The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (25 page)

‘I think so. You’ll come, too?’

‘Of course I will – and don’t forget, if this guy’s made of money, we want your hankies back.’

‘We do indeed,’ said Adam. ‘Cotton’s quite expensive nowadays. Cat, I’ve been thinking …’

‘What?’

‘Do you—would you like—I need a partner. I mean in the business. I need someone to organise me, tell me where I need to be, stop me taking on too much and double-booking all the time. You’re a brilliant organiser.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes I do, and so does Barry Chapman, he told me so himself.’

‘I see,’ said Cat. ‘When would all this happen?’

‘As soon as you could leave your job with Barry and come to work with me.’

‘I couldn’t just leave Barry in the lurch. He’d need to find another office manager, someone who could do the books and organise the place and knows about the salvage business, too. I’d have to train the newbie up. It would take two, three months.’

‘But you’ll think about it, will you?’

‘Yes,’ said Cat, and smiled a feline smile. ‘You did say partner, didn’t you? I’m not going to be your typist, secretary, glorified PA.’

‘Of course you’ll be my partner, but there’s one condition.’

‘What?’

‘You have to make the coffee. I’ve never got the hang of making coffee and you do it very well indeed.’ Adam turned the key in the ignition. ‘Let’s get going, shall we, and talk about it while we’re on the road?’

‘You did what?’ demanded Bex, when Cat and Tess called round on Sunday evening to ask about her date with Mr Tesco and the tenpin bowling. ‘You met Lulu Minto? You wore her frocks?’

‘Yes,’ said Tess, and smirked complacently. ‘They were new designs as well. They’re not yet in the shops. Maybe they won’t ever be in shops. They’ll be made to order for selected clients like A-listers and royalty. You haven’t lived, you know, until you’ve worn a Lulu Minto dress. The cut, the quality, the finish—’

‘Do you have any photographic evidence?’ asked Bex.

‘We didn’t have time to mess around with photographic evidence,’ said Tess. ‘But there was some guy taking snaps, so we might eventually turn up in
Hello
. Oh, and Cat was given a Lulu Minto sample, weren’t you, Cat?’

‘I was indeed.’

‘She’s going to let us borrow it.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Of course you will,’ said Tess. ‘We’re your best friends.’

‘I thought you were going decorating,’ Bex said, looking sick.

‘We did, too,’ said Cat.

‘If I’d known you were going to a party—’

‘Didn’t Mr Tesco live up to expectations, then?’

‘No,’ said Bex and scowled. ‘He was an hour late. He expected me to pay for him. He said he’d lost his wallet on the train. But he didn’t seem very fussed about it. I’m sure it was a lie.’ Bex looked mournfully at Cat and Tess. ‘So you two scored?’

‘We did.’

‘What were they like?’

‘They’re meeting us in a pub at eight o’clock, so come and see,’ invited Cat. ‘Mine’s the guy I met at Barry’s yard.’

‘Mine’s a freelance sound man and he has a mate,’ said Tess.

‘So there’s a spare for you.’

‘You mean a reject, don’t you?’ muttered Bex. ‘He’ll be some mutant who has personal hygiene issues and psoriasis?’

‘Bex, he’s very nice,’ insisted Cat. ‘No scales, no fins, no horns, no tail, own teeth, nice eyes, own hair.’

‘I bet he’s short and fat.’

‘He’s a little on the chunky side,’ admitted Tess.

‘But he has a gorgeous smile and he looks as if he’s got a lovely sense of humour,’ added Cat. ‘Please come and meet them, Bex – they’re dying to meet you.’

‘Listen, Bexy – you can come and help us paint the next time,’ Tess continued generously.

on the phone to Cat at daybreak.

‘I was about to call you,’ Cat said as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. ‘I was going to ring and thank you for a lovely party.’

‘Yes, my party,’ Fanny drawled. ‘It was a huge success. My phone’s red hot. My client list is growing by the hour. I’m going to let my barn out to a film production company. You wouldn’t believe how much these guys will pay for beautiful locations so convenient for London. But anyway, my sweet, I have to see you now, if not before. We need to talk.’

‘Fanny, I can’t drop everything and come into your office, you know that. I have to go to work.’

‘Oh yes, your work,’ said Fanny, sighing. ‘As if I could forget about your work and what a lot it means to you. Well, I’ll be here all day, my love, and probably half the night. Call in after work, why don’t you? We can get a takeaway or something and have a little natter. We can have a cosy, girly chat.’

‘Yes, okay,’ said Cat resignedly. A cosy, girly chat, she thought – as if. She really didn’t want to talk to Fanny. But she knew she must. She had to get this business sorted, find out what she owed this bloody woman, start to pay her off at twenty, thirty quid a week.

She turned to look at Adam who was still fast asleep. She wondered if she ought to tell him what was going on?

Or should she keep it to herself?

She wished she knew.

‘But why are you so keen to represent him?’ Cat demanded as they ate their sushi from little lacquered bento boxes, and as Fanny explained to Cat how she was going make quite sure Jack’s contract was completely watertight. In this business, it was so important everyone knew where they stood. ‘You don’t even like him.’

‘Do I have to like him?’ Fanny offered Caspar a little piece of California roll which he accepted graciously. She shrugged her shoulders and her cantilevered bosom rose in all its splendid majesty. ‘Sweetheart, I know literary agents who have gangsters, paedophiles and murderers on their lists. People they wouldn’t dream of taking home or even taking out to lunch but who can help them rake it in. I don’t want to be Jack’s friend, my darling. I’m just going to make him work for me.’

‘Jack’s not keen on work.’

‘He’s keen on money and on being a celebrity.’ Fanny grinned. ‘My princess, as our Jackie-boy gets richer, so shall I.’

‘But Fanny, he’s – well, I don’t like to ask, but does he have the talent to succeed?’

‘You don’t need talent these days, only looks,’ said Fanny as she hoovered up a slice of tuna. ‘So it’s just as well he has the looks. Anyway, my love – I took him for a drink one evening and I plumbed his shallows. He finally accepted he’s never going to make it as a stand-up. He’s not remotely funny, never has been, never will be – as I’m sure you know.’

‘But he hasn’t had the breaks, and he—’

‘Oh, don’t defend him, angel, he’d never dream of sticking up for you.’ Fanny speared a prawn. ‘He doesn’t have a future as a comic, that’s for sure. But he’s very pretty so I’ll get him work on cable. Jack will be the guy who’s in the wet room as some famous actress soundalike talks up luxury fluffy towels in sixteen vibrant colours.’

‘Oh,’ said Cat.

‘Then he’ll be the grinning hunk who’s clasping the faux gold and man-made-but-you’d-never-know-it emerald collar around the model’s neck. He’s got quite nice hands, so they could hold the limited edition silver tankards, royal wedding souvenirs and cartoon character boxer shorts that come in packs of ten.’

Fanny ate a piece of pickled ginger. ‘He can be the borderline celebrity who is posing naked with a fish – my goodness, how amusing – in all the summer issues of those horrid magazines for girls with dirty minds.’

Cat thought, it gets worse and worse.

‘When it’s Christmas time he’ll still be naked,’ added Fanny. ‘But he’ll have some tinsel round his neck. Or maybe that would not be such a brilliant plan? Someone might decide to tighten it. But they could hang some baubles on him somewhere, couldn’t they? He could be a sex god Christmas tree?’

‘Someone has to do it, I suppose.’

‘Of course they do, my darling.’ Fanny grinned. ‘I told him, once you’re on their lists, my sweet, the people who cast that sort of stuff will find you irresistible.’

‘They will?’

‘They’ll call me first, no question. Soon, the
Daily Mail
will start to follow him around. He’ll be snapped with models and so-called actresses, falling into clubs and out of taxis. He’ll be in
heat
and
Cosmopolitan
wearing just a spray-tan and a smirk.’

‘Omigod,’ choked Cat.

‘I’ll probably be able to get him work in pantomime in Hartlepool or Sheffield. He’d like that, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have to speak or act, or not much, anyway. My angel, he’ll be famous, and that’s what he’s always wanted, after all.’

‘Poor Jack,’ said Cat. ‘Fan, you’re going to make him look ridiculous.’

‘He’s capable of managing that all by his little self. Just take a look at this.’ Fanny pressed a key and then she turned her laptop round so Cat could see the screen.

Cat stared horrified at what was clearly the beginning of a movie made for lonely adults staying in disreputable hotels.

As the camera roamed around the set, picking out a jumbled mass of miscellaneous clutter including whips and chains, the contents of a sadist supermarket’s bargain basement, Jack’s face appeared in close-up. So did several other parts of him, together with some bits and pieces of two very large and very terrifying women in leopard-print high-heels and nothing else.

‘I’ve never understood the dubious charm of S & M,’ reflected Fanny. ‘It puts you off your popcorn, doesn’t it?’

‘God, it’s horrible.’ Cat turned the screen away. ‘Fan, he’ll be a laughing stock when all his mates see this.’

‘Quite possibly,’ drawled Fanny. ‘But angel, does it matter? Do you care?’

‘Well, I suppose so, just a bit.’

‘You’re too soft, my darling. Listen, Cat – he treated you like gum, to be chewed up and then spat out. He called me a hideous old slapper with – what was it – plastic jugs and orange hair. The cheek of it, my stylist would be outraged, this is Sienna Gold. I’ll have you know my boobs are all my own. He was mean to Caspar, too. He called my darling boy a bloody dog. Cat, my love, you’ve gone all red, why’s that?’

‘It’s quite hot in here.’

‘No it isn’t, sweetheart – the temperature is absolutely perfect.’ Fanny looked at Cat with narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve been having very naughty thoughts.’

‘I – yes, I have.’ Cat had long since realised there was nothing she could hide from Fanny. ‘I’m sorry, Fanny, but for a while I wondered if—if you and Jack—’

‘My goodness, how disgusting.’ Fanny shuddered. ‘Cat, my angel, you’re like all the young. You see a man and woman talking and you think of just one thing.’

‘I’m sorry, Fanny.’

‘I should think so, too,’ said Fanny. ‘Darling, I’m attracted to very clever men – to men with power and money – to men who fascinate and mystify. As for Jack – well, it took me two seconds flat to work out Jackie-boy. He’s very easy on the eye, I’ll give him that. But he’s very stupid and his looks will fade and then he will have nothing, so he’s not my sort at all. Angel, have a petit four?’

‘A what?’

‘A petit four.’ Fanny pushed a pretty little silver box at Cat. ‘They’re flower-scented fancies, lavender and violet and jasmine – interesting, eh? The woman who makes them wants me to promote them, to get them put in goodie bags at literary parties, dinners, lunches and the like. But they’re rather horrid. When I tried one, I was almost sick. They taste of soap and smell like cheap deodorant. Caspar doesn’t like them, do you, darling? When I gave him one, he spat it out, and usually his manners are exemplary, as you know.’

‘I think I’ll pass,’ said Cat, now determined not to be deflected, charmed, or lulled into a false sense of security by clever, devious Fanny Gregory.

‘Take the box then, angel. Do admit, my sweet, it’s very lovely. All that silver foiling, swirly writing, rather classy, don’t you think? A bit too classy, actually, for what are just pretentious little biscuits. It’s rather like our Jack – an excellent example of ridiculous over-packaging, considering what’s inside.’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Cat, still stony-faced.

‘So go on, darling, put it in your bag. You could keep your buttons in it, couldn’t you, or perhaps your earrings?’

‘I don’t want it, Fanny,’ Cat insisted as she pushed her sushi box aside. ‘What are you going to do about the money?’

‘What money, darling heart?’

‘The money you said I owed you when I broke it off with Jack.’

‘Oh, forget it, sweetheart,’ Fanny said. ‘You don’t owe me a thing.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Cat stared, open-mouthed. ‘What did you say?’

‘I think you heard me, angel.’

‘But all this time I’ve worried and I’ve wondered and I’ve tossed and turned at night!’ Cat jumped up and glared at Fanny, outraged. Caspar looked alarmed as well. ‘You told me I’d signed a binding contract! You said I had agreed—’

‘Cat, my love, stop hyperventilating.’ Fanny stroked her greyhound’s sleek, dark head and calmed him down again. ‘Put yourself in my place for a moment. I was just a little bit annoyed with you and lovely Jack. I couldn’t have you thinking it was perfectly okay to say you’d graciously accept the prize, but then five minutes later to say you’d changed your minds, and I’d just have to go along with it.’

‘Fan, it wasn’t like that at all, you damn well know it wasn’t! You had me lying awake and fretting, thinking I would have to borrow money from a loan shark, at a huge rate of interest—’

‘Darling, if you’d used your common sense and gone to a solicitor, he’d have charged you fifty quid and told you not to worry.’

‘What?’

‘Cat, I probably couldn’t have touched you for a single penny, even if I’d been inclined to try. My time is precious, angel. It simply wouldn’t have been worth my while.’

‘So you played with me. You made me worry that I’d be in debt forever.’ Cat slumped down into her chair again. ‘Fanny, that was mean of you,’ she said reproachfully.

‘Yes – perhaps a teeny tiny bit.’ Fanny had the grace to look ashamed – for half a second, anyway. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

‘How much money did you lose?’

‘Oh, I didn’t spend a penny piece.’

‘But Fan, you told me – what about that first time?’

‘What do you mean, my angel?’

‘When we went to Dorset and you showed me round and Rick took all those photographs?’

‘I sold them to an agency, of course,’ said Fanny, smiling sweetly. ‘When someone googles images for pretty blonde and English country house, you ought to come up first.’

‘Oh,’ said Cat, then realised she was not at all surprised.

‘But that’s enough of talking about tedious little you,’ continued Fanny merrily. ‘Now I’ve got my runners-up in training, and I think they’ll soon be sorted out. My flower, I must admit that I don’t find them as attractive as you and lovely Jack. But, all things considered, they’re turning out quite well.’

‘Who are they, then?’ asked Cat.

‘Tony Smith and Brenda something unpronounceable. I think it must be Polish. Or Latvian, perhaps? Lots of consonants jammed up together, anyway.’ Fanny Gregory sighed. ‘Tone and Bren they call each other. Ghastly, isn’t it? When we do the promotion, I think I’m going to call them Ant and Bee.’

‘What are they like?’

‘They’re very sweet, my angel, but they’re desperately dull. She works in a beauty salon in some boring suburb of – I think she said Northampton. Something hampton, anyway. She waxes women’s whatsits all day long. I can’t imagine anything more tedious and depressing. Tone’s involved with sewers or drains, I can’t remember which, but it’s something sordid to do with pipes and smells.

‘Cat, it’s such a shame that you and Jackie-boy fell out. You made a gorgeous couple. If you could have managed to get on for just a few more months – well, you would have been so perfect for the magazines.’

‘We’d have been divorced within a year.’

‘Oh, quite probably,’ said Fanny, nodding. ‘But you’d have had the loveliest of weddings, and I’d have made a mint.’

‘Fan, how did you know about me and Adam?’ Cat enquired casually.

‘You and Adam, darling?’

‘Fanny, please stop messing me about?’

‘Honestly, my angel, I don’t know what you mean. But it was obvious he liked you. I saw the way he looked at you when we met by accident in Dorset. When he came to Surrey to quote me for a little bit of work he might do on my barn – the stables round the back need sorting out, and sorting stables is his special subject, after all – I got him opening up.’

‘You asked him about me?’

‘It wasn’t very difficult to get him to admit that if you weren’t engaged he might be tempted. I can be very persuasive, as you know. You seemed so upset about your breaking up with Jack, and I thought you needed cheering up. But darling, are you saying there was something going on already?’

‘You don’t know we went to Italy?’

‘No – I thought you said you went alone?’ Then Fanny’s sharp, blue eyes began to glitter, like they did when she was on to something, or she thought she might be. ‘Come on, darling – tell?’