The Cornish Affair (24 page)

Yes,
I had admitted that much to myself. I’d struggled a bit with it, but the truth was – I missed him not being here.

I
knew that it would be tricky, his whole world revolved around London, and mine was so firmly rooted here, but…but, well, he loved it here, I could tell. Whether he loved me, or I loved him was too early to tell, but there was an undeniable frisson there and I wanted the time to explore it.

I
let my imagination dangerously out to play.

Maybe,
just maybe, Oliver would want to leave London for a while? He could write his book here, couldn’t he? He didn’t have to be in London for
that
, after all. The TV shows would come to a halt, as would the adverts he was filming. What better place to write than here, surrounded by the peace and quiet of –

“Bugger
off, bugger off, bugger off-”

Nelsons
unmistakable screech filled the kitchen. Where the hell had he come from? I looked out of the door and saw that he was in his cage in the back of Sam’s van. Pritti must have given him to Sam to save me a trip down to Port Charles.

Damn.
I’d forgotten Oliver’s bloody allergies.

Baxter
had heard him, and with a snarl rushed towards the cage, his top lip curled over his teeth. A furious noise ensued, with Nancy rushing out of the library to help me.

I
had hoisted Nelsons cage as far as I could above my head, but Baxter was hurling himself at my legs trying to reach him, barking his head off.

“Bugger
off, Bugger off,” Nelson repeated himself in a cackle.

“Shut
up
Nelson! Baxter get down, I said
down
you little bastard!” I said, trying to regain the peace and quiet that I thought Oliver might appreciate.

We
eventually had to lock Baxter out of the kitchen till he calmed down about the arrival of Nelson. It was like living with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor at the height of their rows.

I
took some tea into the library and admired the tables. Sam and Will had pushed all the furniture around, and there was a lot of space left in the room.

I
mean, a lot of space.

“Oh
god, supposing nobody comes?” I said, eyeing the huge room nervously.

It
looked even bigger now that the furniture had been shunted around.

“Don’t
be daft!” Sam said, blowing on his tea, “Party at Penmorah? Course they will.”

“Darling,
we’ll be turning them away,” Nancy said loyally.

I
did hope so.

I
mentally dressed the bare tables with all the bits and bobs that go to making a bar, and put Will and Richard behind it complete with long white aprons. Samina and Sunita were looking forward to helping, and were planning on wearing their best shalwar kameeze. I’d put the music in the corner, the food in the kitchen and cover the rest of the house with any flowers that were still left after the storm and ashtrays. Oh and candles, too.

“Ashtrays!”
I said.

Sam
laughed and gestures to a cardboard box.

“I
thought you’d want some, so I brought ‘em up with me.”

I
thanked him and went to open the box. A stack of about thirty ashtrays bearing the legend ‘Wake up with a young farmer!’ painted around the rims stared back at me. Oh great. Not quite the glass crystal effect that I’d been after, but, still…

“Thank
you Sam,” Nancy said, smiling fondly at him.

“Yes,
thanks. Thanks for everything Sam, you’ve been brilliant,” I said, feeling horribly shallow.

Sam
beamed proudly.

“Better
be off then, we’ll see you tomorrow,” he said giving Nancy a burning look. “Proper looking forward to it, we are, aren’t we Will?”

Will
nodded dumbly.

Chapter
Twenty Four

After they’d gone, Nancy and I spent a long time pushing and pulling furniture around until we realised that we’d come to the configuration that Sam and Will had done, so we left it alone.

The
library looked poised and ready for action. I gently closed the door on it, promising that it would have its fill of people by tomorrow.

Nancy
urged me to try on the dress that she had brought back from London for me, so I went upstairs to wiggle into it.

“Wear
the right shoes with it, or it’ll look wrong,” she cautioned me.

I
spent the next quarter of an hour on my hands and knees searching under the bed for the afore mentioned ‘right’ shoes. I came up with a dusty pair of orange flip flops, a pair of pink high heeled mules that I knew with certainty were definitely not mine, and a black lacy bra. I knew that I had somewhere a pair of black high heeled party shoes, but where they were hiding was beyond me.

I
sank back on my bed and implored the patron saint of lost stuff for some guidance.

“Please
help St Anthony,” I asked. (Trust me here, just do it. It works.)

Inspiration
struck and I was moved to rummage at the very depths of the linen basket. Sure enough, there amongst the never washed (because never worn, because too tight) jeans I found the shoes. Lovely black, very expensive, high heeled, pointy toed mules – about as useful in Cornwall as being allergic to cream.

I
slipped the dress on, and looked in the mirror.

Dear
god.

Perhaps
it was the underwear that was making it look so odd. After all, white bra straps showing isn’t perhaps the look I was going for. I took the dress off, and the bra. Better. But not much. The dress was a tightly fitted plunge necked affair in an almost elasticity, rubbery horizontally ridged fabric, where every other band of ridges was see through. I gazed in the mirror, and a reflection of a woman who could happily blend in to a certain sort of hotel bar that could be found round the docks of every major city in Europe gazed back at me.

This
wouldn’t do at
all
.

I
heard Nancy calling me, so I tottered to the top of the stairs to give her a twirl.

“Fifi
at your service,” I leered down at her, “Tell the gentlemen I’ll be down soon.”

Nancy
laughingly protested, “But Fin, it’s wonderful! It’s meant to be sexy you know! It’s a
party
dress after all!”

I
looked sourly at her. “I don’t know what sort of parties you had in mind Nance, but really…!”

Nancy
came upstairs and dragged me into the bedroom. She spent some time walking round me in silence, her head on one side.

“OK,
I think there’s a couple of things… one, you hair needs to be put up, Two, make up. Three, you need a bit of a tan, your arms are really brown, but not the rest of you. Four, jewellery. I knew it would be the very thing, Harry and I spent ages looking for the right thing, and I think we found it.”

I
stared at her.

“Stop
looking at me as if I was talking Tibetan! You are going to look fabulous. Now then, sit down and I’ll practice putting your hair up.” Nancy said commandingly.

I
sat down.

She
started to brush my hair. “Oh, wait a moment, I’ve got the very thing…” she left the room and came back a few moments later, holding something in her hand. She held it out to me, and said, “There, remember?”

I
looked at the object held in the palm of her hand. It was a large jade hair slide, set with brilliants.

“Of
course I do,” I breathed. “It was mama’s… she wore it nearly every night, didn’t she?”

Nancy
beamed. “Yes, yes she did, and now you are going to wear it for the dolphin party tomorrow, so let’s get practicing, I haven’t put hair up for a long, long time.”

She
sat me back down in front of my dressing table, and tutted at the mess of half used tubes of hand cream, scrunchies, bottles of perfume and general junk.

Nancy
paused in her combing of my hair.

“You
know Fin, don’t invest too much hope in this party… I think you’re expecting too much from it darling. I know we miss the old parties here, but you can’t bring back the past Fin, as much as you’d like to. Besides, you have so much to look forward to, lovely Oliver, for one-”

“I
thought life was too short to moon over a man?” I said, wincing slightly as she pulled my hair.

“You
know very well what I mean,” she said sternly.

Her
hands were busy with my hair. Maybe she was right. I too might like to keep Oliver as a romance, not a fixture in my life. And as for expecting too much from the party, all I hoped for was a good time. I knew in my heart it would never be like the old parties here, it couldn’t be. Penmorah was a party house after all, it needed this party, and so did I.

Nancy
pulled me round so that I faced the mirror. I looked very strange, to tell you the truth. My hair was piled up on my head, in a sort of messy, abandoned top knot with trailing corkscrew curls hanging down all around me. The dress was so tight.
And
low. I’d never seen myself in anything like this before.

Nancy
clasped a jet choker around my neck, and ordered me into my shoes.

“There!”
she said, looking proudly at me, “What a stunner! You look utterly gorgeous yourself!”

“What
about this?” I said, pointing to the milky white cleavage I had which contrasted terribly with my weather tanned arms.

“It’s
a good job
someone
round here reads
Vogue
,” Nancy said tartly, waving a plastic bottle at me.

“Fake
tan!” I cried, “But it’ll go all streaky and orange and I’ll end up looking like Judith Chalmers!”

“No
you won’t,” Nancy said firmly, “This is state of the art stuff, as used by all the models nowadays, put it on after your bath tonight, not forgetting to exfoliate first, and you’ll wake up looking peachy, I promise!”

I
glanced doubtfully at the bottle.

“Trust
me, I’m a fashion doctor,” Nancy said.

“OK,
OK… are you
sure
I look alright?” I asked, turning in front of the mirror.

“More
than alright. Now then, I’ll do your hair again tomorrow, but don’t wash it or it won’t stay up.” Nancy cautioned me as she left the room.

I
got changed back into my ordinary clothes and headed downstairs whilst Nancy went into the muddy garden to see what she could pick for the party.

Nelson
was weaving around on his perch and I went to give him a scratch.

“Pleased
to be home Nelson?” I whispered to him.

He
moved from claw to claw, rocking with pleasure at my fingers digging in his feathers.

I
wracked my brains as to what I could do with him and Baxter tomorrow night. Neither of them minded a large group of people around them, but what about Oliver? I couldn’t have him wheezing and sneezing all over the place, and the one thing I couldn’t do was to put the dog and the parrot in the same room. Well, I could but only one of them would come out alive.

I
slipped the ham into the oven to glaze, and started to make some mayonnaise. By the way, if there is anyone left on the planet by now who hasn’t ever tasted homemade mayonnaise, just go and make some now. It will be a taste revelation to you. It won’t be
anything
like the slightly sickly goo you buy in jars. It really is so easy, and nothing to be scared about. A blender does help, of course, but making it by hand will build your arm muscles nicely. Just be sure to use good olive oil and fresh eggs. Go on,
please
. You’ll thank me for it.

Nelson
gave his preliminary screech to the phone, and I stretched my arm out to answer it.

It
was Harry, sounding very excited. He started to gabble at me and I had to get him to slow down. Something about offers flooding on for TV.

“Offers
for who?” I said, dipping my finger in the bowl of golden mayonnaise and tasting it. Divine. Maybe a touch more salt?

“Whom,”
Harry said sternly, then added, “you, you fool!”

“Harry,
I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, reaching for the salt and tucking the phone under my chin I ground some more sea salt into the bowl.

Gradually
it all came out. It seems that a couple of TV producers had seen me on the news, losing my temper and had made a few enquiries and discovered that Harry was my agent.

It
seems they had a few ‘projects’ in mind for me.

“Are
they mad?” I cried down the phone, “What in the name of arse can they possibly be thinking about?”

“Well,
one of them thinks that you might like to front a show about gm crops and environmental issues, and the other one, which I rather like, is a cookery show in real peoples’ homes, you know a sort of reality bites thing-”

I
interrupted him with a very rude word indeed.

“Well,
let’s not forget dear that you are still awaiting Mr Harris’s verdict on Penmorah, aren’t you? A lovely bit of dosh might not go amiss right now,” Harry said smugly.

“But
Harry!” I said imploringly.

“Well,
just bear it in mind, that’s all I’m saying. We can talk about it tomorrow. By the way, we’re all
flying
down – how grand is that? Courtesy of Oliver Dean, who, by the way, seems rather taken with you.”

“Really?”
I asked, feeling a bit like a teenager who is imploring her best mate to tell her
exactly
what was said.

“Yes,
and Oliver’s got a great idea for Port Charles, but I’ll let him tell you that himself. We may well be a bit late tomorrow by the way, we’ve got to wait for him to finish shooting.” Harry said importantly.

“Tigers
or himself in the foot?” I asked sweetly.

“
How
we laughed… so what’s the weather doing?”

“Oh
I’m pottering in the kitchen, so, umm, let me think.”

It
would have to be something cosy and comforting.

“Almond
and bread soup from Spain, cold, with lots and lots of lovely fresh garlic in it,” I said.

“Keeps
the vampires away, I suppose. See you tomorrow darling, love to Nancy.”

I
went about the kitchen muttering to myself. TV indeed! Bloody ridiculous. I don’t care how much it’s going to cost me to repair Penmorah, I wasn’t going to resort to
that
. I’ll leave the showing off to Oliver, not my cup of tea at all!

I
started to make a quick chutney to go with the home cooked ham which I’d just rescued from the oven. Jace had sent up some over ripe mangos in the box, they’d do perfectly.

I
was just sloshing some balsamic vinegar into a pan when a van drove up outside. Baxter and Nelson started to make a row, so I pushed Baxter out of the door, and told Nelson to shut up.

“Shut
up yourself!” was his startling reply.

I
went to open the kitchen door and found the woman from Fowey there with my wine and glasses.

“Hell
of a job, getting’ ‘ere,” she said, “Some roads still not be clear, proper awful, innit?”

I
agreed and went to help her unload. Two buff chickens were squawking in a cage in the back of the van, seemingly disturbed by being surrounded by so much alcohol.

I
glanced at some of the boxes that the wine was in, and saw that instead of the red and white that ordered, most of the boxes were labelled ‘Dom Perignon’. She caught me reading the labels and smiled.

“Well
now see, Sam ‘ad an order at The Ram an’ so did the Cat and Fiddle over Bodmin way, an’ some of the stuff got a bit mixed up, still a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind ‘orse, so they say, an’ ain’t nobody goin’ to be none the wiser, if you know what I mean! So ‘old yer ‘orses and keep shtum an’ let Jack Sprat eat! ” She tapped the side of her nose with her forefinger.

“Know
what I means?”

Frankly,
no. I didn’t have a
clue
what she was talking about.