by Taylor, Lulu
‘I just don’t feel up to it,’ she’d said to Grey the day before, sitting at her desk clutching a skinny latte and holding the telephone to her ear with her shoulder while she scrolled through a series of photographs on her computer. ‘Rachel’s bound to be there, undermining my authority and doing whatever she likes. Milly can take my place.’
‘Is this because of Harry?’ asked Grey, his voice stern down the telephone line.
She’d sighed and clicked her mouse on another image. It expanded to fill her screen. A fashionable model was pulling a silly face and it was just the wrong side of being cute. She deleted it. ‘Maybe.’
‘Darling, you’ve got to pull yourself together. This is the third time you two have broken up. You’re ready to let him go and get on with your life. To be honest, I think you were over him a long time ago.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She knew it was true: she couldn’t go on being reeled in and cast away. It was emotionally exhausting and her desire for Harry had gradually been eroded by the pain he kept putting her through. Grey had been there plenty of times to mop up tears, fill wine glasses and analyse Harry and his emotions until the early hours, but even he was now urging her to buck up.
‘Of course I’m right. And I don’t work half as well with Milly. I need you there. This is an expensive shoot – you’ve got to come, it won’t work without you. Especially if Rachel starts playing up.’
She thought for a moment. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said, knowing he wouldn’t back down. ‘You win.’
‘You’re driving as well. Pick me up at seven.’ Grey put the phone down.
The next morning, she’d pulled her Volkswagen Beetle up in front of his Notting Hill flat, they’d loaded his camera equipment into the back and then set off down the M3 towards Fort Stirling. It had been midday before they’d arrived, both hot and thirsty and desperate to stretch their legs.
‘Wow,’ Delilah had said, as they pulled up in front of the house. The drive from the gates to the house had been extraordinary, weaving its way through velvety green parkland past oaks, elms and limes, all venerable with age. It had led to a place that looked part storybook castle and part elegant Regency house, a building that gently flowed from an ancient round tower on one side through to a battlemented Tudor front and an extended wing of wonderful eighteenth-century symmetry. Despite its collection of ages and styles, the house felt as melded and comfortable with itself as a stack of pillows, nestled into a hollow and protected by a phalanx of trees behind. Delilah and Grey climbed out of the car. ‘What is this place?’
‘It is splendid,’ admitted Grey, standing back and taking it all in. ‘I’ve heard of Fort Stirling, but never been here. They’re not a very social family, the Stirlings. You don’t tend to stumble across them at parties.’
‘It’s so beautiful.’ Delilah waved an arm out towards the parkland. ‘All of it.’
‘That’s Dorset for you. Well lived-in, softened by centuries of husbandry into this delightful landscape. Now, we’d better find Rachel and see if the models have arrived.’
Standing under a grand ornamental porch, they pulled on a bell handle set beside the huge arched front door, and one of the set assistants answered.
‘Where’s the owner?’ Delilah asked as they were led through the vast entrance hall with a black-and-white chequered marble floor. The assistant shrugged.
She guessed whoever it was had made themselves scarce. People with a house like this were paid good money by magazines and film crews for its use as a setting for fashion shoots and period dramas and they probably knew well enough by now to stay in the background and let them get on with it. After all, they got reimbursed for anything that wasn’t left exactly as found.
Rachel was in a huge room decorated in turquoise and gold. ‘Isn’t this magnificent?’ she bellowed, when she saw Delilah and Grey approaching.
‘You haven’t gone too mad, have you, Rach?’ Delilah asked warily, knowing how the stylist could go completely overboard when not reined in.
‘Of course not!’ Rachel said indignantly. ‘But we’re going to make the most of this adorable setting, and the fantastic clothes I’ve managed to get. Look.’ She went over to a rail where tiny model-sized garments hung in a mass of colour and fabric: slippery silks, wispy chiffon, glossy leather and rubber, along with tweeds and knits of every variety. ‘Dior, Chanel, Stella McCartney, Givenchy, McQueen, you name it. It’s going to be glorious. Wait till I show you the props!’
Delilah sighed, feeling that she could really do without a fight today. It was always the same when Rachel was brought in on a job, and she appeared without fail on the juiciest gigs. The bigger the house, the grander the setting, the bigger the budget, the more likely Rachel was to appear and spoil it. Give her a bog-standard studio shoot in a stuffy little place in Tooting with the clothes of a new designer, and she was nowhere to be seen. It came from being the cousin of the magazine’s publisher and a snob into the bargain. She had no compunction in stamping down Delilah’s ideas and authority and imposing her own vision, even though Delilah was the magazine’s art director.
Rachel was dressed eccentrically as usual in a vintage Edwardian gown, customised with a black-and-white-striped bustle and a long hot-pink tutu beneath, and she tripped along the corridors on platform heels in a rustle of satin. Delilah followed behind, feeling ridiculously normal in her jeans, grey silk T-shirt and plimsolls. She’d learned that it was easy to feel plain and frumpy on a shoot, what with the gorgeous models wafting about in designer gear, so she’d adopted a look that suited her and was both stylish and practical. She might not have a model figure but she was happy with her tall, fairly athletic frame. Grey was always telling her to show off her legs more, but she preferred to wear jeans or black trousers most of the time. ‘Wear more colour!’ he’d scold. ‘That endless black and white, don’t you get sick of it?’ But she was fond of her monochrome working wardrobe.
In the office, she wore white shirts and dark jackets with her trousers, adding a sharp heel for the fashion edge that the magazine required. On a shoot, she’d dress right down; it was how other people looked that mattered, after all, and she just needed to be comfortable. Today she’d twisted her long, thick fair hair up into a bun and stuck a variety of pens and pencils through it, partly to keep it in place and partly because, when she was working, not being able to find a pen when she needed one drove her mad. She knew Grey would hate it, even though he’d carefully not commented when he climbed into the car that morning. He was always urging her to wear more make-up and get her hair properly styled, but she only laughed. She liked her long hair, even if it did take an hour to blow dry it properly, and too much make-up made her look clownish. Her face was the natural kind, the skin clear with a few freckles over her nose, her lashes naturally dark. Her face was well defined, with strong cheekbones, a sturdy nose and a well-formed, almost Roman mouth. She could never transform the way the models did, their plain, small-featured faces becoming ethereally beautiful under the layers of make-up. She glimpsed three of them now, as they passed the makeshift salon, where a team wielding hair tongs and eyebrow brushes were turning the blank-faced, hollow-cheeked girls into raving beauties.
I think I prefer being me, Delilah thought. Grey always told her she was gorgeous, and while she knew that wasn’t quite true, she was also content that she made the best of what she had.
Rachel led them to a large window overlooking a courtyard below, then looked down and said happily, ‘There we are!’
Delilah joined her, gazing out over a quadrangle surrounded by yet another part of the house. On the patch of emerald-green lawn were a collection of large animals that looked as though they were constructed from painted papier mâché. There was a huge white swan with a golden crown on its head, a large white rabbit in a checked waistcoat standing on its hind legs, a mouse, its head cocked inquisitively, carrying a basket, and a twisting green serpent poised to strike. Other smaller creatures stood caught mid-pose as thoug
h frozen by the White Witch’s wand.
‘Rachel!’ said Delilah, horrified, pressing her forehead to the glass. ‘What have you done? How much did those cost?’
‘Peanuts, darling, peanuts! And you did say fairy tales. I thought they were completely perfect – don’t you? As soon as I saw them, I said yes, yes, yes!’ Rachel smiled at her, fluttering her heavily mascara’d eyelashes. Two men appeared on the lawn below and started hauling the mouse towards a door leading into the house.
‘But I ordered props,’ Delilah protested, still too bewildered to be cross. ‘We’ve got ladders and tons of tulle and all the things we discussed in the office.’
‘Oh, honey, but these are marvellous! Aren’t they much better than boring old ladders?’
There was a shout on the lawn and they both looked down to see a man standing there, hands on hips, looking crossly at the giant animals and the mouse being dragged indoors.
‘Whoops, it’s the manager,’ said Rachel. ‘You deal with him, darling, I’m so busy.’ She turned on her heel, flashing pink netting, and tripped off down the hall towards the make-up room.
Delilah sighed. She didn’t need this. Not today. Not the way she was feeling, which was tired, hollow and all wept out. I need a holiday, she told herself. A good long holiday somewhere hot. I can just tell today is going to be a nightmare.
Somehow she found her way downstairs, wondering how anyone managed to find their way round this huge house, and was just in time to see the mouse’s tail disappearing into a long gallery. Along the corridor came a man in jeans and a soft cotton shirt rolled up at the elbows, his dark hair short but thick and greying at the temples.
‘Hey, you, what’s going on here? There’s a bloody menagerie on the inner lawn and those vandals have just dragged a giant mouse right over the flowerbed! And its tail has left a huge channel all over the grass!’
He was right opposite her now, his expression indignant. She stared back, feeling near the end of her tether.
‘I think you’ll find we’ve got permission,’ she said brusquely.
‘Really?’ He looked combative. ‘Well, not from me.’
‘Not from you, no,’ she said, trying to sound superior. ‘From the owner.’
‘The owner?’ He frowned.
‘Yes. He’s allowed us to do whatever necessary for our shoot.’
‘Has he? And he knows about these giant animals, does he? These ludicrous rabbits and hedgehogs and whatever?’
‘They’re all integral to our artistic vision,’ Delilah said loftily, lifting her chin but thinking inside that Rachel definitely owed her for this sturdy defence of all her nonsense. Although, knowing Rachel, Delilah suspected that the pictures would turn out to be wonderful. ‘He’s perfectly fine with it. I spoke to him myself.’
Just then, there was a movement at the window, and they both turned to see that the enormous rabbit was now being carried past it but its handlers were out of sight, and the effect was of the massive creature slowly making its way across the lawn unaided.
Delilah stared at it and then glanced at the manager, who was turning back to look at her, his expression startled. The moment they caught sight of one another’s faces, the comic element of it all struck them simultaneously and they began to laugh.
‘I should have expected something like this,’ the man said. ‘I don’t know why I’m shocked. It doesn’t quite take the biscuit from the time I let some famous glamour puss get married here and we had glass coaches and white horses and whatever, but almost.’ He shook his head and laughed again. ‘Giant fairy-tale creatures. How do you all make a living at this?’
‘Advertising, mostly,’ said Delilah, still giggling at the memory of the enormous rabbit walking by. I need to laugh, she realised. It’s been a long time.
The man put his hand out. ‘I’m John Stirling.’
She took it and they shook firmly. ‘Hello, I’m Delilah Young.’ She smiled, then froze. ‘Oh . . . wait. Stirling . . . Are you . . .’
‘The owner? Yes, I am. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Young.’
She felt herself blush and go hot. ‘Oh God, you must think I’m dreadful, lying to you like that. About talking to you and getting your permission. I’m not normally so brazen . . .’
‘Don’t worry at all.’ He smiled back at her. ‘I rather enjoyed it. But let’s be clear – my lawn is going to be put back to its proper state, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely,’ Delilah said, relieved. ‘If I have to lay fresh turf myself.’
‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ he said and smiled again. His eyes, she noticed, were a soft grey and when he smiled, he got a dimple in his left cheek.
‘Are we good to go yet, darling?’
Delilah turned to see Grey coming in through the front door, lugging some equipment.
‘God, I wish I’d brought an assistant!’ he said, panting. His gaze fell on John Stirling. ‘Could you possibly make yourself useful and go out and get my reflectors? They’re on the drive. And when you’ve done that, I could murder a cup of tea.’
Delilah opened her mouth to explain, but John Stirling quietened her with a quick look, a conspiratorial smile and a loud, ‘No problem.’ She watched him head outside to collect the reflectors.
‘Come on, missy,’ Grey said to her, starting to head up the stairs. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’
Perhaps it might have ended there, Delilah reflected, with a pleasant conversation and a smile, and then their lives would have continued on their different paths, Delilah going back to her tiny London flat and her sore heart, pining after Harry. But just as she was loading the car with Grey’s equipment to take him and it back to London, John Stirling came out to see her. She was the last of the shoot party. Rachel had roared off in her vintage Jag as soon as the exciting bit was over, leaving everyone else to clear up, while the models had been packed into their car to find a coffee shop that could supply them with the endless soya lattes that appeared to be all that kept them going. Make-up artists, hairdressers, electricians and shoot assistants had all left, and then it was only Delilah and Grey, making sure everything had been left shipshape.
‘Are you off?’ asked John Stirling, coming up to the car.
Delilah nodded. ‘Yes. We’re all done. Thank you so much.’
‘Not at all. And my new animal collection. I hope no one will be whisking that away from me any time soon.’
‘Oh – yes, I should have said. The company will be coming in the morning to take them away.’ She smiled at him. ‘And you must let me know if anything needs to be put back as it was. I’ll sort it out for you.’
‘Thank you, Miss Young. Thank you very much.’ There had been something in his gaze that drew her to him, a kind of familiarity as though they already knew each other quite well. A spark of something she recognised. You’re like me, she thought, and then laughed inwardly at the idea. How could the owner of a place like this be anything like her?
In the car, heading back towards the motorway, Grey said, ‘Oooh, he likes you!’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Delilah said stoutly, but feeling a pleasurable sense of awakening excitement nonetheless.
‘He does! And did you see? No wedding ring.’
‘His type often don’t wear them,’ replied Delilah, trying to concentrate on the winding country roads.
‘But still, he’s not. I could tell. He had a lonely air about him, definitely craving female company.’
‘I should think the man who owns Fort Stirling is fighting them off!’
‘Mmm, don’t think so. Grey’s inner voice is never wrong, remember? You wait and see, something might be cooking there. I’m serious.’
She’d changed the subject but, back in London, things kept popping into her consciousness to remind her of John Stirling and the day she had spent in his magical home. She picked up a stray back copy of the magazine and saw it contained a feature on that very house. When she opened her post a few days later, she dis
covered she had an invitation from a friend to stay the weekend in a hotel just near Fort Stirling. Then in a biography she was reading she found a reference to the Stirling family of Northmoor, Dorset. Weird, she thought. But it doesn’t mean anything. Just synchronicity, I guess, but still . . .
In the week since the shoot, the break-up with Harry had somehow lost its sting, as though her day at the old house had set her free, and now she couldn’t quite remember why she had cared so much. There were other men out there, after all, other possibilities, other potential lives, all waiting for her to walk out and take whichever path she wanted.
‘Delilah?’ It was her assistant Roxie, putting her head round Delilah’s door.
‘Yup?’ She glanced over from her screen where she’d been absorbed in a portfolio sent to her by an aspiring photographer.
‘You’ve got a visitor.’
She frowned over the top of her black-rimmed glasses. ‘Who? I’m not expecting anyone.’
‘His name is John. He’s sitting out in reception.’
‘John?’ she echoed. She was bewildered for a moment, then thought, Could it be? She stood up, grateful suddenly that she’d dressed up for a cocktail party she was planning to go to after work and was wearing a navy silk Alberta Ferretti dress with a silver tweed blazer over the top, and her long fair hair was freshly blow-dried into loose waves. She put her glasses on the desk. ‘Okay, I’ll go out and see him.’
Her stomach swooped pleasantly when she saw John Stirling was sitting there, one leg lazily crossed over the other knee, in dark trousers, a shirt and a very well-cut jacket, flicking through a magazine from the coffee table. He looked up as she came over, and stood up at once, a smile lighting up his expression, making his slightly angular face suddenly handsome. She noticed the dimple in his left cheek again, and the way it was rather winsome and boyish.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping by. I’m on one of my very rare visits to London and was walking through the square when I suddenly thought . . . why don’t I drop by and ask when the house is going to feature?’