The Way to a Woman's Heart (31 page)

With eye-watering inaccuracy and a huge lack of any technical knowledge whatsoever, Poll explained everything.

Ash looked down at Ella and laughed. ‘Did you sleep at all?’

‘Nope. You?’

‘No. I honestly hadn’t expected to feel this nervous… And I’m knackered already.’

‘Onyx not with you?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

‘She was working last night but she’ll be coming along later. There’s no way she’d miss this.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘What about your boyfriend? Mark? I bet he’ll be watching and so proud of you.’

Ella nodded, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be, but damned if she was going to say so.

Ash stared at the crew as they moved round the kitchen. ‘God, aren’t they all brilliant, though? I know they must do this all the time, but even so – all those different cameras, so much electrical stuff, so many lights and things, so many sockets and cables and plugs – and everyone is so cheerful
and they all know exactly what to do and where to put everything.’

‘As long as we do.’

‘Don’t.’ Ash shook his head. ‘But honestly, as long as we don’t fall apart we’ve got to be better than the first two teams, haven’t we?’

‘The Hippy Fusions and the Pig Killers? Definitely.’

‘Food!’

The cry went up from the runner who was nearest the hallway, his arms full of potted ferns which had been in the sitting room. The ferns were abandoned – so was everything else – as the crew galloped towards the front door.

‘Come on!’ one of the cameramen shouted cheerfully. ‘Polly and Emma and the rest of you! Grub’s up!’

‘I can’t eat a thing,’ Poll muttered as they picked their way round the equipment and over the cables snaking all across the kitchen floor.

‘Me neither,’ Ella said.

‘I think I’ll just have a cup of tea.’ Billy shook his head. ‘I’m much too nervous to touch a bite.’

‘Wow!’ Ash blinked in the blinding sunlight as they all trooped outside from the darkness of the house, and lined up behind the crew at the side of the food wagon. ‘It certainly smells good.’

Within what seemed like a nanosecond, everyone had piled-high plates and was in the garden again, sitting round the wooden table or on the swing seat.

‘Breakfast in the fresh air,’ Ella said, forking up scrambled eggs with gusto. ‘Fantastic.’

‘Just what I needed,’ Trixie muttered through a Hideaway-forbidden bacon bap, ketchup dripping glutinously on to her plate.

‘Mmm,’ Poll agreed over her poached eggs and hash browns. ‘And to think I said I wasn’t hungry.’

The pretty girls were nibbling toast and drinking black coffee and watching Ash. Ash, beside Ella on the swing seat, still appeared not to have noticed.

‘They do a smashing lunch, too,’ the sound man told them. ‘One good thing about location work on this job – you never go hungry.’

‘So.’ Ella leaned forward. ‘What are Gabby and Tom really like? I mean, of course we’ve watched them for ages, but surely, the way they snipe and snap at each other – and everyone else – is all an act for the television, isn’t it?’

The crew looked at one another.

‘I think,’ the producer said eventually, scraping his plate clean, ‘that it would spoil the surprise if we told you anything about them. You’ll just have to wait and see for yourselves.’

‘But surely you can give us some clues?’ Ash said. ‘I mean, how they expect us to behave, what we’re supposed to say and when – and what we do in front of the cameras?’

One of the cameramen grinned. ‘Oh, no. We can’t do that. Gabby and Tom will do all that. They like that part of the show best – the prepping of the contestants. It’s like virgins to the slaughter.’

Oh, dear God… Ella gulped in terror.

The director chuckled. ‘Just one word of warning,
though. They’ll be preceded by a bevy of outriders. They have separate cars – and chauffeurs – and Gabby refuses to go anywhere without her dresser, make-up girl, hairdresser, PA…’

‘Doctor, dentist, lawyer, chef, minders…’ The runner boy grinned. ‘Not to mention florist, jeweller, butcher, baker, candlestick maker.’

‘Oooh, yes,’ Poll said, nodding, ‘we know about most of those. We’re having our hair and make-up done too, aren’t we?’

‘Not by Gabby’s girls, you’re not.’ The director looked askance. ‘You’ll get staffers. Gabby employs her own.’

‘Really?’ Ella looked shocked. ‘What, even for outside broadcasts?’

‘Especially for OBs,’ the producer sighed. ‘It’s like being on bloody tour with Mariah Carey.’

‘Your make-up girl and hairdresser should be here in about half an hour,’ one of the pretty clipboard girls said, smiling directly at Ash. ‘They like to have everything done before the Dewberrys arrive.’

‘Which will be when, then?’ Poll started to collect up the empty plates. ‘I’d love to have time for a little chat with Gabby and be able to show her round the house and the garden and –’

The crew stared at her in stunned silence. Then one of the clipboard girls giggled.

The producer shook his head. ‘Possibly best not to. That’s my advice. Anyway, they’ll be here in – oh, about four hours.’

And they were. But not before the programme’s hairdresser and make-up artist had arrived and ushered Ella, Poll, Ash and Billy into Poll’s vast lilac and silver bedroom to be – as Ella put it later – Gok’d.

It took simply ages.

First, they all had to dress in their black bottoms – George had chuckled dirtily again over the phrase and been shushed by Trixie – and pale-blue tops and be covered with little plastic capes which made them even hotter than they already were, and allow the girls to do their best – or worst.

Billy had laughed about having to wear powder to lessen the shine. ‘If our Mary could see me now, she’d be all disapproving and say I was doing a Danny La Rue.’

Ash, Ella had noted with some annoyance, seemed perfectly happy to allow two very attractive women to mess around with his hair and get very up close and personal
while they flicked shader and highlighter over his face and cooed together over the astonishing length and darkness of his eyelashes and the spectacular angle of his cheekbones.

‘Gabby’s going to lurve you,’ the hairdresser said huskily. ‘She’ll probably have you stripped and washed and taken to her tent.’

Poll, taking this literally, had looked horrified.

But not quite as horrified as when she’d looked in the mirror and seen herself with very blue eyeshadow and very red lips and her fly-about hair smoothed into a sort of pageboy effect.

‘That’s not me!’ she’d cried at her reflection. ‘I look like my mother! Oh, look, I hate to complain and I know you’re doing a great job, but, please, let my hair look more messy, and, please, please, can I wipe off my mouth and eyes?’

‘No way,’ the make-up girl had said cheerfully. ‘At least, not the lippy or the eyeshadow. You have lovely eyes. The blue shadow will make them sparkle on the screen. And the red lipstick makes your mouth more prominent. It all has to be exaggerated, see?’

The hairdresser nodded. ‘The eyes and lips stay, but if you’d like your hair to be a little more tousled… ?’

‘Tousled!’ Poll had nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, I like the sound of tousled.’

So the page boy had been mussed up and sprayed into a more dishevelled style and eventually Poll and the hairdresser were happy.

Ella had found it very strange after weeks of the bare-faced country wench look to be made-up again. How odd she
looked with heavily kohled smoky eyes and sleek, glossy hair. It was like having City Ella back again – and she didn’t like it much.

‘There!’ The girls had eventually finished and stood back to admire their handiwork. ‘Wonderful. We’ll be on hand to touch up as necessary before the programme and, off screen out of shot, throughout the proceedings, but you’re the most attractive bunch we’ve had for… oooh, ages. You’ll all look absolutely great on the screen.’

‘On the screen,’ Poll had echoed, as the reality hit home. ‘Oh, dear… Excuse me, I need the bathroom. I think I’m going to be sick.’

And then, as the crew continued to work tirelessly in the kitchen, checking and rechecking, and as the sun climbed ever higher and ever hotter in the midsummer sky, the Dewberrys arrived.

In a convoy of cars purring down Hideaway Lane.

And they weren’t alone. ‘Jesus!’ Ella peered out of her bedroom window.

‘Everybody from damn everywhere is outside!’

She laughed to herself. Of course there was no way that the residents of Hazy Hassocks and surrounding villages were going to miss something like this. They’d turned up in their hundreds, camping along Hideaway Lane with picnics and chairs and sunshades and cameras, eager to be part of the biggest day the area had ever seen.

‘Ella!’ Poll’s voice wavered nervously up the stairs. ‘Ella, I think they’re here and I can’t face them on my own.’

‘Just coming.’ Ella checked her make-up and hair in the mirror again, took several deep breaths, and ran downstairs.

Ash and Billy, looking pale, were in the hall. Poll, her hands fluttering, looked anguished. ‘I know they’re here because I saw the cars from the window… Should I go out and welcome them or wait until they knock?’

‘I’d wait,’ Ella said, not actually having a clue on the social niceties of greeting mega-star celebrities. ‘They clearly have their own way of doing things.’

The doorbell rang.

Poll teetered forwards and after a couple of failed attempts managed to pull the door open.

Gabby and Tom Dewberry, with a crowd of minions hovering behind them, stood on the doorstep.

Ella felt quite odd. It was too surreal.

Gabby, all perfect and pouty, with her trademark golden curls and an exquisitely cut cream linen suit, and looking ice cool despite the searing heat, was far, far smaller than she appeared on television. And, Ella thought with surprise, underneath the make-up, far, far older.

And Tom was all tall and dark and brooding – like a culinary Heathcliff – but with gentle brown eyes.

‘Hi.’ Gabby just slightly extended a tiny pale hand that she clearly didn’t want shaken, to Poll. ‘I’m Gabby Dewberry. This is Tom – and we’re delighted to be here at your home for this element of
Dewberrys’ Dinners
.’

‘Scripted,’ Ash hissed.

Tom smiled and said nothing.

‘Er, I’m Poll Andrews, and we’re delighted to have you,’
Poll, clearly awestruck, whispered. ‘Please come in and let me introduce you to…’

Gabby, with Tom walking a consort-regulation two paces behind, swept regally into the hall with her entourage, stared for a moment then smiled coquettishly at Ash, and ignored everyone else.

Ella sniggered.

‘Kitchen?’ Gabby enquired imperiously over one small shoulder.

‘Er, um…’ Poll fumbled. ‘Oh, yes, across the hall, then go right to the end of the corridor and it’s the last door on your right.’

Ella and Ash looked at one another.

‘Cow?’ Ash asked as they followed the herd.

‘Definitely,’ Ella hissed. ‘Grade One Dairy Show Champ. And she clearly wants to be your Sugar Mummy. Oh, goodness, this is going to be fun. Not.’

The crew stopped chatting and laughing and stood back in deferential silence as Gabby and Tom walked into the kitchen.

‘Hi, everyone.’ Tom spoke for the first time.

The crew all said hi back to him. It sounded genuinely friendly, Ella thought, and everyone smiled. Maybe Tom wasn’t so bad after all.

‘What a perfectly lovely farmhouse kitchen.’ Tom beamed at Poll. ‘I grew up on a farm and this is exactly like –’

Gabby shot him a Look and he lapsed into silence.

The on-screen sniping and carping was definitely no act, Ella thought.

‘It’ll do.’ Gabby gave the kitchen a cursory glance. ‘Plenty of room. Plenty of light. We need more fans though. There’s obviously no air con and I refuse to wilt. Fetch fans, someone!’

Three people skittered away.

Gabby preened. ‘Now, first things first. I’ll need a room for resting, changing, hair and make-up.’