‘Never mind, I am. Come on, I feel like I’m at a very low-tech drive-in. Run by a vampire.’
Inside Alice shuffled into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Flopping into a chair she asked, ‘Have you been for your interview?’
‘Not yet.’
Alice glanced up at the clock. Half-past one. ‘Shouldn’t you be in the queue?’
‘I don’t like queuing.’
‘Oh. Right.’
She lapsed into silence. A cup of tea appeared in front of her.
‘Thanks. Sorry, didn’t hear the kettle boil.’
‘How are you?’
‘Fine.’
Mia sipped her tea and waited.
‘I mean,’ Alice clarified, ‘obviously I’m not fine. All the village saw the pictures in the paper, I can’t face seeing anyone. I’m a laughing stock and the worst of it is I’m so far from being a sex addict; I’ve not had sex in years. I’m thirty years old, living on my own and likely to stay that way forever. My life’s in a rut and I don’t know what to do about it. I want to curl into a ball and die.’
A tear rolled down her face and splashed in the cup of tea. She pushed the cup of tea to one side and let the tears fall onto the table, leaving little dark splodges on the wood.
‘It’s probably going to get worse,’ remarked Mia.
The tears redoubled in intensity.
‘Unless you do something about it.’
‘I don’t want to do anything about it,’ sobbed Alice, grabbing a tissue and rubbing at her tears and runny nose.
‘No, that’s the problem in these situations, one never does,’ agreed Mia.
‘Oh, and I suppose you’ve been in this situation, have you?’ snapped Alice through the sobs. ‘Front page news in your elasticated pants?’
‘But the thing is,’ she continued, as if Alice hadn’t spoken, ‘if you make an effort now, everything will be easier in the long run. You need to show the village that you’re not embarrassed to be the centre of gossip for a while. You need to stop crying and have a shower. I’ll be back in an hour and we’ll get to work.’
With that, she was gone and Alice’s sobs dried up with a sound like a hiccup.
‘Well of all the…’
An hour later Mia was back and somehow Alice had got herself into the shower, changed into a clean pair of jeans and splashed enough cold water on her face to stop it looking quite so much like a pink marshmallow.
Mia wasn’t alone.
‘Alice, you remember José from your party.’
Alice remembered one or two things from the party but sadly José wasn’t one of them. She wondered if he’d had that large vanity case with him at the time.
‘Luckily he was still in the area. He’s going to effect a transformation. Aren’t you, José?’
He grinned, revealing perfectly white, even teeth.
‘I am a man who loves a challenge. I accept!’
Chapter 11
Midnight. The last, bedraggled stragglers had filed in and out of the village hall, stifling yawns and stashing half-drunk bottles of wine behind bushes. Derek had brought the glad tidings that the final interviewee had been seen, and he was now helping his associates to put the room to rights. Noblet shoved his chair back from the table with a harsh scraping sound.
‘At very long last! That was, without doubt, the longest day of my entire existence.’
Henry picked up the pile of ‘yeses’. ‘Productive, though. I didn’t expect there to be so many good interviews.’
‘Me neither, old chap, me neither.’
The three of them made their way wearily to the car, Henry and Saskia in the front and Noblet in the back. Henry flicked on the headlights and did a double take. Two female figures had emerged from the darkness and stood in front of them, blocking the way.
Saskia tsked. ‘Beep the horn, babe.’
Before he could, one of them came round to the driver’s side and tapped on the window.
‘Ignore her!’ squawked Saskia as Henry pressed the button to lower the window. ‘For God’s sake, babe, we’ll never get home.’
A husky voice said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ and Noblet and Saskia both gasped, for very different reasons, at the sight of Mia’s beautiful face.
‘Are we too late for the interviews?’ she asked.
‘Yes!’ yelped Saskia, hissing aside to Henry, ‘That’s the bitch that got me thrown out of the party!’
Simultaneously, however, Noblet was saying in a strangled voice, ‘No! Not too late at all, the night is young!’
As Henry switched off the engine and undid his seat belt, Noblet leaned forward and whispered into Henry’s ear – ‘Lydia Gwilt!’
***
José, it had turned out, was a magician. He was a conjurer with concealer, a shaman with shadow: a sorcerer of slap. Out of his case came tubes, pots, bottles, brushes, cloths, tonics, ointments, powders and creams. Alice had found herself seated beside the kitchen table in a towel, her head being massaged as she inhaled fragrances so exquisite she began crying once more. Rather than try to stop her, José urged her on, crooning in her ear, ‘Yes, yes, releaze it all. Cry yooer ’art away and we start again.’
After the massage came the application of cleansers and lotions. This was the first stage, José explained, in the pre-pre-cleansing phase. Three more cleansing phases were yet to come. Alice awoke halfway through the second phase to find Mia sitting cross-legged on the table drinking coffee and reading Alice’s A-Level copy of Cyrano de Bergerac.
She noticed Alice was awake and said, ‘I love this guy. Panache. That’s my idea of a man.’
Alice nodded and drifted off again, waking when José nudged her.
‘You must wake oop now, Lady Alice. It’s time for ze pre-base base, and for thees every ’ole in ze skin, every leetle cell must be awake.’
Mia had disappeared but José made some strong coffee and waved it under Alice’s nose.
‘Normally, I say no to ze caffeine, ze skin e don’ like eet, but just thees once I allow eet.’
Later Mia reappeared, in a different dress and looking, if possible, more beautiful than ever.
Her cat’s eyes widened when she saw Alice. ‘You look amazing.’
José pshawed.
‘I ’aven’t even begun yet! Thees is ze pre-make-up!’
The light was fading outside but José and Mia gathered an arsenal of lamps which blazed in a circle around the chair where Alice’s transformation was taking place. Mia had found some chilled rosé and as José worked, they drank wine and ate a strange combination of olives, cherries and chunks of parmesan from the fridge.
At ten o’clock he stood back, put down his brush and declared, ‘I am finished! My greatest work yet!’
Whipping his phone out of his back pocket he snapped a startled-looking Alice, explaining, ‘As a record. You must give me another photo so I ’ave somefin’ to compare.’
He pulled a mirror out of his case but Mia put out a hand.
‘Not yet.’
From a bag at her feet, she produced a billowing strip of material, some jewellery and a pair of expensive-looking wedges.
‘Put these on.’
The strip of material turned out to be a long, flowing strapless dress of silk; palest turquoise with small silver stars and flowers. There was a silver bangle to go with it and chandelier earrings that sparkled like raindrops in the lamplight.
‘But…’ So many questions tumbled into Alice’s brain. ‘Where did these come from? They won’t fit me. I don’t wear clothes like this…’ Her last words were muffled by the T-shirt that Mia was pulling up over her head.
José slipped discreetly into the next room.
Mia dropped the light-as-air dress over her head and zipped it up. Alice found herself pulling off her jeans and socks in a daze and slipping on the sandals as Mia fastened the jewellery.
She stepped back and considered Alice from head to foot.
‘José!’
He b
ounced back into the room.
‘Eez ready?’
‘One more thing.’
‘Ah! Of course. Ze scent.’
Turning back to his case he tried bottle after bottle before inhaling deeply and nodding his head.
‘Thees one.’
Alice found herself enveloped in mimosa, jasmine, rippling cornfields and breezes rolling down from Tuscan hills.
‘Now! She is ready.’
He lifted the mirror, reflecting first her face and then tilting it so she could see her dress.
What she saw was Airbrushed Alice. Not your everyday, bog-standard Alice with limp hair, a tendency to chubbiness and the odd spot or two, but the Alice from her daydreams. This Alice was made to turn heads when she walked into a room. Her eyes were bigger, her lips plumper, her flesh firmer and her skin was bouncing golden rays off the walls. Her neat bob had been tousled, giving her a bohemian, spontaneous kind of look. And she felt rather spontaneous. After all, hadn’t she wanted something unusual to happen to her, to flip her out of her comfortable little rut? The events of the last few days weren’t what she had had in mind, but you couldn’t always choose your rut-flippers.
Looking at the kitchen counter, she clocked two empty bottles of wine and wondered how much of it she’d drunk. She hoped her newfound confidence wasn’t purely alcohol-fuelled.
Before the first furrow of concern had wrinkled her radiant brow, however, Mia had taken her by the arm. Kissing José on the cheek, she said, ‘You are a god among men and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.’
‘Oh! Yes, thank you, José, so much! I’ve never looked like this before, you’re amazing.’
Outside the cottage, Mia began humming one of the songs The Proxy had played at Alice’s party. Alice joined in, humming happily until she realised they were approaching the Lion and Lamb.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Phase One of Operation Anti-Rut. Give the neighbours something to talk about.’
Alice hung back. ‘Wasn’t being plastered across the tabloids enough?’
‘Give them something else to talk about. Something they’re not expecting. Sinead and Co. are no doubt envisaging you crumpled in a heap on the sofa watching Sleepless in Seattle and overdosing on Dairy Milk.’
‘I like Sleepless in Seattle,’ said Alice irrelevantly. ‘And Dairy Milk.’
‘However, instead, here you are, like Cinderella with her fairy godmother, stopping off at the pumpkin for a quick tipple of magic potion before dancing away into the sunset with your prince.’
Alice looked at her.
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘Not yet.’ She set off again towards the pub, calling over her shoulder, ‘Come on Alice Brand – it’s time for the tulip to bloom.’
Alice looked down and caught sight of her silk dress rippling gently in the breeze. It would be ungrateful in the extreme to waste all of José’s work and Mia’s thoughtfulness by creeping off home again. Lifting her head, she followed Mia into the crowded bar of the Lion and Lamb.
The record didn’t exactly stop with a screech of the needle, and not quite everyone turned round to gawp at them, but other than that they could have been re-enacting a barroom scene in a Western. Mia paused for a moment before slinking across to the bar; allowing everyone plenty of time to drink in the sight of Alice, transformed. Alice followed, attempting a slink of her own. It needed some work – she had a suspicion it made her look like a toddler waltzing in quicksand.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to find Colonel Markham, pink and beaming.
‘Alice, my dear. You look splendid! May I buy you and your enchanting friend a drink?’
Mia smiled her lazy smile at him and asked for a whisky. Alice ordered a gin and tonic. As Jerry served the drinks, other people started to gravitate towards them. Mrs Fratterbury was so pleased to see that Alice was getting over her little ‘contre-tete’. Sinead nodded towards them from a distance and remarked that Alice was looking surprisingly well, considering. Lorraine Watford wandered past to congratulate Alice – or Angela, as she insisted on calling her – on looking so fresh and clean, and was prevented from spilling red wine all down the turquoise silk dress by the quick reflexes of Jerry Brewer; honed over years of working behind a bar. By the time they were the hub of the crowd at the bar all thoughts of embarrassment were forgotten – or at least much subdued.
When, at around eleven thirty, Jerry Brewer managed to shoo everyone out, Alice was almost disappointed that the night was over, and said so to Mia.
‘The night isn’t over. You haven’t forgotten about my interview, have you?’
‘At this time of night? I thought you must have gone earlier while I was asleep.’
‘No, I was waiting for you.’
‘For me?’
‘Absolutely. Phase two of operation Anti-Rut. We’re both going to have an interview.’
‘Oh, no.’ Alice shook her head, inadvertently adding to its tousled look. ‘No, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to marry Henry de Beeble for a start.’
‘You’re in luck. It’s his brother who’s looking for a wife.’
Oops. Freudian slip.
‘Anyway,’ Mia continued, ‘I don’t want to marry Noblet either, remember.’
‘Yes, but that’s different. You’re—’
‘Shh!’ Mia glanced at the little groups of people still lingering nearby. Alice lowered her voice.
‘Well – anyway, it’s different for you.’
‘Fine, so you don’t want to marry Noblet de Beeble. But it’ll be fun. And what else are you going to do? Go to bed with a cup of hot chocolate? What have you got to lose?’
What did she have to lose? It could be embarrassing, but hell, she’d plumbed the depths of embarrassment in the last few days. Plus, she might get a glimpse of Henry de Beeble.
‘I suppose I could… keep you company,’ she conceded.
And so, she found herself at midnight in the village hall, Mia beside her and three tired-looking faces before her.
Chapter 12
They interviewed Mia first. Despite Saskia interjecting with snide remarks, Mia shone – as Alice had known she would. Articulate and utterly at ease, she out-interviewed every previous interviewee a hundredfold. Noblet was transfixed. Barely able to string a sensible question together, he drank her in from head to foot. Even the admission that she’d never read any Collins raised not a flicker of disappointment. Mia was through. So far, so predictable. Now for Alice.
‘Name, please.’
Alice appreciated how it would feel to be in the Mastermind chair. What would she choose as her specialist subject? Tabloid humiliation? The history of Gently Rising, 1988–2018? The beauty of Henry de Beeble? The beauty of Henry de Beeble seemed most apt, being, as it was, before her and flooding her thoughts. How could the others sit there so calmly, seemingly unaware of those eyes, deep brown and shaded by blackest of black lashes. Not to mention the perfect lines of his cheekbones, two diagonals pointing down to his mouth. To his mouth…
‘Your name? Please?’
Had she not answered already?
‘Alice Louise Brand.’
‘Age?’
‘Thirty. And three days.’
Saskia sneered. ‘Very precise.’
‘Sorry, yes, it was my birthday a few days ago so I…’ she trailed off.
Henry lowered his eyes as if he felt Saskia had been a little unkind.
‘Could you tell us why you think you’d make my brother a good wife?’
Alice considered the question. After all, she was here, at an interview, and these people were taking the time to interview her. It was only polite to put some thought into the matter.
‘I’m not sure if I would make him a good wife.’ They all stared. She hastened to explain. ‘What I mean is, I wouldn’t make anyone a good wife if I didn’t love him, and as I don’t know His Lordship yet, I could
n’t say if I could fall in love with him.’
Saskia rolled her eyes and yawned, loudly.
‘I suppose that’s not a very helpful answer. Sorry.’
Henry smiled at her. ‘It makes a lot more sense than most of what we’ve heard in this hall today.’
Noblet nodded. ‘I agree. Quite right.’
‘But,’ continued Henry, ‘setting aside the question of love, for a moment, do you think you have any qualities that would make you a good companion to my brother?’
‘Um… I love Gently Rising and this area, so we’d have that in common, I believe. I couldn’t live anywhere but the countryside. I like children – I’m a primary school teacher here in the village. I love cooking and baking – although I expect you’ve got cooks for that, haven’t you,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘I – I like animals, and gardening, and seeing family.’ She looked down at her lap, wishing Mia and José had given her some interview coaching along with the makeover.
‘That’s fine.’ Henry gave her a reassuring smile. ‘If you could let us have your application form.’
‘I don’t have one, I’m afraid.’
He pushed a piece of paper across the table. ‘Put your contact details down here.’
Alice neatly printed her name, address and telephone number on the paper and pushed it back across the table. Her hand brushed Henry’s and she flinched. Leaping up from the chair she blurted, ‘Well, thanks so much for seeing us at the last minute, I’ll see myself out. Good luck, I hope you find someone nice. Thanks, bye.’
Outside, Mia was leaning against a tree, smoking something that looked suspiciously like a joint.
‘How did it go?’
‘Terrible. I babbled.’
‘The upper classes are all babblers. You’ll fit in like a dream.’
Alice pulled a face. ‘So, what now?’
The night was mild and there was something magical about the village huddled in the moonlight. Alice didn’t want to go home to her lonely cottage.
‘The world’s our oyster. London? Paris? Or margaritas and a smoke in my garden?’
‘Erm – the last one, I think. Although maybe not the smoke. Or the margaritas. A cup of tea would be nice though.’
Lord Seeks Wife: A hilariously funny romantic comedy Page 12