Singled Out (27 page)

‘So you did expect him to bid for your services then?’

‘No! Yes – oh, I don’t know. I was just being cautious. And thank goodness Jason doesn’t seem to be here. I knew you were wrong about them bidding against each other.’

‘I put the Marilyn Monroe thing on
my
list.’

‘You’ll probably get old Mr Browne this year then,’ I told her maliciously.

‘I sincerely hope not! I was hoping for something a bit friskier.’

‘They don’t come much friskier than Mr Browne,’ I assured her. ‘I thought I was hired to give his antique shop a jolly good clean and turn out, but if he chased me round that inlaid pedestal table once, he chased me ten times. I was quite exhausted.’

‘Who got you last year?’

‘Miss Gresham – don’t you remember? First she made me give a talk on writing to the WI, then she invited her particular cronies over and tried to make me read their fortunes, and she just didn’t understand when I said I couldn’t do it to order.’

‘I got her the year before last, and she made me wash all of her little Pekes, and Sung bit me!’

I nudged her. ‘Shush – the vicar’s about to start.’

The line of slaves shuffled their feet, and laughingly formed into numerical order. I was between Emlyn’s wife Clara, and Orla, a thorn between two roses.

Come in, number six, your time is up.

Pushing the twin portholes of his glasses up on to the bridge of his insignificant nose, the vicar beamed at the assembled throng like a friendly turtle.

‘Welcome to the ninth Westery Annual Slave Auction, everyone. Glad to see a good turn-out for such an excellent cause, and for those newcomers among you who might think a slave auction an unchristian event, let me just explain: the very idea of real slavery is, of course, absolutely abhorrent to me and to all of you, and I’m sure we all stand firm on that. But today, these good people have volunteered their services for a day, and the money they fetch will go to a very good cause: the fund to send a little local girl, Kylie Morgan, to America for life-saving surgery.

‘Now, I have a fine assortment of slaves here, willing to do your bidding. The usual rules, ladies and gentlemen: one whole day, regular rest and food breaks, and don’t ask them to do anything dangerous or – ahem! – naughty. But do utilise the talents that they have so generously offered. Thank you.’

His audience of the drunk, the sober, the curious, the convivial and the calculating settled into their seats and waited for lot one.

Dante didn’t bid for any of the first lots, just sat there darkly brooding with his arms crossed over his manly bosom, while a parade of slaves passed before his eyes.

Eddie and Rosetta seemed to have vanished, but to my dismay Jason suddenly appeared at the back of the room: he must have closed his shop up especially.

Clara drew the short straw and went to Miss Gresham this year, but she is extremely practical so I expect she can cope even if asked to wash the horrid little Pekes. Or perhaps Miss Gresham wants something knitted? Clara’s an ace machine knitter.

Then it was my turn, and I thought maybe I might derive some pleasure (if Dante actually did bid for me), in seeing him outdone from afar, even though it was going to make giving Max the final heave-ho just a little bit more difficult than it already was.

‘Next we have Miss Cass Leigh,’ the Rev. said enticingly. ‘Rumoured, like her namesake Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, to have the gift of prophecy. Her talents might be a little on the dark side, but she will hardly be burnt as a witch these days!’

There was dutiful laughter: he says much the same thing every year. Glancing across at Dante I was disconcerted to find that although his head was still slightly bent, his bright eyes were fixed speculatively on me.

It was a bit unnerving, actually, but made me think what a great character he would make for a cartoon strip,
strip
being the operative word. Or in one of my books, as the ghost of some ancient warrior perhaps? With his floppy, unkempt black hair, glistening muscled torso, and maybe leather wristbands or an armlet …

Wolfric paused, looking about in a puzzled way, ‘This is not my world,’ he said ‘I was called from my eternal rest by a power stronger than death…’

‘Twenty pounds? Who will start the bidding at – oh, thank you, Mr Browne. Now, do I hear thirty – forty – fifty…’

The bidding paused, not surprisingly, at this point. Then the vicar’s housekeeper, her cheeks red with excitement, said, as one making the clinching bid: ‘Sixty pounds!’

‘Thank you, Mrs Grace! Sixty pounds…’ began the vicar happily. ‘Six—’

‘Seventy!’ said Jason’s voice from the back of the room. Every head turned to stare.

‘A hundred,’ said Dante laconically.

All eyes swivelled back, and the Vicar nearly fell off his perch. ‘A hundred!’

He swallowed, beamed, and continued: ‘A generous offer of one hundred pounds for Miss Cassandra Leigh, from Mr Dante Chase of Kedge Hall. Would … er … anyone like to raise that?’ he asked hopefully.

Mr Browne shook his head, looking disappointed, as did Mrs Grace.

Clearly Max had underestimated the value of my assets – and so had I. Could somebody have doctored my list of skills?

‘One hundred and ten,’ Jason’s voice said firmly, and Dante immediately capped it, catching me staring at him again and holding me in the tractor beam of his gaze.

Oh, beam me up, Scotty!

Had I somehow tacitly agreed with either Dante or Jason to do over a hundred pounds worth of something? And if so, what? When? Where?
Why?

I mean, I may be sex on legs personified for Mr Browne or even Jason, but Dante can have no need to pay for anything I might give him … except the most expensive singing telegram in the world?

Perhaps he just doesn’t like to be beaten?

I came back to earth with a start to find a small bidding war had erupted, though Jason retained enough good sense (or lacked sufficient chivalry) to waste his money and dropped out when Dante offered two hundred pounds.

Just as well, because Dante seemed quite prepared to go on for ever.

This was Survival of the Richest.

‘Sold to Mr Chase!’ the vicar said, crashing his hammer down excitedly.

‘And I’ll double that, if I can have Miss Leigh’s services for two days instead of one,’ Dante called clearly.

The room couldn’t have gone more silent if he’d announced that he was about to ravish me on the pool table in the bar.

… the castors squeaked beneath their entwined bodies, the green felt a field of …

No, scrub that one: I’m definitely not writing that sort of novel.

‘Two days?’ The vicar, taken aback, looked doubtfully at me. ‘Er … the arrangement is always one day only, Mr Chase. Though of course it’s up to Miss Leigh, and it is a good cause? But no, I can’t ask anyone to give up more than one day!’

Everyone looked expectantly at me, including the speaking dark eyes of Kylie Morgan from her photograph on the wall.

A life-saving operation: what could I do?

‘All right,’ I muttered unwillingly and, I fear, ungraciously.

‘Done!’ the vicar said delightedly.

I certainly felt as if I had been.

‘You lucky dog!’ Orla whispered.

‘Yes,’ Clara agreed enthusiastically from my other side. ‘I wonder what he wants? From me, he could have any—’

‘Shh!’ I said desperately. ‘It’s the last lot – you, Orla!’

Mr Browne, rallying, bought Orla for thirty pounds, and then as the usual finale the vicar sold himself.

And as always his housekeeper bought him for ten pounds. She uses the day to force him into town for all the new items of clothing and household goods he has avoided shopping for in the last year.

‘Here do be coming your young master, wench!’ Orla said.

‘Ho, ho,’ I said hollowly. ‘Consider your copies of
Poldark
confiscated.’

Dante stopped in front of me unsmiling, and I stared inimically right back. His eyes looked like cold chips of good turquoise, so perhaps he was regretting his deal already.

‘I’m not doing anything that isn’t on my list!’ I told him bluntly.

‘I need your skills,’ he said ambiguously. ‘Easter weekend – the Saturday and Sunday.’

‘What about them?’

‘Keep them for me. That’s when I want you.’

‘But I—’

‘I understand the arrangement is the whole day?’

‘Well yes, but—’

‘It just says “whole day” on the sheet. That’s midnight to midnight in my book – or in this case, midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. You’d better come up to the Hall on the Friday evening and stay.’

‘You can’t
possibly
expect—’

‘In the lonely west wing with me – and
Vladimir,
’ he said meaningfully. ‘Remember him? Rosetta’s filled the guest rooms, so you have no choice.’

Oh-oh! Now I think about it he does have the hollow, dark-circled eyes of a man who’s spent the whole night poring over a pallid manuscript.

‘Now look here, Dante!’ I began angrily, beginning to think he was going to spend a fun weekend paying me back for endowing his ancestors with bloodsucking propensities (among other things), but was interrupted by the local reporter.

She congratulated Dante on his generosity, and he made full use of the opportunity to talk about the Ghastly Breaks, and said how he hoped I would help him and his sister on their opening weekend, and also looked forward to receiving some handy hints, author to author, on the book he was writing.

I smiled weakly and said I hoped he would think I was worth it, and he said satisfaction was guaranteed, which made him a clear winner in that round.

It was abundantly evident that the reporter thought he was a clear winner in
any
round, so I gave up sparring with him – for now.

He’d made my bed and I was just going to have to lie on it with as good a grace as possible, even if it was in the remote west wing of the most haunted house in Britain, with the most haunted man.

Our photos were taken, though my expression might have been a trifle frozen, since Dante whispered the words: ‘Nice outfit, by the way!’ into my ear at the crucial moment, his long hair brushing my face.

Immediately after that he left, though there wasn’t a lot of bounce went in me by then.

Jason had turned on his heel and gone when he bowed out of the bidding, but Rosetta and Eddie had reappeared and were staring at me, hand in hand. Then Eddie beamed, and I beamed back automatically as one does, and then Rosetta beamed, and it only needed someone to whip out a guitar and start playing ‘Oh, Happy Day!’ to put the finishing touch to a glorious occasion.

Maybe my face was reflecting some of this, for Orla said: ‘Hey, you don’t have to do this alone, you know! If you fancy a ménage à trois, Clara and I are both up for it,’ and they giggled.

You know, I think the pair of them deserve to be sold down the river?

Chapter 18: Don’t You Love Me, Baby?

Tonight’s subject on the ‘Factions of Fiction’ programme is the horror genre: where has it been? Where is it going? Should it get there?

Later Cass Leigh, extreme modern exponent of the art of terror, will be giving us her views, which she says can be summed up as: ‘If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you don’t read it, don’t review it.’

First, though, we have an author from the gentler end of the horror spectrum, Melanie Mandrible.

Melanie, you feel that there is an increasing call from readers for the more spiritual, traditional fairy-story horror novel, don’t you ?

‘Yes, because that’s the only kind of book she can write, dimwit!’ I said, turning the radio off in disgust.

There was no point in listening further, since I could predict practically every word of what Milky Melanie would say, and of course I knew what I said, having recorded it ages ago.

I was feeling at a bit of a loose end, with an aching void inside waiting to be filled afresh once inspiration struck for the next novel. While this feeling only usually lasts a week or two while I am tidying up the final version of the last book and sending it off to my agent, it is
hell
while it does.

I really didn’t know what to do with myself.

Of course, what I should have been doing was sorting out the other tricky aspects of my life, like calling Max and telling him it really was all over between us, dumping the Predictova kit, calling some dog-breeders, and possibly leaving the country for a month or so as an interim measure.

I did sort
one
thing out, though: last night I went back to the pub for dinner, having no excuse any more to skulk at home, and made my peace with Jason. He’d stopped being mad with me, and was mad with jealousy over Dante’s outbidding him instead, so I told him that Dante’d read the manuscript of my next novel in which I’d portrayed one of his ancestors as an evil monster, and he probably merely intended to put me through the torments of hell over Easter weekend as retribution.

‘Yes, but how?’ he demanded, frowning horribly, as only Jason can.

‘I expect he’ll try and make me do some haunting, and perhaps help Rosetta with the guests?’ I said doubtfully. ‘He mentioned his book, too, so maybe I’ll end up typing his notes up or something, as well. Whatever, I expect he will get his money’s worth.’

‘That’s what’s worrying me,’ Jason said darkly. ‘So I’m going to book myself into Kedge Hall for Easter and protect you!’

‘I don’t think Rosetta has any rooms left, Jason,’ I said, startled. ‘But thanks for the offer. You are sweet when I’ve been so horrible to you!’

‘Well, we’re still friends, aren’t we?’ he said, leaning over and kissing my cheek.

I smiled slightly mistily at him, since I’d really been an absolute cow. ‘Of course we are! And don’t worry about me – I can take care of myself.’

And with a bit of luck, Orla might take care of Jason if the Barbarella costume arrives in time! From the sound of it it is pretty sure to grab his attention, and even if it doesn’t it’s certain to be a popular singing telegram outfit anyway.