Bad Brides (7 page)

‘Milly! Darling, come out here,’ Tarquin called, holding out his hand to her.

‘She’s not going to fucking
duet
with him, is she?’ Elden hissed to Lance, one hand covering his mike so his words didn’t get picked up, winding his fingers
furiously through his beard with the other. All the Ormonds but Tarquin had beards: to his great distress, he was unable to grow anything more than blonde bum fluff. ‘Because she can’t
fucking
sing
, for a start.’

‘Everyone! Milly’s a bit shy!’ Tarquin said, utterly misunderstanding Milly’s delay. In fact, she was swiftly adjusting the daisy chain she wore in her hair and checking
the embroidered neckline of the white broderie anglaise Temperley dropped-waist mini-dress that looked charmingly simple but had cost over three thousand pounds. ‘Let’s all call her
name to show her how much we want her out here!’

Female voices were not much on display in the chants of ‘Milly! Milly!’ that rose from the audience; when Milly finally stepped onto the stage in her wedge sandals, the cheers that
arose were mostly from men at the front craning to see up the very short skirt of her dress. Milly, quite aware of this, flashed a beautiful smile at the crowd as she picked her way daintily over
the various cables on the floor, stepping, perhaps, a little higher than she strictly needed to each time to flash a fraction more upper thigh.

‘Baby!’ Tarquin said devoutly as she reached his side, slipping into American jargon temporarily, something he never allowed himself in his lyrics. ‘I love you so much, I wrote
that song for you –
you’re
my blue seahorse!’

‘Oh, Tark,’ Milly breathed, staring up at him with big round blue eyes just as enthusiastic as if she had thought even
he
knew what he meant by calling her that. ‘I
love you too.’

Tarquin’s jacket was unbuttoned; he reached into the pocket of his silk-backed waistcoat, pulled out a little box and dropped to one knee.

‘Ah,
bollocks
!’ Lance mouthed to Elden. Even Tristram, the bassist, who never said much, shook his head as if trying to cancel out what Tarquin was clearly about to do.

‘Milly Gamble, my blue seahorse, will you do me the very great honour of saying yes in front of all these lovely people . . .’

Roars of appreciation for Tarquin’s acknowledgement of the audience rose from the field. A few girls at the front, tears beginning to pour down their faces, shrieked: ‘No, Tarquin,
no! Don’t do it! Marry
me
!’ but their voices were generally lost in the crowd as Tarquin continued.

‘Milly, you’re my muse, my inspiration for my songs, my soulmate. We’re twin hearts, beating together. Without you I was lost, and when I found you I came home. Will you do me
the very great honour of becoming my wife?’

Milly’s expression never faltered, but as she looked down at Tarquin her brain was racing with calculation. She raised her hands to the sides of her face, pantomiming her surprise without
obscuring her features for the TV cameras recording the festival; she knew exactly where they were. Her cupid’s-bow lips parted in a round O of amazement that she knew suited her
tremendously.

She hadn’t seen this coming, hadn’t perceived Tarquin as much more than a very useful stepping stone to someone even more famous and useful than him; but it was quite true that since
she’d started dating him a year and a half ago, his profile had done nothing but rise, the awards his band had won around the world had multiplied to the point that they’d fill up
countless mantelpieces and still overflow. And with a proposal this public – live on camera, on the main stage of one of the trendiest festivals in the UK – how could she say no? She
simply couldn’t. And a wedding would be
fantastic
publicity for her . . .

‘Oh my God! This is
such
a surprise – but of course I will!’ she blurted out in her sweet baby voice.

Beaming from ear to ear, Tarquin jumped to his feet and opened the box. And when she saw what was inside, Milly had to use every single trick in her box of acting skills in order to manage an
enthusiastic: ‘
Oh, Tark!
’ and keep the smile on her face.

‘I chose it specially to match your eyes!’ he said as he slid the turquoise ring onto her finger.

‘It’s
beautiful
,’ she breathed, taking just the right amount of time to look at it in wonder before raising her eyes to her fiancé’s face so that he could
kiss her for the cameraphones which were now going off in a perpetual stutter of clicks; even the sobbing girls were holding theirs up, wanting to capture the moment so that they could text it to
their friends with captions scrawled over the screen like:
I want 2 DIE kill me NOWWWW OMG why why why Tark is MINE! :( :( :(

The stink of Tarquin’s suit was almost unbearable. Milly disengaged herself from it immediately, waved charmingly at the audience and tripped lightly offstage, flashing radiant smiles at
Elden, Lance and Tristram. She was perfectly aware that they all disliked her and was highly enjoying their crestfallen expressions.

‘Wow,’ Tarquin said to the crowd. ‘I’m engaged! Unbelievable! Okay, guys, let’s play some music!’

Lance started up the next song on the set list, and the audience went crazy: ‘Moon Face’ was one of Ormond and Co’s biggest hits. Tarquin held out the mike so that the crowd
could sing the opening ‘Oh, oh oh oh oh,’ and they responded with a loud wail.

‘Congratulations!’ Eva said as Milly rejoined her and, taking her hand, pulled her friend down the rickety steps on the side of the stage. Eva mewed with frustration, as she loved
Ormond and Co and wanted to watch the end of the set; but Milly had had psychological dominance over her ever since childhood. They had attended the same nursery school, and their first encounter
had been when Milly walked up to Eva, who was docilely brushing the hair of her Little Mermaid Barbie, and started to wrench Ariel from her owner’s hands, screaming: ‘Mine!
Mine!
’ Eva had taken one look at the angel-faced little girl with wrists of steel, released her grip on Ariel, and barely ever said no to Milly since.

‘Honestly, a
turquoise
?’ Milly said under her breath so that the various other people hanging around the backstage VIP area couldn’t hear her. She took a swift look
around, spotted a trestle table that was free, and marched across the grass, still towing Eva in her wake. A few ‘Congrats, Milly!’ were called out as she passed musicians or actors
whom she vaguely knew, and her smile never faltered as she said a quick: ‘Thanks!’ But she didn’t slow down till she reached the table and sank onto the bench alongside it,
running her hand over it first to make sure there weren’t any loose splinters that could catch at her very expensive dress.

‘
But
although I’m
gutted
I only got a bloody
turquoise
,’ she said crossly, ‘what I’m thinking is that we could use this for marketing. It
could be a brilliant way to push Milly and Me. I might as well get
something
positive out of it. We could make versions of the ring – like copies, you know?’

Eva looked baffled.

‘You want to copy your engagement ring?’ she asked, frowning, as she often did. Eva was a very earnest girl who liked to make sure she understood everything about a situation before
she moved onto the next one. It was an excellent attribute for her job: she was a perfectionist, and already two fine vertical lines were developing between her thick dark brows from hours spent
concentrating on her work.

Without Milly by her side, Eva would have drawn much more attention, maybe as much as she devoted to her work: her face, framed in a curtain of straight, silky dark hair, was not pretty but
striking, with the kind of features that were currently very fashionable. The heavy brows, high cheekbones and wide mouth were all those of a high-fashion model, and Eva’s thick eyelashes
– which Milly had tried to pull out when they were around nine, envious that grown-ups always cooed over them – framed slanting greenish eyes that surveyed the world with a quiet
reserve that an observer who took time to study her face would have considered highly intriguing.

But next to Milly, Eva faded into the background. And to be honest, that was what she preferred. Her friendship with Milly was by no means masochistic: with Milly next to her, the spotlight was
off Eva. She wasn’t expected to chat or flirt or draw attention; she could sit back quietly and enjoy herself watching others, an introvert who used an extrovert as an invisibility cloak.
That was how their joint business worked, and it suited Eva much better than people realized.

‘Yes! Copy the ring! Like a special, limited edition, charity version. It isn’t even new, so the design won’t be copyrighted or anything. I might as well get some benefit from
it being a bloody
turquoise
!’ Milly put her hand flat on the table, stretching out her slim white fingers, looking down derisively at the blue stone set in rose gold and surrounded
by small pearls on her third finger. ‘To match my eyes . . . blah blah, like you can’t get blue diamonds?
Honestly!
You can do versions of it, right, Eves? With different
stones, of course, so it’s not exactly the same.’

Eva bent her head, studying the design of the ring.

Tarquin’s ethereal voice soared above them, and several of the VIPs swayed from side to side as he sang, cans of Pimm’s in their hands, lip-syncing along with the familiar words:

Eva was unconsciously humming the chorus to herself as she raised her head again, letting her thoughts crystallise.

‘Well, I could do some in those zebra jaspers I’ve been using recently,’ she said slowly. ‘And the agates, too. They would look pretty with the pearls. I don’t
usually use pearls at all, but if you want something as close to this as possible I could order them in. They’re not as ethical as our other stones—’

‘Oh, that’s fine,’ Milly said, fluttering her hand to signify that standards could be flexible on this occasion. ‘I l
ove
this idea,’ she beamed.
‘Talk about great publicity! Not only am I engaged, but I’m actually happy to make versions of my ring as a special charity donation thingywhatsit so I can share the love for a good
cause! Wow, that sounds
really
good when I say it out loud. We’ll do it as a limited edition for breast cancer – is that big right now, breast cancer? I’ll check with my
publicist. She’s bound to know what the hottest charity is right now.’

Eva was used to Milly’s way of talking, accustomed to telling herself that Milly’s heart was in the right place, it was just that her words didn’t always come out quite the way
she meant them. And having Milly’s name on the ethical jewellery line that Eva designed was perfect for both of them. It had been Milly’s idea, of course. When Eva graduated from art
school, having decided she wanted to specialize in jewellery design and work only with companies that used environmentally positive products mined by workers paid a living wage, Milly had pointed
out that in order to succeed in that kind of niche market Eva would need publicity, and that quiet, retiring Eva was the last person in the world to be able to drum it up. Milly’s brilliant
solution was that Eva would design, Milly would ‘front’ the brand and put her name on it, and they would share profits.

So far, it had worked wonderfully. Eva was more than happy to be left alone to deal with the creative side of things, and Milly was superbly gifted at working Milly and Me, the name of their
company, into every interview she ever did. Making the brand ethical naturally meant that she could promote it without seeming pushy, and even Eva, who had no knack for promotion, could see that an
interview with Milly where she talked artlessly about how in love she was, how happy she was to be engaged, and how she wanted to share that wonderful feeling by giving back to people whose loved
ones had breast cancer would be just the kind of article which journalists from women’s magazines would fall over themselves to write.

‘How will Tarquin feel about it?’ Eva asked, her normally pale cheeks pinkening a little as they did every time she saw Tarquin or even pronounced his name.

Milly, who was perfectly aware that Eva had a crush on Tarquin, smiled at her indulgently and said, ‘It’s for charity! Of course Tark’ll be fine with it! You know what a
do-gooder he is.’

‘I don’t think that’s quite fair . . .’ Eva murmured, but her voice tailed off. She tipped her head forward, pretending to study the ring, but really so that a soft
swathe of dark hair could cover her face. She hated it when Milly was dismissive of Tarquin. No matter how much Eva told herself that this was how people in relationships behaved, that you teased
each other, you didn’t go round all the time with hearts and flowers wreathed around you, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes and only saying lovely things about how
wonderful the other was, she couldn’t help wishing that Milly wouldn’t joke about Tarquin or his lyrics. It made Eva immediately want to jump to his defence, and that would give away
the fact that she was madly in love with him, had been ever since she bought Ormond and Co’s first CD
For Now the Lion Dreams
, and been carried away by his haunting voice, his
cryptic lyrics and, of course, his otherworldly beauty.

So when Milly had met Tarquin backstage at a fundraiser it had been horribly bittersweet for Eva; she got to meet her idol and find out that he truly was as gentle and poetic and honest about
his emotions as he seemed in his songs and his interviews. But the price, of course, was that she had to watch him following Milly around like Mary’s little lamb, staring at her worshipfully
with his big, pale blue eyes –
the colour of powder-blue quartzite
, thought the jewellery designer side of Eva,
just a tiny hint of lavender in the blue –
writing
songs about Milly, and now,
marrying
Milly . . .