Charlotte and the Starlet 2 (5 page)

'You want to play ten questions?' she asked in
horse.

The grey mare looked moderately interested.

'How do you play it?'

'You get ten questions to guess who I am.'

'I know who you are. You're Leila the ex-movie
horse.'

Leila didn't like the way she said 'ex'. She gritted
her teeth.

'That's who
I
am, yeah. But see, I think of somebody
else and you guess who I am thinking I am.'

A brown gelding named Stan, who wasn't the
sharpest tool in the shed, leaned over from his stall.

'Why aren't you thinking you are who you are?'

The frustration bubbled up. 'It's a
game
! Like,
I think I'm, say, Justin Timberlake ...'

'He's a boy,' interrupted Stan.

'Yeah, but we're
pretending.
You know pretend?
Like you could pretend you had a brain.'

'No need to get personal,' muttered Stan.

'National Velvet,' snapped the grey mare.

'What?' said Leila, losing track with the madness
around her.

'National Velvet, that's who I think you are.'

Leila said, 'I haven't had time to think who I am yet.
Okay?'

A stallion's voice came from another side of the
stable. 'She's Leila, that B-grade movie hack, she's not
National Velvet.'

Leila sighed. Maybe a bit of hard exercise might be
easier. This was going to be a very long two days.

After a little while on the road, watching gum trees
whistle by at speed, Charlotte had come alive from her
zombie state. Into the next hour Charlotte and
Hannah squeezed an awful lot of talk: their likes
and dislikes, their favourite colours, movies and food,
their most exciting horse and pony stories. All talked
out, they turned their attention to crosswords and
Sudoku puzzles, ate their rations and took turns
listening to Hannah's iPod. When it was Hannah's
turn on the iPod, Charlotte was forced to listen to The
Evil Three who sat on the opposite side of the aisle.

'The key to good clothes,' opined Emma, 'is
parental ego. My stepfather complimented me on how
nice I looked. I said I had my father to thank. He'd
taken me shopping and bought the second best outfit
in the shop.'

Lucinda guessed what had happened next.

'So then your stepfather took you shopping and
bought you the best outfit, right?'

'Exactly.'

Lucinda was delighted with her chum's sly move.
They high-fived.

Emma continued. 'And you know the best part? My
father hadn't bought the first outfit at all. I'd actually
bought it using my stepfather's credit card. He'd felt so
guilty about grounding me for taking the handbrake
off his golf-buggy so it rolled into the lake, he
compensated by letting me go on a shopping binge.'

Rebecca was nodding.

'I used a similar tactic to get my Stella McCartney
culottes. Mum absolutely adores our stupid poodle
Patrice. I used a fork to punch holes in that horrid top
grandma bought from Paris and blamed it on Patrice.
I said I was going to make Patrice pay. Mum fell for
it hook, line and sinker. She wouldn't dare punish
Patrice so she bought me the Stella.'

And on and on they talked about their tricks to win
new clothes and gadgets. By the time the coach turned
up the narrow ivy-covered drive of Charmsworth
Deportment College, Charlotte's energy had been
sapped and she had slipped back into the lethargic
state in which she had begun the journey. The coach
stopped amid manicured gardens. A young woman,
who looked like a doll with a permanent half-moon
smile seemingly planted on her face, greeted them as
they alighted from the coach.

'Good morning, ladies. I am Eve. Please follow me
to the studio.'

She set off towards a large pink building with
perfect white trimmings. At the door, she stopped and
ushered them in. The smile remained fixed. As
Charlotte shuffled past, Eve threw out her hand and
stopped her.

'Shoulders back. Chin up. And no shuffling. A lady
doesn't shuffle, she ... glides.'

Eve demonstrated. Charlotte was amazed. Eve
really did glide, just like a hovercraft.

'Now, you try it. Chin up, eyes straight ahead, ready
to look the world in the face.'

Charlotte attempted to follow instructions.
Unfortunately, she was in unfamiliar territory and
when she walked forward, she tripped over the door
step and crumpled face down onto the floor.

The Evil Three cheered. Charlotte felt her face burn
red. The next twenty-four hours were going to be
horrible.

Caroline Strudworth stared from her window over the
grounds of her beloved Thornton Downs. Normally
she would be exhilarated at the chirp of the
sprinklers, the glistening white of the fence-posts, the
neat geometry of her hedges. But today her heart was
heavy as a mop in a flooded laundry. She had just
received word that Laura, her sister, must go to
hospital for an immediate operation. Gall bladder
or something down in the squishy organs. It was not
Laura's health that was the cause of Strudworth's
melancholy though. Good Lord, Laura was as strong
as an ox. No, the problem was that Mitchell, the townplanner
husband, was overseas or interstate somewhere.

'It's no use, Zucchini. I'll have to nurse her myself.'

The stuffed horse, which occupied pride of place
in Strudworth's office, stared back with glass eyes
through a glass case.

'Why not send Chadwick, you might ask? Let me
tell you, Zucchini, Chadwick is as useful as a broken
girth strap when riding a bucking bronco.'

Strudworth had no intention of seeing her sister
develop complications as a result of poor postoperative
care – inevitable if that nitwit nephew was
given any responsibility. Strudworth shuddered. It
would mean leaving Chadwick here, unsupervised.
Well, Bevans was a very able foreman with a sensible
head on his shoulders. She would just have to get
back as soon as she could, to limit the 'Chadwick
effect'.

Mark O'Regan yawned and scratched his holey blue
singlet with his dirty, stumpy fingers. The inside of
his car was littered with old take-away chicken boxes
and sandwich wrappers. The car hadn't been cleaned
inside or out since he'd bought it two years ago. Mark
O'Regan wasn't one for expending energy on anything,
but particularly so cleaning. What was the
point? Things only got dirty again. His twelve-year-old
car reflected its owner. As it cruised through
the pristine countryside towing its horse float, the
exhaust belched thick black fumes.

O'Regan cursed his bad luck once more. The Salt
Flat Fair this weekend was one of the biggest earners
on his calendar and here he was without what he
needed most: a horse. Life just wasn't fair, that horse
getting sick like that. Bad luck had dogged him his
whole life.

The truth, which O'Regan had failed to
acknowledge over the forty-three years of his life to
date, was that luck had nothing to do with it. Mark
O'Regan was lazy. He would never do today what he
could put off till tomorrow. He had left school early
and tried a number of jobs, none of which he had
stuck at. For the last three years he had made a living
towing a horse around to small rural fairs. Kids could
have their pictures taken on it, be led around on it, pat
it. So long as their parents paid.

It was work that suited O'Regan because it wasn't
really work at all. He could sleep in till after nine a.m.,
feed the horse, watch DVDs, put a couple of hours in
with the horse, come back, watch DVDs, by which
time it was time for bed again. O'Regan loved DVDs.
He'd seen every DVD there ever had been, half a dozen
times at least. It was an idyllic life.

The trouble was that the horse, Mahogany, had
injured a hoof. Had O'Regan taken it to the vet right
away, there wouldn't have been a problem but,
naturally, he hadn't. Vets cost money and he needed all
his money for DVDs. The hoof had become infected
and Mahogany had been unable to walk. By the time
he got to the vet it was too late. The vet said the horse
wouldn't be able to work for a month. O'Regan refused
to pay the vet's bill, giving him Mahogany instead.
Which meant now he needed a horse for the Salt Flat
Fair. As O'Regan looked out his window he saw a large
group of horses grazing on a hill. Perhaps luck was
coming round? O'Regan swung off the highway and
up the driveway that announced Thornton Downs.

Chaff, chaff and more chaff. Leila was disgusted. How
would humans go if they had to eat porridge morn,
noon and night? After the abysmal attempt to get ten
questions off the ground to pass the time, Leila had
tried her Michael Jackson moon-walking routine on
the grey mare. Nothing. Not even a smile. That did it
for her, she would just have to wait out the time like a
prisoner on death row.

Bevans had put them out in the paddock. It was
rather pleasant in the open air except when a cloud
smothered up the sun and the chilly wind got hold of
you. Back in L.A. Leila had a lovely pashmina but L.A.
was a long way away. Ah, just the thought of those
crowded freeways made Leila smile. It was funny –
she could almost smell the smog. Her face lit up at the
memory of that wonderful, shallow, hollow tinseltown.
She closed her eyes. There was Feathers, her
parrot pal, in her trailer again, her producer Mr Joel
Gold shouting down the phone about cost blow-outs
and threatening to have some assistant director's head
on a platter, and Tommy Tempest, the director, tearing
out his hair by the roots as Leila and Sarah-Jane
outdid one another with tantrums, putting back the
shoot by another week.

It felt so real. Especially the smog part. Leila coughed
and spluttered. She could even taste the soot on her
tongue. She opened her eyes. No wonder. It
was
smog.
Or thick exhaust anyway. Some bomb of a car was chugging
up the driveway towards the stables. Leila thought
no more of it. The sun came out again and Leila turned
her face towards it. What she needed right now was one
of those reflector collars the wardrobe girl always had
up her sleeve. Gave you a nice even tan.

O'Regan pulled up to the circular driveway, got out
and wandered over towards the paddock where he'd
seen the horses. This placed looked classy – in other
words, too expensive for O'Regan. All he needed was
some broken-down hack. These horses were all well
fed and groomed. Nope, they'd be miles out of his
price range. O'Regan was about to turn back to his car
when the pack of horses in front of him spooked
suddenly and split apart. He saw the reason. Some
nerdy-looking guy riding a golf-buggy around. How
dumb could this guy be? Didn't he know you didn't
ride golf-buggys in between horses ...

The train of thought derailed. O'Regan was staring
at the one horse who wasn't spooked. A pretty bay filly
seemed to be perfectly happy to soak up the sun.
There was something about the horse that was
familiar. The grubby, stumpy fingers of O'Regan's
memory flicked through the filing cabinet of his
brain. Given his limited background and the
tendencies of his lifestyle, he'd either seen that horse
at a carnival or ... on DVD!!!!

It couldn't be. Could it? The memory was edging
forward. A freckle-faced girl, Sarah-Jane somebody or
other. Yeah, he had it:
Dressage to Kill.
Big in the
States, not much of a release here. This was the same
horse, he was certain of it.

Leila had nothing but contempt for her fellow
quadrupeds. The sight of a golf-buggy and they'd gone
galloping off to the four corners of the paddock
screaming 'Aliens are coming!' in horse. Having been
around studio carts her whole life, Leila hadn't budged
an inch. She'd found a really nice patch of sunlight and
she wasn't moving for nothing or nobody. An odour
reached her on the wind. Old fried chicken grease.
Hmm. She cocked an eye. A grubby-looking loser was
standing at the fence staring her way.

'Leila!' The guy snapped his fingers as he said it and
Leila couldn't help but look over and smile at the
recognition. Maybe the guy, clearly a fan, wasn't a
loser, just a little down on his luck.

When O'Regan saw the horse look over at the
mention of her name he nearly wet himself. Here was a
genuine Hollywood attraction standing in a paddock
in the middle of nowhere. Wow, maybe all his bad luck
was about to be wiped out in one go? No, he couldn't
be that lucky. There must be a catch. He noticed the
dweeb climb off his buggy and head towards him.

'Can I help you?'

The way the guy said it was more like, 'you'd better
have a good excuse for being here or I'll charge you
with trespassing'. It was a tone O'Regan had heard
many times in his life.

'Matter of fact you can. Mark O'Regan. This your
establishment?'

Chadwick puffed himself up.

'My family's.' Well, it wasn't a lie.

'I'm in the horse business too,' said O'Regan.

'Equestrian?'

'Multi-faceted.'

Chadwick choked down a chortle. The guy was
obviously angling for a job.

'I need a horse,' said O'Regan. 'And I'm prepared
to pay.'

Chadwick's mind immediately engaged at the
word 'pay'.

'Any of these nags for sale?'

Chadwick made a dubious sound. Of course
anything was for sale anytime. It was just a matter
of price. There were four more horses than JOES
competitors here so why waste money feeding them?
He didn't, however, want to sound too keen.

'Not really. Course I could help out a fellow horse
person ... for the right price.'

'How much would you be looking at?'

Chadwick was calculating quickly. One of these
horses must be worth about three thousand but to sell
it you'd be looking at paying for advertising. If you
could get two and half thousand, cash in hand, you'd
be doing okay. The guy didn't look as though he had
much money, and Thornton Downs did have excess
horses that were costing him money to feed.

'Two thousand two hundred.'

O'Regan knew this bozo would take less.

'Let's say eighteen hundred.'

'Two thousand.'

'Done.'

That would clean him right out but if he had 'Leila
the Hollywood Horse' he could charge ten bucks a
ride instead of the usual five.

'Any particular horse?' asked Chadwick, pleased at
the dollars he'd just earned.

O'Regan was too smart to give a hint of his
excitement. This guy might be dumb but if he sensed
O'Regan was keen, he could get difficult. O'Regan
shrugged casually.