Well Groomed (14 page)

‘I bet she’s got her eye on Michael Grade,’ she said aloud with a giggle.

‘Who?’

She craned around to see Matty halfway down the stairs again, steaming cup of tea in his hand.

‘Who what?’

‘Who’s got their eye on Michael Grade?’ Matty sounded strangely conciliatory, if a little condescending.

Realising that the black gloom was finally lifting, Sally carefully framed a smile.

‘Oh, I was just, um, thinking up a bit of dialogue for a sort of Victoria Wood-type sketch.’ She hummed slightly manically.

‘Sally, we’ve got to talk.’ He settled down beside her on the chair – one thigh placed awkwardly alongside hers, perilously close to Lisette’s postcard.

‘Oh, yes?’ She stiffened, trying desperately hard not to glance down at it.

‘Yes.’ Matty hung his head. ‘Listen, I know I’ve been a sod lately.’

‘You certainly have.’ Sally touched his cheek, shifting to cover up the card.

‘I know. But you haven’t helped, Sals.’

‘No?’ Sally looked at him sharply, biting back a comment about what a long-suffering, angelic and goddammit good egg she’d been in the past fortnight.

‘You used to argue with me, Sals – tell me where to get off if I was being a git, throw things at me, yell at me. Lately, you just creep around avoiding me.’

‘Oh, I see.’ She snatched her hand away from his cheek, her hackles rising as though a key had been dropped down her collar. ‘I seem to recall that you used to get pretty naffed off when I yelled at you.’

‘Sure – at the time. But it always hit me afterwards that you were right to tell me off and I snapped out of it pretty damned quick. I don’t know what’s got into you these days – you don’t seem to care any more. You know what a self-indulgent prick I can be, but you just let me.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Sally said slowly, not really knowing why she was telling such a lie. ‘Perhaps I can’t be bothered any more.’

There was a wail from upstairs as Linus woke up feeling hungry.

‘I’d better go to him.’ Sally made to stand up.

‘No, Sals.’ Matty pinned her down with his arm. ‘We have to sort this thing out – we’re falling apart here. Can’t you see that?’

The wails were getting louder.

‘Let me go, Matt.’ Sally fought against him.

‘Christ, we hardly talk any more, we never go out, never laugh together, never fuck.’

‘Where’s Tor?’

‘In the garden with the sodding rabbit. Did you hear me, Sally?’

‘Yes, you said we never fuck. Listen, I have to go to Linus.’

‘He can wait!’ Matty’s voice was taut with anger and frustration. ‘Don’t you give a toss about this? I thought you’d want to talk it through – you’ve looked so bloody miserable lately.’

‘I am miserable!’ Sally pushed him away, grabbing the postcard as she stood up, her voice climbing scales. ‘I want to laugh and talk and fuck. Of course I do! I’m just not sure I want to do it with you any more!’

Turning on her heel, she stumbled upstairs.

Clutching the wailing Linus to her chest, she wandered outside and watched as Tor fed strawberry laces to the rabbit through the mesh front of its hutch. It was freezing cold and her quick, short breaths streamed in front of her face like a dragon’s in a deluge.

Sally clenched her eyes shut and started to shake. She hadn’t meant what she said, but at the same time she was so itchy with frustration and boredom right now that she sometimes found Matty’s presence physically repellent. She felt trapped. Utterly, utterly trapped.

Hearing the front door slam, she let her shoulders drop six inches as the tension eased out of her now that she knew he’d gone out. She jiggled Linus out of his tears and into a sort of catatonic half-snivelly state and walked purposefully back inside to feed him. It wasn’t yet three o’clock – she had at least half an hour before she had to set out on the school run for Tom.

With Linus ensconced in his doorway-bouncer and looking vaguely drugged, as he always did when he’d grown bored of crying and wasn’t certain what to do next, she drew out the postcard and settled by the phone.

The receptionist at Sleeping Partners Films assumed she was some crazed salesperson trying to sell space in
Variety
, so it took her a long time to get through to Lisette’s office. Even then, she had to persuade a super-efficient PA to put her through, practically resorting to identifying Lisette’s birthmarks in order to speak to her.

‘Sally!’ Lisette finally rasped. ‘Listen – sorry to keep this short but I’ve got an office full of people. It’s so, so lovely to hear from you. When can we meet?’

Hearing her familiar, rusty-hinge voice oozing warmth, Sally burst into tears.

‘Okay, okay, darling. Calm down. What are you doing tonight?’

‘Nothing,’ Sally hiccuped. ‘But Matty might—’

‘Sod Matty. Tell him you’ve got a friend in a crisis and he’s just got to babysit. I’ve got a drinks party at six, but I’ll meet you afterwards. Can you make Coast for eight-thirty?’

‘Which coast?’

Lisette laughed kindly. ‘Christ, Sally, you are out of it! It’s a restaurant. I’ll send a cab for you to Richmond. Just stay calm till then – I’ll be waiting with a big hug and buckets of wine.’

Without asking for confirmation, she hung up.

Once she’d found the door amid a sea of plate glass, Sally was rather miffed that they cross-questioned her at the reception desk of Coast – almost as though she was some sort of tart, she realised as she was finally and snottily allowed access to its hallowed interior and led to the allotted table. Of course, Lisette was late – Sally hadn’t expected anything else. But at least she had called to leave a message that she was going to be there as soon as she could. And it gave Sally a chance to catch up on a few drinks. She ordered a vodka tonic and perused the menu. Then gaped at the menu. Then hid behind the menu as she wondered whether or not there was anyone else in the place who, like her, still possessed such a paltry item as a fifty-pound cheque guarantee card. She hoped to Christ that Lisette would cover the bill and let her post-date a cheque to her in the privacy of the loo or something.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ gushed a voice as husky as a rasp against iron, yet as soft as angora. ‘Michael Grade cornered me and I simply couldn’t get away. Shit! Don’t cry, Sals. Please don’t cry. Here – here’s my hank. Darling, you look wonderful – so damned womanly and fulsome. I wish I had regular sex these days – I might have a glow like yours. Oh, God! It’s so fucking good to see you. Give me that hanky back, I’m going to pissing cry too.’ Only Lisette could swear like that and still sound divinely feminine.

Sally looked up at the vision in front of her and wanted to stew in her own bile of envy.

Lisette was as thin as a sanded, filed-down rake, as glossy as a mirror and three times more carnal-looking than she’d ever been. The nose was new, the lips were new, the hair was different and, yes, the tits were almost twice as large, but the old Lisette sex appeal was as natural as water gushing and gurgling from a hot spring.

‘Oh, God – you look so fantastic,’ Sally wailed, handing back the handkerchief.

Lisette pushed it back at her and snatched up a napkin to dab her own tears.

‘And you look unhappy as hell, even though you’re popping out of that dress like Anna Nicole Smith with a brain. Shit, Sals – why d’you leave it so long to get back to me?’

Sally took a deep breath.

‘I don’t think I love Matty anymore.’

Lisette drew a very pink tongue across her dark red lips, pushed a long strand of straight, snaky black hair behind her small, pale ear, looked coolly up at the waiter and ordered a bottle of Pouilly Fuissé. Still saying nothing, she toyed with the mascara-smudged napkin and finally lit a very low-tar cigarette before answering.

‘Can I have him then?’ she joked lightly, then stretched across the table to clutch Sally’s hand. ‘I’m kidding, honey. Let’s get pissed, eat like pigs and talk about it. Now start at the beginning and don’t you dare say you’re boring me once over the next hour.’

Almost an hour later, Sally finally played herself out and looked at Lisette with very bloodshot eyes, balking again at the sultry, understated power suit, the longer, slicker hair, the neat little nose.

‘How long?’ Lisette asked carefully, picking up on something Sally had thrown away as a final comment.

‘Since I was three months pregnant with Linus.’ Sally winced.

‘And that is . . . ?’

‘Over a year ago.’

‘Christ! I thought you were blooming from too much of it.’

‘I’m eating as a replacement activity.’ Sally smiled sadly. ‘You know weight always piles straight on my tits.’

‘And I’ve got plastic in mine.’ Lisette discarded a barely touched salad and reached for her oversized wine glass. ‘Do you think he’s having an affair?’

‘Christ, no!’ Sally laughed. ‘He’d be so bloody guilty about it he’d jump on me at every opportunity to put me off the scent.’

‘So you really think he’s never strayed?’ Lisette looked disbelieving, tapping her ash with a long thumb-nail.

Sally shrugged. ‘Well, he’s certainly had a few crushes. He was bloody infatuated with one director at the Beeb for months, but actual infidelity, no. At least I don’t think so. Unless you . . . ?’

‘God, no!’ Lisette shook her head hastily. ‘Not a sniff of a rumour. Although, we really don’t have that many mutual contacts these days.’

Sally hung her head guiltily and wolfed down the last of her divine turbot.

‘So tell me what you’re up to? Are you in love?’

‘No time.’ Lisette grinned guardedly. ‘I’ve been too shagged out getting Sleepers up and running to shag – we’re working like mad on our second feature right now, with Channel Four backing which is terrific. In fact, our treatment has been so well received that we’re getting the script written up in double-quick time and trying to get some big-name stars in place to secure the last of the backing. We’re talking shooting schedule in place in weeks, baby.’

The pitch went right over Sally’s head. She smiled encouragingly and tried to look knowledgeable. ‘So what star names are you chasing?’

‘Well, we think Kristin Scott Thomas is a possible – she’d be good as it’s very Four Weddings in feel. The guy who wrote it is terrific – married to that Daytime TV presenter, by the way. It’s called Four Poster Bed – a really zippy British Ealing Farce with a terrifically acerbic nineties treatment straight out of Shallow Grave. We’re trying to get Liz Hurley optioned in, along with Saffron Burrows and Felix Sylvian, who has looks to die for although his acting is suspect. Alan Rickman and Jeremy Northam are keeping an open diary on the basis of the first dialogue script, and even Olly Reed might be lining up for a cameo role. But we really need some heavyweights on board to catch the American market.’

Sally was doing a nodding dog impersonation as she followed about half of what Lisette was saying.

‘I was – er – thinking about Niall,’ Lisette said cautiously.

‘I adore Alan Rickman,’ Sally said dreamily. ‘Do you really think that he might – what?’

‘Niall.’ Lisette swallowed, looking terribly uncomfortable. ‘I really need him on board, Sals, but I guess he still loathes me. It’s so awkward.’

‘He doesn’t loathe you,’ Sally said almost automatically, her confidence crumpling as she realised why Lisette had contacted her.

‘He’d be so fucking perfect for the male lead – sort of Jeff Goldblum in The Tall Guy crossed with Mark Frankel in Solitaire for Two, with a dash of Jimmy Stewart in just about everything.’ Lisette lit another ultra-low-tar cigarette. ‘The director – I can’t tell you who he is, because no contracts have been signed, but he’s shit hot – is absolutely dying to approach Bob Hudson and woo Niall at this stage, but I just don’t know how to tackle this one. I mean, he’ll hear I’m involved and run a mile. There’s no way he’ll sign up once he realises I’m part of the package.’

‘He might.’ Sally shrugged listlessly. ‘I mean – he hates working in the States. If this thing is shooting in the UK, it’d be an incredible selling point.’

‘But what does he feel about me, Sals?’ Lisette probed. ‘How will he react when he sees my name on the script?’

Sally took a deep breath, and then another half-breath to muster courage until her lungs felt like a hot air balloon trying to clear Everest.

‘He’s getting married again, Lisette,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s marrying Tash.’

TASH THREW HERSELF INTO her work for the first few weeks of January. With Hunk still out of action, she concentrated on starting the long, arduous process of getting Snob fit for the forthcoming season, plus helping to bring on a few of the youngsters Gus was hopeful would make future superstars.

One in particular, a gangly iron-grey gelding called Mickey Rourke, was looking likely to go far. He was still very babyish, with boggling eyes and too much leg, and possessed a tendency to trip himself up like a boy wearing long trousers for the first time. But he was gutsy and bold and adored his job. When Tash gently introduced him to jumping low grids on the all-weather menage (Gus couldn’t afford an indoor school), he bounded around with such enthusiasm that she raced into the farmhouse afterwards to tell everyone how brilliant he’d been.

She was met with worried faces, as Gus, Penny and Zoe all looked up from the Sunday papers which they’d been poring over.

‘I suppose you could call this your official engagement announcement.’ Penny bit her lip as she held up the
People
.

‘No going back now, kid.’ Gus flapped out the
Sunday Express
for Tash to see.

She winced as she caught sight of a blurred photo of herself clutching nervously on to Niall’s arm at a celebrity charity concert they’d attended the previous summer. Not only did she look tremendously uncomfortable amid such glamour, but she also looked appallingly fat. The headline read:
Niall O’Shaughnessy to Wed Girl Groom.