Well Groomed (61 page)

Having sloped away from the farm early that evening with a feeble excuse about checking on Beetroot, who was in season and confined to the chastity of the forge, Tash poured out two vast glasses of red wine and persuaded Niall to call his agent, the mercenary Bob Hudson.

‘I’m not going to say anything to my mother until we know where we stand on this publicity deal,’ she explained. ‘As soon as we break it to her that we’ve decided to call things off, she’ll broadcast the fact faster than CNN reporting a first Sino-nuclear strike on Taiwan.’

‘You’re right.’ Niall looked about as eager to face the music as Jarvis Cocker at a Michael Jackson concert. ‘I’ll get Bob to look at my contract.’

Watching him as he called, Tash noticed that he’d had his hair cut for the film – a close-sided, loose-topped flop of thick curls that wiped years off him, giving him a sleek, roguish attraction that once again jabbed the blunt, bruising sadness of what they had lost into her chest. It hurt her more than anything that they had failed, that they hadn’t been able to hold on to something which, for a short time, had seemed to drench their lives with colour.

Tash buried her chin in her palms as she realised that they’d both wanted the happy ending without recognising that their stories followed different plots. And by letting someone else write their fairytale wedding for them, they’d got themselves into terrible trouble. Without an editor to help them out, they were going to end up with Grimm reality rather than the happy ever after of waking up and realising it was all a bad dream.

Watching Niall’s shoulders slump lower and lower as he talked to Bob, she had a terrible foreboding that she might even be being a bit optimistic.

‘I’m finished,’ he said bleakly when he put down the receiver almost an hour later. ‘Bob reckons
Cheers!
will sue Sleeping Partners if they don’t get their photographs – they’ve already invested heavily in the film on the promise of them. If that happens, the film company will almost certainly sue me blind. He’s just looked at my contract and it’s as watertight as a depth probe. Even waiving my fee for the film wouldn’t release me from it.’

‘You mean you can’t buy yourself out of the contract?’ Tash asked in horror.

He shook his head. ‘Not at this late stage. Bob says I’ll have to buy myself out of the whole promotional deal, which is worth far, far more money to Sleeping Partners in potential box office returns than the amount they’re paying me to act in the film.’

‘How much?’ Tash asked nervously.

‘That’s a piece of string question, so it is.’ He flopped down beside her, utterly defeated. ‘I’d call up Lisette right now and try to thrash something out but, when I suggested that, Bob blew his lid faster than a faulty pressure cooker. He pointed out that she has me over a barrel financially – a double-barrelled shotgun wedding, in fact. I’ve got about as much room for negotiation as an estate agent in a prison cell.’

‘But she chased you!’ Tash pointed out. ‘You only agreed to take the part in the first place because I said I liked the script so much, and David Wheaton had agreed to direct it. She needs you.’

‘That’s exactly my point,’ he sighed. ‘My role has a lot to do with the film’s commerciality.’ He leaned back as Beetroot snarled her way past his legs to settle at Tash’s feet. ‘I didn’t just get the part because I was the best actor for the job, Tash. I got it to sell the film to America.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Lisette cast me because my media following out there means I’ll get bums on seats,’ he explained. ‘And she got
Cheers!
in when she found out you and I were getting hitched because she knew those seats would develop superglue as a result. It could make all the difference once the magazine’s photographs are syndicated to magazines and tabloids in the States. I’m the best known of her cast out there by far, and the American movie-theatre audience latch on to publicity like this in a big way. It’s not just the
Cheers!
deal that counts. It’s the knock-on effect – three
Cheers!
for the Bride and Groom, and so on ad infinitum. This is Lisette’s company’s first feature film. She’s sweated blood for three years to get this far, and if I blow it for her by deciding to pull out of a key promotional arrangement a day before shooting starts, she’ll have no choice but to sue.’

‘Can you really not afford to buy your way out?’ Tash asked without much hope.

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, angel. You know how terrible I am with money – I’ve just given the Inland Revenue my last thirty grand, and I owe them thirty more in July. I can’t afford to pay off my credit card bills at the moment, let alone this. If Sleeping Partners sue me and win, I’ll probably have to declare myself bankrupt. That means my passport stays in this country and so do I. Bye-bye America. My career will be washed up for a few years at least.’

‘Oh, Niall.’ Tash put her arms around him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Jesus, I wish I’d never signed the damned thing!’ He clenched his eyes shut. ‘But it seemed so unimportant – a last-minute deal to bump up my price, and a free wedding photographer to boot. I even laughed when Bob insisted on including an opt-out clause in case the wedding was cancelled. It simply didn’t occur to me at the time that we’d change our minds about getting married.’

Tash bit her lip guiltily, and then, realising what he was saying, her heart skipped a beat of hope. ‘But surely if there’s an opt-out clause, that means we’re okay?’

‘There was a deadline attached,’ he sighed, taking her hand in his. ‘It expired a fortnight ago. If we call off the wedding now, Bob says I’m contractually obliged to cover any losses Sleeping Partners incur as a result of lost publicity. That could be hundreds and hundreds of thousands if they take me to court over this – perhaps more. Like I say, one daft little publicity clause could bankrupt me.’

‘Talk about making a contract killing.’ Tash closed her eyes. ‘It’s almost as though Lisette planned it.’

‘I honestly don’t think she did, angel.’ He cupped her face in his hands, dark eyes tortured. ‘That’s the terrible thing. I think she meant this to be an added extra which helped us both on our way. There’s a saying in the film industry – “making a marriage”. It means a producer getting guaranteed backing for a script. If we don’t get married, she stands to lose a lot of her publicity as well as backing, and there’s no way she’d have deliberately planned that. When she finds out the wedding’s off, she’ll be as devastated as anybody. This film is her baby – she’ll panic if she thinks I’m pulling out of the
Cheers!
deal. Which is why we must keep it from her until we can sort this thing out.’

‘Or you’ll be in court publicising the film a different way,’ Tash groaned, realising just how compromised his position was. ‘So what does Bob think we should do?’

‘He had two suggestions.’ He released her face and started to chew his thumb-nail uncomfortably. ‘The first was that we keep quiet about this until I somehow raise the money to pay off Sleeping Partners.’

Tash rolled her eyes. ‘And the second?’

Niall’s tragi-comic face twisted into a sad clown’s smile. ‘That the wedding should go ahead as planned.’

‘It can’t!’ she gasped.

‘He came up with some demented idea about going through with it until the last possible moment,’ Niall laughed, shaking his head. ‘He thinks we should stage some crazy theatricals at the altar with you refusing to say “I do” and running out halfway through the ceremony while
Cheers!
photographs the lot. He figures that way, Sleeping Partners would get better publicity than they could have dreamed of and the contract would be honoured and obeyed even if I’m not. I’ve always said he had a criminal mind. He says it could be our pretend-nuptial agreement.’

Tash gazed at him in absolute horror. ‘We can’t do that, Niall. I simply couldn’t do it to my family for one thing.’

‘I know, angel, I know. And I’d never ask you to.’ He pressed his hand to her cheek. ‘I told Bob they could sue me to hell and back before I’d do that to you.’

‘What did he say?’

Niall grinned. ‘That in that case, he’ll sue me too.’

Tash buried her face in her hands. ‘There must be another way out of this,’ she groaned. ‘I can’t stand by and watch you being dragged through the courts because my potty grandmother mistook a cracker ring for an engagement one. It was my bloody family that got us into this mess in the first place. We should never have gone along with it.’

‘We’ll think of something.’ He hugged her tightly. ‘We just have to brazen this out until we do.’ He got up to open another bottle of wine.

‘But for how long?’ Tash went pale. ‘The wedding’s in less than three weeks.’

‘I’ll just have to figure out a way of coming up with the money,’ he sighed, searching for the corkscrew. ‘Bob’s working on it – I read for a couple of screen tests when I was publicising Celt in Los Angeles last week which he’s going to chase, but it means keeping things monastically quiet at this end for at least a few days. You know how litigation-phobic the Americans are. One sniff of a law suit against me at the moment and the Hollywood casting couch will turn into a bed of nails. If nothing comes up soon, I’ll just have to come clean to Lisette and take the consequences. Like I say, I won’t let you go through with this thing just to save the shirt off my back. You’re worth more than that.’ He settled beside her again, ignoring Beetroot’s snarling protests.

‘Oh, Niall, I’m so desperately sorry.’ Tash pressed her forehead to his. ‘I just wish I could help, but the only way I could lay my hands on any cash at the moment is to win Badminton next week. And even if by some fluke I did, that wouldn’t be nearly enough.’

‘Brilliant!’ Niall whooped, his face suddenly alive with smiles, as though she’d solved it.

‘Oh, Niall, I haven’t a hope.’ Tash laughed, despite herself. ‘I think Bob’s idea is more likely to work than that, to be honest.’

‘We’ll see.’ He kissed her on the nose and splashed out the wine into their glasses. He’d already drunk most of the first bottle himself, she noticed worriedly. ‘I think you might just have given me an idea.’

‘Yes?’ Tash brightened. ‘What?’

‘Give me until tomorrow.’ He took a great gulp, giving himself a dark red moustache. ‘I’ve got to test the ground first and I’m not sure you’ll want to agree to it.’

‘Agree to what?’ she asked uneasily.

But he just kissed her on the nose again and reached for his script. ‘Don’t tell a soul what’s happening until then – least of all your mother.’

Alexandra called from France just as Tash was clambering into the bath to soak away her saddle sores. Dripping water everywhere, she stood in the bedroom with Beetroot frantically trying to lick her legs dry, listening as her mother launched excitedly into a description of the bridesmaids’ dresses which were now complete. ‘And, I’ve been in touch with Niall’s mother, darling – extraordinary woman, kept calling me “child” as though I was ten,’ she breathed. ‘She says that she’s coming over to England to stay with some relative in Liverpool this week, and then Niall’s father is joining her just before the big day. She seems to think that Hugo is putting them up, which is odd as I’m sure he said nothing of the kind when we chatted last week. He refused point blank to put anyone up, in fact; said he was too ashamed of his interior decor right now. Honestly, he’s such a dry chap – I was falling around laughing for hours afterwards, which rather pissed darling Pascal off as his brother had just had a minor heart attack that night.

‘And have you made a definite decision about whether we go for rose buttonholes, or naff-but-trad carnations? Henrietta
has
to know by next Monday. And she says she’s persuaded James and the girls to go to Badminton and support you this year. Won’t that be super?’

FROM WEDNESDAY, THE EFFECT of the filming on Hugo’s house and the surrounding villages was enormous. A cool, slow-release summer was rudely interrupted by the sounds of cars and lorries roaring past first thing in the morning, the cordoning off of roads as shooting took place, and the boisterous presence of the cast and crew in the Olive Branch, which had been designated the ‘shoot pub’ to Ange’s delight.

Hugo, who had been assured that the filming would take place with the minimum of interruption to the running of his yard, was furious as he was prevented from entering certain rooms of his house, made to walk the long way around the garden to get to the yard, and told to keep his dogs under lock and key after they had bounded in front of the camera during an intimate scene between two of the leads. Hugo had even been booted out of his own bedroom to the attic rooms to accommodate Niall’s multiple love-scenes.

The film company had wanted to move him out of the house completely at first, offering to pay for his stay in the Marlbury hotel where the cast and crew were staying, but he had refused point blank.

‘I’d rather move in with one of the grooms – I can’t come into work like other people each morning. Horses aren’t like an office desk.’

To add to his annoyance, Niall was playing the charming, good-for-nothing owner of the house and spent all day being filmed pacing around Hugo’s rooms in baggy guernseys and old jeans, seducing ravishing women. The previous day he’d had his hair cut suspiciously like Hugo’s too – militarily short around the ears and nape and longer and floppier on top. Not liking the way Niall had taken to talking in a throaty, upper-class drawl, Hugo thought murderously about investing in a crew cut and putting on a Berkshire accent.

‘He’s bloody aping me,’ he fumed.

‘Well, he is supposed to own the place in the film,’ Lisette explained.

‘I’ve just heard they’re going to be filming him shagging in my bloody bed all next week.’

‘You should be flattered.’ She smiled nastily. ‘It’s more than you’ve been doing in it lately.’

To compound Hugo’s fury, he found that he couldn’t drive the horse-box out of his own yard that afternoon because the entrance was blocked by a huge pantechnicon from which various film heavies were unloading vast, spider-like lighting rigs. He was due to take Bodybuilder to use the all-weather gallops of a racing trainer mate in Lambourne and was already running late.