by Jill Mansell
He was smiling, she could tell.
‘That’s got that out of the way, then. We’ve done the being-cool bit. Now we’re allowed to move on to stage two.’ Greg paused. ‘So, how are you?’
‘Great. How’s your chest?’
‘Still covered in your phone number.’ He sounded rueful. ‘That was indelible ink, you know. I had four showers yesterday.’
‘What you need is a Brillo pad,’ said Miranda. ‘That’ll do the trick. Or you could use one of those sanding discs,’ she added brightly. ‘You just fit them on the end of your Black and Decker and off you go…’
Whoops, unintentional double-entendre. Miranda held her breath, praying Greg wouldn’t let her down. If he said anything remotely building-sitey, she’d go off him in a flash.
Just because she’d ripped open his shirt and scribbled across his bare chest didn’t mean he was allowed to be crude.
She almost jumped up and down and cheered when Greg passed the unspoken test.
‘I may have to do that.’ He sounded amused. ‘Adrian’s already wondering why I’ve taken to wearing a dressing gown around the house.’
‘Tell him you’re a born-again virgin and that nudity is a sin,’ said Miranda. ‘Has he tried ringing me yet?’
‘Yesterday. He got through to a Mrs Finkelstein.’
‘Was he okay about it?’
‘Put it this way,’ said Greg, ‘he was on the phone for twenty minutes, begging at first, then getting madder and madder. When she finally hung up on him he yelled, “Can you believe it? Miranda’s mother won’t even let me speak to her, just because I’m not Jewish.”’
Miranda, who had plucked the number out of thin air, sent a mental apology to poor, shouted-at Mrs Finkelstein.
‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘that’s enough about Adrian. When can I see you?’
Double-checking, Miranda said, ‘Have we definitely stopped playing it cool?’
‘Definitely stopped.’
‘Oh well, in that case,’ she said happily, ‘how about tonight?’
***
Crammed on to the tube forty minutes later, Miranda was strap-hanging and swaying in unison with everyone else in the carriage when she saw a face she recognized.
She ducked her head and peered more closely at the copy of the Daily Mail being held up by the woman against whom she was currently squashed hip-to-hip. The paper was open at the gossip page and the girl she had spotted in the main photograph was Daisy Schofield.
The woman to whom the paper belonged was reading the other page. Annoyingly, she was obscuring with her fingers the bit Miranda most wanted to see. But Daisy Schofield was certainly looking happy enough, with her thin arms draped around the shoulders of some man or other—oh, come on, move your fingers—and although the accompanying text was partially hidden, Miranda was clearly able to make out the words ‘in fine form’, ‘sizzling romance’ and ‘Wednesday night’.
So much for being laid up with a virus, thought Miranda. Elizabeth Turnbull had been right.
‘Lying bitch,’ she muttered under her breath.
When the woman flinched and glanced sideways in alarm, Miranda realized the words hadn’t been as far under her breath as she’d thought. Oh well, never mind, maybe if she apologized and explained, the woman would move her fingers and let her read the rest of the piece.
But the owner of the newspaper was too fast for Miranda. Before she even had a chance to open her mouth, the train screeched to a halt at South Ken. The doors scissored open and the woman, still clutching her paper to her chest, jumped off.
Now I’ll have to buy one myself, Miranda thought indignantly, peering after her. Honestly, some people were so selfish.
Chapter 12
‘Yap yap,’ said Miranda when Fenn arrived at the salon an hour later.
‘I knew it.’ Fenn raised his eyebrows at Bev. ‘She’s finally gone barking.’
‘God, you’re slow,’ Miranda protested. ‘It’s Friday, isn’t it? Tabitha day. You said I could be your guard dog.’
Tabitha Lester, known in the salon as Try-it-on Tabitha, had been a hugely successful actress back in the seventies. Now past her sell-by date but steadfastly refusing to admit it, she spent her days having face lifts and fat Hoovered out of her thighs, and her nights tottering along to film premières on the arms of embarrassingly young men.
She also had a massive crush on Fenn, who had once gone to her house alone and had barely escaped with his leather trousers intact. Since then, his regular trips to Tabitha’s home in St John’s Wood were strictly chaperoned, much to her disgust and his relief.
Miranda loved going too. If Tabitha Lester was willing to pay silly money for a house call, she didn’t mind at all. The house was vast and decorated in wonderfully over-the-top Hollywood style. They were always plied with Hollywood-type food, and Tabitha—in an attempt to weaken Fenn’s defences—was forever opening bottles of pink champagne.
‘I don’t know why you don’t sleep with her,’ said Miranda, feeling quite Hollywoody herself in the passenger seat of Fenn’s gleaming black Lotus. ‘Just make a hash of it, be completely useless. Then she won’t pester you any more.’
‘Is that your bright idea for the day?’
‘It’s a brilliant suggestion!’
‘Right.’ Fenn nodded. ‘We’re talking about the queen of the tabloids here. That’ll do my reputation the world of good, won’t it? I can just see the headline: “My Quickie with Crimper Fenn—a Wizard with Scissors, Crap in the Sack.”’
‘Yes, but no one would believe it,’ Miranda protested. Fenn’s girlfriends tended to be supermodels and he was generally regarded as one of London’s most eligible bachelors.
When you were a gorgeous heterosexual hairdresser—and a very successful one, at that—well, you could do no wrong. You were officially a great catch.
‘I’d rather not take that chance,’ Fenn remarked, ‘if it’s all the same to you.’
***
‘Fenn, you’re looking wonderful as usual,’ Tabitha exclaimed, greeting them on the doorstep. Drawing him inside, she confided, ‘Do you know, I had the most amazing dream about you last night. Quite, quite naughty.’ As she spoke, she winked at Miranda and jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Darling, it’s Cook’s day off. There’s a Charentais melon in the fridge and a mountain of Parma ham. Why don’t you help yourself while Fenn and I head on upstairs?’
‘Later,’ Fenn said firmly, meaning in half an hour when Tabitha’s head was shrouded in foil and she couldn’t pounce on him. ‘I need Miranda to help me get started.’
‘Yap yap,’ Miranda murmured as the three of them trailed up the staircase, Tabitha clutching an unopened bottle of champagne in one hand and the hem of her sea-green négligé in the other.
For someone with five walk-in wardrobes stuffed with clothes, Tabitha appeared to spend an awful lot of her time wafting about in see-through nighties.
The master bedroom had been redecorated since Miranda’s last visit, the ankle-deep turquoise shag pile having been replaced by ankle-deep ivory shag pile. The wallpaper, ivory and gold, matched the damask hangings artfully draped around the four-poster bed.
‘This is nice.’ Glancing inadvertently upwards, Miranda saw that the mirror was still there on the ceiling.
‘I know.’ Tabitha smiled meaningfully across at Fenn. ‘I’ve got great taste. Oh, sorry, darling,’ she went on as Miranda pulled out a chair and something metallic half buried in the carpet went clunk. ‘Just pop them in that drawer, will you? Good girl.’
As she dropped the slim but efficient-looking gold handcuffs into the drawer, Miranda didn’t dare look at Fenn. If she did, she knew she would burst out laughing. Biting her lip and gazing out of the window instead, she watched a bronzed figure in black shorts dive into the swimm
ing pool below.
Although he was some distance away, she couldn’t help thinking he looked familiar.
‘Miranda, put some towels down around the chair,’ Fenn instructed. ‘We don’t want bleach on the carpet.’
A second splash heralded the arrival in the pool of another figure, paler and fleshier than the first, and wearing multicolored trunks. By the look of things, Tabitha had found herself a couple of toyboys.
‘Miranda. Towels.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Fenn, give the girl a break,’ Tabitha chided good-naturedly. ‘She’s just admiring my young friends.’
‘Sorry, Fenn.’ Miranda tore herself away. She was sure she’d seen the one in the black shorts somewhere before.
‘Relax. Don’t let him bully you.’ Tabitha settled herself comfortably on to the chair.
Fenn, laying out the contents of his case, raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
‘You’re kidding. Miranda bullies me.’
‘Oh, I love a man who knows his place,’ Tabitha said with a smirk. The kind of smirk that signified, especially when he’s handcuffed to a four-poster.
‘Foil, please, Miranda.’ Fenn was beginning to sound slightly desperate.
‘Come on, let’s open this first.’ Patting his arm in a soothing manner, Tabitha handed him the bottle, managing to brush her wrist against his thigh en route. ‘You do the honors. Popping the cork is a man’s job.’ She winked again, saucily, at Miranda. ‘Poor Fenn, all on edge this morning. He looks as if he could do with a drink.’
Retouching Tabitha’s bombshell-blonde highlights took three-quarters of an hour. By the time the last few greying roots had been painstakingly painted and wrapped in foil, the furious growls emanating from Miranda’s empty stomach had reached bear-like proportions.
‘Go on, run downstairs and get some food inside you.’ Waving her empty glass at Fenn, Tabitha indicated that she was in need of a refill.
Miranda glanced at Fenn, who nodded. For the next twenty minutes he was safe; even Try-it-on Tabitha wouldn’t risk dislodging the dozens of little foil packets and wrecking her hair.
Besides, if Miranda didn’t eat soon they were going to need earplugs.
The kitchen door, leading out on to the sun terrace, was open. As Miranda crouched in front of the fridge, drooling at the sight of Parma ham, marinated mushrooms and punnets of strawberries, she could hear the sounds of shouts and splashing outside in the pool.
She was carrying a ciabatta loaf and the Charentais melon over to the table when a wolf-whistle behind her made her jump. Twisting around, she lost her grip on the melon, which slid out of her hand and went bowling across the floor.
‘Hey, great idea!’ It was the paler of the two men she had seen from the window earlier. Scooping it up, he grinned at her. ‘Water polo!’
‘You can’t take that melon,’ Miranda protested. ‘Tabitha just asked me to cut it up—’
‘I am a representative of the Melon Liberation Front,’ the intruder declaimed, spinning it basketball-style on the tip of his index finger. ‘This melon’—dripping water all over the tiled floor, he began to back away—‘shall Be Free!’
He was out of the door in a flash. Miranda, who had spent the last hour daydreaming about melon, skidded across the wet floor after him.
Racing on to the terrace, she was just in time to see the melon sailing through the air. It landed with a splash in the pool and was promptly leapt on by the other man. Shaking his blond hair out of his eyes, he held the melon triumphantly aloft.
‘Don’t let her have it,’ yelled his friend. ‘She’s a murderer.’
‘Look,’ Miranda tried to sound reasonable, ‘you can’t play water polo with a melon.’
‘We aren’t playing water polo,’ said the blond one, ‘we’re playing watermelon.’
Grinning broadly, he lobbed it over Miranda’s head, where it was neatly caught by his friend. Miranda, beginning to feel stupid, moved towards him.
The melon flew over her head once more.
‘Look, you can play too if you like,’ the blond one offered. ‘You can be on my team.’
He was by far the better-looking of Tabitha’s two toyboys. What was more, he was still tantalizingly familiar. If his hair wasn’t plastered to his head and he had clothes on, Miranda thought, she was sure she’d recognize him.
‘Do I know you?’
‘Of course you do. I’m the other half of your watermelon team. Come on,’ he said persuasively, ‘jump in. The water’s fantastic.’
‘Look, I’d love to play watermelon with you’—she was still trying to humor him—‘but I just can’t.’
Big mistake.
‘No such thing as can’t!’ The one in the multicolored trunks, having loomed up behind her, lobbed the melon back into the water. Grabbing Miranda around the waist, he lifted her into his arms and raced to the edge of the pool.
Right up to the last second, she was convinced he’d stop.
He didn’t.
With a monumental splash, they landed together in the deep end. Miranda shuddered as the icy water caused every cell in her body to contract with shock.
By the time she had swum back to the surface, the better-looking toyboy was treading water next to her.
‘Well, that’s a relief. For a minute there I thought you couldn’t swim.’ His green eyes were alight with laughter, his tone conversational. ‘Thought I was going to have to rescue you.’
He was still clutching the melon. Miranda made a grab for it.
‘Oh dear, I can see I need to explain the rules of watermelon to you.’ Effortlessly, he whisked it out of her reach. ‘You see, we’re on the same side. You’re meant to tackle the opposition, not me.’
Miranda’s teeth began to chatter. Keeping afloat fully clothed was no picnic either.
‘This p-pool isn’t heated. You l-lied to me.’
‘I didn’t.’ He grinned, his teeth dazzlingly white against his tanned face. ‘I told you the water was fantastic, I didn’t say anything about it being warm.’
‘I am going to get into so much trouble for this.’ Miranda glanced fearfully up at Tabitha’s bedroom window. No sign of Fenn’s outraged face, thank goodness.
‘Oh, come on, you’re in now.’ Her teammate held the melon towards her in enticing fashion. ‘Just one game.’
‘I’ve got my shoes on.’
‘Take them off.’
‘I’m still wearing all my clothes!’
He didn’t say anything, just grinned at her. His eyes were extraordinary, Miranda realized now that she was close enough to tell, an intense greeny-blue with yellow flecks.
‘Hey, you two! Are we playing watermelon or not?’
The one in the multicolored trunks had by this time clambered out of the pool. ‘Over here!’ he bellowed, pointing to his forehead.
‘Don’t!’ Miranda clapped both hands over her eyes as her teammate took aim. ‘You’ll knock him unconscious.’
‘Nothing knocks Johnnie unconscious.’
He was right. The melon came off worse. The force of the impact split it in half, and seeds and juice exploded in all directions like shrapnel.
‘Ouch,’ said Johnnie, scooping a lump of orange melon flesh off his shoulder and popping it into his mouth.
‘You killed it,’ Miranda said sorrowfully. ‘I’m reporting you to the MLF.’
‘Too late,’ murmured her playing partner as Fenn appeared on the terrace. ‘Looks like they’re already here.’
Chapter 13
Miranda sat huddled on one of the kitchen chairs with a towel around her shoulders and a spreading puddle of chlorinated water at her feet. Her teeth chattered dramatically against the rim of her coffee cup. Her hair, which had been subjected to a cruelly brisk towel-dry by Fenn, stood
out in spikes.
‘I can’t take you anywhere.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Miranda protested. ‘Blame melon-head. He was the one who threw me in.’
‘But why does it always have to happen to you?’ Mystified, Fenn shook his head.
‘I don’t know. Stuff just does.’ Even as a child, Miranda gloomily remembered, her despairing mother had called her incident-prone.
‘Those naughty boys,’ said Tabitha, appearing in the doorway with an armful of dry clothes. ‘I’m going to give them a good talking-to. Here you are, darling, pop upstairs to my room and get yourself out of those wet things.’
In Tabitha’s bedroom, Miranda peeled off her sodden clothes, dried herself and changed into a white sweatshirt and leggings. Sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on a pair of pink angora socks, she felt something crackle behind her and pulled out a copy of the Daily Mail from under the rumpled bedspread.
Tabitha had even left it lying open at the gossip page, which was handy. One sock on and one sock off, Miranda leaned over to find out exactly what Daisy Schofield had been up to on Wednesday night.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Are you decent?’
‘As I’ll ever be.’
The bedroom door swung open. Her teammate, now fully dressed and with his blond hair slicked back from his face, said, ‘Is your boss furious with you?’
‘No, but I’m not too thrilled with you.’ Miranda recognized him at once with his clothes on. She pointed an accusing finger at the photograph in the paper. ‘What were you doing on Wednesday night with Daisy Schofield?’
He grinned.
‘Are you sure you want to know?’
No wonder he had looked familiar. Miles Harper, Formula One racing driver, had burst on to the motor-racing scene less than a year ago, but the publicity he attracted was unrelenting. With his extravagant good looks, undoubted talent, and laid-back personality, he was every advertiser’s dream.
‘I’m not interested in gory details. I meant, why was she with you?’