Rumor Has It (3 page)

    Better get up instead.

ERIN DROVE TILLY TO the station on Sunday afternoon.

'So, any idea what you're going to do?'

    Tilly pulled a face, shook her head. 'Not yet. Find somewhere cheaper to live, that's all. What else can I do? Well, apart from per suading my boss to double my salary. Or maybe writing to George Clooney and asking him if he'd mind me moving into his villa on the banks of Lake Como. That's always a possibility.' It was cold out here in the car park; she gave Erin a kiss and said, 'Thanks for the weekend. I'll keep you up to date.'

    'You could ask him if he'd like you to be his new girlfriend.' Erin hugged her. 'Sure you don't want me to wait with you?'

    'Don't worry, I'm fine. The train'll be here in ten minutes. You get off home.'

    Famous last words. Within two minutes of Tilly bagging herself a seat on the platform, the announcement came over the loudspeaker that the train bound for London Paddington would be delayed by forty minutes.

    Everyone on the platform let out a collective groan. Clutching at straws, Tilly looked at the elderly woman next to her. 'Fourteen or forty?'

    The woman clicked her tongue in disgust and said, 'Forty.'

    The husband of a younger woman, attempting to placate their screaming baby, shook his head and said grumpily, 'This is going to be fun.'

Fun.

    Fun job, country house. Picturing the copy of the
Roxborough
Gazette
she'd stuffed into Erin's recycling box, Tilly wished she'd tried calling the number again.

    Then with a jolt she realized she still had it stored on her phone. All she had to do was press redial.

    'Hello? It's me. Fucking train's late, so we won't be back before six at the earliest, fucking typical…'

    Tilly stood up and moved a discreet distance away from Mr Grumpy, now complaining loudly into his mobile that the baby was doing his bloody head in. She pressed her own phone to her ear and lis tened to it ringing at the other end. No answering machine this time. No answering of any kind, by the sound of things. Eight rings, nine, ten…

    'Hello?' The voice was young, female, and breathless.

    'Oh hi, I was calling about the ad in the paper,' began Tilly. 'Could I just ask—'

    'Hang on, I'll get Dad. DAAAD?' bellowed the voice.

    'Ouch.' Tilly winced as the noise bounced off her left eardrum.

    'Whoops, sorry! I've got very strong lungs. OK, he's here now. Dad, it's another one about the job.'

    'Oh bloody hell, haven't we got enough to choose from?' The voice was flat, fed up, and Liverpudlian. 'Just tell her she's too late, we've given it to someone else.'

    Tilly's competitive spirit rose to the surface; until two minutes ago she hadn't even wanted the job. But now, if he was going to try and fob her off…

    'Actually,' she cleared her throat, 'you can tell him I heard that. Could he at least have the decency to speak to me?'

    The girl said cheerfully, 'Hang on,' and, 'Ooh, Dad, she's cross with you now.'

    Tilly heard the phone being passed over, coupled with fierce whispering.

    'Right, sorry.' It was the father's voice, still with that Liverpudlian twang but marginally more friendly than before. 'If you want the truth, this whole thing's been a prize cock-up. We've just got back from holiday to find the answering machine jammed with messages. The ad was meant to go into next week's paper, not last week's. All I want right now is a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich and I'm not getting either of them because the damn phone keeps ringing with more Girl Fridays than I know what to do with. But go ahead,' he said wearily. 'Fire away. Give me your name and number and I'll call you back sometime in the week, fix up a time for the interview.'

    'Hang on,' said Tilly, 'I don't even know if I want an interview yet. What does a Girl Friday
do
, exactly?'

    'Everything.'

    'And you said it was a fun job. What does
that
mean?'

    'It means there's an outside chance you might enjoy it for about two percent of the time. The other ninety-eight percent will be sheer drudgery.'

    'OK, now you're just trying to put me off so you don't have to see me,' Tilly said suspiciously. 'This so-called job. Is it anything to do with porn?'

    'Prawns?'

    'Porn. Ography.
Sex
.' A collective sharp intake of breath informed Tilly that everyone else on the platform was paying attention now.

    'No. Sorry.' He sounded amused. 'Why, was that what you were hoping for?'

    'No, it was not.' Tilly did her best to sound ladylike but not off puttingly prissy. 'And why are you only paying two hundred a week?'

    This time he actually laughed. 'It's a live-in position. Everything else is paid for, including a car.'

    OK, this was definitely a good enough reason. Tilly said promptly, 'You know what? I'd be great at this job.'

    'Fine, fine. Let me check my diary.' She heard pages being riffled. 'Right, let's start booking appointments. Come over on Thursday af ternoon and we'll take a look at each other. Four o'clock suit you?'

    'Not really.' Tilly screwed up her face.

    'Five, then? Six?'

    'Look, are you in Roxborough?'

    'No, we're in Mumbai, that's why I advertised in the
Roxborough
Gazette
.' There it was again, that laconic deadpan Liverpudlian wit.

    'Well, I live in London. But right now I'm on the platform at Roxborough station, waiting to go back there.' Going for broke, Tilly took a deep breath and said, 'So what would be really fantastic would be if I could come over and see you now.'

    Silence.

    Followed by more silence.

    Finally she heard a sigh. 'Did I tell you how bloody knackered I am?'

    'While you're interviewing me,' Tilly said innocently, 'I could always make you a fantastic bacon sandwich.'

    He gave a snort of amusement. 'You're sharp, aren't you?'

    'I'm right here.' Tilly pressed home her minuscule advantage. 'If you can't see me now, I'm going back to London. And you'll have missed your chance.'

    'Modest, too.'

    'Just think. If I'm perfect, you won't have to interview anyone else.'

    Another pause. Then he said, 'Go on then, get yourself over here. We're at Beech House on the Brockley Road, just over the bridge and on the right as you're heading out of town. Do you know it?'

    'No but I'll find you, don't worry.' That sounded nice and ef ficient, didn't it? 'I'll be there in ten minutes.'

Well, she would have been if there'd been a taxi outside the station. But that was wishful thinking, because this was Roxborough station on a wintry February afternoon and any self-respecting taxi driver was at home sleeping off his Sunday lunch. Tilly couldn't bring herself to phone Erin again. How far away could Beech House be, anyway? Surely not more than a mile. She could be there in fifteen minutes on foot…

    It rained. It was more than a mile. It rained harder and the sky darkened along with Tilly's grey sweatshirt and jeans because of course she didn't have anything so sensible as an umbrella. Her case on-wheels jiggled and bounced along the pavement as she dragged it behind her. After twenty-five minutes, she saw a house up ahead on the right and quickened her pace. There, thank God, was the sign saying Beech House. She turned into the stone-pillared entrance and headed up the graveled driveway. The Regency-style property was grand, imposing, and as welcomingly lit up in the gloom as Harrods at Christmas.

    Panting and drenched, Tilly reached the front door and rang the bell. What was she even doing here? The man would probably turn out to be a right weirdo; all she'd need to do was take one look at him to know she wouldn't work for him for all the—

    'Bloody hell, kid. Look at the state of you.' Having flung open the door, the right weirdo hauled her inside. 'I thought you'd stood us up. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen. Don't tell me you've walked all the way from the station.'

    Tilly nodded, the blissful heat causing her teeth to start chatter ing wildly. 'There weren't any t-taxis.'

    'Ah well, that's because the taxi drivers around here are all lazy gits. And you didn't even have a coat.' He looked askance at her drenched sweatshirt. 'If you'd called me again I'd have come and picked you up. If you catch pneumonia and drop dead I'm going to have it on my conscience now, aren't I?'

    'I'll sign a disclaimer.' Tilly stuck out her hand and shook his. 'I'm Tilly Cole. Nice to meet you.'

    'Nice to meet you too, Tilly Cole. Max Dineen.' He was tall and greyhound thin, aged around forty, with close-cropped wavy blond hair and friendly grey eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles. 'Come along in and we'll get you dried off. That's what I usually say to Betty,' he added as he led the way into the kitchen.

    'Your daughter?'

    Max indicated the brown and white terrier curled up on a cushion in one of the window seats. 'Our dog, but it's an easy mistake to make. I get them mixed up myself. Betty's the one with the cold nose,' he went on as a clatter of footsteps heralded his daughter's arrival in the kitchen, 'and the noisy one in the stripy tights is Lou.'

    'Hi!' Lou was in her early teens, with mad red hair corkscrewing around her head and an infectious grin. 'It's Louisa actually. Euww, you're all wet.'

    'I knew that expensive education would come in useful one day. Lou, this is Tilly. Run upstairs and fetch her the dressing gown from the spare room.' Max turned to Tilly. 'We'll chuck your clothes in the tumble-dryer. How about that then?' He winked. 'How many job interviews have you done in a dressing gown, eh?'

    The thing was, he wasn't being sleazy or suggestive. He was simply making the suggestion because it made sense. Nevertheless, it would be surreal…

    'It's OK, I've got something I can change into.' Tilly pointed to her case.

    Max said, 'Spoilsport.'

THE HOUSE WAS AMAZING, decorated with an eye for color and real flair. Whether Max Dineen was married or divorced, Tilly guessed this was the work of a woman. In the bottle-green and white marble tiled downstairs cloakroom, she stripped off her wet things and changed into the red angora sweater and black trousers she'd worn last night.

    Back in the kitchen, Max took her jeans and sweatshirt through to the utility room and put them in the tumble-dryer. Then, he handed her a cup of coffee and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs.

    'Right, let's make a start, shall we? The situation is this: Lou's mum and I split up three years ago. Her mum lives and works in California. For the first couple of years Lou stayed out there with her, but she missed all this…'—he gestured ironically at the rain splattered window—'all this glorious British weather, so last year, she decided to move back for good. I tried changing my name and going into hiding but she managed to track me down.'

    'Dad, don't say that.' Lou rolled her eyes at him. 'People will think it's true.'

    'It
is
true. I was hiding in doorways… wearing a false mous tache… hopeless. It was like being hunted by a bloodhound.'

    'Nobody's going to want to work for you if you say stuff like this. OK, here's the thing,' Lou took over. 'I'm thirteen. Dad cut back on work when I first came home, but now he's stepping it up again.'

    'It's a question of having to,' said Max. 'You cost a fortune.'

    'Anyway,' Louisa ignored him, 'we decided we needed a Girl Friday to help us out, someone to pick me up from school and stuff, do a spot of cooking sometimes, help Dad out with the business— just anything that needs doing, really. We kept it vague, because—'

    'We kept it vague,' Max interjected, 'because if we advertised for someone to look after a bad-tempered old git and a whiny teenager, everyone would run a mile.'

    'Just keep on ignoring him.' Louisa's eyes sparkled as she snapped the ring on a can of Pepsi Max. 'So. Does that sound like the kind of thing you might like to do?'

    Tilly shrugged. 'That rather depends on your dad's business. If he's the town rat-catcher I'm not going to be so keen on helping him out.'

    'How about grave digging?' said Max.

    'Dad, will you leave this to me? He's not a grave digger,' said Louisa, 'he has an interior design company. It's good fun. He's very in demand.' She nodded proudly. 'So that's it. That's what you'd be doing. Now it's your turn to tell us about you.'

    Tilly hid a smile, because Louisa was so earnest and sparky and bossy and young, and she, Tilly, was being interviewed by a thirteen year-old freckly redhead wearing huge hooped earrings, a lime-green sweater-dress, and multicolored stripy tights. She'd also been wrong about the ex-wife being responsible for the way the house looked.

    Plus no rats, which had to be a bonus.

    'OK, the truth? I live in London, my job's pretty boring, and my boyfriend's just done a bunk. Which doesn't upset me, but it means I can't afford to stay on in the flat we shared, which
does
. Then I came down here for the weekend to stay with my friend Erin, and—'

    'Erin? Who runs Erin's Beautiful Clothes?' Perkily, Louisa said, 'I know her. I used to go in the shop with Mum, and Erin would give me jelly sweets shaped like strawberries. She's cool!'