Kissing Toads (34 page)

None of us had noticed Basilisa. For once, she had made an unobtrusive entrance, following on the heels of Harry, who was at his most butlerish. It took about five seconds for the entrance to become obtrusive.

‘What are you doing?' she demanded. In the heat of the moment, any concerns about the security of her marital position went out the window. ‘You invite this deekhead to stay here – in
mi casa
? I will not permit –
no le dejo
– he cannot stay! First, I must have these TV people everywhere – they insult me – I am
atacada
in my own home by
una jardinera psicótica
. Then you invite
su padre
to stay here!
Ya estoy harta!
He go, or I go. Now!'

‘Basilisa . . .' HG turned towards her, extending a conciliatory hand.

‘And if I go, you know what I take with me? You know?'

HG slipped into Spanish, murmuring reassurance, until Basilisa was persuaded to back off, throwing repulsive glances at Roddy. Then HG reverted to him, apologising smoothly, withdrawing his invitation, and explaining that he was afraid Roddy would have to leave Dunblair for good, all in a single faultless manoeuvre. Feminine caprice was touched on, masculine fellow-feeling appealed to, but HG wasn't a superstar for nothing; without uttering an impolite word he made it very clear that Roddy was no longer welcome anywhere in the vicinity of the castle.

Bewildered by the turn of events, Roddy found himself edged towards the door before he had time to object. Eager to save face, he did his best to salvage his leftover dignity, acting as if his mild departure was a special favour to HG.

‘Surprised someone like Hot God has marriage problems,' he remarked to Delphi in transit. ‘Still, anything I can do to help him out. Handsome woman, Basilisa, but temperamental. I gather you upset her, Del. You should be more careful. Remember: your behaviour reflects on your old father.'

Delphi's expression tensed, but Harry snatched Roddy away before he could come up with any more comments on her filial shortcomings.

‘Time to leave. Jules is waiting to escort you back to the village.'

That was quick, I thought. Much too quick. Jules was already at the door with Sting by his side; evidently he had been forewarned.

‘You set that up,' I whispered to Delphi as Roddy departed, muttering something about visiting friends in Gloucestershire. ‘When did you get hold of HG?'

‘I didn't. I don't know him well enough to ask a favour like that.'

‘Then how . . . ?'

‘I asked Harry to help me – I mean Winkworth.' As he re-entered the room, I saw him catch her eye with the familiar incorrigible grin. To my surprise, considering he'd just bailed her out of a serious dilemma, she didn't respond in kind.

‘At least he must be in your good books for once,' I said, ‘whatever your suspicions of him.'

‘No,' Delphi said baldly.

‘What d'you mean, no?'

‘I think I've just swapped one problem for another. I can't talk about it now, though. Tell you later.' She was looking very thoughtful – generally an alarming prospect – but this didn't look like the kind of thought that preceded a brainwave, more the sort where you're thinking about something unpleasant or disturbing. As her biggest bugbear had just walked out of the door, I wondered what could be bothering her. I resolved to find out when the first opportunity offered, but work absorbed my attention for the rest of the afternoon, and Delphi, between filming with bog asphodel and some rather attractive tasselled grasses, rushed off to telephone Jennifer about her ex and return calls from Maddalena on the sacred subject of The Dress.

As we'd finally finished the historical scenes, the actors, extras and so on were due to depart the following day. (Alex and Brie were leaving a day later in acknowledgement of their superior status.) Inevitably, that meant a party. An impromptu, let's-do-the-show-right-here sort of party, with last-minute catering by Cedric and large quantities of booze imported from the pub by Dirk and Angus. As they clearly felt themselves to be honorary members of the team, they stayed to help, though I wasn't sure what they were helping with. Probably eating and drinking. One of the actresses (the ghost-spotter) had a birthday (we were too tactful to enquire which), and HG donated a crate of champagne, despite his dislike of the drink, and allowed himself to be persuaded to sing ‘Happy Birthday' to her. He did it in a low-key style which went down well – with everyone except Dorian.

‘They'll ask him to sing again now,' he said despondently. ‘They always do. He'll act modest and say no, and they'll beg him and then he will. He'll sing that awful stuff from the sixties and seventies and dance about and everything – sometimes he goes on for hours. I can't stand it.'

‘It mayn't be your kind of music,' I said, ‘but most people love it. He's a great star. I would've thought you'd be proud of him.'

‘I
am
proud of him,' Dorian said awkwardly, ‘sort of. It's just . . .'

‘I bet your schoolfriends think he's cool.'

Dorian shuddered. ‘No they don't. We were at this do once – someone's sister's wedding – and Joshua Kensington-Gore was there, and Dad was singing, and I went into the kitchen and there was Josh doing a piss-take, sticking his pelvis out with a frying pan for a guitar, and the others were all standing round laughing and laughing. When they saw me they went quiet, like,
really
embarrassed, and I tried to hit Josh, but he's bigger than me, and back at school he'd keep doing it – the pelvic wiggle thing – whenever I was around, and all his mates would be sniggering . . . I can't tell Dad. I mean,
he
thinks he's cool – of course I can't tell him. But I
wish
he wouldn't sing. I sometimes pray he'll be ill and lose his voice for good.'

‘Oh dear.' I sat down beside him on the settle. We were in the great hall, which had, among other things, superb acoustics. HG, as predicted, was just launching into ‘Get Down and Get Dirty', Number One in 1968, with a backing tape filling in for the Fallen Angels and a lot of audience participation. ‘Right, where do I start? First of all, imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery. If your dad wasn't a superstar, if he couldn't sing, couldn't wiggle, and did nothing to justify his existence but juggle his share options, your classmates wouldn't take the piss. One of the penalties of success is that it spawns envy, and people who are envious do everything they can to denigrate what you do. Stars are always a target. In a sense, it's fair enough – too much idolisation is bad for them. But it can be hard on their families. Your schoolfriends are jealous – not so much of your dad, but of
you
, because of him.'

‘Yeah, yeah. Heard that one before. Look, Josh's dad makes millions in the City
and
he's an Olympic-standard skier. When they have parties there he's so cool he doesn't even come. He's usually off on business trips. Josh gets left on his own, like for
days
, with just the servants, and they're not allowed to tell him off or anything. I mean, Harry's okay, but if Dad's away I have to do what he says. It's like Dad thinks I can't be responsible for myself. Josh's parents let him do what he likes.'

‘That explains a lot,' I said. ‘Listen: your dad loves you. He's made a lot of mistakes in his life and he doesn't want you to repeat them. Sounds to me like Josh's parents don't give a damn – and you can bet he knows it. He may act like he thinks he's the coolest, ordering the servants about and partying while his dad's away, but inside he feels lonely and unloved. No wonder he's crawling with jealousy of you. Your dad's a big star
and
he cares for you. That must be gall and wormwood to poor Joshua.'

‘You don't understand,' Dorian persisted. ‘I thought you did, but you don't. Josh doesn't care about that stuff. He says his dad trusts him, lets him be his own boss. My dad doesn't trust me with squat.'

Suddenly, I'd had enough. ‘You know what?' I said. ‘I
do
understand. Worst luck. I've heard all the clichés before. I've
been
sixteen, so has your dad, so has everyone else in this room. But you haven't been thirty-two, or forty-four, or fifty-nine, or sixty-seven. You've got years and years of understanding lying ahead of you, if you've got the brains for it. Right now you're shut up in your little sixteen-year-old world – you and your pal Joshua – and you think that's all there is. It's like locking yourself in your bedroom and saying there's no universe outside. Josh is obviously a dumb schmuck, but I thought you were brighter than that. You're the guy who designs computer games, after all. Wake up and look around you. Being sixteen isn't the only game in town.'

Dorian's mouth had fallen open, but after a minute he remembered to shut it again. He was looking at me with a mixture of resentment, shock, and – just possibly – a germ of new thought. I didn't really care. I was done with being sympathetic.

‘Now I'm going to listen to your dad,' I stated, ‘and admire his pelvic wiggle, because he's just about the best in the world at what he does, and I feel bloody lucky to have the chance to see – and hear – him. Enjoy your sulk.'

I got up, grabbed a drink, and made my way towards the fireplace, where HG was singing ‘Caramel Eyes', the slow-motion smooch from the late seventies. We still dance to it now, wrapped around someone or other at the tag-end of a party. He didn't have a mike – he didn't need one – but if he missed it as an accessory, a beer bottle in one hand did the trick. Once, he broke off to dance with the birthday actress for a few beats, occasioning scattered applause from several people in the crowd. When he saw me his smile changed, wrinkling at his eyes, becoming somehow more intimate. He came towards me, turning the song into a personal serenade. (Thank God Basilisa wasn't around.) When he finished there was more clapping, some of which, to my amazement, seemed to be directed at me. I couldn't think why.

‘Three cheers,' said Russell. ‘You're doing a great job.'

‘You're the best,' said Delphi. ‘Wasn't I right about this project?'

To my surprise, I found myself thinking that she was. No one on
Behind the News
had ever expressed impromptu appreciation – unless you counted the hypocrisy of my leaving party. Nor had any of the exposés led to my being serenaded by a rock star. I'd missed out on promotion and been upstaged by a pair of legs called Cheryl (or Cherie), I'd been shagged and bagged by Kyle Muldoon, and at the end of it I was left out in the cold with no job, no fella, and a set of broken crystal glasses. Now, here I was in a romantic Scottish castle, being appreciated and serenaded. I would have been pretty idiotic if I hadn't been having a good time.

HG returned to his station by the fireplace, and the next old favourite (‘Rockabye Lula', around 1970 I think). When he had done a second encore, by popular request, he bowed out, excusing himself from both the singing and the party, leaving us with the state-of-the-art sound system and Dirk McTeith's services as DJ. Several people were dancing, or at least throwing themselves about in bizarre contortions, mainly out of sync with the music. I realised that if I was becoming a dance critic I must be far too sober, and started putting beer on top of the champagne. On the floor, there were couples likely and unlikely. Nigel appeared to be dancing with Cedric, though that was probably an accident of positioning; Brie danced variously with Nick, Dick and Mick; Delphi and Alex swayed gracefully in unison – at any rate, Alex was graceful, whereas Delphi seemed slightly distracted, as if she was concentrating on something else. Eventually, she trod on his foot, he switched his attention to the Dom Pérignon, and Delphi transferred her sway to Morty with an absent-minded air, as if barely conscious of her partner's identity.

‘Do you dance?' asked a voice beside me.

Ash.

‘Sometimes,' I said. ‘I'm not very good at it.'

‘Nor am I,' he responded. ‘Come on.'

He separated me from my beer, circled me with an arm, and propelled me effortlessly between the other dancers. No gyrations, just the two of us moving in rhythm with each other and occasionally with the music. Lazy dancing, gentle and slow. An embrace in motion . . .

I decided I'd never felt so comfortable on the dance floor with anybody. Not cheek-to-cheek or crotch-to-crotch, just a leisurely stroll in someone's arms. Ash's arms. I found myself seeing him as if for the first time, the way you do with a person when you hit that turning point, the moment of choice, the teeter on the cusp of fate. Seeing the slant of his cheekbones, the not-quite-pointed ears, the serious mouth. He was so beautiful – but I'd never gone for beautiful men. I'd gone for men like Kyle Muldoon, stubble-chinned and macho and crudely sexy. Men who had the obvious masculinity that I'd always mistaken for strength.

But Ash is far stronger than Kyle, I thought. He had the strength of principle, and kindness. He might fall out of love, but he would always treat people with respect; he would never tell lies from cowardice or convenience, never be indifferent to another person's pain. In short, he was the type of man that most women could only dream about.

Only I hadn't dreamed about him. Armoured in my broken heart, I'd been hostile to his beauty, resented his qualities, derided his chosen career. I didn't know when things had changed, or how he'd sneaked under my guard. And I had no idea if he knew it.

He drew me a little closer, our bodies touched – not in passion but in rhythm, in perfect accord. We're only dancing, I told myself. Only dancing.