Kissing Toads (15 page)

‘It's . . . purple,' Ash said with visible restraint.

‘That'll be the Basilisk,' Cedric said. ‘Boss's wife, see? She done the place over herself. I love it – totally OTT – but can't stand
her
. Don't know if you do prayer, but you might want to take it up, just to pray she don't come home. It ain't the dead that cause the trouble here, believe me: it's the living.'

‘It always is,' said Ash.

As we left the kitchen, I decided I was starting to feel more comfortable with him. Perhaps it was the drink. Or the way he'd said: ‘It's . . . purple.' Or the absence of Cedric, who, despite a certain goblin charm, was someone you wanted to take in small doses, at least to begin with. I talked to him about the show, and the history of the maze, and the castle and its inmates. Not surprisingly, I discovered he was being employed by HG rather than us, though at the Major's recommendation.

‘I'm to liaise with you,' he said, sounding non-committal. I inferred he didn't like the idea, and started feeling paranoid again.

‘I understood you were going to contribute to the programme?'

‘If appropriate, yes. But I'm not under your orders. If you were planning any dramatic exposés of the dark side of human nature . . .'

‘I wasn't planning anything,' I snapped, suddenly hurt. ‘My job keeps me too busy for that. All I want to do is get the series made before any of the egos involved decide to murder each other.'

The smile flickered again. ‘Okay.'

‘Okay, then.'

It seemed to be a ceasefire, if not precisely détente.

We'd been at Dunblair nearly three weeks, though it seemed like a year, and Easter was almost upon us. Dorian was back from school, pink-faced from early trials with the sun lamp, the crew were bunking off for the holiday, and Crusty suggested Russell and I repair to London to audition actors for the lesser historical roles. Delphi declared she too was heading home, to be measured for her wedding dress, and, as an afterthought, to spend some time with Alex. She had finally chosen a designer, Maddalena Cascara, niece of the legendary ‘Lucky' Luciano Cascara and inheritor of both his label and his vast and slightly dubious fortune. They had already had several hours' worth of telephone calls to discuss details like length of train, depth of cleavage, and the exact shade of white to set off Delphi's St Tropez tan. ‘Of course you're going to London,' she said to me. ‘You have to come with me to Maddalena's. We need to talk about bridesmaids' dresses too. I've decided I'm going to have you and Brie;
definitely
no cute kids, not after Christmas. I'd rather have just you, really, but one bridesmaid looks so sad, like you've only got one friend.'

‘What about Pan?' I suggested.

‘She's an inch taller than me,' Delphi said. ‘It's
fatal
to have taller bridesmaids. Either they look gawky, or the bride gets upstaged. Anyway, she's into alternative fashion at the moment. I'm not having a bridesmaid in grunge. Maddalena's in London over Easter so I fixed up for us to have a consultation on the Saturday and we can do a follow-up on Tuesday.'

‘I'll be busy doing auditions . . .'

‘Don't be frivolous,' Delphi said. ‘This is
important
.'

Ash and Nigel were both staying at the castle, one to pursue his historical researches, the other to absorb atmosphere. Assorted minions were going to get ahead with those elements of gardening that were too dull to film at length – digging out weeds and so on – personally supervised by HG, with Crusty and Mortimer Sparrow to help, guide and advise. Dorian, I discovered, offered qualified approval of his father's latest enthusiasm: he clearly considered gardening a suitable pastime for an elderly man.

‘It's better than giving any more concerts,' he confided, having invited me up to his lair to admire his Internet connection. ‘He's sixty-seven –
sixty-seven!
– and he goes on stage in tight leather trousers, prancing about and wriggling his crotch. Honestly, it's
awful
. Some of the critics write horrible things about him: “Not so much vintage as antique”, “Time God went to heaven” – that sort of stuff.' There was evidently a protective aspect to Dorian's embarrassment. ‘I like it when he just stays quietly here, pottering round the garden.'

‘What about bringing us lot in?' I asked. ‘Wasn't that taking pottering a bit far?'

‘I wasn't sure to begin with . . . but I like
you
. I like you very much.'

I blinked. ‘Th-thank you.'

‘D'you want to see my website? I invented this game, it's a kind of whodunnit, set in the castle.' More three-dimensional plans pivoted in front of me. ‘I got over six thousand hits last year. The images aren't good enough, but I'm improving them all the time. That's what I'm going to do when I leave school. Dad wants me to go to uni but I don't see the point. I can do all the graphics without that.'

‘You might have fun at university,' I said. Dorian was plainly much brighter than his Gordonstoun education would have led me to presume.

‘I have fun here,' Dorian said, focusing on the computer console with the dedication of a true geek.

There was no answer to that.

We left on Thursday morning, driven to the airport by Jules, who was the person available at the time. Staff duties were flexible at Dunblair, and Dougal McDougall was away visiting his daughter in Aberdeen. Elton and Sting decided to come too, piling into the Bentley with Delphi, Russell and me – and the luggage Delphi considered essential for a short trip home, which filled the boot and overflowed into the back seat. (‘I'm taking clothes home to bring back different ones,' Delphi explained patiently. ‘I can't wear the
same things
every day.') Russell was in the front seat with Jules, Delphi and I were in the back, hemmed in with assorted hand baggage and exuberant dogs. It was a big car, but not big enough. Fortunately, Delphi was brought up with large dogs and merely shoved Elton on to the floor when he began to moult on her coat, ordering him to
sit!
in a tone of voice honed with childhood practice. Elton obediently sat, mainly on my feet, while Sting hogged my share of the seat. ‘They really are
beautiful
,' Delphi cooed.

Crusty was there to see us off.

‘When you get back,' he said, ‘it's down to the real work. Want to get the historical bits filmed as soon as possible, then we can concentrate on the garden. Call me with the cast list. Nobody high-profile, it's too expensive and we've got enough stars already. Don't need great actors here, just competent ones. It's prime-time TV so there'll be plenty of candidates. Russell knows which agencies I use.'

I nodded, trying to look efficient. I'd hardly ever dealt with actors before, but I didn't intend to say so.

‘Good hunting,' Crusty said, and we drove off.

  

At the mews, I got a welcome home I hadn't expected. A ball of white fluff leaped at me, barked, bounced up and down several times, then shot round the room like a turbocharged powder-puff before assaulting the dangling strap on one of my bags. When more or less stationary, the fluffball looked suspiciously like the puppy Alex's nieces had been given for Christmas.

‘What's that?' I said accusingly.

I like dogs. Elton and Sting are ravishingly beautiful, besides being a pair of big soppies, but they're a major responsibility. And London isn't a dog-friendly environment. I like horses too, but I wouldn't want one in the house.

‘This is Fenny,' Alex said blithely. ‘You remember him? At Christmas? The girls found him a bit too much for them, so I said we'd have him. Isn't he a popsy?'

‘I thought he was a bichon frisee.'

Alex ignored this, scooping up the puppy and allowing it to lick his face.

‘Is he house-trained?' I demanded.

‘Nearly,' Alex said ominously.

‘What did you say his name was?'

‘Fenny. Short for Fenris. It comes out of some book or other. I thought we could change it for something more suitable, like Snowy or Tin-Tin or—'

‘Dogmatix?' I quipped. Alex is a great reader of comic books, which he calls graphic novels. Early in our relationship I'd read a couple, just to please him, but happily we'd long got beyond that stage.

‘The problem is, he already answers to Fenny. I rang the dog psychologist but she said it's too late to try anything new. The change of parent is destabilising enough; another name could really traumatise him. Bichons are awfully sensitive.'

So am I, I thought. ‘Put him down for a minute. Aren't you pleased to see
me
?'

‘Of course we are. Isn't Fenny pleased to meet his new mummy?'

‘I'm not his
mummy
,' I said. ‘I'm his . . . his mistress.'

Alex giggled.

I gave up. ‘Can you bring my bags up? The cab driver left them downstairs.' And, as I walked into the bedroom: ‘This place is a mess. What's happened to Anna Maria? Is she off sick?' Anna Maria's the maid who comes in twice a week to tidy up after Alex; having been spoiled rotten all his life, he's incapable of putting anything away himself. She's from somewhere in Eastern Europe, probably illegal, and a treasure.

‘She left,' Alex said. ‘She objected to darling Fenny – can you believe that? Still, we didn't want the ugly old cow, did we?' This to the dog, who whiffled into Alex's shoulder.

‘She
left
?' Anna Maria was my maid, whom I'd brought with me when I'd moved into the mews. Good cleaners are gold dust. I'd rather have lost my second-best pearls. ‘Alex, how
could
you? You don't let a maid like that just
leave
. What happened?'

‘It was her choice,' Alex said petulantly. ‘I didn't fire her or anything. She said she was going, and went.'

‘Why?'

‘Just because poor Fenny had a little accident on the Bokhara, and I asked her to clean it up . . . After all, cleaning up is her job.'

Aha.

‘
I thought you said he was house-trained?
'

The time had come for a tantrum, and I threw one. I screamed, Alex yelled, the puppy barked. (A yell is half an octave down from a scream;
no one
can match my volume when I'm angry.) Things deteriorated still further when Alex declared we were upsetting the dog, and broke off shouting to console him. When I'd screamed myself out we made it up, retiring to the bedroom for some chocolate sex, though even that failed when Fenny tried to join in. He crawled under the duvet and nuzzled his way up to Alex's groin, attempting to boldly lick where no dog had licked before. The resultant misunderstanding made me laugh away the rest of my bad temper, but Alex, for the first time, was seriously put out with his pet, and tossed Fenny out of the bed with such violence the row nearly started all over again, only with Alex and me switching roles.

It wasn't a promising beginning. Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, and I'd imagined returning to find my fiancé at his most beautiful and adoring, hugging me passionately and telling me how much he'd missed me. Instead, I was upstaged by a dog. In the heat of the moment I came within a millimetre of calling off the wedding, but of course I couldn't, not when it had been leaked to all the papers. I spent the afternoon on the line to Anna Maria, offering her a fortune to return and promising to train the dog myself. In between, I taught Fenny to sit by pushing his bottom on to the floor after the appropriate command and giving him a piece of ham when he stayed put. He was bright, and caught on quickly. Pointing to a pool of wee or a squiggle of crap and telling him off in my severest voice, which is pretty severe, clearly got through to his little doggy brain, but he was less sure how to process the information. That would take time. ‘You've got till Sunday,' I told him, ‘or I'll have you made into mittens.'

There was no proper dog food in the house, not even any biscuits – Alex had been feeding him on cold chicken and chocolate buttons – so I had to go out and buy some, dragging Alex along to educate him about what puppies eat. A paparazzo lurking near Waitrose got a shot of us in mid-squabble, which
really
pissed me off.

Then Alex said we couldn't go out to dinner because poor Fenny hated being left alone for any length of time. My last fantasy of romantic intimacy went by the board as we ordered a takeaway from Cecconi's and sat down in front of
101 Dalmatians 2
– ‘Fenny will love it, won't you, popsicle?' – while I tried to discuss wedding plans. Alex said yes to everything including the Buddhist option, until I brought up having Brie as my second bridesmaid.

‘She's a lezzie,' he said. ‘I'm not getting married with a lezzie going down the aisle behind us.'

‘She isn't
really
,' I said. ‘Anyway, lesbians are cool. It'll just make the whole wedding even trendier. Honestly, Alex, you sound like some frightful yob from the BP.'

You know what I mean. That
Britain for the British
party who're always going around waving Union Jacks and beating up Asians and seriously embarrassing the Queen.

‘People might think you and she—'

‘So what if they do? The Bohemian thing would be good for my image. Besides,
you
think lesbians are sexy. All guys do.'

‘I think pink fur underwear is sexy,' Alex retorted, ‘but I'm not wearing it at my wedding.' He has this thing about underwear. He'll even wear my thongs – he says it brings him closer to me – but I don't like it since it stretches them out of shape.