by Fiona Walker
‘Are you engrossed in a new book?’ she asked casually, flipping past pages of spill-thin models wading over sandy beaches.
‘What?’ Zoe had been gazing through the window. ‘Oh – no, nothing like that. I’m going to take Enid out – I might march her up to Hugo’s place to see a bit of the first day’s filming. I thought I’d ask him and Lisette Norton down to dinner this Friday if they’re free. Get Tash and Niall along too.’
‘Is that such a good idea?’ Penny was slightly aghast. ‘They’re hardly a chummy bridge four, are they?’
‘I think it could be rather fun.’ Zoe watched for a moment longer as, through the window, Tash clattered into the yard on Hunk, along with Gus on his old campaigner, Fashion Victim. They appeared to be arguing heatedly. ‘I might ask Sally French too – Tash’s sister-in-law. She’s working on the film apparently. I’ve always liked her.’
‘That doesn’t mean you’re going to invite Tash’s awful brother along, does it?’ Penny looked aghast. ‘He’s dreadfully anti-social – just lurked around in here shooting disapproving looks at the hunting prints last time he came. He didn’t even leave the kitchen.’ She thought the idea of a dinner party the weekend before Badminton generally ridiculous – the whole house would be in chaos.
Zoe cleared her throat uncomfortably. ‘I might. I’ll let Sally decide – she might not even be free. I gather Lisette’s got her running around like a messenger all day, poor thing.’
Penny eyed her thoughtfully, wondering how she knew all this. She supposed Tash must have been gossiping. ‘Don’t you think it could be a bit of a strain on poor Tash? I get the impression she’s terrified of Lisette.’
‘So is Niall – they’re both terrible cowards, and they have absolutely no reason to be.’ Zoe coughed and smiled rather guardedly. ‘Lisette is terribly pleased that Tash and Niall are getting married. In fact, I gather she’s almost as enthusiastic about it as Tash’s mother.’
‘Gosh – how very liberal. So are she and Hugo really an item now?’
‘The local gossip-mongers seem to think so.’ Zoe started searching for Enid’s lead, her pale-blonde bob tipping back as she stretched up to the coat hooks. ‘But, if you remember, they linked me to Godfrey Pelham for months just because we were doing the same evening course in advanced oriental cookery at Marlbury College.’
‘Kirsty will be devastated.’
‘Well, I’ll leave it up to her whether she wants to join in or make herself scarce.’ Zoe clipped an old lead-rope on Enid, having failed to unearth her lead. ‘But I’ll ask Stefan too, so that might ease things.’
‘Stefan?’ Penny was mentally counting numbers and starting to panic. They couldn’t afford to cater for that many – especially not big drinkers like Stefan and Niall. The trip to Badminton – with four horses running – was already costing them a fortune. She shut the Next Directory rather pointedly.
Zoe was at the door now, stepping into her wellingtons. ‘I think Stefan’s rather sweet on Kirsty.’ She made it sound gloriously old fashioned. ‘He’s been down here every two minutes since her affair with Hugo ended. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘But he’s years younger than she is!’
Zoe looked slightly uneasy. ‘Does that make such a difference? You’re a few years older than Gus.’
‘And she’s supposedly engaged to be married.’ Penny looked thoroughly disapproving.
‘So she is.’ Zoe smiled stiffly, leaning back as Gus stomped through the lobby door looking ratty and almost falling over Enid who cowered into her mistress’s legs.
‘If Tash behaved to Niall the way Kirsty does to poor Richie,’ Penny tutted, ‘there wouldn’t be a wedding in a fortnight.’
‘Don’t talk to me about that bloody wedding.’ Gus fumed, heading straight for the biscuit tin. ‘Tash is totally riddled with nerves and it’s still over a fortnight away. Christ knows what she’ll be like next week. At this rate, she’ll never get through Badminton alive – her riding’s atrocious at the moment. I’ve just had to bawl her out. She’s got her head so far in the clouds, she should be forecasting the weather.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Zoe watched him intently.
‘I just asked who was giving her away at the ceremony, and you know what she said?’ He turned back, Bourbon cream in mouth. ‘She said, “I keep thinking I’ll give myself away first.” She’s coming unhinged. I’ve sent her home early.’
To Tash’s absolute horror, a simpering Cheers! photographer and a puff-wielding stylist were waiting on the forge doorstep when she returned from the farm, tut-tutting about how late she was. Barging inside with a barrage of vacuous hello kisses and hardly a word of explanation, they spent an hour going through her wardrobe and pronouncing everything highly unphotogenic with shrieks of laughter.
‘I remember when these were in fashion!’ The stylist fell about when she spotted Tash’s favourite pair of baggy palazzo pants.
‘Do you have anything that isn’t black?’ The photographer peered into her wardrobe forlornly.
‘Only my reputation,’ she muttered.
Exhausted from her day in the saddle, Tash hadn’t the energy to complain as coathangers clattered and the duo chattered. She simply sat with Beetroot on the bed while they threw her clothes around and wondered whether they’d mind if she crept beneath the duvet and clamped her eyes tightly shut. Perhaps, she hoped vaguely, they would have disappeared by the time she opened them again?
‘Can we do anything with this, Marcelle?’ the photographer sighed, holding up Tash’s hair, which was flat and dull from being confined under a crash helmet for ten hours.
‘I’ll back-comb it.’ Marcelle whipped a menacing-looking steel comb from her vast make-up case. ‘Get some body into it.’
‘Get anybody into it, love. Just change it.’
Niall arrived just as Tash – made up with so much red lip gloss that she looked as though she had just sucked a virgin’s neck – was leaning against the range posing for a ridiculous shot which involved her holding a glass of champagne in one hand, her Burghley trophy in the other, a riding crop under her armpit and blowing a kiss at Beetroot at the same time. Eventing rosettes and publicity shots of Niall littered the Rayburn lids, and the row of Niall’s drying jockey shorts on the rail had been replaced by a crisp, unused ‘Rules of Hurling’ tea towel which had been a Christmas gift from his sister Nuala, alongside a pair of oven mitts that had never been out of their plastic shrink wrapping.
Tash’s hair was so big, it was threatening to glue itself to the overhead beam, and she was dressed in her full dressage regalia – tail coat, waistcoat, boots, breeches and stock. She looked both ravishing and utterly miserable, her huge, painted eyes pleading for help the moment Niall wandered into the room. Beetroot, who had also been back-combed, snarled menacingly.
‘Niall, love. At last!’ the photographer greeted him as though they were old mates, although it was the first time they’d met. ‘Marcelle will just dust you down and we’ll have a couple of shots outside before the light goes.’
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Niall stormed.
‘They’re from Cheers!’ Tash said weakly. ‘They say they arranged this session with the film company. We were supposed to be here at three.’
‘We won’t occupy too much of you two lovebirds’ time.’ The photographer schmoozed towards Niall with a light meter.
‘We’ve laid a few casual clothes out for you on the bed, Niall – take your pick.’ Marcelle was powdering Tash’s forehead again. ‘Gosh, you’re shiny, darling. You must have overactive sebaceous glands.’
‘Can we see Natalie in the red satin party dress now, Marcelle?’ the photographer called over his shoulder as he wandered outside to peer at the light.
‘Jesus!’ Niall stayed glued in the doorway.
For a moment Tash thought he was going to throw them out, but instead he meekly complied, his face suddenly adopting the easy, charming smile of his daytime film role. Within minutes, he was tot
ally in character, laughing and joking with the photographer as he took shots of them perched on the sofa, the bed and the tatty garden furniture. Tash was so pole-axed, she did everything asked of her, even leafing through the back copies of Cheers! that the duo had brought along and grinning inanely over them.
‘It’s a bit messy in here, innit?’ The photographer sniffed disapprovingly. ‘People usually tidy up for us. Can you hold down that dog, love? Only it looks like it’s going to bite Niall.’
Suddenly Tash had to fight hard to control a fit of giggles. The situation was too absurd to take seriously. But catching Niall watching her, she saw that, despite the relaxed smile and comic charm, his eyes were almost black with misery. It was as though someone had dropped an ice cube down her back. Saying ‘cheese’ this late in the day was going to give her nightmares.
Niall practically had to throw them out in the end. The moment they had gone, his cheery façade dropped with an almost audible clang. He was as jumpy as a cat in a thunderstorm, Tash noticed. No wonder Beetroot had looked eager to savage him during the farce of a photo-shoot.
‘I can’t believe we just went through with that,’ she whispered, watching him worriedly as he poured himself a scotch. His hands were shaking so much that most of it slopped over the stone-topped table.
‘I honestly didn’t know they were coming.’ He turned to her, his face white. ‘Lisette must have organised it and forgotten to tell me. Jesus!’
‘Has something happened?’ Tash sat down heavily on the sofa, not liking the way his eyes were staring at her with that baleful, apologetic sadness that always preceded bad news. ‘You told me you were going to try and sort something out today?’
‘Christ, I thought it might work.’ He rubbed his forehead in agitation. ‘I’m sorry, Tash. So fuckingly, hellishly sorry. I’ve just made things worse.’
‘What do you mean, made things worse?’ Tash gazed at him. ‘I thought they were about as bad as they could get?’
‘Oh, no.’ He shook his head. ‘Last night all we had to worry about was the fact that I stand to get sued once we break the news that the wedding’s off.’
‘I think breaking it to my family might cause us a few headaches,’ she reminded him. ‘I’m pretty certain that my father, for one, will never forgive me for doing this to him.’
Another gill of scotch slid down his throat in one. ‘I’m sorry, angel, I know they’re going to freak – my mother will be out for my blood too. But, believe me, I wouldn’t ask this of you if it were just a matter of saving my skin.’
‘Ask what of me?’
He was already hitting his third glass. ‘You have to promise me something.’
‘What?’ Tash wanted to dive-bomb the bottle and throw it from the window. He was escaping into it faster than a fox into a familiar den, and within minutes he’d be back in character again, fobbing her off with that trust-me charm that belonged to the irresistible liar from Four Poster Bed.
‘You must promise me,’ he said shakily, eyes locked on hers in desperation, ‘that you’ll pretend the wedding is going ahead for a while. You have to believe me, Tash. If we don’t act like we’re getting hitched a fortnight this Saturday, you stand to lose almost as much as I do.’
‘What?’ Tash froze. ‘What do I stand to lose?’
But he closed his eyes tightly to evade the question. ‘Promise me, Tash!’
Something in his tone made Tash’s skin feel as though she had just been plunged into a liquid nitrogen bath. She gazed at his creased, unshaven face with its familiar grooves gouged out into far deeper troughs by tension and tiredness. He looked absolutely desperate.
‘What do I stand to lose, Niall?’ She suddenly felt terrified.
Starting to cry, he pressed his forehead to his clenched fist and shook his head. ‘I’ll find a way out of this, I swear to God I will. But you have to promise me you’ll keep quiet.’
Unable to bear seeing him so unhappy, Tash stumbled across the room to hug him in her arms, resting her chin on his head like a mother with a distraught child.
‘I promise,’ she said hollowly.
That seemed to satisfy him. He bounced back to his energetic Tigger charm, drinking his way through the rest of the bottle and telling her about his day as though his recent weeping had never happened. Trying to get him to talk about it again was impossible – his light, witty, dilettante character role was impenetrable. Battling to get through, Tash was almost demented with frustration and worry. Half an hour later, and he had sloped off to the Olive Branch to meet ‘the guys’. He even had the nerve to ask her along too.
‘Hugo and Lisette might be there,’ he told her, as though that was a selling point.
Tash shook her head, horrified how easily the mention of that particular couple could thump the air from her chest.
She was left to stew in solitude, appalled by what she had just agreed to. Starting to feel paranoid, she almost wondered if he’d tricked her into it, if he was somehow trying to get her to agree to Bob’s ridiculous altar-cation idea after all. He’d said she had as much to lose as he did, but she was wary of him at the moment, uncertain how much of what he told her was the truth, and how much was some fabrication he was dreaming up in his new character. If only he hadn’t looked so completely wretched, she might have challenged him. But, however good an actor he was, he couldn’t cry like that on cue. Nor could he feign the inebriated ramblings he came out with when he staggered back in at midnight. He could hardly walk, let alone put in a Bafta-worthy performance.
‘Stefan was there – with Kirsty.’ He fell over Beetroot, not noticing when she sank her teeth into his ankle. ‘We had a chat about Snob, so we did.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Tash watched with alarm as he tripped into the kitchen with Beetroot still attached.
‘They say you stand a good chance of winning Shuttlecock.’
‘Badminton.’ Tash whistled Beetroot away.
‘That too.’ He head-butted a cupboard as he searched for a fresh bottle of whiskey. ‘Kirsty claims the horse is one of the top five in the country. Worth almost a million, so she says.’
‘That’s right.’ She tried not to notice that he was now trying to pour Bushmills into a small glass measuring jug by mistake.
‘But Stefan said you’d rather sell your soul than sell Snob,’ he slurred, and then giggled as he realised that he was tipping up the bottle without unscrewing the top.
Tash froze. He couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was, could he? That she should sell Snob to pay his way out of the publicity deal? Then she almost blacked out as she remembered that Snob officially belonged to Niall anyway. There was nothing stopping him from selling her beloved, rebellious chestnut friend if he wanted to. The money he would get from it would almost certainly solve his problem. He’d probably even have enough left over to purchase a yacht and take out a lifetime’s off-shore subscription to Cheers!
‘What are you saying, Niall?’ she croaked, her voice almost packing up on her as she fought not to cry.
He settled back against a kitchen cupboard and gazed vaguely in her direction, eyes crossing and uncrossing as though he was trying to count the freckles on his nose.
‘Will you marry me, Tash?’ he hiccuped.
She shook her head in bewilderment.
‘Will you?’ he repeated.
‘No, Niall.’ She carried on shaking her head.
‘In that case,’ he closed his eyes, ‘we’ve both sold our souls. I always said we were soul mates.’
He was so drunk that he passed out on the floor of the kitchen, sleeping soundly with his mouth open, the empty measuring jug gripped tightly in his hand.
He was far too heavy to lift, so Tash could only settle for making him more comfortable with a pillow and a blanket, positioning the washing-up bowl beside him in case he felt sick in the night. He was so desperately pitiable that she felt no anger, just a hollow drum-roll of panic booming through her chest.
Thirty-One
&
nbsp; * * *
BY THE FRIDAY OF Zoe’s dinner party, Tash was aware that she was falling apart big time. Her riding was going to pot and neither of her Badminton horses was giving an inch. Unable to concentrate, she was only making things worse by letting them get away with murder.
Her more experienced ride, Hunk, was suffering a fit of dressage boredom and shuffling around the schooling ring like a toe-scuffing teenager forced to endure a seaside trip with his grandparents, and Snob was behaving even more badly – treating each training session as a rein-wrestling match where he took her on and won almost every time. He had never behaved as atrociously as he was now, and Tash knew that it was largely her fault. He was a horse who required endless riding in and calming down, but she simply hadn’t had the time lately. Over the past month, wrapped up in her worries about Niall and increasingly involved in promotional work with her new sponsors, she had started to neglect the enormous input Snob had grown accustomed to. With a bigger, stronger rider on board he wouldn’t need the same hours, but because Tash simply wasn’t physically strong enough to hold him when he became overexcited, she had to rely upon having his total concentration and confidence at all times, particularly now that she had got him so fit for Badminton.
With her nerves as ragged as they were right now, she found it almost impossible to rally her usual gritty determination and patiently bring him around to her way of thinking.
Trying to persuade him to take a row of fences in the menage on Friday morning, she suffered the shame of being spotted by Gus just as Snob ducked out of the middle element and sent the wing crashing to the sand.