Well Groomed

by Fiona Walker

  Sally stared at him in amazed delight. ‘Do you mean that?’

  He cocked his head. ‘What d’you think, angel? Tash would murder me. She dotes on that animal. Like I say, he’s her horse – whether it’s my name on his papers or not makes no difference.’

  ‘Ah, but it does . . .’ Sally looked at him excitedly.

  Ten minutes later and Niall was rubbing his chin thoughtfully, his reaction to the news surprisingly muted. ‘You say Lisette definitely isn’t interested in selling off her half?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Sally shook her head earnestly. ‘Although I’d keep quiet about his being worth half a million if I were you. She thinks all nags bar racehorses are bought and sold for cat food. She just wants the publicity for Four Poster Bed.’

  ‘But she’s already got the Cheers! deal,’ said Niall, shifting uncomfortably at the thought.

  ‘This was my own idea, actually.’ Sally bit her lip, unable to hide her pride. ‘I originally suggested that the film company buy Tash a horse to compete on this year. Lisette was as surprised as you to discover from Hugo that she owned half of Snob already, so we just worked out a way to capitalise on that instead. Lisette wants to lease your half-share from you. It’s just until the film is released – we could draw up a contract if you’re worried. She’s offering to cover all the horse’s costs for the remainder of this year in return for the publicity, and then at the end of the year’s lease, she signs her share over to Tash.’

  ‘Won’t she want half his value?’

  Sally shook her head happily.

  Niall enveloped his neck in his long, bony hands and mulled this over. ‘Tash will kill me when she finds out Lisette technically owns half of her horse.’

  ‘She’ll be a lot happier if you tell her Lisette is signing over her share for nothing in eight months’ time,’ Sally said logically, refilling their wine glasses. ‘And it’s not as though Lisette is being difficult about it. She’s more or less offering to sponsor Tash and Snob for a year then give her share back for free. And, as Tash doesn’t have a sponsor right now, I think she’ll jump at the offer.’

  He rubbed his head anxiously. ‘Are you sure she’s right about this? About being entitled to half?’

  ‘Apparently it’s all there on the settlement papers. Her solicitor checked them over last week.’

  ‘Jesus, I never even read the things – just handed them over to my accountant,’ he groaned.

  ‘Listen, Lisette says she’ll forget all about it if you think the idea will upset Tash,’ Sally said reluctantly, longing for him to agree. ‘She’s happy to leave things as they stand. There’s no pressure. But she’s willing to pay the Moncrieffs a hefty fee for his year’s keep, and I gather they need all the help they can get at the moment.’

  ‘True,’ Niall agreed, remembering both Zoe and Tash telling him how broke the Moncrieffs were. ‘How much exactly?’

  When Sally told him – upping Lisette’s offer by twenty percent in her desperation – he chewed his lip pensively. ‘I’ll think about it, angel.’

  ‘Will you talk to Tash?’

  He shrugged.

  Yet when Niall returned from a weekend in Berkshire and Sally eagerly asked what Tash thought about the proposal, he claimed he hadn’t had time to mention it.

  ‘Do you two speak at all?’ she laughed.

  Niall looked awkward. ‘She was away competing. We’re both working flat out at the moment – I’m trapped here in London all this week. I’ll try to talk to her next weekend, angel.’

  Which was not at all satisfactory. Particularly as, when Lisette called for an up-date the following morning, Matty picked up the call and was blisteringly rude to her.

  ‘Couldn’t you bring yourself to be civil, at least?’ Sally implored when he hung up on her as though she was a pest caller. ‘After all, they’ve been divorced for nearly two years, and Niall’s about to get married to a girl he truly loves. She’s trying to build bridges now – Christ, she’s just got him one of the best roles of his career.’

  ‘The only bridges Lisette builds are new ones for her nose.’

  ‘Will you shut up about her bloody nose-job!’ Sally wailed. ‘Christ, I wish I’d never told you about it now.’ She was relieved that she’d kept quiet about the boobs; Matty would never let it drop – rather like Lisette with her bust-line.

  ‘She was unspeakably cruel to Niall, as you well remember.’ He stomped around slamming kitchen cupboard doors as he searched for a clean mug. ‘He went completely derailed when she pushed off.’

  ‘And now he’s happily connected to Alexandra and your step-mother’s runaway bridal train, and too madly in love with Tash to care,’ Sally sighed dreamily. ‘Can’t you see that now is the perfect time for Lisette and he to make friends again?’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have taken the role if he was still cut up about Lisette, Matts,’ she persisted. ‘He just wants to move on and forget it all.’

  ‘I meant,’ Matty stood up and looked at her, a chipped mug in his hand, ‘that he’s not necessarily happy with Tash.’

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say. She’s your sister!’

  ‘Which is why I know her well enough to say it,’ he sighed. ‘Because from the way she looked at the christening, I’m pretty damned sure she isn’t happy either.’

  He played a waiting game as Niall lolled around their house, drinking too much, eating junk food and watching television late into the night even though he had early-morning starts. The strange, reckless mood that was possessing Niall at the moment rather frightened Sally, and she sloped away from the house as often as possible when he was around – more often than not to meet Lisette and moan about Matty’s suspicions. But Matty gently and persuasively worked on Niall, asking and probing and pulling information from him like silk threads from a scarf until he had enough to weave an argument.

  One Tuesday night, the inevitable confrontation came.

  Sally was grumpily loading the dish-washer after they’d pigged out on a takeaway. She was always happy to eat out of the cartons, but Matty believed in warming china plates and sitting around a table, considering formal meal-times an essential opportunity for ‘family bonding’. He did not, however, believe in clearing away these plates afterwards, preferring the far more demanding job of going upstairs and reading Tom his bedtime story. The other kids had conked out hours ago, but Tom had been allowed to stay up for the takeaway as a rare treat because he saw so little of his godfather, Niall, whom he adored.

  Carrying the wine glasses through to Sally, Niall was wearing his overcoat and a thick jumper. He found their house unbearably chilly.

  ‘How do you cope at the forge?’ Sally laughed, watching him put the glasses on to the wrong rack of the dish-washer, but grateful that he was trying – Matty would have just dumped them on top.

  ‘I spend as much time as possible at the farm, so I do,’ he shuddered. ‘I try only to be in the forge when Tash is around to warm me up. Most of the time I sit and chat with Zoe by the range in the farm. She’s a sweet woman.’

  ‘She is lovely,’ Sally agreed. ‘I was rather hoping to develop her as a friend, but Matty hates going to Berkshire.’

  ‘You’d think it was several time zones away from his reaction every time Tash invites you two down to supper,’ Niall agreed. ‘Not that her cooking is much of an attraction; Tash doesn’t cook, she warms up, like an athlete.’

  Sally stiffened. ‘I wasn’t aware that she had invited us to dinner lately.’

  ‘She’s asked twice this month – we’re trying to persuade Matty to change his mind about being best man.’

  Sally looked even more irate. ‘I wasn’t aware of that either.’

  When Matty wandered back downstairs, he was faced with two pairs of critical eyes watching him from either end of the checked sofa in the sitting room.

  ‘What?’ He looked from one to the other in mock enquiry.

  ‘Why,’ Sally took a deep breat
h, ‘are you refusing to be Niall’s best man?’

  Looking cornered, Matty rubbed his mouth and shrugged.

  ‘C’mon, Matty, my son,’ Niall laughed. ‘You’ve done it once before, so you should know the job by now.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m the right person.’

  ‘You’re one of my oldest, dearest friends,’ protested Niall. ‘I think that qualifies you perfectly.’

  ‘Niall really wants you to do it, Matty,’ Sally urged.

  ‘And I don’t think I should.’

  ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘Don’t push me on this one.’ He backed away, about to head to the dining room for the open bottle of wine.

  ‘I’m damned well going to push you to give me a good reason for refusing.’ Niall leaped up and stood in the doorway. ‘After all, you’ll be coming along anyway. It won’t take that much more effort to bring a ring and stand next to your old friend for an hour or so, will it? And you don’t have to think up a new speech – just use the old one and substitute “Tash” for “Lisette”’.

  ‘Well, that fucking says it all, doesn’t it!’ Matty suddenly raged.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Niall reeled at the venom in his voice.

  ‘She is just that, isn’t she? A substitute. I don’t know how you can be so sodding glib and flip about it. This is my sister we’re talking about here!’

  ‘And I hope I’m going to make her very happy indeed,’ Niall said slowly, refusing to raise his voice to Matty’s feverish pitch.

  ‘Well, you’re doing a bloody lousy job of it right now,’ he snarled, ‘so I hope to God you buck up after this farce of a wedding.’

  ‘Their wedding isn’t a farce, Matty,’ Sally interrupted.

  ‘Oh, yes it is,’ Matty stared at Niall. ‘Look me in the face and tell me honestly that you haven’t had second thoughts?’

  Niall gave a brief laugh and shook his head. ‘Jesus, it’s a lucky man that doesn’t! Of course I have, but no more than anyone else.’

  ‘Well, I’d lay my life that Tash has them far more than anyone else.’ Matty sat down on a creaking kitchen chair despairingly. ‘Christ, is it only me that thinks you’ve changed beyond recognition since you agreed to get married?’

  ‘I haven’t!’

  ‘Yes you bloody have! You make less effort to spend time with Tash, you drink more, you’re more ambitious, less loving, less communicative, more forgetful.’

  ‘I’ve always been like that,’ Niall laughed, trying to lighten Matty up, but he would not be deflected now that his resentment had been punctured, allowing his rage a release.

  ‘I’ve listened to you over these past few evenings,’ he said forcefully. ‘You talk about your fellow actors in Wildfell Hall – Greg, Emma, Minty – especially Minty – Jude Wells the director, Bob the kleptomaniac camera-man. Fine, that’s understandable; you work with them. You talk about America and how much you hate working there; you talk about how much Beetroot the bloody dog is starting to like you; how lovely Zoe Goldsmith and her kids are . . .’ Clearing his throat uncomfortably, he rushed on: ‘You can bore for your native country on the various members of that bloody farmhouse, human and animal. And sometimes, just very occasionally, you mention Tash.’

  Niall was watching him, very still and calm now, big dark eyes taking it all in. He had heard Matty on a rampage before and knew to sit through and listen to the end.

  ‘Not once this week, not one single time until just now, have you mentioned the wedding to me,’ Matty went on. ‘Isn’t that strange? You are getting married in less than two months yet without the invitation – which we only got this week incidentally – propped up on the mantelpiece to remind me, I wouldn’t know. And I find that bloody unsettling. Admittedly I haven’t made it easy for you, but I know damned well you’re supposed to be asking me again to be your best man. So this week I’ve waited and waited and you’ve not so much as dropped a hint. The only reason you’ve brought it up tonight is because Sally’s found out, isn’t it?’

  Niall shifted uncomfortably, still standing in the middle of their rather grubby if beautifully decorated kitchen, next to a fridge-freezer that was covered with the kids’ drawings. He was so tall and wide that he seemed to dwarf everything around him, the ridiculous sideburns lending him a demonic air. Wavering uncomfortably in the corner, Sally looked tiny and fragile by comparison, her new boxy trouser suit ridiculously slick and tailored next to his great, crumpled shagginess.

  Matty raised his palms in a strange, Jesus-like manner and looked at him imploringly. ‘I really do want you to ask me again, Niall. I want you to persuade me, to be as alive and vibrant and buzzing with enthusiasm for this marriage as you are for that Brontë film, Rufus Goldsmith’s driving lessons and even training that bloody dog. There’s nothing I’d like more than to be your best man, but I have to hear that old Niall enthusiasm ringing in my ears, and there’s none. Even tonight, it was Sally who rounded on me for saying no, not you. I know you love Tash, I know that. I’ve never doubted that for a minute.’ He sighed. ‘But I don’t think you want to marry her and I’m certain she doesn’t want to marry you.’

  ‘Has she told you that?’ Niall went pale.

  Matty shook his head, rubbing his creased forehead tiredly. ‘And that aside, supposing this absurd situation goes ahead, you don’t seem to have asked yourself just what sort of a couple you and Tash will make once you are married.’

  ‘Pretty much the same as we were before, I should think.’ Niall shrugged.

  ‘And what is that? I mean, how long have you really spent together since you met? In between your films and her awayday competitions, I bet it only amounts to a few weeks. How many holidays have you been on together? Who shops and looks after the house? Who pays the bills, phones a plumber in a crisis, cooks the food?’

  ‘Well, neither of us is much use at that to be honest.’ He didn’t seem too bothered. ‘If I was after a servant I’d be marrying a butler.’

  Matty banged his palms down on the table in frustration. ‘I’m not saying that you should strut around like that character you’re playing – what’s his name? – Huntingdon. All I’m saying is, look at how impractical you two are as a couple. You’re appallingly late everywhere when you’re together, you kill yourselves with fags and booze, you are both hopeless with money and so cowardly that you’re never entirely honest with one another about your feelings. Christ, it’s like booking two gambling addicts into the same room in a recovery clinic and handing them a pack of cards for entertainment!’

  ‘I think you make a lovely couple,’ Sally said rather hopelessly, knowing that it would be impossible to stop Matty now that he was in mid-flow. Niall, head cocked, shoulders relaxed, was taking the diatribe with remarkable calm.

  ‘At least Lisette was a control freak who didn’t allow all your bad habits to run riot.’ Matty waved his hands around expansively. ‘Tash has all those habits too and you act as catalysts to one another, feeding from one another’s laziness and paranoia.’

  ‘Glad you think so highly of us.’ Niall reached for a cigarette.

  ‘You’re so similar it’s hardly any wonder you adore one another, but I think you both know that you’re basically incompatible because of those similarities.’ He tried to soften his voice but the blows were still raining hard and fast. ‘You’ll be self-indulgent parents, terrible hosts, perennially broke and constantly jealous of one another. Even now you’re convinced she’s still hankering after Hugo Beauchamp and she’s knocked sideways every time one of your many drunken bloody flirtations gets out of hand.’

  Sally, listening in, felt her ears ringing. She had been telling Lisette for weeks that the notion of anything between Hugo and Tash was absolute rubbish. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘You’re both driving each other to extremes of behaviour,’ Matty was saying. ‘You do exactly what you want when you’re apart and exactly what everyone else wants when you’re together, which is why this ridiculous wedding is going ahead at all. Yo
u make a great combination, but a lousy couple. You both need far stronger partners.’

  ‘Any suggestions?’ Niall muttered caustically, taking a deep drag on his cigarette, eyes narrowed. ‘Think I should ask Lisette back?’

  ‘Of course I don’t!’ howled Matty. ‘But I don’t think you should marry Tash, and I’m pretty damned certain that you both know that already. I just want you to bloody well admit it before it’s too late.’

  Niall was silent for a long time. Then, gathering up his cigarettes, he headed to the hall to fetch his bag.

  ‘So I’ll take that as a “no” to being best man then, shall I?’ he called over his shoulder with studied casualness.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Niall!’ Matty followed him. ‘I know I’m being bloody brutal, but I’m the only friend you have who’s honest enough to tell you all these things before you make the biggest cock-up of your life. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘No, Matty. The biggest cock-up I made was thinking that you were my friend.’ He dropped his voice so that Sally, still hovering red-faced in the other room, couldn’t hear. ‘And given the appalling state of your own marriage, I hardly think you’re in a position to preach.’

  Just for a moment Matty looked stricken, and Niall’s insouciance seemed about to crumble, but instead he looked back towards the kitchen. His voice boomed out once more: ‘Bye, Sals – I’m staying in the hotel tonight after all. Thanks for the food, angel.’

  Dropping a tea-towel mid-wipe, Sally rushed through to the hall to dissuade him from leaving, but Niall was already halfway out of the door and simply kissed her farewell, ignoring her entreaties.

  He looked over her shoulder to Matty.

  ‘May the best man win, my son.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Because he sure as hell isn’t you.’

  Hugo was already regretting his decision to let Lisette film at Haydown. He needed all his concentration right now as the season reached its peak, and his peace was being continually interrupted by calls from Lisette demanding dimensions, or a diary-check, or the number of local council departments to clear road filming – why she needed to bother Hugo with such matters was beyond him. She had even taken to calling him on his emergency mobile number, catching him when he was hacking out nervous youngsters, schooling his internationals or shouting at the grooms. This morning she had managed to call when he was taking a pee behind a bush on his way to catch a horse in one of the bottom fields. If it was like this now, he reasoned, then what on earth would happen when thirty or forty arty-farties, techies and luvvies minced over his land and through his house in May? His concentration would be shattered.