Well Groomed (20 page)

At that moment the phone rang. Tash leaped on it as her saviour, leaving Hugo standing in the centre of the room looking incredibly confused.

There was a lot of crackling, which told Tash she was connected to a mobile in a remote region.

‘Okay – I’ve got two minutes to lay my heart at your feet.’

It was Niall.

‘Oh, darling. Am I glad to hear you!’ Tash glanced triumphantly around at Hugo, who appeared to be helping himself to wine now, oblivious of her caller.

‘Listen – I am so chronically sorry about not making it down tonight. If it’s any consolation, you can’t be nearly as upset as I am now.’

‘Oh, I can,’ Tash whimpered, ‘but I do understand. I so wish you were here – they’re so shitty for keeping you there.’

‘You really don’t mind?’

‘No, of course not – I just feel for you, and wish so much I was with you.’

Why did she wimp out so easily? she thought in consternation. It was always the same when Niall was trying to see her from a location – disappointment after disappointment. And, as ever, she was just so pleased to hear his voice that she could forgive him anything.

‘I ’clare, I’m not going to stand for it in future.’ He seemed to echo her thoughts. ‘But Nigel – that’s the director – is so stressed out it’s untrue. The set dresser threw himself off the peak of a Munro today.’

‘What’s a Munro?’

‘A small mountain.’

‘Christ! Is he dead?’

‘Fractured ribs and bruised coccyx.’ Niall, despite himself, was trying not to laugh. ‘Poor little sod landed on a hill-walker. Still, he’s on enforced bed-rest, so he’s happy. God, I miss you.’

‘Me too. When d’you think you can get down?’

‘Well, I can’t guarantee anything until we wrap the location shoot – which looks like being the middle of March. I promise to try and make it for Henry’s christening, though, and I hope to make it to old Hugo’s birthday do, too.’

Tash stiffened slightly. ‘You what?’

‘Yeah, I got his invite today – thank him and say yes, will you? It was really thoughtful of him to send one up here as well as to you. He must know how out of touch I feel stranded here. Talking of which, I am SO SORRY, angel . . .’

‘Sorry about what?’ Tash, whose narrowed, Hugo-hating eyes had been watching over her shoulder as he removed her burning steaks from the heat and tried the sauce with a long, tanned finger, tried to focus on what Niall was saying.

‘That I forgot Valentine’s Day,’ he laughed. ‘You know me – I can never get with these things. You forgive me, don’t you?’

‘Course I do.’ Tash shot Hugo another dirty look, still dwelling on the deliberately errant invitation. He was lapping up the sauce now, the sod. She hoped he bit on a peppercorn soon.

‘I’ve sent some flowers by Data-post today, but I guess they’ll take a couple of days to reach you.’

‘You needn’t have bothered,’ Tash sighed, wishing that he didn’t feel the need to guilt-trip quite so much. ‘Did you get my card?’

Niall cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Well, I think I did.’

‘What d’you mean, you
think
you did?’ Tash laughed, remembering all the personal snap-shots – including a couple of her in the sex-on-legs basque he had given her for Christmas. ‘Wasn’t it obvious? If you haven’t opened it yet, I put my address on the back of the envelope.’

‘Oh, I opened it.’ Niall cleared his throat yet again, and then went quiet for a moment as someone spoke in the background, probably leaning in through the door of his trailer to issue an instruction. He sounded more hurried as he spoke again. ‘I mean, it’s a very charming wee picture, Tash – and I’m sure you went to a great deal of effort on my behalf, but I don’t quite understand—’

‘You ungrateful sod!’ she yelled, suddenly finding her face was colouring as though dipped in red ink. She couldn’t believe how insulting he was being. ‘You bastard! I bet you’ve been having a good laugh at my expense all day, haven’t you?’

‘What?’ He sounded pole-axed.

‘Very charming wee picture, my ass! In fact most of the pictures were of my bloody ass!’ she spluttered on. ‘I know what you don’t quite understand.’ She could feel tears welling up now. She couldn’t care less that Hugo was swigging wine and ear-wigging happily from less than three yards away – she was furious. ‘You just don’t understand what you’re doing with a big-arsed old bag like me when you could be with Minty, or Sandra, or Julia, or Purdy, or whatever the latest starlet’s called. That’s what you don’t bloody understand!’

Realising she had said all those resentful and jealous things that she had sworn to herself she would never say, she burst into tears.

There was a long pause at the other end, during which Tash could hear Hugo starting to knife and fork his way into the steaks in the background. She hoped he got BSE and croaked. Her back was prickling with embarrassment that he was overhearing all this.

There was more mumbling at the end of the phone and Tash suddenly realised to her increased shame and horror that, far from being stunned into silence by the searing insight and painful truth of her words, Niall was conducting a conversation with someone else whilst muffling the phone.

Finally he uncovered the receiver and started speaking with hushed urgency.

‘I really have to go,’ he whispered. ‘But I truthfully think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here, Tash – all I was saying now was that I didn’t understand the quote about adultery. Were you trying to say something about me and Lisette, angel? Because you really don’t have to worry yourself about that on any account.’

‘But—’ Tash was nonplussed for a moment.

‘I mean, I know I’ve taken this part in Four Poster Bed with her producing, but I barely need to meet her during the film shoot. We’ll hardly speak – in fact, my taking it is a sign of just how over her I am. For Christ’s sake, I’ll be marrying you a few days after the first location shoot’s over! Some glossy magazine is photographing the wedding – that’s how I’m getting paid. Lisette arranged it. That line about flirtation being adulteration really freaked me, angel.’

Tash barely took most of this in. Feeling as though her downward-bound free-fall had just been broken by a mid-air mattress, she suddenly realised what she had done.

‘You got the Byron card!’ she gasped.

‘I got your card, Tash.’ Niall sounded pressurised. ‘A few stick-horses and a quote about flirting and adultery. I realise the Lisette news must have come as a shock but I didn’t expect this.’

‘Niall, I didn’t mean you at all!’ She was torn between confusion and amazement. She’d had no idea that Lisette was producing the comic film. Tash was horrified that she was, appalled that she was, but even more flabbergasted by how much Niall seemed to think he had told her without having uttered a word until tonight.

‘I have to go, angel.’ His voice was fading, as though he was already stretching away from the phone. ‘Please, please don’t worry – and, if I think about it, the card is really moving. Even more so because it shows how vulnerable you are and, believe me, I would never take advantage of that. I’ll call you later if I can. I love you.’

And he was gone, leaving a curt dialling tone.

Tash replaced the receiver and, straightening her ridden-up skirt yet again, turned warily back to Hugo who had eaten almost an entire steak now.

‘Help yourself,’ she offered in a strangled voice, starting to realise the full, appalling implications of her rushed posting technique.

‘Oh – so sorry.’ Lazily, Hugo looked down at the ravaged pan, sounding not at all apologetic. ‘You really weren’t expecting anyone, were you?’ He glanced at the unlaid table, and the piles of Tash’s clothes strewn around.

She shook her head, tempted to say, ‘Only you,’ to scare him. But she stopped herself in time.

‘Listen – about that card . . .’ She coughed uncomfortably. ‘There’s been a bit of a mistake.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Sounding relieved, he offered her a refilled wine glass.

Looking straight at him, Tash saw that his blue eyes were unfriendly, his mouth curled into a taut bow of insolence.

‘Yes – you see, it wasn’t intended for you.’

‘I see.’ He plainly didn’t believe her.

‘Yes.’ Tash made a grab for her wine and took a huge slug, most of which trickled down her windpipe. ‘It was meant for Niall,’ she spluttered.

Hugo’s scornful gaze didn’t flicker. ‘I can imagine.’

‘And I posted him the wrong one.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

‘Yes.’ Tash’s lips were starting to quiver as the awfulness of the telephone conversation started to sink in.

‘You posted Niall a card you intended to send me?’ he asked carefully.

Tash nodded blankly.

‘So I take it the kinky self-portraits I received through the post this morning were intended for his eyes only?’

Carrying on nodding, Tash started to cry.

Hugo continued to watch her, not making a movement of sympathy or retreat. His handkerchief remained firmly in his pocket, his feet planted on the ground. He simply watched as Beetroot shuffled across to Tash’s ankles and gazed up at her caringly.

‘I suppose you laughed at me?’ she hiccuped through her tears.

Hugo bit his curling lower lip and looked faintly mocking, but said nothing.

‘He’s taken a film part,’ Tash found herself blurting, ‘because Lisette is producing it.’

‘Lisette the ex?’ Hugo’s eyebrows shot up with interest.

Tash nodded. It was something of a forte now.

‘Well, well.’ He took a slow draw of wine and glanced at his watch. ‘Listen, I’m meeting someone at eight. I really popped round to give you this.’ He started fishing in his pockets.

‘Do you have that card on you?’ Tash bleated desperately.

‘Not on me, no.’ Hugo extracted something from an inner pocket and, waggling it for a second in front of Tash’s swimming eyes, placed it on a work surface.

‘Can I have it back?’

‘I’ll see if I can find it tomorrow, but I can’t promise anything,’ he said dismissively. ‘Listen, thanks for the drink. And the steak. I really must go.’ He headed for the door.

Tash, aware that she was standing in her howlingly draughty sitting room wearing a ludicrously tight red dress, Medusa hair and wonky eye make-up, having just sent her bête noire near-nude photographs of herself, started to shiver uncontrollably with mortification.

‘Oh – by the way.’ Hugo turned at the door, stooping to give Beetroot a pat. ‘I’ll see what I can find out about Lisette for you, shall I?’

‘Thanks,’ Tash managed to splutter with a mouth-cracking smile, blindly aimed in the general direction of the door.

As soon as he was gone, she threw herself on to the sofa for another howl which was instantly curtailed as the sofa took on her momentum and crashed into the television which toppled over and then imploded dramatically.

Tash lay for several seconds, too numb for tears, wondering why on earth she was planning to marry a man she hadn’t seen since the New Year. Then she cringed and wriggled and winced with shame as she realised that Hugo had that morning been gaping with snooty astonishment at photographs of her seductively draped over the same sofa she was now cowering in.

On her way to bed, she picked up the card Hugo had left and regarded it listlessly. It was an invitation to his birthday party. On the front, he had simply written ‘Tash’. She tore it to shreds, fed the rest of the steak to Beetroot and went to bed, setting her alarm for half-midnight.

Between half-midnight and three in the morning, she lay awake waiting for Niall to call back, but he failed to oblige.

At two, she tried his mobile. It was switched off. She then called the third assistant director’s mobile who – complete with loud partying background noise – told her that Niall had headed back to the hotel to call his girlfriend.

Tash stayed awake a little longer, nodding asleep and then jerking awake as though hanged by the neck from a rope until dead tired.

At three, she called his hotel. The phone rang for ages before a very tired-sounding Scottish man picked up the call and, grumbling under his breath, tried Niall’s room for her.

‘I’m afraid there’s no answer there,’ he came back to her. ‘Would you like me to leave a message?’

‘Can you just check if his key’s been taken?’ she asked.

‘No – it’s still here, my dear.’ The man came back a few seconds later, giving a pert sniff which said a lot about his attitude to ‘these film types’.

‘Thanks – just say Tash called.’ She rang off and, hugging her loneliness and tonight’s shame to her, conked out to dream that she was riding directly after Hugo in the cross-country section of a one-day-event, stark naked and catching up with him fast as Snob bolted over the fences, totally out of control.

‘Leave me alone, you desperate little freak!’ Hugo yelled over his shoulder. ‘You’ve always had a crush on me!’

Tash sat bolt upright, suddenly awake, sober and reeling with shock. As far as Hugo now knew, she realised with dismay, she had sent him a Valentine’s card this year. It wasn’t the card he had actually received, but it was a card nonetheless. From her. Sad, desperate Tash, who had always had a crush on him – even though she was now getting married to someone else. And, not only that, he still had the evidence – the card that she had intended only for Niall’s lovely big brown eyes.

She sank back into the pillows and listened to her heart thud the milliseconds until it was time to head to the farm for work.

The next morning Kirsty was even more superior. In fact, she positively queened it over Tash. Being Kirsty, she was so nice about it that it could have been a big cuddle of a compliment, but Tash knew different.

‘Tash – I bet you’re feeling great today. Did Niall and yous talk until the wee hours, huh?’ she asked as they cleaned tack – one of the dullest jobs in the world that everyone in the yard avoided.