Chloe's Rescue Mission (16 page)

‘No. Well, yes, actually. Please will you tell him I’m concerned about the documentary?’

‘The documentary. Anything specific?’

I thought for a moment. I didn’t want to discuss this with Marlean. ‘Just something the producer said has concerned me.’

‘I see. I’ll let him know.’

The whole day passed without a message from Duncan. If the topic hadn’t been so sensitive, I would have discussed my reservations with Rusty or Hugo – but this particular issue could only be resolved with Duncan.

I busied myself reviewing my list of actions from the meeting at Thorsen Leisure. The family had already brain-stormed a number of fund-raising ideas, from a Show-Stopper cake baking competition to a viral video campaign, where people challenged friends to perform one of Shakespeare’s soliloquies in return for donations to the cause. Let’s face it, the world is full of poseurs and head-cases willing to humiliate themselves for a good cause. ‘Let’s call it Soliloquies from the Bath, as opposed to Soliloquies from the Bard,’ suggested Beth.

We fell about at that one, with visions of steaming pink people spouting King Lear from their bathtub but, on balance, we suspected it might elicit the wrong kind of performance.

So, instead, I set about planning the first and most popular suggestion – a variety show. With the company’s backing, I felt in a much stronger position to approach Morgan Ash to compère the show. Morgan had gone from Barnworth to Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and was establishing himself at Stratford. Most recently, he’d gained national fame in a TV drama about the life of Tchaikovsky – whose homosexuality had been denied for decades in his native Russia. Morgan’s portrayal had been so sensitive and powerful it had earned him a BAFTA. He and Alicia-May were the aces in our deck, and I really wanted to play them.

Tuesday came and went, and I hadn’t heard from Duncan or Ross. And why would I? The theatre might be top of my list of priorities, it certainly wasn’t theirs.

On Wednesday, Warren rang. ‘Fantastic news!’ he began. He’d had the surveyor’s report checked over and they were making final tweaks to their proposal and contract. ‘Once we’re all signed up, plans for the building work can get underway. Six months from now it’ll all be finished. Just in time for Christmas! How’s that sound?’ he asked, his enthusiasm gushing down the phone line.

I gasped. ‘Wow! Fantastic! Thanks, Warren.’

‘Okay. Great! Speak soon.’

I closed my phone and held it to my chest. Christmas? Was it really possible? I hardly dared believe it. But Warren had been true to his word; he’d acted quickly, he’d taken the reports to his bosses and the contract was on its way. Once the deal was signed and sealed, I could tell Duncan. In fact, I was really looking forward to telling him. It was uncomfortable to feel so beholden to him. Especially since both Mum and I had been contacting – quite unsuccessfully – the owners of all the business cards I’d acquired at the conference. Despite words of encouragement and assurances of help, actually pinning very busy people down to a commitment was proving difficult. Thorsen Leisure and King Lloyd Holdings had lulled me into a false sense of the possibilities.

I was sure Duncan would be delighted to hear King Lloyd Holdings were stepping in, since it would take the financial pressure off him. I still needed his company’s help to raise funds for the general fabric of the theatre, and to put it back on the map, especially if the TV documentary went ahead. Oh how I hoped my call to Marlean hadn’t screwed that opportunity. But I was grateful for the progress I’d made and raised my eyes to heaven. ‘Way to go, Grandee!’

Finally, on Thursday, around lunchtime, I was just pressing the top slice of bread onto a cottage cheese and watercress sandwich when my mobile rang. It was Nina, the editor of County Magazine. She was very excited to tell me Duncan had agreed to an interview and photo-shoot at the theatre.

‘Tomorrow evening, four-thirty. Is that okay with you?’ she asked, possibly hoping I might say ‘No’ so she could have him all to herself.

‘Lovely. Thank you.’ I said, impressed she’d got a result faster than I had. It was three days since I’d left my message with Marlean, who was super-efficient, so Duncan must have been dragging his heels.

Nina arrived moments ahead of Duncan. She’d stepped up her appearance since the first time I’d met her, and was giving off a heavy whiff of perfume. She smiled brightly, like an Avon rep. ‘How wonderful to be able to interview you together, and here! Here at your grandfather’s theatre. You must be excited to see so much interest.’

‘I am very encouraged by the way things are progressing, yes.’

‘Jolly good. Jolly good.’ She began juggling her bag, camera, phone and car keys. ‘Can I put these down, somewhere?’

I led her into the foyer, just as Duncan’s Mercedes pulled into the car-park. Nina tipped her baggage onto one of the seats and peered at her phone. ‘No messages, good. Airline mode, on. Good. Right. I’m ready. Just need the man of the moment, don’t we?’

Duncan appeared less formidable today, in cream chinos and navy polo shirt. As he jogged up the steps, his sombre face softened when he realised we two women were looking out at him.

‘Afternoon, ladies. Nina, I presume?’ he said, offering her his hand.

‘Hello, Duncan. Thank you very much for agreeing to the interview. We’re so keen to help the theatre back on its feet.’

Yes, I thought, especially with him on board.

‘Chloe,’ Duncan nodded a smile in my direction.

I could see Nina studying us for clues to an ardent and clandestine relationship. We weren’t giving her any. When he didn’t sweep me into his arms and throw me back into a clinch, she found her voice. ‘Do you mind if we take the photographs, first, while there’s still good light?’

We headed outside, where she posed us, side by side and shaking hands on the top step. Crouching on the bottom step she took a few shots up at us, to include the theatre’s name.

‘I noticed a picture of your grandfather, in the foyer, could we try you together there?’

We obliged.

Finally, when Duncan asked if there was a chance of coffee while we chatted, she took the hint and progressed to the interview.

Unlike most reporters, Nina and the County Magazine weren’t smut-gatherers. They aimed to show their subjects in a good light, giving a glowing vision of the county. It was all very jolly and embracing, with only contentious issues aired in the Local Politics section – which was allowed one page.

Duncan was amiable and polite. Nina was positively beaming with gratitude. ‘This will make a double-page spread in the June magazine. Just make sure and send me a high-res photo of Jennifer and Beth, please, and Duncan, if you could send me approved images of a couple of your hotels, that will add further glamour to the article.’

‘My pleasure,’ he said, shaking her hand once more. ‘Lovely meeting you, Nina.’

As she trotted off down the steps to her car, I noticed Duncan’s face had relaxed back into solemnity.

We still had something to discuss.

‘Did Marlean pass on my message?’

‘About the documentary?’

‘Yes, well I have a point I’d like to raise...’

‘Ross Arlington is off the project.’

If there had been any wind in my proverbial sails it suddenly dropped. ‘Yes? Oh. Good. Why?’

I really must attempt a polysyllable soon.

‘He’s too busy with other projects and I’m not sure he had the right approach on this one. I’ve spoken to another producer, Evan Watkins, he’ll be taking over.’

I wasn’t sorry to hear that – so long as he was less of a creep than Ross. ‘Okay, but I’m really not happy about the “warts and all” approach. If I’d thought the programme was going to turn into some seedy, fly-on-the-wall thing with cameras probing into my private life – I wouldn’t have agreed to it.’

‘It won’t be like that. Not with Evan.’

‘But Ross said it’s what you wanted.’

‘So I understand and that’s why he’s not right for the programme. I asked Rusty to call him after I got your message. Made sure she buttered him up and kept the conversation nice and open. It became pretty clear what his agenda was.’

So Ross had lied about the brief. I could so easily have fallen for it. ‘That’s a relief. But, why didn’t someone call me before? I’ve been expecting Ross and his crew on my doorstep every day since Friday and I’ve been scouring the papers for more salty gossip.’

Duncan leaned back in his chair. ‘It was only agreed this morning. Because of contractual obligations, I couldn’t risk Ross finding out any sooner.’

I frowned. ‘I hope I haven’t cost him his job.’

‘Not at all. He’s still on Business Angel. He’s a good producer, generally, but I think the theatre project needs a more sensitive approach.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Now, is there anywhere we can go for a walk around here? I’ve been cooped up all day and I don’t want to hit the roads in rush hour.’

‘Of course. We can go down to the River Gardens,’ I suggested. ‘Just let me grab a bottle of water. He was filling the space between me and the door. I moved around him. We were within inches of touching.

‘It’s not far,’ I said, opening the door and fumbling to get the keys into the lock.

*

In the wake of her floral yet spicy perfume, Duncan was back in the garden in Spain. Somebody once told him, the sense of smell was the most evocative; it could spin you back in time faster than a song or a photograph.

‘How was Mauritius?’ she asked.

‘Hot and hectic. I flew in Sunday, back out again Tuesday.’

‘I bet all that travelling isn’t half as much fun as it sounds.’

‘No fun at all.’ It had been exciting, in the beginning.

‘How long will it take you to get back to London?’

‘Ah, I’m heading down to Bath.’

As they wandered across the car-park in the early evening sunshine, she asked, ‘So, how much time are you able to spend there?’

‘A few days a month. It’s my bolthole from the city.’

‘Why Bath?’

‘I can do rural back home, and I see plenty of the coast at my hotels.’ He looked across and saw the gentle encouragement in her smile. ‘I like Bath. I can get away from the madness of London but there’s still plenty going on for it not to feel remote.’

‘You don’t like remote?’

‘No.’ Remote was empty; lonely like death. He thrust a hand into his pocket and followed her down a narrow passageway between two buildings.

‘Grandee used to take me walking in Wales,’ she said. ‘I remember sitting at the side of a reservoir one day – up the Cadair Idris – there was nobody else about and everywhere was shrouded in mist. We couldn’t see to the other side of the water, it just merged with the cloud. We could have been on another planet or we could have been in heaven. Mist makes things so magical. I loved it.’

Magical for her, maybe.

‘What about golf – are there plenty of good courses down there?’ she asked.

‘There’s a couple.’

‘Someone told me that in golf, the only opponent to worry about is yourself. Is that true?’

He let out a flat chuckle. ‘Well, that and the course. You’re always trying to improve, and the only thing stopping you is yourself.’ He tapped his head. ‘It’s all up here. A tussle of self-belief and self-analysis.’

‘Oh boy! Isn’t that true in any walk of life?’

He looked over and saw her smile – open as ever. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how does it apply in your life?’

She looked away for a moment, and came back with, ‘How do you think it might apply in my life?’

He liked that she wasn’t afraid to challenge him. A slow smile crept over his face. ‘I think it depends which area of your life you’re talking about. I’d guess that when you’re acting a part on stage – at least before the stage fright kicked in – your self-belief comes from all the support and praise you’ve received over the years, whereas the self-analysis is exercised every time you think about how you want to play a character.’

‘Good. Very good.’

He continued. ‘And in the real world, that self-belief helps you to get along with just about anyone you come into contact with. And the self-analysis…’ He stopped walking and considered how best to put it. She stopped too, and he watched as a veil of uncertainty crossed her face. ‘I think your self-analysis rears its head when all the confidence and charm you possess gets you into something where it’s no use to you, whatsoever.’

‘Wow!’ she said, stretching a taut smile over her face, before nodding and walking on. She turned right and speeded up. ‘You’re obviously talking about that whole Spanish episode, when my charms were incapable of ensnaring you,’ she was pointing the water bottle at him. ‘As I understand it, we both made a mistake. So why would you suggest I was somehow deluding myself?’

He paused and looked at her and frowned. ‘What?’

‘You didn’t have to use it to illustrate your point about self-belief and self analysis.’

He closed his eyes and drew a very deep breath. He wanted to roar with irritation but managed to speak calmly. ‘Actually, I wasn’t referring to that, at all.’

She slowed a little and looked back into his eyes. ‘You weren’t?’

‘But I can see how you might come to that conclusion – since you have such a high opinion of me. I was thinking more of the theatre project. You can’t do it all on enthusiasm and charisma alone.’

‘Oh.’ she dropped her eyes and he noticed her hand crushing the bottle.

‘And particularly when you flip into stroppy mode. You could really piss people off.’

For a moment, he thought she was going to flip on cue. But she drew a deep breath and looked around her. ‘Sorry. I’m still a bit sensitive to that whole…’

He nodded. ‘Forget it.’

She put a hand over her face and shook her head. ‘Listen, I’ll fully understand if you want to tear up that contract and get back to what really matters to Thorsen Leisure.’ She looked back at him. ‘Truly.’

He was tempted. Life was complicated enough without Chloe Steele throwing more spanners in the works. To walk away from this project would be easy. Okay, it had cost him a few grand but it would barely make a blip on his company’s spreadsheet. And every successful business had an obligation to give a bit back. He could put this down to experience.

But…

‘Chloe, if I could ask you to believe one thing about me, it’s that I’m a man of my word, okay?’ He looked down into her green eyes, which still appeared troubled by something. Probably him. For one insane moment, he visualized seizing her round the waist, drawing her to him and picking up where they’d left off, in Spain. But that was just testosterone at work. She wasn’t the first woman he’d done business with who’d made his mind stray off topic, and he imagined she wouldn’t be the last. ‘Do you think you can do that?’

She studied his face briefly, nodded and found a smile. ‘Okay.’

‘Good. Now, where are these River Gardens?’

She turned and pointed across the road to a pair of Victorian wrought iron gates, painted black and gold. Above them, worked into an iron archway were the words, River Gardens.

‘Ah, that’ll be the place, then.’

*

I chuckled. It was nice to see even the all-powerful Duncan didn’t always have a handle on everything. ‘Of course, I have a vested interest in bringing you here,’ I told him, as we passed through the gates.

‘Let me guess – there’s a Joshua Steele boating lake that’s sprung a leak?’

‘Now you mention it…’

‘Go on, then. What’s the connection?’

I took a pathway left. ‘You’ll see. Wow! Look at the rhododendrons!’ A vast bank of lilac and pink blooms scrambled ahead of us, all the way to the end of the path. ‘Grandee loved these.’ I ran my hand over some of the heavy blossoms, coming to a standstill at a break in the border. ‘And here he is. Duncan, allow me to introduce…my grandfather.’

Set back, in a cul-de-sac of neatly trimmed hedging, was a life-size bronze of Joshua Steele, in his role as Julius Caesar. Duncan stopped and studied it.

After a while, he said, ‘Must make you feel very proud.’

‘Yes. And closer to him, which I know is ridiculous ‘cos he’s as likely to be with me in the theatre as he is here but…he used to love bringing us to the gardens, so it’s like visiting him, really.’

‘And far more inspiring than a tombstone.’ Duncan’s voice was like gravel. I looked over at him. He appeared to be studying the bronze but his half-closed eyes suggested his mind was elsewhere. ‘That’s all most people have to visit; a cold, grey slab of granite in a windswept line of other slabs of granite. Not that I would myself. There’s nothing to be said in a graveyard, can’t be said in your heart.’

‘Absolutely,’ I said quietly, remembering an article I’d read about him losing both his parents before he was twenty-one.

He walked around the back of the statue. ‘So, why Julius Caesar? I thought he was better known for his Hamlet.’

I smiled. ‘Honestly? Better costume!’ Duncan glanced back at me. ‘He used to say, if ever they built a statue of him, he didn’t want to be in tights – “Darlings,” he would say, “far grander to be remembered as the emperor!”’

‘Good for him. And what right-minded man’d want to be remembered in tights?’

‘Exactly.’ I stepped up to the statue and, using the water I’d brought and some tissues, cleaned off several specks of bird crud and rubbish from the bits I could reach. ‘There we go, Grandee. See you again, soon.’ I turned to Duncan. ‘We can walk along the river for about a quarter of a mile and cross over the bridge, then walk back on the other side, if you like.’