The Show (24 page)

Kevin laughed. ‘No one cares any more.’

‘Except David Carlyle.’

‘David who?’ the agent scoffed. ‘Get Annabel to serve the party chairman a few bottles of really good burgundy at tonight’s book launch and, I’m telling you, you’re home and dry. They’ll be throwing safe seats at you like girls chucking their knickers at a One Direction concert.’

Now, lying in bed next to Annabel, Eddie ran a hand lovingly down her bare back. ‘Can I do anything for you?’ he asked.

‘Such as what?’ she asked archly.

‘Anything you like,’ Eddie grinned. ‘We don’t have much to do today before the party, do we?’

‘Not much to do?’ Annabel rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, Eddie, these things don’t magically happen by themselves, you know. It’s not just a book launch; it’s the rebirth of your political career. The Home Secretary’s coming, and the party chairman. This is a crucial evening for us. Crucial.’

‘I know that,’ Eddie said gently.

‘Then there’s the spin doctor, speech writer, or whatever he is. The bald chap with the permanent sneer and the American wife.’

‘You mean Phil Blaize?’

‘Yes. Him. The wife’s bound to have “allergies”.’

‘Why is she bound to have allergies?’ Eddie laughed.

‘Because they always do. American women are so tiresome about their eating habits.’ Annabel sighed heavily. ‘Really, Eddie, I’ve been run off my feet for months preparing for this damn party and I’m still nowhere near ready.’

‘I thought Magda was supposed to be doing most of the legwork?’

‘Magda?’ Annabel rolled her eyes extravagantly. ‘Don’t get me started. Honestly, if I had a pound for every time I’ve had to correct that girl, or go back and do a job myself because she simply cannot follow simple instructions …’

Eddie stopped her with a kiss. He knew the postcoital glow wouldn’t last for ever, but he wanted a few more hours of it at least.

‘I’ll make breakfast,’ he said brightly. ‘How about pancakes? Thinking of American eating habits.’

Annabel burst out laughing. ‘Edward! You have no idea how to make a pancake.’

‘Yes I have.’ Eddie pulled on a dressing gown. ‘You use eggs and … things.’

‘What things?’

Eddie looked vague. ‘Milk? Look, I can make a fucking pancake, all right. I’m not an imbecile. You just relax and leave it to me.’

Milo Wellesley hopped down from the passenger seat of the cab and waved cheerily to the lorry driver as he drove away.

He’d been lucky to get a lift almost all the way from Heathrow to Brockhurst. Gary, the jovial, enormously fat driver, was taking a load of Topps Tiles to a warehouse in Chichester and was happy to have the tanned, skinny blond boy along for the ride. Having been dropped at the top of the hill, by the side of the A27, Milo had less than two miles to walk down into the valley till he reached Riverside Hall.

Before Africa, he would never have hitchhiked. But a lot of things had changed for Milo in the last few months. He’d returned to England happier, healthier and immeasurably more resourceful. He was determined to prove to his parents – and certain other people – that he was no longer the needy, entitled public schoolboy of old. He was a man of the world now. A man with opinions and ambitions and plans for the future – a future that lay spread out before him, just like the glorious patchwork of fields, woods and streams he stood gazing at now.

Hoisting his backpack onto his skinny shoulders, he started down the hill at a jog. It was still only nine in the morning and the air was cold enough for him to see his breath. After the dryness of Sudan, the sense of damp in the air felt wonderful. Milo drank in the mist and the breeze and the promise of rain or even snow like a bumblebee gorging itself on nectar after a long spell in the wilderness. But it wasn’t only England he was pleased to see, or his home, or his family. It was Magda.

He’d gone to look for her the morning after his leaving party, to say goodbye, but she’d taken Wilf out for an early walk and he’d missed her. At the time he’d been so caught up with the Roxanne drama – Roxie had hooked up with his friend Will Cooper that night deliberately to bait him – and he hadn’t thought much about missing his parents’ home help. But being away had changed all that.

Out in Africa, as the days and weeks rolled past, Roxanne had faded from his memory and Milo’s thoughts had turned more and more to Magda. He pictured her giving him a stern talking-to on their walk to The Fox a few days before the party, the night he’d met Emma Harwich for a drink. It wasn’t just that Magda was beautiful, although she was certainly that. It was her combination of strength and vulnerability, her quiet dignity that had begun to give her an almost mystical aura in Milo’s memory. He’d been too blind to see it back in England. Too caught up in his own shit, chasing girls like Emma and Roxanne for no better reason than that they were sexy. But after long, gruelling days lugging bricks in the African sun, the long nights had given him plenty of time for reflection.

He’d been blind. Blind and stupid. Roxanne was a nice enough girl, but she had never inspired him to become a better person the way that Magda did. Nor, despite her antics with Will, had she ever presented much of a challenge. Magda, on the other hand, was nothing but challenge. She was a grown woman, an intelligent woman, a woman to be conquered. A woman
worth
conquering.

Not that he was obsessed or anything.

Milo was going to show Magda that he was a changed man. It made him cringe to think about that night outside The Fox now, when he’d still been mooning over Emma Harwich. Emma Harwich! How pointless and vacuous his fling with Emma seemed now. Although, in a roundabout way, it had turned out to be a good thing, as he’d never have been sent to Africa if it weren’t for Emma.

Bizarrely, Emma’s face had been one of the first things Milo had seen when he’d landed this morning. She and her ancient boyfriend, the Tory donor, were on the front page of the
Daily Mail
, shaking hands with some movie star or other. Milo had found himself staring at Emma’s image like a man who has just realized his old master painting is actually nothing but a cheap fake. She was pretty enough, of course, in a regular-featured, generic, model-y sort of way. But, next to Magda, her beauty was as lifeless and blank as the painted face of a doll.

The closer he came to Riverside Hall, the more excited Milo felt. As the lane twisted and turned, and the ground seemed to fall away beneath his feet, familiar smells joined forces with the sights and sounds of the valley. Wet grass and mulch and wood smoke and horse manure, all mingled together into an intoxicating soup of home and countryside and belonging. Suddenly Milo realized he was starving. A mental picture of a warm bacon sandwich shimmered before his eyes like a mirage in the Sahara. He broke into a jog, then a run.

Both his parents’ cars were parked in the drive at Riverside Hall, although he couldn’t see Magda’s rickety old Ford Fiesta. An awful thought struck him. What if Magda had left while he’d been gone? What if his mother had fired her? Or she’d grown tired of Annabel’s ceaseless, unreasonable demands and taken off, leaving no contact number or forwarding address?

If only he’d told her how he felt about her before he left! But the truth was, he hadn’t known then. Not really. He’d been so immature back then, bemoaning his trivial life problems like some sort of navel-gazing moron, after Magda had shared something so personal and profound with him.

I was an arsehole. A complete fool.

But that was the old Milo.

The front door was unlocked. Dropping his backpack on the floor with a clatter, Milo woke Wilf, who’d been sleeping quietly in his basket under the coat rack. Opening one eye and turning his head to the side in the very faintest possible display of curiosity, the border terrier farted loudly and went back to sleep.

‘Well, that’s charming,’ Milo grinned. ‘That’s all I get after five months in the bloody back of beyond? So much for man’s best friend.’

Hearing laughter from the dining room, he opened the door and stood frozen.
Was this a dream?
There was his dad, perched on the edge of the dining table, detritus from breakfast strewn all around him. And
there
, on his father’s
lap
, was Milo’s mother, wearing a short silk dressing gown that could only be described as skimpy, with her hair down and unbrushed, giggling – actually laughing, out loud – at something his dad was whispering in her ear. Clearly Milo wasn’t the only one who’d changed since the summer. His parents seemed to have morphed into two teenagers. Or at least into people who liked each other and laughed at each other’s jokes.

‘Mum?’

Annabel and Eddie spun round in unison. ‘Milo!’

‘What on earth are you doing home?’ asked Eddie. ‘We thought your flight was next weekend?’

‘It was. I changed it. Thought I’d surprise you,’ said Milo. ‘Evidently I succeeded.’ He raised an eyebrow laconically.

‘You’re so thin!’ Annabel exclaimed, leaping off Eddie’s lap and belting her robe more tightly around her. If Milo wasn’t hallucinating, which was quite possible at this point, he could have sworn he saw his mother blush. ‘Didn’t they feed you over there? And you’re so brown! Look at you.’

‘It’s Africa, Mum. It was hot.’

‘Yes, but don’t they have sun cream? I hardly recognize you. Oh, good grief, your fingernails!’ Annabel picked up Milo’s hand in disgust. He almost felt relieved. Here was the mother he remembered. ‘You look like you’ve been ploughing a field with your bare hands. And your hair’s far too long. Go up and have a shower right away and I’ll book you in at the barber’s in an hour to have it off.’

‘I don’t want to “have it off”,’ said Milo.
Other than with Magda.
‘Where’s Magda?’

‘Magda? In the kitchen, cooking for tonight,’ said Annabel. ‘Why?’

Milo felt the relief wash over him like a cool wave. She hadn’t left, then.

‘What’s tonight?’

‘Your father’s book launch. Except it isn’t really a book launch; it’s more a vitally important political dinner.’

‘Oh.’

‘So you aren’t to pester Magda. She’s far too busy to waste time yabbering away to you.’

‘Am I invited? To this vitally important dinner?’

Eddie and Annabel exchanged glances.

‘Do you want to be?’

‘Of course.’

Eddie looked astonished. The old Milo would rather have eaten his own hand than sit around with a bunch of boring politicians.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You can come. But only if you behave yourself impeccably.’

‘And cut your hair,’ added Annabel.

Milo kissed his mother on the cheek. ‘I’m not cutting my hair. But I will be on my best behaviour. Now, you’ll both have to excuse me. I’m afraid I have an urgent appointment to keep.’

Eddie grinned. He was delighted to see Milo back home, but he clearly found this new, mature version of his son highly amusing.

‘An urgent appointment, eh? May one ask with whom?’

Milo grinned back. ‘With a bacon sandwich.’

Well. It was half true.

Magda was sitting at the kitchen table, almost invisible behind an enormous mound of peeled prawns.

‘Hello, stranger,’ said Milo, trying to project a confidence he didn’t feel.

She looked up and gave him the briefest, most perfunctory nod of greeting before returning immediately to her work.

Milo’s heart plummeted. ‘Are you angry with me?’

‘No.’ Magda continued peeling.

‘Well, you’re acting like it. I’ve been gone for months! Don’t I get a hug at least?’

Magda’s eyes blazed into his. ‘A hug? Oh, I see. A hug’s all right down here in the kitchen, where nobody can see, is that it?’

Milo frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘What do you think I’m talking about?’ Exasperated, Magda pushed aside her bowl of shells. ‘Your party. Your “friend” Jamie and your mother treating me like the hired help.’

‘Aren’t you the hired help?’ Milo asked tactlessly.

Magda was furious. ‘I wasn’t that night. I was your
guest.
You invited me! I even brought a new dress.’ To her own surprise, there were tears in her eyes. She hadn’t thought she still cared so much about this. But seeing Milo again brought it all flooding back. ‘Can you imagine what an idiot I felt? How embarrassed I was? You stood there and disowned me.’

Milo looked at her helplessly. He didn’t remember any of this! He had a vague mental picture of Jamie King being a dick, but that was about Roxanne, not Magda.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t
mean
to disown you! I didn’t realize. I guess I didn’t think.’

‘No.’ Magda returned to her prawns. ‘You never do.’

Now it was Milo’s turn to get impassioned.

‘That’s not true,’ he said, snatching the bowl away from her to force her to listen. ‘I mean, maybe it was true back then. But it’s not true now. I do think. I’ve thought about you. A lot.’

Magda blushed scarlet. This was not the response she’d expected at
all.
Why on earth had she started this stupid conversation in the first place?

‘OK, well. I can’t talk now,’ she mumbled. ‘I am
so
behind with this soup and then there’s the pastry cases to make for the beef Wellington and all the prep work for the trifle and that’s before I even start the cleaning.’ She knew she was rambling but she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘You should see the list your mother’s given me. You wouldn’t be—’

Milo cut her off. Marching round the table he pulled her to her feet and in to his chest before she had a chance to protest.

Despite herself, Magda could feel her heart beating nineteen to the dozen as he hugged her. Milo looked different. He very thin, and tanned, but it was more than that. He seemed older somehow, despite the silly student beads and the straggly, gap-year hair. He smelled of sweat and toothpaste and something with patchouli in it, and she was finding it harder and harder to stay angry with him.

‘Do you forgive me?’ he spoke into her hair.

‘I suppose so,’ Magda mumbled, disengaging herself as soon as she politely could and sitting back down.