Farm Fatale

by Wendy Holden

  "Yes, I did know that." She smiled at him uncertainly. Was he laughing?

  "Want to know why?" His smile had switched itself abruptly off.

  I know why, Rosie thought. Bella told me. Champagne D'Vyne broke your heart. "If you want to tell me," she muttered.

  "Christ, I can't get over you. No one's ever said that before. People are usually right in there with the most personal fucking questions."

  Rosie sketched on. His lashes, she saw, were the longest she had ever seen on a man.

  "It was all to do with…" Matt began, addressing his knees, then paused. Rosie's pencil stopped, waiting for the first mention of Champagne's name. She felt, suddenly, intensely curious.

  "…the first two albums being such hits. You know the story. Or perhaps you don't?" As Matt flicked an amused, green glance up at her, Rosie blushed and shook her head. "OK, well, it was like this. One minute I was singing into my mother's hairbrush, then I was driving a van, doing church-hall concerts. No one had a fucking clue who I was. I was so underground I practically hit the water table. Next thing I knew, some A and R men saw me in a pub in Northampton and thought I was the hottest thing since vindaloo. Then Geordie was all over me like a rash, I hit Abbey Road, and Posh Totty hit number one. Suddenly there I was. Playing more stadiums than David Beckham."

  Rosie put her pencil down.

  "At first"—Matt pushed a lock of hair out of one eye—"there was no stopping me. My second album—What Did Your Last One Die Of?—came out and was even bigger than the first. I could do no wrong. I thought I was God's gift. And of course it went straight to my head. Used to have two seats booked on every flight, one for me and one for my ego. I'd have the entire top floor of a hotel reserved because I didn't want anybody else near. All my hotel bills had at least ten thousand pounds extra on them for damages. I made it a point of honor to wreck the rooms, throw the TV sets out of the windows and all that." He smiled mirthlessly, eyes roaming unhappily up and down the windows. "Harder than it sounds, by the way. TVs nowadays—well, you cant throw them out of windows anymore. They're all huge."

  Matt's eyes narrowed. His lips twisted ruefully. "I was such a plonker. Refusing to sit anywhere but the very front of first class because the other passengers were too noisy at the back. Ordering five Savile Row suits a week in materials more suited to soft furnishings than menswear. Going to the Met Bar so often I practically had my own bloody sofa. You ever been to the Met Bar?" he suddenly demanded.

  Rosie shook her head. It had always sounded terrifying to her. Mark had gone there for some feature, she recalled. Having been deemed insufficiently cool to enter on his own merit, he had had to book a room to enter the hallowed portals of style as a hotel resident. The managing editor had been furious at the cost. But not as furious as Mark at the indignity. Her heart lifted slightly at the memory.

  "Well, don't bother," Matt snapped. "You'll only meet people like me. Full of champagne and self-loathing. There I was, the boy who slapped the world's face, determined to knee it in the balls as well. There was nothing I wouldn't do; no one I wouldn't do it with. Girls?" His eyes shot to the ceiling. "My motto was the Four F's. Find 'em. Feel 'em. Fuck 'em. Forget 'em."

  He shot a chastened glance at Rosie. "Sorry," he muttered. "But it happened. Hell, I even had a reputation for the number of pint glasses I could dangle off my cock."

  Rosie, head lowered over her work again, hoped he was not going to ask her to guess how many. Why was he telling her all this? Who did he think she was, Susie Orbach?

  There was a silence.

  He had, she saw as she glanced up, withdrawn into himself again. His expression had darkened.

  "Fame was fun at first. For about five minutes. Then I got sick of it. Really sick of it. Sick of the grungy greasefests in airport McDonald's, sick of the planes, sick of if-this-is-Monday-it-must-beMilwaukee." He rubbed his eyes and looked at her desolately. "But, hey, what was my problem? My career had taken off like a rocket, I was working every hour of the day and traveling to countries I never even knew existed. But," he finished, his voice dropping an octave, "I was pretty confused and unhappy."

  "But why?" asked Rosie, thinking irresistibly of Mark, who was confused and unhappy for precisely the opposite reasons. "When you had the world at your feet like that." Perhaps this was where Champagne D'Vyne came in.

  Matt shot her a sardonic look. "Because I hated every minute. I was stressing obsessively and was completely fucking terrified about the future. The first album was huge and trying to beat it was impossible. Then when I did beat it, I realized I was expected to do it again, four months later. The promotional stuff was manic. Every day it was 'You have a meet-and-greet here, then an interview there, then a TV show here,' and in the end, I just couldn't do it. The fans never left me alone. They even took soil from my garden. They cut bits of my hair off when I was in the supermarket. In the days when I still went to the supermarket." He paused. Rosie thought she had never seen anyone that wistful about Tesco. There was a silence. Then Matt spoke again. "I was all over the papers, all the time. My entire private life had been reduced to something that cost thirty-five pence. So I started to go off the rails. Took so much charlie my septum almost fell out. Got on the booze as well, for good measure—and I had a few of them, I can tell you. Half a bottle of sherry first thing in the morning. Hair of the dog, it was. But then I had the dog as well and in the end I opened an entire kennel." He groaned. "And there were other problems. Relationships and things…"

  Relationships and things. Champagne D'Vyne, in other words, surely. No wonder he'd had a breakdown if he'd had to cope with her leaving him along with everything else. And what sort of a woman could she be, Rosie wondered, unceremoniously abandoning a lover already suffering to such an extravagant extent it made her own recent traumas over Jack and Mark look like a grazed knee.

  "Sorry. I'm crapping on," Matt muttered, looking at her sheepishly. "You're wondering what all this has got to do with the party."

  "Sort of," mumbled Rosie.

  "After the breakdown," Matt told her, "my confidence was at an all-time low. I hid away here in Ladymead. I could barely get up, let alone write songs. I'm better at the getting up now, but the songs are still a struggle. And as for going onstage, well, I walked off a stage in L.A. a year ago and I haven't set foot on one since. Not that anyone saw me walk off. I was playing behind a wall of bricks meant to represent the alienation of the rock star." He flashed her a grin. "Pretentious, moi? I'd gone bonkers, basically." Silence again.

  "I don't know what to say," Rosie said eventually, "except that I feel better than I have done for years about being totally poor and a complete failure at everything. I'd always imagined being rich and famous to be fun, you see."

  Matt shot her a suspicious look, as if checking to see that she wasn't being sarcastic. Then he laughed.

  "Of course it's bloody fun. It's the best fucking fun in the world. It's a dream come true. A privilege. My problem was that I couldn't see any of that. Spent all my time feeling sorry for myself." He twisted his lips. "How sad was I?"

  "Well, relationship problems can sometimes affect you that way," Rosie said slowly, thinking of her own recent past and curious about the part Champagne D'Vyne had played in all this. Hadn't she been the real root cause of his breakdown? But he had not mentioned her. Had she hit him that hard then? That deep?

  Matt was looking at her, blinking as if jolted from his train of thought. "Oh…yeah," he said. "Course they can. Listen, are you sure I'm not boring the arse off you? Only it's making me feel a lot better."

  Rosie shook her head. Hearing about Champagne—Mark's replacement on the paper, after all—would be interesting. On the basis that any enemy of his was a friend of hers.

  "Oakie's my latest therapist," Matt said, veering off the elusive subject once again. "I'd tried everyone under the sun before him. Every treatment imaginable from having crystals shoved up my sphincter to primal screaming."

  Rosie giggled, thinking that
having small, sharp things shoved up your bum probably would have that effect.

  "Then I found Oakie, who told me that the only way to build my confidence up again and literally get my act together was to go out and meet people. Get used to contact again. Start with smallscale social events, like that bloody stupid fancy-dress party. I wanted to turn it down, but he wouldn't let me. It was him that made me go." Matt's eyes widened. "On my own. It was the first time I'd been out of Ladymead for months. By the time I met you, I was shitting myself. The thought of meeting other people was terrifying."

  He bent his head. "You were the first woman I'd spoken to for ages," he muttered, addressing the floor. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

  Thanks, thought Rosie, suppressing a smile. Surely now he'd get on to the subject of his legendary girlfriend?

  "And then when you mentioned you were an illustrator, I hit on the idea of the portrait."

  Rosie looked over at the wall of paintings. Imagine. Her humble daub hanging next to those. "It's a great idea."

  Matt looked pleased. "Glad you think so. Oakie said sitting opposite someone else for hours on end would be kill or cure. Although whether for me or you, I'm not sure. And the bonus, of course, is that there will hopefully be a nice picture at the end of it as well."

  "Oh," said Rosie, deflated.

  ***

  "Madam?"

  "Yes?" It was Murgatroyd. The session had ended. At the large oak door on the way out, Rosie paused.

  "Mr. Locke has asked me to ask you, before you leave, what your travel plans are."

  "Travel plans?" repeated Rosie, before the penny dropped. Of course. No doubt Matt thought the entire world could fly off to Rome and Cap Ferrat on a whim, just as he could. He probably imagined she was hopping over to Capri that very weekend, in fact, and was worried about the effect her globetrotting would have on the sittings. "I'm not going anywhere," she said flatly. In any sense of the word, she reflected miserably.

  Murgatroyd raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Locke means travel to Ladymead, madam. He wonders by what means you get here. He hasn't noticed a car or a bicycle."

  "I walk. From the village." Rosie's heart was already sinking at the prospect of walking back.

  "That's what he thought. He asked me to ask if you would mind if he sent the car for you."

  "Not at all, I'd love it," said Rosie, amazed and delighted.

  "He thought you might appreciate a lift home as well, madam," Murgatroyd continued. "If you'd just come this way, madam. You can tell me on the journey what time you'd like to be picked up in the morning."

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Bella tried not to sound astonished at Rosie's account of Ladymead, delivered, as promised, the moment she arrived back at Cinder Lane. "Hmm," she said. "It's what you can't see that counts. Darling, you might mention Insider to Matt. I could do with something huge for the October issue." She paused. "How's it all going, anyway?"

  "Oh, OK, I think," said Rosie doubtfully. "The first session seemed to go quite well." It was hard to work out how it was really going. Or what she thought about it. Matt was so very different from what she had expected. As was the fact that she had assumed the role of his confidante.

  "I wasn't meaning the work, darling."

  "Well, what else is there?"

  "Darling," said Bella. Rosie pictured her fingers drumming impatiently on the Biedermeier console that supported the telephone. In fact, she could actually hear them. Tap, tap, tap. "Exclusive access to eligible rich bachelor and all that?" Tap.

  "Matt's not interested in me. He's not even interested in having his portrait painted. It's part of his therapy apparently."

  Bella sniggered. " That old line."

  Rosie was indignant. "It's true. He's had a nervous breakdown and now he wants to be back on his feet. The idea of the picture is that he practices human interaction while it's painted."

  "Human interaction, eh? It gets better and better, darling."

  "Oh, lay off, Bel," Rosie wailed. "You've got it completely wrong. And even if he was interested in me, which he isn't, I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole. He's not a very nice person." In her heart of hearts, however, she was no longer sure she still believed either of these things. The lift home in the Mercedes had smashed through the last of her defenses.

  "And what the hell difference does that make?" demanded Bella. "He's rich, isn't he? And gorgeous. That's a bonus, darling, let me tell you." She was, Rosie could tell, thinking of Simon.

  "Yes, but I've done gorgeous," Rosie said, thinking of Mark. "And I'm not sure it suits me. Matt's a business arrangement. Nothing else."

  She had just put the phone down when Duffy burst in with the afternoon post. Which, Rosie saw in mingled exasperation and amusement, comprised nothing more than a flyer advertising the takeaway services of the Indian restaurant in Slapton.

  "Boyfriend gone, has he?" Duffy's eyes were darting about. "I hear he's moved into The Bottoms. Odd business, that, isn't it?"

  Rosie shrugged, determined not to be drawn into an explanation. "These things happen."

  "Not round here they don't. Not usually, anyway. Nice for him, though; it's very posh there." Duffy flicked a disparaging glance around the kitchen whose messiness, without Mark around to complain about it (yet fail to address it personally), had reached unprecedented levels. Still, Rosie thought, if it put the postman off, she had no intention of tidying it up.

  She gave no further information and waited for Duffy to go away. She had not forgotten his role in the breakdown of her friendship with Jack, even if, with hindsight, she suspected he had done her a favor. Jack's rejection had been a shock but was preferable to spending the rest of her life being compared to some impossible ideal. Especially an ideal who had made off with a sheepnut salesman from Chesterfield. But it would have done no harm to remain friends, although, given some of her remarks—all of her remarks actually—last time they had met, that seemed an unlikely prospect.

  She ran some water over the pile of pots in the sink, hoping this would hint to Duffy that his presence was not desirable.

  It did not. Or, if it did, he ignored it. Rosie realized Duffy had no intention of going until he had found out what he wanted.

  "Is it true you're doing a painting of Matt Locke?"

  "Possibly." Rosie, although too truthful to lie, was determined to confirm nothing.

  "Dame Nancy used to do that. Stripped off for artists when she was a struggling actress and had no money. Then she realized she could strip off for directors and make lots of money. That's what she told me anyway." Duffy sniggered.

  "Matt Locke," Rosie said firmly, "is not stripping off."

  Duffy looked triumphant. "So you are doing it then!"

  Rosie took a defiant sip of coffee. "As I said. It's a possibility." Appallingly rude though it felt, she was determined not to offer Duffy any form of refreshment whatsoever.

  "Nice, it must be," Duffy said, almost wistfully.

  "What must be?" Rosie felt lacerating guilt about the coffee.

  "Meeting people like Matt Locke. Becoming, ahem, good friends with them."

  "I'm not good friends with him," snapped Rosie, exasperated. She wondered why Duffy had ever vacillated about journalism. He was wasted on the Royal Mail, when a brilliant career on a tabloid could so clearly have been his for the taking.

  "More than that, is it then, eh? Thought so, after the party." He winked at her.

  "No! Do you understand me? No!"

  "Love to know a famous person, I would," Duffy said. "What decided me to become a postman in the first place was when I read that Julie Christie once went out with the bloke who delivered her fan letters."

  "Really? Where did you find that out?" Despite her irritation, Rosie was finding it hard to keep a straight face.

  "Daily Mail, of course," said Duffy. "I thought, Hang on a minute, I might get lucky as well. Not with Julie Christie, obviously."

  "No," said Rosie. It was difficult to imagine the e
xquisite film star and the red-faced, roll-eyed postman as an item.

  "Don't think she lives round here, for one thing," Duffy continued blithely. "Anyway, it didn't work out with the postman. But she definitely had a thing about letters. Went out with Terence Stamp after that."

  ***

  Duffy had just left when there was another knock at the door.

  "Oh, hi," said Iseult, trying rather too hard to sound casual. "Just passing."

  Rosie was not naturally suspicious, but she thought this odd. Passing where, exactly? Cinder Lane led nowhere apart from Spitewinter Farm, and it seemed unlikely Iseult was dropping in on Jack. Her dislike of farm animals seemed to be one of the few areas in which she had anything in common with Samantha. Puzzled, Rosie struggled with the bottom half of the stable door to let Iseult in.