Now it really was time to go. Fumbling in his inside jacket pocket for his mobile phone, he ordered a cab back to Brockhurst. He was just considering popping back into the house for a last pee when he suddenly found himself face to face with David Carlyle.
‘Hello, Eddie. Long time no see.’
Eddie had shown remarkable restraint so far, scrupulously avoiding bumping into David, or being drawn into any sort of drama. But now that Carlyle’s smug, fake-tanned face was inches from his own, the urge to smash his fist into it was almost overwhelming.
He started to walk away. David called after him.
‘How was prison?’
‘It was all right,’ said Eddie, his eyes narrowed. ‘A better class of person than you meet at Westminster, most of the time.’
‘Well, of course you’d know all about class,’ said David, smiling nastily. ‘You and your Old Etonian chums. It must have been quite a wake-up call, realizing that us plebs aren’t the only ones who have to obey the laws of the land.’
‘We plebs,’ Eddie corrected him. ‘Honestly, what do they teach one in comprehensive schools?’
The smile died on David’s lips. He pushed Eddie hard, backing him up against the kitchen garden wall. Putting his face so close to Eddie’s that Eddie could smell the onion on his breath, he whispered, ‘I’ll finish you, Wellesley. Do you hear me? First I’m going to sink your crappy reality show. And then I’m going to sink you.’
Eddie yawned. ‘You know, David, you’ve become a ghastly bore since Tristram fired you. I mean, you were always were a bully and an all-round toerag. That’s why the PM got rid of you. But at least you used to be interesting. What happened, old boy?’
David drew back his fist to an audible gasp. A crowd of onlookers had gathered around to watch the showdown between Fast Eddie and his nemesis.
‘Be my guest,’ drawled Eddie. ‘It’s known as assault. I believe it’s considered a crime, even when horrid, common little nobodies do it.’
David hesitated, then stepped back. Straightening his hair, he smiled again.
‘You have no idea what I’ve got on you, Wellesley. No idea. That’s the best part. Our campaign against your show is just a little teaser. But I’m going to make sure my readers and everyone in this country gets to know who you and your family really are. You take care now.’
Turning on his heel, he walked back into the house.
Macy came rushing over to Eddie with James Craven. ‘Are you all right? Did he threaten you?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Eddie, dusting himself off. He noticed Macy and the England all-rounder were holding hands. ‘How about you, my dear. Having fun?’
‘Never mind me. I want to talk about you,’ said Macy. ‘What did Carlyle say?’
‘Nothing important,’ said Eddie. ‘He’s full of hot air, as usual. Ah, that’s my cab. I must go.’
Taking his leave of Macy and James – another young couple with their whole futures ahead of them – Eddie looked back at Furlings as he drove away. Lit up like a magical palace in the darkness, it truly was the most stunning house, perfect in every way.
He wondered what David Carlyle had meant by his last threat. To let people know who you and your family really are? It was the ‘family’ part that worried him. Was it just hot air? Or was Carlyle alluding to something real, something tangible? All of Eddie’s own skeletons were well and truly out of the closet. But the horrible thought struck him that Carlyle might have something on Milo. The boy had been running terribly wild lately, with tonight’s debacle only the latest in a long line of potentially highly embarrassing antics. What if David knew something – something that Eddie didn’t? Most people might consider a politician’s child to be off limits, but not David Carlyle. There were no depths to which that man wouldn’t sink, no fetid gutter in which he would not be quite happy to abase himself in pursuit of a story. Despite himself, Eddie felt a sharp pang of fear run through him.
Watching Eddie’s car pull away, Macy leaned into James like a sapling propped against a giant oak. He smelled incredible – of cologne and desire – and his fingers were stroking the back of her neck. Macy closed her eyes. Something had been holding her back up till now, but she suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of arousal.
‘Let’s go to bed.’
James grinned, letting his hand slide down from her neck to her bottom.
‘What a marvellous idea. My place or yours?’
‘Mine,’ said Macy firmly. James was cute, but not cute enough for her to do the walk of shame down Fittlescombe High Street tomorrow morning. ‘We can christen my new bed.’
‘A wedding and a christening in one day. We’re quite the Christian soldiers, aren’t we?’
‘Mmmmm,’ Macy kissed him. ‘We should start a Sunday school.’
Gabe Baxter might be spoken for. But he wasn’t the only fish in the sea. England, Macy decided, was turning out to be a lot more fun than she’d imagined.
Milo Wellesley had taken the long way home, via the Black Swan in Brockhurst, where the landlord took a relaxed view of both underage drinking and timekeeping, with last orders regularly called well after eleven.
As he staggered out onto the High Street at midnight, the cool night air and sudden total darkness both came as a shock. It was an effort to remember the direction of Mill Lane, and for a few moments Milo stood swaying uncertainly, coming to terms with how very, very drunk he was.
Eventually he pulled himself together sufficiently to find his way home, turning into the drive just in time to see his father speed past in a cab. Milo watched from the shadows as his mother opened the front door, stiff backed and brittle. He saw his father follow her inside, slowly, his shoulders slumped. They’d obviously had a row. Milo hoped it wasn’t about him and Emma Harwich, but decided to loiter for a bit before going inside, just in case.
Noticing a light still on in Magda’s cottage, he headed towards it, like a befuddled moth towards the moon. Unfortunately, a few yards from the front door, he tripped and hurtled headlong into a metal dustbin, sending it crashing noisily to the ground and spraining his ankle badly.
Seconds later the door flew open. Magda stood on the threshold in a dressing gown and wellington boots. Her pale skin looked almost translucent in the moonlight, like a beautiful ghost. ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded, brandishing a frying pan menacingly in the darkness.
‘It’s only me. Milo.’ He peered up at her. ‘Sorry.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Magda lowered the pan.
‘Hiding from Mum and Dad,’ said Milo. His voice was still slurred with drink and his hair and clothes were all over the place.
‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘Er …’
‘You’d better come in.’
Five minutes later, sitting in Magda’s tiny kitchen with a packet of frozen peas on his ankle and a glass of Alka-Seltzer fizzing in his hand, Milo recounted what had happened earlier up at Furlings with Emma.
‘Dad went ballistic.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Magda.
‘I didn’t know her boyfriend was some bigwig,’ Milo protested.
‘But you knew she had a boyfriend.’
‘Hardly a boy. He’s about a hundred and five,’ Milo said bitterly.
‘And what about Roxanne?’ asked Magda archly. ‘I thought you two were in love. Isn’t that what you told me, when I covered for you the day I arrived?’
‘We grew apart.’ Milo smiled sheepishly from beneath a his floppy blond fringe.
Magda thought, Gosh, he’s good looking. No wonder Emma Harwich dumped her Tory grandee.
Walking to the window, she saw the lights in Eddie and Annabel’s bedroom go off.
‘They’re in bed,’ she told Milo. ‘You can sneak back in now.’
He looked at her plaintively. ‘Can’t I stay here tonight? I’m not sure I can walk on this ankle.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Magda. ‘I have work in the morning. Besides, if your father wakes
up tomorrow and finds your bed hasn’t been slept in, it’ll only make things worse.’
Milo sighed. This was true. But something about being here with Magda made him feel stupidly happy. He didn’t want to leave.
‘You’re very beautiful, you know,’ he said, earnestly.
Magda’s eyes widened, but she laughed it off. ‘After what you’ve drunk tonight, all women are beautiful.’
‘I mean it.’
‘So do I. Now drink that Alka-Seltzer and get out of here, before you get into any more trouble. And try not to wake the whole village on your way across the lawn.’
Later, in bed, Magda found herself hoping that Sir Edward and Lady Wellesley went easy on their wayward son. Milo was like a puppy, infuriating and adorable in equal measure, with too much energy for his own good.
He has a lot of growing up to do, she thought. But his kindness touched her.
CHAPTER NINE
‘So what exactly are we looking at here? Talk us through what’s going on?’
Jennifer Lee, the trainee vet handpicked by Channel 5 to appear in Valley Farm’s pilot, because she was attractive in an ordinary, girl-next-door sort of way and inexperienced enough to make the sort of mistakes that viewers found endearing, answered Macy’s question for the sixth time that morning.
‘This is foot-bathing,’ Jennifer explained, trying not to look directly at the cameras as she delivered her lines whilst simultaneously focusing on the struggling ewe’s hindquarters as she splashed about in the highly toxic formalin solution. ‘They don’t much like it … as you can see.’ Sweat poured down Jennifer’s forehead and between her breasts. Her round, freckled cheeks were bright red, like twin apples, and her curly chestnut hair stuck to her face in great wet clumps. ‘But it’s very important to protect against bacteria and prevent scald, foot-rot—’
‘Cut!’ Laura yelled loudly.
‘What? Again?’ Exasperated, Jennifer let go of the ewe, which went careering off across the farmyard, almost knocking Macy flying before being intercepted by a skilful lunge from Gabe.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Laura. ‘But there’s still too much background noise. Perhaps we should move into one of the barns?’
Today was the first day of filming and the protestors were out in force. In a stroke of evil genius, Bill Clempson, the vicar, had provided drums, tambourines and some appalling form of screeching, penny-whistle-type instrument to his ‘troops’. The noise was irritating to the human ear, but it clearly utterly terrified the poor animals. Jennifer was already covered in cuts and bruises beneath her protective coat and goggles, from where the panicked sheep had kicked her. So much for the glamour of television.
Dave, the sound engineer, put down his boom mic. ‘I’ll go and talk to them.’
‘It won’t do any good,’ said Gabe.
‘Probably not, but I’ll give it a go.’
‘One of you follow him,’ Laura said to the two cameramen. ‘At this point they’re part of the show. Let’s see if they give him anything interesting.’ Turning to Macy, Gabe and the rest of the crew, she added imperiously: ‘You lot can start moving everything into the barn.’
‘I thought we were doing today outside?’ Macy protested. ‘You said you wanted the glorious weather and the exterior shots of the farm.’
‘We’ll use the footage but the dialogue has to be inside,’ Laura said dismissively. ‘It’s just the way it is, I’m afraid. Let’s not waste any more time. Now … where’s Jennifer?’
The vet was gone.
‘She’s probably gone to the bathroom,’ said Macy through gritted teeth. The ‘easy-going’ Laura from the weekend had clearly been kidnapped by aliens on Sunday night and replaced with the harpie of old. ‘Or are we not allowed to pee now?’
‘I don’t want people wandering off willy-nilly,’ Laura snapped. ‘This is the sodding pilot episode. This is it! What we film today will decide the entire future of this show. Am I the only person here who understands that?’
Laura stomped off to the barn. Macy shot Gabe a murderous look.
‘Think yourself lucky,’ he said, returning Macy’s scowl with a broad grin as he manhandled the ewe back into her pen. ‘Some of us are married to her.’
How can you sound so pleased about it? thought Macy. Talk about love being blind.
On the grass verge outside the farm gates, the junior cameraman, Dean, filmed his colleague attempting to persuade the angry villagers to lay down their whistles and call it a day.
‘It’s a matter of principle,’ the vicar intoned pompously, using his ‘church voice’ because he knew he was being filmed.
‘Yes, but the animals are suffering,’ explained the sound engineer. ‘That’s not fair, is it? None of this is their fault.’
‘No indeed,’ said the vicar, ‘it’s yours. You stop filming, we’ll stop protesting.’
‘But, Vicar, this is private property. The owners have every right to—’
‘Gabriel Baxter should focus on his animals, not on the pursuit of fame,’ Reverend Clempson said primly. ‘As Our Lord taught us, a good shepherd always puts his flock before himself.’
‘Vicar! You must come!’
Hillary Wincup, an ample-bosomed stalwart of the Fittlescombe WI and staunch supporter of the new young vicar, came racing around from the lane. While she panted with exertion, her tweed-covered breasts bounced up and down like twin medicine balls, and were in danger of knocking her unconscious at any moment.
‘Mrs Wincup. Don’t upset yourself. Whatever’s the matter?’ The vicar arranged his features into a practised look of concern.
‘It’s … it’s …’ The exhausted woman fought for breath. ‘Your car.’
Clempson’s faux concern was replaced by the real thing.
‘My car? What about my car?’
Poor Mrs Hillary Wincup looked close to tears. ‘You’d better come and see.’
Jennifer the vet reappeared in the barn as the last sheep was ushered into the pen.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Laura. ‘Good. We’re almost ready to go again. Could someone tell Dean and Dave they need to get back here?’
An ear-piercing scream made everybody look up. It came from the lane, and was followed by more deranged-sounding howls.
‘What on earth?’
Laura raced outside, followed by the second cameraman, Gabe, Macy and Jennifer bringing up the rear. A tractor had been left parked to the side of the lane, its empty trailer still attached at the rear. The contents of that trailer – an enormous, steaming mound of silage – had been dumped unceremoniously on top of the vicar’s beloved red Mini Cooper, which was now almost completely submerged.
‘My car!’ Bill Clempson wailed, wringing his hands like a mother over a lost child.
‘Keep filming!’ Laura told the crew, but they were already on a roll.
‘It’s destroyed!’ sobbed the vicar. ‘I can’t … I’m speechless. Who would do such a dreadful thing?’
Standing directly behind Gabe and Macy, Jennifer muttered quietly, ‘Maybe someone sick to death of being kicked in the shins by a flock of frightened sheep?’
Gabe looked at the young vet with renewed respect. ‘You didn’t!’
‘Of course not,’ Jennifer smiled sweetly. ‘That sort of damage to property would be completely illegal.’
Macy burst out laughing. One of the photographers from the Echo snapped her mid-guffaw.
‘It’s not funny!’ The vicar stamped his foot petulantly.
‘It is a little funny,’ said Macy.
‘I demand to know who did this!’
‘Now, now, Vicar,’ grinned Gabe. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that.’
Laura didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The pilot was supposed to focus on farm life, on the animals and the landscape and the simple rural rhythms of the valley. Instead it was turning into The Benny Hill Show.
What if the vicar pressed charges? This could come back to bite them in a big way.<
br />
On the other hand, the network had asked for drama.
Jennifer Lee smiled up at Gabe. ‘Let’s go back to the barn and finish the foot-bathing. Before someone picks up another fucking tambourine.’
‘Brilliant. That’s bloody brilliant. We should have the man on the payroll.’
Eddie Wellesley hung up the phone looking excessively pleased with himself. He was in the kitchen at Riverside Hall, helping himself to a third slice of fruitcake – working on these damn memoirs was making him ravenous; he had rung Laura quickly to find out how the first day’s filming was going.
‘Well I think it’s disgraceful,’ said Annabel, after Eddie had told her the silage saga. She’d been in the pantry for the past forty minutes, hovering over Magda’s shoulder while she folded the napkins and tablecloths, making sure everything was being done correctly. Annabel found she spent a lot of time following Magda, which she resented. Really, one ought to be able to trust one’s staff. The more closely she watched, the more mistakes she found. The girl was a harder worker than her predecessors, but she could still be sloppy and looked permanently exhausted, which Annabel found irritating; although not as irritating as the sycophantic tone Eddie always used when talking to that bloody Baxter woman.
Eddie had promised only yesterday to spend less time on Valley Farm and to concentrate on his memoirs, devoting more energy and effort to the political comeback that both he and Annabel wanted. The role of a Westminster wife was not an easy one, as Annabel knew better than most. But it was a role, a purpose in life, and it came with a certain prestige that being the wife of a television producer could never hope to offer. After all the sacrifices Annabel had made, all the humiliation she’d suffered for Eddie’s career, she wasn’t prepared to walk away meekly, without a fight. The near-miss with Milo and the Duke of Moncreith’s girlfriend over the weekend had focused both Eddie and Annabel’s minds on just how important returning to politics was, for both of them. As had David Carlyle’s mysterious threat to unleash some further, unnamed mayhem into their lives. Annabel had agreed to host a big political dinner as a sort of unofficial launch to Eddie’s ‘win back the Tory Party’ campaign. But while Annabel slaved over a hot pile of napkins with the home help, Eddie was in his study, wasting time on the phone, gossiping about the stupid pilot. It made Annabel livid.
The Show Page 12