She beamed. ‘Won’t take more than a couple of weeks to set that up. Did you propose on the bridge, Edmund? Over the lake? That would look gorgeous if we wanna recreate it.’
‘No, it needs some shoring up,’ Brianna Jade said, distracted from the shock of Tamra’s sudden departure by the prospect of the engagement photos as Tamra had known she would be. ‘He did it in the gazebo instead.’
‘Lovely!’ Tamra said. ‘Get the bridge fixed first thing, though. They might want to use it too. And, I’ve got really exciting news – Style magazine is going to run its first-ever Brides issue next June, and guess who’s going to be on the cover if I have anything to say about it?’
Brianna Jade actually clasped her hands at her breast in excitement. She hadn’t done that since her pageant years, and this was the first time ever that she had made the gesture quite spontaneously.
‘No way, Mom!’ she gasped.
‘Way, honey! I swear, you guys are going to be Style’s first ever Wedding of the Year! You have everything – class, title, a good-looking groom—’
‘Um, thanks,’ Edmund murmured, adjusting his collar again.
‘And the most beautiful bride ever! I swear, Princess Chloe is a lovely girl, and looked real nice on her special day—’ Tamra had actually forgotten to say ‘really’, such was her level of excitement – ‘but you’re going to blow her out of the water, Bri, honey! Style Bride of the Year!’
Her dark eyes gleamed not only with anticipation, but with infinite menace; woe betide any other bride who might try to snag that coveted title for herself when Tamra Maloney had set her heart on the prize for her beloved daughter.
‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal already,’ she told the Earl and Countess-to-be. ‘I swear, if anyone tries to stand in my way—’ her eyes flashed with an ominously dark flame ‘they’ll regret it for the rest of their lives!’
Chapter Four
Latitude Festival, Sussex
Birds come flying like dreams of kings
And the seahorses chant of life
Death paints blue the song they sing
But dreams can fade where there is stri – eye – ife . . .
Tarquin Ormond sang ecstatically into his microphone, his head tilted back to catch the last traces of sunlight, his golden curls, damp with sweat, framing the angelic face of the choirboy he had once been. The huge crowd in front of the main stage at Latitude, hippies and hipsters united in worship of Tarquin’s authenticity, his poetic soul, his transparent sincerity, sang along, their heads also tilted back, as if they were all worshipping at some centuries-old rite, with Tarquin as their beautiful and pure high priest.
And in a way, that was exactly what the crowd was doing: worshipping the band’s authenticity. Tarquin and his band, Ormond and Co, were mainstays of the folk-rock revival, sweet-faced boys who wrote all their own songs and not only played all their own instruments, but dedicated endless hours to searching out obscure traditional ones to incorporate in their music. For this song, ‘Blue Seahorses’, a roadie had lugged onstage a theorbo, a long-necked lute, which Elden, the guitarist, was playing with limited skill but great concentration, and a hang – a huge steel hand drum invented by Swiss sound engineers – on which Lance the drummer was flickering his fingers intently.
Despite it being the height of summer – mercifully decent weather for once, so the Latitude crowds were in flip-flops rather than wellies – Ormond and Co were dressed in sweltering tweeds. Being posh boys to a man (the band had been formed at the minor public school they had all attended), the tweeds were not second-hand from charity shops, which was where most new-folk bands bought theirs, but had been handed down through their various families. Tarquin’s three-piece suit had been used by his Great-Uncle Willoughby for deer stalking and hare-coursing. No matter how many times it had been dry cleaned, it still smelt, when heated above a certain temperature by Tarquin’s body, sweating under the stage lights, of stinky dog and hare blood. The young men were all quite used to their suits by now and barely noticed each other’s odours, but eager journalists rushing to interview them as they came offstage had often been noticed to rear their heads back and inhale as little as possible once they took in the full whiff of the four Ormond members in their damp hot tweeds.
My love’s ungiven, my wings are straw
I dip my heart into your life
My waterfall of tears will soar
Seahorses steal my promised wife
For dreams can fade where there is stri – eye – ife . . .
Tarquin sang, and a great many people in the field below the stage, who would have commented, ‘But what the fuck does that even mean?’ if they had seen the words written down, sang along with him with as much conviction as if his lyrics were a Shakespeare sonnet set to music. Tarquin’s exquisite tenor voice, together with the melodic cadences of the tunes written by Lance and Elden, elevated the nonsensical words into a sort of broken poetry while sung – with the caveat that as soon as you actually stopped for a moment to ask why seahorses would want to steal anyone’s wife, the whole edifice would tumble like a house of cards.
‘God, talk about the Emperor’s New Clothes!’ Milly Gamble, Tarquin’s actress girlfriend, watching from the wings, shouted in her friend Eva’s ear. ‘This one makes even less sense than the last one!’
‘It’s like poetry,’ Eva protested. ‘I know what he means . . .’
‘You’re so nice, Eves,’ Milly yelled accurately, if patronizingly. ‘You never have a bad word to say about anyone!’
‘I do!’ Eva was piqued. ‘I’m sure I do.’
‘I don’t mean slagging off factory farming or supermarkets or Third World work conditions,’ Milly shouted. ‘I mean actually bitching about—’
But she had to cut herself short, as the music had reached a final peak and stopped with a last wail of the theorbo. Onstage, Tarquin had sung the last ‘stri – eye – ife . . .’ of ‘Blue Seahorses’, and was panting, arms spread wide like the golden-haired, blue-eyed martyred saint he strongly resembled, microphone dangling spent from one white hand as the crowd cheered and drummed their feet and wailed their applause. The steel hang was dripping with sweat from Lance’s beard; the roadie running onstage to remove the drum had to handle it very carefully in case it slipped through his fingers.
‘Fuck, Tark’s going to pong of dog even more than ever when he comes offstage,’ Milly muttered grimly. ‘I’m not going near him till he has a shower and changes and hangs those stinky old rags up in the sunshine to air out.’
‘I do think it’s rather lovely that they all wear their family’s clothes,’ Eva whispered bravely. ‘It’s so authentic and real. You know, their fans actually know the names of the relatives they belonged to?’
‘They do? God, how mental of them!’ Milly said loudly enough that Elden, handing his theorbo reverently to another roadie and receiving an Arabian oud in exchange, shot a cross glance over at Tarquin’s girlfriend, whom he rightly considered not remotely respectful enough of her boyfriend’s band and their very important art.
Onstage, Tarquin had raised the mike to his mouth again, and was saying: ‘Beautiful people of Latitude!’
The crowd cheered this with great enthusiasm. Tarquin was completely transparent: he was like a holy fool, quite incapable of saying anything he didn’t mean. If he told them they were beautiful, he was utterly sincere, and they accepted the compliment very happily.
‘I just can’t hold it back any longer!’ he exclaimed, pressing one hand against his heart. ‘I wrote “Blue Seahorses” for my girlfriend, and that song means so much to me – it really sums up all my hopes and fears about love, which is, like, the deepest feeling ever.’
The crowd roared its approval of the profoundly meaningful lyrics of ‘Blue Seahorses’.
‘And so many of you have got in touch to say how much the song means to you as well, which is so emotional for me to hear,’ Tarquin continued, and the young female fans at the front,
all of whom were madly in love with him, squealed at almost bat-like pitch at the idea of Tarquin reading the emails and Facebook and Twitter posts in which they poured out their hearts to him.
‘So look, I was planning to do this at the end of our set, but I just can’t hold it back any more! I feel your love surrounding me, lifting me up like the seahorses, and I’m just like – the time is now!’
Tarquin turned, sweat flicking from the tips of his boyish golden curls, one hand to his brow to block out the sun as he squinted into the wings to spot Milly.
‘Some of you may know my girlfriend, Milly Gamble,’ he continued, at which the screams dwindled considerably; Tarquin’s female fans either pretended that Milly didn’t exist or posted screeds of hate on fan-boards about how she wasn’t worthy of him.
‘Some of them?’ Milly muttered to Eva, equally unenthusiastic at his words. ‘Please. I was in Dr fucking Who!’
To be fair, Milly was quite right. Most of the audience would recognize her, and the majority of those who did would be able to put the name to her adorably pretty face, that of a perfect English flower child: big blue eyes, blonde ringlets, round chipmunk cheeks and just a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her tip-tilted nose. Because of her looks, Milly was always cast as the innocent heroine. She had already been Hero to Melody Dale’s Beatrice in the recent RSC Much Ado About Nothing, a Dickens heroine for ITV and a princess in a castle on Dr Who (played by Melody’s husband James).
It was deeply frustrating for Milly, who was longing to break free of this typecasting and play a scheming bitch for a change, and not just because it would reflect her true personality so much better. But she was intelligent enough to go with what nature had dealt her, and there was no point trying and failing to be cast as a femme fatale when you looked like an innocent Dickensian virgin. She was just twenty-three, and already well-known enough to pose for glossy magazines, usually with the caption ‘Britain’s Newest Sweetheart’ above her delightful little face: if that was how she was going to be perceived, Milly had decided, then why not try for ‘America’s Sweetheart’ too? She was determined to crack the States, had already been compared several times to a young Meg Ryan, and being not just an up-and-coming ingénue, but half of a young and gorgeous celebrity couple to boot, was perfect publicity.
‘Milly! Darling, come out here,’ Tarquin called, holding out his hand to her.
‘She’s not going to fucking duet with him, is she?’ Elden hissed to Lance, one hand covering his mike so his words didn’t get picked up, winding his fingers furiously through his beard with the other. All the Ormonds but Tarquin had beards: to his great distress, he was unable to grow anything more than blonde bum fluff. ‘Because she can’t fucking sing, for a start.’
‘Everyone! Milly’s a bit shy!’ Tarquin said, utterly misunderstanding Milly’s delay. In fact, she was swiftly adjusting the daisy chain she wore in her hair and checking the embroidered neckline of the white broderie anglaise Temperley dropped-waist mini-dress that looked charmingly simple but had cost over three thousand pounds. ‘Let’s all call her name to show her how much we want her out here!’
Female voices were not much on display in the chants of ‘Milly! Milly!’ that rose from the audience; when Milly finally stepped onto the stage in her wedge sandals, the cheers that arose were mostly from men at the front craning to see up the very short skirt of her dress. Milly, quite aware of this, flashed a beautiful smile at the crowd as she picked her way daintily over the various cables on the floor, stepping, perhaps, a little higher than she strictly needed to each time to flash a fraction more upper thigh.
‘Baby!’ Tarquin said devoutly as she reached his side, slipping into American jargon temporarily, something he never allowed himself in his lyrics. ‘I love you so much, I wrote that song for you – you’re my blue seahorse!’
‘Oh, Tark,’ Milly breathed, staring up at him with big round blue eyes just as enthusiastic as if she had thought even he knew what he meant by calling her that. ‘I love you too.’
Tarquin’s jacket was unbuttoned; he reached into the pocket of his silk-backed waistcoat, pulled out a little box and dropped to one knee.
‘Ah, bollocks!’ Lance mouthed to Elden. Even Tristram, the bassist, who never said much, shook his head as if trying to cancel out what Tarquin was clearly about to do.
‘Milly Gamble, my blue seahorse, will you do me the very great honour of saying yes in front of all these lovely people . . .’
Roars of appreciation for Tarquin’s acknowledgement of the audience rose from the field. A few girls at the front, tears beginning to pour down their faces, shrieked: ‘No, Tarquin, no! Don’t do it! Marry me!’ but their voices were generally lost in the crowd as Tarquin continued.
‘Milly, you’re my muse, my inspiration for my songs, my soulmate. We’re twin hearts, beating together. Without you I was lost, and when I found you I came home. Will you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife?’
Milly’s expression never faltered, but as she looked down at Tarquin her brain was racing with calculation. She raised her hands to the sides of her face, pantomiming her surprise without obscuring her features for the TV cameras recording the festival; she knew exactly where they were. Her cupid’s-bow lips parted in a round O of amazement that she knew suited her tremendously.
She hadn’t seen this coming, hadn’t perceived Tarquin as much more than a very useful stepping stone to someone even more famous and useful than him; but it was quite true that since she’d started dating him a year and a half ago, his profile had done nothing but rise, the awards his band had won around the world had multiplied to the point that they’d fill up countless mantelpieces and still overflow. And with a proposal this public – live on camera, on the main stage of one of the trendiest festivals in the UK – how could she say no? She simply couldn’t. And a wedding would be fantastic publicity for her . . .
‘Oh my God! This is such a surprise – but of course I will!’ she blurted out in her sweet baby voice.
Beaming from ear to ear, Tarquin jumped to his feet and opened the box. And when she saw what was inside, Milly had to use every single trick in her box of acting skills in order to manage an enthusiastic: ‘Oh, Tark!’ and keep the smile on her face.
‘I chose it specially to match your eyes!’ he said as he slid the turquoise ring onto her finger.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed, taking just the right amount of time to look at it in wonder before raising her eyes to her fiancé’s face so that he could kiss her for the cameraphones which were now going off in a perpetual stutter of clicks; even the sobbing girls were holding theirs up, wanting to capture the moment so that they could text it to their friends with captions scrawled over the screen like: I want 2 DIE kill me NOWWWW OMG why why why Tark is MINE! :( :( :(
The stink of Tarquin’s suit was almost unbearable. Milly disengaged herself from it immediately, waved charmingly at the audience and tripped lightly offstage, flashing radiant smiles at Elden, Lance and Tristram. She was perfectly aware that they all disliked her and was highly enjoying their crestfallen expressions.
‘Wow,’ Tarquin said to the crowd. ‘I’m engaged! Unbelievable! Okay, guys, let’s play some music!’
Lance started up the next song on the set list, and the audience went crazy: ‘Moon Face’ was one of Ormond and Co’s biggest hits. Tarquin held out the mike so that the crowd could sing the opening ‘Oh, oh oh oh oh,’ and they responded with a loud wail.
‘Congratulations!’ Eva said as Milly rejoined her and, taking her hand, pulled her friend down the rickety steps on the side of the stage. Eva mewed with frustration, as she loved Ormond and Co and wanted to watch the end of the set; but Milly had had psychological dominance over her ever since childhood. They had attended the same nursery school, and their first encounter had been when Milly walked up to Eva, who was docilely brushing the hair of her Little Mermaid Barbie, and started to wrench Ariel from her owner’s hands, screaming: ‘Mi
ne! Mine!’ Eva had taken one look at the angel-faced little girl with wrists of steel, released her grip on Ariel, and barely ever said no to Milly since.
‘Honestly, a turquoise?’ Milly said under her breath so that the various other people hanging around the backstage VIP area couldn’t hear her. She took a swift look around, spotted a trestle table that was free, and marched across the grass, still towing Eva in her wake. A few ‘Congrats, Milly!’ were called out as she passed musicians or actors whom she vaguely knew, and her smile never faltered as she said a quick: ‘Thanks!’ But she didn’t slow down till she reached the table and sank onto the bench alongside it, running her hand over it first to make sure there weren’t any loose splinters that could catch at her very expensive dress.
‘But although I’m gutted I only got a bloody turquoise,’ she said crossly, ‘what I’m thinking is that we could use this for marketing. It could be a brilliant way to push Milly and Me. I might as well get something positive out of it. We could make versions of the ring – like copies, you know?’
Eva looked baffled.
‘You want to copy your engagement ring?’ she asked, frowning, as she often did. Eva was a very earnest girl who liked to make sure she understood everything about a situation before she moved onto the next one. It was an excellent attribute for her job: she was a perfectionist, and already two fine vertical lines were developing between her thick dark brows from hours spent concentrating on her work.
Without Milly by her side, Eva would have drawn much more attention, maybe as much as she devoted to her work: her face, framed in a curtain of straight, silky dark hair, was not pretty but striking, with the kind of features that were currently very fashionable. The heavy brows, high cheekbones and wide mouth were all those of a high-fashion model, and Eva’s thick eyelashes – which Milly had tried to pull out when they were around nine, envious that grown-ups always cooed over them – framed slanting greenish eyes that surveyed the world with a quiet reserve that an observer who took time to study her face would have considered highly intriguing.
Bad Brides Page 5