Lord Seeks Wife: A hilariously funny romantic comedy

by Heather Barnett

‘Can you hear that?’

  Then he appeared, jogging back across the lawn.

  ‘Sounds like something’s going on in the village. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like The Proxy playing live.’

  Saskia looked scornful, but they all stopped to listen. There was a pounding heartbeat echoing dully around the valley, and from time to time they heard a higher-pitched melody.

  ‘It’s probably a school disco. You’re not in London now, Joel babe, you don’t stumble across The Proxy playing live in your neighbourhood.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Annabel, ‘maybe we should go down and see what’s going on? For the article?’ Annabel was twenty-four and lived in the bars, pubs and clubs of Hoxton, Brixton and Shoreditch. Most of her friends had no idea where she lived because she would always be found out somewhere, usually having taken too many pills, always awake and looking for the next party. The prospect of a quiet evening surveying the hushed, moonlit lawns of a country house, with a glass of vodka and Coke as her only stimulant, struck terror into her.

  Support came from an unexpected corner.

  ‘Damn good idea. Make the most of it, that’s what I say. Could be some great material for your article.’ Noblet nodded at them, newspaper discarded.

  Saskia stroked Henry’s head again.

  ‘Would you mind, babe? I’d need to borrow your car. We’ll rock up, take a few shots of their little disco or whatever it is and come straight back.’

  ‘Knock yourself out, darling. We’ll be here.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Noblet. ‘We’re not going anywhere. Take your time.’

  ***

  Saskia, Joel and Annabel jumped into Henry’s Aston Martin and roared down to the village.

  ‘This’ll be a waste of time,’ Saskia was saying as they parked up by the green, ‘but I felt sorry for you guys having to hang around up there. Boring as fuck, I know. That place is crying out for a festival – you know, drape the whole place in white silk, yurts on the lawns, book some new wave folk acts, chill-out zone in the library, pseudo-vintage tea parties on the lawn. That’d be the vacuum, man, remind me to speak to Henry about it.’

  She continued setting out her vision for de Beeble Fest as they followed the sound of pounding music to the village hall, but when they opened the double doors and looked in, the words died in her throat. There, on the poxy, cramped stage of a poxy, cramped village hall, were The Proxy; the hottest band to come out of London in the past six months. Saskia had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get an interview with them ever since she’d first seen them play under some railway arches in Waterloo, but they kept turning her down. And yet here they were, entertaining a pack of country bumpkins who would have been just as happy listening to Disco Dave’s Hits of the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties.

  ‘What the f…’ she hissed. Someone had done this, someone had got them here. Scanning the room her eyes locked onto a familiar face. She couldn’t be sure if the face was familiar because she knew this woman or if she recognised her as being from her world, rather than from this little village in the sticks. She was taller, glossier, and more beautiful than anyone who lived in this village could be. She was the culprit.

  ‘Do you know her?’ she asked the others. No need to ask who she was talking about; Joel and Annabel were both gawping at her already.

  ‘She looks familiar…’ Joel couldn’t quite place her either. ‘Supermodel?’

  ‘Too fat,’ spat Saskia.

  Joel and Annabel exchanged a meaningful look. Saskia was usually far too secure in her own importance to be jealous of other women, no matter how attractive.

  ‘Let’s get a drink and go and speak to the band when they break. Joel, get some shots of these inbreds, man. Too, too shabby.’

  ‘I think it’s a private party,’ whispered Annabel as they walked in.

  ‘So what? They’re hardly going to chuck us out, come on.’

  Chapter 8

  Arriving earlier that evening, Alice had been gobsmacked and a little scared. This party had been arranged for her. This band was playing, these tables had been loaded with food, this bar and these waiters had been arranged, these people had turned up at the drop of a hat, all for her birthday party. She’d never heard of The Proxy, but the look on Jay’s face had given her a good idea of how famous they were. The guests were a mixture of old friends, villagers and sophisticated strangers, no doubt invited by Mia. She could protest all she wanted that Jay had had a hand in the organisation; Alice had no doubts who was the mastermind behind this evening. Walking in with Mia and taking all this in, she shook her head, bewildered.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Mia laughed and tucked her arm under Alice’s. ‘I’m your fairy godmother. Now we need to find Prince Charming. Come and have a drink. I invited a few friends; I hope you don’t mind. This is José, Ben, Tia – that’s Corey…’

  Ordinarily, this would have been Alice’s cue to slip off and hide, but somehow with Mia by her side, nothing seemed to faze her. She took a deep breath and plunged into the mass of friendly faces, knocking back a drink that had been thrust into her hand. She appeared to be mingling, and for once she was – almost – enjoying it.

  ***

  After a tumultuous first half, the band took a break. Luc, lead singer of The Proxy, prowled over to Mia and kissed her hand. He was hopelessly in love with her. Four of The Proxy’s last five singles had been inspired by her (the fifth, ‘Life on the Line’ had been inspired by waking up with an epoch-making hangover inches away from a railway track). His love was unacknowledged and unreciprocated. Luc preferred it that way; nothing would have stamped on the delicate bud of his inspiration like the unromantic foot of requited love.

  Mia’s eyes smiled at him over the rim of her whisky glass.

  ‘I’ve never heard you sing better.’

  ‘I always sing well when you’re listening.’

  ‘Do you need anything? Have you got a drink?’ She hailed a passing waiter. Luc took a glass of champagne and a vodka shot off the tray, then pointed a tobacco-stained finger over the waiter’s shoulder.

  ‘Who invited the journalists?’

  Saskia had backed Stein Avery, The Proxy’s drummer, into a corner while Joel took pictures of him. Annabel was in the background, exchanging sultry looks with Rollo Carr, the floppy-haired bass player.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Mia, with a frown. Turning round she caught the eye of a burly man in black and gestured him over. Luc kissed her hand again before oozing away.

  ***

  Saskia felt a tap on her shoulder and froze. Someone was touching her vintage Narciso Rodriguez violet distressed leather jacket. Someone with a large and no doubt greasy finger. She turned, fixing a grade A look of hauteur to her face. It encountered a barrel-like chest. She adjusted the look upwards.

  ‘Can. I. Help. You?’ Her words shot like peas from a particularly vicious pea-shooter.

  The man growled at her.

  ‘Sorry? Can’t understand you.’

  The man growled at her again. The words weren’t clear but the West Country accent was.

  ‘No. Sorry, still didn’t get it. Do you speak English?’

  ‘Maybe you’ll understand this,’ rasped the man, grabbing her and propelling her across the room and out of the door with a firm shove between the shoulder-blades. Joel and Annabel appeared more fluent in West Country than Saskia as they shot out behind her with no need of translation. With the sound of the slammed door ringing in their ears they looked in horror at the indignant figure in violet leather who was doing an Oscar-winning depiction of a fish out of water. Inside the hall: laughing, chattering and the band tuning up for the second half. Outside the hall: silence, punctuated with violent gasps. When Saskia found her voice again, it was shaking.

  ‘That is NOT fucking cool, man.’

  They knew how moved she was by the fact that she’d forgotten to use one of her trademark phrases rather than the mundane ‘cool’.

  ‘Who t
he fuck is she to treat me like that?’

  ‘Erm… that wasn’t a woman, Sask.’

  ‘Not the monkey, I’m talking about the piper. She’s the one behind this.’

  Annabel deciphered the metaphors. ‘You think that glamorous woman told him to chuck us out?’

  ‘Glamorous is not a word I’d use to describe that bitch – and not one you’ll be using to describe her again if you want to keep working for The Vacuum. Shocking lapse of discernment, babe.’

  Annabel looked flustered and started to stammer a retraction. Saskia paid her no attention. Stalking off, the others trailing behind her, she headed for the car. Halfway there she stopped, turning to stare at the village hall.

  ‘No, man. No way. I’m not going to let her scare me off like a little kid. She doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.’ Looking round at the others and smiling a vicious little smile, she took off her towering heels. Motioning to Annabel to do the same with her stilettos, she put both pairs of shoes in the back of the car.

  ‘Got plenty of film in that thing?’ she asked Joel, pointing to the camera round his neck.

  ‘Er, no, it’s digital…’

  ‘OK then. Come on you guys, we’re journalists, let’s chase down this goddamn story.’ She jogged off in the direction of the small copse which pressed up against the boundary of the village hall grounds.

  ‘I’m a fashion photographer, not bloody Kate Adie,’ grumbled Joel, traipsing along behind her.

  ‘What story is she talking about?’ hissed Annabel.

  Joel shrugged and then flinched as Annabel let out a piercing shriek; her bare foot encountering a thistle in the grass. Saskia emerged from the wood to motion furiously at them for silence, then retreated again into the shadows.

  They pressed on towards her.

  ***

  The bouncer emitted a short, sharp grunt of satisfaction after the door had slammed behind the interlopers. He enjoyed bouncing – or door supervision to give it its correct title. Door supervision was an art, and an underappreciated one at that. A door supervisor had to be all things to all men. When an event was going well, he faded into the background like a piece of wallpaper. When there was trouble, he materialised like… like a strip of wallpaper peeling away from the wall and collapsing on people. Or something even more dramatic than that. The worst parties were those at which no actual ejections were required. He hated a boring party. Tonight, he’d only needed to eject those three pathetic specimens so far, but he was hopeful that it was the start of better things to come. Scanning the room to ensure no jiggery-pokery had ensued in his few moments of distraction, he lumbered back to his preferred vantage point against the wall near the fire exit and resumed his impersonation of a piece of wallpaper.

  ‘Saw you in action. Very impressive,’ purred a voice somewhere near his right nipple.

  He looked down and recognised the shiny blonde bob and whip-thin body of Sinead Dumper.

  ‘Urr.’

  She continued flashing seductive looks at him while he scanned the room. He growled apologetically, ‘On duty.’

  ‘I know. No need to talk. Like to watch you work.’ Sinead stared into his face. ‘Fascinating.’

  ‘Urr.’

  The bouncer found Sinead disconcerting. She had first accosted him when he was doing his day job, patrolling the borders of the de Beeble estate. She’d been wearing a very short leather mini-skirt and a black vest top, and if he hadn’t known better, he’d have said she was lying in wait for him. The door supervisor – Derek to his mother and one or two other close confederates – wasn’t used to overt female attention. His mother believed that he would be quite a catch for some lucky lady but there, it must be said, she was in the minority. Derek had discovered early in life that although the ladies love a bit of brawn, they are less partial to small, deep-set eyes, a piggy nose, trumpet-like ears and a propensity to sweat buckets even in arctic conditions. Whence, then, came this sudden interest from what Derek termed to himself a ‘fam fatal’?

  Sinead squeezed his arm and allowed her fingers to linger on his boulder-like bicep.

  ‘Like a drink? Something soft? Won’t affect your reflexes?’

  Undeniably she had a certain sense of the complexities of door supervision. When they’d met in the lane, and again when she’d arranged to meet him at the Lion and Lamb, she’d shown a flattering interest in his work and a thirst to know more. How often did he patrol the estate, for instance? Was he a specialist, focussing on estate patrols, or would he be involved in, for example, crowd control at the village hall interviews? Questions such as these had drawn him out and he’d introduced her to the secrets of his profession. The Stance (legs apart, arms crossed high on the chest, chin up). The Stare (unflinching, unblinking and best carried out by small, deep-set eyes looking down a piggy nose). The Customer Address System, to be applied when accosted by customers requesting access to a venue without the correct ticket (engage Stance and Stare, grunt monosyllabic responses whilst maintaining Stance and Stare and permitting mouth and head to move as little as possible). Sinead had drunk all this in and even attempted the Stance, Stare and Address herself, which Derek had found endearing.

  ‘Orange juice,’ he grunted, and Sinead darted away to the bar, returning with his drink and one for herself. He glugged the juice, draining the glass, never letting his attention wander from the crowd in front of him. Sinead took his empty glass and shook her head in admiration.

  ‘Amazing concentration.’

  He shrugged modestly and said, ‘S’my job.’

  Nevertheless, she continued to shake her head and remained glued to his side, watching and admiring.

  ***

  Luc bent over the microphone, dark hair flopping down, but through the mane his eyes were trained on the tall figure of Mia near the front of the crowd. ‘Oh you,’ he sang, ‘you’re that first day when winter’s through. The world’s not good enough for you.’

  Gosh, thought Alice, champagne bubbles bouncing and popping in her brain, it almost looks like he wrote that song about her.

  This is a nice song, was her next thought, and she hummed along. One of the other teachers from work was standing next to her and they swayed together from side to side.

  ‘You, you’re all my winters too,’ Alice warbled. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, blue…’ Possibly not the right words, but so what. No one was listening.

  (In fact, everyone was listening as Alice was yelling at the top of her voice.)

  ‘Here you go, Alice, have a mojito.’

  ‘Thanks!’ Who was that? Someone with a big smile and a tray of cocktails, it didn’t really matter what his name was. It didn’t matter what anyone’s name was. They were all smiling and swaying and singing and having a lovely, lovely time at her thirtieth birthday party.

  Only… now she appeared to be surveying that birthday party from the floor… and then from the arms of a burly man in black who was carrying her out into the fresh air.

  Recalling it later, everyone agreed that things had happened fast. One minute, Alice was being doused in water and fanned by a circle of people on the grass, the next someone was snapping away with a camera.

  ‘That’s it, man! Get it on film! Bouncer brutality, he’s knocked that poor little frump out.’ And then – ‘Come on, Joel! Let’s get out of here, man!’

  At the sight of Derek barrelling towards him, Joel hadn’t waited for Saskia’s exhortations and the two of them scrambled desperately to get back over the wall. Joel, six-foot tall and athletic, was over and on the other side with Annabel while Saskia was still getting a foothold.

  ‘Help! Pull me over! Help me, man!’ came Saskia’s increasingly frantic voice.

  With a final heroic leap, she hurled herself at the wall and was halfway over when Derek reached her and grabbed an ankle. As he dragged her back down, Joel gripped her scrabbling hand and tried to heave her over onto his side of the wall. The two men were pulling in opposite directions, Saskia was screaming and
trying to kick Derek in the face, Annabel was shrieking hysterically – and then all of a sudden something happened that no one was expecting. Derek’s absence from the village hall had allowed a couple of gatecrashers to sneak in. One of these darted over and slapped a large cross on Saskia’s bottom in bright red paint. Instantly a camera started flashing, lighting up Derek’s bewildered look; Saskia’s white leggings now adorned with a big red cross; her anguished face as she twisted back to try to see what was happening; and the satisfied glint of a job well done in Lorraine Watford’s unfocused eyes.

  The stress of the situation was too great for Derek to bear in silence. He lifted his great head and roared like a wounded guinea pig, sending people scattering. Mad hair, spectacles and paint pot bowled back into the village hall, paused to daub one or two outsiders in red paint, then continued on into the night. Flashing camera, grey hooded top and mischievous grin fled for the far wall, scrabbled over and disappeared into the wood on the other side. Bare feet, white leggings and red, sticky bottom fell heavily onto something soft, which squealed, before being heard to rustle away through the leaves.

  ***

  Alice sat up.

  ‘Ooh. I think I must have nodded off. Is everyone having a nice time?’

  Mia sat down on the grass beside her. ‘I, for one, have not had so much fun in a long time.’

  ‘Oh good.’

  Closing her eyes Alice curled up again to resume her refreshing sleep.

  ***

  Inside the hall, pandemonium. Someone had assaulted Stein Avery and several partygoers with red paint and an enraged-looking bouncer had pounded through the hall in hot pursuit of the perpetrator, scattering people in all directions. Rumours were flying around that the tabloids had airlifted journalists and paparazzi in to secretly film the party. Scores of people were said to have collapsed in the grounds and been rushed to hospital.

  In short, Alice’s 30th birthday party was a huge success.

  Despite splashes of red paint leading to the door of a picturesque-looking cottage by the green, Derek was unable to rouse anyone with repeated hammerings on the door. In the end he was led away, head hanging in shame, by a whippet-thin woman with a shiny blonde bob.