Well Groomed (26 page)

‘So – you’re getting hitched at last, Tash,’ he said forcefully, fighting not to slur his words. ‘Wondered when we’d finally palm you off on some poor sod.’

Tash, hardened to his scorn, took a while to realise quite how sarcastic he was being; Niall was far too drunk to notice.

‘Still, runt of the litter’s always the last to go,’ he muttered, patting her quite heavily on the back. ‘Shame you’ve landed yourself with a chap who flirts with all the pretty women in the room, but I suppose that’s part of the deal with this celebrity caper. I just hope he plays around a long way from home – these actor types all seem rather indiscreet.’

‘James!’ Alexandra was horrified. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Just saying she won’t keep him faithful, that’s all.’ James shrugged, instantly realising that his hurt and anger had propelled him too far, but equally unwilling to repent and apologise. ‘I mean, the chap’s already been married once. And with all these actress totties around, he’s hardly likely to want to come home to fat little Tash every night.’ His eyes were focused in the middle-distance, still seeing the chubby toddler, superimposed with her adult face.

‘For Christ’s sake, James!’ Alexandra snapped, looking to Henrietta for support. But she was gazing at the floor in shame, unwilling to move for fear of making things worse.

Sophia was still gassing on about the need for a matron of honour, unaware that no one was listening to her. Giggling with repressed delight at their step-father’s drunken ire, Emily and Beccy shot furtive glances at one another. Beside Tash, Niall was looking mildly confused but uncomprehending, his main focus of attention still concentrated on a dud lighter with which he was trying to light the cigarette that dangled from his mouth. Ben, who had been wandering around with a bottle of champagne to refill glasses, cleared his throat noisily and examined a nearby oil painting as though seeing it for the first time.

Tash was mortified. Backing away, she felt a lump the size of a house brick gag her breath as the inevitable tears started to clog her vision. It was as though someone had kneed her hard in the chest; she could barely breathe, her lungs aflame.

‘Don’t take offence, Tash,’ her father said almost amiably, his eyes fighting to focus on her as he swayed to one side. ‘Just stating a few facts.’

‘Is that really what you think of me?’ she croaked, barely able to see him for the scalding well of tears. ‘And of Niall?’ She glanced towards him for support, but he had wandered off to cadge a light now, drunkenly approaching various of Ben’s relatives.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ her father snapped gruffly, trying to muster a laugh to gloss over his explosion. ‘I just think you might have bitten off more than you can chew, poppet.’

‘I see.’ Her voice warbled ludicrously, as though limbering up for a yodel. ‘In that case, I think I should spit something out fast. You
are
going to give me away after all, Daddy.’ She wiped away her tears furiously as she glared at him. ‘Forget what I said earlier. When Niall and I get hitched you can fulfil a lifetime’s ambition – my lifetime to be precise. Because for every bloody second of it you’ve wanted to give me away and now you’ve got your chance. Sorry that it’s twenty-seven years too late, but it’s the best give-away offer you’ll get all summer!’

Blindly, she tore away from the group and ran slap into Bea Meredith whose glass spun to the floor and shattered into smithereens.

‘For Christ’s sake, you great clumsy girl – that was Waterford!’ she boomed.

Sobbing, Tash sprinted with streaming eyes along a side hall to the huge landing and then threw herself down the vast, ornate marble stairs two at a time.

Coming the other way, Hugo flattened himself against a mahogany banister and watched in alarm. As Tash passed him, she tripped blindly and almost fell down the last ten steps. Hugo grabbed her arm just in time, ripping the cheap yellow fabric to the shoulder where it gaped like a peeled banana.

‘You okay?’ he asked gruffly, then, taking in her tear-stained face, he looked genuinely worried. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m fine,’ Tash croaked in a strangled wail. ‘Just throwing myself at you as ever, Hugo – and trying to get you to rip my clothes off me. Looks like it worked, huh?’

With that, she bolted off, sobbing even more loudly, her humiliation never more complete.

Racing outside for refuge, she found herself in the dusty Renault in embarrassingly close vicinity to her brother, who was still sulking in the Audi parked alongside, waiting for the errant Sally to join him, Any Answers blaring loudly. Thankfully he was buried in Umberto Eco and didn’t look up, only moving when Jonathan Dimbleby started asking for comments on divorce statistics, when he cranked up the volume even more.

Smoking two cigarettes on the trot and feeling sick as a result, Tash waited ten minutes by which time she could see again, although her eyes were as puffy and raw as two fresh scalds from an iron.

She craned around to look for signs of Niall, but he was nowhere. Far from leaping to her defence, he appeared to be still partying with the enemy. She scrutinised the grand stone steps up to Holdham’s gaping entrance for movement.

For a moment, her heart leaped with relief as she saw a tall, dark man swooping out in true romantic hero style, and then it plummeted towards the rubber floor mats as she realised who it was.

She shrank down in her seat as Hugo stomped outside, protected from the cold by a vast coat he appeared to have borrowed, banging his hands together for warmth and breathing out in great gusts. It lent him the wildly romantic look of a bygone Russian prince, hair flopping over his straighter than straight nose, collar turned up to his ears against the chill. Tash longed for a revolutionary Bolshevik to pop out from behind a bay tub and cosh him. Instead he strode towards his car unchecked, his breath clouding in front of him like a ghost indulging in a secret kiss.

For a moment she thought that he was going to drive home, but he merely unlocked his car with an electronic tweet, took out some fags and wandered back into the house again. Tash let out her trapped breath, relieved that he hadn’t spotted her.

Niall had now failed to come in search of her for over quarter of an hour. Tash started to snivel again. Perhaps her father was right – he was probably glad to be rid of her and flirting like mad with some of Sophia’s glamorous modelling cronies. Starting the engine with an elongated, throaty rattle, she reversed sharply out of her parking space, nearly ploughing down Ben’s great-aunt who furiously tried to scrape the side of the Renault with her Zimmer frame. Tash accelerated down the long, shadowy drive in a flurry of gravel, forgetting to put on her headlights and consequently flattening two pheasants and a rat.

The air between Matty and Sally had no time to clear.

When he discovered that Tash had left without him, Niall begged a lift as far as London, planning to take the train on to Marlbury from there. Sally was booted into the back with the kids who sprawled loose-limbed and exhausted across her, unaware of the adults being childish overhead. Matty wanted to listen to Radio 4, Niall demanded Radio 1 and Sally put in a bid for Radio 2 just to be churlish. Matty wanted the windows closed, Niall open; he wanted to chain-smoke, Matty protested as a recent non-smoker; Matty thought the motorways would be the fastest way home, Niall preferred the scenic route. Sally suggested that they all get out and walk to save time. At least the children slept throughout, which eased her tension. And by the time they had passed Banbury on the M40, Niall was asleep too, his head flopping back between the seat and the passenger window so that Sally had a lapful of his hair and a bird’s-eye view of his nose quivering under each breath.

‘Poor sod’s knackered.’ Matty broke his silence momentarily as he looked across at Niall. ‘Should we really drop him off at Paddington, d’you think, or bring him back with us for a sleep and a clean up?’

‘Paddington,’ Sally muttered, staring out at the strobe-like flashes of passing street-lights. ‘He and Tash have so little time together as it is.’

‘Would have had a damn sight more if she’d driven him home,’ Matty hissed, before resuming his stony silence for the remainder of the journey.

Sally pressed her face to her daughter’s sleeping head and wished that she had told Matty about going to Hugo’s party earlier. She’d have to lie now. There was no way he’d forgive her for a wild night out with Lisette.

Niall didn’t make it to Marlbury until past nine that night. His mobile phone was out of charge and no taxis were waiting in the small rank to one side of the station. Shivering in a phone box that smelled of stale urine, he called the forge. No one answered and after about twenty rings the machine came on with Tash’s cheerful breathy voice announcing that she was out. His name was no longer included, he noticed, which he supposed was fair as he was so seldom there.

Niall pressed Call Continue and dialled through to the farm, guessing that she would have poled up there for white wine, warmth and sympathy.

India answered, sounding startlingly like her mother, and shouted loudly for the radio to be silenced, deafening Niall far more than if it had been left pounding in the background.

‘Sorry about that – it’s Rufus’s shitty music. Are you at the forge with Tash?’

‘No, I’m at the station. Isn’t she with you?’

‘Nope.’ India giggled, clearly mouthing his side of the conversation on to an interested party. ‘Ted’s hopping mad because he needed his car for a hot date with Franny’s fangs tonight, and you haven’t brought it back.’

‘But I’m at the station.’ Niall sighed, realising that Tash wasn’t there. He was so tired that it was taking minutes for even the simplest facts to sink in.

‘D’you mean the car broke down?’ India giggled even more, always nervous when talking to Niall. ‘Do you two need a lift or something?’

‘No – there’s just me . . .’ He went quiet for a moment as he heard his predicament being discussed in the background before there was a series of loud clunks and muffled expletives as the phone changed hands.

‘Niall, it’s Zoe – what’s going on?’

He repeated his rather foggy explanation, adding, ‘Listen, if she’s not there, I’ll get a cab over from here. She’s probably at home not answering the phone. She was a wee bit upset earlier, so she was.’

‘She’s not at home, Niall,’ Zoe sighed. ‘Ted walked over to your place about half an hour ago to search for his car and it was in darkness. He left a note for her to come straight round here when she gets back, so I’m sure she will.’

‘Christ!’ Niall watched the units ticking down in front of him and slotted in another twenty pence. ‘Where on earth can she be?’ He was seriously worried now.

‘Well, let’s not discuss it over the phone,’ Zoe said practically, never one to waffle. ‘I’ll come and pick you up.’

The Lime Tree Farm kitchen was as welcoming as Niall had ever known it: messy, warm, full of people, dogs and cats, and smelling pungently of one of Zoe’s odd-ball curries.

Rufus and Ted were at the table giggling over India’s glossy magazines, Penny was filling in entry forms at the opposite end of the table, and Gus was slumped on the dogs’ sofa with Wally and Beetroot asleep on his lap watching Alien on the ancient black and white portable by the dishwasher.

‘Hi, mate.’ He stood up, tipping the dogs on to the floor where they sleepily shook themselves and peered at the newcomer, their tails wagging tentatively as they eyed up who it was. ‘Sorry to be all piled in here – we’re cutting down on fuel so the sitting room is freezing.’

Wally had slunk over to Niall now, head dropped in obsequious greeting. Behind him Beetroot – who, to Niall, seemed to have doubled in size and become exquisitely pretty – bared her teeth and backed off hurriedly.

‘Hi, Niall.’ Penny squinted up over her glasses and blew him a kiss. ‘Have a beer and sit down. Will you shift one of those cats, kids?’

India obligingly booted a fat marmalade farm cat from a wicker chair and kissed Niall hello before heading to the fridge to fetch him a beer.

‘Actually I’d far rather have a coffee, if that’s okay?’ Niall was squinting with tiredness. ‘So none of you’ve heard from Tash then?’

They shrugged apologetically, but no one seemed unduly worried, apart from Ted.

‘She’s stolen my motor!’ he wailed in anguish. ‘The old bitch. Now I won’t get a shag tonight, because Franny’s decided to go and see the latest Keanu Reeves flick in Marlbury instead of coming with me to Xcess in Newbury.’ He gazed threateningly at Niall as though it was entirely his fault. With his squaddie haircut, he looked surprisingly menacing and Niall quailed slightly.

Zoe settled on the sofa beside Gus and smiled apologetically. She was wearing a perfectly ancient cardigan of Penny’s which had no buttons left and cuffs as frayed as raffia, and her jeans were a mosaic of patches. Yet such was her sanguine sophistication that she still looked like Princess Diana heading to a late-night hostel undercover.

‘So how was Scotland, Niall?’ she asked tentatively. She’d asked the question several times in the car on the way back from the station, but he had merely gazed through the windscreen into the mid-distance, lost in thought.

‘Cold and wet.’ He smiled vaguely, about to tell her more, when Rufus butted in excitedly.

‘Do you really get to snog Juliet Richards
and
Minty Blyth in this film you’re making?’ he asked, almost beside himself with envy.

‘Yup.’

‘And do they both get their kits off?’ Rufus was agog with jealous admiration. ‘Tash says Juliet’s got silicone boobs – do they feel different from real ones?’

For the next hour, Niall tried hard to respond to the endless questions and enthusiasm of the Lime Tree contingent, but he was far too whacked, hungover and concerned about Tash’s non-appearance to make much sense, or follow conversations to their logical conclusions. He found himself asking Penny twice whether they’d been competing that day, to be told twice that the first affiliated trials were the following weekend, and he repeated the same story about Minty Blyth’s stalker three times.