Well Groomed (38 page)

‘But it’s only March,’ Tash said vaguely.

‘We should have sent the invitations out by now,’ Henrietta told her. ‘People are starting to buy their own presents – I know for a fact that your Aunt Cassandra has bought you a Dualit combi-toaster.’

‘Whatever for?’ Tash was amazed. ‘I already have a toaster.’

Henrietta chose to ignore that. ‘At this rate everything will be doubled up. I only just stopped James’s brother from getting a bread maker.’

‘Lucky escape then. I’m far too young to meet my bread maker.’

She had started to screen her calls to avoid wedding conversations, listening each night to a tape filling up with messages detailing rehearsal schedules and seating ideas. She became increasingly slack about returning calls, feeling horribly guilty but unable to face up to an hour-long debate about whether or not to sit Great-uncle Cornelius next to Great-aunt Germaine in case their hair rinses clashed. And she had more pressing things to worry about than her uncle’s impending purchase of a bread maker.

Right now she felt that the most useful present that anyone could give the bride and groom would be a course of sessions at Relate. Niall had flown straight from Los Angeles to London without bothering to call in on the forge – by phone or in person.

Yet when he returned the night before the party, he was in roaring spirits despite an all-day rehearsal for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Racing into the forge, he gathered Tash into a fireman’s lift and heaved her straight upstairs.

‘Christ, but I’ve missed you!’ he growled, dropping her down on the bed and starting to undress.

Rather blown away by his enthusiasm, Tash laughed with delight, pulling off the several jumpers she was wearing in excitement.

‘And you can butt out.’ Niall booted the door shut on Beetroot, who had pursued him upstairs, hackles drawn.

Later he told Tash off for continually leaving the answer machine on.

‘But you never call!’ she grumbled. ‘I’d pick up if you did.’

‘I do call – I just hang up when I get that irritating bloody message. I want to talk to you, angel, not a tape. I’m fed up of conducting my relationships by phone and fax.’

‘Relationships?’ she repeated, emphasising the plural teasingly.

But instead of laughing he looked cornered for a moment. ‘And you really have to change that message, Tash,’ he told her critically. ‘You sound like you’re being stabbed to death. You don’t include me on it at all.’

‘That,’ she said truthfully, ‘is because you’re hardly ever here.’

Tash and Niall travelled to the party with Zoe, who had volunteered to drive.

‘Sure, you’ll be wanting to drink, won’t you?’ Niall protested. ‘Let’s all get a cab.’

‘No, I’d better stay sober,’ Zoe sighed. ‘I have to keep an eye on the kids. Rufus is bound to mix everything and throw up on some of Hugo’s exquisite furniture – not that he hasn’t thrown up on most of it himself over the years. Really, I don’t know how the laws of justice can let a philistine bounder like that live in such an exquisite house.’

They could hear the pounding of music even before they drove into Maccombe village, a gloriously remote cluster of brick and flint houses which nestled in a wooded perch on the edge of the Berkshire downs. Of them all, Haydown was the grandest, if the most decrepit. Set behind a high brick and flint wall and imposing wrought-iron gates, it was bang in the middle of the tiny village, its land spreading out behind it in a wide, downward-sweeping fan. Tash simply adored it, but kept that quiet for fear of adding to the Hugo-idolatry myth. When first clapping eyes on it, she had felt a little like Lizzie Bennet clocking Pemberley.

Tonight it was looking spectacular – like a grande old dame tarted up for a rare jaunt on the town. Every window glowed a winking welcome as figures moved in and out of the light behind them. There were cars parked everywhere. As Zoe pulled into the drive behind a heaving Merc which had pounding music to rival that coming from the house, Niall whistled.

‘One forgets quite how spectacular it is,’ he breathed. ‘Jesus, he’s a lucky sod – no wonder every woman’s after him.’

‘Very draughty.’ Zoe crinkled her nose. ‘And the plumbing’s buggered.’

Hugo’s father had died several years earlier, leaving the house to his eldest son, with whom he had conducted an extremely stormy relationship. The rest of his considerable estate – including all his investments and the family company – had been left in the more capable hands of his younger son and his widow, Alicia, who now lived in a cottage on the edge of Haydown land. Without any cash resources apart from a small private income, and trapped in the coils of death duties, Hugo had initially struggled to keep the place on and continue eventing. Even now that he was so phenomenally successful, his sponsorship money and winnings were all poured into the horses and the house had been left more or less to rot. Hugo lived by the philosophy that all was well so long as the door closed behind him, the bed was hard, the dogs fed and the cleaner came twice a week.

Tash had always thought there was something grand about the house’s tatty state of repair, its ancient furniture and nineteenth-century wiring. Tonight it added a rather bohemian splendour to the party.

The house was already heaving with people as they entered. The first couple Tash recognised was Kirsty and Richie – the Australian boyfriend, to whom she had been engaged longer than a teenager’s phone-line. Kirsty was always far friendlier to Tash when Niall was around and even more so now that she had her future husband in tow. Wearing a sparkling bottle green dress which set off her slender frame and glorious hair like a shiny crocus stem, she glided up, dragging Richie by the hand.

‘Tash, you know Richie. Darling, this is Tash’s gorgeous fiancé, Niall O’Shaughnessy. They’re getting married this summer, so they can give us lots of tips for next year.’

‘Great to meet you, Niall mate.’ Richie stretched out his arm. He was an enormous man – well over six foot four and as broad as a rugby international. He had gargantuan square shoulders, a square red face, square broken nose, and even square-cut blond bottle brush hair.

‘Likewise.’ Niall looked up at him, for once dwarfed.

‘We must get our heads together for a wee bit of wedding gossip, huh?’ Kirsty drew Tash to one side.

‘Er – sure,’ she gulped. It was the first time Kirsty had shown any interest in the subject.

‘Hugo’s really fucking me off,’ Kirsty hissed as soon as they were out of Richie’s earshot. ‘If you see him, tell him to back off, will you?’

‘Why? What’s he been doing?’

‘Stirring things up.’ Her blue eyes flashed like panda lights. ‘He keeps flirting with some predatory wee anorexic brunette with a nose-job.’

About to say she didn’t blame him, Tash caught Richie shooting her an odd look and went pink. ‘That’s right – cream silk. Listen, I must say hi to some people and introduce Niall.’

‘I think he’s already introducing himself to the drinks waiter,’ Richie laughed, joining them again, his square face redder than ever. Tash thought he looked like a big, walking-talking pillar box.

As soon as she could extricate herself from Kirsty’s sudden need to talk about weddings, Tash went in search of Niall. But it was impossible to find him in the heaving throng as she was assailed over and over again by eventing cronies. In the end she gave up and, collecting a glass of white wine from a local girl who had been roped in to help, she milled around chatting to old friends.

It was a splendid, rip-roaring occasion. Hugo had got the right idea for hosting a party – there was no silly theme or carefully mixed crowd. He hadn’t decked the house in decorations – or even had it cleaned from what Tash could see. He had simply opened it up, invited all his friends and laid on enough booze and food to keep everyone uproariously happy for the night.

She was amazed by how many people she knew, but supposed that living in the same area and competing in the same sport gave them a lot of mutual acquaintances. She was delighted to be pounced upon by Stefan, Hugo’s lofty Swedish working pupil who was the heartthrob of the circuit. Many eventers pretended to disapprove of his flirtatious, philandering ways, but he was too young, overexcited and adorable to dislike.

‘Tash!’ He bounded up, kissing her on both cheeks and then the mouth. His short, spiky blond hair was teased upwards so that he looked taller and thinner than ever. He was one of the only men Tash knew who made her feel petite. ‘You look lovely!’ His cartoon-character eyes were so playful they almost tickled when they looked at you.

Tash flushed with embarrassment, but felt hugely bucked by the compliment. She had made a supreme effort that night in an attempt to look as glamorous as the Minty Blyths of this world, aware that Lisette would be in evidence to appraise her ex-husband’s future bride with her usual scorn. She also knew that Lisette was guaranteed to look phenomenal and, however much she hated herself for being competitive, didn’t want to let Niall down by making her usual slapdash effort. Dressed in a new slinky red satin party dress which she could hardly believe was actually a size twelve and not too tight, she had spent hours coaxing her unruly hair into a sleek Audrey Hepburn chignon and had then painted her eyes as carefully as a porcelain artist gilds a Wedgwood miniature so that they looked huge and cat-like. Matched with red Cupid’s bow lips and a wildly flattering smoke-grey jacket that Sophia had given her years ago, Tash knew she was having one of her rare on-nights.

‘Jesus!’ Niall had whistled when he’d walked into the forge bedroom to change. ‘You look sensational. I don’t think I should take you out at all tonight; there might be men with weak hearts there.’

‘There’s only one man I’m interested in, and his heart’s as big as Africa.’ She’d looked at him nervously, not certain how he would react.

‘And he’s not going to let you out of his sight all night.’ He’d watched her, eyes glittering with lust.

Tash was ebullient. The result of her unusually lengthy preening was about as good as she got, although she wished she’d had time to go out and buy some strappy little sandals instead of resorting to the jinxed snakeskin boots again, but time had been on her back rather than her side. Yet, despite the rush, she was bubbling over with confidence. Her only disappointment was that, far from keeping his eyes glued to her, Niall had sloped off at the earliest opportunity to eye up the drinks tray.

‘Great party, huh?’ Stefan was gazing around at the talent, of which there seemed to be a brimming surplus.

Tash had always thought that female eventers looked far sexier in their tight jods and jackets than party mufti – herself included. Many of them were too muscular to get away with slinky dresses, their faces ruddy from working outside for most of the year, their hair limp, thin and flat from so much time trapped beneath a sweaty helmet. There was also a rather high bad-taste factor which predominated at eventing parties – Tash, slightly distanced from the inner enclaves thanks to her association with Niall and his fashionable world, had noted it from a distance with some discomfort. It seemed to be a social group trapped in a time warp – and sadly that was the glittery, shoulder-padded eighties. Tash supposed that if one lived in such a tight-knit clique, one followed its rules with little regard for the wider world. Eventers had little time to shop, read fashion magazines or watch television. As such they were insulated from new trends and still assumed the knickerbocker with sequinned tank-top look to be the height of chic.

Nevertheless they were a good-looking bunch and many had clearly made a great deal of effort on Hugo’s behalf. Mixed in with locals, Hugo’s multifarious friends and several of his ex-lovers, they were a giggling, chattering gaggle of fresh-faced, blue-eyed British fun.

But of all the guests, two women far out-classed the others in looks and sex-appeal.

One was Tash’s elder sister Sophia, resplendent in the latest Versace satin shirt and Gucci hipsters, with her glossy black hair piled at the crown of her head like a generous ice-cream cone. The other was Lisette O’Shaughnessy.

Tash caught her breath when she spotted her. The last time they had met, Lisette had been on the wafer-thin side of skinny and rattling with nervous tension, her career in tatters around her. As with many women in a crisis, she’d had her hair shorn to a butch, defeminising crew cut and had taken to wearing boxy, powerful clothes that were far more intimidating than they were attractive. But even then she had packed such a carnal punch that men had drooled wherever she went.

Now Tash barely recognised her. She’d grown her hair to shoulder length where it rested on her creamy skin in a glossy, walnut brown flick – lightened either by the sun or by Nicky Clarke, Tash couldn’t tell. Her body was still a long, lean whip of bone and sinew, but it seemed that hours in the gym had rendered it more sleekly proportioned and carnal than ever, and her skin glowed as though fresh from a balsam sauna.

Catching Tash watching, she turned and smiled in cool recognition before moving away.

Biting her lip, Tash scoured the room for Niall, but he was still nowhere to be seen.

‘Now
she
is a seriously sexy woman,’ Stefan whistled, also watching Lisette as she shimmied towards a drinks tray. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a crack at her later.’

Tash hid a smile. Stefan had a fairly thick Swedish accent, but had picked up on Hugo’s curt, public school manner of speaking; it could sound quite ridiculous at times.

‘I think you’d be the first to crack, Stefan.’ Tash saw Lisette shooting him a thoughtful, appraising look before drifting into an eager group which included Tash’s brother-in-law, Ben, who was positively foaming at the mouth in admiration.

On cue, Sophia breezed up to Tash, regarding her outfit with some distaste.

‘Hi – you look very slim.’ She gave her a perfunctory kiss on each cheek. Tash always found Sophia’s greetings confusing as she was a slavish follower of fashion and the number of kisses dictated by those in the know changed with the season’s hot colours. At a family wedding, Sophia would kiss Tash three times, the last one catching Tash’s earring as she moved away; on the next occasion she would plant a single kiss, leaving Tash holding her cheek up as though showing off a spot as she anticipated further smears of MAC lipstick which never came.