Party Games (22 page)

As the hours ticked by there was still no announcement of Jonty’s resignation. The media became increasingly desperate. People were pounced on for a quote as soon as they set foot outdoors. CNN wheeled in a martial-arts expert to recreate the now infamous roundhouse kick. #chips and #ketchupgate trended worldwide on Twitter.

At 3 p.m. BBC Gloucestershire’s harried female reporter threw herself in front of Beau Rainford’s passing Mustang. ‘Beau! Do you think Beeversham will be forced to call a by-election?’

Beau, in a white T-shirt with a V-neck that only just reached his navel, lifted up his Ray-Bans. ‘I’ve as much of a clue as you, sweetheart. I had no idea Jonty swung both ways.’ He roared off, giving her the biggest line of the day.

Vanessa stirred restlessly on her sunlounger. Normally she could stand any kind of heat, but the air felt unrelentingly hot and still. All around, the walls of the huge garden seemed be closing in.
A metaphor for my life
, she thought despairingly.

It was madness to try and sneak out to see Dylan with the hoo-ha going on. A gaggle of paps had congregated at the end of the drive, hoping for a quote from Beeversham’s celebrity couple. Conrad, moaning incessantly about press intrusion, had already been out twice that day on errands, something he’d never done before. He’d taken the bronze open-top Mercedes, not as show-stopping as the Porsche or the Bentley, but a perfect match for the new glossy hues in his hair.

Vanessa’s iPhone beeped with an email alert. It was her stylist again, asking her to get in touch about her Silver Box dress. She had narrowed it down to a choice of six, including a Stella McCartney … ‘
That I know you’re going to LOVE. Can you call me back, darling? I hope you’re OK
.’

The fact that such big designers were clamouring to dress her was a huge compliment. Normally, Vanessa would have been back and forth from London in a whirl of dress fittings and accessory meetings. For the National Television Awards last year she’d had her yellow diamonds from Garrard picked out for months. But for some reason, she couldn’t get excited this time. It felt like being forced to attend her own birthday party, one she didn’t want to be at.

She put the phone down and lay back. The garden felt empty without Dylan. She wondered what he was doing. Thinking about her, as well? Vanessa imagined him topless as he worked at the camp, his sinewy brown back gleaming in the sun.

A trickle of sweat snaked its way down her chest, disappearing into the golden canyon of cleavage. Heat began to grow between her legs. She put her hand on her lower belly and stroked it, contemplating.

The house was cool and quiet. She padded up the stairs in her bikini, her bare feet sinking into the soft carpet. Once in her bedroom she pulled the white blinds down. Just in case.

She lay on the king-sized bed and looked down at her nearly naked body. She tried to imagine it as Dylan saw it. Closing her eyes, she slipped one hand inside the front of her Missoni bikini bottoms.

Her fingers brushed the soft, neat line of her Brazilian. She had always been very self-conscious about masturbation before, but Dylan had such an arousing effect on her that she was desperate for the release. She started to touch herself, hesitantly at first and then more fluidly and confidently.

‘Aah,’ she moaned. She felt so swollen it was almost painful, yet in a completely delicious way. She started to work harder and faster, pressing urgently against her clitoris. Then she came, arching her back as the glorious spasms ebbed through her body. All too quickly it was over. Exhausted and euphoric, she flopped back on the silk pillows.

‘That was an Oscar-winning performance,’ drawled a voice from the doorway.

She leapt up like a startled rabbit. Conrad was leaning against the door frame with a predatory smile as he filmed her on his iPhone.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she shrieked, grabbing an embroidered cushion to shield herself. ‘Stop it!’

‘Nice to see you enjoying yourself for a change, instead of lying there like you’re about to be embalmed.’ Mercifully he stopped, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed.

She tried to snatch the phone off him. ‘Give that to me!’

He held it away from her. ‘Can’t a husband film his own wife?’ His other hand began to move up her inner thigh. She tried not to flinch. ‘Do I still make you horny, Vanessa? Do you still want me?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

His fingers started to probe her, like a doctor carrying out an examination. ‘Good,’ he said briskly, taking her wetness as his own achievement. ‘I’m going downstairs.’

She lay on the bed, trembling. The truth was that suddenly, she was frightened of her own husband.

The next day brought the inevitable news. Jonty was resigning as MP for Beeversham and as a member of the Conservative Party. The Labour and Lib Dem leaders were in their element, gleefully coming together on that evening’s BBC
Question Time
to denounce Jonty as: ‘the blackened heart of a corrupt government’. The political bloggers were even less charitable. The by-election, in which candidates of the local political parties would campaign against each other to win Jonty’s seat, would now take place in the next four weeks.

In the wake of the scandal Jonty had suffered a complete breakdown and been sent off somewhere obscure to dry out. It had been left up to Felix, as his constituency chairman, to hastily write Jonty’s official resignation letter. It was read out in the House of Commons that afternoon.

‘
I deeply regret my actions and I remain a loyal supporter of our Conservative government
.’

In the wake of Jonty-gate, circulation figures of the flailing
Cotswolds on Sunday
had leapt up for the
first time in years. Their coverage was extensive and typically lurid, describing Jonty as ‘a drug-addled drunk’ who was ‘wildly unpopular’ amongst his constituents. People were lining up in their droves to have a pop. The
Mail on Sunday
had found an ex-good-time girl now running a hedgehog sanctuary in Hastings, who claimed Jonty had spent most of the 1980s putting Class As up his nose and condoms through on his expenses. He had been skirting a very fine line for years and everyone wanted to get the boot in.

Sid Sykes was interviewed for the six o’clock news, in a vast, chintzy living room at home, a fairy-tale drawing of Ye Olde Worlde framed on the wall behind him.

‘I’m in total shock,’ he said, looking quite the opposite. ‘Jonty Fortescue-Wellington has let the people of this country down.’

‘Does this affect your plans for Ye Olde Worlde, Mr Sykes?’ the reporter asked.

‘Quite the opposite! Fortescue-Wellington was meant to bring these poor people jobs, stability, more opportunities in the district. That’s what I’m doing with Ye Olde Worlde. I feel so angry about what these poor people are going through, I’d like to take the opportunity to offer anyone living within the theme park area fifty per cent off the entrance fee.’ Sykes leered into the camera. ‘I guess you could say I’m the Minister for Fun.’

A car pulled up in the yard. Fleur looked up, from where she’d been glued to the kitchen TV. She was astonished to see it was Beau’s old Mustang

She rushed out in a panic. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Lovely to see you too,’ he told her.

Fleur went pink. ‘S-sorry. I meant, I wasn’t expecting to see you.’

He was wearing a mint-green shirt, a white jumper knotted over his broad shoulders. Fleur had never known a man to wear so much pastel, but somehow on Beau it worked.

‘Fancy coming to play at mine?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Darling, you’re not very good at this.’ He sighed. ‘I’m asking you over for dinner.’

Fleur looked down at her jeans, which had cow saliva all over them. ‘Now?’

‘Now or never.’

‘I’m not dressed for it.’

‘Go and get dressed, then.’

Fleur thought about the mountain of paperwork piling up, her drunk unhappy dad locked away in his study. She had an overwhelming urge to escape and have some fun for once.

‘Give me five minutes.’

‘I love a girl who can wash and blow.’ Beau grinned wickedly. ‘Sorry, wash and go.’

Upstairs Fleur quickly showered and brushed her teeth. She had to keep telling herself it wasn’t a date.
This was Beau Rainford
. She wasn’t falling for any of his smooth-talking crap.

Even so, there was a blotchy rash on her chest and a little pulse thudding in between her breasts. She scrabbled round in her ancient make-up bag and found the stump of a black eyeliner. She applied an uneven line, hands shaking with nerves and lack of practice.

It didn’t take long to choose from her dismal collection of clothes. She went for a black shirt that didn’t show too much cleavage and her best – make that only – pair of going-out jeans. There was a bottle of something on the dressing table and Fleur squirted it on her neck and wrists.

She looked in the mirror and her heart sank. Instead of an effortless beauty, a raccoon-eyed girl in a frumpy shirt looked back at her. In desperation, she pulled out the band from her ponytail, the luxuriant red hair tumbling over her shoulders. Thank God she’d washed it that morning. After running a brush through it, she pulled on a pair of semi-decent ballet pumps. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

Beau was leaning against the car, texting. His eyes slid expertly over her. She blushed again and touched her hair self-consciously

‘Four minutes forty,’ he announced, looking at his watch. ‘It takes Valentina twice as long just to reapply her lip gloss.’

‘Is she, I mean, Valentina, going to be there?’ Fleur asked politely.

He shook his head. ‘Some catwalk thing in Paris.’

It sounded very glamorous. ‘You didn’t want to go?’

‘Those things bore the hell out of me.’ He slid the Ray-Bans back on. ‘Come on, Cinderella, your carriage awaits.’

He drove like a maniac – a confident maniac who could handle corners at eighty miles an hour while carrying on a full conversation. By the time they’d screeched up outside Ridings, her eyes were watering
madly and her hair was a mass of tangles. So much for trying to look cool.

‘First impressions?’ he asked.

They’d driven at such terrifying speed she hadn’t had the chance to take it in. Staring up at the huge gleaming white box where her grandparents’ old house used to be, she felt quite overcome.

‘Let’s start round the back,’ he said more gently. ‘I think you’ll be surprised.’

Still upset, she followed him round the side of the house. This was a mistake, she shouldn’t have come. A second later she stopped in her tracks.

Beau grinned. ‘Not what you expecting?’

Fleur gazed at the extraordinary vision in front of her. Her grandparents’ house was still there, except it had new windows and a much-needed new roof. It was connected to the modern part by a gleaming corridor of glass. She had to admit, the contrast of the original farmhouse and the new extension looked really cool.

‘I only got rid of the bits that were beyond saving.’

She was lost for words. She couldn’t believe her grandparents’ house was still here, hidden behind the stark white facade.

‘Come on then,’ he told her. ‘You can tell me what you think of the rest of it.’

When her grandparents had lived there, Colm-wood Farm had been rather dark and chintzy. He had knocked through walls and opened the place up, exposing the beams and flooding the place with light.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘I think it’s really cool,’ she admitted. It was a completely different place, yet she felt instantly at home.

The modern side was huge and seamless, walls of white running into floors of polished marble. There were no skirting boards or lamp switches, or anything else you’d find in a normal house. A blown-up cover of Italian
Vogue
hung on one wall. Valentina, hair flying behind her, cheekbones soaring, stretched her elongated proportions into an exaggerated pose.

‘V gave that to me.’

‘She looks amazing.’

He shuddered. ‘I always feel like her eyes are following me around.’

Another canvas hung in the corridor. A young brunette, pensive as she gazed past the camera. The blue eyes and full lips were unmistakable. ‘My mother,’ he told her.

‘She’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘She was, rather.’

‘Do you miss her?’

He gave her a brief glance. ‘I do, actually.’

‘I miss my mum, too.’

‘What happened?’

‘Cancer. Five years ago.’ She felt like she’d become an old woman in that time.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘You’re never the same, are you?’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘You’re really not.’

There was a brief flame of recognition between them. ‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘Let’s get on with the tour.’

The futuristic kitchen was spotless, a sleek MacBook
open on the top of the central island. By contrast the living room in the old part of the house was simple and homely, with squashy white sofas, and magazines scattered across the coffee table.

They headed outside to the landscaped gardens and swimming pool. There was even a poolside bar and big, luxurious day-beds that made Fleur feel like she was at a posh hotel. A bright green thong hung off one of them. From the minuscule size it had to belong to Valentina.

‘I was wondering where that had got to,’ Beau said airily. ‘My tan lines have been giving me hell.’

She giggled. He
was
quite funny.

The outbuildings that used to house the farm machinery were still there, but they had been spruced up. There was a new paved area outside, dotted with oversized plant pots.

‘My latest venture,’ he told her. ‘We’ve converted them into recording studios.’

‘Really?’

‘You want a look?’

There were four studios, exactly like the ones she had seen in films.

‘This is amazing! Do you ever get anyone famous?’

‘Darling, we only get famous. They go mad for the prime Cotswold location.’

She resisted asking who, for fear of sounding like a saddo. Beau probably hung out with famous people all the time.