenshot the message and posted it in his and Maria’s separate sibling group chat.

Oh my God, you’d think I’d sent Mum anthrax.

The venue

The party would take place at the athletics club. At one o’clock in the afternoon, Julie from Number 138 would lure their mother out for a walk. She would pretend to have left something at the athletics club. At one-thirty, their mother would arrive and everyone would jump out from their respective hiding places and shout SURPRISE! While Elsa picked up the cake, Maria would go over to the athletics club, pick up the keys from Mr Wainwright the custodian, and start setting up the room.

The tables would need rearranging; the photos on the website had them in a classroom style format. Elsa suggested that Maria move them to the corners of the room like a border, with a few set aside in a cluster at the back – for the food – and at the front, for the flowers and guests to put presents.

That morning, while Elsa was driving back from the bakers, Maria was walking leisurely towards the venue, listening to a podcast about serial killers. Elsa was parking when she noticed her sister ambling up the drive.

“Maria! The tables are meant to be set up by now – what have you even been doing all this time?”

The flowers

Matt thought the flowers were a bit much: it wasn’t a wedding or a funeral. Their mum was allergic to most flowers, though he wasn’t sure which ones. Suggesting this to his sisters had been a mistake.

Elsa’s reply had been so typically Elsa: Matt, I don’t know why you are so against this party. But we will be having flowers.

On the morning of the party, Matt parked at Hallgreens' carpark. He stopped at Subway – meatball marinara with lettuce, pickles, black olives, tomato, ranch dressing, toasted with cheese on Hearty Italian – and headed to Enchanted Escapes. Elsa and Maria had picked the flowers: a spring bouquet – whatever that entailed – he expected a lot of pink.

To his dread, the woman at the counter looked suspiciously like Emma from school who he had called Fat Morticia for three years, and very likely was her based on the murderous look on her face.

“Hiya,” he said. “I’m here to pick up an order for Jenkins.”

The bouquet was very pink, as expected, but was also as wide as a desk and half his height. 

“Is everything alright with the order?”

“Yeah, I mean, wow, that’s a lot of flowers.”

“Yes.”

“Can I have a hand transporting it to my car?”

“Where have you parked?”

“Hallgreens.”

“What?”

“Hallsgreens car park?”

“That’s the other side of town.”

“Yeah, I probably should have parked a bit closer. So, is there anyone who can give me a hand?”

“No.”

Matt bent down and picked up the flowers – it was a lot heavier than he expected. Since when were flowers heavy?

“Sorry, are you sure no-one here can give me a hand? It’s a bit...”

“Have a nice day, Matt.”

The guests

The guest list had been a challenge; for example, their aunt Karen – who their mother had once slapped in the face at a Christening – had been invited to avoid a political headache.

On the list were people their mother loathed: Aunt Karen, their dad’s friend Phil who ate very loudly, Anna-Maria her old boss, and Penny, their cousin who ended every sentence like she was asking a question. And people hated by all three siblings: Clara, their mother’s friend’s daughter who still spoke to all three of them like they were 11, 9, and 6 respectively, and Jeremy, one of their mother’s piano students who bragged about being a ‘people person’. And there was Maria’s boyfriend, Toby, who both Elsa and Matt wanted to push into a vat of acid.

The catering

At some point, someone would ask if the sausage rolls were homemade. Elsa, who was honest to a fault, would admit that no, they weren’t unfortunately but they were from M&S, and would then try not to take it personally when met with disappointment/judgement/a patronising smile. Maria, who quite enjoyed confrontation, would say no, and then demand to know why she (a modern woman) was expected to have made the sausage rolls from scratch. Whereas Matt would say yes, yes they are, then point to a guest at random – Made them all herself, bless her, what a star.

The sandwich platters were from Tesco. Elsa had managed to arrange for Aunt Lydia to collect them. Caesar salad, tuna mayonnaise, cheese and pickle, and falafel and hummus. Something for everyone – except Maria, who had stressed three times in the group chat, that she didn’t like any of those.

The countdown

Matt got there after the guests and five minutes before his mother was due to arrive with Julie. Elsa had been blowing up his phone, so he had thrown it in the back of the car. Soaked through a layer of sweat, he scrambled back for it to try calling Maria.

“Where are you?”

“Car park. Parked. Got flowers.”

“Well bloody get in here then, where have you been? Mum’s going to see you.”

“Parked too far from the florist. Fat Morticia wouldn’t help.”

“What?”

“Is that him?”

“Elsa-!”

“What the hell are you playing at? Where are you?”

Fighting through the pain in his back and legs, Matt dragged himself out of the car and slumped around to the other side to retrieve the flowers.

“Matt! Hurry up!”

Looking up, he spotted Maria waving at him from the entrance.

“Can you give me a hand?”

Managing to heave the bouquet up into his arms, balancing the bottom against his left hip, Matt forced himself forwards. The pull on his forearms was painful; one of the tulips kept hitting him in the eye – in fact he could barely see his way through the foliage. The smell got up his nose and the more he thought about it, he was certain tulips were one of the flowers their mother was allergic to. Though also the last forty minutes he’d spent carrying the world’s heaviest bouquet may have coloured his judgement.

“You alright, Matty-boy?”

Shifting his head to a better vantage point, Matt spotted Toby stood smoking outside the venue, merrily watching him without a shred of urgency.

“Fine, thanks, Toby. You?”

“Not bad, truth be told.”

“Are you coming in then?”

“In a mo.”

His wrists clicked uncomfortably as he adjusted his grip to climb the stairs into the building. “Mum will be arriving in a sec.”

“It’ll be cracking to see her.”

“It’s a surprise, Toby.”

“Eh?”

“This is a surprise party. If she sees you it’ll blow the whole thing.”

“Marie never said.”

“Okay. Can you get the door?”

The present

Maria suggested going all in together for a gift for their mum. Matt left his sisters on read for a few days, not wanting to openly admit that he had thought the party was the present. Elsa responded immediately, suggesting a long weekend in Edinburgh (coach travel included) or a spa break in Somerset with 2 treatments of their mother’s choosing, but welcomed anyone else’s suggestions. Maria replied that she was thinking more along the lines of a nice new hat or an M&S gift card.

Elsa and her husband purchased the spa break. Maria and Matt went halves on a nice hat and a new brooch. The label read: Love from Maria, Toby and Matt – which pissed Matt off a bit, but sometimes you have to pick your battles.

The guest of honour

Amelia had hated parties her entire life. Her own and anyone else’s. Her father had been neurotic about timekeeping, so her childhood was littered with memories of being dropped off at a friend’s house forty minutes before the other guests. Even her own wedding, she looked back on without a great deal of fondness. Her husband came from a big family, so the small private ceremony the two of them planned was super-sized once her mother-in-law realised Auntie Kelly’s sister’s brother’s neighbour wouldn’t be on the guest list.

Christ.

This year she was turning seventy, and seventy for her was the bliss that was her own company. A day of watching mindless TV, wearing her good dressing gown all day, and having a tumbler of Tia Maria with dinner. The only concrete plan she had was to go for a walk in the park with Julie from Number 138, and maybe call the kids in the evening. Amelia spent the morning in bed watching Love Island and the Antiques Roadshow. As she made herself a coffee, she was contemplating if this was perhaps the best birthday she had ever had.

At lunch time, she had made herself a cheese and pickle toastie and was nearly finished eating when she spotted Julie heading up her driveway. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably.

Julie was wearing a full face of makeup, her new blouse from the John Lewis sale, and what looked like her posh brooch. Not good. In the thirty-one years they’d been neighbours, she had only see Julie wear makeup on one other occasion – her 50^th wedding anniversary party in 2017.

Julie made eye contact and gave her a giddy wave.

Oh no. No, no, absolutely bloody not.

It all made sense now. This was why Elsa hadn’t called her yet. This was why Maria and Matt had been vague about their weekend plans when she’d asked.

Julie was nearly at her door, leaving Amelia with precious little time to make a decision.

She glanced down at her slipper-clad feet, the safety of her favourite dressing gown.

The doorbell rang.

“Hello, Birthday Girl!” Julie called through the door. “Ready for our walk?”

It was now or never. Amelia drew one hand close to her chest as she came to the front door. She squinted ever so slightly, keeping her voice tight and strained.

“I’m so sorry, love,” she said. “I’ve come down with something. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow, yeah?”